It all began on Thursday, July 3rd, nineteen ninety seven, at eight in the morning.  I was awakened by the clanging on my cell door by the club web-crawler, Spidey (aka The Rossman, aka Rául), who was bringing me my usual breakfast of cold grits and orange peelings.  It was at that moment that I knew that my time for freedom had come!  I knew that they might be able to take my life, but UGAnime would never take my freedom!!! (Braveheart is my favorite movie ^_-)

As soon as he opened the barred door I jumped him! What a wimp. I mean, he didn't even try to put up a fight.  Maybe he felt sorry for me and thought that I truly needed to run free in the meadows and swamps like a real Oni, or maybe it was because I kicked him as hard as I could in the family jewels....Who knows?

Anyway, when I searched his now cold carcass I found a paid ticket to Anime Expo 1997 in LA along with a round trip ticket from Atlanta to LAX.  It was at this time that I knew I had a mission.....I had to crash America's biggest Anime bash and take no prisoners!!!!!!  The bloodfest would soon begin!

I boarded the plane in Atlanta and we took off at 12:10 p.m. EST.  This stupid, fat and ugly human sat next to me with her three smelly and noisy kids, and guess what?  She had never flown before.  Wanna know how I know?  Because she pointed it out to me with every bump and shimmy that the plane took!  Jeez!  I mean, I could have (and should have) just flown there by myself.  God gave me wings for a reason, and it must have been to avoid bad situations like this. But it was too late now.  I had to sit through it and suffer silently, for if I rose a ruckus, they might have sent me back.  I was sure that Mulder and Scully were on my trail as I sat there munching on the fat lady's peanuts and children. (To make matters worse, the movie during the flight was Jungle 2 Jungle!!)

The plane landed in California at 1:35 p.m. PST (Cool, huh? I only lost an hour and twenty minutes!).  I fought my way off the flying deathtrap and beat up a couple of "I hate life, so I hate you" flight attendants on the way out.  Let me tell you what the greatest feeling in the world is.  It's getting off of a plane and walking into a different airport than the one that you came from!  I just stood there and soaked up the California air for five to ten minutes.  Then, when my lungs had turned a nice "blackish" color, I decided to move on.

I got my luggage and found a van that went directly to the Hilton where my reservation awaited me. It was just down the street from the airport, so it only took about six minutes to drive there.  When we pulled up to the front gate the driver opened the door and made a big show of how he struggled to carry my suitcase to the front door (the Rossman's body was heavy, no doubt about it, but I could have done it no problem).  When he held out his hand to give me five for his accomplishment I just swished my hand up in a cool "too slow" manuever. He never saw it coming, what a dork!

I then went to the front desk and demanded my room.  I guess that they never saw an Oni before because a lot of talking went on after that (Something about "horns", and "blood on hands" and such).  By this time I was getting tired and just wanted my room, so a few well-placed punches and death threats later I was on my way up to room 636 (I tried hard to get "the Beast", but to no avail).  

Something funky smelled in my room, and the bed wasn't made yet.  I was mad! The Rossman was paying good money for this room and it was a complete and smelly mess!  I called down to the front desk and then the maids' office and ordered them to clean it up (Lucky I know more than one language), while I slipped down to the pool and showed off my perfect lil' body to all the adoring California muscle machines.

The pool was glorious!  I hadn't gone swimming since I was a free little Demoness so many years ago.  I laid out for about two hours and decided that I should maybe find somebody or thing to eat.  It was then that I found heaven!  A place called Carl's Jr.  It was everything I could ever want in real food!  Burgers twice the size of Mickey D's (and 10Xs as tasty), fries that filled your plastic tray, and an unlimited drink bar!!!!!  I vowed never to eat at another place as long as I lived (or until I left LA, whichever came first).

This is Carl's Jr. (right next to the hostel, I mean hotel!).  I stayed here more than in my room!

After a cheap and very filling extra-value meal of some-sort of jalepeno burger I decided to take a nap or something before prereg. It was now around 5p.m.  I got back to my room (finally clean, but the smelly smell was still in the air) and crashed for an hour.  I watched a little bit of Independence Day on HBO before I went downstairs to see when the line for preregistration was going to begin....It had.  It was only six o'clock and the line already went down the hall and around the corner (easily three hundred people)!  Iquickly cut in line and made some new friends/enemies.  Boy do fanboys stink!  I thought that it was only UGAnime guys. 

These are some friends from Hawaii that I met while in many a line.  We learned to save places for eachother early.

The line grew and grew behind me until finally, at 7:45p.m. (15 minutes early, yay!) the line began to move and many cheers were heard.  After getting the Rossman's prereg package, I put on my AX 97 pin and went around plugging UGAnime as best I could (sure they kept me a political prisoner for years, but I still love the gang, even the deceased Rossman).  I even talked to some people from some magazines 'bout how we're the coolest club in the South and such, but apparently nobody ever listens to a little Oni with pink hair and a tail, 'cause I never read anything about us in any magazine that covered the con.  Morons!  I guess that something as cool as us just goes way over the average fanboy's head.

Good job, boys!  Type it like you mean it! The Preregistration line took two hours to get through according to some irrate conners.

At around 10:30p.m. I decided that I'd had enough shmoozing and better crash so that I could get up early the next day.  The con had only just begun^_^

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