At about 2 pm Thursday we loaded Mike's BMW with our gear and headed for Brian's house up in Cape Cod. It took a little longer than we wanted to take getting to his house, but our plan was to get there before dinnertime and sleep for a few hours before embarking on a 7-8 hour drive to Baltimore. After arriving at Brian's house-where I greeted everybody with my signature big arm wave and "OOOOHAAAAYOOOOOO!"-I met Brian's parents. This was maybe a bad thing. You see, several years ago, Brian was NOT an obsessive anime fan. In fact, he used to say that he'd never get into it. However, at that time I was downloading some encoded English-dubbed Ranma ? episodes on my computer, and I thought the series was hilarious. I invited Mike over one day (he wasn't an anime fan either), so I showed them to him. He loved the show and when he went to college, he downloaded a few as well to watch on his system. Brian must have watched the episodes with him, and from that point it was all over. Brian must own several thousand dollars worth of Ranma ? merchandise. Everything from all the DVDs and (horribly expensive) cels to Rumiko Takahashi's signature on a Japanese manga. Not only did I get Brian into anime, I indirectly influenced everybody else (in that cluster of friends) at Daniel Webster College as well, with the exception of a few long-time fans like Jeff. Suffice to say, Brian's parents probably wanted to kill me. But in reality, they were very nice and we sat down and ate dinner as soon as Mike and I arrived. Also, they're the kind of parents that play online RPGs and other activities most parents do not engage in. I'm not sure if that's cool or not to have 'hip' parents. It might make me lose my mind if my father sat down and watched Love Hina with me or logged into a multiplayer Quake session and fragged my character half a dozen times. Yeah, I think I'd be heavily into cocaine use by now if that were true. *shudder*

So, after the ice was broken during that quick tense situation and dinner was mid-digestion process and a few fun stories were swapped, we all needed sleep because our schedule was to be up by midnight and out the door on our way for the 7 hour expedition to Baltimore Convention Center. I woke myself up fifteen minutes before everyone else because I wanted to wear something specific the first day of the con. I had a red Chinese silk shirt I bought last year at the con, the kind with long sleeves and white cuffs with the tall, stiff collar. That and I bought new black BDU pants a few days before, which I was going to wear with military jungle boots I freshly polished (actually I always wear jungle boots, just this time you could see the reflection of the sky on the toes). After getting changed I looked at myself and with my long hair I thought I kinda looked like Ranma. Hmm, I wondered if I could get my hair braided and it'd be a quasi-cosplay. I wanted to cosplay this year at Otakon badly. I had originally thought of Giren Zabi from Mobile Suit Gundam. I had been practicing the "Sieg Zeon!" speech so I could give it during the masquerade. However, that costume was difficult to complete so I left it after being unable to acquire many of the parts I needed. I'll pick the project back up another year. After that, I thought simpler was better. I always wanted to "cross-play" (cross-dressing cosplay) because a) I have no shame and I do not take myself seriously and b) I think it'd be hilarious and more fun to go as a girl. 'Sailor Bubba' is my inspiration for this decision. Any man that large that can put on a frilly miniskirt and a sailor bow on his chest with long blonde pigtails gets my applause and not my laughter for having the testicular fortitude to do something as ridiculous as that and perform it with a smile to boot. On the positive end of this scheme, I'm 5'10" and 120 lbs and I have hair long enough to cover the middle of my back. A bishounen Hotohori-esque image should come to mind. I think I could pass adequately.

Misato (Evangelion) immediately came to mind, but then I thought that EVERYBODY does Misato, and I like to be original. I had seen I My Me! Strawberry Eggs with Mike a few weeks prior so I settled on that (if you've seen the anime you'd understand the joke of a man dressing as a woman and it being correct for this character). Since I wasn't about to go waltzing into Filene's and trying on clothing in the women's department (I thought I might be arrested for that), I sent my mother to go do it. Unfortunately, time-restrictions and budgetary concerns kept me from completing this costume as well. So with my black pants and red Chinese shirt; Ranma was certainly within doing, albeit a little inaccuracy. But of course all my friends couldn't braid hair (I could, just not on myself), so that plan was also nixed. Oh well, moving on. *Skipping the travel time and miscellaneous stops in-between* We arrived in Baltimore at around 9 am. It was pouring rain outside. Jeff called us earlier and told us that he was soaked, and a lot of people's costumes had fallen apart or the dye had started to run. We had taken two cars: Mike and I in his BMW and Brian, Tyson and Randy in Brian's mother's Saturn. We parked the vehicles in the Hyatt's parking garage and started walking to the convention center. We got wet, but by this time the line was completely inside the convention center, and not looped around the outside of the building. We got at the end of the line and called Jeff. He found us and escorted us [in small groups] to where he was in line (shh, don't tell anyone! It never happened). Jeff was without shoes or socks and he had taken off his Rurouni Kenshin silk shirt. Everything was drenched that badly. I used Mike's cel phone and called my parents. They told me have fun and spend all my money. Will do mom and pop. We stood in line for a while talking to people around us and ogling the many attractive women wearing skimpy costumes. At least that's what I did...

Read Otakon 2002: The Otaku Strike Back - Part II.

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