MOCHI > The Scrapbook > Convention Memories > Anime Central > 2000

This was our third year at Anime Central. Our big costuming goal for the convention was to put together a Bastard! cosplay group. Since MOCHI itself didn't have enough members to round out the cast, we called upon the aid of Genjitsu (another cosplayer) and a warm body that was bribed with the cost of a con badge.

One of the personal highlights was a visit by the ever-adorable Angie. (She's a friend of ours who's normally all the way out in California.) With her blazing blue hair and Toasted Mochi's new vivid green 'do, they attracted quite a bit of attention.

Pre-con shennanigans

Getting to the convention proved to be an adventure. For those who drove, construction closed down Interstate 90 to one lane at Rockford, Illinois. With traffic already looking pretty horrible (and visions of a single break-down bringing all traffic to a standstill for several hours), County Road 14 looked like the best bet. Unfortunately, Illinois doesn't seem to believe in labeling things very well, so the route in to Chicago was a little more ... meandering than expected.

Those flying in didn't get any breaks either. The weather was terrible: dark storm clouds loomed overhead for most of the weekend. There were times where the rain was coming down hard enough that you couldn't see anything. Proving that it is possible to garner terrible travel karma, Toasted Mochi nearly put in a repeat perfomance of last year's amazing flight delays. He did manage to only get rerouted to Milwaulkee rather than Green Bay which meant that he only got in six hours late.

This was the third hotel for the con in as many years. Members of MOCHI started trickling in on Wednesday evening (and immediately set up to do finishing work on their costumes). Although the hotel was undergoing rennovations (changing from a Hilton to a Sheraton), the accomodations were definitely an improvement on last year's "slightly mildewed concrete bunker" motif. Exploring a bit, we found two different "warrens" of small rooms that looked like they were designed for business meetings. As the con went into full swing, it became clear that it'd take a while to figure out exactly where different events were taking place.

Since some members of MOCHI were going to be hanging out for a while after the con ended, we drew up some tentative plans. As it turned out, most of those plans would go out the window once we found our way into Gameworks. But more on that later ....

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