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[Avi]

As always, my con report is less about the con and more about the weird shit that surrounded it.

Let's get the boring stuff out of the way: We made profit (yay!), but weren't actually there until literally the last two hours of the con, when the bargain hunters ended up buying a metric arse tonne of copics. Go figure.
Anyway, $100 up, with $700 of discrepancy... so maybe about $400 up and a head ache of a stock take which I don't really have the time for... Made worse by the number of badges I gave away on our forum flyer cards... which seem to have been somewhat useless as we have only one new member *sigh*... Actually, David or Dan, can you make sure the registration is actually working right, please?
Here's a pic someone else took of peopel drawing at our table. there are other pics out there, but I haven't seen them crop up yet


The con itself was fairly uneventful for us.
Cops showed up both days. Saturday was apparently due to the whole "Lolita Parade" thing, at which they basically decided to abuse poor Craig. Complaints are being lodged, I'm told.
Sunday's appearance was to further justify Saturday's, with material being taken back as possible proof of black market importing (bootlegs) and breaches of weapons act (Game Traders were selling swords).
Needless to say, this freaks me out somewhat as Manifest approaches. Hooray! Thanks to the government, prepare for less smutty fun than ever! "Manifest 2012: At least they didn't take away the Ramune... I love Big Brumby"
(spot the double entendre)

And to the story of the trip!

Driving interstate is something I do regularly, so normally, it's not such a hassle. A couple of people in the car, we talk, we nap, we stretch our legs and swap the drive.
Not this time baby! My stereo is rooted, and neither of the other car occupants drove. To make matters worse, I insisted on leaving between midnight and 2am so we had time for a nap when we got into town (nap as I was the only one driving, and driving for 8 hours is tiring).
There are actually two reasons I prefer the night drives. The first is that there is substantially less heavy vehicle traffic, or indeed traffic of any kind. I can speed to my heart's content, over take people without having to worry about oncoming, etc.
The second is what I call The Silent Hill Effect. There's something serene and eerie about driving through a fog bank. It makes it look like you're driving through a room with a definite ceiling. Even more so because of the way the lights reflect and bounce around inside a fog bank.
I suppose there's also the additional reasoning of there being some things you can only see at night due to their lights. Red, flashing lights. Red , flashing lights that make for parallax error, because you could swear that they're only a kilometer away, but 15 minutes later, you're still driving towards them and they appear no closer, and another half hour later when you finally pull up alongside them, the lights stretch out for as long as you can see, implying an insanely large land mass is being taken up by whatever it is that is possibly there. Trey & I still haven't figured it out. But considering the bizarre nature of it, the lack of signage, and the red lights, I assume it's some sort of alien red light district. Maybe where they make the anal probes.

The downside to driving at night is how little is open once you're more than 50km away from Melbourne... and driving straight past the giant stone koala (not that it would have been open anyway) because it was lost in the fog.

We finally reach Adelaide, after a somewhat pleasant car trip (individual Cochranes are bearable... it's only when you combine them that they reach a critical mass) around 11am to find out that our room won't be ready for another 2-3 hours. So much for my nap. So we wander about, buying the essentials: American Mountain Dew, Tequila, Poptarts and more underpants for Trey... Don't ask.
The room's finally set up, we nap, we go setup our booth (looking more and more professional each time), and then head out onto the town to meet up with Sonja and get some dinner.

Now, Adelaide is a place of many bizarre sides. It's both large and small. Active and dull. Cultured and full of bogans. I was trying to impress this on Trey as we walked down Rundle Mall, after the brief introduction to Hindly. I did mention that at times, one has to be careful, as Rundle Mall suddenly gets rougher at night.
As if karma were there to get retribution and prove my point at the same time, Trey gets assaulted in about 28 seconds after my profound statement. Some genetic throwback sporting a mullet that would have Captain Planet weeping in joy starts going on about what a faggot Trey must be because of his shoes, and how he needs to be fag bashed for being a faggot, fag. This is doubly hilarious as on the car ride up, there was an anecdote about how some redneck was insisting he could beat Trevor straight because certain homosexuality was the logical conclusion to his current wardrobe...
The interesting part about a group of people who are willing to bash someone based on appearance is how quickly they back down from a guy larger than themselves in a biker jacket as he straps on metal knuckled gauntlets. I suppose it's only really a fair fight if they're certain they can win.
After dinner, with Trey getting progressively sicker and deciding bed rest and tequila are the only cure, I head out with Sonja and friends for a bar that apparently makes a certain type of cocktail... which they weren't making any more. But eh, we drink. Being the chivalrous sort that I am, I insist on walking her home. Now, I'm fairly certain at some point I was told "Oh, it's only like 3 blocks from where you're staying". Admittedly, I might have told myself this. Either way, it was not 3 blocks. It was 3km. I'm in dress shoes T_T

Saturday night was again interesting, and more hiking, as I escorted Sonja to a battle of the bands that her brother was in. I'm beginning to think that it must have been Sonja that told me it was 3 blocks, because she also said it was about a 20-30 minute walk to where we were going. It could have been that if you counted from the edge of the city, and actually cut through North Adelaide. We must have taken the long way around. In actual fact, I kind of preferred it that way. It meant I could spend more time talking to her, and we missed the suckier bands as her brother's was 2nd last.
We got there in time to catch a band called Erosion. Wow... if you like hardcore, these guys are fucking great, so keep an eye out for their torrent, or y'know, legitimately purchase it from their site. Sonja's brother's band was a bit unexpected, considering we'd just heard Erosion. I was expecting more hardcore or rock or punk... not a guitar funk band. Either way, they were good. They needed a black guy to say words like "funky" and "dig it" during the instrumentals though.
After the winner's are announced, it's already about 1am. Intelligently, we decide to catch a taxi back into town and get the mandatory souvlaki (shwarma, actually, as the place was Egyptian instead of Greek).

Sunday evening, time to relax. The con's over, and I sure as hell don't want to stick around to spruik Manifest at this point. I just want a bad Chinese meal, some booze, some ice-cream, and some ultra violent tentacle porn anime.
Amazing how I actually manage to get all of those things!
Ending up in gouger.st once again, where I refuse to eat any chili’s growing on the side of the road, we end up at possibly the worst Chinese restaurant I've been to since Kum Den. We see "Boozing chicken" on the menu. It's chicken, it's Chinese, it's been marinated in cheap alcohol. We figure it'd be just like hanging out with Tycho and promptly order it...
I'd rather eat Tycho than eat this again.
Eventually escaping, we head off for ice-cream, followed by more boozing back at the apartment. Trey sends me out for more orange juice, because clearly his background BAC is now so high he's confusing orange juice for tequila, which is what we were out of at the time. I'm still drinking the remaining orange juice!
Andrew, now minus Charmaine, Trey, Sonja & I all end up back in mine and Trey's room as the Cochranes are again coch fighting and beginning to get violent. This is for the better, because I don't see Amanda being too happy about a human pile forming on her bed to watch violent and pornographic anime. Yes, we popped a certain someone's Legend of the Overfiend cherry that night It's made much funnier re-dubbing the show with pithy comments and nerd rap soundtracks. At some point in the night, I begin to lose consciousness, even though I'm still awake, because whilst the last thing I actively remember is some sort of praying mantis monster eating some chicks head, I also remember letting people out the door after watching The Adventures of Mark Twain. Just not what happened in between.

Monday: We finally find that fucking giant stone koala, and see the alien anal probe factory again.
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Avi - The cute & fuzzy galactic overlord

[Jules]

Sounds like a nightmare

Wtf @ the police having Loli rage...?
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[Sno-Oaky]

Seriously, we could make a whole manga about you guys going to cons and the shenanigans you get up to.

On the other hand, is Trey okay?
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[Treyzuka]

Besides nearly dying of fever the night before leaving and having the taste of death and blood in my mouth all weekend, I was fine.



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PUNCH SKY FOR SUNSHINE HAPPINESS!

[Avi]