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To DCers: the DCcon report
13 years ago
NOTE: please fill in where I missed something important/funny/whatever because I know I forgot things (or wasn't there) and I feel bad
SO: DCcon was a pantsing BLAST. I didn't take too many notes because I was just enjoying the whole thing, but here are the highlights of each day roughly in chronological order (I was enjoying myself too much to take detailed notes) so you all may live vicariously though the eyes of the collective people at the con.
As for the weather: It was basically rainy every day for some part of the day. Some days were cloudy and hot and humid, but we were inside an air-conditioned building 90% of the time so v0v
Pictures!
From Tai: http://imgur.com/a/n7z5l#0
From Dan: http://imgur.com/a/1V9nK (larger version: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59972490/D.....%20resized.zip)
DAWN OF THE MON DAY: 14th
Agni and I wake up at 3:30AM. Tried to go to sleep early but the week before we were setting up Agni's apartment so we went to bed at like 1AM lmao. Slightly late for the taxi ride, but we make it there. The cab driver recognizes my viola as such and not a violin, which impresses me. I mistake our airline as AirBus instead of Airtrain, which doesn't impress me. One nondescript flight later, we land at ATL.
We head over to baggage claim, walking at first and then riding the airport tram which, as Dan warned us, accelerates quite suddenly (more on how huge ATL is later). Agni goes to the little kitty's room as I wait for our luggage to arrive, and hands me her phone to keep in contact with Chris. Agni warns me to reply to Chris, and not be a butt by not replying when I get a text.
Chris texts me a few minutes later, and my devious spyotter instincts kick in despite being told otherwise - I know Chris is around baggage claim, but Chris doesn't know where I am. It played out something like this:
Chris: I'm by baggage claim, where are you guys?
Tai looks around, and finds Chris using spyotter techniques
Tai (as Agni, mweheheing to himself): Are you wearing a dark shirt with a red roller luggage?
Chris: aaaaa where are you
Tai: Try to find me
I turn my side to where I saw Chris so it wouldn't be easy to find me, and wait about a minute before facing Chris head-on (apply directly to the forehead). After Chris glances past me a few times, I start waving until Chris wanders over and we chat it up. Agni comes back, realizes what I've done, and punches me for tormenting Chris. We eventually work our way to the MARTA light rail system and board a train. The three of us make fun of the explicit directions to pay your fare, Chris introduces Agni to Snowball (who we take turns sharing and tossing), and we ponder the odd meanings of the station signs. Chris shows Agni the iPhone-ported prequel to the arcade game they brought.
About 45 minutes later, we arrive at our MARTY stop. Dan texts us to head to the parking structure, but fails to mention where exactly he is. I wander around a bit to look, but Dan texts us back with more specific instructions before I get to play journeyotter. We proceed to spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure out how to fit everyone in the sedan: four bodies, four large roller luggage, two instrument cases, a backpack and laptop bag, two 35-can soda cases, and....jumper cables (that take up more room than you'd expect). Agni drives out, since Dan isn't feeling well. Dan rides shotgun to navigate, while Chris and I share the incredibly cramped back seat. Chris shows me their cute phone background, a few apps that swirled color in patterns (I tried to make otters out of them), a pixelly timing-shooter game, and an air-hockey game that is truely insane on insane mode.
Along the way, we stop for snacks. Chris and Agni opt for a Slush Puppy, aka Icee aka Freezie aka Slurpee aka Slushee aka that sloppy ice drink flavored with unnatural syrupy flavors.
Anyway, Agni eventually goes down some of the more trecherous roads I've ever seen. Windy hilly roads and a road big enough for 2 cars and 6 inches on either side having to accomidate two-way traffic. We make it to the cabin eventually; to greet us there are the postwoman (who's quite excellent in maneuvering that mail truck in tiny spaces) and the regravellers with their Bobcat and a pile of gravel blocking our way. We park to the side, go inside and meet Dan's dad (really nice guy), and settle in. Apparantly someone's left us like 3 trays of lasagna and brownies with cake batter mixed in, which we will devour over the course of the week. At some point Chris finds out that their Mushihimesama Futari arcade game rotates the screen and Dan's TV lacks the capability to rotate it correctly, so a shopping quest to connect the arcade box to Dan's portable projector was planned. Chris wanders onto the porch and relaxes on the swing as hummingbirds flit about, and I deliver Snowball to Chris. I take a nap at some point, then wake up to porchswing with Agni and Chris~ We eventually get to seeing Dan's movie stash (which includes every Star Trek episode, and more importantly, a large chunk of SG1 episodes), and decide to try watching Avatar (Agni and I bounce out after about half of it, though).
Dan hands us (and eventually everyone) their choice of DCcon goodiebags, complete with a postcard. It's not a con without a branded bag - Dan really planned every detail of the con quite well :3
Agni and I take the upstairs bedroom, Chris takes the loft mattress, and Dan goes to his room and I forget next other than talking a lot with Agni. I forget what happens here but pretend we instantly fall asleep.
Oh, and this is a rough sketch of the floor plan. We'll end up having centipedes fall on us, turtles/dragons shoot bullet hells of lasers, and go insane playing games in the Room of Despair. I write a small about every room, but I'm kind of tired of writing loool
http://imgur.com/slpAr
DAWN OF THE TUES DAY: 14th
I remember waking up to a fire alarm going off, and the sounds of Dan taking the fire alarm outside. I assume Dan isn't trying to burn the cabin down, and go back to sleep.
It takes awhile for us to get going, especially me and Agni. BUTT once we're up and kicking, Dan informs us that we need to head out to take care of things so we head out. First on the order of things was Zaxby's? Dan was sad that the "We recommend the chicken for lunch, the chicken for dinner, and the chicken for dessert" sign as missing, but otherwise we enjoy a perfectly good fast-food experience. I personally liked the Betty Boop bio on the wall (apparantly she started out as a french poodle, and got her humansona later) and the noocooler sauce I ordered with my chicken sandwich was disappointingly bland by my standards (which will come up again on the 20th). It starts to get warm about now, and Chris seems quite happy riding shotgun, using his handpaws to absorb all the coolness from the A/C vents. Dan takes us on a tour of the city, including downtown and its weird trangle-about, the post office, past some swimming pools, and City Hall.
Then it was a long drive to Electronics Fry's to snag some batteries, the adapter for Chris's Mushihimisama game, and some Xbox stuff for Agni. In the process, I was incapacitated by zombieChris and a lamppost (I still have the scab on my arm from my fakefall), and revived by nickChris a few seconds later. Chris goes around and puts cute messages like "otters are cute" on all the display computers. Agni and I also went shoppingcart surfing for a bit.
From there we went to CostCo, where we have a grand time discussing buying socks in bulk, buying socks in bulk, and buying socks in bulk. Also, I guess contemplating buying a liter of honey was funny, too. Agni seemed interested in a firefighter raincoat, and the two of us had a mop battle. We also tried to doublehug Chris at some point but I forget why. I think Agni discovered strawbery milk syrup here or something, and we say something racist about burritos and taquitos but I forget what. In all we don't get much variety-wise, except for the essentials (frozen burritos and taquitos).
We proceed to go further down the freeway and head towards Dan's house to pick up some computery stuff. We meet Dan's dad's disembodied voice, and Dan's kitty. Agni notices an interesting book on Dan's shelf, and later plays with me using a die we find on a shelf. We also discover some interesting boxes with the Amazon and Thinkgeek logo, but now we'll never know what's inside. Dan also warns us to use filtered water and not drink the tap water, but I drink anyway (and rate it about a 4/10 on my water quality scale, where 8 is the sweet well water we had at our family restaurant and 2 is the cloudy pesticide-smelling water that came out of an isolated water fountain, and 6 was the cabin tap water).
Anyway, we load up Dan's car and make our way back to the cabin. We unload everything and use the adapter to fiddle with the projector. We decide to use my luggage as a platform for the projector in the basement after a good hour of tinkering with Dan's tripod, and play a few rounds of Mushissisimo Footami game. Also, MP totally stands for MEOW POWER - the characters (one in particular) make a meowing sound when you pick it up. There's also a big turtle and a Taidragon in the game, apparently. Chris works on their secret project while Agni and I retreat into our room for awhile.
At some point I think we hike today? Dan takes us around his property, which takes a good 20 minutes and a walking stick since there were fallen trees along the path we took. We were short one stick, so I found one along the way and spent a few minutes carving a crude handle and stripping the rotten tip, then laying it in the sun to dry the rot. Stay tuned...
Some other stuff happens and we fall asleep at some point.
DAWN OF THE WEDNES DAY: 15th
This was a slow day, we're still suffering from sleep asynchrony and we don't know what we want to do together, so we mostly stick to ourselves. Chris works on their project, Dan's doing something with the entertainment center, and Agni/I camp in bed. Chris agrees to stay behind and wait for Nate's arrival, while Dan and friends go to finish shopping at J&J Foods. We buy crack for Agni (oatmeal cream pies), lots of stuff for a mexican feast I planned, jalapeno kettle chips (which Ken devoured upon arrival), and some other stuff.
Nate arrives at 7pm, about 3 hours later than expected, due to lol airline delays and lol rental car reservation failures (cough Enterprise). He brings Apples to Apples, and a Twilight plush for Dan. We get to watching oodles of Regular Show, Dan suggests DBZ Abridged and gets Agni hopelessly addicted (fukkin ghost Nappa). Nate shows us something about how videogames now hold your hand to take you through levels, but Megaman did it with really good level design.
We're still awake at this point, but Ken eventually shows up around 3AM. And then we sleep, save Dan and Ken and Nate who stay up to some ungodly hour talking. I think the both of them take the two beds in Dan's room.
DAWN OF THE THURS DAY: 16th
I wake up at some point. Nate says the initial booze run was this day, I don't remember who else went but Ken insisted on some jalapeno-water-and-string-bean combination called "jala-bean-o's" on the second run that I don't know when. We also buy him a tomato for some reason. Much Dance Central was played, and Kinect Adventures too maybe?
I think here we go hiking with Ken,and some combination of people; all I remember is me using my newly made walking stick and Ken finding an awesome branch that had "epic walking stick" written all over it. Ken breaks out the prospector's axe he brought along (how many people carry effing axes with them) and with a few deft swings acquires Long Wooden Branch.
Also I think Dan takes me and Agni to CitGo to get ice and beer. Dan shows the glass pipes that were to "NOT BE USED FOR ILLEGAL PURPOSES", and Agni plays a dollar's worth of video slots.
Lyssa and Simon get here around 5PM. Flyssa brings oodles of toilet paper, and Simon's goofy as ever. Apparantly Ken stayed with them in Ohio for a bit, then Flyssimon went on to meet Michal/Jeff at a Panera for a bit while Ken powered forward? They take the MASTER BEDROOM with the king mattress. Agni clips a star hairclip to Nate's beard, then Simon's mustache.
At some point I think I go out to try and improve the trail (re-tying trail markers that had fallen, making trails with logs, etc). Early on I get too zealous stabbing my walking stick into the ground and break it. RIP walking stick, I lay thee down to be part of the trail ;_;7
I talk a bit with Dan and Ken in the evening I think; Ken mentions his Canadabuddy Dan (whom I hereby dub the Friendly Failhunter) who hunts coyotes while driving at highway speeds and applying for trapping permits after sending in his furs (which both get sent to the same place and catch Dan the Friendly Failhunter for poaching I think).
And an early bedtime was had by me to greet Liz/Kate/Josh upon their arrival. Agni looks outside and sees three deer looking back at her.
eff I forgot everything that happened this day
DAWN OF THE FRI DAY: 17th
Kate and Liz get here about 3AM, slightly ahead of their delayed schedule. Liz mentions something about how she's not thrilled to know scorpions are about. Kate shows off Bessie (her car, adorned with black vinyl decal animals as "spots") and takes out their prize: a cooler filled with a bag of chicken breasts, which would be used for culinary arts later. I glimpse Liz's WIP fursuit head, which has quite a bit of promise. The two of them also take loft positions. Kate tells us of the tale as to why they were late - at a gas station, Kate paid the attendant money over the counter but the attendant put in the wrong pump - Kate asked what was going on, the attendant called the police, and took down Kate's number and address to investigate a pay-and-switch scam they thought Kate might be a part of -_-
I remember it's like 4AM and go back to sleep to greet Josh when he comes. I believe Dan and Nate stand vigil to retrieve the squirrel, but I was not firing on all thrusters and may misremember - I wanted to fall asleep again, so I kept myself intentionally half-asleep.
And so it happened; sleep came easily to me. Unfortunately my body rebelled at the demands I put on it, happily forcing me unconscious despite my "Greet Josh!" alarm. I get up well after my alarm gives up and hug hello to Josh who looks a lot like a lion with his new hair/facial hair (seriously, he was practically glowing), and once again lose track of time. Josh sets up camp in the basement in a sleeping bag iirc.
This marks the Gathering of the Host - Everyone Who Would Come Is Now Present At This Time.
I want to say Josh went to bed after a bit of talking. He wakes up with a stomachache, so Nate drives Josh/Tai/Agni to the CitGo for some Pepto and a look around. Nate already knows the winding route by memory, which is impressive to me and my terrible otrmemory. We get back and Josh downs the quite gloopy DOUBLE STRENGTH PEPTO. Josh shows us an assignment his teacher gave him: the teacher lost the digital copy of their exam, so asked various TAs to transcribe pages and return them. Josh managed to get a study about the scent glands of homosexual ferrets, with one question being "T/F - the most important finding from this study is that gay ferrets exist."
Chris decides to reveal his SECRET PROJECT: Chris sneakily calls everyone to the main room and asks Liz to play this "cool megaman game". A megaman game with sprites that replace MegaMan with CritterLiz, Rush with feralChris, and added Swiftflutter (who's a badass killing machine) and Feralkate as an item giving sprite. Liz spends a few minutes playing through, and Chris gives us a demo of all the sprites. Watching Chris make the sprites was pretty cool, and holy butts they must've spent hours doing this, there were dozens and dozens of sprites they had to modify for this. IIRC this was like the second thing Chris made ever regarding spriteart, adding to the :gasp: factor.
http://i.imgur.com/utmpN.png
http://i.imgur.com/6sC2u.png
http://i.imgur.com/qhHmq.png
http://i.imgur.com/5M8DS.png
I think here is where Liz and Nate go downstairs and play Mushishahshi Futarmi. The projector's mounted upward so the game's projected on the ceiling; Liz and Nate kick ass (Especially since Nate is playing with the controller over his head and viewing the game upside-down.)
Around here we start playing old vidja games (this actually happened over the course of a few days but I forget which happened when). I enjoyed Tetris Attack (pokemon puzzle league for lyfe; sometime earlier I introduced Agni to this game as well as Faceball for the comedy factor), and played a few intense head-to-head rounds with Dan - our combined skill made the game lag quite spectacularly. I played as Raphael Raven and Agni CAWWed along to my combos. Sometime earlier I introduced Agni to Pokemon League as well as Faceball for the comedy factor. Agni and I tried Jet Force Gemini but just got frustrated. Liz and I start a Diddy Kong Racing file under the name Tiz (after Liz barkbarked at me irl) and fail spectacularly against the wickedly hard mirror courses (Liz had better luck with Kate as a partner, but still struggled a bit). Particularly, Liz had trouble running over the frogs, which she managed to miss even in comically slow motion. Liz and I also start a new Kirby Super Star playthrough, with Liz as Kirby and I as the trusty secondary character, with Liz preferring the pink bird and/or sword character and myself preferring the floaty plasma character or the hammer character. Various people play Smash, and Chris owns us all with their preferred character: Marth.
Here in my notes I wrote "Simonpoast" but I forget what that means.
This evening I think Agni and I visit Flyssa in her room; she's reading a book on Tank Girl and we talk about the interesting art within and Lyssa's gauges. Also about farts.
Anyway, some time later we decide to get lunch at an eye-talian place. Ken gives Agni, me, Kate and Chris a ride in his huge super-duty truck with vintage used Canadian Coke Can (read: no HFCS in the ingredients) in the bed. I wish I remember the conversation here, we laughed a lot. The only thing that comes to mind was Agni asking if the Canadian version of the US green card was a maple card.
We arrive at the place, and are seated by an awesome waiter named Jackie Lee who thought the Pusheen Agni and I were wearing was trollfacing him and was an all-around awesome dude. The table was lined with paper and we were given crayons, so being the artists we are the table's soon covered in doodles. I manage some triangle tesselation that turns into a heart with a circle around it, Agni draws Agnikitty and Taiotr noserubbing~ Lyssa draws a curvy flower thing, Simon draws his trademark dog character, Liz draws a quick critter (who later gets a crown?) and a taiotr and a jasonsona so he can be with us in crayonspirit. Ken draws two foxes, one of made of giraffe-esque spots that I found pretty cool. Chris draws a Chris, and I didn't see the rest of the doodles at the other end of the table. Lyssa/Simon somehow draw a kiwi being ridden by Simon with a whip that makes the kiwi angry so Simon says "Oi!", progressively getting more and more detailed. The crayon names were interesting too but I forget them.
Agni tries to shoot me with a straw wrapper but manages to shoot it on Kate's hat - and have it balance there without Kate noticing. Agni and I order pesto-crusted salmon (pandering to her love of pesto and my love of feesh), and share some pesto with Lyssa. Lyssa drops pesto on the plate, and instantly ARGHNOMs it before a second passes. I think Chris ordered fried cheeseballs for everyone, and Ken and someone else maybe share fried calamari with the table :3 At the end, Lee doesn't include the 18% gratuity for large parties so we can tip at our discretion and gives us takeout boxes. I only recall that the calamari box went from being labelled "Squid" to "Here be squid!" to "Here be super squid!" to "Here, be super squids!".
We pack up and leave. On the way back, we make fun of Ken's/Kates GPS's voice and the Imperial system of measurement. We talk about speed governors and such.
Back at the cabin, we expect to be the last there since Dan and Friends parked way closer to the restaurant, but Nate's waiting for us and turns out Dan took a wrong turn on the way back and Nate followed Dan into a suddenly dark street. Some stuff happens, and eventually a call to play Werewolf goes up. Some people opt to go sleep, and I cast the final wet-blanket vote that makes Werewolf unplayable due to having under the minimum number of players. Agni sees eyes and faces in the wood grain of the cabin, I saw a Yorkshire terrier, and Flyssa (Or Simon?) sees butts.
I agree to Apples to Apples instead of sleep if Agni could be my partner since I was feeling a bit ill. The game turned into Ken being an legendary melodramatic prick, Flyssa being a preppy highschool bitch, Kate being a perfect fragrent zombie, Nate a lovable man, Simon being a pain, and Agni/me being desprate and hot. Dan videos this all quite excellently (check out the ustream here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24786492 ) and manages to catch us playing with Kate's fake boobs (which manage to fit inside the shirts of Flyssa/Agni around 40:00 in the movie and end up being on Agni/my head. Osprey chimes in if Nate's boobshoulders are doing anything later), and Kate tries to bow Agni's violin and my viola at the same time with some creative effort. Flyssa also farts a lot, aiming directly at Simon a few times with deadly accuracy. Kate mentions how bagpipes are ancient techno music and gives Nate shoulderboobs Taylor asks via IRC if Nate's boobshoulders are doing anything later). Simon clarifies that the water doesn't just swirl the other way in Australia, but it swirls upward so don't flush while still on the toilet. Alas, the video cuts out just as Agni and I start jamming the Pirates of the Carribean theme and a few other songs. Everyone wants to slp early as to make it to the farmer's market.
I think I head to bed after this with Agni, but I don't know. Too sick and sleepy to remember anything @___@
DAWN OF THE SATUR DAY: 18th
I am a mix of tired and sick, so I wake up just as everyone else leaves for the farmer's market and downtown shopping. Dan and Agni stay behind with me, so I break out the laptop and blast some songs (that I'll eventually make into DDR stepfiles) while I prepare lunch for everyone. It takes about four hours, with the help of Agnikitty. I was a bit loud for Dan I think, since he went upstairs to sleep - but he appreciated my cooking playlist via text~ I had to open the doors since puny oven fan wasn't credit to team TAgni and failed to remove the grease smoke from frying oodles of things. I also wash my hands like crazy (combination of research lab sterile technique mixed with a dad who worked in food service) and overcook the chicken - I did not want to be the one responsible for foodpoisoning everyone at DCcon. The chicken was courtesy of Kate/Liz - I forgot to get any sort of meat to cook with the adobo, and they kindly gave me four breasts (none of which are Kate's)to work with the night before.
I would like to take this opportunity to name and shame the person responsible for causing Matugi to not attend DCcon: me :( Apparantly Matugi got a bit of a break and texted me Friday mroring that he might be able to attend, but I checked my texts a little too early the day he sent it and missed the window of opportunity. It's things like this that make me want to be more reachable, but I also have a serious dislike for being interrupted by texts/calls. It's a vicious cycle, but in any case: Sorry Matugi and everyone ):
Dan wakes up and texts everyone that lunch is ready around 3PM. I manage to cook quesadillas and nachos w/Velveeta, guacamole, jalapenos, and enchilada-sauce dip (safety foods for the less mexican-inclined), chicken in canned adobo/chipotle sauce, enchiladas cut into eighths (instead of the more familiar single-tortilla version), beans, and scrambled eggs with chorizo (think ground pork as a crumbly fatty sausage). This took far longer than it should have, since I forgot cooking in bulk can be multitasked better (ten eggs takes pantsing long to cook compared with three).
About this time Dan fires up his phone's ustream app. A few shenanigans ensue, and I think BSP asks us to replicate some pony scene but I don't know.
Around here I think I promise to go on a hike with Kate later.
We go on a dancing spree that involves turning me on with popcorn and Sprite to moans of "There goes my shirt, theregoes mypants"
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24801228
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24802128
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24802957
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24803483
Mostly you see the righthand player, which is a shame since it's mostly my awkward blocking the star of the show (Agni consistently got 3-10x the score of everyone else; that is, 3x everyone else's score, and 10x my scores xD ). At some point Jason says Liz hates a song, Liz goes "No I don't,", and Jason counters "Well she hated it when I sang it."
Highlights in clude synchronized Agni/Liz hairwhipping at 36:40 in the second video, my (ohgod) at 40:00. I accidentally push the wrong button and kill the stream for a good few minutes until Liz saves the day and finds the ustream app on Dan's phone which starts the third video, which has AgniLiz getting their freak on at 20:00, the whirlwind truncated tour at 24:00 (and the best streamception at 25:10), and the a wobbly Let's Play of Chris's Mushymushymushy mushymushy game starting at 1:20 of the third video and ending because the camera ran out of battery.
There's a lot of good (and bad) dancing but I'm not gonna annotate it all because there's a lot. Go watch the whole videos if you want!
ANYWAY. at some point we segue into playing Kerplunk in the common room, which is a fun game where there tension until one obvious loser emerges and a desperate scramble for first place after. Nate pops his neck, much to the displeasure of Agni. At some point we start putting the Kerplunk sticks in Nate's beard, and Simon's beard (which doesn't look beardy enough but it is). There were some quite spectacular matches, but in the end Simon kicked all our asses.
I think we played apples to apples a bit but I'm not sure? We did play a couple games of Werewolf in the Room of Despair until late 'o-clock. Simon ended up committing ritual suicide after his lover (a little girl) was killed, then revived himself to poison a mangled corpse. Agni and I managed to be werewolves in one round. Somewhere in here a centipede falls from the roof onto Josh; Ken wasn't having any of that, especially after it crawled into Josh's pantleg. After a few minutes we decide on trapping it in a Coke can and letting it go outside. Except when I go to release it, the centipede wasn't in the can anymore. Oops. I don't tell anyone this, though. Nate finds another scorpion in the laundry room.
Kate at some point realizes that her pepper spray canister had leaked onto her finger and burned her mouth after eating something - the conversation turned to me expressing an unhealthy interest in getting peppersprayed and Kate's unhealthy willingness to pepperspray me. To her credit she's quite versed in first-aid (I'd snag a plastic first-aid box after she takes all the supplies out) and knew just how to treat pepperspray injuries...but for the sake of everyone (except Kate) worrying, I decide not to go through with it.
We eventually go up, say goodbye to Alyssa and Simon, entailing me giving Simon a piggyback ride, and Kate giving Simon giving me a piggyback stand (requiring my jumping skills to be put to use). I head to bed and try to do my parting notes to DCers - my little project that started off weird but ended up becoming me wanting to give people cute little notes to remind them about DCcon (see appendix A at the end of this post). I help Agni pack a bit, chat with the chat a bit, and continue working on the notes until almost 5AM, whilst IRCing with Nate who's having a cigar with Ken downstairs as the rain pours on. The thunder is especially loud this night.
DAWN OF THE SUN DAY: 19th
I wake up and accompany Dan/Agni to the airport at 6AMish. A long and lonely drive, knowing that your kittyfriend's leaving you at the end :< In any case, I try to keep Dan company and succeed in being somewhat sneaky about my naps on the way back, but I'm pretty sure Dan noticed me nodding off (I only had an hour of sleep ok).
Simon and Lyssa leave quietly. Josh is the only one awake to see them off (achievement unlocked). Apparently they pass this place on the way up http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m.....57no1_1280.jpg
I wake up for a few minutes and bounce around 4-5PM, and retreat upstairs due to a worsening stomachache. I steal some of Josh's Pepto and wait it out - BUT I can hang out with people on IRC, so it all works out. Liz and Nate and Chris keep me company, as well as other IRCitizens~ Snowball tries to crack Chris's password, but trying "pillow" over and over doesn't work. Around 6PM I rejoin the host and at some point we go down to the Room of Despair play Shadows over Camelot. Sadly, we didn't the Arthurian knights with each other, but we did end up playing a fairly long round involving me at dice and Liz being a traitor and us abandoning her to the wandering bandits. More sadly, we finish the last of the nacho cheese and chips during the game. We also decide that Josh would get the king bed, and Kate would take the basement given her love of privacy, cold rooms, and something else.
Around 11PM we start setting up for Call of Cthulu: Arkham Horror. I choose to be Kate, the researcher (owl). Randomly we select our Ancient One, the supernatural horror whom we're trying to prevent being summoned. We draw the "If summoned, everyone instantly loses the game" card, and decide to because we're newbies and don't want to die instantly. So we draw Cthulu himself, second hardest to beat. welp. We're newbies, dammit! So we draw again, and it's the easiest monster. well then, that's just insulting. We redraw for the final time and get some ice monster, and go with it. No one knows how to play, so much time is spent chatting while Chris reads and explains the rules.
Around 1:30AM I joke that we probably won't start playing till 2AM.
At 2:30AM we start our first turn. We speed up, but it's by no means a quick game.
We laugh about how no one wants to meet the Black Man, especially in the City of the Great Race (not-so-subtle racist undertones don't change the fact the game is kind of fun once it gets going). We cry when the flying polyp takes to the skies, until Ken manages to kill the shit out of it with a magic sword. We snort in disgust when Kate contemplates killing her best friend, a dog named Duke, to recover her sanity. Liz falls in love with a sparkly blue die, which saves Chris on one roll. And Liz cries when she rolls about 15 dice and only gets two out of three required hits. During one of my encounters, I meet a mysterious lady who invites me to a "black cave", where I find a book and a dead body. We rage about the ambiguous text on some of the cards. Kate seems to have a bad time in the Other World, constantly getting jumped by monsters while everyone else finds magic books and such. Jokes about us losing sanity tokens in real life start being funny because it's true. As Liz put it - "Did we lose our sanity at some point?"
We're still playing till about 6AM, when the sun starts to rise, make it technically the...
DAWN OF THE MON DAY: 20th
by the time we vent our frustration with the game it's almost 7AM. We crash hardcore, and promise never again to stay up so long.
I hear Josh wake up just before I fall asleep. He apparantly goes for a walk.
When I get up sometime in the afternoon, Josh's still kicking around. Nate's in the middle of packing so I get my last bit of talking out and a final hug.
I ask if Josh wants to walk and he agrees. I borrow Ken's prospector axe and we set out clearing brush from the major trails. I axe a calf-thickness log into a managable piece (with a bit of coaching from Josh that saves me from potentially buring the axe in my leg), and I try to get a thigh-sized one down but am defeated. Josh goes to town on the sucker and gives me a whole new respect for our resident bandanaman @_@ He also ID's a few shrubs and regales a few tales of the Galapagos.
I plan to shower when we got back (I sweat in 70F weather if I'm walking, much less hiking and cutting wood in 80F humid forest) but then Kate comes up and claims my "Let's go for a walk sometime" offer, so we spend about an hour and change going around, blazing oodles of new trails (which involve her almost-falling a few times, but always staying on her feet), finding the very edge of the property line that I missed on my other hikes, and breaking a rather large tree. It began as a pointed dare since I wanted to see Kate try to move the already-rotting tree, but she ends up actually taking down the sucker, we couldn't really see the cabin from where we were, but Chris later said they jumped after hearing the tree crack in half. Kate also finds a large feather which Josh later identifies as a turkey feather, and a tiny black feather no bigger than the first segment of my pinkie. Kate also swats a few mosquitos on me, leaving a few bloody spots as we talk about water and survival and vinyl business and such. We go to the wooden miniplayhouse, where Kate steps in and promptly sinks to her mid-shin after the rotten floor gives way. Kate also decides to throw a few branches as far as possible, and pulls her shoulder in the process V:
We put a few (a lot) more hours into Arkham at some point and win, bitch. I think the final hour count playing that game was 8. Dan and Ken whittle on the porch as we finish the last bits. I think Ken's converting "Large Wooden Branch" into "DCcon Walkingstick" at this point.
Kate also teaches me a bit of Minecraft, and tries to make a door that works diagonally with pistons and redstone or something. Kate and Chris have a bit throughout the week; all I know is redstone is magic wire, creepers are jihadists, and spiders beat the shit out of you. Also fire is a valid method of gardening.
Here, I present An Exchange Between Kate (playing minecraft) and Liz.
Kate: There are webs down there, I wonder if there are spiders too
Liz: Go down there!
Kate: Oh alright. Oh shit they're killing me fuck you Liz die die die die
The spider spawnblock is eventually killed (apparently hitting it with a pick is way more effective than swording it to death).
It's evening now; Liz is too tall for the loft and bangs her head on the ceiling due to her sheer tallness. Kate informs me that earlier, Liz was commenting "The master bedroom is so pretty! And the shower is so big - " just before Liz faceplants into the glass door. Kate mentions her love for calligraphy stuff and watercolor stuff. Kate and I also talk about compuuuuters (with me testing her building ability (which she passed with flying colors (this text is in parentheses))). Dan streams Bolt, and I try to calligraphize but not really.
We set up the SNES in the master bedroom so Liz and I can finish Kirby Super Star as others cluster around us watching. We didn't do The Arena since we're starting to get tired at this point, but we're proud of finishing the game without looking anything up (except for ONE treasure, we knew what room it was in but forgot where to go). It helped that she knew where oodles of things were, but the shit-ton of ramen and pizza and mac and cheese feast we had all the while also made it enjoyable~ Liz mentions how she was all "omg there's MORE..!" the first time she cleared Kirby Super Star.
We move to the kitchen/front door area. Kate also brings out her pepperspray again and lets some dribble out to taste. I try some and it's actually quite tasty - it doesn't have a distinctive flavor, but the essence of pure burny-ness would be quite interesting in a curry or something. Matugi posts thirllerMatugi on IRC, Chris pulls it up on their phone and sneaks up on Liz with thrillerMatugi http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m.....b8zxo1_500.jpg .
I poke Josh in IRC and in IRL and he escalates the poke war into a hug war; Kate and Ken look at us funny. Nate tries to throw a paper towel into the trash and it hangs half-in half-out. I mention I like warm Coke and everyone INSTANTLY turns to me in disbelief and suddenly I feel like an outcast.
Someone farts and I mention how good friends don't even blink when someone farts in the same room. Suddenly Jason from IRC brings up InterContinental Butt Methane via IRC, Kate mentions the butt-erfly effect, and Jason/I get into whether or not he intentionally farted on Europe. We deem the front table "The table of Lost Drinks" since half-full cans sort of accumulated there.
Ken brings out his huge fuck-off flashlight, as long as an arm and with a head wider than my palm. We discuss battery chemistry and the guy who made a custom PCB for his flashlight, enabling like 9 shine functions, a battery indicator, and Bluetooth. on a FLASHLIGHT.
Dan's asleep on the floor, we wake him to get him on the sofa, Liz and Kate ask me to wake them up if they're still asleep by 11:30, and I finish 5 calligraphy pieces before I go to bed.
lol i wish. I do about one calligraphy piece before peacing out and tucking in. And it's 5:30AM when I crash. We kept true to our word regarding not staying up till 7, shut up.
DAWN OF THE TUES DAY: 21th
Ughghg. Wake up around 10AM and blaze through the calligraphy pieces. It's 11:45 and I have one left to go, so I go and wake up Liz by delicately calling her name, then proceed downstairs to smother Kate awake with a pillow. Good morning, Kate~
I go downstairs and we share a few giggles, and then a bit of sadness as everyone gets ready to leave. Kate mentions her metric for tallness: when standing at conversation-distance, you're short if she can see over your head, and tall if she has to crane her neck up. Ken shares some pictures of his border collie and about how his dad made decoy ducks with more and more detail until he was carving individual pantsing barbs on feathers (obviously not using these ones for hunting). Hugs go around (including a superhug that I get stuck in the middle of, with my left arm flailing helplessly above my head).
I notice Ken's walking stick for the first time - it has a fox, one of those Pict symbols from Shadows over Camelot (coincidence?), and "DCcon 2012" carved in it.
Ken and Josh are the first to go; KateLizChris continue to pack. We tetris around some luggage; Kate breaks the pneumatic piston thing that keeps her rear hatch open, and I can't help but ottercoil Chris's gamecube wires out of habit. Liz peeks in my room and mentions how messy it is (despite me having to keep my luggage downstairs for the projector but the stuff in my luggage upstairs for me to use >:@ ) Liz mentions that DCcon is now ottercon and an otter party filled with otter potties. Everyone goes outside and a last round of hugs go out, but Chris wasn't a fan of the wasp that tried to give everyone hugs.
ChrisLizKate all say goodbye, so Dan and I retreat back in and go through the cabin in case some people forgot some things. I find Liz's Dog plush upstairs and frantically tell Dan to call them back, but before Dan finds his phone they all come barreling back in the front door, looking all sorts of distressed, coughing as they stagger back in.
From what I gathered it went down like this:
Kate: Haha, look at my fuckin cloud of pepperspray!
Kate: shit it's coming back at us
Thankfully the cloud dissipated quite a bit by the time the wind blew it back - everyone seemed alright after ten minutes or so. We say goodbye for reals around 4PM.
I decide to check my e-mail before taking a nap and find out that someone I worked with made a VERY BAD MISTAKE that some Ph.D people noticed and required me to upload some new data immediately instead of taking a 2-hour nap >:(
I finally take that nap, get up, spend a lot of time on IRC and skype with Agni a bit, then head downstairs with Dan who's watching the Pony Anthology, and I work on the notes for DCcon report while it's fresh in my mind. I realize I'm working slower and slower and decide to hug Dan goodnight, before going to slp.
DAWN OF THE WEDNES DAY: 22th
Cleaning day. I come up with an ingenious scheme using the dehumidifier and heater in the basement to pre-dry clothes, because the dryer couldn't keep up with the washer's pace (and just gave up on the king-sized comforter despite going at it for two hours). Worked out well - the last load went in the dryer just before I left for the airport. I also manage to bleach a towel, since the only stone-safe cleaner I found was a bleach solution but the sprayer didn't work, so I uncapped the spraybottle and knocked it over with the shower door onto the floor towel. Sorry Dan >:
I pack as I clean, finish up Dan's note, and search frantically for my hat (which managed to fall waaaaay under Dan's sofa along with some apples to apples cards) and my computer (which got buried under some blankets I just folded). Dan was kind enough to drive me once more into the fray to the MARTY station; We hug at the station; Dan tries to pull away but I keep hugging for a few seconds longer >:3
And so ends DCcon.
My trip back involved playing my viola softly on MARTY (and have some guy come up and ask me questions), meeting a guy at the airport that recognized my case as a viola case (violas 4 lyfe \m/), and walking the length of ATL's main terminal from A to E (skipping the last terminal). I managed about 2500 steps in 18 minutes; I can do 1.5 miles in 15 minutes with a backpack, uphill, and with two stop lights, so ATL's pretty fukkin big. The terminal train thing only took 8 minutes, and I found out it's faster to wait 30 seconds for the next train than to try walking to the immediately next terminal (and given one comes every 1.3 minutes it's usually better to train it up).
I try to explore the terminal shops, but the design is such that there's one main walkway that leads to terminals A B C etc, and each terminal branches off in two "wings" in opposite directions - so you have to double-back after each "wing". I manage to do one wing before realizing it's 9:30PM and I'm tired, so I get a cheeseburger and oreo McFlurry and devour it to pieces on the way to my gate.
I board my plane, and sit next to a flight-averse lady from Puerto Rico who offers me colorful popcorn (which I decline) and strawberry-sesame pilones impossibly wrapped in plastic (which I accept) and a fashion designer type person with $12,000 worth of clothes in a garment bag (which made the flight attendent storing it suddenly very nervous).
I sleep fitfully and land in SFO around midnight-thirty PST (which feels like 3:30 to me). I wait forever and a half-hour for my luggage, and wander around looking for my favorite sleeping spot before realizing I'm in the wrong terminal. If you're ever in SFO and need a place to crash, the meeting place in Terminal 2 (take the AirTrain if needed) to the left of gates 50-59 has these sofas and big chairs to snooze on (I prefer the sofas myself). Comfy enough that I spent over 30 minutes looking for it instead of settling for the place I found and half-slept on before questing for Terminal Two's naptime corner. I curl up and cuddle all my luggage so I'd wake up if someone omgthief'ed my stuff, and snooze past my alarm.
Some other stuff happens; I immediately go to campus and drop viola off / do some sciencework, go to aunt's house to steam clean a carpet and entertain my cousin.
After all that, I'm finally home. The biggest difference to me, as a computer addict, is that I'm slightly amazed at using a computer monitor that isn't my 10 inch Eee screen I've relied on for three weeks. My room's a mess, my hair's a mess, and I'm still drained three days later, but srsly. I JUST WENT TO DCcon and I don't give a butts \m/
Appendix A: The notes (more or less) I gave to people at DCcon, each signed "Tai". I crossed out the first part on the note and left the part in parentheses untouched (So "Alysssa" is crossed out and "toiletpaper fairy" written to the right)
Airyu (no misspelling because I know the one I love~)
Glad you made it to DCcon with me and the rest of us weirdos. I hope you enjoyed learning new dances and songs with me, as well as that canadians lack maple cards. And while we were werewuffbuddies and cookbuddy, I hope we're more than buddies.
Alysssa (toiletpaper fairy)
You were quite angry at DCcon - angrily devouring pesto, farting angrily at Simon, and angrykilling me in Werewolf despite vouching for you. I suppose if I were an easy bunny who sees butts in everything, I'd be pretty angry, too.
Simom mustachesticks
Thanks for teaching me that even though you're a starry-eyed lover who commits suicide only to resurrect yourself and a witch who poisons a bloody corpse, you can still follow your dream to be a marble master and have toilet water swirl upwards into your bum.
Nathn (extensionpal)
P is for prepared, for you provided us with apples and pony plushes while piloting us purries around and popping your neck. Just don't party with pebbles like your Pinkie picture.
'beth - (kirbycritter)
Your presence at DCcon has taught me that tiny people have tall problems, blue dice are better, critters hate scorpions, and big showers have glass doors.
Kait (treehumper)
While you were an ok zombie, your boobs made a terrible hat and you were way too happy about pepperspraying me. Prepare for your mercy-smothering.
Cris - (Marth)
Sorry for being a sneaky spyotr. Hopefully being backseat squishbuddies, staying three hours for turn one, and my sprite otterpinions redeem me.
Conrade (prau) ((fuck i typoed mrau))
I see through your "nice tomato-eating Canadian" disguise; who brings a hatchet, fuck-off flashlight, and magic sword to kill the shit out of things at a reunion?
Jash - (tummyachepal)
Your wild side really comes out in person: from your lion's mane, to your lumberjacky abilities/shirt, to your appreciation of gay ferrets.
Danni (hostotr)
Your preparation ensured our con was the best, complete with official goodie bag. Don't get lost in your home turf next time, though.
SO: DCcon was a pantsing BLAST. I didn't take too many notes because I was just enjoying the whole thing, but here are the highlights of each day roughly in chronological order (I was enjoying myself too much to take detailed notes) so you all may live vicariously though the eyes of the collective people at the con.
As for the weather: It was basically rainy every day for some part of the day. Some days were cloudy and hot and humid, but we were inside an air-conditioned building 90% of the time so v0v
Pictures!
From Tai: http://imgur.com/a/n7z5l#0
From Dan: http://imgur.com/a/1V9nK (larger version: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59972490/D.....%20resized.zip)
DAWN OF THE MON DAY: 14th
Agni and I wake up at 3:30AM. Tried to go to sleep early but the week before we were setting up Agni's apartment so we went to bed at like 1AM lmao. Slightly late for the taxi ride, but we make it there. The cab driver recognizes my viola as such and not a violin, which impresses me. I mistake our airline as AirBus instead of Airtrain, which doesn't impress me. One nondescript flight later, we land at ATL.
We head over to baggage claim, walking at first and then riding the airport tram which, as Dan warned us, accelerates quite suddenly (more on how huge ATL is later). Agni goes to the little kitty's room as I wait for our luggage to arrive, and hands me her phone to keep in contact with Chris. Agni warns me to reply to Chris, and not be a butt by not replying when I get a text.
Chris texts me a few minutes later, and my devious spyotter instincts kick in despite being told otherwise - I know Chris is around baggage claim, but Chris doesn't know where I am. It played out something like this:
Chris: I'm by baggage claim, where are you guys?
Tai looks around, and finds Chris using spyotter techniques
Tai (as Agni, mweheheing to himself): Are you wearing a dark shirt with a red roller luggage?
Chris: aaaaa where are you
Tai: Try to find me
I turn my side to where I saw Chris so it wouldn't be easy to find me, and wait about a minute before facing Chris head-on (apply directly to the forehead). After Chris glances past me a few times, I start waving until Chris wanders over and we chat it up. Agni comes back, realizes what I've done, and punches me for tormenting Chris. We eventually work our way to the MARTA light rail system and board a train. The three of us make fun of the explicit directions to pay your fare, Chris introduces Agni to Snowball (who we take turns sharing and tossing), and we ponder the odd meanings of the station signs. Chris shows Agni the iPhone-ported prequel to the arcade game they brought.
About 45 minutes later, we arrive at our MARTY stop. Dan texts us to head to the parking structure, but fails to mention where exactly he is. I wander around a bit to look, but Dan texts us back with more specific instructions before I get to play journeyotter. We proceed to spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure out how to fit everyone in the sedan: four bodies, four large roller luggage, two instrument cases, a backpack and laptop bag, two 35-can soda cases, and....jumper cables (that take up more room than you'd expect). Agni drives out, since Dan isn't feeling well. Dan rides shotgun to navigate, while Chris and I share the incredibly cramped back seat. Chris shows me their cute phone background, a few apps that swirled color in patterns (I tried to make otters out of them), a pixelly timing-shooter game, and an air-hockey game that is truely insane on insane mode.
Along the way, we stop for snacks. Chris and Agni opt for a Slush Puppy, aka Icee aka Freezie aka Slurpee aka Slushee aka that sloppy ice drink flavored with unnatural syrupy flavors.
Anyway, Agni eventually goes down some of the more trecherous roads I've ever seen. Windy hilly roads and a road big enough for 2 cars and 6 inches on either side having to accomidate two-way traffic. We make it to the cabin eventually; to greet us there are the postwoman (who's quite excellent in maneuvering that mail truck in tiny spaces) and the regravellers with their Bobcat and a pile of gravel blocking our way. We park to the side, go inside and meet Dan's dad (really nice guy), and settle in. Apparantly someone's left us like 3 trays of lasagna and brownies with cake batter mixed in, which we will devour over the course of the week. At some point Chris finds out that their Mushihimesama Futari arcade game rotates the screen and Dan's TV lacks the capability to rotate it correctly, so a shopping quest to connect the arcade box to Dan's portable projector was planned. Chris wanders onto the porch and relaxes on the swing as hummingbirds flit about, and I deliver Snowball to Chris. I take a nap at some point, then wake up to porchswing with Agni and Chris~ We eventually get to seeing Dan's movie stash (which includes every Star Trek episode, and more importantly, a large chunk of SG1 episodes), and decide to try watching Avatar (Agni and I bounce out after about half of it, though).
Dan hands us (and eventually everyone) their choice of DCcon goodiebags, complete with a postcard. It's not a con without a branded bag - Dan really planned every detail of the con quite well :3
Agni and I take the upstairs bedroom, Chris takes the loft mattress, and Dan goes to his room and I forget next other than talking a lot with Agni. I forget what happens here but pretend we instantly fall asleep.
Oh, and this is a rough sketch of the floor plan. We'll end up having centipedes fall on us, turtles/dragons shoot bullet hells of lasers, and go insane playing games in the Room of Despair. I write a small about every room, but I'm kind of tired of writing loool
http://imgur.com/slpAr
DAWN OF THE TUES DAY: 14th
I remember waking up to a fire alarm going off, and the sounds of Dan taking the fire alarm outside. I assume Dan isn't trying to burn the cabin down, and go back to sleep.
It takes awhile for us to get going, especially me and Agni. BUTT once we're up and kicking, Dan informs us that we need to head out to take care of things so we head out. First on the order of things was Zaxby's? Dan was sad that the "We recommend the chicken for lunch, the chicken for dinner, and the chicken for dessert" sign as missing, but otherwise we enjoy a perfectly good fast-food experience. I personally liked the Betty Boop bio on the wall (apparantly she started out as a french poodle, and got her humansona later) and the noocooler sauce I ordered with my chicken sandwich was disappointingly bland by my standards (which will come up again on the 20th). It starts to get warm about now, and Chris seems quite happy riding shotgun, using his handpaws to absorb all the coolness from the A/C vents. Dan takes us on a tour of the city, including downtown and its weird trangle-about, the post office, past some swimming pools, and City Hall.
Then it was a long drive to Electronics Fry's to snag some batteries, the adapter for Chris's Mushihimisama game, and some Xbox stuff for Agni. In the process, I was incapacitated by zombieChris and a lamppost (I still have the scab on my arm from my fakefall), and revived by nickChris a few seconds later. Chris goes around and puts cute messages like "otters are cute" on all the display computers. Agni and I also went shoppingcart surfing for a bit.
From there we went to CostCo, where we have a grand time discussing buying socks in bulk, buying socks in bulk, and buying socks in bulk. Also, I guess contemplating buying a liter of honey was funny, too. Agni seemed interested in a firefighter raincoat, and the two of us had a mop battle. We also tried to doublehug Chris at some point but I forget why. I think Agni discovered strawbery milk syrup here or something, and we say something racist about burritos and taquitos but I forget what. In all we don't get much variety-wise, except for the essentials (frozen burritos and taquitos).
We proceed to go further down the freeway and head towards Dan's house to pick up some computery stuff. We meet Dan's dad's disembodied voice, and Dan's kitty. Agni notices an interesting book on Dan's shelf, and later plays with me using a die we find on a shelf. We also discover some interesting boxes with the Amazon and Thinkgeek logo, but now we'll never know what's inside. Dan also warns us to use filtered water and not drink the tap water, but I drink anyway (and rate it about a 4/10 on my water quality scale, where 8 is the sweet well water we had at our family restaurant and 2 is the cloudy pesticide-smelling water that came out of an isolated water fountain, and 6 was the cabin tap water).
Anyway, we load up Dan's car and make our way back to the cabin. We unload everything and use the adapter to fiddle with the projector. We decide to use my luggage as a platform for the projector in the basement after a good hour of tinkering with Dan's tripod, and play a few rounds of Mushissisimo Footami game. Also, MP totally stands for MEOW POWER - the characters (one in particular) make a meowing sound when you pick it up. There's also a big turtle and a Taidragon in the game, apparently. Chris works on their secret project while Agni and I retreat into our room for awhile.
At some point I think we hike today? Dan takes us around his property, which takes a good 20 minutes and a walking stick since there were fallen trees along the path we took. We were short one stick, so I found one along the way and spent a few minutes carving a crude handle and stripping the rotten tip, then laying it in the sun to dry the rot. Stay tuned...
Some other stuff happens and we fall asleep at some point.
DAWN OF THE WEDNES DAY: 15th
This was a slow day, we're still suffering from sleep asynchrony and we don't know what we want to do together, so we mostly stick to ourselves. Chris works on their project, Dan's doing something with the entertainment center, and Agni/I camp in bed. Chris agrees to stay behind and wait for Nate's arrival, while Dan and friends go to finish shopping at J&J Foods. We buy crack for Agni (oatmeal cream pies), lots of stuff for a mexican feast I planned, jalapeno kettle chips (which Ken devoured upon arrival), and some other stuff.
Nate arrives at 7pm, about 3 hours later than expected, due to lol airline delays and lol rental car reservation failures (cough Enterprise). He brings Apples to Apples, and a Twilight plush for Dan. We get to watching oodles of Regular Show, Dan suggests DBZ Abridged and gets Agni hopelessly addicted (fukkin ghost Nappa). Nate shows us something about how videogames now hold your hand to take you through levels, but Megaman did it with really good level design.
We're still awake at this point, but Ken eventually shows up around 3AM. And then we sleep, save Dan and Ken and Nate who stay up to some ungodly hour talking. I think the both of them take the two beds in Dan's room.
DAWN OF THE THURS DAY: 16th
I wake up at some point. Nate says the initial booze run was this day, I don't remember who else went but Ken insisted on some jalapeno-water-and-string-bean combination called "jala-bean-o's" on the second run that I don't know when. We also buy him a tomato for some reason. Much Dance Central was played, and Kinect Adventures too maybe?
I think here we go hiking with Ken,and some combination of people; all I remember is me using my newly made walking stick and Ken finding an awesome branch that had "epic walking stick" written all over it. Ken breaks out the prospector's axe he brought along (how many people carry effing axes with them) and with a few deft swings acquires Long Wooden Branch.
Also I think Dan takes me and Agni to CitGo to get ice and beer. Dan shows the glass pipes that were to "NOT BE USED FOR ILLEGAL PURPOSES", and Agni plays a dollar's worth of video slots.
Lyssa and Simon get here around 5PM. Flyssa brings oodles of toilet paper, and Simon's goofy as ever. Apparantly Ken stayed with them in Ohio for a bit, then Flyssimon went on to meet Michal/Jeff at a Panera for a bit while Ken powered forward? They take the MASTER BEDROOM with the king mattress. Agni clips a star hairclip to Nate's beard, then Simon's mustache.
At some point I think I go out to try and improve the trail (re-tying trail markers that had fallen, making trails with logs, etc). Early on I get too zealous stabbing my walking stick into the ground and break it. RIP walking stick, I lay thee down to be part of the trail ;_;7
I talk a bit with Dan and Ken in the evening I think; Ken mentions his Canadabuddy Dan (whom I hereby dub the Friendly Failhunter) who hunts coyotes while driving at highway speeds and applying for trapping permits after sending in his furs (which both get sent to the same place and catch Dan the Friendly Failhunter for poaching I think).
And an early bedtime was had by me to greet Liz/Kate/Josh upon their arrival. Agni looks outside and sees three deer looking back at her.
eff I forgot everything that happened this day
DAWN OF THE FRI DAY: 17th
Kate and Liz get here about 3AM, slightly ahead of their delayed schedule. Liz mentions something about how she's not thrilled to know scorpions are about. Kate shows off Bessie (her car, adorned with black vinyl decal animals as "spots") and takes out their prize: a cooler filled with a bag of chicken breasts, which would be used for culinary arts later. I glimpse Liz's WIP fursuit head, which has quite a bit of promise. The two of them also take loft positions. Kate tells us of the tale as to why they were late - at a gas station, Kate paid the attendant money over the counter but the attendant put in the wrong pump - Kate asked what was going on, the attendant called the police, and took down Kate's number and address to investigate a pay-and-switch scam they thought Kate might be a part of -_-
I remember it's like 4AM and go back to sleep to greet Josh when he comes. I believe Dan and Nate stand vigil to retrieve the squirrel, but I was not firing on all thrusters and may misremember - I wanted to fall asleep again, so I kept myself intentionally half-asleep.
And so it happened; sleep came easily to me. Unfortunately my body rebelled at the demands I put on it, happily forcing me unconscious despite my "Greet Josh!" alarm. I get up well after my alarm gives up and hug hello to Josh who looks a lot like a lion with his new hair/facial hair (seriously, he was practically glowing), and once again lose track of time. Josh sets up camp in the basement in a sleeping bag iirc.
This marks the Gathering of the Host - Everyone Who Would Come Is Now Present At This Time.
I want to say Josh went to bed after a bit of talking. He wakes up with a stomachache, so Nate drives Josh/Tai/Agni to the CitGo for some Pepto and a look around. Nate already knows the winding route by memory, which is impressive to me and my terrible otrmemory. We get back and Josh downs the quite gloopy DOUBLE STRENGTH PEPTO. Josh shows us an assignment his teacher gave him: the teacher lost the digital copy of their exam, so asked various TAs to transcribe pages and return them. Josh managed to get a study about the scent glands of homosexual ferrets, with one question being "T/F - the most important finding from this study is that gay ferrets exist."
Chris decides to reveal his SECRET PROJECT: Chris sneakily calls everyone to the main room and asks Liz to play this "cool megaman game". A megaman game with sprites that replace MegaMan with CritterLiz, Rush with feralChris, and added Swiftflutter (who's a badass killing machine) and Feralkate as an item giving sprite. Liz spends a few minutes playing through, and Chris gives us a demo of all the sprites. Watching Chris make the sprites was pretty cool, and holy butts they must've spent hours doing this, there were dozens and dozens of sprites they had to modify for this. IIRC this was like the second thing Chris made ever regarding spriteart, adding to the :gasp: factor.
http://i.imgur.com/utmpN.png
http://i.imgur.com/6sC2u.png
http://i.imgur.com/qhHmq.png
http://i.imgur.com/5M8DS.png
I think here is where Liz and Nate go downstairs and play Mushishahshi Futarmi. The projector's mounted upward so the game's projected on the ceiling; Liz and Nate kick ass (Especially since Nate is playing with the controller over his head and viewing the game upside-down.)
Around here we start playing old vidja games (this actually happened over the course of a few days but I forget which happened when). I enjoyed Tetris Attack (pokemon puzzle league for lyfe; sometime earlier I introduced Agni to this game as well as Faceball for the comedy factor), and played a few intense head-to-head rounds with Dan - our combined skill made the game lag quite spectacularly. I played as Raphael Raven and Agni CAWWed along to my combos. Sometime earlier I introduced Agni to Pokemon League as well as Faceball for the comedy factor. Agni and I tried Jet Force Gemini but just got frustrated. Liz and I start a Diddy Kong Racing file under the name Tiz (after Liz barkbarked at me irl) and fail spectacularly against the wickedly hard mirror courses (Liz had better luck with Kate as a partner, but still struggled a bit). Particularly, Liz had trouble running over the frogs, which she managed to miss even in comically slow motion. Liz and I also start a new Kirby Super Star playthrough, with Liz as Kirby and I as the trusty secondary character, with Liz preferring the pink bird and/or sword character and myself preferring the floaty plasma character or the hammer character. Various people play Smash, and Chris owns us all with their preferred character: Marth.
Here in my notes I wrote "Simonpoast" but I forget what that means.
This evening I think Agni and I visit Flyssa in her room; she's reading a book on Tank Girl and we talk about the interesting art within and Lyssa's gauges. Also about farts.
Anyway, some time later we decide to get lunch at an eye-talian place. Ken gives Agni, me, Kate and Chris a ride in his huge super-duty truck with vintage used Canadian Coke Can (read: no HFCS in the ingredients) in the bed. I wish I remember the conversation here, we laughed a lot. The only thing that comes to mind was Agni asking if the Canadian version of the US green card was a maple card.
We arrive at the place, and are seated by an awesome waiter named Jackie Lee who thought the Pusheen Agni and I were wearing was trollfacing him and was an all-around awesome dude. The table was lined with paper and we were given crayons, so being the artists we are the table's soon covered in doodles. I manage some triangle tesselation that turns into a heart with a circle around it, Agni draws Agnikitty and Taiotr noserubbing~ Lyssa draws a curvy flower thing, Simon draws his trademark dog character, Liz draws a quick critter (who later gets a crown?) and a taiotr and a jasonsona so he can be with us in crayonspirit. Ken draws two foxes, one of made of giraffe-esque spots that I found pretty cool. Chris draws a Chris, and I didn't see the rest of the doodles at the other end of the table. Lyssa/Simon somehow draw a kiwi being ridden by Simon with a whip that makes the kiwi angry so Simon says "Oi!", progressively getting more and more detailed. The crayon names were interesting too but I forget them.
Agni tries to shoot me with a straw wrapper but manages to shoot it on Kate's hat - and have it balance there without Kate noticing. Agni and I order pesto-crusted salmon (pandering to her love of pesto and my love of feesh), and share some pesto with Lyssa. Lyssa drops pesto on the plate, and instantly ARGHNOMs it before a second passes. I think Chris ordered fried cheeseballs for everyone, and Ken and someone else maybe share fried calamari with the table :3 At the end, Lee doesn't include the 18% gratuity for large parties so we can tip at our discretion and gives us takeout boxes. I only recall that the calamari box went from being labelled "Squid" to "Here be squid!" to "Here be super squid!" to "Here, be super squids!".
We pack up and leave. On the way back, we make fun of Ken's/Kates GPS's voice and the Imperial system of measurement. We talk about speed governors and such.
Back at the cabin, we expect to be the last there since Dan and Friends parked way closer to the restaurant, but Nate's waiting for us and turns out Dan took a wrong turn on the way back and Nate followed Dan into a suddenly dark street. Some stuff happens, and eventually a call to play Werewolf goes up. Some people opt to go sleep, and I cast the final wet-blanket vote that makes Werewolf unplayable due to having under the minimum number of players. Agni sees eyes and faces in the wood grain of the cabin, I saw a Yorkshire terrier, and Flyssa (Or Simon?) sees butts.
I agree to Apples to Apples instead of sleep if Agni could be my partner since I was feeling a bit ill. The game turned into Ken being an legendary melodramatic prick, Flyssa being a preppy highschool bitch, Kate being a perfect fragrent zombie, Nate a lovable man, Simon being a pain, and Agni/me being desprate and hot. Dan videos this all quite excellently (check out the ustream here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24786492 ) and manages to catch us playing with Kate's fake boobs (which manage to fit inside the shirts of Flyssa/Agni around 40:00 in the movie and end up being on Agni/my head. Osprey chimes in if Nate's boobshoulders are doing anything later), and Kate tries to bow Agni's violin and my viola at the same time with some creative effort. Flyssa also farts a lot, aiming directly at Simon a few times with deadly accuracy. Kate mentions how bagpipes are ancient techno music and gives Nate shoulderboobs Taylor asks via IRC if Nate's boobshoulders are doing anything later). Simon clarifies that the water doesn't just swirl the other way in Australia, but it swirls upward so don't flush while still on the toilet. Alas, the video cuts out just as Agni and I start jamming the Pirates of the Carribean theme and a few other songs. Everyone wants to slp early as to make it to the farmer's market.
I think I head to bed after this with Agni, but I don't know. Too sick and sleepy to remember anything @___@
DAWN OF THE SATUR DAY: 18th
I am a mix of tired and sick, so I wake up just as everyone else leaves for the farmer's market and downtown shopping. Dan and Agni stay behind with me, so I break out the laptop and blast some songs (that I'll eventually make into DDR stepfiles) while I prepare lunch for everyone. It takes about four hours, with the help of Agnikitty. I was a bit loud for Dan I think, since he went upstairs to sleep - but he appreciated my cooking playlist via text~ I had to open the doors since puny oven fan wasn't credit to team TAgni and failed to remove the grease smoke from frying oodles of things. I also wash my hands like crazy (combination of research lab sterile technique mixed with a dad who worked in food service) and overcook the chicken - I did not want to be the one responsible for foodpoisoning everyone at DCcon. The chicken was courtesy of Kate/Liz - I forgot to get any sort of meat to cook with the adobo, and they kindly gave me four breasts (none of which are Kate's)to work with the night before.
I would like to take this opportunity to name and shame the person responsible for causing Matugi to not attend DCcon: me :( Apparantly Matugi got a bit of a break and texted me Friday mroring that he might be able to attend, but I checked my texts a little too early the day he sent it and missed the window of opportunity. It's things like this that make me want to be more reachable, but I also have a serious dislike for being interrupted by texts/calls. It's a vicious cycle, but in any case: Sorry Matugi and everyone ):
Dan wakes up and texts everyone that lunch is ready around 3PM. I manage to cook quesadillas and nachos w/Velveeta, guacamole, jalapenos, and enchilada-sauce dip (safety foods for the less mexican-inclined), chicken in canned adobo/chipotle sauce, enchiladas cut into eighths (instead of the more familiar single-tortilla version), beans, and scrambled eggs with chorizo (think ground pork as a crumbly fatty sausage). This took far longer than it should have, since I forgot cooking in bulk can be multitasked better (ten eggs takes pantsing long to cook compared with three).
About this time Dan fires up his phone's ustream app. A few shenanigans ensue, and I think BSP asks us to replicate some pony scene but I don't know.
Around here I think I promise to go on a hike with Kate later.
We go on a dancing spree that involves turning me on with popcorn and Sprite to moans of "There goes my shirt, theregoes mypants"
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24801228
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24802128
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24802957
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24803483
Mostly you see the righthand player, which is a shame since it's mostly my awkward blocking the star of the show (Agni consistently got 3-10x the score of everyone else; that is, 3x everyone else's score, and 10x my scores xD ). At some point Jason says Liz hates a song, Liz goes "No I don't,", and Jason counters "Well she hated it when I sang it."
Highlights in clude synchronized Agni/Liz hairwhipping at 36:40 in the second video, my (ohgod) at 40:00. I accidentally push the wrong button and kill the stream for a good few minutes until Liz saves the day and finds the ustream app on Dan's phone which starts the third video, which has AgniLiz getting their freak on at 20:00, the whirlwind truncated tour at 24:00 (and the best streamception at 25:10), and the a wobbly Let's Play of Chris's Mushymushymushy mushymushy game starting at 1:20 of the third video and ending because the camera ran out of battery.
There's a lot of good (and bad) dancing but I'm not gonna annotate it all because there's a lot. Go watch the whole videos if you want!
ANYWAY. at some point we segue into playing Kerplunk in the common room, which is a fun game where there tension until one obvious loser emerges and a desperate scramble for first place after. Nate pops his neck, much to the displeasure of Agni. At some point we start putting the Kerplunk sticks in Nate's beard, and Simon's beard (which doesn't look beardy enough but it is). There were some quite spectacular matches, but in the end Simon kicked all our asses.
I think we played apples to apples a bit but I'm not sure? We did play a couple games of Werewolf in the Room of Despair until late 'o-clock. Simon ended up committing ritual suicide after his lover (a little girl) was killed, then revived himself to poison a mangled corpse. Agni and I managed to be werewolves in one round. Somewhere in here a centipede falls from the roof onto Josh; Ken wasn't having any of that, especially after it crawled into Josh's pantleg. After a few minutes we decide on trapping it in a Coke can and letting it go outside. Except when I go to release it, the centipede wasn't in the can anymore. Oops. I don't tell anyone this, though. Nate finds another scorpion in the laundry room.
Kate at some point realizes that her pepper spray canister had leaked onto her finger and burned her mouth after eating something - the conversation turned to me expressing an unhealthy interest in getting peppersprayed and Kate's unhealthy willingness to pepperspray me. To her credit she's quite versed in first-aid (I'd snag a plastic first-aid box after she takes all the supplies out) and knew just how to treat pepperspray injuries...but for the sake of everyone (except Kate) worrying, I decide not to go through with it.
We eventually go up, say goodbye to Alyssa and Simon, entailing me giving Simon a piggyback ride, and Kate giving Simon giving me a piggyback stand (requiring my jumping skills to be put to use). I head to bed and try to do my parting notes to DCers - my little project that started off weird but ended up becoming me wanting to give people cute little notes to remind them about DCcon (see appendix A at the end of this post). I help Agni pack a bit, chat with the chat a bit, and continue working on the notes until almost 5AM, whilst IRCing with Nate who's having a cigar with Ken downstairs as the rain pours on. The thunder is especially loud this night.
DAWN OF THE SUN DAY: 19th
I wake up and accompany Dan/Agni to the airport at 6AMish. A long and lonely drive, knowing that your kittyfriend's leaving you at the end :< In any case, I try to keep Dan company and succeed in being somewhat sneaky about my naps on the way back, but I'm pretty sure Dan noticed me nodding off (I only had an hour of sleep ok).
Simon and Lyssa leave quietly. Josh is the only one awake to see them off (achievement unlocked). Apparently they pass this place on the way up http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m.....57no1_1280.jpg
I wake up for a few minutes and bounce around 4-5PM, and retreat upstairs due to a worsening stomachache. I steal some of Josh's Pepto and wait it out - BUT I can hang out with people on IRC, so it all works out. Liz and Nate and Chris keep me company, as well as other IRCitizens~ Snowball tries to crack Chris's password, but trying "pillow" over and over doesn't work. Around 6PM I rejoin the host and at some point we go down to the Room of Despair play Shadows over Camelot. Sadly, we didn't the Arthurian knights with each other, but we did end up playing a fairly long round involving me at dice and Liz being a traitor and us abandoning her to the wandering bandits. More sadly, we finish the last of the nacho cheese and chips during the game. We also decide that Josh would get the king bed, and Kate would take the basement given her love of privacy, cold rooms, and something else.
Around 11PM we start setting up for Call of Cthulu: Arkham Horror. I choose to be Kate, the researcher (owl). Randomly we select our Ancient One, the supernatural horror whom we're trying to prevent being summoned. We draw the "If summoned, everyone instantly loses the game" card, and decide to because we're newbies and don't want to die instantly. So we draw Cthulu himself, second hardest to beat. welp. We're newbies, dammit! So we draw again, and it's the easiest monster. well then, that's just insulting. We redraw for the final time and get some ice monster, and go with it. No one knows how to play, so much time is spent chatting while Chris reads and explains the rules.
Around 1:30AM I joke that we probably won't start playing till 2AM.
At 2:30AM we start our first turn. We speed up, but it's by no means a quick game.
We laugh about how no one wants to meet the Black Man, especially in the City of the Great Race (not-so-subtle racist undertones don't change the fact the game is kind of fun once it gets going). We cry when the flying polyp takes to the skies, until Ken manages to kill the shit out of it with a magic sword. We snort in disgust when Kate contemplates killing her best friend, a dog named Duke, to recover her sanity. Liz falls in love with a sparkly blue die, which saves Chris on one roll. And Liz cries when she rolls about 15 dice and only gets two out of three required hits. During one of my encounters, I meet a mysterious lady who invites me to a "black cave", where I find a book and a dead body. We rage about the ambiguous text on some of the cards. Kate seems to have a bad time in the Other World, constantly getting jumped by monsters while everyone else finds magic books and such. Jokes about us losing sanity tokens in real life start being funny because it's true. As Liz put it - "Did we lose our sanity at some point?"
We're still playing till about 6AM, when the sun starts to rise, make it technically the...
DAWN OF THE MON DAY: 20th
by the time we vent our frustration with the game it's almost 7AM. We crash hardcore, and promise never again to stay up so long.
I hear Josh wake up just before I fall asleep. He apparantly goes for a walk.
When I get up sometime in the afternoon, Josh's still kicking around. Nate's in the middle of packing so I get my last bit of talking out and a final hug.
I ask if Josh wants to walk and he agrees. I borrow Ken's prospector axe and we set out clearing brush from the major trails. I axe a calf-thickness log into a managable piece (with a bit of coaching from Josh that saves me from potentially buring the axe in my leg), and I try to get a thigh-sized one down but am defeated. Josh goes to town on the sucker and gives me a whole new respect for our resident bandanaman @_@ He also ID's a few shrubs and regales a few tales of the Galapagos.
I plan to shower when we got back (I sweat in 70F weather if I'm walking, much less hiking and cutting wood in 80F humid forest) but then Kate comes up and claims my "Let's go for a walk sometime" offer, so we spend about an hour and change going around, blazing oodles of new trails (which involve her almost-falling a few times, but always staying on her feet), finding the very edge of the property line that I missed on my other hikes, and breaking a rather large tree. It began as a pointed dare since I wanted to see Kate try to move the already-rotting tree, but she ends up actually taking down the sucker, we couldn't really see the cabin from where we were, but Chris later said they jumped after hearing the tree crack in half. Kate also finds a large feather which Josh later identifies as a turkey feather, and a tiny black feather no bigger than the first segment of my pinkie. Kate also swats a few mosquitos on me, leaving a few bloody spots as we talk about water and survival and vinyl business and such. We go to the wooden miniplayhouse, where Kate steps in and promptly sinks to her mid-shin after the rotten floor gives way. Kate also decides to throw a few branches as far as possible, and pulls her shoulder in the process V:
We put a few (a lot) more hours into Arkham at some point and win, bitch. I think the final hour count playing that game was 8. Dan and Ken whittle on the porch as we finish the last bits. I think Ken's converting "Large Wooden Branch" into "DCcon Walkingstick" at this point.
Kate also teaches me a bit of Minecraft, and tries to make a door that works diagonally with pistons and redstone or something. Kate and Chris have a bit throughout the week; all I know is redstone is magic wire, creepers are jihadists, and spiders beat the shit out of you. Also fire is a valid method of gardening.
Here, I present An Exchange Between Kate (playing minecraft) and Liz.
Kate: There are webs down there, I wonder if there are spiders too
Liz: Go down there!
Kate: Oh alright. Oh shit they're killing me fuck you Liz die die die die
The spider spawnblock is eventually killed (apparently hitting it with a pick is way more effective than swording it to death).
It's evening now; Liz is too tall for the loft and bangs her head on the ceiling due to her sheer tallness. Kate informs me that earlier, Liz was commenting "The master bedroom is so pretty! And the shower is so big - " just before Liz faceplants into the glass door. Kate mentions her love for calligraphy stuff and watercolor stuff. Kate and I also talk about compuuuuters (with me testing her building ability (which she passed with flying colors (this text is in parentheses))). Dan streams Bolt, and I try to calligraphize but not really.
We set up the SNES in the master bedroom so Liz and I can finish Kirby Super Star as others cluster around us watching. We didn't do The Arena since we're starting to get tired at this point, but we're proud of finishing the game without looking anything up (except for ONE treasure, we knew what room it was in but forgot where to go). It helped that she knew where oodles of things were, but the shit-ton of ramen and pizza and mac and cheese feast we had all the while also made it enjoyable~ Liz mentions how she was all "omg there's MORE..!" the first time she cleared Kirby Super Star.
We move to the kitchen/front door area. Kate also brings out her pepperspray again and lets some dribble out to taste. I try some and it's actually quite tasty - it doesn't have a distinctive flavor, but the essence of pure burny-ness would be quite interesting in a curry or something. Matugi posts thirllerMatugi on IRC, Chris pulls it up on their phone and sneaks up on Liz with thrillerMatugi http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m.....b8zxo1_500.jpg .
I poke Josh in IRC and in IRL and he escalates the poke war into a hug war; Kate and Ken look at us funny. Nate tries to throw a paper towel into the trash and it hangs half-in half-out. I mention I like warm Coke and everyone INSTANTLY turns to me in disbelief and suddenly I feel like an outcast.
Someone farts and I mention how good friends don't even blink when someone farts in the same room. Suddenly Jason from IRC brings up InterContinental Butt Methane via IRC, Kate mentions the butt-erfly effect, and Jason/I get into whether or not he intentionally farted on Europe. We deem the front table "The table of Lost Drinks" since half-full cans sort of accumulated there.
Ken brings out his huge fuck-off flashlight, as long as an arm and with a head wider than my palm. We discuss battery chemistry and the guy who made a custom PCB for his flashlight, enabling like 9 shine functions, a battery indicator, and Bluetooth. on a FLASHLIGHT.
Dan's asleep on the floor, we wake him to get him on the sofa, Liz and Kate ask me to wake them up if they're still asleep by 11:30, and I finish 5 calligraphy pieces before I go to bed.
lol i wish. I do about one calligraphy piece before peacing out and tucking in. And it's 5:30AM when I crash. We kept true to our word regarding not staying up till 7, shut up.
DAWN OF THE TUES DAY: 21th
Ughghg. Wake up around 10AM and blaze through the calligraphy pieces. It's 11:45 and I have one left to go, so I go and wake up Liz by delicately calling her name, then proceed downstairs to smother Kate awake with a pillow. Good morning, Kate~
I go downstairs and we share a few giggles, and then a bit of sadness as everyone gets ready to leave. Kate mentions her metric for tallness: when standing at conversation-distance, you're short if she can see over your head, and tall if she has to crane her neck up. Ken shares some pictures of his border collie and about how his dad made decoy ducks with more and more detail until he was carving individual pantsing barbs on feathers (obviously not using these ones for hunting). Hugs go around (including a superhug that I get stuck in the middle of, with my left arm flailing helplessly above my head).
I notice Ken's walking stick for the first time - it has a fox, one of those Pict symbols from Shadows over Camelot (coincidence?), and "DCcon 2012" carved in it.
Ken and Josh are the first to go; KateLizChris continue to pack. We tetris around some luggage; Kate breaks the pneumatic piston thing that keeps her rear hatch open, and I can't help but ottercoil Chris's gamecube wires out of habit. Liz peeks in my room and mentions how messy it is (despite me having to keep my luggage downstairs for the projector but the stuff in my luggage upstairs for me to use >:@ ) Liz mentions that DCcon is now ottercon and an otter party filled with otter potties. Everyone goes outside and a last round of hugs go out, but Chris wasn't a fan of the wasp that tried to give everyone hugs.
ChrisLizKate all say goodbye, so Dan and I retreat back in and go through the cabin in case some people forgot some things. I find Liz's Dog plush upstairs and frantically tell Dan to call them back, but before Dan finds his phone they all come barreling back in the front door, looking all sorts of distressed, coughing as they stagger back in.
From what I gathered it went down like this:
Kate: Haha, look at my fuckin cloud of pepperspray!
Kate: shit it's coming back at us
Thankfully the cloud dissipated quite a bit by the time the wind blew it back - everyone seemed alright after ten minutes or so. We say goodbye for reals around 4PM.
I decide to check my e-mail before taking a nap and find out that someone I worked with made a VERY BAD MISTAKE that some Ph.D people noticed and required me to upload some new data immediately instead of taking a 2-hour nap >:(
I finally take that nap, get up, spend a lot of time on IRC and skype with Agni a bit, then head downstairs with Dan who's watching the Pony Anthology, and I work on the notes for DCcon report while it's fresh in my mind. I realize I'm working slower and slower and decide to hug Dan goodnight, before going to slp.
DAWN OF THE WEDNES DAY: 22th
Cleaning day. I come up with an ingenious scheme using the dehumidifier and heater in the basement to pre-dry clothes, because the dryer couldn't keep up with the washer's pace (and just gave up on the king-sized comforter despite going at it for two hours). Worked out well - the last load went in the dryer just before I left for the airport. I also manage to bleach a towel, since the only stone-safe cleaner I found was a bleach solution but the sprayer didn't work, so I uncapped the spraybottle and knocked it over with the shower door onto the floor towel. Sorry Dan >:
I pack as I clean, finish up Dan's note, and search frantically for my hat (which managed to fall waaaaay under Dan's sofa along with some apples to apples cards) and my computer (which got buried under some blankets I just folded). Dan was kind enough to drive me once more into the fray to the MARTY station; We hug at the station; Dan tries to pull away but I keep hugging for a few seconds longer >:3
And so ends DCcon.
My trip back involved playing my viola softly on MARTY (and have some guy come up and ask me questions), meeting a guy at the airport that recognized my case as a viola case (violas 4 lyfe \m/), and walking the length of ATL's main terminal from A to E (skipping the last terminal). I managed about 2500 steps in 18 minutes; I can do 1.5 miles in 15 minutes with a backpack, uphill, and with two stop lights, so ATL's pretty fukkin big. The terminal train thing only took 8 minutes, and I found out it's faster to wait 30 seconds for the next train than to try walking to the immediately next terminal (and given one comes every 1.3 minutes it's usually better to train it up).
I try to explore the terminal shops, but the design is such that there's one main walkway that leads to terminals A B C etc, and each terminal branches off in two "wings" in opposite directions - so you have to double-back after each "wing". I manage to do one wing before realizing it's 9:30PM and I'm tired, so I get a cheeseburger and oreo McFlurry and devour it to pieces on the way to my gate.
I board my plane, and sit next to a flight-averse lady from Puerto Rico who offers me colorful popcorn (which I decline) and strawberry-sesame pilones impossibly wrapped in plastic (which I accept) and a fashion designer type person with $12,000 worth of clothes in a garment bag (which made the flight attendent storing it suddenly very nervous).
I sleep fitfully and land in SFO around midnight-thirty PST (which feels like 3:30 to me). I wait forever and a half-hour for my luggage, and wander around looking for my favorite sleeping spot before realizing I'm in the wrong terminal. If you're ever in SFO and need a place to crash, the meeting place in Terminal 2 (take the AirTrain if needed) to the left of gates 50-59 has these sofas and big chairs to snooze on (I prefer the sofas myself). Comfy enough that I spent over 30 minutes looking for it instead of settling for the place I found and half-slept on before questing for Terminal Two's naptime corner. I curl up and cuddle all my luggage so I'd wake up if someone omgthief'ed my stuff, and snooze past my alarm.
Some other stuff happens; I immediately go to campus and drop viola off / do some sciencework, go to aunt's house to steam clean a carpet and entertain my cousin.
After all that, I'm finally home. The biggest difference to me, as a computer addict, is that I'm slightly amazed at using a computer monitor that isn't my 10 inch Eee screen I've relied on for three weeks. My room's a mess, my hair's a mess, and I'm still drained three days later, but srsly. I JUST WENT TO DCcon and I don't give a butts \m/
Appendix A: The notes (more or less) I gave to people at DCcon, each signed "Tai". I crossed out the first part on the note and left the part in parentheses untouched (So "Alysssa" is crossed out and "toiletpaper fairy" written to the right)
Airyu (no misspelling because I know the one I love~)
Glad you made it to DCcon with me and the rest of us weirdos. I hope you enjoyed learning new dances and songs with me, as well as that canadians lack maple cards. And while we were werewuffbuddies and cookbuddy, I hope we're more than buddies.
Alysssa (toiletpaper fairy)
You were quite angry at DCcon - angrily devouring pesto, farting angrily at Simon, and angrykilling me in Werewolf despite vouching for you. I suppose if I were an easy bunny who sees butts in everything, I'd be pretty angry, too.
Simom mustachesticks
Thanks for teaching me that even though you're a starry-eyed lover who commits suicide only to resurrect yourself and a witch who poisons a bloody corpse, you can still follow your dream to be a marble master and have toilet water swirl upwards into your bum.
Nathn (extensionpal)
P is for prepared, for you provided us with apples and pony plushes while piloting us purries around and popping your neck. Just don't party with pebbles like your Pinkie picture.
'beth - (kirbycritter)
Your presence at DCcon has taught me that tiny people have tall problems, blue dice are better, critters hate scorpions, and big showers have glass doors.
Kait (treehumper)
While you were an ok zombie, your boobs made a terrible hat and you were way too happy about pepperspraying me. Prepare for your mercy-smothering.
Cris - (Marth)
Sorry for being a sneaky spyotr. Hopefully being backseat squishbuddies, staying three hours for turn one, and my sprite otterpinions redeem me.
Conrade (prau) ((fuck i typoed mrau))
I see through your "nice tomato-eating Canadian" disguise; who brings a hatchet, fuck-off flashlight, and magic sword to kill the shit out of things at a reunion?
Jash - (tummyachepal)
Your wild side really comes out in person: from your lion's mane, to your lumberjacky abilities/shirt, to your appreciation of gay ferrets.
Danni (hostotr)
Your preparation ensured our con was the best, complete with official goodie bag. Don't get lost in your home turf next time, though.
I bought the spicy beans on the second alcohol run we did, when I also went to the cigar store...uh, and I think the first booze run was the one Nate and I and Dan did in my truck...you guys got me a tomato on a grocery run? I think?
Also, it's a full prospector's axe. And Um...there was something else but I don't remember it now.
This is supposed to be a comprehensive log of a week's worth of awesome people doing awesome stuff, so we remember the highlights of what happened. And unfortunately we did a lot of awesome stuff, so there's a lot to write about :|
If it's that intimidating, think of how much longer one of your textbooks is :|
...but if it's still tl;dr, browse for the four ustream videos and watch the apples to first and second or third one a bit, and maybe read Friday's entry (17th) in installments. That day was my favorite :3
(also look at my hilarious map just before the entry for the 14th)
Would you be interested in a one-page highlight entry?
Also I added meow power and Taidragon. I know I'm forgetting things still ;_;
Well enough about my critical report analysis; I should get to reading it. This will be my morning read for the next week or so. One day a day to keep the otter away. ;)
Paragraphs were placed according to the Waggly Otter Guide to Style; as this was published in an otter journal, the style choices are appropriate.
Appendix B: LinuxMyns is a BUUUUUUUUUUUTT.
This report lacks relevant quantitative data, and thus, graphs and data tables would be inappropriate.
I was considering a watered down version but I couldn't justify something like "Saturday: Made Mexican soul food in morning.Werewolf in evening; Simon fell in love with the little girl and killed himself" because it seems awkward, but I might if people express interest.
Sounds like it was an otterly awesome week plus some days, thanks for taking the tale down on record for us other folk who wouldn’t be able to survive such high concentrations of DC. It was a pleasure to read but damn was it long! I feel exhausted just from reading it, I guess means it’s time for games! :D
You totally misspelled Mynx and I will never forgive you, since your report lacks relevant and irrelevant quantitative data. The graphs that could have been but never were! D:
Mynx was never referenced in this writing.
You are now innoculated with a healthy dose of DC, you'll be able to survive a DC con next time.
Glad you liked it :333 the best thing you can do for a writer is to stroke their e-ego and compliment it *explodes with delight*
Yeah, I totally caught you napping on the trip to the airport, so that's why I kept glancing over at you. I'd only offer a comment about the trip ("There's the state capitol building") if I saw eyes open.
I forgot which day I cooked burgers but I know that you and Agni were holed up in your room for most of it. I want to say it was Saturday, the 2nd day that everyone was there (since Friday we had gone to the restaurant for dinner).
Folks exploring downtown on Saturday while you and Agni were cooking us delicious Mexicanese:
http://i.imgur.com/JP872.jpg
The chicken sign I was talking about, too lazy to rotate it myself:
http://i.imgur.com/48wDk.jpg
Also, it's either DC or my connection, but whenever I type something in chat it never wants to go through. So, apologies for randomly dropping in and out, not doing it on purpose.