FA+
Shop
Anthrocon 2012 Journal
13 years ago
Wednesday, 13th June, 2012 - arrival
Wednesday was largely spent sitting in airports or on aircraft, and is probably not of much interest, though I managed to watch Young Frankenstein on the flight. I flew from Manchester this time because it's slightly better to get to than Gatwick and I didn't much like Bristol, though it's far nearer than the other two.
I found myself sitting next to Cuprohastes, who designs the layout for most of the Anthrocon stuff including the badges and custom hotel pass-keys. The flight was about an hour late starting, so we were provided backup tickets for a later connecting flight, which came in very handy since security in Philidelphia turned out to be horribly slow.
Being bounced on to a later flight I wasn't sure if my luggage had gone ahead or been bounced as well, but it turned out that it was pushed onto the later flight too, so all was well.
Once again I ended up with an unpleasant headache, and once safely in the hotel with Sofox, Alondro, Shades, 'raffe and Mischa, we ran into probliems dividing up the beds. Shades and I were at loggerheads over who should have the remaining bed, but I was feeling pretty grotty and commandeered it to try and sleep off the headache when he left the room. I still feel a little bad about that.
Thursday, 14th June, 2012
Damaris organised a breakfast at about 9:30 at a local Au Bon Pain, in lieu of a trip to the Museum of Postnatural History which didn't pan out. I was a little put out that people kept pronouncing it 'pain' instead of 'parnh', particularly since I wasn't even any good at French back in the day.
The breakfast worked out pretty well, and afterwards I headed briefly to the Omni with Wuff, who then led me to a local copy shop so I could print out a reference for Dorcan done by Kyma which I had forgotten to bring.
Wuff used her phone to navigate to the shop from the Omni, and in what turned out to be a recurring theme, it led us via the scenic route. I remember saying "We are by the Westin! Why have we gone around in a circle when we could have just gone to the Westin and come here?!"
Inside the copy shop, Wuff offered to pay for the copies but quickly found out that her debit card had been deactivated by the bank because she was in Pittsburgh instead of Indiana. I used my own credit card instead, since if that was also disabled by the bank it would be less of a problem.
After this was done we went to the Zoo, hung out with Aisha and Mab for a bit, and waited for Keaton to show up, but she didn't. Eventually sofox and I went off to help Mab unpack, and halfway there, two things happened at the same time. Firstly I discovered that my badges were missing, and secondly I ran into a huge crowd of people coming back from the Omni, including Keaton. I excused myself from helping unpack Amber, and ran back to the Zoo with Keaton, where the badges were sat next to Aisha who pointed at them as soon as I appeared.
From there we registered (except for Keaton who and a couple of others who had forgotten their photo IDs) and then just hung around the Zoo until about quarter past 5, grabbed something from Fernandos with Cog, and then went to the Tea Party via my hotel room, so that I could grab the food and my Johan Cross trench coat to bring.
The Tea Party ran from about 6pm to midnight. Keaton, Aisha and Gabi pulled out their DSs and played Pokemon for about four hours straight, during which time I took out my similar-looking OpenPandora to confuse casual onlookers and played various ZX Spectrum games from my youth. Sofox tried to play 'The Sentinel' and I'll admit gave it a lot more effort than I ever did, but to little avail. It's a very, very strange game and although it was huge in its day it's one that you simply can't understand without some kind of tutorial.
While the Pokemon championships were on, Mits began heaping plush spiders on top of Wolf-In-The-Walls' head and to avoid them falling off she remained in roughly the same position for exactly one hour. Keaton had also brought some dip made largely from chocolate chips and cheesecake mix, which was delicious but too rich for my digestion which was still unhappy after the airline food. Despite his extravagent promises of cupcakes, Bas sadly did not appear for the party though was able to show some impressive bruises the following morning. Wuff also abstained, having fallen out with someone (who ironically didn't turn up to the party either).
Once the pokemon tournament was over I managed to scrounge some rather nice sketches from Keaton. I remember treading very carefully around Aisha because I had this strange idea what if I stepped on her black panther tail she'd turn around and scratch me. As the evening wore on, Sofox began to tell worse and worse jokes until people began throwing shoes at him, and Kimmy demonstrated her ears, which were controlled by skin resistance like a polygraph.
Keaton tried them on briefly, but not long enough for them to train themselves to her, so for the most part they remained in a bizarre position with both ears pointing left, even when I suddenly yelled at her to try and make them move.
Friday, 15th June, 2012
We had another 9am start, went again to the Au Bon Pain, but without Damaris et al to guide us, things went astray. Alondro would not believe that the place was between the Westin and the Omni, so we went off in a gigantic Wuff-like circle using someone's phone to navigate us around until we were by the Westin.
Once this was done we went to the Zoo around 10:30, and I exchanged a few messages with Keaton, who was eating in her hotel room.
One memorable conversation went this:
Keaton: When does the dealer's den open
Tapewolf: Dealer's den openpp at om
Keaton: Way
Tapewolf: At noon
Keaton: Okay
Keaton: I mean Wat
Tapewolf: I hate this phone
The opening ceremonies kicked off around 11, with the den opening at 12. I arranged with Keaton to meet her at the registration area since she didn't manage to register the previous day. Sofox tried to convince me that she wouldn't be there and that I should attend the opening ceremony instead.
Reluctantly I agreed to compromise by attending the ceremony until I got a message from Keaton that she was at the registration area. This devolved into confusion as she had also asked me to pass a message on to Gabi, and I wasn't sure where she was.
Hence about 90 seconds after my entering the ceremony, I got the message "At registration" and headed off to find Keaton, only realising 15 minutes later that it meant "Gabi is at registration".
Sofox said something like "Tell Keaton she's a meanie", so I obliged, sending the message "Sofox says you're mean". The reply was in the form of biological instructions I shall not repeat here.
Once we had got past that snag we went around the Dealer's Den. I had been studying the map prior to opening and went immediately to Mab to pick up my pre-ordered goodies (an awesome Jakob chibi, some shirts and a Fi messenger bag to replace my disintegrating Targus laptop bag), to Sandy Schreiber to commission an ink of Lord Page, to Agent Elrond to commision an ink of Jakob as an adventurer, and finally to Pegasus-316 to try and collect last year's Simeon rendition. Simeon wasn't ready but I did manage to start one of Cassandra Daryil.
Llearch , who was not at the 'con, had requested people to bring Mab bottles of water, partly to help her stave off dehydration and partly to bury her in the stuff. This didn't quite pan out as the other artists in the Illuminated Rivets collective would steal it, destroying the pile before it could become a pyramid. Nyil had a running joke about leather because a disturbingly large number of characters in Project Future are wearing it. My excuse for this was and is that shiny is good.
At one point I tried to find Keaton again, sending the message 'Wo sind sie?', which unfortunately was the last message I was able to send coherently for a while, because the phone began deleting them as soon as they were complete and the phone was extremely difficult to type on. That said, Keaton kept replying "Way" again so I wasn't the only one with problems. At one point I tried actually calling her but since neither of us could hear the other we went back to text again. Once we'd agreed a meeting place, Keaton sent the message "AVVACAWAWGG", which I completely ignored since she often sends messages like that on IM when she's excited. Later I found that she'd forgotten to lock the phone before running somewhere.
Once the commissions were kicked off, a large group of us went to an Indian restaurant (via a large circle again). I don't like Indian food very much, and stuck with the vegetarian dishes, vegetable samosas and pitta bread for the most part. We remained there for something like two hours (until I pointed out that the staff seemed to be waiting for us to leave) and then returned to the Dealer's Den where I purchased a snow leopard tail for reasons I'm still not clear on, but probably have something to do with playing Skyrim far too much. I do remember getting confused in mid-transaction because Mab poked me in the back with a chibi during the purchase.
After this we returned to the Zoo, where Keaton was proudly showing off her Sunblink chibi made by Mab. "Look," she said, "a bird on a stick!" to which I blurted "chicken rotisserie" and was punched for my troubles.
Towards 6pm I wanted to see if Elrond would finish the Jakob commission that night, so I headed back to the Dealer's Den with Mits, who was in full raccoon suit. On the way I asked him about it, and it turned out that he didn't actually need me as a spotter anyway, since the suit has remarkably good vision. The spacing of the eyes is such that he has quite a wide viewing angle, except for immediately in front of him (this is completely opposite to most suit designs). I think he may have been turning his head occasionally to avoid the blind spot. The suit was made by the same designer as Jouster's suit, and Mits was inspired to commission them because they said they wanted to do a dog or something after Jouster's crane.
On the way to the Den, I got a message from Elrond saying that the commission was done anyway. When I got to her table, she was being interviewed by someone, so I stood back and waited before collecting the commission and starting a new one of Sheila Ketonia.
Finally I went back to the Zoo and we remained there until about the time Keaton headed off with Aisha to watch some anime series. After that, Sofox and I went back to our room, with Shades turning up somewhat later. There was a party next door and on arriving, Shades told us that they'd left a present for us. There are two doors that can be opened between adjacent rooms in the Westin, and they had used it as a kind of dead-drop. Inside was a can of sprite, a pair of pop-tarts, a bag of cheese-flavoured snacks and a note saying "PRESENT 4 U ^,_,^ "
Saturday, 16th June, 2012
We started at 9:30 today, and went to the Dealer's Den around 10, via the Zoo so I could lay out a bunch of DOUG the Eagle albums on the freebie table for any interested punters. This year I promised myself I'd make a semi-decent sign but forgot again and had to be content with a piece of sketchbook.
I spent basically the entire day in the Dealer's Den, while Kimmy and Tokoz went around in costume. At one point I caught Mits with his suit head off (Sofox yelling "You're ruining the magic!"), and out of curiosity we tried to see if his head would go on backwards, which it did, sort-of.
Finally, with aching feet and a very sore shoulder where the messenger bag had been strapped to, we went to the pizza place in the Westin. This has been something of an annual pilgrimage for me because I love the chicken barbeque pizza, which they had conveniently stopped doing. We chatted for a bit and then split up. Not finding anyone else, I went to the Tiger Den internet facilities to see what was happening on the forum and the outside world in general. I ended up talking to Sofox for quite some time, until we finally met up with Shades and Gabi and went off to find somewhere quiet to record the All-Purpose-Fox video. This happened around midnight, after which we just went to bed.
Sunday, 17th June, 2012
Sunday was the last day of the convention, even for me. Usually I have been staying over on the Monday and returning Tuesday, but this year I managed to work out a flight schedule which allowed me to return early.
We started off at 9:30 and headed to a bagel shop, via a strange and circuitous route. I was led to believe this was because the one we used to visit in previous years had closed, but actually it was because we didn't know what we were doing. We hung around for a while and were interrogated by curious basketballers who wanted photos taken.
Once that was over we headed to the Dealer's Den, where I picked up my commission of Sheila as drawn by Agent Elrond, and since Serena didn't seem to have much luck with people commissioning her, I asked for a picture of Daryil (against my better judgement - sunday commissions are often too late!).
I wandered around for a bit with Keaton and had an interesting discussion with her about Jyraneth Clan and her character (finish those stories, dammit!). Finally, when the Dealer's Den closed at 4PM, Sofox, Cog and I helped Alondro move his table out of the Den and back to his car, a rather infuriating but ultimately worthwhile experience.
After that, we headed to room 1154 of the Omni, where a small gathering had taken place. Because Tony couldn't make it to the 'con this year, Sofox called him up via Skype using someone's ipad. Tony asked to talk to Keaton, who was in the toilet at the time. Sofox tried to take the ipad to her anyway and Keaton somehow locked herself in the bathroom and was unable to leave for several minutes of fiddling with the lock. Sofox then went into the bathroom himself and lay in the bath describing and demonstrating how Keaton would be able to survive there indefinitely.
For food, we didn't have many options since most of the food places in Pittsburgh close on Sunday. Finally we went to a Gyros place, and while I had hoped to get some cheesecake, they were completely out of everything like that so I ended up with just a box of onion rings (and a longing for a hotdog as soon as the order was already taken). We went back to the Zoo to eat, and to try and find Mab.
Aisha managed to break the stick on her chibi, and Sofox somehow came into possession of a scrawled piece of paper telling of a DMFA party in room 404 of the Hampton Inn, and getting there was made more difficult by the fact that we couldn't find the place to begin with.
The party was apparently hosted by Mason and Jordan, as a convenient way to remove all the excess food that they couldn't take back across the border to Canada. For most of it, Jordan and Mason told stories about each other, largely involved bizarre experiments or pranks pulled on each other. Gabi arrived somewhat later, having walked around thre streets late at night bearing a large bowl of Keaton's cheesecake dip. However, we didn't have anything to dip in it. I improvised using a granola bar from a pack that I found nearby, others used garlic crackers, and still others just grabbed blobs of the stuff and ate it by hand.
At 11PM, we left and headed out towards either the Omni or the Zoo, only to get kind of distracted and confused as to which one we were going to with the result that we kind of stood outside some random building in the rain while Kimmy discussed her D&D campaigns, including one where she was granted three wishes by the DM and used them to get eaten by a dragon so that she could control it and use it as a sort of mech suit.
Eventually we headed to room 1154 of the Omni again. I found out that Bryce (who still had my Ren commission) was at the Zoo, so I headed there quickly, but was told that he had gone back to his room (which was back at the Omni). Fortunately this turned out to be premature and just as I was about to leave he showed up, so I was able to get both this and Serena's Daryil commission.
I safely stowed these in my room and then headed back to the Omni gathering with a new stick for Aisha's chibi - I had always intended to turn mine into a badge.
Around 12:50 people started to drift away again, and the folks who actually stayed in room 1154 needed to sleep so we headed back to our own rooms and went to bed.
Monday, 17th June, 2012 - aftermath
Monday was as usual a sad day since we had to bid everyone farewell (those we hadn't said our goodbyes to the previous night, anyway). After many fits and starts including a panic where Sofox needed to print out his flight details, we checked out of the hotel, went to the Omni and met Wuff there so I could return her phone. We hung out with her, Darkmoon, Aisha, Cog and a couple of others until about 10:40 when Sofox and I caught the bus to the airport.
Once through security (we were put into the 'fast lane' because we only had one bag each - I had enough stuff in that one bag to bring the process to a standstill) we met up with Gabi again and talked until her flight left, and Sofox' flight departed soon afterwards.
For me, I was left to wait another 50 minutes or so before catching my own flight back to Philadelphia, which seemed to be singularly bereft of decent food places (unlike Charlotte Douglas). I was however gratified to hear them pronounce Au Bon Pain correctly. The journey home was smooth though boring and I still feel queasy thinking about the beef stuff that they served on the flight.
Photos:
http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k.....wolf/con/ac12/
Wednesday was largely spent sitting in airports or on aircraft, and is probably not of much interest, though I managed to watch Young Frankenstein on the flight. I flew from Manchester this time because it's slightly better to get to than Gatwick and I didn't much like Bristol, though it's far nearer than the other two.
I found myself sitting next to Cuprohastes, who designs the layout for most of the Anthrocon stuff including the badges and custom hotel pass-keys. The flight was about an hour late starting, so we were provided backup tickets for a later connecting flight, which came in very handy since security in Philidelphia turned out to be horribly slow.
Being bounced on to a later flight I wasn't sure if my luggage had gone ahead or been bounced as well, but it turned out that it was pushed onto the later flight too, so all was well.
Once again I ended up with an unpleasant headache, and once safely in the hotel with Sofox, Alondro, Shades, 'raffe and Mischa, we ran into probliems dividing up the beds. Shades and I were at loggerheads over who should have the remaining bed, but I was feeling pretty grotty and commandeered it to try and sleep off the headache when he left the room. I still feel a little bad about that.
Thursday, 14th June, 2012
Damaris organised a breakfast at about 9:30 at a local Au Bon Pain, in lieu of a trip to the Museum of Postnatural History which didn't pan out. I was a little put out that people kept pronouncing it 'pain' instead of 'parnh', particularly since I wasn't even any good at French back in the day.
The breakfast worked out pretty well, and afterwards I headed briefly to the Omni with Wuff, who then led me to a local copy shop so I could print out a reference for Dorcan done by Kyma which I had forgotten to bring.
Wuff used her phone to navigate to the shop from the Omni, and in what turned out to be a recurring theme, it led us via the scenic route. I remember saying "We are by the Westin! Why have we gone around in a circle when we could have just gone to the Westin and come here?!"
Inside the copy shop, Wuff offered to pay for the copies but quickly found out that her debit card had been deactivated by the bank because she was in Pittsburgh instead of Indiana. I used my own credit card instead, since if that was also disabled by the bank it would be less of a problem.
After this was done we went to the Zoo, hung out with Aisha and Mab for a bit, and waited for Keaton to show up, but she didn't. Eventually sofox and I went off to help Mab unpack, and halfway there, two things happened at the same time. Firstly I discovered that my badges were missing, and secondly I ran into a huge crowd of people coming back from the Omni, including Keaton. I excused myself from helping unpack Amber, and ran back to the Zoo with Keaton, where the badges were sat next to Aisha who pointed at them as soon as I appeared.
From there we registered (except for Keaton who and a couple of others who had forgotten their photo IDs) and then just hung around the Zoo until about quarter past 5, grabbed something from Fernandos with Cog, and then went to the Tea Party via my hotel room, so that I could grab the food and my Johan Cross trench coat to bring.
The Tea Party ran from about 6pm to midnight. Keaton, Aisha and Gabi pulled out their DSs and played Pokemon for about four hours straight, during which time I took out my similar-looking OpenPandora to confuse casual onlookers and played various ZX Spectrum games from my youth. Sofox tried to play 'The Sentinel' and I'll admit gave it a lot more effort than I ever did, but to little avail. It's a very, very strange game and although it was huge in its day it's one that you simply can't understand without some kind of tutorial.
While the Pokemon championships were on, Mits began heaping plush spiders on top of Wolf-In-The-Walls' head and to avoid them falling off she remained in roughly the same position for exactly one hour. Keaton had also brought some dip made largely from chocolate chips and cheesecake mix, which was delicious but too rich for my digestion which was still unhappy after the airline food. Despite his extravagent promises of cupcakes, Bas sadly did not appear for the party though was able to show some impressive bruises the following morning. Wuff also abstained, having fallen out with someone (who ironically didn't turn up to the party either).
Once the pokemon tournament was over I managed to scrounge some rather nice sketches from Keaton. I remember treading very carefully around Aisha because I had this strange idea what if I stepped on her black panther tail she'd turn around and scratch me. As the evening wore on, Sofox began to tell worse and worse jokes until people began throwing shoes at him, and Kimmy demonstrated her ears, which were controlled by skin resistance like a polygraph.
Keaton tried them on briefly, but not long enough for them to train themselves to her, so for the most part they remained in a bizarre position with both ears pointing left, even when I suddenly yelled at her to try and make them move.
Friday, 15th June, 2012
We had another 9am start, went again to the Au Bon Pain, but without Damaris et al to guide us, things went astray. Alondro would not believe that the place was between the Westin and the Omni, so we went off in a gigantic Wuff-like circle using someone's phone to navigate us around until we were by the Westin.
Once this was done we went to the Zoo around 10:30, and I exchanged a few messages with Keaton, who was eating in her hotel room.
One memorable conversation went this:
Keaton: When does the dealer's den open
Tapewolf: Dealer's den openpp at om
Keaton: Way
Tapewolf: At noon
Keaton: Okay
Keaton: I mean Wat
Tapewolf: I hate this phone
The opening ceremonies kicked off around 11, with the den opening at 12. I arranged with Keaton to meet her at the registration area since she didn't manage to register the previous day. Sofox tried to convince me that she wouldn't be there and that I should attend the opening ceremony instead.
Reluctantly I agreed to compromise by attending the ceremony until I got a message from Keaton that she was at the registration area. This devolved into confusion as she had also asked me to pass a message on to Gabi, and I wasn't sure where she was.
Hence about 90 seconds after my entering the ceremony, I got the message "At registration" and headed off to find Keaton, only realising 15 minutes later that it meant "Gabi is at registration".
Sofox said something like "Tell Keaton she's a meanie", so I obliged, sending the message "Sofox says you're mean". The reply was in the form of biological instructions I shall not repeat here.
Once we had got past that snag we went around the Dealer's Den. I had been studying the map prior to opening and went immediately to Mab to pick up my pre-ordered goodies (an awesome Jakob chibi, some shirts and a Fi messenger bag to replace my disintegrating Targus laptop bag), to Sandy Schreiber to commission an ink of Lord Page, to Agent Elrond to commision an ink of Jakob as an adventurer, and finally to Pegasus-316 to try and collect last year's Simeon rendition. Simeon wasn't ready but I did manage to start one of Cassandra Daryil.
Llearch , who was not at the 'con, had requested people to bring Mab bottles of water, partly to help her stave off dehydration and partly to bury her in the stuff. This didn't quite pan out as the other artists in the Illuminated Rivets collective would steal it, destroying the pile before it could become a pyramid. Nyil had a running joke about leather because a disturbingly large number of characters in Project Future are wearing it. My excuse for this was and is that shiny is good.
At one point I tried to find Keaton again, sending the message 'Wo sind sie?', which unfortunately was the last message I was able to send coherently for a while, because the phone began deleting them as soon as they were complete and the phone was extremely difficult to type on. That said, Keaton kept replying "Way" again so I wasn't the only one with problems. At one point I tried actually calling her but since neither of us could hear the other we went back to text again. Once we'd agreed a meeting place, Keaton sent the message "AVVACAWAWGG", which I completely ignored since she often sends messages like that on IM when she's excited. Later I found that she'd forgotten to lock the phone before running somewhere.
Once the commissions were kicked off, a large group of us went to an Indian restaurant (via a large circle again). I don't like Indian food very much, and stuck with the vegetarian dishes, vegetable samosas and pitta bread for the most part. We remained there for something like two hours (until I pointed out that the staff seemed to be waiting for us to leave) and then returned to the Dealer's Den where I purchased a snow leopard tail for reasons I'm still not clear on, but probably have something to do with playing Skyrim far too much. I do remember getting confused in mid-transaction because Mab poked me in the back with a chibi during the purchase.
After this we returned to the Zoo, where Keaton was proudly showing off her Sunblink chibi made by Mab. "Look," she said, "a bird on a stick!" to which I blurted "chicken rotisserie" and was punched for my troubles.
Towards 6pm I wanted to see if Elrond would finish the Jakob commission that night, so I headed back to the Dealer's Den with Mits, who was in full raccoon suit. On the way I asked him about it, and it turned out that he didn't actually need me as a spotter anyway, since the suit has remarkably good vision. The spacing of the eyes is such that he has quite a wide viewing angle, except for immediately in front of him (this is completely opposite to most suit designs). I think he may have been turning his head occasionally to avoid the blind spot. The suit was made by the same designer as Jouster's suit, and Mits was inspired to commission them because they said they wanted to do a dog or something after Jouster's crane.
On the way to the Den, I got a message from Elrond saying that the commission was done anyway. When I got to her table, she was being interviewed by someone, so I stood back and waited before collecting the commission and starting a new one of Sheila Ketonia.
Finally I went back to the Zoo and we remained there until about the time Keaton headed off with Aisha to watch some anime series. After that, Sofox and I went back to our room, with Shades turning up somewhat later. There was a party next door and on arriving, Shades told us that they'd left a present for us. There are two doors that can be opened between adjacent rooms in the Westin, and they had used it as a kind of dead-drop. Inside was a can of sprite, a pair of pop-tarts, a bag of cheese-flavoured snacks and a note saying "PRESENT 4 U ^,_,^ "
Saturday, 16th June, 2012
We started at 9:30 today, and went to the Dealer's Den around 10, via the Zoo so I could lay out a bunch of DOUG the Eagle albums on the freebie table for any interested punters. This year I promised myself I'd make a semi-decent sign but forgot again and had to be content with a piece of sketchbook.
I spent basically the entire day in the Dealer's Den, while Kimmy and Tokoz went around in costume. At one point I caught Mits with his suit head off (Sofox yelling "You're ruining the magic!"), and out of curiosity we tried to see if his head would go on backwards, which it did, sort-of.
Finally, with aching feet and a very sore shoulder where the messenger bag had been strapped to, we went to the pizza place in the Westin. This has been something of an annual pilgrimage for me because I love the chicken barbeque pizza, which they had conveniently stopped doing. We chatted for a bit and then split up. Not finding anyone else, I went to the Tiger Den internet facilities to see what was happening on the forum and the outside world in general. I ended up talking to Sofox for quite some time, until we finally met up with Shades and Gabi and went off to find somewhere quiet to record the All-Purpose-Fox video. This happened around midnight, after which we just went to bed.
Sunday, 17th June, 2012
Sunday was the last day of the convention, even for me. Usually I have been staying over on the Monday and returning Tuesday, but this year I managed to work out a flight schedule which allowed me to return early.
We started off at 9:30 and headed to a bagel shop, via a strange and circuitous route. I was led to believe this was because the one we used to visit in previous years had closed, but actually it was because we didn't know what we were doing. We hung around for a while and were interrogated by curious basketballers who wanted photos taken.
Once that was over we headed to the Dealer's Den, where I picked up my commission of Sheila as drawn by Agent Elrond, and since Serena didn't seem to have much luck with people commissioning her, I asked for a picture of Daryil (against my better judgement - sunday commissions are often too late!).
I wandered around for a bit with Keaton and had an interesting discussion with her about Jyraneth Clan and her character (finish those stories, dammit!). Finally, when the Dealer's Den closed at 4PM, Sofox, Cog and I helped Alondro move his table out of the Den and back to his car, a rather infuriating but ultimately worthwhile experience.
After that, we headed to room 1154 of the Omni, where a small gathering had taken place. Because Tony couldn't make it to the 'con this year, Sofox called him up via Skype using someone's ipad. Tony asked to talk to Keaton, who was in the toilet at the time. Sofox tried to take the ipad to her anyway and Keaton somehow locked herself in the bathroom and was unable to leave for several minutes of fiddling with the lock. Sofox then went into the bathroom himself and lay in the bath describing and demonstrating how Keaton would be able to survive there indefinitely.
For food, we didn't have many options since most of the food places in Pittsburgh close on Sunday. Finally we went to a Gyros place, and while I had hoped to get some cheesecake, they were completely out of everything like that so I ended up with just a box of onion rings (and a longing for a hotdog as soon as the order was already taken). We went back to the Zoo to eat, and to try and find Mab.
Aisha managed to break the stick on her chibi, and Sofox somehow came into possession of a scrawled piece of paper telling of a DMFA party in room 404 of the Hampton Inn, and getting there was made more difficult by the fact that we couldn't find the place to begin with.
The party was apparently hosted by Mason and Jordan, as a convenient way to remove all the excess food that they couldn't take back across the border to Canada. For most of it, Jordan and Mason told stories about each other, largely involved bizarre experiments or pranks pulled on each other. Gabi arrived somewhat later, having walked around thre streets late at night bearing a large bowl of Keaton's cheesecake dip. However, we didn't have anything to dip in it. I improvised using a granola bar from a pack that I found nearby, others used garlic crackers, and still others just grabbed blobs of the stuff and ate it by hand.
At 11PM, we left and headed out towards either the Omni or the Zoo, only to get kind of distracted and confused as to which one we were going to with the result that we kind of stood outside some random building in the rain while Kimmy discussed her D&D campaigns, including one where she was granted three wishes by the DM and used them to get eaten by a dragon so that she could control it and use it as a sort of mech suit.
Eventually we headed to room 1154 of the Omni again. I found out that Bryce (who still had my Ren commission) was at the Zoo, so I headed there quickly, but was told that he had gone back to his room (which was back at the Omni). Fortunately this turned out to be premature and just as I was about to leave he showed up, so I was able to get both this and Serena's Daryil commission.
I safely stowed these in my room and then headed back to the Omni gathering with a new stick for Aisha's chibi - I had always intended to turn mine into a badge.
Around 12:50 people started to drift away again, and the folks who actually stayed in room 1154 needed to sleep so we headed back to our own rooms and went to bed.
Monday, 17th June, 2012 - aftermath
Monday was as usual a sad day since we had to bid everyone farewell (those we hadn't said our goodbyes to the previous night, anyway). After many fits and starts including a panic where Sofox needed to print out his flight details, we checked out of the hotel, went to the Omni and met Wuff there so I could return her phone. We hung out with her, Darkmoon, Aisha, Cog and a couple of others until about 10:40 when Sofox and I caught the bus to the airport.
Once through security (we were put into the 'fast lane' because we only had one bag each - I had enough stuff in that one bag to bring the process to a standstill) we met up with Gabi again and talked until her flight left, and Sofox' flight departed soon afterwards.
For me, I was left to wait another 50 minutes or so before catching my own flight back to Philadelphia, which seemed to be singularly bereft of decent food places (unlike Charlotte Douglas). I was however gratified to hear them pronounce Au Bon Pain correctly. The journey home was smooth though boring and I still feel queasy thinking about the beef stuff that they served on the flight.
Photos:
http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k.....wolf/con/ac12/
And Pffffff, I would -not- have scratched you. XDXD But I do appreciate the not stepping on my tail nonetheless. And the new stick for my chibi. :3
I actually had a talk with Nyil before about 'the leather fetish'. I figure you don't, but I had to put that in there. :B
It's funny how you like chibies now. When I made you the one years ago, you were nearly terrified of them!
I do hope (and plan on) going next year with Jana if we can gather up enough money. Yes, actually planning on it. No idea if it's even possible, but we'll try.
As for chibis, I still don't like them, they are terrifying with the warped faces and horrible soulless eyes. However, Amber's stick chibis aren't like that. It's basically your character drawn by her on a stick, only very slightly cuter.
I'll add a link to the photos at the end so you can see...
I think you're thinking of Zina's chibies...
I was just going through my pictures from our first AC. Totally killed a fresh set of batteries on the fursuit parade. Definitely doing video next time for that.
Definitely a good con, thanks for the writeup!
Both commissions are coming along. Simeon still needs color, but inks are done. And, Cass is now finished up! :) I'll be posting both tonight so you can see. :)