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I had decided to donate this painting I did of my late mother-in-law’s dog, Jay-Jay, to this fundraising event that was being held at the Escape Artists Gallery in Baltimore where all the proceeds were going towards helping the victims of the recent flood in Ellicott City.
When I learned that the gallery was located near the Walters Art Museum, I thought about arriving early so I could check out that museum for an hour or two then go over to the other place and drop off my paining. Unfortunately there was this major accident on I-95 North that caused such a huge traffic backup that it took me nearly two hours to arrive at my final destination. By that point I arrived only 30 minutes before the Walters’ official closing time so I decided to skip it on this trip. Instead I walked around the area taking photos on the way to and from the gallery, starting with this nice mural.
A.T. Jones & Sons is a costume shop that specializes in clothes for theatrical productions. This store is also known for the giant clown heads in its windows.
It was raining that day. You can tell by the wet streets and gray clouds.
The next few photos are of the historic First & Franklin Presbyterian Church, which is currently celebrating its 250th anniversary.
Here’s a statue of John Eager Howard in the foreground and the Washington Monument in the background.
Here are some more shots of the Washington Monument.
Near the Washington Monument is this statue of Roger Taney, who was the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who is now remembered for being the one who wrote the majority opinion in the notorious Dred Scott v. Sanford case.
Here’s the Maryland Historical Society building featuring a giant statue of Nipper the RCA dog next to his gramophone.
Hohschild Kohn’s used to be a regional chain of department stores and I remember it was among my mother’s second-favorite store to shop in when I was growing up. (Her favorite department store was the now-defunct Hutzler’s.) Hohschild Kohn’s went out of business in 1983 but the building bearing its name still remains.
The Mt. Vernon Marketplace now occupies the former Hohschild Kohn building and it’s a pretty upscale-looking market. It’s the first market I’ve ever been in that has a ping pong table that anyone can use.
Next to the Escape Artists Gallery, where the fundraising art show was held, is this window that mentions the names of a law firm, a money lending company, and a charitable foundation. It also has this life-sized statue of Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fame.
The Escape Artists Gallery itself is located above a Subway.
After I dropped off my painting I took the light rail out of the city where it went past the Baltimore Convention Center. The annual Otakon anime convention was being held that weekend. I haven’t been to Otakon since 2013 (which you can read about here, here, here, here, and here). This year is the last year that Otakon will be held at the Baltimore Convention Center mainly because it has become so large that it has literally outgrown that building. Next year’s Otakon will be held at the Washington Convention Center in DC. Since Otakon will be closer to where I live, I may even check it out if I have the time and I can afford it.
This morning I received an e-mail from someone about this blog and it’s so obvious that this person hadn’t bothered with taking the time to read even a single post from it before sending it. I totally laughed when I received it. Here’s the e-mail in its entirety, without any kind of editing from me whatsoever.
Hello Kimstark ,
My name is Beth Jackson. We’re doing work to help people get latest news/updates from Trucking industry about Health, Fitness and benefits.
We developed a website that you can visit athttp://www.truckersnews.com. You can read latest news, tips, find great articles on Health, diet of Truckers and other trucking information.
In order to help people, I want to ask if you’d be willing to add http://www.truckersnews.com/topic/health/ to the resources/links section of your website, sagittariusdolly.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/otakon-the-third-and-final-day-july-29-2012/. We think your visitors would find it valuable, and we’re appreciative of anything you can do to help people get latest news on health and fitness of truckers.
Thank you for your consideration,
Beth Jackson
Wow. Just wow. If anyone with some semblance of a brain were to read at least three or four of my recent posts, you’d know that this blog has absolutely ZERO to do with the trucking industry.
What’s even more laughable is that this site wants me to add a link to a page that’s about how truckers can stay healthy to a post I wrote way back in 2012 about how I attended the third and final day of Otakon. Here’s the thing, Otakon has nothing to do with truckers or the trucking lifestyle. It’s the annual anime convention that’s usually held in Baltimore and it’s one of the largest conventions of its kind on the East Coast. But you don’t have to take my word for it, you can see for yourself at Otakon.com.
I went back to that original page to see if there were anything I mentioned that would led these people to believe that this post I wrote back in 2012 would be the perfect place to add a link to a page about truckers’ health. I scanned it a few times and, no, there’s nothing in that post that makes even the slightest references to trucks or health of any kind. That post discussed a panel on Asian ball-jointed dolls, another panel on Japanese rock music, a room where all kinds of games (board games, card games, and video games) were available for convention-goers to play, and photos of cosplayers whose costumes I liked enough to ask if I could take their picture. On top of it, that e-mail wanted me to add a link to a list of resources/links that they said was on that post that I wrote back in 2012 but, if you were to read that post for yourself, I included no such list on that post. It was all about what I saw and did on the third and final day of Otakon back in 2012. That’s it.
Either the people behind that e-mail have either confused this blog with a different one, they were drunk or stoned when they stumbled across my 2012 post, or they have problems with such simple things as reading comprehension. Sheesh!
As some of you may know, I have a couple of art pieces in the month-long Station North Salon Show in Baltimore. August 8 was the official opening night and there were going to have a reception at the various locations that are participating in this art show. I decided to go not only because I have two pieces in this show but also August 8 was the one-year anniversary of something that I would really rather not remember and it helped that I had an event to go to.
There were two major obstacles. If I had opted to drive into Baltimore, I would’ve had to drive past the Inner Harbor and I knew that it would be crowded because of two major events. One was a home game of the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards and they would be playing against the St. Louis Cardinals. The other was the first full day of Otakon, the annual anime convention that I decided not to go to this year because last year was such a zoo with over 31,000 people in attendance and I had a hard time getting to the workshops and panels that I wanted to attend because they filled up really quickly. (Not to mention having to push my way through jam-packed hallways all the time in order to get from one place to another.)
So I decided to park my car at the North Linthicum Light Rail Station and take public transportation the rest of the way. The light rail train I rode on was filled with Baltimore Orioles fans on their way to the ballgame but there were a few Otakon participants dressed in costumes. I overheard three of the cosplayers mention that there was a major snafu regarding picking up the passes at the usual Thursday Preregistration Day and they all said that they stood in line for four hours. That’s way longer than last year when I went to pick up my pass the day before Otakon began. I later learned that there was this major computer glitch that caused people to stand in line for hours and the management had to issue a press release apologizing for this incident. Man, that incident definitely made me feel better about my decision to skip this year’s Otakon. (In addition, after the convention ended, someone had put up the attendance number on the official site and it turned out that 34,000 people attended—3,000 more than last year!)
I arrived early in Baltimore and I decided to get off at the Convention Center stop. I wanted to grab a light snack to eat at Harborplace because I wasn’t sure if the artist reception was going to serve food and, if so, what kind. (I’ve been to numerous artist receptions and they range from just cheese and crackers only all the way to serving meats and breads and it was enough food to make a meal out of.) I walked past the Baltimore Convention Center where Otakon was held.
I also thought that I would see plenty of cosplayers outside the Baltimore Convention Center and in the Inner Harbor in general so I would still be able to take photos. I was proven correct. In addition I saw plenty of baseball fans heading towards Camden Yards so it was an eclectic mix of anime cosplayers and baseball fans.
I continued to see cosplayers in Harborplace itself. But that complex has undergone changes in recent years and not all the changes have been for the better. There was a time when the Light Street Pavilion was a place that had smaller stores and fast food kind of places while the Pratt Street Pavilion had a few higher end stores and restaurants. But they’ve made over Light Street Pavilion so much that it’s literally much harder to find an affordable place to eat than it used to be. Most of the few cheap eating places left (like Subway) was crowded with people. I ended up getting a slice of pepperoni pizza and a soda for $5 from some place I had never heard of before (it was called something like “Carnival Food”) because it was the one place that had no lines at all. The food wasn’t memorable at all but at least I had something in my stomach for dinner. In the meantime I continued to take photos of cosplayers both inside and outside the two pavilions.
I took a brief detour to It’s Sugar in the Pratt Street Pavilion, where I noticed that the store had a shelf full of Pocky Sticks on sale in an obvious attempt to make money off of the Otakon participants.
Even though this next shot had nothing to do with Otakon or Japanese culture, I noticed that It’s Sugar had a consumer line based on that Internet celebrity Grumpy Cat.
I went up to the second floor of the Pratt Street Pavilion where I went to the bathroom. While I was sitting on the toilet doing the things that people usually do when they sit on the toilet, the PA system started to play “Let It Go!” from Frozen. Seriously! This happened while I was on the toilet.
When I got out of the bathroom, I walked around the Pratt Street Pavilion where I saw some more Otakon cosplayers.
Not surprisingly, I saw a long line of Otakon participants outside the Edo Sushi.
I subsequently took the sky bridge to The Gallery then walked outside to the Charm City Circulator Bus Stop where I planned on taking the Purple Line bus going north. It was about an hour until the official end of the three-hour reception (which ran from 5-8 p.m.). The LED sign said that the next bus was coming in two minutes so I was initially relaxes. Two minutes came and went and no bus arrived, despite what the LED sign said. Then that sign said that the next bus would arrive in 5 minutes. That one also didn’t arrive. In the meantime I took photos of cosplayers that were walking past the stop just to keep my mind off the bus.
In time there were more and more people at that stop and there were no buses. I’ve ridden the Charm City Circulator in the past and I’ve never encountered problems like this. All in all, I waited at least a half-an-hour until another bus came. (Usually a new bus is supposed to arrive every 10 minutes.) By that point it was 7:30 and I only had a half-an-hour left to go to the reception. The bus was also very crowded due to the fact that the previous buses were all no-shows. I took this photo of a cosplayer who was in front of me on that bus.
By the time I got off the Penn Station stop, I only had 15 minutes until the official end of the exhibition. I decided to go to the Station North Arts Cafe since that was where my two pieces were on display. On the way to the cafe I took some early sunset photos of the area.
I finally arrived at the place only to encounter the locked door in the photo below. I knew that the place was generally opened for breakfast and lunch and it closes at 3 p.m. But I assumed that it would be opened a little bit later just once since it’s supposed to be the reception. (There’s a coffeehouse in my area that usually closes at 7 p.m. on Sundays except if there is a reception for the artist whose works are currently hanging inside that establishment. On such occasions, the coffeehouse stays open until 9 p.m.) But I was wrong.
So I just walked around the area and took some more photos of wall murals.
The next photo is of The Chicken Box, where we all initially had to register our art before our pieces were assigned a venue.
I ultimately ended up on North Street. I walked over to The Wind Up Space, which is not only one of the participating venues but it’s also a place that I’m familiar with because the Baltimore chapter of the Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School holds its sessions there. It was still opened even though it was five minutes before the official end of the reception.
I walked over to Liam Flynn’s Ale House next door, which is also participating in this show. It was after 8 p.m. but the place was still opened since it’s a pub and, well, it is Friday night. I saw more art on the walls there.
I decided to leave soon afterwards. As I was walking towards the North Avenue Light Rail Stop, I saw the moon starting to rise over the twilight sky as the night started to creep more and more.
By the time I boarded the light rail at the North Avenue stop, it was definitely nighttime. When the light rail arrived at the University of Baltimore/Mount Royal stop, these two women boarded the train with a giant standee that resembled Link from The Legend of Zelda video games. That Link standee was so big that he took up two seats while the two women had to sit in the back seats. Of course they were on their way to Otakon, which tended to be opened into the wee hours on the first and second day of the convention, and they left with the standee once the light rail train stopped at the Convention Center stop.
As for me, I basically rode the train back to the North Linthicum stop where my car was parked then I drove home.
Today is one of those days where I came across some really interesting links that I want to share with everyone who reads this blog. First up is this article that quotes a study that says that artists’ brains are structurally different and, with regular art practice, one can change his/her brain structure permanently. The article also mentions how Albert Einstein used to pick up the violin whenever he couldn’t figure out a problem. Man, talk about a throwback to my recent project where I had to create an Albert Einstein graphic in Inkscape on behalf of a friend and I included an image of Einstein playing the violin.
The second article is very different from the first one in that it’s more about photography ethics. The Dummies Guide to Cosplay Photography in 2014 was posted to coincide with the start of Boston Comic-Con this weekend (where the author of that article plans on working as a photographer). It’s also very timely here in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area because last weekend was BronyCon and today marks the start of Otakon in Baltimore.
By the way, I’ve decided not to go to Otakon this year. Part of the reason is due to tight finances while part of the reason is because Otakon has grown so huge in recent years that it has become way too crowded for my tastes. I wrote down last year’s attendance figure that was posted online after Otakon 2013 ended: 34,100. This year the organizers posted online that it intends to cap admission at 35,000 (which is the maximum amount of people permitted in the Baltimore Convention Center). I figured that if I felt frustrated with last year’s 34,100 figure, I would be even more frustrated with just 900 more people.
Last year I felt total frustration as I had to frequently maneuver my way through crowded hallways and I ended up not being able to get into most of the workshops and panels that I was interested in because the room filled up very quickly. There were times when I even waited in line for at least 30 minutes before the start of the event only to not be able to get in because the room was full.
What really irked me the most was the crazy maze that I had to go through just to see the anime feature film Wolf Children. The security wouldn’t let us take the escalators or stairs to get to the lower level auditorium where the film was being screened. We had to go outside, walk around the block, then go through the lower level doors that led to the atrium located outside the doors of the auditorium. Once we got into the atrium we had to get into a line that was similar to the ones that you’d see at a typical ride at Walt Disney World except that particular line was more disorganized and there were times when we didn’t know if we were in line or in the right line. Basically we had to choose a random group of people and hope that we were in some kind of line.
So this year I’m just going to save money and aggravation and not bother with Otakon at all.
When I was preparing for last Saturday’s Greenbelt Mini-Maker Faire, I wanted to have something at my vendor table where I would draw attention to myself. I had an idea to try something and I finally decided to do it.
The below picture is a special dance pad controller that one would hook up to a console system (such as Wii, PlayStation, XBox, etc.). Using this special controller enables the user to play video games using his/her lower body instead of hands and fingers (like with the handheld controller). Some games like Dance Dance Revolution (also known as DDR) are generally better with using the dance pad controller instead of the handheld controller. Using this controller also helps the user get exercise and burn calories better than just using hands/fingers.
The only problem with the soft pad controllers is that they tend to wear out so they become unusable. Usually the user is directed to throw the dance pad in the trash. The only problem with that approach is that it ends up on a landfill with all the environmental problems that comes with it.
There is an alternative to using the soft dance pad controller. One could purchase a dance metal pad. Unlike the soft controller, the metal controller tends to hold up better and can literally last years. The downsides are that 1) unlike the soft pads, the metal pads can’t be easily folded up so it could cause a problem with people who have limited space in their homes and 2) prices for a metal pad start at $200 while soft pads start at $15 and they don’t go above $100.
So I’ve been using the soft dance pad controller for years while having fun with playing video games and getting some exercise in the process. There were times when I would throw away the latest broken dance pad and I would think that there had to be a way that these could be recycled for other uses. A couple of years ago I attended Otakon 2012 where I took a photo of this cosplayer who managed to fashion this really cool costume from an old DDR pad.
I began to think about the above photograph when my current DDR pad started to act up and stopped responding to my footsteps. In addition I had just signed up to be a vendor for the Greenbelt Mini-Maker Faire and I needed to make some new crafts to sell at my table. I had a eureka moment one night when I was at Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts and I found this McCall’s Pattern MP322.
So I decided on an experiment where I took some scissors and cut my broken DDR dance pad apart. I found that, with a decent pair of scissors, it was easy to cut apart.
The McCall’s had patterns for a comfy chair for one doll and a loveseat for two dolls. I got ambitious and decided to work on the larger loveseat. During the construction phase I discovered that the DDR pad didn’t provide enough fabric for the loveseat. I decided to compensate by going back to Jo-Ann’s and buy quilt square fabric as well as fabric scraps from the remnant table.
Due to the use of some leftover vinyl fabric from the remnant table, the loveseat seemed plain in spots. I compensated by using fancy duct tape to provide some design and color.
For assembling the loveseat, I felt that sewing either by hand or machine would be impractical because I wasn’t sure if the DDR control pad’s slick vinyl would be too thick for a sewing needle. Instead I went to my old standby: E-6000 glue.
I used the E-6000 glue to glue the edges of the wrong sides of the fabric together then used some duct tape to clamp the edges together. Since I worked on the wrong side of the fabric, I didn’t have to worry about removing the duct tape once the glue dried.
Here is the result of my hard work.
The original pattern was designed for the popular 18 inch dolls of today such as American Girl, Springfield, Our Generation, etc. The photo below shows two 18 inch dolls—an American Girl doll and a vintage 1970’s Beautiful Crissy doll.
I found that the loveseat could fit a variety of other dolls that are slightly smaller than 18 inches. In other words, I think this loveseat is best suited for dolls from 14 inches-18 inches. Two Wilde Imagination dolls (Ellowyne Wilde and Lizette Dionne) try out the couch for themselves in the photo below.
This couch also fits Mini Super Dollfie-sized ball jointed dolls, which these two Bobobie elves prove below.
Yesterday marked the one-week anniversary of the day that I last saw Spike the Hedgehog alive. It fell on a Sunday, which was a day I usually devoted to the weekly cleaning of Spike’s cage and I moved him out of his cage and into his outdoor playpen. Once I finished cleaning his cage, I removed him from his outdoor playpen and put him back in the cage. He overheated earlier because I had left a window open while the outside temperature rose to a high of 85 degrees Farenheit with very high humidity. I closed the window and turned on the air conditioning and once I finished the cage cleaning and the sun went down, Spike seemed okay. He managed to go inside the pink plastic igloo he used as his bedroom so I thought that all was well.
Monday morning I notieced that Spike didn’t even touch his mealworms, which were his favorite food. Monday evening Spike didn’t emerge from his igloo but it was also very hot and humid outside and I know from past experience that in extremely hot weather Spike tended not to even emerge until well after 11 p.m. So I wasn’t that concerned as I changed his food and water yet left the unopened Easter egg where I stored the mealworms. Tuesday morning I saw that Spike still hadn’t opened the Easter egg full of mealworms so I thought that something was up. Since hedgehogs are nocturnal, I decided to wait until after dinner before I investigated. By dinner he still hadn’t emerged so I went over to his cage and called out his name. He didn’t respond with any kind of snuffling sound like he usually did when I talked to him. I bumped the side of his cage and found that he didn’t make any of the hissing noises he usually makes whenever I accidentally bumped into his cage or changed his food and water. I then opened his cage, lifted his igloo and found that he was dead.
Earlier on the same day that I last saw my pet hedgehog Spike alive, I visited the Baltimore Comic-Con. Among the various items for sale in the Artists Alley was this table that was full of handcrafted jewels that were made to resemble the Chaos Emeralds from the Sonic the Hedgehog video games. They were a bit on the large side (I thought that the best use for them would be as paperweights because they looked too big to wear in a necklace) but they were visually stunning looking.
I’ve been slowly doing one final cleaning of Spike’s cage. So far I removed his litter and threw it in the trash. (I inspected his litter as I scooped it out and found that, unlike other weeks, I didn’t see any hedgehog droppings among the litter clumps. I still threw the clean litter in the trash as a precaution just in case Spike died of some kind of a contagious disease. I don’t know what killed Spike and I saw no evidence of blood or oozing pus or any other kind of injury or infection. It’s possible that he simply died of old age but since I didn’t have anyone do an autopsy on him so I’ll never know exactly why Spike died.) I plan to do a thorough cleaning of his cage and furniture using Lysol in order to kill any germs that may or may not have had a hand in Spike’s death. Once I finish this special cleaning, I’m going to pack up his cage and furniture and put it all in the attic for the time being.
Right now I’m going to take some time off from being a pet owner while I get over Spike’s death. I would like to own another pet sometime in the future but I haven’t decided on whether I would get another hedgehog (If I did this, I would make sure that I adopted a baby hedgehog instead of an adult like Spike was when I brought him home to live with me because I hope that, with a baby hedgehog, I would have this pet for longer than I had Spike) or if I would get a dog. When I was a teenager my parents had a half-Labrador Retriever/half-Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Napoleon and, while he was a rambunctious dog, he was basically a sweetheart. When I was in college and I lived in off-campus housing I had a housemate who had a dog named Michelle and I got along really well with Michelle. (My time with Michelle was short-lived. Michelle’s owner went out of town for a couple of weeks of following the Grateful Dead’s latest tour and the dog was placed in the care of another housemate who was a bit of a flake. This housemate tried taking Michelle for a walk along a very busy highway without a leash and the dog suddenly decided to bolt after some car and she ended up getting hit by one of the cars.)
I also once had a pet parakeet as a teenager named Baby, who managed to coexist beautifully with Napoleon. (Both the parakeet and the dog basically ignored each other.) It’s possible that I may decide to get a parakeet or some other kind of bird instead of a dog or hedgehog.
All I know is that cats are out of the question for me because I am allergic to them. Any member of the rodent family (such as rabbits, chinchillas, guinea pigs, hamsters, etc.) is also out of the question for me because I have a couple of electronic rodent devices in my home that emits high-pitched sounds that humans can’t hear but they are very offensive to rodents. I had to buy them from the hardware store a few years ago after my home suffered from a sudden invasion of field mice who chewed up rolls of surplus paper towels, chewed through boxes of food in the pantry, and left their droppings everywhere.
In any case, I’m just going to take my time deciding on who will be my next pet. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll come to any kind of a decision for at least six months.
Yesterday after I attended church, I went to Target to look for a storage box that’s big enough to house Spike’s cage and furniture while I keep it up in the attic. I found the perfect size storage box (it was the largest box that the store had in stock) then wheeled my car to the checkout line. On the way to the checkout line, I found this new Monster High doll that’s totally ironic for me in light of Spike’s recent death. Here name is Howleen Wolf, she’s the daughter of the Wolf Man and the younger sister of Clawdeen Wolf, Clawd Wolf, and Clawdia Wolf.
Here’s the ironic part. Like the other Monster High dolls, Howleen Wolf comes with a pet of her very own. This particular pet happens to be a hedgehog named Cushion.
A doll with a pet hedgehog. That is pretty ironic. If Spike hadn’t died, I might have even been tempted to buy Howleen Wolf. This time I left the doll package on the shelf. I just wasn’t in the mood of collecting anything that was hedgehog-related other than taking the above two photos with my smartphone.
For the 19 months I had Spike I had gotten into taking smartphone photos of every hedgehog related items I could find on the store shelves as well as collecting Internet graphics of anything with hedgehogs. While hedgehog products weren’t as prevalent as—let’s say—dogs and cats, there were a sizeable amount of hedgehog products I could’ve bought if I wanted. (In reality I didn’t buy too much hedgehog stuff because of limited space in my home. I’m in the process of doing extensive decluttering of my home and starting a new hobby where I collected a lot of stuff was the last thing I wanted to get into.) It was pretty cool to see the amount of hedgehog there is out there.
First off is the main hero of the Sonic the Hedgehog video games. I confess that I played those games long before I even had the idea of getting a pet hedgehog but I still thought it was fair to give a nod to the character that helped me to be tolerant of hedgehogs.
But Sonic wasn’t the only video game character that I encountered. I also downloaded other hedgehog-themed video games for my iPod Touch and iPad including the following:
Ironically I recently found out that there was a video game that was made for the PC years ago called Spike the Hedgehog. I had never heard of that video game before and I only named my pet Spike because he never hesitated to put his spikes up every chance he got. Given that one negative review I saw on Amazon.com, I think there’s a reason why this particular game is obscure.
I also remember reading about a hedgehog in literature. Who can ever forget that bizarre croquet game in Alice in Wonderland where the players used a flamingo as a mallet and a hedgehog as a ball?
I later learned that Beatrix Potter, who’s best known for the books Peter Rabbit and The Tale of the Squirrel Nutkin, wrote and illustrated a book called The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle whose main character is a matronly looking hedgehog who did the laundry.
There were plenty of hedgehog toys, figurines, and a vairety of miscellaneous products that I could’ve collected if I wanted to (but I mostly didn’t due to limited space in my home).
Ty Beanie Ballz Prickles
The Calico Critters Pickleweeds Hedgehog Family
A forest-themed water bottle that includes a hedgehog.
A pair of Kikkerland Hedgehog Dryer Balls.
Some hedgehog plushies I found at Otakon 2012 that was held in Baltimore.
Hedgehog-shaped Christmas ornaments.
Westland Adora Bears Hedgehugs
A plush hedgehog puppet on sale at the 2012 Faerie Con in Hunt Valley, Maryland.
Inner Creatures’ Spikey anthro hedgehog ball-jointed doll.
Aurora’s Herzog the Hedgehog.
A handcrafted Sonic the Hedgehog quilt on sale at Awesome Con 2013 in Washington, DC.
Craft Play wooden hedgehog kit.
Ganley the Birthday Hedgehog.
Special edition Sonic the Hedgehog statues sold at Katsucon 2013 in National Harbor, Maryland.
Special Sonic the Hedgehog edition of the board game Monopoly sold at Katsucon 2013 in National Harbor, Maryland.
Hedgehog print on sale at Katsucon 2013 in National Harbor, Maryland.
A t-shirt that reads "Hedgehogs: Why Don’t They Just Share the Hedge?" that I bought for myself at Katsucon 2013 in National Harbor, Maryland.
A hedgehog birthday card.
A Scentsy Buddy Havi the Hedgehog that was on sale at the 2013 Hon Fest in Baltimore.
eeBoo’s Waste-Not hedgehog craft kit.
If the above products weren’t enough, there were a variety of hedgehog-shaped toys that I could’ve purchased for a dog or cat that were sold in the big-box retailers like PetSmart and Petco.
In Europe there is a hedgehog character named Mecki who is very popular there. Below is a 1952 German-language stop-motion animation featuring Mecki. (Unfortunately there are no English subtitles in the one clip I found online.)
Mecki’s popularity has led to a variety of spin-offs including postcards and stuffed animals.
Here in the United States there was one animated hedgehog character I was more familiar with. His name is Mr. Pricklepants and he was one of the minor characters in the Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 3.
Despite his small role in that film, I saw this one toy spin-off in one of the stores.
Earlier this year the Animal Planet cable channel broadcasted its annual Puppy Bowl (which is usually shown on the same day as the NFL Super Bowl) that features cute puppies playing with each other in a football field-like room along with the Bissell Kitty Halftime Show (featuring cute kittens swatting at various toys), hamsters broadcasting in the Puppy Bowl blimp, and a cockatiel named Meep the Bird who issued tweets on Twitter (get it?). At this year’s Puppy Bowl, Animal Planet featured hedgehog cheerleaders, who were incredibly cute. (I only wished I had known about the hedgehog cheerleaders sooner because I happened to live near the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring where the Puppy Bowl is shot. I could’ve enter Spike in the tryouts.)
I saw people dressed in costume as hedgehogs. This one person cosplayed as Shadow the Hedgehog at Otakon 2012 in Baltimore.
Here’s a person dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog at Awesome Con 2013 in Washington, DC.
There was even a hedgehog who served as a mascot for a company called Spokeo who had gotten its share of controversy for its business practices. When I checked the URL for the first time in over a year last night, I saw that the cute blue hedgehog mascot had since been replaced by a typical bland corporate logo.
I’ve had my fun with using my smartphone or Internet searches to document all of the hedgehog-related products that are out there while I had Spike but now that my pet is deceased and I have no immediate plans to replace him with another hedgehog, I’m going to cut back on this activity. If I happened to see a really cute and memorable product I’ll snap a photo but, otherwise, I’m no longer going to go out of my way to take these pictures. As you can see in this blog, I already have more than enough hedgehog images to keep me amused so I don’t really see the need to continually take more pictures.
Now that the time I had to spend preparing for the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival is over, I can now catch up on some things I wanted to include in this blog. A few weeks ago I attended another session of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School at the Wind-Up Space in Baltimore. This was the fifth day in a row that I commuted to Baltimore because this literally took place the night after the massive Otakon show ended. I decided to go even though I was still a little bit tired from a long grueling weekend that included standing in a long line for the Otakon preregistration on August 8, the first day of Otakon on August 9, the second day of Otakon on August 10, and the third and final day of Otakon on August 11.
It was worth going to Baltimore for a fifth day because the model for that evening was a burlesque performer named Lady Satine and she did some modeling while posing on a stripper pole. Besides I didn’t have to do as much walking as I did for Otakon and it was easier to find a seat at The Wind-Up Space than at the Baltimore Convention Center (where, according to the official Otakon website, a whopping 34,100 people attended).
While Lady Satine had clothes on most of the time, there are a couple of drawings in this entry that are definitely NSFW.
So the evening started off with Lady Satine doing some poses on the stripper pole while suspending her entire body in mid-air. Drawing that pose quickly was a challenge because she could only remain in that pose for only a short time. I only managed one complete drawing of her while she was holding on the pole and being suspended in mid-air.
After taking a long break while trying to recuperate from holding such acrobatic poses, Lady Satine returned to the stage where she did a few more poses, this time without the stripper pole while substituting a black and white umbrella.
I participated in only one of the contests that were held that evening mainly because my brain was still too tired from all the overstimulation I got at the recently-ended Otakon. The contest theme was to put a cat in it. So I decided on the ever-popular Grumpy Cat and I added a comic book balloon that was a variation on the most popular saying ever associated with this feline. My drawing failed to make it among the finalists.
After the contest I did a couple of more drawings of Lady Santine before I called it a night and went home.
UPDATE (October 20, 2014): Here’s the official video from this event, including some of my own work.
Prior to Otakon I mapped out a plan where I would try to keep costs down as much as possible. I opted to commute to and from Baltimore instead of getting an expensive hotel room.. I parked my car at North Linthicum and took the light rail train the rest of the way to the Baltimore Convention Center for only the cost of a $3.20 round trip per day instead of driving all the way into the city and park into a nearby parking garage for $20 per day. I packed my own lunch, dinner, and sodas instead of purchasing the overpriced food and drinks sold at the convention center. I even budgeted a maximum of no more than $100 for any purchases made at both the Dealers Room and Artists Alley.
I’ll admit that I went $30 over budget on that one but it was for a very good reason. I purchased some Deleter Neopiko2 markers. For a while I have been thinking about a major art project in my head and I wanted to get some higher quality markers. I originally thought about Coptic markers until I took the workshop ond the Neopiko2 markers during Otakon and I was impressed with the quality. On top of it, unlike the Coptic and Sharpie markers, you don’t have to throw away a Neopiko2 marker when you run out of ink. One can buy refills especially made for them and, when the nibs wear out, you can even buy replacement nibs. From an environmental point of view, I think it’s a great product. I was only able to afford the basic colors but, if I had more money to spare, I definitely would’ve gone all out and bought the larger sets with even more colors. (Some of those sets reminded me of the Crayola 64 color crayon set that I once had when I was a child.)
I purchased these two very arty t-shirts that I literally fell in love with. They are based on characters from My Little Pony but, on first glance, you wouldn’t know it. There are a couple of upcoming festivals in the fall that I’m going to wear them to. I’ll definitely blend-in with the tye-dyed t-shirt crowd who aren’t necessarily familiar with My Little Pony.
I rarely bother with buying anime DVDs mainly because of the cost. At around $25-30 per disk, the average price of an anime DVD is higher than buying a non-anime DVD. On top of it, most anime tends to be a multi-episode series so an average anime DVD may have around 4-6 episodes per disk but the average anime series consists of at least 20 half-hour episodes so you frequently have to buy more than one volume if you want to view an entire series. By the time you buy all the disks required to complete an anime series, you could spend at least $100. A lot of times I tend to read the manga version because an average volume costs between $9-15. (Although I confess that it has been a long time since I started reading a new manga series because of space and money issues.) One example is Chobits, which I learned about through posts on the Den of Angels forum. I read the manga version because the anime series were released on multiple DVD’s and buying the entire manga series was cheaper. I really loved the storyline and I really liked the doll-like design of the robot Chi. Imagine my surprise when, at Otakon, I found a re-released budget version of the anime series where, for $40, all of the episodes are on one disk. I snatched the only copy that was in the Dealers Room instantly the minute I found it.
I purchased this incredibly cute tea cup ring from one of the tables in the Artists Alley.
Last, but not least, I got three packs of Magic the Gathering cards as a reward for paying $5 to play the pachinko machines in the Video Gaming room. (The proceeds from those machines went to a non-profit organization calledAbleGamers.) I took the cards even though I don’t even play Magic the Gathering or any similar card game (like Pokemon). The following Saturday I went to the local STEM center in my neighborhood, which happens to be the day that an outside group rents the facility for a weekly day-long playing of Magic the Gathering, and donated those cards. One of the people there told me that the decks I gave to them tend to be basic starter decks and they will come in handy should a first-time player wish to join in.
As for my thoughts about this year’s Otakon, I have to admit that they were mixed. Like other years, there were plenty of things to see at the 20th anniversary Otakon. But I was so exhausted that it took me at least a week before I fully recovered. I have to admit that if it weren’t for the fact that it was an anniversary year, I would not have bothered attending this year because I began to notice that my stamina wasn’t what it used to be when I was at Katsucon earlier this year. Otakon 2013 confirmed it for me.
On top of it I felt a certain amount of frustration with not being able to attend as many workshops and panels as I wanted due to both fatigue and crowds. I looked at older blog entries and I found something revealing. At Otakon 2010 I attended 2 workshops, panels, and other events. At Otakon 2012 I attended 6 workshops/panels/events. At Otakon 2013 I attended only 1 event—the screening of the anime Wolf Children. (I skipped Otakon 2011 because it was just two months before my hip surgery and my hip had deteriorated to the point where I couldn’t even do a lot of walking.) I felt like I got far less for my money at this year’s Otakon than other years.
I also learned that it wasn’t my imagination that this year’s Otakon seemed more crowded. According to the official website, a whopping 34,100 people attended. Holy cow! I can remember when I used to complain about the crowds when Otakon drew 22,000 people.
I can still remember a time when Otakon used to allow you to purchase individual one-day passes, which was great for people who couldn’t attend all three days. Now if you want to go to Otakon, you’re required to purchase an entire weekend pass even if you can’t attend all three days. With my decreasing stamina (due in large part to getting older) I’m now at the point where I get totally exhausted after one day at a convention and I literally have to force myself to go with my tongue dragging in order to get my money’s worth. With more attendees, it’s getting harder to get to workshops/panels/events because they tend to fill up much faster even if you make every effort to show up in line a half-an-hour early.
While I’m not going to say that this will be the last time I ever go to Otakon ever, I will say this: From now on I will attend Otakon only if there is a workshop/panel/event that I’m really dying to get to and my life would feel incomplete if I miss it. Or if Otakon starts offering one-day passes again I’ll go because I know that I can handle Otakon for one day. Otherwise, I’m just going to stay home. After all, if I get a hankering for Japanese anime or other Asian-imported goodies, I can always surf the Internet.
In any case, that’s it for my experiences of Otakon 2013. If you want to see photos that others have taken at that same event, visit the Otakon and Otakon 2013 Flickr groups. Unlike other years, I didn’t shoot any video at this year’s Otakon but others did and you can view them right here on YouTube.
The final day was pretty short compared to the other two days. (Of course usually the third day of a weekend convention tends to be the shortest of all because people are busy with packing their suitcases and returning home.) The only reason why I attended the final day of Otakon was because I had submitted two items to the Art Show and I would find out whether both pieces sold and I would get paid or I would have to bring my art back home.
I had originally wanted to attend a panel featuring The Last Unicorn author Peter S. Beagle but that one was scheduled for 10 a.m. and I was so exhausted from the night before that I overslept. There were no other videos, panels, or workshops that interested me so I took my time eating breakfast and getting dressed. After a full day wearing compression socks yesterday I decided to go back to wearing my regular cotton socks because I knew I would have a short day at Otakon. That day I brought only a lunch, two 16 ounce bottles of Diet Pepsi, and no dinner so my thermal bag was lighter than the other two days.
When I arrived at the North Linthicum light rail station I noticed that, unlike the other two days, I didn’t see any costumed cosplayers waiting for the next light rail train. That’s one indication that today was the final day of Otakon. Once I arrived at the Baltimore Convention Center, I walked over to the front doors where I saw this violinist serenading people entering the building.
Once I got inside I took a few more pictures of cosplayers.
The Art Show shared the same large room as the Artists Alley. Due to the Otakon staffers’ crowd control methods, the best way of getting to the Artists Alley was to enter through the Dealers Room then enter out the other side and enter through the Artists Alley doors next door. I walked around the Dealers Room and dawdled around a bit while I took these photos.
Here’s a poster for the anime feature film Wolf Children that I saw at Otakon the night before. This poster was signed by the voice actors who did the English language dubs on that film.
Here’s a photomosaic that was on display in the Dealers Room the entire weekend.
The big disadvantage of attending any kind of large convention on the last day is that the schedule is truncated and you have to get everything done by the official 3 p.m. close. It didn’t help that I arrived at Otakon sometime between 1-1:30 p.m. nor did it help that I had to constantly dodge tons of people who were in a similar frenzy to see and do everything before the show closed for the year. I went out the exit doors to the hallway where the entrance to the Artists Alley was located (the Art Show shared space with the Artists Alley). I decided to go up the escalators up to the 400 level. My original plan was to eat the lunch I had brought with me in an area that was directly above the Artists Alley doors then take the escalators back down to Artists Alley, go to the Art Show, and pick up either unsold artwork or cash. I found a bench only to look at both the guidebook and the watch and discovered that I only had 15 more minutes to pick up my stuff from the Art Show because the Artists Alley room was scheduled to close. So I decided to delay eating my lunch a while longer and went back downstairs into the Artists Alley.
I’ll admit that I didn’t visit the Art Show while my art pieces were publicly on display. I was afraid that I would be so disappointed by the results of the bidding that it would’ve affected my enjoyment of the rest of Otakon. It was only on the last day just minutes before closing before I learned the outcome. I had both pieces up for auction with a minimum $25 bid on each. I was curious to see how much my pieces were really worth and I had hoped for some bidding war on either or both pieces. I learned that My Little Robot Unicorn Pony Attack went as high as $35. It sold but I’ve seen people at last weekend’s BronyCon sell customized My Little Pony figurines for far more in the Dealers Room. On top of that I had put so much work into it that, if you break it down by the hours I spent on that piece, I would’ve been better off financially had I worked at a McDonald’s for $7-8 per hour. The one good thing I can say is that at least I got a high enough bid that I earned back the money I originally spent on supplies plus a tiny bit of extra profit.
As for the hand-painted tote bag featuring Suiseiseki and Souseiseki from the anime Rozen Maiden, it failed to sell.
I was told that the check to the sold piece will be sent via mail (which I got in the mail today as I was typing this entry) so once I picked up my one unsold piece, I went up to the 400 levels of Otakon where I found some available benches so I could sit down and rest. I finally opened my thermal bag and ate a late lunch. I ate in the area that was directly above the now-closed doors to the Artists Alley and it was relatively quiet compared to the rest of the Baltimore Convention Center. Once I finished eating, I decided to just leave. On my way to the escalator I saw these people cosplaying as the main characters from South Park.
As I made my way down to the front of the Baltimore Convention Center, I saw a lot of people sitting on the floor waiting for rides that would get them started on the trip back to their homes. There were some cosplayers willing to do some last-minute poses for photographers but the majority were just waiting to get out of the Baltimore Convention Center.
I took one last photo before I walked over to the Convention Center light rail stop. It shows a couple trying to raise $4 in order to be able to afford to pay the parking garage and get their car out. They were standing next to an overflowing garbage can. In some way, I think this photo makes a fitting end to my efforts at photographing Otakon 2013.
As I took my final light rail trip from Otakon, I was surrounded on the train by a bunch of people wearing purple clothes with the logo of the Baltimore Ravens football team. I learned through one of the purple-clad riders that the Ravens were holding a pre-season exhibition game. Once the train reached the Hamburg Street station (the one that’s closest to the M & T Bank Stadium where the Ravens play), the car quickly emptied of all those purple-clad riders and things were much roomier for me on board that train until I reached the North Linthicum stop (where my car was parked at).
The night before the start of the first day of Otakon I took a plastic grocery shopping bag and reused it in order to pack a few extra things to bring to Otakon with me. I had heard of various meetups that were taking place and I decided to pack a variety of small items just in case I happened to run into a meetup already in progress. The items were a mix of tiny Asian ball-jointed dolls, My Little Pony figurines, and a couple of Japanese-imported Arpakasso plushies I purchased at previous anime conventions. The below photo shows what I brought. The figure in the foreground is Derpy Hooves. In the back are (from left to right) a small pink Arpakasso plushie, Rainbow Dash, Orient Doll Ji, Soul Doll Kimmy, Soom Mini-Gem Uyoo, Bobobie Sunny, and a larger light beige Arpakasso plushie.
I didn’t get any opportunities to open the bag on the first day but on the second day I found one meetup where I could display what I had brought.
Anyway, I had every intention of checking out this panel titled "Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland’s Effect on Anime & Manga" even though it was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. (which meant I would’ve had to get up really early for the commute to Baltimore). But then I woke up in the middle of the night with total muscular pain throughout my whole body. I tried shifting around in bed but it was no use. I finally had to get up and take some ibuprofen before the pain finally stopped. As a result, I overslept so I not only missed that panel but also another panel that was scheduled for 10: 15 a.m. that I wanted to go to titled "Nintendo: Entertaining Since 1889." I was so tired and stiff that it took me a while to get my body into gear so I could do something simple as to take a hot shower (which helped loosen my tight muscles). I also decided to put on some compression socks that I originally purchased when I underwent my hip replacement back in 2008 and I suffered from edema in the immediate aftermath of that surgery.
I arrived at the North Linthicum light rail station where I saw these cosplayers.
By the time I arrived in Baltimore I managed to miss the scheduled 1 p.m. showing of a video that I really wanted to see titled Beijing Punk. I managed to get into the Baltimore Convention Center through the front doors because the line of people waiting to register and get their badges was way smaller than the last two days.
Once I got in I went up to the 400 level of the Baltimore Convention Center where I found one of the many Asian ball-jointed meetups that were being held throughout Otakon weekend and they were all organized through the Den of Angels forum. I’ll admit that I had my trepidations about attending because I still remember this bizarre incident from last year when, at the first meetup I attended on the first day of Otakon 2012, these two women came up to me, claimed that I had posted a photo I took of a bag that belonged to one of them on my own Kim’s World of Art website five years earlier, asked me to remove that photo, then walked quickly away before I had a chance to ask them any questions (like "Do I know you?" or "What photo are you referring to?"). While the other doll meetups I attended last year were all free of similar weirdness, I was still unnerved by that incident.
Fortunately the meetup I attended on the second day of Otakon 2013 was free of such weirdness and everyone present were pretty nice and friendly. I also got a chance to take a lot of photos of gorgeous dolls while I took my own dolls out of the plastic grocery bag and displayed them in public.
Fortunately the meetup I attended on the second day of Otakon 2013 was free of such weirdness and everyone present were pretty nice and friendly. What was cool was the willingness of one meetup participant to help another meetup participant re-string her doll after her doll literally fell apart during transit. (That’s why some of the photos include doll parts.) I also got a chance to take a lot of photos of gorgeous dolls while I took my own dolls out of the plastic grocery bag and displayed them in public.
It turned out that the 400 level terrace was a very popular place to hold meetups so there were usually many of them going on at the same time. In addition to the Asian ball-jointed doll meetup, there were also meetups for Star Trek,…
Dr. Who,…
and furries.
In addition to the meetups, a group of cosplayers (including one dressed as Santa Claus) were playing cards in the same area.
When the Asian ball-jointed doll meetup began to break up, I headed down to the lower levels. I wanted to visit the Artists Alley but I found the best way to reach it is through the Dealers Room, where I took this photo, which is a bit on the NSFW side.
I didn’t spend much time in the Dealers Room because I really wanted to visit the Artists Alley and I didn’t get a chance to do so yesterday because my feet grew very tired and sore after all that walking in the Dealers Room. I finally made it to the Artists Alley, where I ran into someone cosplaying as Luke Skywalker standing next to R2-D2.
The Artists Alley focused on aspiring artists and crafters who sold a variety of handmade items including drawings, jewelry, plushies, hats, lolita dresses, and self-published zines.
While I was in the Artists Alley, I looked in on the progress of this giant work of art that Eric Maruscak of Pepper Ink was working on throughout Otakon.
I wanted to go to Video Gaming room but it became a challenge to do so because the security would block off certain stairs or escalators in the name of crowd control. I found that walking around outside then going back inside the Baltimore Convention Center was the quickest way of going to the Video Gaming room. While I was outside, I took a photo of the bleachers that were recently set up in advance of the upcoming Grand Prix of Baltimore, which will be held on Labor Day weekend.
I managed to re-enter the Baltimore Convention Center where I found these cosplayers.
After much maneuvering around the security’s maze-like crowd control efforts, I finally made it to the Video Gaming room.
There were a variety of video games that were all on Free Play. However getting to a video game console was difficult because nearly all of them were occupied with small lines forming behind the current players.
The one video game I was able to reach wasn’t working and one of the Otakon staff told me that he thinks that someone had beaten the game and the game became inoperable as a result. One interesting tidbit about this busted game: it used a vintage pre-Wii Nintendo controller. (I’ll admit that I didn’t realize I was holding the controller upside down until a few days after Otakon ended.)
I managed to try my hand at one of the pachinko machines because they were less crowded (I had never used one before and I couldn’t find instructions in English on how to play one so I just shot the metal balls at random and I have no idea if I did well or not) but that was the extent of my hands-on experience. The proceeds from the pachinko machines went to a charity called AbleGamers and I was given three free unopened packs of Magic the Gathering cards as a "thank you" gift for paying to play pachinko.
There were smaller less-known video game companies who were showing demos of their latest video game.
Even though it was the Video Gaming room, there were plenty of card games and board games as well. The non-electronic games were just as crowded and popular as the video games.
There were plenty of cosplayers in the Video Gaming room.
After a while I left the Video Gaming room and just took pictures of cosplayers in the hallways and outside the Baltimore Convention Center.
After my earlier failed attempts at attending workshops and panels, I finally managed to get to one scheduled Otakon event but I had to really go through all kinds of obstacles to get there. I saw the English-dubbed version of this feature-length anime titled Wolf Children. I hadn’t originally planned on seeing that movie until I saw a description about it in the programming booklet while I was eating the dinner that I had brought with me while sitting in one of the comfy chairs in the hallway. I thought the plot of the movie sounded interesting. On top of it, when I pre-registered a couple of days ago I had a choice of a variety of designs for my badge (most of which were anime scenes) and I picked this one design because I thought it looked really cute. When I looked at my badge and saw "Wolf Children" on it, I thought it would be really cool to see the movie behind my Otakon badge.
I know that crowd control can be a challenge for a really big convention like Otakon but there were times when I questioned some of their methods of crowd control. The event I wanted to get to was held in a room that was located on the lower floor of the convention center and I was on the floor directly above that room. Normally one could take either the escalators, the steps, or the nearby elevator to get to the lower floor. I had no argument with reserving all of the elevators only for people with major disabilities. But access to the steps and the escalators was also closed off. In order to get to the lower floor, I had to exit the building, walk around the building from the outside until I hit the front doors that led to the lower floor, then re-enter the building. I have no idea why people had to leave the building in order to get to the lower floor.
Once I got to the lower floor there was this scrum of people that I had to literally push my way through in order to get into another line so I could get into the theater showing the film that I wanted to check out because the synopsis intrigued me. In this case the term "line" could be used very loosely. It was almost like you had to pick a large group at random then endure more waits as the security alternated between letting each group get into a more organized line that led to the doors where the movie was being shown. There were so many people trying to get in that the movie ended up starting a half an hour later than originally scheduled. At least the room was very large so there were plenty of seats for a giant crowd like the one that I was a part of.
The movie was worth the wait. It’s got a similar "human female student meets fellow male student who’s a supernatural creature" story to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series except I thought that Wolf Children was way better than Twilight. The main female character, Hana, faces (and eventually overcomes) all kinds of obstacles that would’ve brought Bella Swan to a total nervous breakdown. The animation is incredibly beautiful and the story was very well written. I saw the dubbed version and I thought that the dubs were done very well. It’s too bad that a film like Wolf Children doesn’t get a wider theater distribution because I think that movie would definitely hold its own against the likes of any Pixar film.
Since the movie started a half an hour late, I ended up arriving at this workshop that I wanted to check out late. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get in at all because over the last few Otakons, the conventional wisdom is that if you want to guarantee of even getting inside the door, you should arrive at least a half-an-hour early. If you want to guarantee of getting inside the door and getting a seat, you should arrive at least 45 minutes-1 hour before the start. But, amazingly, I was able to get inside and get a seat with no trouble at all. The workshop was titled "Introduction to Deleter Neopiko2 Marker" and it was a hands-on demonstration of the Japanese-made Neopiko2 markers that many artists use when creating manga. I was very impressed with the quality of the markers and I felt that they were way superior to Sharpies. (FYI, in case you were wondering, I didn’t do that drawing below. It was originally a black and white photocopied drawing and I only colored it with Neopiko2 markers.)
After the workshop ended I did a little walking around the Baltimore Convention Center. For once I was actually at an anime convention past sundown and I noticed that one of the hallways of the Baltimore Convention Center was bathed in this really pretty blue light that reflected on all the people walking down it.
While there were a few late night panels and events that intrigued me, I was totally exhausted. The good news was that the compression socks I wore the entire day helped my feet alot and I was able to physically last longer on my feet than the day before. However, even with the compression socks I had hit a point where I couldn’t take Otakon any more so I decided to leave. As I was on my way out the door I took this one last photo of Otakon’s second day.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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