I started working for Nekocon about three months prior to the convention. It seemed deceptively easy. Most of the guests had already been invited and confirmed by Larry Drews, the con-chair. So I just needed to check on all the confirmed guests. So, I put my feet up, kicked back a few, and e-mailed all the guests cute little personal e-mails introducing myself. In retrospect I may have been a bit overly- animated about it. I don't remember much through my caffeine daze, but I do recall using phrases like: My name is Kayt, as you damned well know, and I'll be your convention guest relations officer, kinda like Julie on the Love Boat. Pretty easy, eh? Guests e-mailed me back, and returned my greetings. Everything was jake.

And then I learned the hardest part of guest relations. It's not what you can do for the guests; it's getting them to do something for YOU. And now I had to get up-to-date biographies and illustrations for each guest. These were to be published in our program book, our program book had to be finished by a set deadline...and so on. Suddenly, little Miss Julie-your-cruise-director was a harpy in constant hover.

Now I'm not saying that the artists, translators or voice actors were lazy. All of the guests had real and often very time consuming, jobs to content with. Furthermore many of them were prompt in their replies. The Biographies and pictures filtered in with minimal pestering…and then there was one, Studio Ironcat.

Now, this put me in an awkward position. I used to work for Ironcat. I love Steve Bennett. Kuni Kimura, however, is not my closest pal. I'd expound upon this more, but I strongly feel Kuni ruins his own reputation on a daily basis in ways that are more effective than my invectives could ever be*. I knew that my prior relationship as Kuni's employee would make everything more difficult. My need for those biographies was not about wanting to be annoying; it was purely convention business. A convention has to give accurate information to the attending fans. If I did not have the information then the program books would be incomplete. We'd look unprofessional. And whining that Kuni hadn't sent the information would make us look petty.

Meanwhile, Kuni was calling everyone on staff because he wanted to bring in a slew of other guests to the convention. He sprung this on us one month before the convention and we could not handle his offer, because we did not have the money or the manpower to take care of 6-8 more guests. So Kuni was calling EVERYONE, except me…the one person who was in charge of such things.

The fact that he was hounding the convention, not going through the proper channels, yet couldn't be bothered to whip out a damned e-mail biography was KILLING me.

So I started calling the office. I called a LOT. I left e-mails and phone messages. I began wondering if calling Kuni at home at 4 am would help. I wrote treatises on frustration. I damned him and his one ear. I swore like a Furby in a crackhouse. Jeff Thompson can back me up on this, as can my boy, Drew.

And then I wrote two bios to help me relax. Two bios that were NEVER intended to go into the program guide. I posted these bios to a Nekocon e-mail list and we all had a cute laugh. I've recently searched my past e-mails for these bios and have only found Kuni's:

Kuni Kimura: Some predatory suckers have taken things one step further and specialize on the blood of vertebrates: amphibian, reptiles, birds and mammals. The saliva of these insects - assassin bugs, mosquitoes, midges, tsetse flies - contains anti-coagulant, which, when injected, ensure that the victims blood does not clot for the duration of the meal. Kuni is the translator and producer of Studio Ironcat. You've probably also watched some of his anime translation projects like Neon Genesis Evangelion. If You haven't you've been living in a hole in the ground.

Steve's was much nicer, his stated that he was NOT a parasitic insect. I also mentioned his accomplishments and his lovely wife, Nikki.

Two to three weeks before the convention I drove down to Blacksburg, Virginia for the last Neko meeting before the con. At the meeting I wrote two very respectable biographies for Steve and Kuni on Tom Cardwell's laptop computer. We then went back to Larry's to hash out the program book. At this time I wrote most of the panel descriptions for the program booklet using Larry's computer.

My good friend Besh called me a few weeks before the convention. He said he'd talked Steve Bennett at Anime Iowa and had told him about the two respectful biographies I'd written. Steve sent his love and thanks. I felt good about what I'd done. After all, I'd been tempted to put the insect descriptions in the book.

I arrived at the con on Thursday, to relax before the storm, greet guests, and get boozed up with my boys. I hit the hot tub early in the afternoon. There were probably seven or eight of us unwinding in the steam. I know that Talisin was there, as was Rob Lantz. Tomas Cardwell and Scooter joined us, bringing a laptop. They announced that they had the program book layouts on the computer and I dredged my hot tub-pampered ass out of pure bliss to take a looksie.

Unbeknownst to me, Larry, in a last minute panic, had realized that my Steve and Kuni biographies were not on his computer and that time was running out. And as quickly as you could say "serves them right" he'd pulled up my e-mailed joke-biographies and BLAMMO!

So there I was, looking at the program guide and on page whatever-the-fuck were Steve and Kuni's information. The first blurbs I'd written. And I SWORE. The hot tubs kids gathered round, asked what's up, and laughed.

Later I learned that most of my descriptions had landed unchecked by god or a spell checker in the program book. We don't know how. Magic fucking pixies. Furthermore we didn't learn the full extent of the damage until the second day of the con when the programs actually arrived (yeah, a little late). The magic fucking pixies had played hide and seek with our programs while they were at it, or else evil gnomes had driven the programs back from Siberia at a 5mph, the details blur.

Steve had a good sense of humor about it. He realized that it was an honest mistake. He's even admitted that had it not been an honest mistake, they may have deserved it. Kuni acted cool about it, but I've been told he wanted to slander all of Neko after that moment and wanted me out of my position at guest relations, for any convention ever.

But please don't get me wrong, other than the program snafu, a fuck'n blast was had by all.