Another Anthrocon down! This year I roomed with  ArgentVZ,  Vonadi, and Mercury at the AC Hotel again, as the Drury sold out in a millisecond. We had  Vamux join us on Saturday and Sunday morning as a special guest star.

Let’s see…Thursday was rough, as it usually is, because:

( a ) that’s the day I travel to Pittsburgh, so I’m tired from the drive;
( b ) the con doesn’t kick into full gear until Friday, so there’s less to do; and
( c ) you (and your friends) are not likely to be used to being around each other, so there’s a warming up period.

Reg line was alright - it was better than what I remembered for MFF, but only slightly. I totally forgot I was a sponsor this year (I do it for the shirt + a little extra for the con) so I guess I could’ve been done a lot faster lol. At least I hung with my roomies and Covah ( MFI) in line. Props for making the badges just a teensy bit smaller than the ginormous monstrosities from 2022, but bummer that they switched to cheap stickers to affix your name to the badge instead of the traditional thermal printing.

Argent was still on his way to the con after Von, Merc, and I registered, so we didn’t want to do anything crazy for lunch. At Von’s suggestion, we went to…Arby’s!

[Oh, and one thing I wanted to note before continuing is that in our experience around the city, there are very clear signs of the present state of the economy. Way more homeless people…we were in a Rite Aid, and they had an anti-theft device on a box of Pop Tarts?? Very stark.]

Anyway, yes, Arby’s! I’m okay with chains on trips as long as I don’t eat there often, and there aren’t any Arby’s where I live now, so it was fiiiiiine XD Incidentally, the soda machine was broken in the most delicious way - it was heavy on the syrup.

For dinner I went to Bridges & Bourbon with Covah. It’s on Penn Ave, a little more upscale, I had the steak, and it was great overall. Good for more intimate dinners and one-on-ones. Afterwards we chatted on the roof of the con for a few hours, overlooking the waterfront party, it was very nice. Eventually we made our way down there and said hi to a new friend,  magicalarco, who we had danced with at MFF last year.

On Friday, our room had breakfast at Soluna, which was kind of at my urging because I had such good memories of their Picante sandwich last year. [Ed note - looking at the 2022 journal apparently it was called Cafetano then!] Spoiler alert, it was just as good!

After that we cruised the Dealer’s Den/Artists’ Alley. Said hi to  Kadath who was apparently at his first AC in like five years??? Time flies, I never would’ve guessed. I also met  chirasul and bought their graphic novel, which I had to get because sexy bugs were involved XD Gave a hug to  Sapphy and picked up a little gold dragon for my hoard. Oh, and SixthLeafClover had a lucky dragon carrying a gold coin statuette that I had to get (it looks like top right but solid).

Then it was time for the macro meet. I was really, really setting low expectations since for some reason this year it was held in an open area among a bunch of tables(?) but….eh, I didn’t hate it. It was okay, I think because it wasn’t in a main thoroughfare for one, and there was a little platform available to make it easier to take pictures. Saw a bunch of old friends and new ones there, almost don’t want to list because I know I’ll forget someone, but saw  Nommz in his Ankou suit, which was awesome, met  millerretriever, had Equus crush my chest again, etc.

Dinner was at the Mexican restaurant Bakersfield. It’s again another restaurant right there on Penn Ave. Their chicken taquitos were really, really nice, as was their queso for the chips. Back in the room, Merc bought some pink lemonade vodka, and after a handful of shots we were laughing it up. Derg holds his liquor a bit better than his roomies, though, don’t forget that.

Covah and I linked up a bit later to try this club right around the corner from the AC Hotel, called Club Pittsburgh. They were doing furry night, and had a line around the block. We waited almost two hours to get in (and the vodka wore off, sadly), but man…wow. Umm, I don’t think journals have age restrictions so I won’t get explicit, but man. It was clothing optional and sex positive, so that ended up being the most exciting sexual experience of my life. Let’s just say we were there until about 3:30 in the morning XD Not that I was a stud there or anything, lol, but as you probably know I am very much the voyeur type and you get satisfied in spades in a place like that.

Saturday we welcomed Vamux to our group, flying in for a day! He brought his refurbished Polaroid camera and got an…interesting…pic of me at the fursuit parade. I guess I’m an SCP now.

We all did breakfast at this 50s-style diner in the Strip District called Pamela’s. I judge a diner by the quality of their bacon, and they passed the test. Decent prices too. Busy, though, we had to blow some time at the candy shop down the street before we were able to get a table. Oh, and inexplicably on the way there, both Von and Merc were able to pick up some $20s that were just lying on the ground, so their breakfasts were free?

Right before heading out the skies briefly opened up. I haven’t mentioned the weather yet, but man, it was super muggy in Pittsburgh this weekend. The rain mostly came in quick spurts, but cloudy and humid most of the time, plus wildfire haze on Thursday.

But thankfully it wasn’t raining for the fursuit parade. Unfortunately the lineup this year was the worst experience I’ve ever had doing the parade, because of an extreme lack of organization and enforcement of orderly queuing (Brits, eat your heart out!). You get there, first of all the room is full of chairs for some reason, but not enough for everyone to sit in, so there’s a weird mishmash of people hanging around on the chairs, near the chairs, and away from the chairs on the edges of the room. We’re told to line up “along the chairs” (ambiguous?) and really what it ended up being is a handful of “clusters” of furs that they slowly started to lead out of the room. However, as they were leading this first cluster out, others from around the room began filtering over to this cluster, meaning that the first cluster was continuing indefinitely and penalizing folks like me who were waiting patiently in one of the other clusters. It took way too long to graduate from verbal reprimands to physically stopping the cluster from continuing to grow, to move on to the next one. Add that to the fact that they didn’t do a group photo this year, plus the fact that our diner service was slow and we weren’t able to get set up to film the parade in time, and I was really thinking “Why am I doing this?” this year. I like MFF’s complete lack of a group photo and parade so much better. No guilt, no bullshit.

For dinner we went to a bar called the Eagle a little bit further down the street, and I had a very tasty chicken sandwich. However, I was also extremely hungry, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt! Generally speaking, I don’t like bars with menus like theirs anyway, since it’s literally just like sandos and finger foods without entrees. It’s fine, it’s just I think there are better options that are closer to the con space.

That night, I wrapped up my con with an hour or so on the dance floor with Covah. Couldn’t compare to our experience at the club, but hey! My dancing is slowly getting better. Slowly.

Sunday morning I really had to leave early, so nothing to report on that day. But overall a successful con - met new folks, had new experiences, tried new restaurants, and hung out with old friends.

Now, the next con. I’m trying to bank PTO that would enable me to travel to BLFC, especially because I now have a job that is very flexible on remote work. The venue is right up my alley - my vice is gambling - and there are some west coast furs I’m dying to meet. I hope it works out. If not, then I’ll definitely be at MFF in December. If it does, I might even try for doing both. We’ll see!