lilyakka
What's This??!? An UPDATE!!! OMG! 
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Hey everyone, hope you all have been doing good and keeping outta trouble. Yeah I know its been quite a while since I last updated this thing. Been really busy the past couple months between work, doing things, and the occasional bit of lazyiness. So you all probably want to know what is new, what has happened, what cons I've been to and so on. Well then let me start and take this post to new lengths. Yes this is gonna be a real big post. Hope you all enjoy the read. So lets dig back deep into my memory and start this. --=January=-- Around the end of January I ended up going to Toledo to visit Chris and Rita. It was a good weekend that was full of good fun. We did in fact go to the Toledo car show, which was fun, but it probably would have been better to go to the Detroit one that was the same weekend, Toledo's was a bit small. It was still fun and good to see the fancy cars that we all wish we could have. Always good to spend time in Toledo with friends. January also started something very special. --=February=-- February as far as I can remember at the current moment didn't have a whole lot going on. There was Valentine's Day and the Cleveland Auto Show. Those were the main events that I can recall. Valentine's was pretty special this year as it was the first with a special person. We exchanged gifts to one another and went out to a good dinner at Shinto. Always good food and good entertainment. I just want to say thank you for helping to make a memoriable Valentine's Day. The Cleveland Auto Show was really fun. The IX Center is quite a big place and there were so many good cars there. It was nice to be able to look at cars that we could normally only see at dealers or on TV, and to actually be able to sit in them and imagine what it could be like. It was a fun day and it was even more fun because we were joined by Chris, Rita, Mike and Chelsea. Groups of friends always make things more fun. --=March=-- Not a whole lot that happened in March. Basically the usual movies, hanging out, gaming, etc. Probably the best news out of March was me getting my new job. After close to a year of being out of college I finally managed to find a good one. It is a great company and everyone is really nice, it has a great work atmosphere and I'm enjoying it. Best of all it's what I went to school for and enjoy doing which makes it all the better. --=April=-- Let's see April had a few things. First off Santra's Birthday, yay! This was a special day to me and I was sure to make it a special and memorable day for her too. This special day deserved a special gift, one that took her breath away, and I was really happy from her reaction. Aside from the gifts I took her out to a really nice dinner at Steve's Dakota Grill. Really good food, and enjoyable atmosphere. She enjoyed it very much and once again I was happy because of it. I was glad that I could make her special day one of the best in memory and I look forward to many many more. The other big event was Anime Punch. YAY Convention! Below is a small con report. Anime Punch 2008 April 11-13th, Columbus, OH Friday: Ended up getting to Columbus around 8:30pm since I work until 5:30pm and have about a 30 min commute back home. The trip down was pretty fun as it was me and Santra, my brother went down earlier in the day since he had the hotel rooms to get and other people who wanted to be there for the start of the convention. We ended up walking around for a good majority of Friday evening, looking at what was going on, meeting up with friends we haven't seen in a while and checking out the game room. After a good number hours doing this we finally retired to the hotel rooms to watch a dvd, relax and then finally fall asleep. Saturday: Saturday started off a little bit late as we all just wanted to sleep in a bit. So it probably wasn't until 11am that we started getting ready and in costume. Costumes for this convention included Vicious, Uryu, and Kyoya. Some of the fun events that happened on Saturday included hours of fun in the game room, a few hours in the dealer's room, walking around, lunch, cosplay, dinner and the rave. Now for some of the details of these. The game room this year was very well setup, it had a full snack stand including Bawls, as well as a very large room with many gaming systems. They even had DDR in a small seperate room, granted the pads could have been better, but hey its still DDR. They also had Rock Band in another room down the hall with seats set up so you could preform for an audience, which was a lot of fun. The dealer room was pretty big and had a good number of choices for various items. Good dealers were there like FastFoodAnime and Anime Pavilion, always good to see their booths and see what Animes / Mangas we might want. So much stuff, not enough money .. always the case. Like any convention it's just not a con without walking around aimlessly taking pictures and just talking with people. Heck thats half the fun of the whole weekend, just getting out of normal life and being with people with similar interests. Lunch was pretty fun we ended up going with the group to Wendy's, yes in costume. It was a bit down the road and we decided to walk, so as you can guess we got some pretty funny looks on the way there, but its entertaining. After lunch it was back to the con for more walking around, gaming, vendor shopping and etc. After a bit of that we ended up going to the pool and having a good time there. After swimming it was dinner time, which was pizza ordered in from where else but Donatos. After eating we relaxed a little bit and then started getting ready for the rave. W00t glow stuff!! The rave was good fun as always and yeah we were quite tired afterward, but that wasnt until late (or early, depends how you look at it )Sunday: Sunday consisted of walking up early-ish to check out and pack the cars with the stuff. This is always the hardest part especially after rave night, but we're gradually getting better at it. After packing we walked around for a bit, did the game room some more, last minute shopping and such. Over all it was a good convention and its always sad when they come to an end and you have to go back to real life and say goodbye to all the good friends. But until next time. You can find the pictures to this con in my Links / Pictures section of my website or just follow this link: Anime Punch 2008 The final event of April was Shinboku Con. Lorain Community College's free anime convention run by their anime club. Yes its only a 1 day convention but it was pretty fun. Me and santra group cosplayed as Bleach characters Rukia and Uryu. My brother got a artists table for the first time and was selling his new buttons. That ended up working out real well for him and he made a bit of sales. As for what we did there aside from helping him out at the table was walking around, the game room and the cosplay event. It was small yes, but still fun. Not enough pictures for a gallery for this one. --=May=-- Not a whole lot going on in May either, the usual movies on the weekends and hanging out with friends and a certain someone. The only big event to talk about is the trip to the Zoo. It was a good fun trip to the zoo, Santra had never been to the Cleveland Zoo so it was nice to be able to share that with her. It was a fun day, and we spent pretty much the whole day there. You can find pictures from this trip in my Links / Pictures section, or click this link: Cleveland Zoo 08 --=June=-- The first big event of the month... my birthday!!! Yay! Santra gave me a couple presents and took me out to dinner at Sakura. It was good, surprising though that the place was so fancy but didn't have that many people there. The day prior was a evening trip to Dave & Busters, which was of course always fun. A few friends ended up coming along to aside from Santra and Family. June also had the Parma Rib & Rock Off rib festival. This was good fun and good food, a good way to spend an evening. Following this was the Strongsville Rib Burn Off, once again more fun and good food. The other big event of June was Colossalcon, check out the small con report. Cossalcon 2008 June 26-29th, Beachwood, OH Friday: Got to the convention around 7:30pm after work. Santra met us up there as she had the hotel rooms and is closer. After getting there and unpacking the car we got our group together and went to our planned dinner. We decided that we wanted our group of friends to try one of our local favorites and have a good dinner too. So we had reservations at Shinto. All I can say is it worked out real good, everyone loved it and it was so much fun. Such a great way to start off a convention weekend. After dinner it was back to the hotel. There we changed out of dinner clothes and into more comfortable clothes and started walking around. We checked out the game room, some of the panel rooms and the video rooms. There wasn't a whole lot going on that evening, but it was still fun. We spent a bit of time in the game room then ended up going back to the hotel room and relaxing with a movie / anime. Finally after a bit of time we ended up sleeping around 3am or so. Saturday: Saturday once again started off a bit later, atleast for our room, probably around 11am again. After waking up and getting ready we got into costume, costumes for this convention were: Uryu, Vicious and Jin. Yes I brought Jin out of retirement because Santra wanted to do a group cosplay with Gage in Mugen and me in my Jin. She borrowed Fuu from Marissa and it actually worked out pretty good for her, only had to pin one or two areas. Saturday consisted of lots of walking around, game room, dealers room, panels, swimming, cosplay, dinner, the rave and misc randomness. The dealers room was pretty good and like always was pretty easy to spend an hour or more in. The game room was ok, a little small but still fun, but when aren't games fun. Swimming was a lot of fun, the pool at that hotel was really nice. The split for it and how it went outside from inside was cool and it was nice to swim both indoors and outdoors. Also added bonus the hot tub was nice too. Only downside about the pool ... no towels there  oh well it was ok as we just needed to go back to the room to shower anyway. The cosplay event was good and fun like always, some ok costumes and generally a good way to break up part of the day. Dinner was in the hotel bar rather than ordering pizza or going out, it was pretty good, just wasn't that hungry. On to the main event of the night... the rave!! Once again ... w00t glow stuff!! It was a pretty good rave and we spent a good chunk of time there, eventually making our way back to the room around 3am and then watching a little tv before passing out for the night.--=Sunday=-- Sunday like any other con was waking up sorta early to checkout and pack the cars, unfortunately. After all that the day consisted of last minute vendor shopping, walking around, the game room, socializing and dinner. We always manage to find stuff in the dealer room, after spending a bit of the afternoon there sunday we moved on and walked around as well as stopping in the game room for some sessions of Guitar Hero and various other games. As always Sunday's seem to be the best day for socializing with your friends before everyone leaves and getting those last minute memories in. Dinner was a group trip to Wendy's which was a good fun way to end the con, which like always we were sad to see come to an end. Pictures for this con can be found in my Links / Pictures section or click this link: Colossalcon 08 --=July=-- The month of July had a few events, The 4th of July, Digipalooza and Ikasucon. So let me fill you in on some of the details. The 4th of July was a good weekend, that day we had a dinner cookout at home and everyone was invited to come over. The next day we had a lunch cookout and once again everyone was invited to come over. As for celebration for the 4th we went and saw fireworks in Strongsville on the 4th, on the 5th we saw fireworks at Crocker Park. All in all the fireworks were good and it was good to spend time with Santra and my family. Digipalooza is a convention that is held through my work every other year and since its local and in cleveland I decided it would be fun to attend some of the events and I was allowed to bring along guests. So that Friday evening we went to the hotel for dinner, followed by a self guided tour of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which I've never been to. Yeah go figure. It was a really good evening, it was interesting and fun. Saturday evening was another event from the convention, it was a dinner and concert at The House of Blues. Once again another place that I haven't been to, so it was a lot of fun to get to go there with Santra and share another new memory. The dinner was pretty good, yes it was buffet style, but not too bad. The concert was also pretty good considering I never heard of the group before, Donny Iris & The Cruisers. Another important event in the month was the celebration of our 6 month anniversary. I know that Santra i s always up for trying new things and always wants to have fun just like me so I was left thinking up some ideas for the day. I came up with a good idea while I was at work. The decision was to go to Swings n' Things for a good evening of fun. We left as soon as I got home from work and got there at about 6:40pm she was completely surprised because I didn't give her any hints as to where we were going. While we were there we rode the go karts, bumper boats, played in the arcade, played DDR and their laser shootout game. For dinner we got some of their pizza and then as a treat before we left we ended up getting some ice cream. All in all it was a really good evening and pretty fun. As for the other event of the month Ikasucon was fun even if we only went for one day, the other days were spent in Toledo to break up the trip and visit with friends. Here's a small weekend / con report. Friday: Arrived in Toledo around 8:30pm and decided that we would skip going to our friends place in order to make good time to our showing of Batman: The Dark Knight. So we made it to the theater in good time and met our friends there. After a little bit of waiting we got in to the actual theater and got great seats at the rails. The movie was absolutely amazing and it met all and beyond what I was expecting. After the movie we talked a little bit and then headed on to our friends place to sleep for the night. It was probably close to 3am by the time we got out of the movie and to their place so we brought our bags in changed, and chatted a bit then passed out. Ikasucon 2008 July 18-20th, Ft. Wayne, IN Saturday: Well after waking up pretty early (8am) in Toledo we left to start our trip to Indiana around (9am). We ended up arriving at the convention around 12:30pm. The trip there was pretty fun and still full of construction like last year. Oh well I still like that route better than the Turnpike. As for the run down of the day it included registration, walking around, vendor room, game room, dinner, cosplay and the rave. Registration was just as easy as it was last year, walk up, fill out an application, and bam you got a badge, no line waiting. If they were all only that easy (without pre-reg). Walking around I wanted to show Santra the place since I was there last year, it is quite a nice venue, but they still dont have the amount of people and stuff to fill it up to the fullest. The vendor room had some pretty good stuff in it and we even got some free stuff just by talking with the one guest. Yay free swag! Of course we always end up finding something in the vendor room, so after spending an hour or so in there we took our findings and put them in the car. After that we were in the game room for a good bit of time, playing Guitar Hero, a couple fighting games and DDR. Always good fun. After that Santra wanted to go visit a friend who worked just down the road, so we went to the place they worked at for our dinner. Dinner was really good and then we went across the street to a market to pick up some fun snacks for the con. After we finished up there we headed back to the hotel and went back to the game room for a bit. Eventually it was time to go to cosplay and be entertained, if it wasn't funnyness from a skit it was comments in Picto Chat or Santra and Marissa dancing. After cosplay it was more walking around and playing random stuff in the game room until it was time for the rave. Once that time hit it was time for what... more glow stuff !! We geared up and headed on into the rave, which yes was just as much fun as last years with good music and atmosphere. We danced there for a good bit of time until about 1am. Finally we headed out from the hotel and back to the car for the night trip back to Toledo. The trip was semi long at that hour, but it was much better than last years trip. We arrived back in Toledo close to 3am, at which we got back to our friends place, talked a bit, showered, and then really passed out for the night. Pictures from this con can be found under my Links / Pictures section or by clicking this link: Ikasucon 2008 Sunday: Sunday started off in the afternoon after recovering from the late night. We decided to go out to brunch with our friends at our new favorite place. Always good food. After brunch we went to a couple stores quickly and then headed back to my friends to pickup our bags and head on back home. Once again it was a good trip and a fun weekend. We really do miss our Toledo friends and it's great when we get the opportunity to go and see them. The final small item of the month was a visit to the Solon Home Days with Santra. We went and rode a couple rides and got some funnel cake, it was fun. --=August=-- Hey now we're finally up to almost current events. Phew, maybe I should not slack that much with blog posts in the future. So August has a couple of events in the month. Lets start with a fun group evening bowling. We got our group of friends together for a fun evening of bowling. Always fun and entertaining. Another big event from this month was the Tokio Hotel concert at The House of Blues. All I can really say about that night was WOW, the concert was amazing and so much fun. They put on a really good preformance and know how to get the crowd into it. Santra and I both had a really good time, and it was well worth the bit of a wait in line to get in. After the concert we went and got some late dinner. So it was a good evening and I want to go to more concerts with her for sure. Later on in the month was the next big event, Cedar Point trip! This was one fun day, we ended up really spending the whole day there and it was such a good time. We got there at about 9:40am and got into the park before they opened, so we were waiting around in the crowd, ready to rush to Top Thrill Dragster. After the Dragster we went on over to Millenium Force, following that it was over to Maverick. After the top three big rides we had our picnic lunch and then the rest of the day was hitting up all the other rides we wanted to go on that were easier to get onto since the lines weren't as long. Pictures for this day can be found in my Links / Pictures section, or follow this link: Cedar Point. The final big event of the month was the next week and actually our most recent event, Matsuricon! As always here is a small con report.Matsuricon 2008 August 22-24th, Worthington, OH Friday: Well as always I had to work Friday, so we couldn't leave for the convention until after I got home from work. So we were leaving my house around 6:30pm on our way to Worthington (Columbus basically). The road trip down was actually really fun because in the car was Santra, Justin, Conrad and myself. We ended up arriving there around 8:40pm, went in and got the hotel room and unpacked. After that we went on down, registered and walked around trying to figure out were everything was, what was going on and where people that we knew were. After walking around for a good bit we went on into the game room and spent pretty much the rest of the night there. After playing a good number of hours in the game room we went back up to our room and just wanted to relax, so we played a little bit of DS and watched some TV before crashing for the night. Saturday: Saturday started off a little bit slow and later, but it was some deserved sleep. I don't get to sleep in much anymore, so generally any chance that I can I try to, at least for a bit. So after we finally woke up we decided that we wanted to go out for breakfast. The group decision was to go to Waffle House, so out we went to go find the Waffle House. Good thing I have a phone with internet, yay Google maps. So on the trip there we were about 5 minutes or so from the place I ended up seeing a Marie Scramblers in the side plaza, instantly I changed lanes and said "oh we are so going there!", it is our new favorite place for breakfast food, I just wish there was one somewhere close here at home. After breakfast, which was very good, we got back to the hotel and split up, Santra and myself went to the room to get into cosplay and Justin and Conrad went to the game room and then met us again. Our cosplays for the day were our Bleach characters, Rukia and Uryu. We walked around a little bit and then headed straight for the vendors room to see what we could find. After spending a good chunk of time there we took our purchases back up to the room and headed back down to walk around, look at stuff, converse with friends and finally went back to the game room. Futher on in the day we ended up going to the Maid Cafe, which was supposed to be a fun lunch with some anime worthy choices. The menu consisted of drink choice (Water, Pop, Hot Tea, Milk or Milk Tea), entree coice (Steamed Pork Bun or Chicken Ramen), and finally dessert choice (Cheesecake or Chocolate Cake). So we made our choices, Santra had the milk tea, pork bun and chocolate cake (because they were out of cheesecake). I had the hot tea, ramen and chocolate cake (because is there anything else ). The food was a little less than good, sorta figured as it was all frozen stuff, except for the cake. It was still fun, but I wouldn't recommend it for it's cost unless they got a bit better quality food. After that we walked around a bit more and then went to the Cosplay event. The cosplay was fairly entertaining and took up some time. After cosplay we went and walked around a little and then headed up to the room to change into swimwear to go to the pool. Conrad joined us at the pool, we took along the beach ball of course and started vollying it around as usual. Eventually a couple came to the pool and asked us if we wanted to play a game, so we all decided on playing water tag, which turned out to be a ton of fun. After a good bit of time (which we lost track of) we decided that we needed to get back to the room to shower, order pizza for dinner and relax / get ready for the rave. After dinner we sat around watching TV for a bit and then started getting ready for the RAVE!! Woot rave! Of course we had glow stuff too. The rave was fun, but it was surely not one of the best that I've been to. The music was a little bit too repetitive and the crowd was actually pretty small. Outside of that it was a bit too bright in the room, yeah I know they had the projector on the ceiling and wated the water tables in the back sorta lit, but I think they could have done those a bit better. After dancing for a good number of hours we finally decided it was time to head on back to the room, where we watched a little bit of TV to relax and then passed out.Sunday: Sunday started off quite slow, yes I had to wake up semi early to check out of the room and start packing, which I did and the other guys woke up too, but then that left Santra to wake up. This generally takes a bit of time, but thats normal and to be expected. Eventually after we were all up and got the car all packed up we were in costume (Rukia, and Kyoya) and headed on down. We walked around a little bit and headed on into the vendor room to see if we could find any last day deals or any items that we might have missed. After that we walked around a bit more and then spent the good majority of the rest of the convention in the game room. We took a slight break from the game room and had a little small lunch of left over pizza. After they finally started closing things down and the game room got closed we waited around and played a bit of DS before heading on into Closing Ceremonies. Finally around 5:40pm we decided it was time to head on our and start the trip back home, but we had one more stop. Our final stop was meeting Megan for dinner at Applebees in Mansfield. This was good fun and it was great to see her again, yeah we all just hung out the weekend before, but it's still always fun to be with friends. After dinner we continued the trip on back home and arrived around 9pm. It was quite a fun weekend and even though the convetion wasn't the greatest for events it was still a good weekend get away. Of course pictures for this can be found in my Links / Pictures section or follow this link: Matsuricon 2008 So that pretty much wraps up all the news that I had to share on what's been going on in my life since my last update, yes I know crazy huge blog post and you all are probably ready to either fall asleep or gouge your eyes out, but hey you made it to the end so that's good . The last little bit of news that I want to mention is the website updates include new picture galleries for all the events that have happend. Maybe sometime here shortly I may start another new AMV ... maybe .. I need a good idea. Anyways thank you all for reading and remember leave me comments! Until the next update, -=lilyakka=- |
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