FOR PHOTOS FROM THIS EVENT, CLICK HERE.

Thursday, June 26

Joey was supposed to have his Gargoyles music video done. Well, he was SUPPOSED to come to the Gathering with me. But last minute, as in 11pm the night before, he calls and says he can't go. But he assures me that he will still give me the money as if he were staying in the room, so he didnt screw the rest of us over. He was supposed to have the music video ready for the contest. But he didnt start trying to burn it until 6am, an hour before I'm scheduled to be at his house. The power goes out on his street. No video. He tells me he has a bad feeling about me going to NY, I tell him tough cookies, Im going anyway. I told him I'd call him later about getting ahold of the video. (Incidentally, I never got ahold of it. The drama went on for a couple days, over the course of which the vid was supposed to be uploaded to Joey's cousin's site. No file there. So I couldnt enter the vid in the contest. Its a shame really, that vid was awesome.) Dad drops me off at the airport, and I of course start to doodle. Soon the whole page is full of characters, people I'm supposed to see at the con. I'm flying Song, which is part of Delta. A fun man named Wayne, one of the attendants (now known as "talent") starts quizzing the waiting passengers, since we still have an hour before we can start boarding. First question: "Whats the name of the new Harry Potter novel?" Of course, I yell out "Order of the Phoenix!" and I am rewarded with a lolly pop. Yay! :) I board the plane, which is decorated inside with lime green, orange, purple, blue and yellow. Very fun. The "talent" were a lot of fun too, joking at eachother. Good flight. Get off the plane, ask where I can go to get ground transportation. I am told to take the shuttle, $13. Woo! I find the shuttle. A taxi offers to take me to the hotel for $38. I scoff and say "But the shuttle is $13." He says "But its the shuttle." To which I respond "But its $13." I took the shuttle. Driver has a russian accent, seems like a total asshole. We drive for an HOUR to get to Grand Central. First impressions of NYC: There's graffiti on EVERYTHING and the whole city smells of sun-baked garbage. Blech. Arrive at Grand Central, take a smaller bus to the hotel. Check in at the front desk, drop off my luggage in the room. Several phone calls to Dreamie and Winterwolf to figure out where they are. Thank goodness for cell phones. I help Dreamie, WW, Aaron, Greg B, Leo and .. damn I dont remember the other guy's name. Anyway we started setting up the art room. Much scrambling for drills that WORK. We take a break and go to lunch at Sbarro. It's not pizza hut, thats for sure, but it would do. We get back, I go to the hotel room. Liz is there. She shows me her mime impression of the tiny-ness of the room. We exchange gifts: books, shirts, etc. We go back to the art room to continue set up. Women do most of the work, while the men watch. Finally the women get tired and ask the men to take over. Liz says she's hungry, so we make our exit. Blimpies for lunch. We try to eat in the Sbarro restaurant, but get kicked out. (There is no seating at Blimpies). We wander up to the con-suite. I exchange cell numbers with half the gargoyles maffia. Liz and I decide we want to play DDR. We walk about 9 blocks to the nearest DDR. On the way we see a mom picking her kid's nose. Eew? What a dirty city. Liz and I play DDR Extreme. Some creepy people watch us, but dont say anything. We decide to go back to the hotel. Lamps around the subway entrances look like pokeballs. I notice the marquee from Times Square advertising the Trek Con. I begin singing "Our con is better, we have Greg Weisman...." Just then we notice Greg is leaning on the wall outside our hotel, waiting for Thom to arrive. Much squealing and hugs. (Well, I was the only one squealing.) We wait around for a while, before we find out Thom and Vic are already waiting in the lobby, they'd used another entrance. Greg says theyre going to dinner. Kathy Pogge says that Liz and I cant go. Later Dreamie says we CAN go. Dreamie, Liz and I wait in the lobby. Everyone else has already gone to dinner and are supposed to call with directions. No one calls, no one answers their cell phone. We FINALLY get ahold of someone, then power walk about 10 blocks to the Sushi place. Unagi is yummy. We walk back. I get to meet Ethan, who seems pretty cool. Liz and I take the leftover sushi to (someone's?) room. Kythera, Hudson, Guandalug (sp?), Duncan, Zaius and Nick are all there, plus others. Someone eats the sushi. We exchange D&D stories. Liz starts drifting off against the wall, so I drag her back up to the room to sleep. I take a shower.. that shower SUCKED. The water pressure was so hard it felt like I was being stung by bees. The water wooshed out so fast it created its own wind. I kid you not. It was like the apartment Tore and I had. Blech. The toilet was funny though. It flushed so violently it felt like it could create a mini tornado in the bathroom. I did finally sleep at some point.

Friday, June 27

Karlyl calls my cell at 630am. I think I'd only been asleep for 3 hours or so. I run down to the lobby to let her in (you cant get to the elevators without a room key.) She stowes her luggage in the closet, then goes to wander the city for a few hours so I can get more sleep. She came back at something like 800 or so. She, Liz and I went down to City Perk Cafe in the hotel lobby for breakfast. We take our food to the con-suite so we can chat with people. We grab Liz's art to set it up in the art room. FLOSS! As we are doing so, Nixie calls my cell, she's waiting downstairs. I go get her, and meet Ganador. Nixie registers at the desk, we get to see Karlyl, Thundra and Djali. Kars and I help Liz set up her othercon art. The three of us grab Thundra, Djali and Ganador and go for lunch and DDR. Lunch was okay, just subs from the place right next to the arcade. We play much DDR. Good times. Kars and Tuntun are now hooked on DDR. Djali has rediscovered her obsession. MUAHAHA! After DDR we wander back to the hotel. Karine is in the Lobby, I drag her upstairs. We all start arting in our room. (Note: much arting went on this weekend.) We all go up to Opening Ceremonies. We plug the Gathering 2004, which is going to ROCK. We listen to Greg's shpeel again (you know, the same one he does every year) completing his sentences for him. We help Karine set up her artwork. We go to the same sushi place from the night before. Unagi is still yummy. I tried Sake (sp?). The first sip was okay, but each progressive sip was more and more disgusting. I didnt finish even one glass. We grab our sketchbooks and go to the 6th floor lounge to start arting. We are eventually kicked out by a security guard named Gonzales (remember his name, it comes back up later.) Karine informs us that our room does not lock properly. I go down to the front desk and talk to a man who doesnt seem to know what to do about the situation. Finally I say "Either fix the lock, or give us a new room." We got a new room. The beds were the same size, but the room was much bigger. Very nice. There are sheets on the bed, but no blankets or beadspreads. I go back downstairs and ask for blankets and bedspreads. The girls start moving into the new room. Liz tells me she left her expensive pens in the lounge- I have to get Gonzales to unlock the room so I can get them. Blankets come, no bedspreads. I insist on bedspreads, because I hate getting cold in the middle of the night. Karine rants for about an hour about the stress at her job. King size bedspreads are eventually delivered (for our full size beds.) I shower, then fall asleep.

Saturday, June 28

We all chat in the room while Liz and Karine shower. Good thing: Half of the room occupants are morning shower people, the other half are night shower people. Breakfast at City Perk again. We head to the draing Q&A hosted by Karine, Liz, Kythera and Nikki. At some point Matt (Artgolem) walked in. He came and sat down behind me, YAY! I show him the doodle I did on Thursday. He doodles too. Im so jealous of his mad art skillz. ^_^ After the panel the majority of us went up the the Dealer's room. Karine and Patrick started taking pre-registrations for 2004. I registered. We arted. Djali, Liz and I went to K Mart to get some munchies. Karine started her Cel-coloring panel. Laurean watched the registration desk. I went down to Karine's panel just to doodle. Came up with a decent image, which I may finish at some point. I then went back up to the Dealer's Room to take over the pre-reg desk. I double the number of people who pre-reg. I am an effective salesman when I believe in the product ;) Some people drifted in and out of the room, I got to chat with Laurean, Matt, Karlyl, Nixie, Liz, BrooklynX, and some other gargs. I leave to start getting ready for the banquet. I take the money with me, I dont feel safe leaving it in the dealers room. We all start getting ready for the banquet in our room. Matt offers to leave to give us some privacy. That launches me into my "60 naked women, ass in your face, you have no idea." basic training story for the umpteen millionth time. So he stays. He says he can't go to the banquet, he doesn't have the money. I offer to pay for him to go, and wont take "no" for an answer. Matt and I race around the hotel trying to find a con-staffer who is willing to take my money. Lynati signs the back of Matt's badge. Thanks Lynatti!! The food was a little dry, the salad drenched with dressing. However the coffee and treats were yummy, Liz and I split one of each of the six kinds of yummmies. Matt had to leave... poo. I wish Matt could have stayed longer. Random side note: I spent a lot of time trying to NOT be annoying this year. Did it work? I have a habbit of clinging to people (Greg W, new friends, etc.) And I think I alienate a lot of people that way. So I tried to be a little distant. I hope I didnt come off as cold to anyone. I just seem to push people away FASTER if I try to cling to them too much. Karine, Liz and I really wanted to dance. But the "sound system" was just an old boom box with blown speakers. They didnt even have dance music. Liz and I played a few of my CDs for a while, but then decided we needed to GO somewhere. Liz, Karine and I set out to find a club. We walk something like 15 blocks only to find a club that charged a $25 cover and played rap. GAG ME. We headed back to the hotel, in the hopes of finding another club. Then we just wanted to find a bar with music. Then we just wanted to find something that was OPEN. We finally found a little tavern, and Karine introduced me to a couple of drinks. So the list of things that I can drink without gagging has grown. Yay! We decide we'd better get back to the hotel and to bed, since we know we're going to get up early for Dim Sum. But we end up arting, chatting and giggling until very early in the morning anyway. Run Away! Ha ha ha ha.

Sunday, June 29

First thought: Arg, I dont want to get up. *Karine goes to take a shower* oh good, I dont have to get up yet. *Karine finishes shower* Liz! Youre turn! *tries to push Liz out of bed* Liz: My turn? Why does it have to be my turn? Me: Okayfine. *gets up* Karine, Liz, Nixie?, and I wait in the lobby for Dreamie and Winterwolf. We walk to the subway and wait FAR too long for a train. We RUN all over Chinatown looking for a restaurant that serves Dim Sum. We SCARF our food down. Dreamie, Karine and I take a cab back: we MUST be at the hotel at 11am to open the dealer/art room. We get there: the room is already open, probably by the hotel staff. Im glad I didnt leave the money in there last night. More arting while we sit and take pre-regs for 2004. I go to Dreamie & Liz's computer coloring panel, and find out Ive been doing it all wrong. Poo. We all go to closing ceremonies, where I take yet more pre-regs for 2004. I go to help Liz take her artwork down for the auction. Talyesin arrives, Karine leaves. I miss you Karine! Liz, Talyesin, BrooklynX and I go to Coney Island with a group of people. First we stop at the WTC memorial. Greg W tries to keep count of us, but the group is so amorpheus that he has a hard time of it. Coney Island is colder than I thought it would be. That sucks, I was wearing shorts, thinking it would be hot. Liz and I run to play DDR, thus separating ourselves and Tal & BrookX from the rest of the group. I pout for a while, mad that I let myself separate us from everyone else. Liz and I ride the Cyclone, that ROCKED. What a fun coaster. We stand in line for 20 minutes just to get some fries from the McD's at the park. The sign says "Smiles are Free" So Liz asks for a supersize fry, tripple thick chocolate shake, and four smiles to go. The guy doubles over laughing. We only ever got 2 smiles though. We find a couple of gargs, they tell us where and when to meet the group. We do so at 10pm. Everyone wants to go home, so we get back on the train (long-ass train ride.) We start planting subliminal messages in Greg's brain, and get him to start humming songs. Muahaha. Greg says he wants Ice Cream. Then he says Pancakes would be better. Thus the 27 of us set off to find any place thats open and serves pancakes. Just like the club-selection, there is really no choice. We finally find an ice cream parlor thats open and partake in the yumminess. We go to the con-suite, but its crowded with people watching the Cowboy Beebop movie. Yay fun. So we (Liz, Dreamie, Kars, Nixie, etc) decide to leave and go art in the room.

Monday, June 30

Woken up by Dad calling me on my cell. Liz, Karlyl, Nixie, Tal and I chatted for nearly 3 hours. We go to lunch with Dreammie, WW & Aura. We walked all over the place for a while, and I finally convinced everyone to try Curry in a Hurry. I'd been craving curry for a month. It was very yummy, but very fulling. To the point where I couldnt finish my meal. A couple more private jokes were spawned, like "A muggle asked me where the Xavier (ex-AH-vee-ay) Institute was. I told him to Live Long and Prosper." and "I'd rather go back to being an accountant." Liz came up with a song, Dreamie helped finish it. "Amaretto, Vodka Amaretto, Amaretto, Vodka Chardinay." More arting in the 6th floor lounge. Nixie is thirsty, so she looks in the empty conference rooms for water. She found a pitcher and some glasses, so started pouring us some water. Later, some guys wearing suits filed back into that room. Nixie got a look of horror on her face, and hid the water behind the couch. This Nixie earned the name Master Water Thief. Liz, Karlyl, Dreamie, Talyesin and I meet Patrick, Carol and Greg W in the lobby for dinner. We go to a restaurant that Greg used to go to with his dad. Good burgers. Greg, Carol and Patrick had to leave early to catch their plane. It took Katie, our waitress, several tries to get the right items on each of the checks... and in fact never managed to get it all right. She was still really nice about it, and had cool blue feathered earrings in. We took the subway back, but weren't really sure if we were on the right train. A cool guy named Tuck helped us figure out where we needed to go. He took a group photo for us, and talked to Liz in Japanese. We finally get back to the hotel, where Gonzales is on duty, so I take a picture. Liz still owes me a characture. It takes her five tries to get it right- she says I have pretty normal features, so its really hard to do a characture. Tal, Liz, Dreamie, Karlyl, WW and I go out to find more DDR. The place that advertized DDR and Pump It Up was apparently not open, so we decided to skip it. We walked to the theater and saw the Hulk. It was very silly, Liz, Karlyl and I were laughing at the absurdity quite a lot. We walk back to the hotel. Tal, Dreamie and WW decide to go to bed, Kars, Liz and I go for drinks. I try some of Karlyl's Midori Sour, very yummy. We go back to the room, Kars realizes she's left her ID somewhere, but calls her dad and finds that she will still be able to get home anyway. We go to bed at some obscure hour of the morning.

Tuesday, July 1

I wake up to hear Kars bitch about some nasty lady downstairs. I go down to see her about getting my bus ticket to the airport- she is a mean bitch. She made me take the 900 shuttle, even though my plane didnt leave until 1245. So I had to say goodbye to my friends a lot earlier than I'd have liked. The shuttle to Grand Central was okay, but the bus to the airport- another man with a russian accent and a bad attitude. So many people in NYC are just assholes for no reason. Then you get NICE people... and they get their pictures taken for my website. Anyway. The flight back was pretty uneventful. I talked to the people sitting next to me, who were very nice. I called Dad, he got there shortly after I got outside. I drove home and started working on my con-report, trying to catch up on email and LJ. I cull 226 photos down to 116. And I know that's all you're really interested in seeing, but I had to get my text in anyway ;)