WMAS Newsletter
Volume 2, Issue 10
Where a third of the whole thing is a total lie, and the real quotes are out of sequence.

"So, Maze won through Love and Justice?"
"No, sex and violence, man!"
- Kevin and Ben
"Y'all look like sorority bitches here."
- Someone who looked at our photos
"Get off of this bed. This is the girls' bed."
- Tina
"Julie's getting her groove on."
- Robbie
"I'm using his lower back; someone else can use his ass."
- Tina
"It's not good being a male prostitute. I -- never mind."
- Rob
"You give me the keys; I'll give you my pants."
- Ben
"Wow. Our mattress has moved."
- Tina
"It was my first time and it was good."
- Tina
"I'm changing, we're changing -- we're getting naked."
-Tina
"So guys, what do you think?"
"Yaaaaaaaagh!"
- Tina and Mike
"You put the hook in her head?"
- King
"Eat something or die."
- the snack lady
"...and so you look at the pie and say: 'was it good for you'?"
- Mike
"If I turned into Proteus, the audience would die."
- D. Michael Canada, Jr.
"It looks like a bomb went off at the Lilith Fair!"
- The other Mike
"It took me a while to realize, but the vending machines here don't take W&M Express."
- Rob
"I don't need money."
"Not with what you're wearing under that, you don't."
- Tina and Julie
"I don't believe in fairies." "Splat."
- All at one point in time or another
"Kill me, and release my soul."
- Randi at the con
"Thirteen year olds should not be talking about masturbation."
- Julie
"Stop looking at my nipples!"
- Rob
"I'm female Maze. I'm allowed to be groped."
- Tina
"Everyone's watching Neoranga but me!"
- Ben
"I don't know if that's toxic or not."
- Rob
"My gel is losing its consistency."
- Aaron
"Look! I'm a lump!"
- Tina
"Okay, if you just stab her straight in the back..."
- Julie
"Oh my god...she's getting naked...Randi, put your clothes back on."
- Rob
"There is no Randi. There is only Zuul."
- We think it was Randi, but she was drunk from a room party, and...

Message from that Guy
Hey everyone! I'd just like to say first that we totally rock the house. How many other clubs got a prize this weekend? None that I know of!
So, anyway, here's a less-than brief rundown of the convention, as I saw it.
Day 1
I took Kevin's car to the con, so even in traffic, we were blasting intense heavy-metal tunes to the world. We even got past the "I hate all women" album to the "I'm really sorry for treating you so badly" album on the same tape.
After the traffic, we managed to get to the Holiday Inn in one piece, and registration took about four seconds, as opposed to last year's twenty minutes followed by "where the hell is Mike?" "I thought he was in YOUR car!" I also got a much better badge this year, but everyone else got one too if they pre-registered, and I thought I was going to get a cool one 'cause I registered earlier than pretty much everyone save Steve Bennett and Derek the Man Who Should Get a New Costume, but obviously I was wrong. At any rate, the cat girl on it was cute.
Mike acquired something from the Box of Smiling Kenshin, but it's for a friend, so it's okay.  Never, ever buy anything that has characters smiling on the cover if you don't know them to smile often normally.  Trust me on this; in Japan it's how my friend Allen could tell that these were not the King of Fighters manga he wanted.
Once I ditched my stuff in my room, I started checking out the video rooms, not much was on, so I hung out with everyone (learning how garage kits work in the process; ask our resident Model Judge how you too can get a small cat girl resin kit) until we decided to watch Violinist of Hameln (it really should be Hamelin, but it isn't). It's still funny, especially the part with the dogs. Following that, we went to Denny's so we could once again slowly poison ourselves with fat. In doing so, we missed Tenchi Forever, as our waitress moved about as fast as Shiori from Galaxy Fraulein Yuna, but with a much less cool battle suit. So what we did do is get ready for our cosplay skit. By the way, never, ever say you were in a cosplay to a Japanese person; for some reason the term there is associated with women dressing up in funny costumes and then taking them off. On video. So, we finished our costumes, glued Randi to a stick, and prepared a diamond form for Maze to hurl. Then I went on a tear of sound effects, so if anyone wants to know what a Steyr AUG sounds like when being fired in a tub of JELL-O, I now have it visualized.
We also went to the Punk Rock Dance Party that night, which was pretty cozy, and Tina showed us all how she attracts beautiful people to give eternal happiness, although it kind of sucked burying all the ugly people who hit on her under bushes in the parking lot. Never ever try to replant a bush under mulch using only the tinfoil that Julie didn't put into her shoulder pads as a makeshift shovel.
I now realize that WMAS has a lot of very good dancers, whereas I, who am neither spontaneous nor well-thought out when dancing, looked like I had been struck with a sudden epileptic disorder, or perhaps eaten too much mercury-laden fish (side note: eating Mercury-laden fish would be very different, totally treif, and probably evil). Ota-senpai showed us how he could get every woman in the room should he so desire, and even Mike displayed some of his Protean energy in his free styling moves.
Unfortunately, when I went back to my room after the skit preparation, I found that I had been locked out by people who were not going to let me in. I knocked, but only silence responded. So, sheepishly, I found myself on the doorstep of Rob, Tina, Julie, and Mike's room, asking for a berth for the night. Julie did have a sleeping bag, which was good. It was Julie-sized, which was not as good, as I am anything but, plus it didn't zip, so my feet stuck out and I was trying desperately to get it to cover my entire girth. However, as a sleeping bag, it guaranteed that I would be the only one not groped by a bedmate in that room that night.
Day 2
The Day Rob Did Not Close His Shirt
The first thing I did when I woke up was go eat a ludicrously overpriced breakfast. Never, ever, ever eat a buffet in a small hotel. Especially in Japan, but that's a lesson I learned in Kobe that I still haven't applied. Then I went to get some money from an ATM with Mike. As we were passing the tasteless funeral place ("Low-cost funerals...because life goes on"), the remnants of the yakuza group that I had to deal with in Japan when saving that schoolgirl struck, trying a drive-by. Fortunately, America is the great country it is, and Mike had a CAWS under his wool trench coat for just such an occasion. I tend not to pack when going to cons, as my jacket is too small and it makes the dealers nervous.
After that, we went to sign up our group for the cosplay, and we practiced a little. Then we practiced a little more, working very hard to make sure the sketch was under the three minute time limit mandated, as that's the first thing the judges would try to disqualify us on, and we were competing. We were not competing on craftsmanship, as other than Julie's armored jump suit we didn't have any save a poster board fireball, and judging us on that would have been good only had we been in the Junior or Severe Motor Skill Disability categories.
After practice, I vanished into the ether, hanging out in the dealer's room with Alex, a good friend of Aaron's who had made a surprise appearance at the con. We spent a couple hours trying to read the spines of the Japanese DVDs (I love translation; if you haven't realized already working with words and their meanings is a lot of fun for me), spending special time discussing why the porn ones had such bizarre names. This was followed by a half-hour in the Music Video contest, where I saw some of the worst videos ever. I mean, I could do better with two Fist of the North Star episodes and a single of Enrique Iglesias's "Bai Lamos." (Bai Lamos, let the spirit take you over [SPLAT] bai lamos...yo quiero [HEAD EXPLOSION]...) Nobody had sequencing or good clips or even a unified theme. I left, not feeling very entertained.
After that I went to the Voice Acting panel, and the voice actors were very nice to me after I mostly butchered the English lines for a Slayers Next character (they said I took direction well). By five, I decided to get myself ready for the cosplay, so I hurried upstairs and changed into some black clothes so I would be invisible to the audience, or at least in a bunraku puppet sort of thing. Unfortunately, our special effects guy, who will only be known as King Chan, did not have any black clothes and he would actually be on stage, as opposed to me, who would be sitting behind the stage making noises. So, as he was roughly the same height and weight as I (this would have been tricky if Julie or Tina was doing special effects), he got to wear my all-black outfit, and I had absolutely no costume at all, just a pair of jeans and an Old Navy shirt.
So, finally we got to the cosplay, and we stood in line behind a very young girl who was doing Kasumi/Misty from Pokemon. Not only was she nervous, Rob had been channeling male Maze for the past hour or so, resulting in a wild-haired man with an open shirt who had an urge to grab people and scream, so she probably started remembering everything her mom had said about strangers. Behind us were two young people playing Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask in their own skits, and we discussed how to kill Sailor Senchi for a little while. I said tha if regular bullets didn't work, we have to switch to armor-piercing incendiary. Then we got to learn how much 13-year olds dressed up as Tuxedo Mask know about sex. I will go no further on that subject.
When I finally got to the stage, I had the nastiest nervous stomach cramps, so my sound effects were slightly different than planned, but we killed Randi just the same and it was a lot of fun. Then we got off the stage to watch our line mates do their skits, which were pretty good, then we saw possibly the most disgusting Sorcerer Hunters skit ever (I will only say that a young person, about our Tuxedo Mask's age, used the phrase "humping a chicken like there's no tomorrow"), followed by the man who does Goku every con do Goku again just as interestingly (we were all glad when he got a "please stop" award).
So, finally, we got to the awards ceremony, and...my gosh, we won! Even though we won under a category Steve Bennett described as "we thought we could do this too" and our prize was a stack of comic books of dubious consistency (first thought: there are ads for porn comics on the back?), we did get a cool trophy, and we did win. We were riding on Cloud Nine that night. The Misty girl won a stuffed pikachu, and the look on her face was so precious. It looked like this would be the moment of her young life that she would treasure forever. Or maybe it would cause her to end up as the English voice of a bunch of magical girls. Only time will tell. The chicken-humpers got best of show, which says too much about our society today, but by that time we had our trophy, so we didn't care.
There was another dance party, but after my "Du Hast" fix (I must hear that song about every 36 hours or I get scary German music withdrawal) I was plum tired. Rob was wearing a Chinese shirt at that time, but it was still open, giving him that "Liu Kang's day off" look. I then retired to my actual room and packed, then went to sleep on the floor for the second time. I had a wacky anime-related dream, but it's probably better that I don't remember it. No chickens, though.
Day 3
Day three was pretty much wrap-up, with us being all tired and worn-out. After some last-minute checking in with the art room, I headed on home to fall asleep for a looong time, to be awakened only by Luna the cat, asking me to update the Sailor Scouts for new missions against domestic threats. Maybe it was a dream; I don't think the Flying Heart EMP Bombard will ever be used. It sure is fun being me, though, living on the fine line between reality and complete fiction. It was much fun, and I'd do it again in a minute. Next time, though, we've all agreed that the cosplay has to be that much cooler. Like exponentially cooler. Just ask us; we're all working on something.
The RPG will resume next week, barring unforseen events which you'll probably be warned about beforehand. Let's go, my arms-dealing magical girls!

Tina's Corner
So. . . what did we see last week? Everything! Things from men in black masks to really cute kids dressed as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. It was all worthwhile!
Here's a nice little synopsis of what I saw . . . which was more than I needed:
Let's start with the Anime Videos that were good . . . and bad. Most of the videos submitted were nice artsy type videos that make absolutely no sense. It was like an Anime drug trip. I think I almost wet my pants.
The winners were worthwhile though . . . let me reverberate:
Third place was the song "Glory of Love" set to Rurouni Kenshin, which was an awesome video. I just fell in love with that song and video as they showed really cute scenes between the two couples.
Second place was the song "Spider" (They might be giants) to Lupin III, really funny as the voice overs were perfect!
First place went to the song "Bad to the Bone" set to Final Fantasy VIII, and if I knew more about that game I'd explain some more, but it was funny as hell with the constant talk about hot dogs and such. If you didn't see it, than too bad.
Next on the agenda was the Art Show. There was some really amazing talent among the entrants and great pictures that I would have loved to keep for myself. I even saw a nice cell painting of Male and Female Maze. That was certainly cute. There were lots of cute pictures such as one with Hitomi and Van, Deedit, and a my personal favorite of the Chun-li cell drawing. But again, I can't really explicate so you just have to use your imaginations . . . no, not that way.
In reference to the Cosplay, it was fun, I hated playing female Maze, but we won anyway. All the efforts would not have been complete if it weren't for Ben's great sound effects as well as King's awesome prop man abilities. Ben made the fighting seem real. King made Randi seem alive (as well as dead) and was the Diamond Form. He also made friends with another Prop bitch from another skit. Let's face it, if it weren't for Ben and King, we probably wouldn't have won first place for Novice! Did I mention we won first place for Novice, we won first place for Novice! We have a trophy that's sitting in Rob's room right now . . . it's beautiful.
I was also probably one of the most photogenic persons at the Con. Pictures were taken of me in an Achika costume, Maze costume, and of me taking pictures in my Achika costume. I was also saved from one incriminating photo where instead of me, Kevin's ass was in the shoot. Oh, and you will have to search for the porn site with my pictures in it, it should be out soon.

Happy, Happy >(*_*)< Time
I didn't want to leave, but the hotel people made us leave the Con.  I wanted to stay for weeks, unfortunately the Nekocon was only scheduled for that weekend, so I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the extended part of the stay.  Well, a >(*_*)< can always dream.
Well I have yet to balance my check book.  Quite frankly I'm scared too.  Maybe this was why everyone was trying to keep me out of the dealer's room.  I think everyone noticed a pattern after my third trip to pick up "just one more thing."  And thanks to their help, I did come out a bit healthier than last year.  My purchases consisted of a three tape series, a soundtrack (which I almost immediately ripped and put on the network as mp3s,) and a set of Chibi Valkyries from Macross.
As I look around my room, I find my self reflecting back over the Con.  Mainly because my room has become the storage closet for all the props and prizes.  On the bright side I currently have the trophy standing on a podium of tapes on my desk.  On the dark side, my room mate nearly died from a heart-attack after seeing Randi the fairy on a string hanging from his bed.  She has since been moved to a less sinister spot on the floor.
We met quite a cast of characters at the Con, from people taking pictures as she pranced around in a school-girl uniform or less, to Robert DeJesus, a con-regular who dressed up like Hiro from Bust-A-Move and performed his dance routine with split-second precision, to J, a breakdancer who we met at the Con's Punk Dance who cheered almost louder than we did when we won the Best Novice award, to Toshi, the Cosplay MC who consumed enough alcohol to down a charging wooly mammoth during the course of the evening.  Why he was not dead after his tenth vodka martini and shots of bourbon, we're not sure, but he sure had a hard time reading the list of cosplayers by the time it was our turn.
Luckily, the judges were still coherent enough to call up our group when we won our award (we seem to mention that a lot, don't we....)  We were by far the loudest group once we heard the judges call out for group number 24.  We had spirit, that's for sure.  Hey, we were probably the only group that started singing an Alma Mater while waiting to go on stage.  King, Ben, Mike, Julie, Tina, I love you guys.  Let's kick some as at Katsucon 6 in February.

Librarian's Lair
Hey everyone. To break up the monotony inherent in a report of essentially the same thing, I briefly considered writing my section in rhyming iambic pentameter, but had a sudden flash of sanity. Ironic considering the events of the weekend. It was great fun in a crazy sort of way.
Here are of few of my highlights. We won best novice cosplay, of course, and it was hilarious. I think it was one of the nicer skits. A lot of torturing Randi jokes went on behind the scenes, which is not difficult when your Randi is suspended from the neck/head by a fishing hook. King was great as the special effects. Rob had a quite frightening male Maze. He spent a lot of time in the room getting in character. Since Rob and Tina brought some kendo stuff, Rob and I also spent time tracking down wannabe's with shinai and bokken (kendo practice swords) as props and beating the crap out of them. Julie had quite a kick as Solude. I have decided I will never challenge her to a real fight. Ben provided magnificent Marvel vs. [whatever]-like special effects. Tina did a very convincing female Maze.
Everyone laughed... even if they didn't know Maze. I'm only afraid I'm going to end up type-cast as myself for every other cosplay we end up doing. We were also the most spirited group to be seen. And we acquired a slew of American manga-style comics (a series called Furrlough) for the library. Treat it well--we didn't actually pay for them.
I didn't watch many videos, which is probably a good thing, since I did nothing but watch videos last year. Instead, we all watched Rurouni Kenhsin together--first the OAV's and then the movie. Quite frankly, I think this was the wrong order. The OAV serves as a flashback to Kenshin's past, explaining what happened to him during the Bakumatsu, why he is so deeply bent on atonement, and why he has an x-shaped scar. More than that though, it is a darkly beautiful, deeply artistic portrayal of life and death in a time of madness and turmoil. It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Five minutes into the movie, on the other hand, Kenshin goes SD with a loud "oro" as he bumps into a 7-foot-tall American. It was still good, but the contrast was oddly disturbing.
I spent a little over a hundred dollars ONLY on an Utena artbook (new to the library), a Giant Robo CD, and gift for Christina in response to a request (don't ask... for the love of god, don't ask...).
Miscellaneous interesting stuff: Saturday night, Rob, Tina, Julie, and I stayed up late and watched a TV show of monkeys acting with human voices dubbed in... I was just tired enough not to think it odd at all. Though I briefly wondered whether or not someone had slipped acid into my drink. Friday night, a man was spotted running down "artists' alley" flaming and screaming, "Not the chicken!! Damn you, NOT THE CHICKEN!"
A bunch of other things happened--from Rob and my efforts to keep sketchy people away from Tina and Julie at all times, especially dancing... and oh there were a LOT of them. Also, a few interesting conversations, but I'll leave a few things for everyone else to say. Later!

Black Mini Skirts and Tube Tops...
Wow! I've always aspired to this position! I actually have my own section in the WMAS newsletter. Omigosh, now that I'm here... what in earth should I write?
Neko-con was incredible and far surpassed my wildest expectations. It was a lot smaller than the other con I attended this past summer, Otakon, but that made it nice and cozy. We got to meet a lot of really nice people, some sketchy guys and a lot of real slimeballs. I think the best thing about the con was how much bonding went on between those of us who went. Though it scares me to think of what went on Friday night in the other hotel room. All I know is that Ben was locked out of his room and Kevin, King and Aaron had already "gone to bed." At least the three guys in my room were accompanied by two girls.
On the topic of girls... Myself and Tina must have been the hottest girls at the con dances OR the only ones that danced well enough to attract attention. We even timed how long we could last out on the floor by ourselves before we were approached. The slime started oozing over after only 10 seconds. Some of the guys there actually were quite slick. They'd come up from behind and go unnoticed until they got a bit too excited and bump... Rob and Mike did a valiant job at staving off our would-be assailants though. An added plus, I actually learned how to NOT lead while dancing and found myself hypnotized...
I actually was given this slot for writing because I was in the cosplay. Perhaps I should write a little something about that. My role could have turned out very badly, playing a butch lesbian and all (Solude from Maze), but with someone like Tina to grope, all was well. I think we all enjoyed that bit of the skit and we loved it so much we will be re-enacting it for your viewing pleasure this Friday at the meeting. We are hoping that Randi's hook in the back of her neck doesn't rust over and poison her by then. She wouldn't fly where we wanted her to though, so we had to put her on the fishing pole. We had a fabulous little fight scene and Mike was truly "the one" as he proceeded to literally kick my ass all over the stage. Tina's performance as the infamous Fem-Maze was unsurpassable and Rob... Well, he was down right terrifying. He connected with his character all too well. Yet me and Tina still fell asleep in bed with him Saturday night.
The con was a lot of fun, in more than one way, and I encourage all of you who didn't come to Neko-con to plan on attending Katsucon in February. We already have skit ideas in the works and are hoping to have two groups in the cosplay competition next time around. Oh... My time in the spotlight has ended. Will I ever make it back in the newsletter again?
One of the lowly assistant librarians
Julie "no it's not a typo" Vichweg

Joe Mama's Smack Down of the Week
Kevin Christie: I know what you did at the con.

Poll Question:
Last Week: What is Joe Mama?
33% I have no idea.
33% A bad-tempered downer of all things smack
33% Joe Mama is just Joe Mama.
1% The fourth horseman of the Tedpocalypse.
Unfortunately, no one can be told what Joe Mama is.  You have to experience Joe Mama for yourself.

Quasi-Trivia Questions:
ANSWERS:
Easy Question: Which blatant ethnic stereotype is least offensive: Tanya, Ling-Pha, the entire nation of Gartland, or Shampoo?  -- We say Gartland.  They're not as evil or obviously German as Ling-Pha and Shampoo are Chinese.  Those of us who studied modern Japanese history will recognize Ling-Pha and Shampoo in Japanese perceptions of China in the 1920's and 1930's, not to say that I'm accusing Taro Maki or Rumiko Takahashi of anything overt.  Tanya just looks bad no matter where you put her, but as a feral African girl she's pretty bad.
Hard Question: What other anime girls are secretly working for Faust of Saber Marionette J?
-- Sailor Mercury, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Satsuki from X.
PS  We will have questions next week.  This week, the letters already long enough to stress the text buffer on Eudora, so we're not going to test its limits.

Contact Info:
Here's how you reach your loving Officers:
President Aaron Seigo or That Guy Benjamin Cooper: aseigo@hotmail.com, section06@hotmail.com, x6230
Vice-President >(*.*)< : rodiet@mail.wm.edu, x5563
Secretary Tina Liu: txliux@maila.wm.edu, 253-6414
Head Librarian Mike "Proteus" Canada: mikecanada@hotmail.com, x6282
Head Enforcer Joe Mama: anisoc@mail.wm.edu, 1-800-DA-SMACK
-- Despite what the pencilboard said, Mil is NOT a hermaphrodite. --
This week, spellchecking was a unique form of Hell.