So the trip started Wednesday night when Gollum came to get me. We went back to his house in Connecticut (yeah only 2 hrs) for the night where he fixed my laptop since Windows corrupted something that wouldn't allow me to actually get onto the internet despite the fact that my wireless card said that the connection was fine. Anyway, after that we went to bed. The next day when Xellos got out of school we headed out to Boston.

It was Xellos's first time at the convention (I went last year) so I was so happy that it was such a good time. When we finally got to the Sheraton (another 3 hour trip from Connecticut) we got our room and went to the nonexistent pre registration line and got out tags. Then we went to the food court to grab some dinner before wandering Boston a bit.

Boston is such a cool looking city. I love cities anyway, but Boston has one of those energetic feels to it that I can't get enough of it seems.

Anyway, after walking for a little bit we decided to head back to the hotel for some rest and a little TV.

The next day was the start of the convention, bright and early. So we headed out around 9:15 or so (it was so nice not to have to get up at the crack of dawn to get to the Hynes) and got some breakfast and a little cosplay watch out before opening ceremonies. It was a good time; we got some neat pictures of some cool costumes.

Let's see after opening ceremonies we headed over to the dealers room where I picked up four of my missing Chrono Crusade disks (I did grab the rest of the set by the end of the convention). Then we did some ADV sneak peak, where we saw a super cute show called Nanaka 6/17 that I liked a lot and David (the ADV rep) getting super annoyed at their legal department for not allowing him to show the other shows he wanted to show, and some other panels before heading back to the room for a little bit to watch some of the Chrono Crusade (starting from episode one since Xellos hadn't seen it) and relax. ADV's panel ended up being kinda neat because they did an impromptu question and answer session with Greg Ayres (he works primarily for them and Funimation) helping out because legal wouldn't give them the okay to do the other show.

After relaxing we did some more panels that night, including Who's Line is it Anime? which was funny but you could tell it was running a bit too long. We could tell that the voice actors were getting bored.

After watching the AMV overflow videos until about 3:00 in the morning we headed back to the room for the night. Although in-between I did pop into the dance for a moment to hear a little of Greg Ayres DJ set, and God do I wish we had DJs like him back in Oswego!

After a less than good nights sleep (I hate insomnia, but hey what are you gonna do... live with it if your me) we got up even brighter and earlier the next day (I think it's Saturday but everyone knows I have no concept of date and time) to get to the Funimation Breakfast with Negima panel. After a while waiting in line (the panel started way later than it was supposed to due to lack of unlocking the doors and such, or so it seemed) we got to sit in the second row for the panel, because we were so far up in the line (I think there was a whopping 6 people in front of us). Let me just say that Negima seems like it will be so cool. I had read the first graphic novel for it and it already seemed my style (10 year old kid wizard who gets placed in a teaching job at an all girls junior high school.... hilarious) but I was amazed because the anime came out fantastic (including one of my favorite voice actors, Greg Ayres, doing a voice that does not sound like him at all solidifying my belief that he is incredibly talented).

After the breakfast panel we stayed for the Greg Ayres and Carrie Savage panel (well we left and went right back in for it anyway) which was amusing though a little annoying because they cut it 30 minutes short due to the fact that Funimation started so late, but it was still nice to hear them talk about all of the stuff that they have worked on and such. Carrie Savage seems so sweet and nice. A director was also in the panel named Johnathan Klein. It's upstairs somewhere in the program... anyway he was cool too, though he seemed super familiar like I had seen him before or something.

Lets see, after that I believe we hit dealers room again and I got the rest of Chrono (which was awesome... first series collected... SWEET) and did some food getting before heading to Funimation's Industry panel where they announced a new show named Beck which sounds interesting. All about music and how it makes a teenager grow up in a lot of ways, totally my style.

Okay after the Funimation panel was totally awesome. They showed off the new Negima box which is awesome looking and I totally want it (and will get it in August when it comes out), well at the end of the panel Greg Ayres who was in the audience headed up to the stage to look at the box... and Gollum and I headed up there after a few minutes once Funimation was done to look at the box from below the stage. I headed over to Greg to tell him that the box looked awesome and such because I had heard from various people and well, himself at the last Anime Boston, that he was really a big fan of Anime and he seemed so excited about it and all. Anyway, so I went over and talked to him for a moment about it (you could tell he was super excited) and people came over to ask him to sign stuff (very typical it seems at these conventions). He said that he wasn't allowed to (I assumed because of the other panel that was heading in for Applegeeks) and Gollum asked semi-quietly (I assume considering) if he could meet us outside then. He said that he needed to talk to the Funimation people but he would try to meet us outside after that.

Totally stellar. So we went out and waited for like 5 minutes. And sure enough he came out and signed our DVDs for us. Totally sweet of him because he said that they really weren't supposed to do that in the hall either (in fact he kind of looked around and was like, we need to do it kind of quick so that no one really sees). Then to add to it he stayed and had a good 30-40 minute conversation with the little group of us (there were 5 all together) about a couple of things. It started about Chrono Crusade because I had him sign my first DVD and he had met the creator last year at Anime Boston (who was really nice sounding although I missed out on meeting him last year, but Greg had some great stories about him and a picture he showed us on his cellphone and ended up about fan-subbing and how against it he is (which I can't blame him since it seems to be a big problem for companies in Japan who are going under because of the Anime being put out there for free). It was so cool and he was super nice and super sweet. Plus the other girls standing with us were really cool as well. One, Megan, drew his character Negi from Negima and had it signed. She had other drawings (some of originals some of non original characters) that she showed to me and they were awesome. She said that she had wanted to be in Artist Alley this year (where they allow all the artists to come and sell their stuff) but it sold out in something ridiculous like 5 minutes or something so she didn't get a spot. But she was really cool. The other girl Carry was nice as well, but to be honest I was so impressed with Megan that I talked to her more than Carry after Greg had left.

So yeah... that was total highlight of the convention for me because I absolutely love Greg Ayres. I think he is totally talented and he has a great reputation of treating his fans really well, not to mention he does major roles in my 2 favorite Animes. Anyway...

After that incredible experience we headed out to Wendy's to get dinner, since it was almost 9:30. Then wandered a little again (everyone who knows me knows that I can barely sit still anyway a lot of times much less when I meet someone that I really admire and they are super nice to me and the people I'm with). After the wandering we headed back to the hotel and watched some more Chrono Crusade (we made it through almost 2 discs while we were on the trip) before getting ready to head back to the convention and hit the video game room and the dance (I made Gollum promise me that we could hang at the dance at least one of the nights and hear Greg Ayres spin... totally worth it by the way because he was awesome!).

The dance was so cool. It was rave style, but that didn't bother me. We were there the entire time that Greg Ayres was on the stage DJing (just as we had promised him when we talked to him) and it was super fun and so awesome. He played a lot of stuff with the heavy bass beat that is really easy to dance to including The Eurhythmics (I think that's how it’s spelled) "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These" and the popular DDR song "Sandstorm" (or as Greg called it the hokey-pokey) along with a bunch of others that I recognized and liked a lot. It was so much fun. I stayed out there the whole hour he was Djing without even realizing it until he said that his set was up into the mic. That was when I realized that if I didn't get some water I was prolly going to pass out so we made it over to the water tanks (best idea ever to provide ice cold water at a hopping dance much less everywhere else.... total props Anime Boston staff). As we were over there we decided that we should head back to the hotel room and get some rest so that we could get up early enough to get out tomorrow without a terrible trouble. I wanted to be back to good ol' Troy in time for my older brother's wedding shower (and his fiancee's obviously).

So that is where the weekend ended.... ears ringing we headed back upstairs to our room and went to bed. Got up the next day, packed back up and headed back to the dealers room one final time (where Gollum bough a copy of Nanaka 6/17) and headed out (a bit early actually 11:15) to home.

One last thing to talk about.... since I forgot when it was.... The Chibi Project...

The Chibi project is an Anime Boston thing that was started by Patrick (the con's head). It all started when a friend of his gave him this little doll which he called Chibi Moon and said that she didn't care what he did with it he could destroy it if he wanted to. Little did they realize what that statement would mean. They did several tests on Chibi Moon including running her over with a T train, microwaving her, sawing her, running her over with a car and shooting her in the face with the tail end of a rocket. Then Patrick decided that it was a little unfair to take out all of his aggressions on Chibi Moon. So he found other anime toys to destroy, including a Pikachu and a Megaman toy as well as several sailor moon dolls and a few others. It was really funny to attend. They had video footage of all of the tests and it was hilarious. Then they asked for suggestions for the future. Hehehe