So, so. Another convention and I suppose another year over.

Regardless of what happens GenCon is a unique experience for me being the only current consistent Brisbane convention I've attended and been able to see the many, many wonderful people up there. I'm gonna do my best to go to Brisnova next year so that I can attend an event up there without having to run around the entire time.

I arrived late on Thursday evening with , after our flight from Sydney was cancelled and the subsequent flight delayed by nearly an hour D: So we ended up getting to our hotel by 11pm or something and were delighted to find out that in Bizarro Brisbane, Coles closes at like 5pm on Fridays and weekends, so basically I just grazed on snacks that were there and some convenience store food. That was when we met who i was sharing a room with and Justin (who i don't know if he still doesn't want people finding his dA account ). We stayed up til like 5am that night writing questions for the events and making powerpoints for them with Greg there helping make them HILARIOUS (at the time)

Then we had to get up like two hours later (I'm not certain I slept). So Rob, Justin and I left and I packed Kaito to change into later. Setup the booth and stuff and began to meet people - I'm not completely certain of everyone that came on Friday, but as I arrived was there as well as Jarod and . All three of them were of untold help during the weekend. I will be the first to admit that in advance of GenCon I did little preparation other than give other people all the details of how I did things last time. I just didn't have the time to be as hands on as I did before with much more to worry about in Sydney, so to have more help and people who were smart, capable and professional was a dream. Anyway, so yeah - Friday happened, we had Chess, Gameshow, Geek Trivia and the Karaoke sessions - all seemed to go pretty well.

That night I went out for dinner with my family from Brisbane which was wonderful and then went home and promptly fell asleep while everyone worked around me... =/ Sorry guys.

The next day I clawed my way out of bed when panicked phone calls came through and rushed in with Marth in my backpack and got in and went out to do some printing then got changed into Marth and scored the Trivia with . Then she went off to organise Chess and I went downstairs and met and . Oh my god that White Rabbit is amazing in person Sabina and Jem ... Officer Jenny whrlgllabao /so awesome/. Anyway, so I went about organising the people to jump in the second round of Chess and in the process also met - MISS CHEN, (at this point I'm gonna stop bothering finding peoples accounts), Curt, Casey, Crystal, Chris, Jasmines #1 & 2, Shaye, Aven, Allira, Bryan, Ben, Shona, Jemima, Rei, Annee, Robyn & Dale (who it took me half the day to realise it was them), Amber, Nicole, and of course Sly and co as well as many others who I'm sorry I'll add as I remember.

I ended up stripping out of Marth just cause it was impossible to do marshalling and stuff in that outfit. Cosplay went pretty well in my opinion, I thought the standard was excellent and I think everyone had a great time. I'm sorry about the stage it was a bit fail but we had no idea it would be done like that =/. Congratulations to all the winners and my thanks to the three wonderful judges. I think, and I hope I'm right that were getting the right mix of casual fun going, cause everyone seems to get along and just have fun and I enjoy the ability for people to be diverse in their series choice for costume. I know people had a choice to make this day and I sincerely thank everyone who decided to come and participate in the GenCon comp and overall event. With your support it can continue to grow and become the convention that suits you, it won't remain stale and repetitive. I'm assured next year you won't have to make a choice, but this year has given me confidence in both the Brisbane community and the GenCon organisers ability to invest in a convention that is both fun, accessible and fresh for cosplayers and fans.

My highlight of the day was that there was a freakin' Guybrush Threepwood cosplayer. I couldn't help being excited about that and wanted to tell him more about how awesome it was. In Chess he killed someone by saying, "I've been meaning to tell you this for years - You Fight Like A Cow!" Then he got killed by a Jedi or Sith or something and screamed out "LucasArts characters stick together!" I think at that point I had just died and gone to Heaven

So that night I went home to find in my hotel room. Ohohoh. Well he was with Tsubaki . I had a shower and we headed off to dinner and I was commenting on how the night before my cousin told me how big this hairdresser guy Stefan was in Queensland (whereas he's kinda unknown to me or us in Sydney) and we were laughing and freaked out by how this hairdresser dude become such a mogul and it turned out we were going to eat at a restaurant he owned. This place freaked me out - it was some crazy retaurant-food court hybrid. Tsubaki and I were just staring around confused at the counters and stuff. We had dinner and and came (HOOT HOOT). They had dinner on the proper table though.

That night Rob and I helped Tsubaki with some costume things and we came up with some Olympics stuff with Justin. Man its funny the shapes you make when you get to think about it and are very tired

Next morning I got up late again somehow - my phone was retarded this morning. Not only did the alarm not work, it didn't register any calls in the morning. Anyway I eventually got up and took Plum and got in and put the rest on there, meeting Sabina, Jem and Robyn as I changed. Mannnnnnn. The Cluedo Girls were AWESOME. You guys all looked stunning! It was epic fun to run around with them with my rope and pipe and being all gentlemanly.

So, we got Olympics going which was equal parts hilarious and embarassing. My favourite bits were the balloon popping, the ninja run, the motorcycle and the rollercoaster. Oh the rollercoaster xD. Then Cosplay comp which was ok. I felt that I had made the name Seriously Sexy rather inaccurate when I got called up . I realise the competition when on very long and I'm sorry for that, every effort was made to attempt to get it finish as quick as possible and I sincerely hope you still had an enjoyable time regardless.

Oh Juliet was here today. JULIEEEEETTTTTTT <3333

We packed up as quick as possible but I had to get out of the building because I didn't have a security vest and couldn't find someone with spares. So I went outside with the Cluedo group and hung out with them until they left to dinner and then sat there with Asham and Mel waiting to fill out our paperwork. Then finally went home and got changed and rushed off to dinner, after getting delayed by Justin raping me, and once there everyone had finished so I quickly scarfed down my own dinner. We went back and had chats with Annee and Greg and they eventually left and I packed up.

The next morning Rob left at some horrible hour like 5am, whereas Tsubaki and I woke up 5 minutes before we were supposed to check out. Thank god we packed. We left everything with the hotel staff and left with Greg and Annee to go have food and stuff and camped out waiting for others - THE HEAT. OH GOD THE HEAT. IM SO GLAD TO BE BACK NOW, HOW CAN YOU ALL SURVIVE. Eventually, Sabina + Asham, Casey + Crystal and later Mel arrived as well as Annee's friends who's names I didn't catch. We had food and went walking around the city getting ice cream, not going on ferris wheels and hiding in airconditioned shopping centres, touching up fabrics and meeting J. Eventually people broke off in groups until we got back to the hotel and headed off.

I want to say that stress and busyness aside, I had an absolutely wonderful time - it was great to see old friends, it was fantastic to make new ones and it was a delight to learn new things about people I'd merely been acquaintances with before. I feel like I can call almost everyone I know in Brisbane a friend now and I'm only too excited for the chance to come back, hopefully extremely soon.

Special super duper shout outs:

Tsubaki aka Tsrubaki aka Tsunami: I LOVE YOU. You keep me sane, you treat me so well and I couldn't ask for a better friend. Thank you for being for me this weekend and sharing in the insanity.

Justin aka Justrin aka Jason: Thankyou for all your hard work. Sometimes it's not said and sometimes its forgetten in the mistakes or problems, but the good always overshadows the bad and you did an excellent job preparing everything this year.

Cabbage aka Cabbrage aka Carrot: Thanks for coming and thanks for being the Only Sane Man. For someone who never had to do it, your media work was great and I'm very grateful to you for effectively giving up work to do more work.

Jordan aka Jordran aka Jodie: Thankyou for giving your time to do this. Events are gruelling and I'm sure it was hard on you. I'm sorry for the stress and the stuff ups and I hope in the end this experience was valuable to you cause I have faith that in a few years I'll be here as a guest excited to see how you and the team are doing this show.

Luke aka Lurke aka Liam: Thanks for your continuous hard work. You are a man with unexhaustable energy and congratulations on all the firsts you acheived over the weekend.

Sabina aka Sabrina aka Salina: Thankyou for being awesome, adorable and amusing. I was so grateful for the time I got to spend with you in the Cluedo group, it was wonderful as well as on Monday. If there was one thing that disappointed me about the trip it was that we didn't get enough time to just talk

Asham aka Ashram aka Arkham: HOOT HOOT.