Jennifer's 365 Project

So it's Sunday, and it's the last day of Youmacon, which means lots of people checking out and rushing around to get wrapped up.

Even though we were up late last night, I managed to wake up around 7:30.  We hung out in the hotel room for awhile, listening to local news and some crappy national shows about Halloween while munching on our tasty breakfast provisions.

I checked out via the TV, which is a first. Usually you can just leave your key in hotel room and that's it, but this was cool too.

The hallways of the Renaissance Center weren't quite as full at 10am, but there was still a pretty decent line for the Potter Puppet Pals event. We skipped that and stopped by to see Adam and Comfort briefly before heading out to Novi.

Chris and I had plans to have lunch with his father in Novi.  We hit the area on the early side, so we swung by a Borders (which we do not have in Grand Rapids) and Chris was able to snag a cute plushie of Green Lantern (Hal Jordan).

We had a lovely lunch with Chris's father at Olive Garden.  It was nice to meet him and watch them interact.  I can definitely see the family resemblance.









When we arrived back home we were met with a lot of political flyers tossed all over the hallway. Leki, as you can see, was super excited to see us when we got home.  So excited he forgot that he doesn't fit on my shoulder and kept trying to crawl all over to get the best perch.

Anyway, here's a slideshow of the weekend's events at Youmacon. It was a great time.  I really enjoy the format of the convention being built into the hotel, as opposed to most conventions where the convention center is separate from the hotel.  It certainly gives it a very social feel.  I really hope that they're able to maintain that atmosphere, although honestly it felt like the convention was nearly busting at the seams at the Detroit Renaissance Center, which is a VERY large hotel (and, consequently, the largest building in Michigan).

Day two is the first full day at the convention, since we did not arrive Thursday night. I started off the day by whacking my skull into the wall and getting a large lump on my forehead.  That's what I get for walking blindly in the dark.

The hotel had a pretty decent view of the Ambassador Bridge, and near the Wintergardens you can see the casino in Windsor, Caesars.  I miss the area so I was excited to see little things like these while were were in Detroit.

We headed down to the con floor in the morning and youmacon was in full swing already.  There were a lot of people on the floor, checking out the dealer room, playing video games, and enjoying random carmelldansen in the hallway.

We stopped up in the hotel room briefly to check out the opening to Rally to Restore Sanity.  With great 3G coverage we were able to tether the laptop to the phone and stream the live event.

In the early afternoon we watched Live Action Mario Party.  I've caught this 3 of the 4 years I've attended Youmacon and it's just really amusing to me. My little brother and I used to play Mario Party when it first came out, so who wouldn't want to see mini-games acted out on a dance floor that's converted to a gameboard? Chris has some great video of the event he put together.


We also swung by the Anime Whose Line is it Anyway? panel which was amusing, but a little difficult to hear.  Its been years since I've watched the show so it was cool to see the different bits acted out.  I always enjoyed scenes from the a hat bit, so I recorded a bit of the anime version.

Chris and I arrived in the mid afternoon to the Detroit Renaissance Center for Youmacon 2010.  I figured since check-in wasn't until 3pm there wasn't a huge rush to get there super early. Perhaps that was a mistake.

After we got settled in with the hotel room, we headed down to pick up our registration badges. The last several years the wait has been non-existent if you pre-register. Apparently not this year. See that purple hair? Yeah, it wraps around the escalator and wall to that very distant line/balcony you see just to the left of the purple hair. The wait was about an hour. I heard from other people that the wait was even longer just an hour ago...so that's something to be grateful for I suppose. We saw an awesome Doctor Who and Rose cosplay as well as my favorite anime character, Vash, so it was a good time. Here's a short video Chris shot of the line.

After snagging our registration badges, we immediately headed up to Artist Alley to stop by and say hi to Adam and Comfort.  As always, they have a nice booth setup with all their awesome work.  This time I was able to see the much talked about Omnibus, which is all 9 issues of The Uniques in one. It's massive and awesome. If you see it, get it.

Since it was close to dinner time when we got over to them, we were able to have tasty dinner together in the food court, which has an impressive array of choices.

As I've done for the last several years, I wanted to watch the Anime Amateur Stand-up Comedy. So Chris and I headed over and watched that. There was an awesome, absolutely amazing Old Spice cosplayer that did a great bit in that Old Spice dude voice. Chris got a small snapshot of his routine and you should totally watch the video.

After the show, we wandered around a bit, stopped by to see Adam and Comfort, and watched a few random videos.

We did see several sleepy Otaku in random places, such as hallway floors, artist alley tables, etc. So the night was definitely winding down for some people, but not for others. Lots of long lines to get into the dance concert, autograph signing, and much, much more.

So day one was interesting and I'm looking forward to using my SLR to capture all the great costumes on day two of youmacon.

Sunday marks the last day of Youmacon. The traffic flow was lighter, the lineup of events less intense, and overall the median age of attendees seemed to drop by several years. I even ran into a Naruto that I think was only 5.

Chris and I originally were going to watch the main event Potter Puppet Pals in the morning, but we waited in line for over 45 minutes past when the event was supposed to occur and finally ditched the idea and checked out of our hotel room instead. I dont know that the event ever occurred.

Later we went to watch Otaku Family Feud as it was pretty entertaining last year. But this year it was was a little lackluster and slow.

We did listen to more of The Spoony Bards for a bit, and even saw a random Carmelldansen circle.

Still, it was a good weekend and I look forward to how it pans out with the event being moved to the Renaissance Center next year in Downtown Detroit. Its a bigger venue, for sure. but how much space exactly will they be taking up?

The second day was the first and only full day spent at the con. Chris and I most of the day doing our own thing; people watching, enjoying elaborate costumes (even Nell in her released form), watching random panels and such.

The three of us spent a few hours in the afternoon watching Live Action Mario Party (based on Nintendo's game, of course), and Amanda even participated in one of the min-games doing a crab-walk.

We watched random audio/video tracks throughout the day, including Video Game Project 5 and some humerous mashups. I'd never spent so much time watching AMV's and it was well worth it. I'd only seen some AMV Hell videos before but some of these others were really funny.

Later Chris and I listened to The Spoony Bards (so named because of a censorship/translation issue from an FFIV game) play for a bit in a hotel lounge area on the first floor. They're always fun to listen to and play a range of geeky musical scores.

Youmacon is an anime con that occurs during the last weekend in October each year in the metro Detroit area. This year marks year five for the event and they continue to grow at a rate that they sometimes struggle to keep up with.

Amanda, Chris, and I arrived in the early afternoon at the Hyatt (where the event is held). We checked in, dropped off luggage, organized provisions and headed out onto the con floor.

Since it was still early afternoon the hotel wasn't overflowing with otaku - yet. We did see storm troopers though (3 total this year vs the lone 1 I saw last year).

I wanted to wander into the dealer room early this year, since last year I had difficulty finding a little stuffed Kirara doll (from InuYasha) I wanted. This year I managed to secure one early. I also stumbled across various odd Final Fantasy VII gear, like the above pic.