Trying to shake off the feelings of impending disappointment, I got up earlier in the morning to take a shower and prepare for the first day of Kumoricon 2016. It took a while to get everyone else up, but we eventually managed to have everyone present for our first morning excursion together.
We grabbed breakfast at a local joint called Milo’s City Cafe. Sporting our Make Anime Sugoi Again Hats left a bad taste for many. We had hard stares all weekend and even had people approach us about it. Even the waitress and host got in on the action. This may have been the first time I have seen wait staff troll one another so hard.
At around 11AM, we rolled out to the convention center to grab Denpa his badge and start scouting out the place. It took less than a few minutes to grab our badges and finding where the press room was as they wanted us to report in.
Since we were rolling as press, we looked to see where we could get priority access and what kind of benefits came along with it. It didn’t take long for them to let us in early to the dealers hall. The conversation kind of went like this: “Excuse me, you’re not allowed in there yet.” “We’re press.” “Oh come right this way.” Needless to say, we got in before some of the vendors even arrived. Denpa and I ended up buying dakis for ‘our friends’ and puddi went and threw money at Sound Voltex figures. All in all, we spent as much as we wanted to and got the best selection since no one else was in the hall yet. We even bought some random packs of MTG and ordered some boxes to play with later.
After a little bit of walkcon, we parted ways with puddi from the hotel room as he wanted to attend the Weiss tournament. We would not end up seeing him until several hours later. The rest of us got our game started and went through some of what Chase had brought us. Portland certainly had a mix of craft distillers, some were pretty good, others not so much. DS convinced us that the AMV contest would be a great way to start off our official schedule of events. (It wasn’t.)
With little else to do, we went back to walkcon and taking cosplay pictures. (This would become a regular occurrence during the weekend.) Since the convention center is one big circular area, we went around a few times and managed to take a few photos here and there.
Rem was really popular.
Something, something, Rem.
A few of us got hungry and decided to head over to Chipotle to grab a quick bite before Rekyu was scheduled to arrive. It was around 6:30PM before he rolled in and joined us at the hotel. He was equally as surprised if not more so than the rest of us when he got memed by the Make Anime Sugoi Again hats. Since the full crew was finally here, we did some shot for shot. Only super classy with Pocky sticks, I mean, we’re not savages.
puddi was really into SDVX
Finishing up what we had left to do at the hotel, we headed back down to the convention center. puddi wanted to play some Sound Voltex, so we headed to the games room area again to play some video games. On our way back, we decided to grab some burgers since a few of us hadn’t eaten yet including Rekyu.
Don’t try this at home, kids.
Since we wanted to spend our Saturday night right, we were once again at our hotel room enjoying some classy drinks. I mean, we had a lot to go through thanks to our good buddy Chase and showing us the local crafts.
Let’s just say this is where I wrote down “Regret City” & “Drunkcon” in my notes. I mean, I remember what happened, but I’m not sure the others can quite say the same. To put it another way, some of the crew decided to take off some clothing before heading back. Accordingly, Portland is a very open and liberal city, there was no awkwardness at all.
Tradition dictates that we must attend the rave, even if it is just enough time to show off a few moves. Unfortunately, the rave felt more like a high school dance. I might have needed a few more classy drinks before I could join in with the crowd, so it didn’t take me long to head out to check out the late night panels.
Rekyu, DS, puddi, and I headed over to the open karaoke room and watched some ‘interesting’ performances. Then the duet masters: Rekyu and puddi stole the spotlight for a bit. We didn’t last long there and looked for some late night panels.
We had a bond going, sort of like this.
The one we ended up going to was Story Story Die where you come up with a story and have another person continue it. After much peer pressure since we were wearing our Make Anime Sugoi Again hats, Rekyu, puddi, some random person, and I were chosen to go up. It felt like an eternity before we were allowed to sit down again and we quickly left after that. The story started off as a Pokemon trainer going out to collect badges or something along those lines. Rekyu and the random were quickly eliminated as puddi and I went on a tangent to throw them off. We then took the time to continue this story and it ended as a political statement or something that was good enough to trigger the panel and the panelists. (puddi <3)
Rekyu approves.
To end off the night, we went back to the games room and played some more games. puddi was busy with SDVX while DS and Rekyu were going ham on each other playing Smash on the Wii. On our way back, we grabbed some Mexican food and got ready for bed. Later in the evening, close to 2AM, Chase and Denpa came back since we had left them at the rave at around 10PM. There was an interesting story about how some escorts wanted to come along with them. Gladly, they did not, also they’re cheap.
Day 1 ended up being a lot of walkcon with a mix of panels and gaming in between. Day 2 would hopefully be our salvation with a better schedule of panels and more people.
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