Yes, the time has come to seriously discuss and plan what we've all been half joking about for almost a year. An organized forum meet. This thread is the culmination of a discussion Yasha and I had over a delicious Sicilian dinner. Please excuse the length, there's going to be a lot to cover.

OMG AN IRG MEET? WHERE?
New York City. This is, presently, pretty non-negotiable. There are a lot of very valid reasons for choosing NYC. Among them:
-It's where Akio would live if he were real.
-Yasha and I both are very familiar with NYC so there won't be any threat of unfamiliar turf. Including in this is that we know how to make NYC cheap.
-There is a high concentration of IRG members in the NE area, among them people we estimate are more likely to come if they only need to bus into NYC instead of hop a plane.
-NYC is awesomesauce whether you're on a budget or blowing 200bux at Tomoe/on Broadway. In this regard we also feel that NYC offers the most for us as a group, with the most variety. If you're worried about crime, keep in mind NYC is the safest major city in the country.
The other obvious choice, since it met most of the above requirements in different ways, was San Francisco. Yasha and I agreed that if, as we sincerely hope, this meet is a success, the next meet will probably be in SF.

HOT SHIT, I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SIT ON WALL STREET AND WATCH GIOVANNA STEALTH MASTURBATE, WHEN IS THE PARTY?
As Yasha and I know by experience, spring, aside from Spring Break, is a very cheap time to travel, and NYC is especially agreeable at that time of year. We also figure this is just far enough away that we can organize this thing. Fall would have been an option but there's really no convenient time to do it in the fall given how many students are among us. Right now we are thinking some time in May, after spring term, hopefully before any summer classes you all might be in for. Right now the tentative length of the meet is three days; a long weekend. Now this we need your input on; Yasha and I are flexible about our dates, and we want to make the con available to as many people as possible. If this is accomplished by making the con Fri-Sun, fine. If enough of you have whacky work schedules, it might be Tues-Thurs. Dates will be decided based, like I said, on what makes it possible for the most people to attend.

MY WALLET IS EMPTY LIKE SAIONJI'S LOTION BOTTLE, HOW MUCH IS THIS GONNA COST
Well...frankly...a lot, by the standards of most of you. For all intents and purposes, you guys are on your own as far as paying for this thing goes. You have to fly/bus in, you have to pay for lodging, you have to feed yourselves. Now we can make these things cheaper for you than they might have been, except for transportation to the city. If you have airport hookups by all means share, but all the people I know with such connections can only get discounted standby tickets, and I strongly suggest you don't do this, since NYC flights tend to fill up, as Yasha has learned the hard way. I can only very roughly estimate by prior experience what the cost of transportation is going to be, but if you're flying in from the east coast, it'll cost about 160. Coming in from the west will be about 200. If you're in the northeast, taking a bus into NYC will usually run about 100. If you are in Canada, flying in will cost from 300-450. Anywhere else I couldn't say, but it will be more unless Mexico's airfare is similar to Canada's. This meet is of course open to the many of you not in the US; we'd love to have you in fact, but we realize airfare from pretty much anywhere else is going to be anal rape. Still, what's a little anal rape to meet such awesome people, huh? Come on, it was good enough for movie Touga!

Lodging...we can help a lot more with. There are plenty of hostels in NYC, which you can search for yourselves if you have the inclination. Yasha and I stay here: http://carltonarms.com/ This is very cheap for NYC and FUCKING AWESOME. Check out the rooms. It's definitely a unique experience and you won't get it anywhere else. Bare minimum will be 80bux a night for a single person using a shared bathroom. Their rates go by how many people are staying in the room, but obviously you're going to save by splitting the bill with another forum member or two. This is something you guys are going to have to sort out amongst yourselves; many of you have been to anime cons and are familiar with rooming in groups, so how much you're willing to save will be up to you. The cheapest proper hotel though will be this one: http://www.carterhotel.com/, which is cheaper than Carlton Arms, but not as funky cool. Mocha has mentioned before possibly being able to provide a couple discounted rooms at hotels if you're willing to stay a bit out of the way, in Harlem or Brooklyn. This amounts to your willingness to spend a bit more time on the subway. No, you won't get killed in Harlem or in Brooklyn. At worst, you'll get clogged arteries eating as Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.
Obviously, flying into NYC and staying are the major expenses. Here's a slightly more itemized list:

- Transportation in: 100-300+ depending on origin, plus 5-25bux each way depending on the method of transportation you choose to take to get from the airport to Manhattan, and which airport you come into.
- Lodging: The most you'll spend if you're penny pinching is 80 a night. Rooming with others/hostelling could bring you as low as 40-50 a night. FYI, the average 'normal' hotel in NYC is going to run 150+ a night. So figure 150-300 as a rough estimate of your lodging expenses.
- Transportation within NYC: FUCKING MASS TRANSIT. Unless you are carrying a lot of luggage, are rich, in a hurry, or are a douchebag, there's no reason to take taxis. Yasha and I get around just fine simply using the subways, nevermind the absurdly thorough bus routes. It's 2bux a ride, with 20% off if you put more than 10bux on the card at once. Also subway to bus and bus to bus transfers are free. Honestly, if you mean to use mass transit as your primary means to get around, you'll probably save money using the unlimited ride cards. A one day pass is 7bux, and a 7 day pass is 24. So depending on your stay schedule, you can probably get away with as little as 14, or as much as 21. You could be a Nazi and count your rides, but honestly, 21 dollars to get you anywhere you want in the city is nothing and it's very convenient not to have to think twice about hopping onto a subway/bus. But so you know, count on most taxi rides to cost between 8-15 bux a pop. 20-30 if you're taking a taxi to or from an airport that isn't Newark.
- Food: You can eat for 10bux a day or you can go to Per Se at a flat rate of 250 a head. Up to you. Street food is often delicious and cheap, and if you keep your wits about you, and maybe even plan ahead (http://menupages.com), there are plenty mindblowingly delicious meals to be had for insanely cheap. NYC is the foodie capital of the US, and you'll be hard pressed to find more variety and better quality anywhere else in the world. The secret to eating good food for cheap in NYC? Don't eat where there are tourists. This includes Times Square, museums, the area between Wall St and the South Street Seaport, etc.
- Stuff to do: There's plenty of cool stuff in NYC that's totally free. Window shopping on 5th Avenue? FREE! Staten Island Ferry, with awesome view of Lady Liberty and the skyline? FREE! Central Park? FREE! Like museums? Botanical gardens? Zoos? The admission price for most of these sorts of places is 10-15 dollars. Bring your student ID, because THERE IS ALWAYS A STUDENT DISCOUNT ALWAYS ALWAYS DON'T BE AN IDIOT. Movie theaters? 10bux a ticket. Broadway shows and plays and such? 100-250 a ticket, usually. Willingness to camp out all day can get you down to I believe 70 or so. Opera? TAKE ME PLEASE Empire State Building Observation Deck? The ferry is free and that's like 18bux, you silly person. The bar and club scene is pretty pricy, as it will be in trendsetting places. Basically, anything you do that costs more than 30 bucks probably requires formal dress.

WOW FOR LIKE 600 TOPS I GET TO MEET PEOPLE FROM THE FORUMS HOLY SHIT WHAT WILL WE ALL DO?
This depends on how many people show. This requires I'd say 10 people minimum aside from Yasha and myself. The more people show, the more things will be done in smaller groups. Say three of us want to look around on 5th Avenue while a few others go see Ellis Island while a few others pair off and go geocaching. This will all be arranged later on. There is one definite, non-negotiable group event we will all do. And that's gather up in a hotel room, plug in a laptop or a TV and watch/analyze/MST SKU over snacks (pizza?) and drinks. I figure if everyone pitches in 10 bucks, we can all have a blast and totally not consume any alcohol because we SO aren't like that. (Someone remind us to bring a corkscrew, we always forget this.) Other possibilities that have been mentioned:

- Group picnic in Central Park. Perhaps the Shakespeare Garden. Yummy foods, socializing, making jokes about seeing dead people.
- Group museum meet. At the moment the obvious favorite is The Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are a lot of art nerds/in training on the forum, and the MET is the best art collection you'll see on this continent. Also, very easy to use art as a springboard for SKU discussion! The other option would be the mirror opposite: The American Museum of Natural History. Science nerds ahoy, but I realize this is a smaller population on the forums. There is, however, the fucking ROSE CENTER, which is their space wing. Which brings me tooooo....
- If luck should have it that the con actually lands on a Tuesday, the first or last Tuesday of a month, there are special shows at the Hayden Planetarium for big fucking nerds like me or people that want to just make an unholy assload of Akio's planetarium jokes. There are other space shows that run all day but they're pretty n00b and less geeky and sometimes don't even use their fucking orgasm machine Zeiss IX projector holy fuck
- An organized meet in a high traffic area that would basically amount to a body language seminar. The body language threads have been very successful, and as has been pointed out to me, it's a fantastic excuse for me to sit in front of the stock exchange and act like I'm analyzing something other than suits. (Washington Square Park would also be great for this.)

Obviously we're very open to suggestions for both group meets and smaller things a few of you might want to do. Some of you, hint hint, might be interested in the huge indie music/punk scene in NYC, others might be interested in buying sex toys. We can point you in the right direction for that.

I said I'd yap a lot. This is mostly since I need to waste time while Yasha studies math. There's a lot to work out here, but the basic starting stuff is here, and I think it's plenty to get us talking about price and who can come and how this all is going to happen and when. Another point I want to bring up...we are not going to charge an actual admission fee or some bullshit like that, but what do you all think about making a helper pot where we could say there's a 'fee' of a reasonable amount that goes into a fund to help other members who are on that tight a budget make it? We want as many of you as possible, since you're all fucking awesome. But you know that, we've been jerking off our egos on here for a long time.