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Anime Central – Day 0

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Ahh Anime Central.  Chicago’s ultimate otaku convention for partying and debauchery.  It’s a great convention to find hard drugs like coke and acid. There’s alcoholic beverages flowing  about.  Take a few shots for liquor courage to dick down  that Cecilia cosplayer!  Hey, Gotta celebrate Fire Emblem Gaiden’s  3DS remake somehow. There are also Persona orgies hosted by a kinky Shadow Rise cosplayer hunting down guys to run a train on her.   ACEN has the great shit for ya if you want it.

Oh yea, they have cosplaying nerds who ain’t fuckin each other in orgies and industry panels. That shit is boring. As an (somewhat) honest person, I’m gonna tell you what really goes down outside the panels and normal convention shit.  Autograph and photo sessions? Pfft. I rather waste time on my grind, writing passion, and networks. Why? So the anime and video game industry can notice my hardwork. I want to become lifelong friends with the niggas you stand in line for hours just to talk to them for twenty seconds out of your life.

Look, fuck all that lame boring shit that the average con attendees will tell.  I’m here to too you the  the real grimy shit.  You can trust me on keeping it real. I’m a real nigga.

Let’s start.

My friend “Adrian” (name changed because I’m the star and he’s not) and myself arrived in Chicago at 2:00pm Thursday afternoon after a long 10 hour trip from St. Louis via Amtrak.  You see, Amtrak was running a special deal. Riders will have to suffer through delays and constant route changes with no explanations!

Something about a fatal train derailment was thrown in, but we didn’t get that option.     Oh well.  Public transit is better than Amtrak. You don’t get that fine Chicago-style  piss smell on the Amtrak unlike Chicago’s CTA public transit.   CTA ride was nice, sans some homeless diabetic begging money for heroine.  Or was it insulin?  I dunno I don’t do (hard) drugs, and I’m not hip on the new and upcoming drug trends.

Following that  45 minute ride, we arrived at Rosemont, Il! Home of Anime Central.  Yes!  Finally I can make my grand announcement to my haters that the guy they secretly want to fuck but can’t has arrive!  The guy who they want to fight, but are too pussy to step up because they can’t carry their keyboards around.

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Me calling out the ACEN group’s internet tough guys who wanted to jump and fight me.  Never happened.

It’s me: Benjamin Snow.  I am the greatest otaku to have ever lived (one day I’ll snatch the Otaking title away from Toshio Okada) . I am the promised child of otaku culture niche, whom the prophets once warned the basement dwelling beta white cuck virgins weeaboos.   I am the main character of my haters’ lives.  I am the anti-hero protagonist of this tale.

I’m honored that you, the reader and haters, are focused on me. All eyes on me.

Adrian (I almost forgot about him) and I checked into our hotel, the Hilton, which is right across from the Hyatt, the main Anime Central hotel.  Hilton’s a nice hotel chain for lodging space.  Not a nice company to work for however unless you’re a masochist who hates their life.  Oh wait I forgot you ain’t supposed to talk shit about shitty companies you used to work for.  Actually, I take that back.  Hilton’s 3rd party contractors can be hit or miss.  Not the company itself.

Fuck you, Lodging Hospitality Management.

Grudges and come up revenge aside, my boy and I got a top floor room. We’re top tier men so we gotta be at the top.  After showering (not with Adrian, that’s pretty gay), I decided to head to the Hyatt to scan the place for anyone I know.  Encounter another homeboy, “Joe”.  Joe’s a cool guy who I really wish I could hang out with more often despite we live in the same city.  Big black guy  fighting game fan such as myself. After some small chat we decided to roll out to Rosemont Liquor, a super nice liquor store in Rosemont that you already know is gonna love the money they racked in from us alcoholic weeaboos.

Went in and brought a bottle of pineapple New Amsterdam, a pack of 312 Goose Island Wheat, and big boy beer: My first 12% beer in my life.  Trust me, drinking 12% beer is like smoking some fire ass kush after smoking that weak ass reggie for years on end.  Forgot the name of the beer but they’re not sponsoring me nor this blog, so it doesn’t matter.

Following, Joe and I drove back to my hotel.  During the drive, we spoke about fighting games, with Casual Player Neglect Fighter V being the main topic (Street Fighter 5) and how garbage it lowkey is. I brought up how for some reason despite not playing in months, I was able to beat my friendes who play nearly everyday with Karin.

 

Oh Capcom.  I hope one day, you guys figured out why nobody enjoy this game.

Joe dropped me off at my hotel, as he had prior plans with a friend.  Cool with me, given I had plans to kick it with another friend, “Vance”, and his Touhou cosplay crew at Hofbrauhaus.  I “met” Vance back at my first ACEN in 2013 as he was cosplaying as Momiji (from Mountain of Faith or whatever idunno I don’t play Touhou like that).  His outfit and the craftsmanship of it was amazing, and (at the time) Momiji cosplays were rather uncommon, so your boy had to take his pic.  I would not realized I met him at ACEN until later.

I officially met and hung out with Vance at Anime Crossroads 2013, at his Touhou Panel he was hosting.  We spoke about the series, our love for alcohol, and the convention scene in general.  We naturally clicked and overtime, he became a good con friend.  On some real shit, I wouldn’t mind being friends outside of cons with the dude…if I didn’t live in St. Louis but there’s always non-con traveling plans. Enough of my longing for networking with folks, to Hofbrauhaus

Hofbrauhaus’s food is amazing.  I could tell you the fantastic variety selection of dishes and drinks they have , but my black ass is too lazy to look up their menu online.  Settle with a picture of one of their dishes I that  cannot for the life of me pronounce.  I’m an American.  Not German.  We speak American in America.

After showcasing my quietness to people I don’t know outside my established friends in the group (I’m lowkey shy around strangers) and appropriating German culture (because I’m slightly racist), I  walked back to my hotel and holy fuck! It’s fucking cold and windy as fuck outside! You see, my dumbass thought it would had been a great idea to wear a light T-shirt and shorts earlier in the day, despite knowing the fact the tempts were dropping..

I’m pretty sure some folks saw me walking around shivering in shorts and a t-shirt and were like “This stupid ass nergo.”  Okay, I hope not.  Rosemont is mostly white people, and they don’t have the right to say Nergo. Kinda like how I don’t have the right to make racist jokes about the Germans in a German restaurant (inside my head of course). Das boot! Big titty thick Germans girls wearing those Dirndi dancing with giant beer mugs!  I swear I’m not racist towards Germans!

…fuck I’m racist.

I arrived back to my hotel to change into some warm clothes. Perhaps the harsh winds were karma for my inner-racism, but oh well. To help prove to myself I’m not a complete racist, I took up an offer to kick it with my white friend, “Beared Chibi-Usa” at ACEN’s infamous smoker’s circle.  Great source for debauchery.  And drugs!

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Bearded Chibi-Usa, as his name implies, is a guy who has a beard and cosplays as Chibi-Usa from the Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon series.  Maybe he’s actually cosplaying an alternate timeline of Chibi-Usa, who is actually a female-to-male transgender, and they have a beard. Who fuckin’ knows.  All I know is that this man is cool ass businessman and has his own online advertisement company. Make that new money young nigga.
During our chill and smoking (tobacco) session, we overheard a rather interesting conversation between two guys talking about a stillborn dead ass baby.  So, this loud ass guy was broadcasting how he may or not had been cucked by his (ex?) girlfriend at the time, and how his girlfriend felt so bad about it that she let the guy have pity sex with him.  Like, raw dog busting all types of nuts inside the girl’s pussy pity sex with a creampie ending.

As we all know, sex makes babies. Sometimes, stillborn babies. Hey, that’s life.  Some win.  Some lose.

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Despite people giving this guy confused looks and laughing at him, he kept going with the damn story.  Bearded Chibi-Usa and I exchanged “what the fuck” looks and walked away, trying to contain our laughs to no anvil.  We needed to drink after that, man. That was too much for us and this was day zero.  A fuckin’ Thursday night.

People; keep your personal business about being a cuck with a stillborn baby to yourselves.  I will laugh at you.

To keep your mind off how much of a fucked up piece of shit person I am for laughing at that poor guy, let’s go back to a certain point of this story.  Remember how I told ya Beared Chibi-Usa is a businessman? Well, some non-nerd businessman got on my boy case for being him; a nerd.  I don’t remember much of the details due to the alcohol and drugs, but I recall him shutting their ass down, talking about how he’s a businessman himself and that his company has clients from the companies the non-nerds work for.

Needless to say, he shut their ass down.  Ya non-nerds should really let go of the stereotype of the broke basement nerd still in their parents’ basement. But hey, they’re old fucks.  They have about what? 20-30 years of life left, and us young folks are gonna take their jobs overtime. No big deal.

We settle back to my room and we spoke upon various topics, such as grime rap, weight lost, and business.  Grime rap.  My god, no wonder it has that name.  Angry.  Aggressive.  Blunt.  Take what you know about (real) hip-hop culture,  give it steroids and make it British.  No, not fucking high class sip tea and eat crumpets British.  I’m talking the low income, brutal lifestyle of the the British.  Rap battles taking place inside decaying buildings and under bridges. Harden street rappers going berserk with their personal attacks against rivals and enemies.   You got your feelings hurt?  Fuck you,  you’re a grime rapper. Suck it up.

 

No wonder my boy got me hip to this genre.  I can see myself bumping this type of music and applying the story behind the music in my writings. I get inspired easily ya know.  Speaking of, his talk about business, and how his networks pretty much inspired me to work on my grind, hustle, and brand.  Here’s a young dude around my age with his own company, out here making moves and great money. I’m sitting here listening about his work.  I’m like “man, if he can do it, so can I.” Granted, it takes hard work, dealing with self-doubts, and overcoming both haters and personal failures to reach what you want in life. This shit doesn’t come overnight.

 

I’m dragging this story with nonsense filler and I pretty sure you guys want me to talk more about partying and less about my sappy self being inspired.  A couple of more folks came over to pregame (who I won’t mention because my uncreative ass can’t come up with fake names).  I think we played the godawful broken Sailor Moon Super S fighting game on my laptop, as well as a real fighting game like Super Street Fighter 2.  I got bodied in both because alcohol. One of my friends noticed my Sailor Saturn sticker on my laptop and we had a nice chat about why we like and relate to her (socially awkward but love having few but very close friends).   Come to think about it, I honestly forgot what happened from between me light partying and when I woke up the next morning.

Fuck it, onto Day 1.  A day in which gave me more inspiration from dudes doing better than myself, an convention and hotel staff hating on my alcohol collection, and me having to control my temper to prevent killing somebody who I thought was a friend.

 

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So You Wanna Throw a Convention Hotel Room Party

Gotta love room parties.  Where else can you find a normally socially awkward  Uthena cosplayer  drunk off shots of Hennessy flirting with other women, a Future Trunks cosplayer high off coke that he snorted off a Hex Maniac cosplayer’s ass,  and two stoned Persona fans talk about who’s best girl(s) in Persona 5? (the answer: Tae and Ohya)

Yea, you could visit multiple room parties. That’s cool and all.  But, what is cooler is hosting your own room party.  You can become the source of otaku debauchery!  I’ll teach you how!

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Cosplaying nerds aren’t innocent.  Also this blog does NOT promote illegal drug usage. 

The Hotel

To host a room party, you obviously need a hotel room. Make you have booked a room. Location is key.  You want to host your party at the primary convention hotel.  Hosting at the secondary hotel isn’t bad either,  just as long as it’s not too far from the main hotel(s). Ain’t nobody gonna drive 20 minutes to your lame ass hotel party.  A suite, a large single king-size room, or two rooms that are linked are best choices for room partying (depending on how the size of the party you’re planning).

If the convention hotel has a dedicated floor/wing/etc. for parties, request a room on that floor.  Some hotels will move your room to the party floor for free, while others require an additional fee (around an extra $100 a night).

Anime Nebraskon (Omaha),   Anime Weekend Atlanta (Atlanta), DragonCon (Altanta) , and Archon (St. Louis) are conventions that I’ve personally attended in which they have a select floor or wing for partying.

Hospitality

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If you were Rika from Higurashi you’d be an alcoholic too.

The job of a host is showing as much hospitality to your guests as possible.  Greet everyone with a smile.  Show them respect. Make them feel comfortable and welcomed.  This means cleaning the room hours before the party and throughout it, having liquor, juices, soda, food, and water available (which I will cover later). Talk to as many of your guests as possible. Be friendly.  Trust me, doing these things will net you repeat visitors for future parties.

Cleaning Supplies

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Spills and party fouls happen.  It’s  unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t clean up (plus, you don’t want cleaning fees on your bill). Cleaning supplies will help you in the long run, and plus, cleaning goes hand-in-hand with hospitality.

Here what you’ll need:

Trashbags: Hotel trashbags are small, weak, and will overflow quick.  You want something that’s heavy duty, like Hefty trashbags.  3-7  heavy duty trashbags should be more than enough for your party.  Tie a trashbag on the door handle for easy access for trash and waifus alike.

Paper Towels: Paper towels are godsend for messes.  Get something strong and absorbent like Brawny or Bounty.

Tip: Don’t use the hotel towels.  You’ll need them to dry yourself off , after you’ve washed off the shame of sleeping with that Black Lady (Sailor Moon) cosplayer after the party ended. You know,   the one who was way into character calling you “daddy” while you were raw dogging her from behind.

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Sleep with crazy. Don’t date crazy.

Dish Soap: For difficult stains. Plus the best dish soap smells good.

Disinfection Wipes: Great way to kill germs and reduce con pluage from unwashed, unhealthy virgin nerds.

Febreze:  Because people don’t fucking shower at conventions.

Having these simple cleaning products will help you in the long run. You don’t need everything on the list, but it’s useful to have at least trash bags, dish soap, febreze,  and paper towels on stand by.

Food and  Drinks:

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What’s a party without food or drinks? A rather boring one,  run by a host who’s most likely a freeloader, expecting others to bring things but not providing anything in exchange.  Nobody likes those type of people.  You gotta  have your own set of food and drinks at your party.

Here what you’ll need:

Alcohol (LEGAL DISCLAIMER: DO NOT SERVE ANYONE UNDER 21)

3 Bottles of plain Vodka
2 Bottles of  plain White Rum
2 Bottles of Dark Rum
1 bottle of tequila
1 bottle of gin
1 bottle of Triple Sec
1 bottle of Schnapps
1-3 bottles of Liquer (Peach, Sour Apple, Midori, coffee, etc.)
1 bottle of Rumchata
1 bottle/box or red wine
1 bottle/box or white wine
Case of beer (24-36 pack work best)
1-6 bottles of fruit flavored vodka/rum  (pineapple, mango, raspberry, etc.)
Juices:
Orange Juice
Pineapple Juice
Apple juice
Fruit Juice/Punch
Lemon/Lime juice
Cranberry Juice
Sweet and Sour Mix
Tonic

Sodas:
Coke
Lemon-Lime
Dr. Pepper
Ginger Ale
Root beer
Club soda

24-36 case of bottled water

On the food end, pizza and chicken wings work well.  You can order 1-3 pounds of wings and 5 boxes of cheap pizza for an entire party. Convince party goers to put in on the food.  Don’t let others mooch off your shit.

Promotion

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Nobody will come to your party if they’re unaware. You must promote it.  Create a Facebook event.  Speak to people at the convention.  Networking is key.  Now, if room partying is against hotel rules, keep it on the low.  Only tell a very select few people that you can trust.

Besides, you don’t want your party shut down because you let the wrong people in.

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Oh, this can happen too.  Don’t violate disturbing the peace laws.

Rules

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As a host, you gotta have rules.  Yeah, parties can be chaotic, that’s a given.  But you need to lay down some rules and have order to ensure a safe and happy party for you and your guests.

My general rules:

  1. Respect the host and host’s room
  2. Don’t be a creep and make others uncomfortable
  3. Don’t fuck/sleep on my/our bed
  4. Don’t steal. You steal you’re getting your ass beat and booted.
  5. Keep noise at a reasonable level to prevent noise complaints.
  6. No smoking unless it’s a smoking floor, 420 friendly hotel, etc. Also match me. I’ll match you too.
  7. No one under 21 (if serving alcohol)


Just simple universal rules that should work.  You can add your own rules for your party depending on the nature.

Hope these tips help! Feel free to apply them to your own parties.  Be safe and have fun this con season!  If you have any suggestions and advice, please post them in the comments section below!

Further Reading:
https://matadornetwork.com/nights/how-to-throw-a-secret-party-in-a-hotel-room/

http://www.betches.com/how-to-throw-a-hotel-party

Art Sources:

Second best Hotaru making terrible life choices:
http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=55182233

Featured image source:
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=929247

Sakuya cleaning:
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=40230929

Black Lady fanart (WARNING: NSFW wesbsite):
http://www.hentai-foundry.com/pictures/user/utilizator/165232

Gundam getting arrested:
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=9441297

Conventions 0

Naka-Kon: Day 1

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“Last night was a blur to me
This mornin’ I got two with me
I don’t know what to do with me
Goin’ ape like the zoo with me”

-2Chainz Big Amount

Boys and girls, let me start by saying don’t ever play yourself.  More on that later.

So day 1 of Naka-Kon was rather lackluster for me, sans a few events throughout the day.  My crew and I arrived at our hotel around 2 PM after a decent 4.5 hours of driving down highway 70, joking around, listening to some Chrissy but classic 80s rock,  enjoying unscripted interviews from wrestlers (or “shoots”), and blasting some Gundam music.  Great times.

What wasn’t great was that my debit card had issues at check-in. Nice.  Lets start the con season off with me overthinking and having a near breakdown because my dumbass didn’t stack my money right.  Thankfully my homeboy bailed me out but I owe him $20.

Oh well. You win some.  You lose some.  I’ll live.

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“You win some, you lose some. But if you live, you live to fight another day.”

After having that problem knock out, my crew and I settle down in our hotel room.  While we waited for the con to officially start we started  some  l flexing on social media: bragging about our booze collection for the con after parties.

Its like we’re immature frat boys ha ha ha

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Believe it or not we nerds do enjoy partying and drinking.

Following that, we hit the con floor. The convention center wasn’t as packed as we expected. Granted, people were stillt work and school.   Oh well.

As we aimlessly wandered around we linked up with a few local con friends. We combined our parties for a fun adventure of walking around the dealer room, lamenting at the fact that  we are broke adults with adult responsibilities.

Our money have to go to bills first, anime figmas last. Don’t grow up;  its a trap like Felix.

To combat any impulsive spending, our crew decided it was best to talk shit about our favorite series. Dragon Ball is just a shallow combat Shouen series. Sailor Moon is a monotonous tale of a dumbass teenager superherorine.
Of course this didn’t last long as I spotted a Sailor Saturn figure which caused me to become depressed at the fact that I’m a broke ass adult.

I need a hustle.

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One day I’ll buy this figure, have the box signed by all four of her voice actresses, and flip it on eBay to some fellow lonely Sailor Saturn otaku.  Money baby.

Later on, we decided that  nothing was poppin’ off at the con to our interest and retired back to the hotel room for a bit.

At the hotel, my crew and I did some pre con pre-gaming.  Doing shots of whatever was on the table and myself playing pretend bartender.

Remember at the beginning of this post I stated don’t ever play yourself?  Well, here’s the story:

I had planned on going to a panel on White-Washing in the media.  A panel run by a professional writer for the New York Times mind you.  I wanted to see  see some viewpoints on white washing from an industry insiders and possibly network with the writer.

Unfortunatly, my dumbass drank way too much than I should had (work stress and stressing over blog posts does that to ya).  My black ass ain’t going to a professionally run panel on White-Washing while intoxicated.  To break it down:
Me, a drunk black dude + a white washing panel = yea no.

Its not worth having my con badge revoked because  Drunk Ben wants to fight dumbass weeaboos who think white washing isn’t an issue in the media.

Instead, I went to the rave.  I’m not a huge rave guy for these anime cons but most of my friends were all there.  And lets be real: con raves ain’t real raves.  A real rave is one that is at a run-down warehouse that you get information about through word of mouth.

I’m a fan of these type of raves to be quite honest

The rave was lucklaster. I mean I guess alcohol and good friends made the rave slightly bareable, but if you danced to one happy hardcore track you have danced to all of them.

Granted I’m jaded and bias as fuck so that doesn’t help.

Upon general agreement that the rave was getting boring, my merry drunken band decided to call it a night and return to the hotel.  We had a few more drinks, had a nice talk about Akira Toriyama’s trolling the Dragon Ball fan base before everyone passed out.

Day 1 of Naka-Kon was quite honestly lackluster.  This is forgivable because it was Friday.  People are still at work, school, or just setting up for the weekend.  Plus you wanna save the big shit for the big day, Saturday.
I’m looking forward for the Saturday events.  Saturday at cons are always eventful.