Here I am in my nice, comfy hotel room in Baltimore.  Even though Otakon doesn’t officially start tomorrow, I had a busy day.  Besides a normally 5 hour drive taking over 6 hours due to rain, traffic and, thanks to those delays, hitting Baltimore in the middle of rush hour, I also went to the convention center to pick up by badge.  It wasn’t too bad.  It was a long line, but they kept things moving, so that’s a good first sign.

I also got to ride the light rail for the first time, and I’m rather impressed.  It is much easier, faster, and cheaper to travel from where I am south of the city to the convention than trying to find any place to park.

I also went to a nearby mall and signed up to pick up my copy of Harry Potter 7 at Books-A-Million and watched the 5th movie for a 2nd time.  Now I’m finally making my final plans for tomorrow, and here they are as best as I can plan them:

Metropilis (9:00am – 11:00am; 35mm room)
State of Otakudom panel (11:00am – 11:30am; Panel room 1)

Lunch 

Imaginasion Q&A Industry panel (12:00pm – 12:30pm; Panel Room 2)
Air TV Episode 1 (12:30pm – 1:00pm; Main Events Room)
Aaron Dismuke Q&A (1:00pm -2:00pm; Panel Room 4)
Bandai Visual Q&A Industry panel (2:00pm – 3:00pm; Panel Room 2)
Mamiko Noto Q&A (3:00pm – 4:00pm; Panel Room 4)
Tomokazu Seki Q&A (4:00pm – 5:00pm; Panel Room 4)
Morio Asaka panel (5:00pm – 6:00pm; Panel Room 3)

 1^st priority: Asaka Autographs (6:00pm – 7:00pm; Autographs Room 3)
backup:  Fate/Stay Night Episodes 1 – 4 (6:00pm – 8:00pm; Video Room 2)

Dinner

AMV Contest (9:00pm – 11:30pm; Main Events Room

I’ll wait to make my Saturday schedule until tomorrow night, when I get a better idea of the actual feasibility of getting from one place to the other on time.  If I just can’t make some of these, that will give me time to wander around the dealer’s room and such too.   We’ll see how it goes, though.  The only place I may have trouble trying to get to is to see Air in the Main room, but luckily the thing before it (the ImaginAsian panel) isn’t really high on my list, and it’s right after lunch, so I may pass on that, give myself a half-hour extra for lunch, and then go straight to the Main Events room from there.  We’ll see.

I’ll try to take pictures and some audio clips, but be aware, some of that stuff is prohibited in some areas.  I’ll really try to get audio from the panels if I can, though.

Now that the tentative Otakon schedule is out, I can at least start listing things I’d like to see, and actually narrow down what I’d like to see later in the week.

Friday, July 20

Metropolis (9am – 11am)
Anime 101 (10am – 11am)
State of Otakudom (11am – 12pm)
Photoshop Panel (10am – 12:30pm) – hey, if nothing else maybe I can learn something for work even
Air TV Episode 1 (12:30pm – 1pm)
Vic & Steve Show (2:00pm – 3:00pm)
Welcome to the NHK Episode 1 (2:30pm – 3:00pm)
ADV Films Sneak (4:00pm – 5:00pm)
Morio Asaka (5:00pm – 6:00pm)
FUNimation Q&A (6:00 – 7:00pm)
Fate Stay Night 1-4 (S) (6:00pm – 8:00pm)
Otakon Game Show (7:00pm – 9:00pm) – I’m just interested to see what this is
Darker than Black 1-3 (S) (8:00 – 9:30pm)
OtakuGeneration/Podcasting (9:00pm – 12:00am) – anything with podcasting peaks my interest
Podcaster’s Roundtable (11:30pm-12:00am) – crap, and I think the last light rail leaves at about 11:30, and I really, really, really want to go to this too.  Maybe I’ll have to find SOME WAY to go to it.

Saturday, July 21

Haruhi Suzumiya (9:00am – 10:00m) – what about Haruhi Suzumiya, I don’t know
Media Blasters (9:00am – 10:00am)
Manga Entertainment (10:00am – 11:00am)
Tokyopop (11:00am – 12:00pm)
Sola 1-4 (S) (12:00pm – 2:00pm)
Tsubasa Chronicles 1-4 (S) (12:00pm – 2:00pm)
ADV Films Q&A (1:00pm – 2:00pm)
Anime News Network (1:00pm – 2:00pm)
Bandai Entertainment Q&A (2:00pm – 3:00pm) – this may be especially productive since, from my impression, they basically said they were going to announce something new at Otakon at their Anime Expo panel
Morio Asaka Q&A (3:00pm – 4:00pm)
Geneon Premiere (TBD) (4:00pm – 6:00pm)
5CM (6:00pm – 8:00pm) – I’m assuming this is 5cm per second, but I’ll make sure
Rozen Maiden 1-4 (D) (6:00pm – 8:00pm)
Animation: How it Works (6:30pm – 7:30pm)
Karin 1-4 (S) (8:00pm – 10:00pm)
Geneon Q&A (9:00pm – 10:00pm)
Ergo Proxy 1-4 (S) (9:30pm – 11:30pm)

Sunday, July 22nd

Del Ray Manga (9:00am – 10:00am)
I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This (9:00am – 10:00am)
To Heart 1-4 (D) (9:00am – 11:00am)
Into the Sky: Last Exile (10:30 – 11:30am)
Elric Brothers Q&A (11:00am – 12:00pm)
Code Geass 1-4 (S) (11:00pm – 1:00am)
Kadokawa Pictures (2:00pm – 3:00pm)

And of course there are things such as eating and so on, so I’ll have to see how my ultimate schedule turns out.  Also, I just looked at the light rail info, and the last train that goes beyond the convention center to the south on Friday night leaves at 12:07, so, that’s really pushing it.