Cassandra

"Sorry, sir, I seem to have wandered into the wrong hobby group, I'll leave immediately."

Stripped out of Brad Crawford, I got ready to pair up Victoria with one of our newer costume pairings: Tohru Honda and Yuki Sohma. It's Victoria's favorite FB coupling and... I still need to finish watching "Fruits Basket." And to help facilitate costume changes later, I packed the night's costumes into my bag.

Hmm, "Hellsing," "Fruits Basket," "Cowboy Bebop," and a bunch of other gatherings that I had costumes from were scheduled and peppered all through AX. Except for a select few, it felt like I set up my cosplaying line up to avoid gatherings. For this holiday, quality time with Victoria took priority over gatherings.

We hit the dealer room to browse and see what freebies were for the taking and ran into the occasional photographer and cosplayer. Jessica looked great as Akira (not that 80's anime that I never got around to liking). Popped over to the "Initial D" gathering to film a race. Seeing that race pretty much summarized "Initial D" for me: People in unrealistic-looking cars (I never liked the CG cars) driving in a circular motion. That saved me several dollars in DVD's, manga, and video games.

Victoria brought one of her dolls for a doll gathering going on inside the Hilton. I figured I could use this chance to better understand the hobby since I never heard of doll collecting. Maybe one of the dolls there was named Cassandra to make the selected title appropriate. Occasionally I felt myself at the wrong hobby group so I bounced to another spot of the Hilton with guys and guns. Pity, I didn't bring my gun to this mini gathering. Jarod was having some sort of gathering of his own but I didn't feel like investigating. The doll hobby was alright, but I'm more likely to buy a new pistol for myself than a new Dolfie for myself right now. After the doll gathering, we spent some time with Karisu-sama and family. If her younger daughter reminds Victoria of herself as a kid and I was regarded as a monster during my stay in hell (birth state)... I better get used to energetic kids.

Victoria met up with a friend or two and the idea of grabbing dinner sounded good. Except their idea for dinner was too far for my comfort. We found a CoCo's, but we weren't planning on going there until tomorrow. And the wait looked too bloody long. So we settled on a restaurant across the street called Tiffy's (or was it Tilly's?). Not one of my better ideas. The wait was long, the food was macabre, and the service was idiotic. But at least Tiffy's had something useful for me: a metal fork. Now you may ask why I would suddenly take an interest in acquiring a metal fork, but the answer will be obvious soon.

After paying for dinner, skimping on the tip (it's not like I plan to eat there again), and getting my well-deserved fork, we proceeded to see what was left of the AMV contest. We arrived just as the "Kingdom Hearts" O Fortuna AMV was about to start. We left as soon as the "Kingdom Hearts" O Fortuna AMV started. Me and that musical phobia.

Victoria and I changed into "Azumanga Daioh" costumes and headed back to the Hilton in hopes of attending the Cosplay.com table gathering. Except the area where it was scheduled at was now being used for some sort of other convention. Chances are, this con would be louder, ruder, and uglier than AX. We found the new spot for the gathering (which was a small table this time) to relax and mingle with Kyle, Adella, Xian_pu, and others. I changed costumes from Kimura to Matrix Agent to even a tired Crazy 88 on a whim.

Once my socializing threshold was used up, we headed back to the room. Friends of Andy and Nasir came over for some little party, but Victoria and I were too tired so they sodded off and we got our sleep.

Costume Count: 04

Total Costumes: 06

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