Tom and I decided to be adventurous and take the mini van to PMX. My Mercedes Benz was being funny the previous day. It was interesting trying to meet the height clearance in the cramped LAX Hilton underground structure. Tom put it best when he said, "This mini van has a huge ass." We were able to successfully find parking on the lower level with minimal damage.

At 10AM, the doll gathering took place in the main lobby. All doll aficionados were welcomed to bring their ball jointed dolls, resin kids, and Pullips to this event. No resin discrimination here. Anneke brought her Harry Potter guys and dolls. One doll was a "Mary Sue Potter," which epitomizes the ridiculous original characters in the Harry Potter fan fiction universe - reincarnation of Lily, three-ways with Snape and Black (via the ring) in Manhattan, half$elf, etc among other silly fan fiction cliches. Otherwise, the doll gathering was nicely put together - Betty, Hayley, Carol, Mr. Postman, Darci, and Cynthia were great to hang out with.

If you look carefully in the doll photos, you can spot the latest dollfie in the Traveling Valentine family. Cosplay Cyborg was able to spot Elphaba (nicknamed as "That One" and the "Moldy Sand-witch").

Yes, even this big Kirby counts as a dolly. Yo-Joe concluded the doll gathering by declaring Obama, McCain, and the other members of the Hope Diamond heist as deceased to ensure their clean getaway. Boom, baby! Tom's Doll Gathering pictures are located here.

There were more cosplayers pouring in on Saturday. Despite an Angelic Pretty Lolita event on the other side of Los Angeles, there were a few Lolitas at PMX. Anything related to Asian pop culture was welcomed with open arms. Even Transformers themed Lolita was very much welcomed into the mix. Kinda makes me want to do a Lolita version of G1 Megatron.

Julia came in as a stunning Sailor Venus. Tom stood in as Artemis. Of course, like any other cat, he chomped the V-babe.

What to do on a Saturday afternoon? Well, there's the Dealers Room. They had your typical share of plushies, anime keychains, discounted anime and manga dvds, etc. If you were into Lolita or Tokyo Street Style, there were about three dealers selling such kind of fashion. You could also pick up Asian cinema dvds and weapons (airsoft guns and swords). When we dropped by to the Dealers Room, Suicide Ali was doing signings and photo ops.

There was also the "Pocky tasting room." Though the event was free for press, regular attendees had to pay $5. I thought the event should be free for PMX paying attendees. Most of the featured Pocky were already ones you could pick up at any Asian supermarket. How about those funky exclusive flavors like green tea or wine Pocky? In addition to the Pocky tasting, the $5 netted patrons a random prize, a box of the otaku snack, and one's name written in Japanese.

There was also a maid cafe sponsored by Royal/T, but they charged per photo. They also charged for food and drink, which weren't their products since the hotel did not allow them to outside food there. The hotel issued its own teas and refreshments for the maid cafe to sell.

Tom and I had the Baccano! gathering to attend. The series has reached cult status in the anime community. Tom and I went as Issac and Miria from the New York episode. The gathering was small, but it was great to talk to Kevin (Firo), Chris (Ladd), and Laura (Lua) about the rising popularity of the show and the latest Funimation license. Memo to Stan and Deb - get your Baccano! costumes in gear! The best part was Kevin giving away free Hersheys chocolate. If you have seen the Baccano! opening, you can pick up the reference.

Though there was a scheduled Baccano! gathering, what really stole the show on Saturday afternoon was a MySpace profile cosplayer. Sad to say, this is better than the real thing. It does not crash my browser and I do not have to trudge through animated gifs and psuedo-porn with some redundant emo song in the background. Many kudos to the MySpace cosplayer for creativity.Saturday almost felt like a dead dog day. Masquerade, or CosFest, was not happening until

Sunday early evening. Most of the time spent was dedicated to working on K Valentine Talks to People. Many thanks to those of you who participated! None of the panels or programming were of any relevant interest to us. Unlike last year, there were guests that we wanted to see and interesting things to explore. For the most part, Pacific Media Expo is more of a social event than its mission statement. Cosplayers and otaku mainly hung out and chit-chatted. We had a good conversation with one of our Bay Area buddies, Famous Ray Nagar.

At this point, Tom checked out Glamour Con. If you had a hotel room, you can get into the soft core adult event for free. Let's say a bear in an Hawaiian shirt helped him get through security.

Tom's field report of Glamour Con: It was a small Dealer Room full of models and "actresses" selling photos of their naked selves. Pretty much all the attendees (myself excluded) were men carrying porn. I didn't see anything I wanted to carry around the general public outside of the Obama dollars. The only model I recognized was Christie Thom of the early 90s Playboy days. She's an artist now. Pictures with the "talent" cost money I didn't want to spend. With nothing else of interest, I fell back to PMX.

Click here for ONE picture from Glamour Con and the rest of Tom's pictures from Saturday.

The models we ran into a few times were very nice and told us they wish they were attending Pacific Media Expo. One of them talked about wanting to dress up from Cowboy Bebop. No, the model posing with Cobra Commander is not Yaya Han.

Tom picked up $8 Obama prop dollar bills at Glamour Con. Thanks to Jay and Maguma for being good sports for putting up with our Obama jokes.

The other main gathering on Saturday was the Bleach shoot. A few of my buddies cosplayed as Arrancar. Most of the poses and requests involved killing Aizen.

Tom, Stan, and I decided to grab dinner. The hotel did not provide much of a selection. The cafe offered $16 pizza enough to feed 2-3 people depending on your appetite. The surrounding area had a Denny's and a Carl's Jr.

For most of Saturday, we sang the night away in the karaoke room with Tiffany and Carolyn. The Japanese song database died earlier in the day, but that didn't affect us since we primarily sing in English. You can see video from Saturday in the karaoke section. PMX did not have much to offer in terms of programming, but if you wanted to hang out with friends and create your own mayhem - be it playing Apples to Apples in the lobby or pretending to be an idol singer on the karaoke stage, this was the place.

Pictures are copyright by Traveling Valentine. If we took your picture, feel free to use it on your site or cosplay gallery. While you're here, do sign the guestbook. This site was brought to you by the font Kentucky Fried Font. Traveling Valentine photo resizing program courtesy of Chaz Boston Baden.