First Day in Tampa

First let me add in about Bus Ride to Tampa, in Richmond, I got to see that the juggalo with the Dib hair cut went-off for a Georgia bus. 
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I met with LJ spud Friday morning and volunteered to give people their laminates.  Nice way to get an initial introduction to several people's faces.  Found-out Gala's and then Kest's real names since their laminates weren't under those names.  With how Kest went-on with how both are her real names, I had to change my statement to I know your government name now.

The night's events were at The Cuban Club.  I completely skipped on the DJing and dancing in the basement for the events in the theatre.  Got to see Goth Cruise: The Movie and got to tell DJ Storm he looked fine in drag afterwards.  LJ hellsop and LJ geekers finally appeared for a moment, but had to go get something to eat.  So they missed Gala's part in the fashion show.  I want the coat that the second male in Kambriel's segment was wearing.  Bought Voltaire's, Deady: Big in Japan book and got it signed for TenshiKurai9 and bought a shirt of his with a skull on it.  Saw him perform and Coin-Operated Goy was my favorite song in the set.  He was one of the judges alongside Axel the Sex God and Spinmistress Batty for the Scaryoke.  During technical difficulties from DJ Scar's equipment, an accapella version of Baby Got Back was performed, including me as one of the spontaneous back-up dancers.  Unfortunately I didn't get the nerve to go from dancer on the floor to dancer on the stage so there were no dancers on the stage.

The trolley was shut-down for the night, so spud gave LJ auroara and myself a ride to the hotel (with another person whose name I don't remember.)  Somehow Voltaire got to the hotel before us even though he volunteered to wait for a cab. 

I hung around in the lobby with other people and met a Clove Bitch.  Something about him caught my attention, but I don't know what.  Despite meaning to ask for his contact info in case I'm in his area, I didn't get a chance to during all of Convergence. 

I think it was Spud who mentioned the room party that I found-out later was specifically Kest's and others so I went-up to it.  Unfortunately I was too tired to stay long. 

Saturday in Tampa

Here's why it was useful to use the free internet in the business center, I was able to find-out LJ sheilamarie was going to come-by for the Vendor's Room on Saturday via her LJ entry and got to meet her and her friend.  It was nice to make another another connection between screen and real life. 

Afterwards, I had to wait around the lobby with other people for the a.g.f. shopping trip to be rounded-up.  LJ dali_muse was awesome and got us a limo that had a DVD with nothing but Siouxsie and the Banshees videos playing.  First stop was at an independent music store called Mojo's, which had the Romanti-Goth Coloring Book in stock.  There were two vintage stores involved.  First one was by an ice cream place.  That one had an entire room done-up like it was still the 70s complete with a Play Girl shot of a male celebrity whose name I don't remember and brightly colored chairs shaped like hands.  If I had a way, I would probably have bought an 8-track player and maybe some tapes.  Second vintage place was more clothing centric, but had the marriage sex flash cards and the Ink Spots record I did buy.  We finally went to Ybor City, but was running-out of time so we went to only one store.  In the alternative fashion store we did go to, I found the music so catchy as to bounce around.  DJ Santana, IIRC, was what the employee said it was.  When I find my note, I'll post the link to his web site. 

When we got dropped-off, I immediately went to get food, so I got garlic knots at West Philly Pizza.  The place saw me at least three if not four times during my vacation.  Except I didn't want to miss the Shark Jump, Gothic Bathing Beauty Contest, or Fop-Off, so I got it to go. 

The One Bob as the One Fonz got to have a toy shark put in a kiddie pool and then a doll-sized pool to try to jump the shark with a bike.  He ended-up dragging the bike ramp with the back of the bike instead.  If you watch the footage on YouTube and hear a female yell, I want to have your baby, that's not me.  I'm the one who yelled later, I want my baby to have your baby. 

Voltaire hosted the Gothic Bathing Beauty Contest before the Fop-Off.  The women walked-out as they were called-off and lined-up.  Voltaire then had the audience cheer for each lady and kept three final contestants.  Further audience cheering decided on the finalist.  Execution of the Fop-Off was similiar.  The program joked around about making the guys do cravat tieing contests, but they didn't do it.  Would have amused me a bit more if they did. 

I decided to not go to the DJs room and instead stuck with the bands ballroom.  It's conceivable for me to take the time and effort to track-down where their club nights are and spend my holidays scouting-out their nights, but not conceivable for me to put the same effort into a band I've never heard of before.  Unfortunately none of the bands caught on me in a way to make me imagine caring where they're going to go tour next.  At least most of the night, I was in conversation with Raven and then later in conversation with DJ Storm. 

After the official events were over, I headed back to Kest & Co.'s room party.  Unfortunately people got told by hotel staff that there was a noise complaint so people had to be herded back to the room where the DJs were earlier.  Excpet I was too tired to bother. 

Sunday in Tampa

Not buying a ticket to The Wake (brunch at the Tampa Bay Brewing Company) was on purpose since I knew I'd want to sleep-in. 

So that means I didn't have to go anywhere till 2 for Surreal Dreams, the trip to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg.  In the bus I was on, I joked, oh look, we're on Dali's Car, once when we started to go.  The docent kept worrying about talking too much and not letting us wander even though he kept-on being told we want to hear whatever he can tell us.  Earlier, more sexual work, rather than later, more religious and science-focused work was what I liked.  Once when the group did split-up, I spent quite a bit of time in conversation with Raven and some with Miranda.  Got a book of Surrealist Games in the gift shop.  I liked dali_muse's description of the artist's relationship life on the bus ride back better than the docent.  It was more comprehensive to hear how normal it was for the surrealists to sleep with each other's husbands and wives and hear of an earlier, gay relationship in Dali's life.  

I went to Meet the Feebles (or Meet the Bid) and got to see representatives of the next bid teams present their ideas and be questioned.  Seattle's representative of Erica wasn't able to give strong answers to questions.  Axel represented Omaha and was able to point-out that we wouldn't be net.goths if we couldn't arrange things over the internet when questioned about the lack of him living in Nebraska.  Long Beach assuaged people that the cap of 300 they've stated is a soft-cap and could be expanded if tickets sold early enough for the Queen Mary event.  Since I've been unable to find myself accidently volunteered for the Omaha bid team, I walked-up to him afterwards and had him write me down as official fan girl. 

Bands and DJs were going to be in the Tampa Convention Center, but beforehand I had to do one thing, print ticket reservations.  I made-up my mind that I wasn't going to get-up early in the morn and be stuck on a bus that might have to go through Port Authority for over a day again.  Somehow I got AirTran tickets to Boston with a stop-over in Atlanta for $151.99.  Go me! 

Once again, I went for defaulting into the bands' room first and DJ's room second and wasn't caught by any of the bands to go out of my way to find them again.  Conversation was had, including DJ Storm remarking that I was very lucky to get my plane tickets for my price and how NYC-Boston is the furtherest kind of distance he can travel by bus without his back becoming too knotted-up. 

In front of the hotel later, I did get to have a nice long conversation with ~Fianna and Satori, but couldn't quite stay-up longer when I had to go ditch almost all paper material I had collected and pack.  I went to bed after DJ Scar got-up around 4 and got to say good-bye though. 

Monday Morning in Tampa, Most of Evening in Atlanta, Barely Back in Boston

Check-out was at noon so after gathering my stuff and getting waffles, I spent some last time in the business center in order to send friends requests and add LJ names I had been collecting on flyers and from people (and googling Cirque Macabre from a t-shirt led me to their MySpace.)  Abandoned the unused sunscreen and asked a guy how do you use a flashlight as a lighter since he told a friend to just use a flashlight.  Also found-out that he found-out you can get drunk on Febreeze when he was in boot camp, but I didn't think to ask how much sugar should be added nor do you let it set first? 

Handed-in my room key and went to the lobby to waste time before the shuttle bus to the airport.  Finally got to have a conversation with hellsop.  Told geekers, you know you're traveling through the South when. . .and relayed the two anecdotes from my bus trip over the ranting black man and the random cross.  Her response to me remarking the woman was definitely still on Christian 101 with the, do I have to go to church on Sundays?, was to say, of course, you can always go on Monday.  heh. 

Bus shuttle was very quiet for me, but then again I was in the front passenger seat since the other free seat required climbing over a bunch of Goths and it's not like this is the ideal situation to be climbing over a bunch of Goths when the bus driver is a witness to what happens next. 

At the airport, the security staff watching the trays of objects from people's pants coming through the x-ray asked, what are those? and got a response of bondage cuffs.  Is that something sexual? just got a response of yes since I was so concentrated on getting everything back in my pockets and it wasn't a, security needs to spend extra-time scruntizing this, situation. 

Got a Mr. Pibb with whatever I ate to say good-bye to the South.  I've never seen it up here. 

All the weather delays from New York was affecting other flights, including mine own, but that at least meant a group of us clad in black formed to keep each other company.  More LJ names were exchanged.  I learned that I would need to Google how to spell Syilvia before I could spell it Szilvia to get one name right. IIRC, she's the one that knows how to get what you want out of international flights.  Chesch couldn't get his questions answered about the Boston scene, but I could direct him to xanderxero's LJ.  Friends make it easier for him to crash in Boston than to go to NYC from New Jersey.  In theory, NYC is easier than Boston for me with a late bus to NYC and an early bus back.  Gave him newgothcity.com as a link anyway. 

Chesch, here's a NJ/NYC Yahoo! mailing list for you:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/NJNYCIndustrialEvents/

Stop-over in Atlanta was fairly uneventful.  The delay wasn't as bad as it was predicted, but it was still enough that I was only just barely able to make my last connections to Quincy Center station before waiting for a cab. 

Wait, What?

I went away three times this year and I finally finish logging one of the trips?  w00t!  Maybe I'll actually finish my Wisconsin journey from January next (less ambitious than finishing my Whitby Wanderings.) 

Comic Book Reading

Due to buying two study guides, I'm delaying my due date to read the next volume of the Mahabharata by a month. 

In the meanwhile,
Nightmares and Fairy Tales: Dancing with the Ghosts of Whales by Serena Valentino and Camilla d' Errico
The Lost Ones with artwork by Morning Breath, Dr. Revolt, Gary Panter, and Kime Buzzelli
The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poe Created and Written by Dwight L MacPherson and Illustrated by Thomas Boatwright
Issues 1-7 of Polyglot & Spleen, written by Marc Moorash and Heather Stanley and illustrated by Heather Stanley

WI Trip To

Earlier this year I had taken a trip to Wisconsin to visit hellsop for his birthday and had only gotten around to making two entries about the pre-trip. 

WI Pre-Trip
http://tenshikurai9.livejournal.com/30063.html

Wi Pre-Trip Addendum
http://tenshikurai9.livejournal.com/32487.html

Might be time to finally finish this considering it's been over half-a-year and two other long distance trips later. 
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The journey itself started in South Station.  Along the way to the first New York (not-city) stop, we picked people up in Worcester.  Apparently there's a bakery called Wholly Cannoli whose store front I saw.  http://www.whollycannoli.com/  There was another puny business name for a butcher's, but I don't remember what it was. 

I'm blanking-out on the name of the first city, but I remember picking-up a brochure for New York Trailways and the local transit schedules (since thrown-out.)  Had my almond cookie then.  http://www.trailwaysny.com/

Had one sandwich at another stop and then waited for another stop before eating the second.  Unfortunately I can't remember where in New York I was at the time. 

In Buffalo, I made my connection for Cleveland.  While I waited, I took notes on a sign that had local phone numbers for things like shelters and Traveler's Aid, walked around the entire perimeter of the station, and bought the last food I had before Wisconsin; a pre-packaged coffee treat and a grapefruit.  There were chairs with TVs that you could pay a quarter for some viewing time.  Turned-out to be black-and-white and with reception so bad, it wasn't worth watching the rest of a Simpsons episode.  When in line to get on the bus, I had to tap one guy to compliment him on his jacket.  It had a leather pride flag on it. 

Once in Cleveland, but before the station, I got to see an aviation field as part of a high school.  Got greeted by the sounds of an auction on the TV.  Even though I had oonh's number, I resisted paying for a long distance call on the account that it was somewhere early in the morning. 

Next major leg was to get to Chicago which involved passing through Indiana.  Indiana is nothing but fields.  Makes it very conceivable for car tag to exist out there.  Saw a Shake and Bake for the first time.  Also saw a sign along the lines of hot wax wash, in reference to your car.  My mind still did the wandering necessary to smile. 

In Chicago, I called hellsop's cell and left a message that I was en route to Millwaukee. 

On that final ride, I got to see the sign for what hellsop claimed to be for the only White Castle in the state.  That's still one more White Castle than Massachusetts.  I saw multiple places to sell fireworks.  Hellsop got to tell me that law makes it legal to sell, but not own fireworks so they're sending mix messages.  Both are illegal back here. 

I think it was Buffalo to Cleveland that I saw an Amish (or similiar kind of cultural group) family get on the bus.  Closest I've been before to such people are when Mennonite women are singing in the streets of Boston to recruit. 

I saw at least three adult store signs.  I remember two names.  Pandora's Box and Adultmart (most succinct name of the three.) 

One rest stop was at a chain of trucker rest stops beginning with the letter P.  My mind broke and couldn't grab every free publication at the sight of so many trucker magazines.  So I just grabbed the Spanish language one and maybe another one or two (which have since been thrown-away and the Spanish one I gave to a friend.)