I’m back from Anthrocon! Well, sort of. This year I had to travel to Boston afterwards, so I’m technically still on the road for a while yet. But since I have some free time, I decided to bang out the traditional post-con journal tonight. I’d say this year’s con was certainly the best con I’ve had since AC 2016, and very possibly ever.

My roomies this year were  geldazane,  ArgentVZ, and  darious096, also known as Vonadi. This was the first time I met Von in person, and he’s a great guy. He’s got an endless amount of energy, and it pushed me to do more at the con than I would have otherwise. In the end, that means more fun! Von brought his custom Cards Against Humanity deck, and to say it was popular was an understatement. At the Zoo, he made many new friends with the macro and furry themed cards. Hit him up if you’re interested in a deck.

We all stayed in the Drury. I’ve never been dissatisfied by a Drury, and the one next to the Westin kept that streak unbroken. Right off the bat you always get the benefit of a free breakfast and a free dinner; we never took advantage of the latter, but a few of my roomies tried the former and appreciated it. The rooms are modern and clean, and it’s only a few minutes’ walk from there to the convention center, let alone the Westin. The only negatives were expensive valet-only parking, and the fact that the bathroom door apparently doesn’t have a lock. A huge plus was the Internet…I was consistently pulling about 65 Mbps down…crazy for a hotel’s free Internet! It let me get the parade video up on YouTube very quickly, and it also let us stream a few movies with ease (more on that later!). Considering the Courtyard is such a pain in the ass to get a room in, and the Westin has its issues with the elevator line and the alarm pulls, the Drury will be my first choice in the future.

The Macro Meet on Friday is nearly the perfect way to run a panel: keep the schedule back-loaded so people have time to show up; allow plenty of time to meet, chat, and take photos with fellow macros; and feature something fun (a raffle) to keep people engaged as a group. The only thing missing was more of an opportunity to play with miniature cities, people, etc. Check out my Twitter (@TegonDragon) to see some macro hijinks from this meetup. I finally got my goodies from  Sapphy…those are some good cookies! I’m not ashamed to say I popped it into my mouth while still in suit.

Friday night we saw the Ant-Man sequel. In fact, the four of us watched a grand total of three movies this weekend: Ant-Man and the Wasp, Cloverfield, and A Quiet Place. Believe it or not, Pittsburgh doesn’t have a movie theater downtown, so all of us plus  neopuc piled into Argent’s car that night and drove about 15 minutes to see Ant-Man. Joining us were  SyLoX,  TheFandox, and  J-Forse. I’d give the movie a solid 8/10. It’s as hilarious as the first one, Michael Peña steals the show once again, and Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lily have awesome chemistry together. Macro/micro-wise, there’s about three good scenes, none of which are particularly long, and none of which are as good as what we saw in the initial micro sequence in the original Ant-Man. Afterwards we went next door to Dave and Buster’s, where Argent and I enjoyed the “World’s Biggest Pac-Man,” gunned down some xenos, and we all had a decent dinner.

We watched Cloverfield in the room one night, in keeping with the theme of the con. I had never seen it before, believe it or not. I’d rate this one lower, between a 6.5 and a 7/10. To me, the movie was just a slightly better version of the “stupid people doing stupid things” plot of Alien Covenant. Another night we saw A Quiet Place. Decent, but not as good as I thought it was going to be. We all agreed it was short, and a whole sequence involving almost drowning in corn was unintentionally hilarious. I’d probably give it a 7/10 as well.

Saturday revolved around the parade, and I’m happy to say Argent shot it for me, and not just because I said I’d eat him if he didn’t! Check it out here. Bronze joined me in the parade for the first time, and I think he enjoyed it as much as I continue to.

Saturday night I had the pleasure of meeting  MFI (Covah), who hosted a macro photo shoot in his hotel room. You’ll see those pics on Twitter in the coming days, but rest assured it’s professionally shot yet appropriately naughty. The city Covah had was quite a setup!

Later that night our room went to Sienna Mercato. It’s a pretty popular Italian restaurant across the street from the con. I wasn’t too, too hungry, so I tried their cheese bread and some tots. The latter were excellent; the former would’ve been much better if it were a bit thinner. As it stands it’s a tad too bready. Bronze had a nice conversation with a local about the con there. Pittsburgh is happier than ever to have us there; during the parade I heard an awesome shout: “Pittsburgh loves you!”

While we’re on the subject of food at the con... Argent and I were totally bummed to find out the Ben & Jerry’s across the street from the Courtyard has permanently closed. I tried a milkshake at Bill’s, but it was meh. In fact, I think we’re striking Bill’s off the list for future cons. They’re convenient and okay, but ridiculously overpriced. Joe and Pie’s, on the other hand, has shot up my list. We ate pizza there twice, and it’s really good. Just the right amount of grease, and the kind of cheese that stretches perfectly as you lift it up.  ChaosDunk wasn’t too happy about me calling it a “hole in the wall”; I told him I officially upgraded it to “greasy spoon”.

Sunday we tooled around the Dealers’ Den/Artists’ Alley/Art Show one last time with Dunk. I said one of my goals beforehand was to find something cool in the Art Show; I most certainly did, but unfortunately I had to leave early enough I wouldn’t have been able to stick around to pick up the item. It was a totally awesome wooden sign… including a picture of a dragon with something like the Green Dragon Tavern written below? If anyone remembers who did that please let me know! In the Artists’ Alley, I snagged a commission slot with  Tyrnn for an unspecified future joint thingy with Dunk.

I won’t even try to make an exhaustive list of all the people I ran into at the con…even now I think of the pleasant conversations I had with the likes of  Nommz,  Artie, and  Dialuca01, and the macro pics with  Rogue and  Kurrikage’s new suit, and I wish I could go on and on. But I hope I can count on seeing all of you there in 2019, if not sooner in Chicago later this year!