Ahh, another year... another run of my favorite local event, YasumiCon. And... another... hurricane. This year's special guest was the feeder pattern of Dennis, a category four storm. Yes, for unknown reasons, YasumiCon has developed some kind of peculiar hurricane magnetism. Last year, we were waiting until the last minute to see if we'd be smacked by a storm called Charlie, one of a trio to absolutely DESTRUCTION PANCAKE southeast and central Florida. Yet again, we had a near miss... so we let the festivities roll!

As a result of our metereological track record, we were joking that we should change the name to Hurricon. The name's already in use by another event, though... so we may be looking for an alternate. As I mentioned above, Cyclonecon sounds neat, but I'm too lazy to Google it right now and find out if it's still unique.

Anyway... the con opened at 10 AM, to rather slim attendance. I was kind of afraid it'd wind up being an even smaller event than it already is, but more people started coming in at 10:30. Visitors had to put up with some interesting road conditions on the way in; trees, powerlines, traffic lights, and any other objects that had once been elevated high in the air had been released from their bounds and allowed to partake in gravitational acceleration towards the ground upon which they then lay.

Eventually, there were enough people around to mostly fill the room at the opening ceremonies. . The next event up was the overflow showing for the AMV contest, which began a bit late after technical difficulties. Excuse me while I shake my fist in the general direction of a certain operating system coded at an entrance to hell in Redmond, Washington. All went well once some technical difficulties were sorted out, though the audio wasn't all that great. That is to say... it was horrible, and I'm going to try to talk to the Graham Center A/V staff about possibly improving the system for any future events that take place in the ballrooms.

There was, of course, the ever-popular sushi demonstration, which is just as delicious an event as it is educational! Bring on the sticky rice!

Speaking of delicious and edible objects, Josh discovered the elusive Multipocky, a species previously only assumed, but not proven, to exist. This particular one had a green tea flavoring, and had apparently lost some pieces of breadstick in brutal confrontation other members of its litter. The results of these battles are quite sad...

The dealers' room was amazingly busy, so I didn't spend all that much time in there... but it did seem to house a wide selection of nifty things.

Much fun, excitement, and action could be found up in the gaming room. There were a variety of different tournaments and games running, both card games and console video games. The new Naruto fighting game, in particular, looked absolutely sweet.

Aside from one instance of rather bad singing, the cosplay contest was really great as well. You're just going to have to go check out the pictures of this yourself, as I would otherwise clutter this page horribly. The costume contest was really neat as well. Go see the pictures already!

A great performance was seen from Fushu Daiko, a taiko drum group from Boca Raton. During their performance, they invited some random people from the audience to come up and play along with them! The youngest of their group wasn't on stage with them for the performance, but he's certainly ready to play along! He was playing air drums during the performance, and was very sad when it was over. (Awwww.)

The costume and cosplay contests were great, with excellent performances (one instance of rather bad singing aside) and great costumes by all. I didn't try to take many photos of the cosplayers, as William from AGA was already taking photographs of them in a studio set up outside! Avast, Here be a link to the gallery of his photos!

Piano Squall and Select Start, our musical guests for the evening, rocked the house with the wonders of videogame music. Select Start told us that there are actually classes to study the creation of videogame music over in Japan. I do wonder if there are any videogame music majors out there? It wouldn't surprise me... it takes great artistic skill to arrange and compose the lietmotif for games to set the mood.

Finally, the night ended with a rave party in the ballrooms. I have some pictures from it, but they're still sitting in my camera, and probably a bit blurry. They shall appear here eventually.

Random shiny things: Sarah and Edwin made cookies, muffins, and pie for the staff and dealers. I spotted some people with nifty Dollfies... and a guy they had dragged into the task of carrying them around. Bwahahaha. More to come should my mind come up with any particularly interesting memories of such.

Special thanks to AGA, Wasabi Anime, Anime Fury Studios, the staff of Kunicon, and all who helped make Yasumicon happen! Yep, we wouldn't be there without you, and wouldn't nearly be having as much fun. ^^

Links to stuff! Yasumicon site. William's photos, and my photos from the con. The true meaning of live, the universe, and everything.

This is not a duck. It is a link to one page up in my disordered system of navigation.