Was one of THE BEST cons I’ve been do. This was my third Otakon and easily the one I’ve had the most fun at. We only did one panel (cosplaying 101), saw none of the voice actors, but I DID get to see Yoko Kanno in concert!!! TMRevolution also had a concert, but the line was CRAZY long and it was out in the sun so we decided to skip it.

I also had probably one of the best meals ever, and it was in a converted townhouse that was dimly lit, kinda dingy, and was served by the cutest Vietnamese family ever. I’ve heard my friend rave and hype this place up for two years and we were finally able to go this year. When they told us it was small, they weren’t kidding. Literally, picture the average size of a townhouse in the city, take the living room, and add maybe 10 small tables in it for diners. That was the dining room. The kitchen was just your average kitchen with a giant restaurant stove shoved in there. When we first walked in, I had a moment of panic. Like oh shit, this place is going to burn to the ground or something. But you know what? it was fucking FANTASTIC. We got beef lemongrass summer rolls to start, and these things were gigantic. HUGE HUGE HUGE. It was crazy, I could have just eaten 320948320498 of those. We also found out that Fancy is one of those people who cannot stand Cilantro, which explains a lot.

So we’re all (there were four of us) digging into our rolls when I look over and Fancy has torn his apart and is just eating the beef out of it. I ask whats wrong and he said it had a weird taste to it that he couldn’t place. Our friend K gets a look on her face and asks if he likes cilantro, to which he replies he has no idea. So she tells him to take a bite of one of the leaves on his plate, and the face he makes is both hilarious and kind of awe-inspiring. So she grabs the waiter and asks if we can take the cilantro off his plate and yeah, sure, no big. But at least now we know why he doesn’t like Mexican food either! But it worked out, I just got to finish off his roll!

I got a country chicken with vermicelli noodles. It was very plain, but fucking delicious. I don’t know what they did to it, but it was more than just breaded/pan friend chicken and noodles. It didn’t SEEM like there was anything else going on, but there had to have been because SO freaking good. It also came with a fish sauce to pour over, and when I first heard fish sauce it kind of scared me, because I was thinking of the really stinky dirty-vagina smelling sort. But this was kinda sweet. And delicious. Omnomnomnom. So good. And for four of us for dinner plus two things of apps it was only like, $45. We left $60some on the table for them because it was just so crazy good. It’s not far from where I live, so I told Fancy we’ll have to go there again.

Also? Yoko Kanno was AMAZING. I’ll admit it, I teared up. She was promoting her Piano Me project, and it was just superb. And she was probably the most adorable person I’ve ever seen. She came out in bunny ears and no shoes. I wanted to take her home. And she kept apologizing for her english, when I’m fairly sure it was probably better than some peoples in the audience. She played Gravity from Wolf’s Rain, which I didn’t even know she DID, so when everybody started to sing real soft, she kept making the most adorable hand motions/facial expressions, trying to get us to sing louder. Just so cute. And she played The Real Folk Blues, which was hilarious because we only really knew the lyric “the real folk blues!” and kinda only half knew the Japanese part, so there was a lot of mumbled singing which she was encouraging. And she played Tank! TWICE! It was fantastic. And amazing. And I’d so pay a shit ton of money to see a full set from her.

Also, there was some fucking ADORABLE kid cosplays. Like this baby Gohan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyMle1jMV0E

There was also a baby!Link which I can’t find a picture of now. And also THIS AWESOME LADY:

I wanted her to be my grandma.

The awesome beef lemongrass rolls:

My country chicken thing:

Fancy and Myself, after dinner, in a delicious food coma:

So, my evil hell bitch of a future mother in law (oh yes, oh yes THAT has started already) was leading us to believe that Fancy’s sister was LIVID/PISSED/PLOTTING MY MURDER for not asking her to be a bridesmaid. This sister was currently doing last minute studying for the bar exam, so obviously I couldn’t ask about it.

Finally got back with me, and not only is she NOT planning my murder, but she feels like she did super duper awesome on the bar! Hurrah!

We met with out new coordinator today! She’s kind of super awesome, AND gave us cupcakes. Which, lets be honest, if you’re going to win your way into my heart, cupcakes are the way to go.

Otakon is next weekend, so we’ve been gearing up for that, because we’re nerds. And by gearing up I mean watching a ton of anime lately. I’m currently marathoning Gosick. It’s good!

I… had cereal for dinner? I wanted mexican, like, one of those places where nobody speaks English and your 2 years of high school spanish really isn’t helping you except to pronounce pollo correctly, so you just point to the menu. But I’ve yet to find one. We have a ton of thai/indian/south american places around here, which I just find to be an odd combo, but no good mexican. Unless we’re counting Taco Bell or Chipotle, which we’re not.

Well, the best thing about xanga NOT dying is that I get to continue to blog about wedding shit. I’m sure all three of you are very, very excited about this.

So. The hotel we booked for the wedding was sold. Guess who told me: NOT THE HOTEL. My photographer/florist/dj told me. Yeah. My fucking vendors had to break that news to me. So I email my coordinator at the hotel a few times with no response, but honestly this isn’t surprising. He NEVER responds to shit until I threaten to call his manager.

Today at work, a lady came up giving out pamphlets for something and I was honestly only half listening until she said she was from my Hotel. They were doing an open house in a couple weeks and were inviting the community to come check it out and see what they have planned, renovation wise. Needless to say, I perked up. I start asking her some things, she assures me everything is fine for my wedding and it’ll all be the same… so I ask about the coordinator. Apparently, he hasn’t been with the company for a few weeks now. I have a new coordinator, and nobody fucking bothered to tell me. So she took my name and number and she said the new girl would be getting back with me. I told Fancy I’d give her until end of day tomorrow, and if no response I’d call the hotel.

Well, she called me right as I was leaving work: and I think we’re going to love her!! She said they had been working on the files and trying to get in touch with everybody. Gave me some brief history (used to be a full time wedding planner! Loves this shit!) and we set up a meeting for saturday to meet in person and talk stuff over. I was telling her how much trouble we had with the previous guy, and she said she had heard that from ALL the brides she had talked to. So at least it wasn’t just us. Apparently the guy had no background in weddings (and honestly, I could tell) and really was just using that as a stepping stone to something else, which is a shame.

But this girl was funny and nice and honestly seemed interested. The phrase she used was “I promise I’ll act like you actually have a wedding with us” which is the truth. The dude never did. You could tell he thought you were bothering him every time. So hopefully this works out for us in the end. I figure it will.