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No high psychodrama like my first Arisia. Gotta love that. However, I was ready to throttle the unclued folks at the desk. I got in at 3:30, after having 4.5 hours of sleep the night before. I was counting on being able to go up to my room and take a short nap so that I'd be human that evening. "Your room isn't ready. I don't know why or when it will be ready. Come back later." *grump* 45 minutes later, same story, although this time I got someone with half a brain who could tell me why it wasn't ready: the person in "my" room wasn't checking out until 4:30. WTF? Okay, come back at 5:15. "Not gone yet." WTF??!!! Okay, try again at 6:15. "They checked out at 5:30, but we can't give you a key yet because we have to clean the room. No, we can't just check you in and have you stay out for a bit. We can't assign you to another room because the Arisia hotel liason made all the room assignments and we can't change them." At this point, I'm seeing double because I'm so tired, I feel grungy from travelling, and I'm hungry. Fuck it. Went upstairs with D. and we all ordered room service dinner and I went to go get my luggage from the luggage check. Decided to go heckle Porn on the poly panel and THEN go try my room again; if it wasn't ready, I was going to cancel and stay somewhere else. Luckily (for them) when I tried at 9:30, my room (a spacious affair with a double instead of the king I'd requested, 4 inches of room between the foot of the bed and the dresser, and a marked lack of climate control) was finally ready. Ahhh, blessed shower.
The rest of Friday was okay, and Saturday was good up until the fiasco at dinner at Jae's. Reservation for 30 people, which had been made days in advance. They knew we were coming. Get there a bit after 6, order, wait. As of 8:15, there were three of us who STILL hadn't gotten their food (I got something that I thought might be mine, but there were tuna and salmon on the plate which I'd never order). When those of us left noticed that the couple seated near us who had come in well after we had had already been seated, ordered, gotten all their food, eaten and left...well, we decided that was enough. We left a pile of cash on the table for folks who had actually eaten and walked out. Got hassled by the manager, who repeatedly tried to blame the poor service on US because he "told [us] when the reservation was made that with a group that large [we] needed to order ahead". Very disappointing too, as I've eaten at that Jae's before they closed for remodeling and had nothing but wonderful food and service. Guess I'll stick to the one in Cambridge. I was shocked that I managed to mouth off to the cranky manager after he threw attitude at us as we were leaving; I'm not exactly one to do that normally. Amazing what sitting for two hours without your dinner will do for you. ;) </rant>
Gah.
Okay, what was good about Arisia? I got to see both my Boston sweeties, and spent a whole lot more time with one of them than I thought I'd get to. This was good. Met a bunch of folks from cluster and now have faces to go with names/addresses, and met someone who has the same Powerpuff Girls watch as I do. This was good. Met Shadow, Pixi and Wolfy. This too was a Good Thing[tm]. Didn't spend a lot of money, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good for the budget, bad because there wasn't much I saw that called out to me (that would also fit). Got to be the bondage demobunny on Saturday afternoon, which was an Excellent thing. *grin* D. did something that involved tying my wrists and elbows that quickly cut off my circulation, but it felt like it looked really good. ;) Wish I'd had my camera handy. Had a better time at the party than I expected, although unfortunately things didn't work out with D. as well as we'd been hoping. All that vetwrap going to waste, *sigh*. ;)
Last year, I had the bright f-ing red hair, which caused many people to come up and say hi and talk to me (about my hair, mostly). This year I decided to humor D. and stick with non-crayola-colored hair and I was wondering if I could find something else unique. I succeeded quite admirably with the Ryo-ohki backpack and the tshirt that M. gave me for Xmas that says in glitter "And this one time, at band camp...". The shirt either got blank looks from folks who hadn't seen the movie or a minute of stunned silence followed by cackling from folks who had. *grin* Gotta figure out how to top that next year. ;)
So overall, Arisia merits a big "two thumbs sideways". It wasn't really bad, but it also wasn't really good either. The two things that I think were particularly good were getting to do even a tiny bit of playing with D. and meeting a bunch of nifty people (*wave* hi you guys ;) ).
The rest of Friday was okay, and Saturday was good up until the fiasco at dinner at Jae's. Reservation for 30 people, which had been made days in advance. They knew we were coming. Get there a bit after 6, order, wait. As of 8:15, there were three of us who STILL hadn't gotten their food (I got something that I thought might be mine, but there were tuna and salmon on the plate which I'd never order). When those of us left noticed that the couple seated near us who had come in well after we had had already been seated, ordered, gotten all their food, eaten and left...well, we decided that was enough. We left a pile of cash on the table for folks who had actually eaten and walked out. Got hassled by the manager, who repeatedly tried to blame the poor service on US because he "told [us] when the reservation was made that with a group that large [we] needed to order ahead". Very disappointing too, as I've eaten at that Jae's before they closed for remodeling and had nothing but wonderful food and service. Guess I'll stick to the one in Cambridge. I was shocked that I managed to mouth off to the cranky manager after he threw attitude at us as we were leaving; I'm not exactly one to do that normally. Amazing what sitting for two hours without your dinner will do for you. ;) </rant>
Gah.
Okay, what was good about Arisia? I got to see both my Boston sweeties, and spent a whole lot more time with one of them than I thought I'd get to. This was good. Met a bunch of folks from cluster and now have faces to go with names/addresses, and met someone who has the same Powerpuff Girls watch as I do. This was good. Met Shadow, Pixi and Wolfy. This too was a Good Thing[tm]. Didn't spend a lot of money, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good for the budget, bad because there wasn't much I saw that called out to me (that would also fit). Got to be the bondage demobunny on Saturday afternoon, which was an Excellent thing. *grin* D. did something that involved tying my wrists and elbows that quickly cut off my circulation, but it felt like it looked really good. ;) Wish I'd had my camera handy. Had a better time at the party than I expected, although unfortunately things didn't work out with D. as well as we'd been hoping. All that vetwrap going to waste, *sigh*. ;)
Last year, I had the bright f-ing red hair, which caused many people to come up and say hi and talk to me (about my hair, mostly). This year I decided to humor D. and stick with non-crayola-colored hair and I was wondering if I could find something else unique. I succeeded quite admirably with the Ryo-ohki backpack and the tshirt that M. gave me for Xmas that says in glitter "And this one time, at band camp...". The shirt either got blank looks from folks who hadn't seen the movie or a minute of stunned silence followed by cackling from folks who had. *grin* Gotta figure out how to top that next year. ;)
So overall, Arisia merits a big "two thumbs sideways". It wasn't really bad, but it also wasn't really good either. The two things that I think were particularly good were getting to do even a tiny bit of playing with D. and meeting a bunch of nifty people (*wave* hi you guys ;) ).
