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Return From the Pitt (Post-AC Report)
13 years ago
General
Hey, all!
So,
Derranged and I arrived safely from AC last night. I had a lot of unpacking and such to do, so I didn't have time to write this when I did... though now that I do, here's all that went down:
Thursday
We left Derr's, had a McDonald's breakfast and departed just after 6am. Unfortunately, this meant we'd also have to go past Toronto during rush hour. Joy. Still, we made pretty good time and got to Pittsburg in about 6 or so hours (once we got past Toronto, everything was pretty smooth sailing). Although I printed up instructions, a last-second "gift" of a GPS really made things easy. Never used one before, but was it ever handy. Also, really enjoyed taking long stretches of road, popping on cruise control and just coasting.
Anyways, upon getting to "the Pitt", we met
Androo at I.H.o.P. (I loves me mah pancakes) and then proceeded to the Westin (ooooh boy! >.<). It took a little time to get up to our room on the 23rd floor (plus we all needed to make 2 trips), but we made it, settled in and then went down and got our AC passes (since we all pre-reg'd).
Everything else was pretty much chilling out, doodling in the Zoo and saying hi to the odd person.
Friday
Time to try my hand at Artist's Alley... again... and fail... again. Yep, sat there for about 6-7 hours and sold one $10 sketch. Joy. Apparently, Saturday is indeed the best day to do things and I may give it another shot next year for just that day, but no idea. The layout of AC kinna made things more difficult too - since the Artist Alley and Art Show were both cut off from the Dealer's Room by a divider, not to mention the Dealer's Room being much larger than before, I feel not too many people went into AA as much. Also, as kinna cruel as it is to say, I also partially blame sitting next to Derr as another reason for my lack of success at the table. Every year, it's been the same thing - people walk up to her spot, look through her books, talk, then COMPLETELY ignore me and my spot. I even had someone literally say that Derr's stuff was better (then he grabbed a commission from her). Classy. Once again, AA ended up being a depressing waste of time, but I think this time was more bad luck than anything. Plans must be made if I am to go back there...
Sierra, who was screwed from work, finally was able to join us at around 10pm that night... though we still crashed kinna early.
Saturday
Time to go about the Dealer's Room, Artist Alley and Art Show myself! I picked up a book from the Clubstripes table and met Miu, which was a pretty awesome experience. Otherwise, I didn't purchase too much else other than an LED finger light which was fun to goof around with. I later decided to get one for Derr, Droo and Sier. At the end of the day during the Dealer's Room, Droo and I stopped by
Ajin's booth and, after a little chatting, decided we'd pop back over Sunday morning to snag a couple last-minute commission slots, Droo a badge of his pony fan-char and me, an Artist Trading Card of Tira. Of course, I had forgotten to make new reference sheets of my characters before AC, so I decided to whip out the pencil, pens and markers in the Zoo to make one.
After the Dealer's Room closed, we went to the Zoo for most of the night. Droo got dragged off (which was unfortunately common for him this year). We sat, doodled and met some fun people... but eventually, Derr got a bit down and crashed early. We hung out for a bit longer (mainly to finish the ref sheet) and crashed early as well.
Sunday
Droo and I made it to Ajin's booth and grabbed our commission slots. I also stopped by :PurpleKecleon:'s booth a little later to get Derr a last-minute commission of a bunch of Mews. We headed back to join Derr in the Zoo, where she had a couple of commissions from Friday to finish up, then around 3pm, we went back to the Dealer's Room to check up on various commissions and do some last-minute shopping. Derr's Mew page was done and I snagged 2 more books from the Clubstripes table and checked up on Ajin's table. He was almost done with Droo's commission and I saw Tira's pencils and started getting a little excited. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be done by the end of the Dealer's Room, so he said he'd meet up with me in the Zoo.
So, I popped back over to the Zoo and gave Derr her Mew page (which cheered her up a lot). Sierra had to leave to go home early (again, work-related BS), so I went back up to the room to assist. She didn't have instructions to get home, so I lent her a copy I printed out (since my GPS pretty much made the sheet useless). We went back to the Zoo so Derr could say goodbye. The chatting and saying of goodbyes from Derr was almost as if Derr was not going to see Sier for months (in reality, she'll be seeing her tomorrow lol). Either way, we cut things as short as possible to take Sier to the car (Derr had to stay behind to guard Droo and my stuff) and see her off.
After that, we grabbed some hot dogs (and got a call from Kate who'd gotten lost due to a road being closed), then went back to the Zoo (brought Derr a hot dog too). After a bit
Bowrll and company arrived and dragged Droo off for some booze. We waited a surprisngly long time for them to get back (in which point, I saw Ajin who was off to grab some dinner - not done the commissions yet). I said I'd be waiting at this table (bad idea as I'll later explain).
Eventually, Droo and Bowrll (aka: Meats) came back and, after some grumbling here and there, we ordered some pizza. I was kind of stuck sitting where I was, since I said I'd wait for Ajin, so I whipped out my DS and played Phantasy Star Zero for about... 4 or so hours. It kinna sucked, since I was unable to really get away from where I was sitting (I said I'd wait), so I couldn't really join in on Derr and Bowrll's chatting (which really made Derr happy)... and after a while, I just simply grew tired... and a bit down... and a little impatient. Either way, I pointed it out to Droo between times jumping back and forth between our Zoo table and his fursuiting and we set out over to Ajin's table (turns out, he was back in the Zoo and didn't come commission hunting... oh well). He wasn't done with Droo's badge (since he wanted to ask a question about the background), but he was done with the Tira ATC. All of my negative feelings (and even some of my fatigue) pretty much disappeared when I saw it... yep, I really liked it ^-^'''
So, for the next few hours, I jumped in and joined in on the chatting and doodling with Derr, Droo, Bowrll and others. Some really silly things came out of it and all in all, it was a great time enjoyed by all. Droo was a bit drained from various things, so he left a bit early to crash and I followed suit shortly after, since I had to drive home the next day. Derr stayed behind since she was having such a good time.
Monday
We slept in... then had to deal with both packing, bringing our stuff to our cars (or rather to the front of the hotel where we could bring our cars around) and, of course, deal with what I like to call the "Hellevators" - the elevators from hell. Being in the Westin always sucks for elevators - not only is it crowded and slow-moving, but we have to deal with the Anthrocon staff monitoring the elevators (or, as I like to call them, the elevator Nazis). The first year we came to AC, we stayed at the Westin and I did not like them much then... but boy oh boy did I grow to detest these jackasses this year. I'll give them a special section at the bottom, since I'm ready to go off on a rant on them. Anyways, the Hellevators were especially bad - we had to wait a good 20 minutes every time we wanted to go down, since any other time, the elevators were full. The first time I went down was to grab a trolley for our luggage, so we only needed to make one trip - that failed. It was a varitable clusterfuck down there of people scrambling to grab trolleys. One was guarded by the hotel staff and the other (I never saw more than 2 at a time) and the one time I got my hands on one, some doucebag with a high-pitched chihuahua voice started giving me crap, because he was in some line and I just snagged it before he could. Either way, I wasn't up to dealing with him at the time, so I passed it off (which I regret, since it wasted a good hour and a half of time).
Anyways, we finally grabbed out stuff and we got out of there, heading back to I.H.o.P. for a much-deserved breakfast. After that, we had to go to Walmart to pick up a bunch of "groceries" - food items we can't get back up in Canada. Derr grabbed some tea mix her mum wanted, 6 boxes of Trix, a case of Yoo-hoo and 2 cases of a special flavour of Mountain Dew. I grabbed a 4 pack of Yoo-hoo to show my friends later this week and a drink for the road.
After that, we popped over to the gas station to fuel up for the ride home. Derr wanted something from the trunk, but when I tried to open it, the trunk had jammed somehow. After fuelling up and trying everything I could from the back to the front, I was finally able to get the trunk open, grab the thing and close it). What I didn't realize is that I had also hit the release for the hood of the car... so when we were following Droo to the interstate, I began noticing it wobbling dangerously. I pulled over to the shoulder and fixed it, having Derr let Droo know. After that, we hit the road and pretty much sailed home uneventfully (save for a few doucebag drivers). I dropped Derr and her things off, then went home to unpack myself.
And that's pretty much the jist of it... save for...
Elevator Nazis
Seriously... the AC elevator monitors aggrivated me to no end with their sleaziness and hypocrasy. Two cases come to mind in particular...
First off, these guys were monitoring all weekend how many people could get on an elevator at once. If there were too many, too bad. Normally, they would fill the elevators well enough. One time, however, although they had enough room for 3 people, they actually wouldn't let Droo on with the rest of us, shutting the door in his face. Why do I bring this up? Because earlier that day, I was on a completely packed elevator (pretty much at it's max limit), when one of the elevator Nazis (in fact, one of the two who were on the elevator that refused Droo to get on) shoved his way onto the overcrowded elevator! We BARELY had room for the prick and his cupcakes and, if the situation was reversed, he wouldn't have been aggressively against someone else shoving on... but it's okay, because he's AC staff. In other words, a self-entitled prick.
The second instance that really ticked me off was when myself and Sierra were standing in line for the elevator (since they monitor who goes up from the lobby). The wait was going to be roughly... 5-10 minutes... no biggie really. But then, two of the elevator Nazis began doing, what I consider to be extremely sleazy - they began going up and down the line telling people they could skip the line altogether (even past the fursuiters, who take priority due to the hot suits and poor vision) if they gave them money. Occasionally, they would say it was for charity, but they never directly said what the charity was (at one point it was hinted at, but not directly said). Either way, they were attempting to exploit an inconvenient situation (one that THEY were partly responsible for) from weary people simply wanting to get back to their rooms (which they paid for). I could simply not belive how under-handed they were.
Anyways, I'll end it there... all in all, Anthrocon had it's ups and downs, but it was still a good experience overall. I'm sure we'll all go back next year (though we've already planned NOT to stay at the Westin this time). There's a lot of people I'd like to see again... so yeah... let's see how things go next time. To all the people I met at AC, thanks for saying hi and perhaps we'll cross paths again next time!
So,
Derranged and I arrived safely from AC last night. I had a lot of unpacking and such to do, so I didn't have time to write this when I did... though now that I do, here's all that went down:Thursday
We left Derr's, had a McDonald's breakfast and departed just after 6am. Unfortunately, this meant we'd also have to go past Toronto during rush hour. Joy. Still, we made pretty good time and got to Pittsburg in about 6 or so hours (once we got past Toronto, everything was pretty smooth sailing). Although I printed up instructions, a last-second "gift" of a GPS really made things easy. Never used one before, but was it ever handy. Also, really enjoyed taking long stretches of road, popping on cruise control and just coasting.
Anyways, upon getting to "the Pitt", we met
Androo at I.H.o.P. (I loves me mah pancakes) and then proceeded to the Westin (ooooh boy! >.<). It took a little time to get up to our room on the 23rd floor (plus we all needed to make 2 trips), but we made it, settled in and then went down and got our AC passes (since we all pre-reg'd).Everything else was pretty much chilling out, doodling in the Zoo and saying hi to the odd person.
Friday
Time to try my hand at Artist's Alley... again... and fail... again. Yep, sat there for about 6-7 hours and sold one $10 sketch. Joy. Apparently, Saturday is indeed the best day to do things and I may give it another shot next year for just that day, but no idea. The layout of AC kinna made things more difficult too - since the Artist Alley and Art Show were both cut off from the Dealer's Room by a divider, not to mention the Dealer's Room being much larger than before, I feel not too many people went into AA as much. Also, as kinna cruel as it is to say, I also partially blame sitting next to Derr as another reason for my lack of success at the table. Every year, it's been the same thing - people walk up to her spot, look through her books, talk, then COMPLETELY ignore me and my spot. I even had someone literally say that Derr's stuff was better (then he grabbed a commission from her). Classy. Once again, AA ended up being a depressing waste of time, but I think this time was more bad luck than anything. Plans must be made if I am to go back there...
Sierra, who was screwed from work, finally was able to join us at around 10pm that night... though we still crashed kinna early.Saturday
Time to go about the Dealer's Room, Artist Alley and Art Show myself! I picked up a book from the Clubstripes table and met Miu, which was a pretty awesome experience. Otherwise, I didn't purchase too much else other than an LED finger light which was fun to goof around with. I later decided to get one for Derr, Droo and Sier. At the end of the day during the Dealer's Room, Droo and I stopped by
Ajin's booth and, after a little chatting, decided we'd pop back over Sunday morning to snag a couple last-minute commission slots, Droo a badge of his pony fan-char and me, an Artist Trading Card of Tira. Of course, I had forgotten to make new reference sheets of my characters before AC, so I decided to whip out the pencil, pens and markers in the Zoo to make one.After the Dealer's Room closed, we went to the Zoo for most of the night. Droo got dragged off (which was unfortunately common for him this year). We sat, doodled and met some fun people... but eventually, Derr got a bit down and crashed early. We hung out for a bit longer (mainly to finish the ref sheet) and crashed early as well.
Sunday
Droo and I made it to Ajin's booth and grabbed our commission slots. I also stopped by :PurpleKecleon:'s booth a little later to get Derr a last-minute commission of a bunch of Mews. We headed back to join Derr in the Zoo, where she had a couple of commissions from Friday to finish up, then around 3pm, we went back to the Dealer's Room to check up on various commissions and do some last-minute shopping. Derr's Mew page was done and I snagged 2 more books from the Clubstripes table and checked up on Ajin's table. He was almost done with Droo's commission and I saw Tira's pencils and started getting a little excited. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be done by the end of the Dealer's Room, so he said he'd meet up with me in the Zoo.
So, I popped back over to the Zoo and gave Derr her Mew page (which cheered her up a lot). Sierra had to leave to go home early (again, work-related BS), so I went back up to the room to assist. She didn't have instructions to get home, so I lent her a copy I printed out (since my GPS pretty much made the sheet useless). We went back to the Zoo so Derr could say goodbye. The chatting and saying of goodbyes from Derr was almost as if Derr was not going to see Sier for months (in reality, she'll be seeing her tomorrow lol). Either way, we cut things as short as possible to take Sier to the car (Derr had to stay behind to guard Droo and my stuff) and see her off.
After that, we grabbed some hot dogs (and got a call from Kate who'd gotten lost due to a road being closed), then went back to the Zoo (brought Derr a hot dog too). After a bit
Bowrll and company arrived and dragged Droo off for some booze. We waited a surprisngly long time for them to get back (in which point, I saw Ajin who was off to grab some dinner - not done the commissions yet). I said I'd be waiting at this table (bad idea as I'll later explain).Eventually, Droo and Bowrll (aka: Meats) came back and, after some grumbling here and there, we ordered some pizza. I was kind of stuck sitting where I was, since I said I'd wait for Ajin, so I whipped out my DS and played Phantasy Star Zero for about... 4 or so hours. It kinna sucked, since I was unable to really get away from where I was sitting (I said I'd wait), so I couldn't really join in on Derr and Bowrll's chatting (which really made Derr happy)... and after a while, I just simply grew tired... and a bit down... and a little impatient. Either way, I pointed it out to Droo between times jumping back and forth between our Zoo table and his fursuiting and we set out over to Ajin's table (turns out, he was back in the Zoo and didn't come commission hunting... oh well). He wasn't done with Droo's badge (since he wanted to ask a question about the background), but he was done with the Tira ATC. All of my negative feelings (and even some of my fatigue) pretty much disappeared when I saw it... yep, I really liked it ^-^'''
So, for the next few hours, I jumped in and joined in on the chatting and doodling with Derr, Droo, Bowrll and others. Some really silly things came out of it and all in all, it was a great time enjoyed by all. Droo was a bit drained from various things, so he left a bit early to crash and I followed suit shortly after, since I had to drive home the next day. Derr stayed behind since she was having such a good time.
Monday
We slept in... then had to deal with both packing, bringing our stuff to our cars (or rather to the front of the hotel where we could bring our cars around) and, of course, deal with what I like to call the "Hellevators" - the elevators from hell. Being in the Westin always sucks for elevators - not only is it crowded and slow-moving, but we have to deal with the Anthrocon staff monitoring the elevators (or, as I like to call them, the elevator Nazis). The first year we came to AC, we stayed at the Westin and I did not like them much then... but boy oh boy did I grow to detest these jackasses this year. I'll give them a special section at the bottom, since I'm ready to go off on a rant on them. Anyways, the Hellevators were especially bad - we had to wait a good 20 minutes every time we wanted to go down, since any other time, the elevators were full. The first time I went down was to grab a trolley for our luggage, so we only needed to make one trip - that failed. It was a varitable clusterfuck down there of people scrambling to grab trolleys. One was guarded by the hotel staff and the other (I never saw more than 2 at a time) and the one time I got my hands on one, some doucebag with a high-pitched chihuahua voice started giving me crap, because he was in some line and I just snagged it before he could. Either way, I wasn't up to dealing with him at the time, so I passed it off (which I regret, since it wasted a good hour and a half of time).
Anyways, we finally grabbed out stuff and we got out of there, heading back to I.H.o.P. for a much-deserved breakfast. After that, we had to go to Walmart to pick up a bunch of "groceries" - food items we can't get back up in Canada. Derr grabbed some tea mix her mum wanted, 6 boxes of Trix, a case of Yoo-hoo and 2 cases of a special flavour of Mountain Dew. I grabbed a 4 pack of Yoo-hoo to show my friends later this week and a drink for the road.
After that, we popped over to the gas station to fuel up for the ride home. Derr wanted something from the trunk, but when I tried to open it, the trunk had jammed somehow. After fuelling up and trying everything I could from the back to the front, I was finally able to get the trunk open, grab the thing and close it). What I didn't realize is that I had also hit the release for the hood of the car... so when we were following Droo to the interstate, I began noticing it wobbling dangerously. I pulled over to the shoulder and fixed it, having Derr let Droo know. After that, we hit the road and pretty much sailed home uneventfully (save for a few doucebag drivers). I dropped Derr and her things off, then went home to unpack myself.
And that's pretty much the jist of it... save for...
Elevator Nazis
Seriously... the AC elevator monitors aggrivated me to no end with their sleaziness and hypocrasy. Two cases come to mind in particular...
First off, these guys were monitoring all weekend how many people could get on an elevator at once. If there were too many, too bad. Normally, they would fill the elevators well enough. One time, however, although they had enough room for 3 people, they actually wouldn't let Droo on with the rest of us, shutting the door in his face. Why do I bring this up? Because earlier that day, I was on a completely packed elevator (pretty much at it's max limit), when one of the elevator Nazis (in fact, one of the two who were on the elevator that refused Droo to get on) shoved his way onto the overcrowded elevator! We BARELY had room for the prick and his cupcakes and, if the situation was reversed, he wouldn't have been aggressively against someone else shoving on... but it's okay, because he's AC staff. In other words, a self-entitled prick.
The second instance that really ticked me off was when myself and Sierra were standing in line for the elevator (since they monitor who goes up from the lobby). The wait was going to be roughly... 5-10 minutes... no biggie really. But then, two of the elevator Nazis began doing, what I consider to be extremely sleazy - they began going up and down the line telling people they could skip the line altogether (even past the fursuiters, who take priority due to the hot suits and poor vision) if they gave them money. Occasionally, they would say it was for charity, but they never directly said what the charity was (at one point it was hinted at, but not directly said). Either way, they were attempting to exploit an inconvenient situation (one that THEY were partly responsible for) from weary people simply wanting to get back to their rooms (which they paid for). I could simply not belive how under-handed they were.
Anyways, I'll end it there... all in all, Anthrocon had it's ups and downs, but it was still a good experience overall. I'm sure we'll all go back next year (though we've already planned NOT to stay at the Westin this time). There's a lot of people I'd like to see again... so yeah... let's see how things go next time. To all the people I met at AC, thanks for saying hi and perhaps we'll cross paths again next time!
