Jeff, Mike & I first wanted to go back to the hotel room to drop off our stuff (except Mike, he never buys anything. I gave him the honor of letting him carry my Getter). We by some slim chance just happened to find the other three guys standing at the top of the elevator. Brian had checked into the room, so he had the key cards to get in. Once in our sleeping quarters (that's all real otaku do there, just sleep then back off to the con), Jeff proudly displayed his Ruri standup at the head of the hotel room by the window. I opened up my Getter Robo and just looked at the wonderful shiny black-sheen chogokin (zinc) goodness of it all. My god it was heavy. This was a toy for collectors, not children. I put it back in the box. I unrolled my Ah! My Goddess posters I bought from AnimEigo. Jeff made me buy these from their booth. AnimEigo did such a great job on Macross that somehow we had to show our appreciation. I wanted to buy Kimagure Orange Road on DVD, since I had preordered it but did not process my order for lack of finances at the last moment. But I also thought I should save the $240 in case anything else cool popped up, so instead I bought the posters. A few reasons: First off, Belldandy is without question the most beautiful anime character ever created. Don't even say anything else, Belldandy is it. Period. Urd is sex personified... literally. Skuld is just cuteness. And Keiichi is the most lucky bastard on the face of the planet. So buying and framing these was a must do for me. Plus, Jeff said he already had them, so I couldn't let him one-up me on anything. Besides those, I opened up my Keiji Gotoh Illustrations artbook I had gotten for a pretty good price. I love Gotoh's art. I love his character designs. I love the animes in which his character designs are featured. Nadesico rocks. And he has a thing for cat girls (don't most men?), which is also a big plus for me.

It was around 3:30 pm now, so everybody was hungry. *Skipping the eating part* I was dying to catch the Mazinger Z vs. Great Darkness General in video room 6, then catch a few episodes of UFO Robo Grendizer immediately afterward before heading down to the dealer's room for the Bandai model building contest at 6:00. I thought Mike and Jeff would have joined me for that retro Go Nagai super robots presentation, but they never came. Bah, fake super robot fan wannabe's. My only complaints were that I could have subtitled the Mazinger Z movie better, and that people were laughing at the old animation and theme songs of Go Nagai's classic works. Hey, if you're a fan, you don't laugh at this sort of stuff. There's nothing funny about Breast Fire or Rocket Punch (OK, maybe the first few times it's kinda loony, but really now, are super attacks SUPPOSED to make sense?) I think Go Nagai is timeless, and what he set down in anime thirty years ago is still used today. Miyazaki was right when he said that there isn't any original anime produced anymore. However, not that newer animes aren't entertaining; it's just that they're only older, well-proven ideas with a twist or two.

So, 120 minutes of retro goodness later, I packed whatever I was carrying and headed for the Bandai booth. Actually, I ran all the way there. I was unaware I needed a partner for the contest, so I came unprepared. Belldandy-sama must have been watching, because there were Mike and Jeff right behind me. So Jeff became my partner and I sent Mike off with $20 to go buy me an Otakon 2002 t-shirt before they ran out. The model we had to build was a Hygog 'Skill level 3', which is really just an older Gundam 0080 1/144th scale kit. The time to beat: 10:14. Jeff and I completed the model in 14:10, nabbing us 3rd place but no prize other than a few free Bandai giveouts like a Gundam pen and keychain. We beat the other guys next to us, and I think we could have gotten 2nd if the stupid mono-eye wasn't so blankety-blanking hard to get in. But hey, I got a free model in the process, which I'll bring home and work on so it'll look better and not so half-assed.