I've come to the realization that I love getting free stuff. Back in the day, it was all about the free food. Anywhere there was free food, I was there. I remember that fateful day when Dave ask me "Hey Jerry, want do some catering for the Wharton graduation?" Of course, this meant that I could get free food as well while being paid. Towards the end of the catering, I noticed that there were still many trays of food that hadn't been touched yet. I forgot exactly who I asked about what's going to happen to the food, but I remember this person told me that they were plainly going into the trash. "What the fuck?" I said to myself. Obviously, I hadn't come quite prepared to handle a such a situation; the free food overwhelmed these greedy hands of mine. And so they were lost to the wasteful bowels of the garbage dump. And so I says to Dave: "Dave, we need to be more prepared next year. We need Magnum Tupperware!" (The modifier "Magnum" hadn't yet been introduced into our venacular, but the point is still valid) Dave, in response to my statement, gives the usual "Agreed!" Thus, a plan was born.

Over the next several month, we planned this next catering venture out like there was no tomorrow; working day and night, even into the wee hours of the night, or so we'd like to think but everything was really conceived the day before the actual job came around. Armed with a duffel bag full of gladware and the prospect of no Nishant, we set off at the crack of dawn. To make a long story short, lest this become a Skabla story where the history of the world eventually is retold, we hauled a shitload of food this included a slab of smoked salmon (which is still sadly in my freezer to this day). (Poor Salmon. You'll serve your purpose some day.)

I learned a great lesson that day - if it's free, it's for me. This year's Otakon boasted a bountiful harvest with Bandai's T-shirts. I'd like to say that Bandai definitely won me over this year. It didn't really require much effort in aqcuiring the shirts, but it did require much patience if you were unfortunate enough to file in line when the line was long. The key part to this whole scheme is the fact that you have to be there when the dealer's room opened. The window of opportunity lies within the first half hour. However, a line will typically have generated hours before it opens so getting in might take you a good ten minutes. Nevertheless, that's 20 minutes that you can rape and pillage. By rape and pillage, I really mean get a good spot in line.

So this is what I did.

The result: A .hack//Outbreak shirt and a Witch Hunter Robin shirt. The Outbreak shirt was from playing a grunty race in .hack//Mutation, which ended up being a most infuriating experience due to that guy blurting out plot spoilers for shows I haven't seen. Another one of those cockgrubers spoil plot while I'm around, they're getting the fist of doom. Meanwhile, the Witch Hunter Robin shirt was from watching a screener of Bandai's present and upcoming releases. I actually enjoyed viewing the screener because it was well done. My second time around wasn't quite as pleasing unfortunately. I remember Dave telling me legends of "anime fans that scream out when they announce something that they like," and then I run into them. (Hindu warrior?! Sadly, no) How nice. Nothing ruins a good atmosphere than people being outwardly joyful. I mean c'mon people! Keep it to yourself and keep your pants on while you're at it! Ahem... Of course the posters weren't hard to get as always. What really did it for me is ADV's ingenius poster carrier plastic bag. This was a godsend. Whoever made this is my hero. Not only did it relieve the stress and strains on the arm (ha HA! engineering joke... nobody gets it... I'm going to shut up now), it effectively made travelling an assload better by having the mutant ability of wearability. Serving not only as a poster bag, the inner cylinder hollowed out by the rigid posters made it possible for it to serve as a T-shirt holder. This unholy combination could not have been any more perfect; the T-shirt core reinforced the posters which gave them a backbone of support that made them able to combat the number enemy of posters - the crushability and fudge factor. It was like a dream...

So back at the ADV panel, they were raffling off this car (or were they?). Naturally, I filled out an entry form. 'What the hell's so interesting about that?', you say. The fucking pens, that's what! Dave and Bare called them space pens. I, on the other hand, was thoroughly amazed at the little contraption. Having the ability to be worn while being half the size of a normal pen, this little sucker had magnum firepower while keeping everyone guessing. Don't be fooled by its palm-sized appearance; it can pack a punch. One time I was playing around with it and then.. and then it almost took my finger off with it's lightning quick clip recovery time. I originally planned to grab a bunch on sunday morning but I forgot so I ended up with two...

Speaking about that sunday morning, they fucking ran out of the .hack//Quarantine shirts! I'm very mad about this. It was poor tactical planning on my part because I didn't get there early enough. And to add insult to injury, they also ran out of Scryed (or s-cry-ed if you prefer whatever the hell that's suppose to be, why the shit is it spelled like that anyway?!) T-shirts. But I bought the box set and the guy gave me a T-shirt so I was happy. I certainly wasn't going to let Heather out match me on that. I would've killed for it...

Overall, this year's Otakon was better than last year due to the quality of the free stuff that I got. I can only hope that next year's Otakon will merit the same amount awesomeness and quality, if not more. Until then, it'll be Philly for now... Cya then.

(If you want my opinion I think a whole bunch of T-shirts is a fucking waste of time. But I'm not from a group of islands where they eat dog stuffed with rice)