Lots of good at ACen, lots of wtf. :-)

The people were a real surprise. In general, the level of social function is realy high. I say, “Hi how are you?” and in return, I get, “Fine, thanks, how are you?” from a large portion of the congoing population. Haven’t once had to explain how that works to anyone. lol And the staff, while exhaustingly intense and often useless, have been, to a person, very polite and glad to help. :-)

Friday morning, the Exhibitor’s Hall opened at an ungodly hour. I did not arrive until a more godly one. In the first few hours, we were visted by many fans of this blog and of Yuricon and folks on the Yuricon Mailing List, and I want to say that meeting you all really made me happy. So hi to everyone who dropped by! (I’d list names, but if I forget anyone I’d feel bad, so you’ll just have to imagine me naming you, specifically.)

The day passed pretty quickly for being in a cave. We sat around chatting, ID’ing costumes, the usual. Met Shinz from #otenba, and have to say, he’s a fine young man – if you’re on the chan and looking for a cute guy, talk to him!

For dinner, my group joined Nic, Pat and Pern for pizza and bad movies. Then we all went to the shoujoai.com fan panel, where itanshi did a nice job of enacting a real-life version of the forums there. He asked what series people liked, people chatted about them and generally had some fun.

We went back to bad movies pretty much the rest of the night, since the line for Anime Hell was aptly named. I recommend Switchblade Sisters if you like pulp novels. Because it was definitely a live-action pulp novel.

The goal today is to sell out of books after (or before) the Yuri Panel (4PM in LAX room in the Hyatt) and take tomorrow off completely and all go to the Art Institute, which the wife said was absolutely fabulous.

So all that was good.

After they all started watching Jem and the Holograms I went back to my room and waited for 3 hours or so for everyone to shut the hell up, and stop running around, so I could get some sleep. Today the Exhibitor’s Hall opens even *earlier*. I’ll be late again. And grumpier than yesterday.

The Bad. Never, ever, in all my many years of bad travel karma have I stayed in a hotel where the people were that that persistently loud for that long. Every door in the hotel slams, and no one thinks to not slam them – even at 4AM. The walls and even the ceilings are paper thin and every sound is like you’re in the the other room. We both got little sleep, and what there was of it was not good.

BTW, this hotel bites. The Hyatt Regency O’Hare. DON’T stay here. They charge for internet access – you can’t use the refrigerator. It’s wired, so if you even pick something up from it, you get charged. Isn’t that absurd? Go across the street to the Doubletree, or down the road further – the Holiday Inn Select sounds *amazing*. Large screen HDTV. Free intertubes. Microwave, fridge. That sounds much more inviting.

So anyway, today Yuri Panel and hopefully tomorrow, touristy stuff. See you at 4PM. :-)