ONI Con 98! Part 1: Primal Fear (As told by Catsy and her wonderful imagination@_@)

Neow. It all began on a crisp, Autumn Thursday morning in the town of Athens, GA. I had gone to the Rossman's pad for a quickie - uh, bite to eat ^_~. It was then that I learned about UGAnime's plan to go to the world's finest anime con that they could afford to go to on a $37.23 budget!.... ONIcon!

  I was a bit skeptical at first, but the Rossman proceeded to scratch me behind the ears and in my temporary state of kitty bliss I agreed to join them on their Quijote-esque quest for the "Con of the Oni". And booooy was I glad that I did^_^ ONIcon blew every other anime convention I had ever been to away with torpedos that hit below the water line and therefore caused massive flooding in the forward compartments leaving them lifeless in the water and sinking fast into shark infested seas.... or something-tcha.

The UGAnime Gang getting ready to cause some road rage and minor (to tragic) traffic accidents.
(L to R) Mulder, Chujo, the MegaPlayboy and the Immortal Rossman.

  We drove over to Chief Chujo and Mulder's place where we met the rest of the gang and then we divided up into seperate parties for the main voyage. The Rossman and I got lucky and bagged some seats in the Glam-Rock Wagon with the Chief and the MPB. We were then subjiga- uh, pleasantly surrounded with nothing but German heavy metal muzak from bands who I was sure had all died in major airplane dissasters in the past (or if not, I guess it was up to me to make sure that they shortly did).

The Glam-Rock Wagon in all of its glory! I pity the foo' who don' like Helloween!

  As we started on the journey into the darkness the talk led from music, to anime, to sports, to gerbils stuck in funny places, to how lifeless we were, to Marlon Brando, to classic TV sprinkled with many references to "prison bitches". I was scared for a good portion of the ride. We stopped off for dinner at a Taco Hell and filled up on muy ricas Gorditas and Taco Supremes (plug).... We later found out how this was not a good thing when we had to spend 10 more hours in a crowded vehicle with no windows... Especially with the MegaPlayboy in the same close quarters.
  Anyway, I think it was when we reached Springfield that we began to run into trouble. Apparently our good friend Decker left us a special "Welcome Wagon" to meet us. Ha ha ha ha ha! (*Freeze Frame*).
  We were easily able to loose the Smokies with a few quick manuevers and a great hiding spot-

Bu-bye, you MP sunova #*@%. Soooey! Sooooey! He/she/it didn't even see us in our great hiding place^_^

  Unfortunately we had to use the Rossman as bait to slow them down long enough to give us time to get away. All in all he took getting thrown out of a moving vehicle, hitting hard pavement and getting arrested (again) pretty well. Hell, he even took a picture of the piggies who got him while he was in their custody. What a sweetie^o^

The Rossman later told us that this fine donut inspector was called "Officer ****-less"... Atleast that's what he called him.
-"Roger that, APB out on kitty with a bunch of anti-bitches."

  Neow. After they gave up looking for us, we made a daring Rossman-Escape attempt on the cruiser with the Immortal one in it. We proceeded to shoot out the tires of the black and white (even though we were aiming at the driver [-_- We have to work on that *sigh*]) and then we made some witty comments to the stunned officers as we threw the Rossboy into the back of the Glam-Rocker as the Chief lit up a stogie and said "I love it when some sand shuns a feather"... or something to that effect. We then returned to the trip.

Yeah, the Rossman may have been pissed about the whole episode, but he did say later that he was glad that we at least didn't spike his milk and make him get on an airplane.

  Nothing really happened much until we were about 40 miles away from the con (just more conversations regarding dimples, Eddie Money, Twinkies and rashes). It was then that we found ourselves caught in what was later called "the Jam of the Century"... and it had nothing to do with Bill Bellamy or sandwich spread in the least.

Gojira! Hewrp us, Gojira! It is Hedorah! We have been evir and now we are being punished! Whoa is us, Whoa is- *Ahem*, uh, Gomen ^o^

  Cars were backed up for 10 miles in either direction due to (what we found out later) was some Schlong's incredibly horrendously hideously naughty driving. About 122 automobiles had been smashed and piled up over eight lanes and we were screwed for a good five hours. So we got outta the GRW and wandered over to a Greasy looking diner right under the highway. At least I hoped it was greasy! When we got there we had another surprise waiting for us!

-"Well, Chief, we saw the whole traffic mess, knew it had to be because of a Schlong and decided to go look for some gut wrenching food."
-"Hey! Us too! We're parked right up there."

 Yup! It was Megumi, Arshes and the first Mulder (before he was replaced for the next season). We all ate the fried fat that they served us very slowly (and with lots of ketchup) and then sauntered back to our seperate vehicles. Then we waited and chugged some Pepto.... And then we waited some more and chugged some more Pepto. Finally the jam started moving. We were only a few hours behind, but the MegaPlayboy assured us that he could make up for the hours and minutes and seconds blown at the stop. Apparently a lot of other people thought the same thing-tcha.

It felt like we were in the powerful Mach 5!

  We finally made it to the hotel and we were only a few minutes behind Mulder, Arshes and Megumi. As soon as we got out of the Glam-Rocker we all ran together and Chujo, Mulder and the MPB howled their "LUCKY!" cheer! Aaaaaaaaahhhhh. It felt good to stand far away from them and pretend that we had no idea who the hell they were.

Howlin' Mad MegaPlayboy, the master of disguises (Chujo), and the 2nd (and permanent) Faceman as they shreik away in the parking lot. Needless to say, they were not on the Jazz.

  The whole gang then went inside and we checked into our room (That's right! Only one room for what would soon turn out to be 12 people!). Neow. It was a very nice room, I'm just sure that it was never planned to host an army of fanboys for more than one night. The Chief and the bastard Mulder staked out the beds for themselves and if it weren't for the Rossman sharing his sleeping bag with me I'd have been SOL.... Anyway, since it was still light outside we all decided to walk down to "Little Tokyo" for some sight seeing and some food. That was fun, but there really wasn't much to the place. It was kinda rinky-dinky if you know what I mean-tcha.

 
Lil' Tokyo was pretty fun, but the scenery really weren't all that great.

  We ate at some kooky sushi place (I had squid.... at least that's what I'm telling myself it was) and then belted out a few tunes at a kare-ohki (I still don't think I know how to spell it!) bar about ten blocks down on Ni Street. After we all got plastered (it took a whoooooole lotta sake to do it [damn is that stuff weak!]) and made complete gaijin asses of ourselves we tried our luck at one of the many pachinko parlors we found about 12 blocks further down the road. After watching those annoying little balls fall down and steal our Yen for a few hours we decided to head back to the hotel to get some sleep before the first big day.

Mulder ran past everybody as soon as we opened the door and jumped on the bed, reclaiming his territory. I'm just surprised he didn't pee on it.

  Everybody ended up staying up really late talking about who was going to get in line for which guest and who was going to see which premiere. It was fun, but one by one everybody slipped off into dreamland with visions of tiger-striped horned spirits dancing in their heads. All in all it was a good traveling day-tcha!

  

Go back to the beginning of the Traditional Expo.			Go forward into the next Oni-rific Day.

  Anyhow, after you're done with this page you can check out the UGAnime DEAD Ultimate Homepage, the Oni-chan Does L.A. and AX Page, the Catsy and Oni-chan's Wild Ride To, At and From Animazement 98 Page or the Fushigi Shin Seiki Expo 98: Catsy and Oni-chan Go To WAR!

  Neow. Also, a special thanks to everybody who answered my request for ONIcon pics! As stated before (and here again^_~), a whole lot of the pictures are from other generous people-tcha! Arrigatou mina-san!!