Advice for first-time con-goers

Okay, towards the end of next month, I'm heading back home to Corpus Christi for an anime convention called RealmsCon, and seeing how this is the first time I've actually attended such an event, I was wondering if anyone had any advice or tips they could give me for survival at one. ^^;

Cons. Always interesting. Well, since it's an anime con, I'd advise bringing a camera. Always a few interesting costumes that you should want to take a snap of. Bring around $50, so that you can buy any cheap con-crap you need (which you can resell on ebay for at least twice what you bought it for)- take as much free stuff as you can (at my last con, they gave out magic the gathering boosters. The extra hundred cards really bolstered my collection), and generally, enjoy.

Can't go wrong.

*sigh* Sadly, it now seems as though I won't be going this year afterall. I won't go into all the details, but it just wouldn't be the right thing to do at the moment, so I'm going to have to put it off until next year instead. A real shame though, I was really looking forward to finally attending the event, but at least now I can prepare and maybe even have a decent costume set up (thought about going as one of the Ghostbusters, to be honest. =P)

Ghostbuster costumes are difficult to make, I hear. That is if you're going to make all the machinery and tech stuff.