Okay, for Sev and Lisa, here's a rundown of my MegaCon experience, such as it was.

The directions to the Orlando convention center were pretty easy. I followed the signs for parking, and ended up in a lot about half a mile away from the actual con. Fortunately, there was a shuttle bus, occupied by one other con-goer when I got on. Unfortunately, the driver had the short-term memory of an avocado, and asked us four times en route which convention we were going to, as there were several scheduled at the center that day (one of which was a national cheerleading competition).

I got there right at nine, which was a pity because the doors didn't open until ten. So I waited in line, surrounded by comic book fans. Apparently, the new hotness is to denigrate everything about the con experience, as all I heard was sarcastic sniping about the guests, panels and attendees (apparently, Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons is less of a caricature than I thought). Among the few costumes I recognized, I saw a couple of Sailor Moons, a Spike (from Cowboy Bebop, not Buffy), a group of G.I. Joes, and of course the local detachment of stormtroopers.

One of the stormtroopers was female, and had a midriff-baring breastplate (complete with breast cups). One of her compatriots was wearing full stormtrooper armor from the waist up, but below that was wearing a neoprene kilt over bare legs and Doc Martens. A third had a large backpack which continually played music from the original Star Wars trilogy. It was certainly the most interesting stormtrooper squadron I've seen.

There were other interesting costumes. There was a group of people who were all wearing small transparent umbrellas on their heads. I have no idea what they were supposed to be. A lot of cat-ears. Someone wearing an entire plush suit, but I'm not going there.

None of the panels or speakers interested me enough to go to them. I walked once around the exhibitor floor, looking for something interesting to buy Karen, but there really wasn't anything that moved me to purchase it.

Pretty much my whole day was spent hanging out at the Hash booth. Another A:M user showed up, and we chatted while the Hash guys were demonstrating. Fairly early on, a couple of goth kids came by, listened to the demonstration, and then asked if the software was available on Kazaa. Now that's chutzpah.

Across the aisle from Hash were two voice actors from Dragonball Z, there to sign autographs. They epitomized the reason I hate English dubs on anime: they did the most annoying, ear-piercing voices, though their normal speaking voices were quite pleasant. Of course, they didn't use their normal speaking voices much, preferring instead to shrill the same "ad-libbed" lines into the microphones every half hour. And for some reason, their PA speakers weren't aimed at their audience, but directly at the Hash booth. And they set the volume knob on 11 and then broke it off.

Towards the end of the day, one of the Hashes had to leave the booth because he couldn't stifle his laughter; a prospective customer was accompanied by a pair of friends, one of which was a guy wearing a miniskirt, opera gloves, go-go boots and a leash, with his neck covered in hickeys. The other Hash, amazingly, was able to keep a straight face.

After the con, we went out to dinner with the Hash guys, talked about this and that, and then we all went our merry ways.