The author is ready for regional differences in behavior, but a couple of things over the weekend came as a surprise.

On the convention's first night, during a panel discussion featuring Takami Akai and Hiroyuki Yamaga, a cell phone rang, a man answered the call and loudly started a conversation, drowning out the guests of honor. No one tried to tell the man to be quiet.

Then at the Saturday night cosplay, the audience launched a two-hour, non-stop barrage of insults. The people on stage couldn't even deliver their lines without a smart-aleck remark from the audience. A couple of costuming friends said they were surprised by the audience, while another said that's pretty much the way FanimeCon crowds usually act.

The saving grace of the night came when the con chair played the piano music that's become known as the theme from the Peanuts TV shows, then called for a moment of silence for the late Charles Schultz, who lived in California. For once the audience was silent and respectful of someone.

Around 2,400 people attended FanimeCon, according to the staff, around the same attendance as in 1999. 

The author heard some complaints about the length of lines, especially on Saturday, FanimeCon's busiest day. One fan said that he was in a line that got moved from inside to outside.

There was a good reason for that: too many people and not enough space to put them. The hotel and the convention center wanted to keep space clear in the halls, and from time to time the best place to put the lines was outside where there was room to move.

And the convention was watched by those who had the authority to order that things be done right. We were told that a fire marshal checked out the dealers' room and was pleased with what he saw. The number of people in the dealers' room was strictly limited. Convention staffers counted each person who entered, then cut off the entrance when the limit was reached. Another staffer counted those who left, and for each person who exited, another person was let inside - in groups of five.

There was one complication to the dealers' room: one row of tables was used for video gaming, because there was extra room. "We're not going to do that again - ever," convention staff said.

At the gripe session on Sunday afternoon, convention staff admitted confusion over the starting date of the event and apologized for not answering E-mail questions for information. Also, it sounded as if the pulling of a 14th-floor fire alarm was blamed on the convention, and led to some of the extra security attention that the event got through the weekend (guards were posted to watch those getting on and off the elevators on the first and second floors).

It was an unusual weekend at the convention (not that there's anything typical about an anime convention) because there were so many groups at the hotel and convention center. Along with FanimeCon, there was a computer sales meeting, a dental insurance seminar, a photomicrography meeting (big business in the heart of integrated circuit country), an Islamic meeting and a christening (complete with a wet bar). The security guards at the convention center managed to keep all of those groups heading in the right direction at the right time - but it took some work.

But most bizarre was the scheduling of a comic book convention in the convention center on Sunday, the final day of FanimeCon. Since the comic book event was just around the corner from the anime convention, and since the FanimeCon dealers' room closed at an unusually early 1 p.m., there was talk that some people who wanted to buy things at FanimeCon might end up going to the comic book convention, instead.

Chalk it up to the author's traveling from the safety of his home territory and daring to enter the brave new world of California.

You know you're in a different world when you sit in a hotel restaurant and listen closely: on one side is a young woman talking about selling Sailor Moon costumes on EBay, while on the other side are two men in sweaters talking about Internet service providers. In the sports section of the newspaper is an ad saying that betting on a horse race is as exciting as an initial public offering of stock. The color Palm Pilot is front page news here.

The self-proclaimed world technology capitol, centered around San Jose, Calif., is nestled between hills to the south, east and west, leaving the north end open for San Francisco Bay. Where other large cities sell smokestack industries at their airports, San Jose has big ads with reference to computer network protocols. The Dallas airport has Cowboys memorabilia, the Minneapolis airport has Jesse Ventura dolls and the San Jose airport has a wireless Internet booth - with a drawing to win a free laptop PC.