SO I still need to do the niggling formalities like making sure I have a way to get there from Furniture City USA, BUT I'll likely be at FC in a monthish. See y'all there!

Wow, already over a year since any real updates. Here's what you might've missed:

Been kinda down overall. Last two furcons I went to didn't even get writeups here, and I usually love doing those. A shame, since I've met so many cool fuzzies at FC/MWFF 2015 that I probably didn't keep track of unless we shared twitter info. Didn't help that a good buddy passed 6 months ago now. So I've mostly been keeping to myself. I'm sorta on the upswing - we'll see what the future holds.

While biking, had a close enounter with a car that sent me over the handlebars. Probably avoidable in the sense I should've gently gone around a car that suddenly pulled in front of me, but i have a nice two inch scar to show for it *shrug*.

Worked for a little while as a medical scribe in the ED (aka a hospital's emergency department, which has more than one *room* and is thus not an ER). Saw some shit (cool, sad, and hilarious), got out because my brain problems are more than I expected, and administration issues stacked the dice against me. Also got fired that same week from my other part-time job :q

After months of inactivity I've got some writing started - thinking about life type stuff, basic (and advanced-ish) philosophy. Hopefully some people share their brutally honest thoughts (all comments will be anonymous) and some discussion can be had. Maybe I'll finish and post one of the eight stories I've been working on (all together, I've got the first two Harry Potter books worth of material written and probably enough notes to write out three more). All the backend stuff is sorted, i just gotta translate my notes into something readable!

Conwise: FC is a maybe. After that is a mystery since I may be living in one of several states, in several stages of busyness. I've got interviews for California and Iowa and Las Vegas lined up late Jan,, and am waitlisted for a Pittsburgh seat.

I appreciate every last one of you fuzzies - keep being the awesome people I befriended >:3

You were a good buddy, hell I still have our last PM window open. We were talking about how terrible we were at decorating, and how your bookshelves were boards from old bookshelves stacked on cardboard boxes.

Dragging you into the chat was admittedly an impersonal semi-canned message for all new posters on the forum - but I'm glad you came. We had a great last ten years together, talking most nights about everything from construction to biology to cute animal critters. You always lent your expertise with a smile and were always a blast to talk with.

It's a little hard to close our last last chat window, but today's probably the best day to do it.

One last sunset for our oft-open chat window.


Please keep questions about the direct circumstances to PMs.

Currently (preparing and) interviewing in California, then stopping by ~furry games night~ Saturday in San Fran, then jury duty, then flying back and debriefing. Rest assured - I'll catch up on FA soon!

who will i see there

who will i PIGGYBACK there

edit 1: added picture of ~furry hole~
edit 2: I should mention that telepictionaries were sponsored by Mynxbits (provided paper) and VisMis (provided drawing implements)
edit 3: HOW COULD I FORGET thank you Mynxbits for editing and saving me some embarrassment :3
edit 4: DONT FORGET please correct me if i misremember something - I err on the side of including an event at the cost of misremembering a little! THAT SAID - edited the first line of the hyper furry puppydancer's not-rapey reply.

Greets!

If you’re here for telepictionary: https://imgur.com/a/VP5D6
If you’re here for my GasCon 2014 experience: ctrl-f for 1AM.
If you’re crazy enough to read my whole MWFF account: carry on!

DAWN OF THE FURST DAY

well it was evening on Thursday when we left actually. Lots of delays, a little scrambling, a little forgetting to bring stuff ;_; Thankfully we had a ride down in the form of Airyu's furry recruit Iris driving, instead of the usual public transit options I've used.

Three hours later, we start dragging things from the car to Red Bar so Mynx can let us in. It was here that I meet Swift's asian brother Siroc (who's not actually his brother), also Airyu hugs EVERYONE. En route to room, we run into like a million fuzzies including Izixs, Kyash, RD, and probably others I'm forgetting about. We also gather a Ricochetotter to help out with the last of the stuff on a second trip, prance around the parking lot a bit, then go back to Red Bar for nibbles and bits. I steal some spicy mayo, talk about random things that I forget about, and I guess leave. On the way up, we meet AxioWolf and Amenophis/Velkro/Cats Own You, who are Two Cool Fuzzybutts B)

We eventually somehow end up LizBliz's room where I meet Enid for the first time! I make a half-hearted organic chemistry joke, Airy comments on her Twilight Sparkle ™ socks, and then we immediately leave and go to sleep.

DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY

In which Tai wakes up, goes downstairs to eat, and gets texts from one (1) AxelSparkster trying to meet up. Tai looks out the consuite doors.. Tai sees a very smooshable face looking back. Tai goes to investigate but doesn’t see smooshyface anywhere because Axel is hiding behind a pillar :|

In which Tai dresses like a certain sibling of ACNL's Isabelle, and helps Airyu carry artist alley stuff downstairs. We meet up with People ™ By The Elevators ™ as we wait for Arteest Alley to dish out table numbers.

In which Mynx teaches me the nonimportance of papercraft fold direction and makes sense and is a good fox.

In which Airy-Tai get artist alley table number 3 and set up, just before Tai wanders off and keeps Siroc company for a bit (since he's on standby and has to wait for the lucky arist alley winners to be 15 minutes late before he can get a table number). We discuss military life, art history, and how Astro is literally the devil because there's no way so many people can love astro SO MUCH. I give Siroc a ninjastar I folded earlier for good luck and go onward.

Somehow I meet up with Iris and we go up to get stuff together (including things for my nose) - on the way down, Iris contemplates the utility of a sona that's always eating beef jerky. We wander back down, and find that Siroc's gotten in thanks to my lucky ninja star, and I wander off again with Mynx only to have Mynx yip that he needs feeding.

Coming back from food, we run into RD who introduces us to Bomber and Millinius, the latter of whom is coincidentally steered toward the ~career field~ I've chosen. I give them a theorycrafted answer as to why 70% ethanol is better than 91/100% for disinfection (short answer - <70% isn't lethal, and >70% can scramble the skin of stinky bacteria so that the alcohol can't penetrate and kill the beating heart). RD mentions the start of a dinner party he's trying to plan, and I get all wet-blankety and whine that I don't want to organize anything. Ferretparade and I talk briefly about meat, I lament Mynx’s ability to cook, then we go up to organize OPERATION PROCYGIFT.

You see, Mynx has purchased a Some Assembly Required RocketGroot figurine, and being the sly fox that he is, hides it in a drawer with a dozen stickynotes eventually leading to it (For example, "Look in the Action Packer by Rubbermaid ™", which would've hid the note "Look in Tai's pocket" with an illustration pointing to the correct pocket to look in. At the end, there was an OH MY GOD thank you Mynx :3 ~ followed by Procy breaking out some eurogoodies and eurosnacks for future partying (that I realize I mostly never tried).

At some point we wander to Jasonroom to see Aeron, and we have our annual discussion about how to pronounce "Procyon". Cole arrives and I pick him up by his butt and carry him around. We pass around Paco's Taco Stroker (a masturbatory aid of the highest quality which essentially is a ridged silicone waffle that folds into a “taco” shape when in use), and Liz goes into the bathroom promising to grunt while putting on their binder but never delivering on that promise.

I head out at some point and run into MrWolf, who was in search of om noms. Using my official authority, I thoroughly inspect MrWolf for fuzz, telling him to turn around, turn his head and cough. Back in my room, I start icing the beer and talk with Michal and Procy and Vis while eating pork 'n' beans over a few episodes of Adventure Time and Regular Show till it was time to collect Airyu from Artist Alley, where we packed up and headed off for a round of telepictionary. I scamper around trying to drag everyone and their mother to telepictionary (which resulted in delays - sorry yall). Also, Science Fox pickpockets me here. No respect for frazzlepoofed otters running around (SF eventually gives my money back) :| At some point we send mass quacks to Astro.

After telepictionary, the host splits - I wander off and get bounced from the puppy play panel despite 4 people leaving (it was packed as heckles), so I wander more and run into Amenophis again. Eventually, I dig up Airyu and Iris and head back up to our room, after meeting spiderman with a bunny tail offering free hugs. We drink drinks from cut plastic bottles, discuss tits and mynxbits, and realized that Airyu's Alley profits matched the house numbers she's lived at (with the realization that if she makes 0 dollars next time, we'd be homeless). Everyone touches Javs who complains everything is upsettingly sexy, so me and Bliz pin him down. Airyu gets Bliz to touch Sasha's eye under protest. I take a sip of Everclear and immediately regret my life. A furpile or two happens as well. I place Paco's Taco Stroker on Javs's forehead with a growl of "SIMMMMMMMMBA," which results in the following exchange:

"Tai. TAI. what the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK""
"Yes?"
"Did you put that on your dick?"
"Yes."
"And you put it on my FACE?"
"Why do you think I was going SIMMMMMMMBA?"
"Did you really?"
"no"

Another trip to Blizroom happens here - I ruffle Procyon immediately after he opens the door, and teach Simmo where his willy is (by means of demonstrating how Paco's Taco Stroker works). Jason arrives and I deliver Paco's Taco Stroker to him as promised, and he immediately cries out "I am having an orgasm right now". Javs gets jealous. Also we discuss how I reached into the bottom of a furry hole to pull out an egg containing a cat magnet (2 pics courtesy of Procy: http://imgur.com/JtBjEuw,QcC1ZEg ).

I think today ends around hereish.

DAWN OF THE SATUR DAY

I feel like butts so I sleep in for like forever. I have a good, long talk with Science Fox about life, the universe, and allergies. Airyu finishes an abbreviated stint in Artist Alley, and we go to consuite to nibble on food. We run into Fidget who tells us about ToledoFurs.

We get in line for Too Much Light. A good show, starting with everyone making lion, tiger, and bear noises before screaming OH MY!!!. The show was filled with features like a kitten that doesn't understand criticism so it knocks over all the things, trying to guess what's in the box with an uncooperative boxholder, another play that starts off normal but ends in someone saying zerozerozerzerozero because they couldn't finish writing the play and kept the 00000000's caused by a cat sleeping on the keyboard, a re-enactment of the wolf/sheep/cabbage logic problem that ends in the farmer leaving the three of them stranded in the middle of the river. "Things I learned working from home" was a skit that lasted all of the time it took to say "I can make myself cum 3 times in 5 minutes". Another skit had to buffer. Still another was a book club that transformed into a performing dolphin troupe. One skit pulled someone out of the audience, blindfolded them, and dangled various unpleasant things around them like a pitcher of water and an egg and a knife. Another skit involved seductively chewing marshmallows, then transferring the chewed marshmallows into another person's mouth. Also, pretend poor people. The show ended on a great skit with one person flossing another's mouth, a narrator describing how the Crocodile Bird doesn't actually dig out food from crocodiles' mouths, and the original flosser walking off sadly for a bit before going back and resuming flossing again.

Then DINNER PARTY. Lots of paws, lots of ~'s. Rob shatters my world by saying I can’t call him Collie anymore. A burrito malfunction occurs so Rob hangs out with us for awhile. Everything was well-executed despite my grumping about - many thanks, the Relaxingest of Dragons :3

Back in our room, the party gets STARTED. Rob and Soto (the cause of burrito malfunction) stop by, and discuss Mynx's engineering of quadcopter video cards. Erin regales the story of asking a fursuiter for a hug, and having the suiter reply:

"I'm going to give you something better. Follow me."
*shuffles off to a side*
*dances while yipping HYPERPUPPYFURRYDANCEHYPERPUPPYFURRYDANCE*

I go pee...and come back to find Paco's Taco Stroker stuck to the ceiling :| At some point, Paco's Taco Stroker was shot at Procy. A random person named JAAAAAKKKKKE (exactly 5 a’s and k’s) stops by and reveals he lives a few cities over. We discuss the finer points in life, like how expensive puppy play gear is.

EVENTUALLY I head out to play Whose Lion is it Anyway, where we learn roaches lived in snapple, Bad Dragon got their room by pitching their donges as wall decorations, and that their donges were up to 5% STD free. I paw at Axel's arm a fair amount. Airy owns the show with performances such as:

"So what play am I in?"
"NEW LINE"
"So what kind of act am I in?"
"NEW LINE"
"So when does the sex scene happen."

There was also a lot of shitting in basements, people kidnapping and having sex with seeing-eye dogs, fursuiters deepthroating microphones, and propositioning airplane guests who are drunk and not drunk at the same time. Between my cough and desire to waggle, I leave around 12:10AM and head to DANCE WITH CAMI

We waggle for a bit, RD shows up in suit and we take turns piggybacking each other while dancing. I run into Iris and we waggle for a bit. Airy suffers a stepped-on paw, so we head out for a bit.

It’s now just after 1AM - when *it* happens.

Since we didn't hear the fire alarms in our section of the hotel, we tried to stay inside as long as possible since neither of us were dressed for the 30F and breezy weather. Eventually con staff make us leave, and so we head outside. We run into Cami and RD, who provide Airyu and I with warm carpetsuit hugs (thanks to both of you :3) . The evacuation order extends the perimeter to a proper safe distance of across the street. At this point it starts looking serious - so we start trying to gather everyone together around 2AM. A few phone calls and texts later (in the stress of the moment communicating was difficult), we've gathered everyone but Iris together. It seems that people are going back into the hotel for a bit and we start to follow - but it was a false alarm, and we are sent back into the cold. With the help of a jacket from Liz (that apparently makes me look hot B) ) Sasha and I form the Find Iris Search Party, each of us on one side of the roughly line-shaped mass of furry refugees.

Along the way - I pass a fursuiter on the ground with someone kneeling next to them. It's always easy to say you'd do something in an emergency, but the fog of Not Knowing had clouded my judgement. After a few seconds I did ask the kneeling guy if there was an emergency to which he said no - I decided he probably knew more than I did, and left to continue searching. Eventually the crush of people was such that we couldn't go any further - Javs and I decided to turn around and search in the other direction. We pass Fritz and Chai here, and after a short exchange we head off again. I head toward the convention center and find the doors are locked, and Sasha hits the end of the line as well - we meet up again and head toward where we left the group and...I get a call from Iris at ~3AM.

Communicating is difficult since Iris is by dog show dogs barking at all the commotion - turns out, Iris was fine and already familiar with the area. Found a nice little corner to huddle up in (though not very warm) as well as a buddy who I forget the name of, followed the initial crush back into the dance room when the first false all-clear was given (I’m assuming after HAZMAT cleared things), filed back out when (also assuming here) the feds wanted a clean investigation area and re-evacuated, filed into the convention center and (finally) took out her phone to see my messages and contacted me - and the rest is history.

Except for the parts that came next. Shortly after the call, Javs and I reunite with the host and start migrating to the Hyatt-facing entrance of the convention center. A brief communication lapse occurs, but I manage to get another phone call through to Iris and draw her attention to us by jumping up and down. Now-reunited, we began to migrate to a place to finally (relatively) thaw and relax and sit. I run into kuisbright and we share a toasty hug. After we unwind for a few minutes and I start to doze off, we're told to move back even more. We ended up in the dusty loading dock area - colder, dirtier, and farther away from any official information. A drum performance on trashcans (excerpt at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5yOGGT0zEY - also the door where we holed up by is visible at 0:19. ALSO it’s a lot less bass-y and echoy in the video) , a lay-down-on-everyone train, lots of twittering and a strained waiting game involving idle walks and doing abso-fucking-nothing after hours of doing abso-fucking-nothing with no official information, we're finally cleared to leave the convention center and return to the Hyatt at 4:21AM.

The crush of fuzzies trying to get back in caused us to get separated - once we were inside it was a stop-and-shuffle game to get to the main area. After passing a con staff cordon restricting access to make the traffic in the main area manageable, it was a straight shot to our room. The main hotel definitely had a chlorine smell, even though the 9th floor stairwell was the source (though all I could discern with my perma-ruined nose was an acrid chemical smell).

5AMish, we finally get back to our room.

Paco’s Taco Stroker is still on the ceiling.

We pass the fuck out pretty quickly after such a full day.

SUNDAY

not much can compare with a night like last night.

Woke up, consuited and caught up with Muffinpaws. Wandered to Red Bar where we discussed Hacker Vietnam and days of DC past. Chilled for a bit, telepictionaried for a bit, packed for a bit, and then Red Bar'd to say goodbye and hug everyone. Mynx helpfully helped us pack and then smashed his butt and tail in our car window. Also we howled at a car in the garage, which proceeded to back up and drive away.



EPILOGUE

Not going to lie, GasCon 2014 ™ wasn't so much a surreal experience for me as it was just another day to get past.

Things I learned:

Communication should be triply-clear - even when you direct someone to "The only christmas tree with all-blue lights", that leaves room for misinterpretation if the trees aren't conifer trees ("Christmas" trees). The person who I asked if there was an emergency? I'd pass them later with EMS carting off the passed-out fursuiter. Asking if things are an "emergency" might've spooked the guy, maybe he wasn't thinking clearly since his buddy was literally passed out on the ground, etc.

Take stock of your inventory - some of our group was caught out without jackets in literally freezing weather. While hugs were nice, taking shelter inside a nearby hotel would've been nicer.

Large crowds complicate things - evacuations are rarely well-planned events. It was a mild nuisance having to unsettle and move back each time a place filled up and more space was needed - going back as far as possible in the convention center especially would’ve allowed us (me) to nap undisturbed, and not have to re-warm the cold concrete floor. Rumors spread faster than wildfire, and getting separated in a herd was extremely easy.

While GasCon wasn't a life-threatening emergency in my realm, a little more foresight could've made things easier to bear, and might've been even more valuable in a more serious situation.

On a lighter note -

In future telepictionaries, round times should be put to a vote (not enforced otherwise) in >10 person groups; 1 and 4-5 minutes for sentence/drawing rounds seems to work. Signing names (and possibly adding numbers) for the first round helps in IDing who drew what (and which side is the start side for the poor documentor) however DRAWING IN THE CENTER OF THE PAGE should be non-negotiable because it’s hard to get the camera to focus on the entire page otherwise :@

thanx for reading don't forget to rate comment and subscribe

then you're an awesome person. Just wanted to let you know that :3 *hugs*

SO by popufur demand (or maybe I'm trying to stay entertained on the way to work) I have a quick writeup about DCcon numero two - I don't have as much time to dedicate to these things anymore, but here goes!

PARTICIPANTS THIS ROUND were yours truly the ott, Airy the spottycat, SAINT LOTH (steven) the sloth, Yue (Cynthia) the ocelot, Vismis the polarbear, Liz the critter, Jason the fox, Sasha the woldeer, Flyssa the bun, Simmo the wallaby, Swift the fox/bird, Michal the fog, Tarukai the marten, Mynx the fox, and Bandit the miniature poodle (an actual dog, not a f u r r y)

It was a dark and stormy night, complete with a tornado (warning) and flood (warning) near the cabin.

Good thing we weren't around then!

Two days later, Vismis came on the wheels of one grumpy bus driver. I was LATE and ran to meet him and dragged him to the humble abode I share with Airyu, SAINT LOTH (steven), and Yue (cynthia) - the latter two being more or less uninitiated to DC antics (save a few hours worth a few months prior).

We talk, we eat, we sleep, and we riiiide the 7 hours down to the cabin. Vis doodles in the car and I attempt to field a few last-minute calls and texts given sporadic signal and the extremely uncomfortable middle-seat (think neck and back pain for a few days after).

and then we ARRIVE!

and then we have to leave, get out of the car, and have SAINT LOTH gun the car up the gravelly path to the cabin after getting stuck the first time.

Once parked, a round of greetings and hugs go around. Everyone's there except Michal and Swift - which confused me because about an hour earlier they were about a mile away. We claim our rooms and get to cards against hugemanatees, where people stain couches with vajayjays, M16 Lady Gaga, and tempt grandma with gay aliens. Once-frozen soosh goes around for snacky-snacks, and despite the highly reduced quality (or maybe because everyone was hungry) all of it is snapped up (or maybe someone took a tray :| ) I break out my butterfly bottleopener flashily to the chagrin of my neighbors (sorry!) and Tarukai shows off his (better) skills. Mynx sort of fondles it, or something. And Vis spills a drink.

Michal mentions something about finding caves to explore and a wire noose out somewhere. Sasha and Flyssa christen Yue's ten-pound-dog Bandit the butch champ.

At this point Airy asks me to come with her and help inflate airbeds outside. We go out and dwaddle about, especially as Michal forgets to seal the quick-exhaust port. Agni eventually comes and *insists* we come inside...

so that Agni could propose to me with a wonderful display of hand-crafted roses involving everyone there :3 I could write something here, but it's preserved better in video format - PM if you don't know where to find it. In any case, this was something I've been waiting for for awhile while spending time with my kitty princess :33

I wanted to say something to everyone there, then - but I guess here'll have to do. I'm proud to be part of DC - y'all are a great group of people and I'm just floored that you guys not only allow me to hang around you but are willing to help Airy propose to me. And everyone, even those who couldn't attend for whatever reason, even those who have no idea what DC is, was incredibly supportive. I couldn't ask for better friends. Thank you all so much <3

And to Airyu - you've heard what I've had to say and know how I feel otherwise you wouldn't have sealed your fate that weekend :| But to make it clear to everyone reading: Airyu, before we knew each other I tamped down my crushes because I didn't think anyone could love quiet, weird, furry little me. But you're not just someone who cares about me - you're someone who's GOOD for me, and shares so many of my interests it's almost scary. I love you, my princess.

OK OK IM DONE WITH THE MUSHY STUFF. Eventually the host breaks - a group goes to hot-tub, others go play Geoguessr, and still others card against humanity. I joined the hot-tub contingency of Airy/Simmo/Sasha/Liz/Jason in a bicycle built for four - the hot tub couldn't handle that volume of furries, causing the water to spill over. Oh how we talked and talked (except I wasn't talking) about things like relative chestfur amounts (Sasha is a BEAST and i'm just a babby and Simon is...just right) and the origin of DC and how Simmo's basically done everything. Mynx comes to orbit the hot tub and LASERS us - Liz apparently has an affinity for lasers, asking Mynx to waggle the laser beam mid-air to make trails in the steamy bath. Liz's also the only one who could feel (twice even) the laser's warm burny touch (I failed miserably :B) I accidentally reach for Jason's crotch, someone says something about our seed mingling in the waters, and we make the obligatory comment about the Long Hair of Jason/Tai.

Eventually I have ENOUGH and go inside with Squasha and Mynx and maybe someone else? I forget what happens here, but it involves Sasha putting a cup high up so I can't reach and telling me NO ;_; I try to take a shower and fail, so I go back to the hot tub and find Airy carrying Liz around in the water. Eventually we try to turn off the hot tub and fail miserably after pushing all the buttons.

Agni and I go upstairs and we try to take a shower again to no avail, even after disassembling the spigot assembly. We head to bed and find Mynx cocooned up in a sleeping bag *atop the bed* Airy and I've claimed, already asleep. Everyone goes on their ~devices~; I go on IRC for a bit and discover Mynx is not only awake but conspiring with Procy over the interbutts to make my phone vibrate constantly :| Airyu decides to plank on Mynx, but the bed would have none of that, rolling away causing Mynx to have a great fall. After hitting the ground, Mynx was greeted by a falling Airy to the FACE (or some body part, they disappeared out of sight into t h e c r e v i c e). Oh Mynx-kun. Eventually everyone gets better and we all internet for awhile before going to bed.

s l e e p

I wake up eventually to a sleeping DCcabin. I'd learn later Vis is a shower whisperer and managed to get the upstairs shower working before retreating back down. HOWEVER after IRCing a little and calculating how much money to collect from everyone i got restless and wandered out, risking life and limb to the Ohio shadowmonsters that could've stolen my ass to Mars without anyone knowing. Went for a walk around the cabin a few times, then came back in and waited for people to stir.

People start waking up slowly - Sasha and Michal and partake in my nast nuts (some honey bbq things), everyone eats Mynx's offering of cashoos, and allegedly there was a discussion about whether to throw away my slightly spoiled carrots (sorry to whoever ate them ;_;)

Mynx and I fiddle with my computer and the TV to get games working. Mynx installs a virus and like a million toolbars on my computer as well as Jamestown - the top-down shooter that becomes the official sport of DC Cabincon © ® ™. A merry band of four cycling DCers bravely takes on the Spanish/Martian forces. We arrive relatively painlessly at the last level where statues blargh death-dots at us and the terrain itself squishes us (sometimes instantly after respawning) repeatedly. After many a close call and many cheers and screams, we arrive and destroy the final boss...only to have him transform into mega-conquistador and own us.

Michal and Swift fry up a batch of potatobaconeggs which are quickly devoured, requiring a second batch to sate the hungy furries. our Merry Band of Heroes takes on the final level of Jamestown a few more times - and eventually are VICTORIOUS in conquistadoring the conquistador >:3

Sometime around here Mynx and Sasha are swinging on the porch swing. I attempt to sneak behind them and HOLD the swing still at the height of the swing but my noodly arms weren't strong enough, and I wasn't sneaky enough. Poop.

Swift breaks out Things and people invent things like permanent industrial viruses, roboduckies, and some other stuff while the computer nerds peck at a few more games. At some point we break out my copy of Pandemic (thanks Astro >:3) and Mynx/Jason/Taru/I utterly waste the worldwide plague. We start a new game, but Jason and I realize it is late o'clock and start cooking. Telepictionary happens here but my people needed me (to feed them). Most of my time's spent trying to find everything and replanning my meal since the ~tools~ i needed weren't available. Liz and I get in a scuffle: I agree not to contaminate her ugly soup, she agrees not to contaminate my chicken. Jason reveals the reason his hot sauce is called #3 sauce (or maybe #2 sauce?) is because a restaurant ordered their hot sauces from least hot to hottest. And Jason reveals how proud he is of how ugly his ugly soup is.

I suggest we all watch a mooovie while we eat - and put on Secret of Kells. After a few hiccups, the movie switched to the director's cut and would've been ruined had it not been for (sasha's?) Netflix account and Tarukai's tethering magic. The camp favorite turns out to be the cat Pangerban (lot of furries, all of you), but at least one person believes that Pangerban was a viking spy.

we then fire up a couple more rounds of TELEPICTIONARY and a great time is had by all, even by Sasha who livetweets the game and mixing every alcohol ever (and some concentrated pretty neon green energy drank). Also his car apparently is into vore. This takes forever in its own right because basically everyone is playing. Tarukai breaks out his ocarina and passes it around.

The host once again splits - some people go downstairs and chill and/or play Geoguessr, some (me mynx st.Loth Yue Taru Liz Jason and Sasha) go on to play WEREWOLF.

Much comedy was had in the early rounds - the most experienced werewuffers botched the werehamster rule (werewolfs can't eat werehamsters). St. Loth took over with his drunken storytelling skills - but unfurtunately breaks the same rule. Fourth time's the charm, right? Maybe the game just needed an otter's DM touch and things ended without me screwing up. Though a gay baby wolfdeer revealed his card and forced a redeal but say la vee. Some other highlights include Jason and Sasha getting into a land dispute and quarrelling over a dildo before becoming bestest of buttbuddies throughout all the games, Jason trying to wander onto the patio and possibly over the rail (and being ordered back by Liz), and St. Loth's brilliant trial defense "I'm...not a werewolf.". There was much banging of the table as if we were Phoenix Wright discovering the werewolf. Also about half the male DCers took off their shirts halfway through.

Anyway, after werewolf I wander up and find Michal trying to fix the shower with his bag o tools and a can of trusty CLP. Turns out the threads on an internal part were stripped and thus we were powerless to fix it. He puts it back together. Some people go to hottub, some people cleaned up.

i s l e p t

SO i wake up again and forget what happened. Something about packing, cleaning, throwing everything by the laundry room. I discover a group of people hanging out in the bathroom and don't ask questions. I take this time to set up my telepictionary documentation station and archive things for future generations. We discuss and decide on PICNICKING because Bandit is a gay baby and therefore not allowed in restaurants. Before we head out, Taru takes a few awesome group pictures (Mynx wants credit for suggesting the alternating-stepping stone idea) and we discuss the use of a lonely purple rope tied to the top of our cabin. I make everyone wait forever as I do a once-over and try to check out three different ways - oh the pains of being an event coordinator *heavy sigh* (it actually wasn't that bad).

SO Taru followed Yue, Yue followed Liz, and and Liz followed Swift the wrong way to Walmart to gather supplies, then do the same thing en route to the picnic site (with some driving maneuvers of semi-questionable safety. We lay out our spread: Enough Arby's for everyone, cookies 'n' cream whipped dessert thing, fried chicken, baked chicken, lots of fruit and veggie nibblers, mac and cheese, roll-your-own sandwiches, fancy meats and cheeses (sliced by Michal's Big Knife), potato wedges...a veritable feast. We gorge like furries that have had three meals in two days. Airy comments on how squishy Mynx's butt looks, and invites me to...empirically research the muscle tone of Mynx's bottom (we totally grab his ass). Oh Mynx-kun...senpai's noticed you ;3c

Interestingly, no one really was using the blankets except for Yue (And mynx but he’s a butt), enjoying a warm spot as cats are wont to do. So obviously this was an invitation for me to roll her up in the blanket and, with the help of Michal, carry her off to Neverland. Or just a few steps down because my noodly otterarms didn't have a good grip.

Eventually we had to say goodbye ;_; Sasha, Lyssa, and Simmo were the first to go, and there was much whooping and honking and maybe an otterhowl to salute the midnight howl we never got to share ;_____;

The remaining crew goes on a short walk around a trail. I suit up with my bag and water and we set off. Michal disappears for a bit and comes back with some pretty little flowers :3 We find a little waterfall, some old house in the trees, and what looks like a tree infested with something making spikes grow out of it's skin (Mynx reports that Soosha knows it’s a normal Honey Locust tree). We get a little misdirected, but Swift puts us back on track...which unfortunately is super muddy. As we decided what to do, Liz decides not to heed Swift's warning and to attempt jumping the puddle - leading to a critter earning a muddybutt. The rest of us tread a little more carefully to various degrees of success (My sneakers sunk up to the laces in muddy water ;__; serves me right for wearing absorbent shoes with all my gear). The mud gets everywhere and I use up all my paper towel stash helping various people de-mud (and Jason doesn't close my back pocket after getting out my paper towels :@)

Back at the picnic site, we're saved from a muddy ride home by Tarukai's extra water. We talk, we say goodbye a dozen or so times, and then we actually head out.

And thus ended DCcabin for me. Except for the next 6 hours in the middle seat again ;____;

HOWEVER - it was all worth it. So many awesome people, and my only regret is I couldn't spend more time with everyone! SAFE TRAVELS FLYSSIMMO AND CONGRATS LIZJASON AND THANKS EVERYONE FOR PLAYING >:3



[[credit to airy for reviewing the furst draft of my writing (and for proposing~) and mynx for lots of supplemental help]]

Friday night was when my then-girlfriend became my now-fiancee after she proposed. I've got a longer writeup coming BUT this deserves its own post for now :3

because it's my birthday :3 A quiet, rainy one - quite delight :3 I could sit in the rain forever *rolls around*

OK FUZZES here's my quick recap of the FC highlights I can remember!

on THURSDAY

I left Vacaville for SF at 4AM, got there about 6AM. Did business, met some friends, reminisced about old times, realized that after waiting a year I was a week too late to save some stuff...ANYWAY. Important to me, but less relevant to furcon happenings that began when I got to SJ around 3PM.

Checked in (Had to use Procy's name since he was Room Master), got roomcards (I chose the one with the otter/squirrel), hauled stuff up. Power-napped till Procy/net-cat got close, then aaaaa coordinating with people all at once made it so I couldn't do anything sneaky. Snagged a couple buddies to room with at the last minute (Ootachi and Latte/Jay/Monstertime/0-ERROR/lattemonster) (after having to beat an answer out of Procy via net-cat) and we played "Ferry the stuff up to the room before the elevators have lines". I talk with Tachi and he remembers me because of my ninja star gift years ago :3

Procy requires internet, so I bestow ~free internet~ upon the raccoon for a bit. Procy then starts a room party with and net-cat and our roomies which attracts Monocerous (Monophylos?) and HKR who get into a good conversation with Procy, which includes SCIENCE (youve been warned):

So if I recall Procy talks about how there was a sky-shiny and a lot (five?) of peoplegroups saw the shiny with different things and wrote papers about it. Procy continues on to say that they're writing for Science, which means you're not really writing for science but Science so to get popufur. ANYWAY, since Procy also did a paper but for science and not Science, Science asked Procy to refuree the other papers but he was preoccupied so he did two. He found that one paper was gross and basically wrong and told Science this, and that the other was okish but publishable with some corrections. He skimmed the other papers too - one was boring and regurgitated, and the other two were kinda interesting but eh. ANYWAY - Science who claims to be awesome super-elite goes ahead and publishes four of these papers (the fifth being one of the boring papers) - including the gross/wrong paper - and made it the cover of the Science V:

ANYWAY at some point late at night Cami (Procyon) and I go DANCING \m/ At some point, Procy introduces me to Tenax, who started his whole spiral into furry - I feel as though I met Procyon's master, and waggle hardcore into the night >:3

Eventually we're danced out, Cami and I return and perform our efficient routine: as Cami deCami's, I efficiently shower so that by the time Cami is all hung to dry, I'm out of the shower.

I want EVERY MINUTE of my furcon with maximized utility.



So then I woke up FRIDAY

...and EVERYONE IS ASLEEP. I occupy myself with computerings but at the first signs of life I start pouncing Procy awake :| He drags me to the dealer's den where he's apparently commissioned me a Kipper badge - making me an official otter :333

I'd later end up at Hypnobeast's "become your fursona" hypnosis panel - I've studied hypnotherapy a bit and have found group hypnotherapy sessions to be relaxing, so I figure I'd give it a shot. Turns out, I didn't go all the way under (par for me), but being in a half-trance state and letting my imagination wander was relaxing fun in its own way (and totally served as a nap replacement for getting like 4 hours of sleep last night).

Followed Procy to a panel about how to commission (and how not to commission) - which included wild-caught letters to artists with great quotes like "Now that I'm commissioning you, you owe me a favor like a discount" and "So, like your tail costs 65 dollars but I only have 100, so if I bought it I'd have less than 50".

We eventually catch the ~Swinging Tails~ purrforming some jazz, since Procy is in with cool jazz dudes like Toki. They perform so well that one guy screams "I want to have your puppies". At some point we lllllobby where I see Ladyducky! We meet up with Astro at the bar and drink something fruity, then hunt down some fooood with Mono/HKR/net-cat. We end up going to pho 69, where they promise "something hot coming to your mouth". I derp out and think filet mignon is fish, pass by the Lady Ducky again, and Procy is the only one to finish the generous serving of pho given to us.

Back in the room, I have a Mike's hard something or other and pass out pathetically for half an hour (during which Procy tries to rouse me via text and foot).

Astro catalyzes a room party that grows a life of its own - something like 30 people show up, including everyone from the previous party, Durj/Dadaist Otter/Kaycee/OD/Ovenotter/scruff/nicoface/elliott bunny/Kiro/Dade/RC Mouse/teddyfoxcoon/Aurora Fox/Kai/steph/rileyy/duino/probably others but I don't know.

I catch up with Durj a bit and find out he's legally able to carry weed thanks to a trip to Hempcon - he can now carry two whole marijuanas with him (after an exam from a doctor that was literally eating during the exam)! He also regales the story about how he dropped his hat on a San Diego bus, and it just so happened that one of his buddies from out of town just so happened to take the same bus, saw the hat, and went "FREE HAT!!!oh wait this is Durj's holy crap" and returned it :3 Astro (and maybe others?) go digging in my pockets because they like my pawkets. DadaistOtter talks about the (muffled sounds) instrument on his badge, which are supposed to be a Dadaist attempt at music given that each box is sealed and has a hidden thing inside that makes some kind of sound. My talks with Kaycee revolve around SCIENCE and EFFICIENT PUBLIC TRANSIT, with OD it was about pixels, with Elliot it was about little bunnies and DINOSAUR PAJAMAS, with Aurora it was about hugs and popufurity, and with Teddy we just sorta blocked the hallway for a bit. Somehow Nico ends up with my hat? ALSO at some point telepictionary happens and someones graffiti a cereal box to read "CAPTAIN CRUNCH DINGLEFURRIES: YIFFATIZE ME CAP'N!" And Ovenotter comes by and called me infamous for some reason?? But then we hugged and it was great :3

BUT in any case Oven and I eventually headed down to DANCE \m/ I meet Victory and someone else, Procy comes by and we rock out awhile, then it was back to ~efficient showering and sleeping~

Alas at this point, Astro is passed out on the floor

goodnight sweet prince


what the heck happened on saturday

OK well we wake up eventually (I spare Procy a pouncing this time....). People do their own thing, Procy prepares for furparade and I go do computery stuff in the lobby. I see a guy next to me with 4 cellphones out - I go out on a limb and ask if he's a cell network tester and he confirms. I explain about furries, he tells me about being the sole network tester for Sprint in the bay area and how a degree in electrical engineering or equivalent would help to get a job cruising around with cell phones running network tests.

I wander aimlessly for awhile, see a few people and exchange a few words, and laze around. At some point Cami takes me out and teaches me to be a better handler; we run into Astro and Cami negotiates, pleads, and outright begs Astro to stay to no avail from the cold-hearted (sick and busy) duck. The duck leaves, to bide his time and recover for next con...

Anyway afterwards this was PARTY NIGHT - we stop by Klingon party where I ask for an Honorable Death but only receive an honorable wound ;_; Procy teaches me about stars here, but he wouldn't identify the blinky star that floated across the sky :| THEN we stopped by Otter Party filled with sushi that actually wasn't there (maybe it was made to order but I wasn't interested that night), then some other party I forget about. I stop by Pony party and Gaymer party...overall I guess I wasn't in the mood for those kind of parties or maybe it just wasn't my night BUT the company was good >:3

I forget what happens after, something something then DANCING then exercising handler authori-tah because someone decides to crawl around in a dark room full of fursuiters. We meet Kiva Roo and a light comes on - she's somehow affiliated with Hoshi, I recall. Kiva confurms, introduces herself as a professional badass and the one that keeps Hoshi in line, and we party on \m/

THEN... upstairs > EFFICIENT SHOWERING > sleep.


sunday (technically since we've been going to bed at like 2AM each day)

wake up in the morning feeling like tree fiddy - but also discovered that I've been drawn by Jay in the past! Y'all should (re)check it out because it's totes adorbs :3c http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9068589/

Go to Pita Pit with net-kitty and Procy, discussing the awwdorableness of net-cat's badges (of which otters keep up with thank you very much), and stop by a boba place, discussing my discontent with California boba :T

At some point I go with Procy to watch him voice bid on art - he seemed ready to lay down the law over Twitter, and did not disappoint when it came to outbidding cute things he wanted - everyone he bid against was entirely shut downnnnnn :V We stayed for the end, one vicious looking wolfgirl painting started at $666, and closed at $777 :B

AFTERWARDS we talk around a bit, I see Durj for the last time and give him a goodbye hug for the road and say hi to Elliot again :3 Piggybacked Ovenotter around by random passerby's request (and forgot to get pictures of it :< ), then climbed 23 stories of stairs because Procy and I couldn't decide which floor was our lucky floor. I thiiiink Procy suits up so he can scamper around (and teaches me how to handle fursuits in the wild), that or we just hang around I don't know anymore 9_6 BUT we climb up the stairs again at a breakneck raccoon pace that makes my legs scream for mercy.

ANYWAY at some point I am told there will be Ethiopian food so I tag along with Procy with a few others including Kyash - we talk about fursuits and music a little until we get to the restaurant where Procy expertly helps us select fooood. Dadaist otter pets his injera (oh murr) and considers an injera fursuit. There's talk of astronomy and tying antennas to the bones of old antennas and of naked times with coworkers who said "I thought they'd send someone more important" and all that good jazz.

Food ends, and as we get back I am summoned to our room to let in a Tachi and Jay so they can leave (I'll drag you guys to the dances one day :| ) I head down to FC Unleashed, enjoy the show - and had the brightest flashlight by far when flashlight-con started : |

I drink oodles of caffeine in preparation for alcohol to Astro's discontent over twitter, then it was onward to ROOM PARTIES, where I get carried away trying to talk about cell-signalling with kuisbright. Then the fire alarms start, the evacuation starts (then stops while people are still evacuating, and triggers a third 23 story climb anyway), then fursuits again and DANCING.

I get bounced from dancing on stage in favor of two people behind me in line (not bitter at all, stage-left security dude), but hell if I'm letting that ruin my night - I waggled my heart out ANYWAY. Durj shows up and I give him a second-final goodbye hug ;-; but we DANCE our hearts out (he danced a little more than his heart out :3c )

We pass by DUCKY again - who has a the-William-formerly-but-still-presently-known-as-Hoshi in tow! I mention Kiva and Hoshi says *she* keeps *Kiva* in line and I'm left feeling horribly conflicted for the rest of my life. I'm feeling giddy so I spin Ducky around a little >:3 We talk a little , I get carried around by Lutris a little (Ducks still owes me the picture 3: ), and someone spills a little on Hoshi (but I have paper towels on-hand and save the day).

We visit grilled cheese party one last time and hang around a bit; I leave a little early to go pack, Procy comes by a little later. I have to leave early to catch my flight, so I pounce Procy one last time and say my goodbyes ;_;

And then I woke up a few hours later and left a sleepy raccoon sleeping. Oh and give Durj a third goodbye hug, and introduced him to Hoshi the vamp..dhampir who literally stayed up the whole night because Hoshi.

THE END

I'm a sucker for these kind of things so HERE GOES


What made you choose the species of your main fursona?

It was the first one someone thought I'd be - and I went with it. It was a fateful day in late 2006 when JerryArr decided that I'd be a good otter, and drew the first Taiotter (not named as such, but to distinguish Tai the river otter from Tai the human player). I've since put my own touches on my river otter avatar - but final details are still pending!


Does your fursona have the same personality you have?

Sort of! Personally, I like to think I have a few main personality clusters that I switch between. Taiotter has my "around people I know well and like" traits - slightly energetic, sneaky, and a little troublemaker.

There's a quote I really liked even before I turned furry, it goes something like "As unrelenting as ice, as fluid as water, as invisible as water vapor". The thought is that I can switch between being a cold icy and stubborn person to someone who adapts to what comes his way to someone who isn't noticed at all. Taiotter will be the more fluid part of me for obvious reasons, and I have two other sonas in the works (Eastern Longdragon and Common Magpie) to represent the more unyielding and more invisible sides of me respectively (at 2500 and 0.04 pounds, they even weigh the part :V )


Does your fursona have the same dislikes and likes as you do?

More or less - for creativity purposes each sona has their likes and dislikes, but in a pinch if asked a specific thing, they have my set of preferences.


Does your fursona look like you at all?

Kinda - Taiotter was given stripes because I have a stripey birthmark on my torso (one of Taiotter's stripes in theory matches my irl stripe), and I guess I'm sorta thinish for my height? I think all three of them have brown eyes but we'll see.


Is your fursona the same gender as you, if not why?

Yep! That is, male enough to say so - but not really caring much about it.


Do you have more then one main fursona?

Only Taiotter gets a significant amount of outside time. There are the other two, but they only come out when others want to play, basically :q All three are technically one and the same - all of my three sonas are mentally present in whatever form they've chosen to take, and can switch to another form at will given the minds of the current form and the to-be-switched-into form agree (and there's enough water present to catalyze the change but that's getting into ~details~)


Is your fursona mated, if so is it to your real life significant other?

I always think that "mated" sounds like a euphamism for "sex slave" :V BUT yes on both counts, to a very wonderful  Airyu :3


If not are they looking for a mate?

This question would make more sense wrapped into the previous question - that way people who have a mate/SO/whatever don't have to write something witty here :B


Is there something special about your fursona that you think sets them apart from others?

A striped transforming river otter seems unique enough - though he wasn't necessarily made so specifically to be unique. Call it a commentary on how everyone's unique in their own way :q


Do you have much art of your main fursona/s?

A significant amount, all of it gift art from my wonderful friends. I am honored y'all would consider me worthy of your talents ;_;


Would you ever consider parting with your main fursona, if so why?

Keeping with my "fluid as a river" mentality, I am not opposed to the idea outright - but given how much my sonas tie in with my current social circle, entirely abandoning my sonas would at a minimum require me to drop contact with over 20 people that I hold dear.


If you suit, do you have a suit of your main fursona?

not YET >:3 but I'm hoping to get one of Taiotter soon. Money's the big problem given I'm about to embark on a very expensive part of my life - but I might make an exception since I won't have this young suiter energy forever >:3


Have you ever roleplayed with your main fursona, or do you prefer not to?

98% of my RP hours have been spent on cartoony/cute things. I've tried structured RPs in the past and while I enjoy the idea of creating a collaborative story with others, I have my own stories (and other things!) to take up that niche currently.


Do you consider your main fursona to be a part of you in any way?

Insomuch as anything you've done for six years, yes. There are times where I'll be otterlike irl, but it's in the frame of "I have an otter character and am expected to act accordingly at times" rather than "I am an otter". Though now that I think about it, I could say the same about basically any personality trait I have. I am who I need to be, I guess!

OK this is way late (as usual for me ;_; ) and highlights-only BUT an otter's gotta ott before writing these sorts of things up. WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:

Airy and I left Friday taking a MEGABUS down; the bus got there a bit late but it was still cheaper and faster than Amtrak. One CTA ride later (and guiding a lost furry who promptly abandoned his saviors), we got to teh hyat lol. Airy's dressed up as Pom, and I'm Shibe (complete with collar).

We dropped off gear and met everyone at Red Bar; it seems we have assigned seats now, everyone seems to sit near the last place they sat. it was Here where we met Mynx for the First time - he looked everything like I imagined from the pictures I've seen. And he graciously delivered the papercraft he modeled and made forever ago for me :3 Alas, because I am a butt, I forgot to bring the card I made him, but let's not dwell on that - let's focus on how incapacitated Astro was between being awake for about a day and inebriated by Fanatic's/Tek Roo's wonderful selection of alcohol, and how well of a furst impression he made on Mynx (apparently my impression with Mynx is the blue haired wig that I'll wear the next two days and then probably never wear again).

Agni delivers her awesome dangly-critter badges, and someone talks about how Sleet looks nakeder than the rest of the badges. Muffin seems especially pleased with his badge :3 Someone talks about how well a tail drapes around someone's butt, we discuss (and observe) just how awesome Bliz smells (they smelled most wondmurrful~), and then we drag Javs down to the ballroom to dance[practice for the skit we would do tomorrow].

I should note that at this point, the three of us read the skitscript only a few times. I was particularly hilariously bad, unable to remember any of my lines or cues. Javs was a butt and wouldn't let me switch parts with him. HOWEVER - by the time we actually did a preliminary performance, we did well enough that we got a preliminary OK to perform (later, we'd find out one skit group dropped out for some reason or another). We also met one of the other skit-ers preparing a stuffed animal for his sword-swallowing role. We also indulge the caterer who brought lots of tasty food by posing with him with the other skit performers. The skit staff were a bit disorganized but really awesome and helpful - they all deserve shoutouts but I forget all their names (except for the MC named Socks - I remember Socks >:3 )

We skedaddled back to the room for a bit (I think) to pick up Astro's Many Ducks, which Agni found delightful enough to gift to Astroquack. One duck was Chromeduck, filled with a Magic 8-ball-esque insert that, when asked if Astro would take a bath with all his new ducks, replied "You are one lucky duck!". We head to the gamesroom and play a few rounds of telepictionary and attract many fuzzies with our attempted stifled laughter. Procy comes by with Thai treats for all :3 They heavily influence the next round of telepictionary, besides being delicious in their own right.

We stop before the hilarity kills us. Science_Fox spins Airy around, I pseudo-piggyback Swiftcutter a bit, and we go back to Red Bar for a bit. Doodles are passed around, and Mynx is mercilessly ruffled. I stop by the sparkledog panel and find everyone creating a sparkledog from a few generic templates.

I track down Vulpecula/Skan/Kalilya/Shio Pshuu/Izixs. The former three are engrossed in a game of Dominion (which would last a few hours after I left), and the formerist of all had a little foam fox ornament for me :3 I talk with the lightningdragon for a bit, then track down my fellow DCers.

Somehow I find Simmo, who debuted Beats the fursuit. He romps around a bit with Javs, then they talked about slicking Javs's crotchfur, and then we all fell down and went to sleep.

(actually Airy and I were bushed and slept early)

THE

NEXT

DAY

We wake up semi-early to get to actual skitpractice - this time with live equipment. Or not - the skit staff are having technical difficulties, so we're told to show up a little later.

Meanwhile, I experience a time vortex. Somewhere in here Agni sets up for Artist's Alley, I sneak a sausage in my pocket for her, and we practice again for skit (we pull it off flawlessly of course B) ). Liz finds us and delivers badges for Airy and I - a cute couples' badge that links up :3 I find VisMis and Bliz and we go up to a bunnec's room to demo iPad tron and hardcore pong (where I'm summarily slaughtered). I track down Vulpecula again (accompanied by Dax/Sharha) for a couple games of Seven Wonders, and afterwards teaches me the ways of Star Fluxx.

Here we go for our final check-in for skitting - many backstage antics ensue, including the large bunny becoming a body pillow for one of the smaller suiters (the latter had decided to stomp on all the other fursuiter's paws a few minutes prior), us receiving our "Performer" rockers, and Javs developing a tear in his suit ): We mend it by putting his badge over it, but turn in our badges before the skit making our efforts in vain.

ANYWAY - we finally make it on stage - and do pretty damn well for not having practiced before a day prior: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGiiyPlX-4I

(Bonus points if you noticed that we accidentally positioned the participant too close to the edge of the stage for Reece's and Javs's romp, that I dropped the money pouch initially by accident, and that my too-tight jeans were holding onto the gift for our participant a little too well.)

Fun facts: the lights are so bright people on stage can't see much (I couldn't see further than two rows of audience after my eyes adjusted), there's really good backstage food (if you pony up for it), and the stage has an arced backstage hallway so that it doesn't matter if you exit stage left/right - you can go around to the other side.

AFTERWARDS we hold a mini room-party that takes a long while to get started. Cider's passed around and merriment is had until Whose Lion is it Anyway starts - Airy and Mynx come with, Airy purrforming with me in front about a meetup in Paris, and Mynx recording the thing. Airy and I capture Mynx successfully, and I lecture Mynx on popufurity. RD shows up and helps me fulfill my childhood dream of making a furry's thighs feel weird. After piggybacking him outside (a little strained because my arms are noodly), I find my way back up to the room and chill for a little before going back to dance my butts off with Astro (who as usual needed convincing) and Mynx and Izixs and Procy.

The dance was, according to Procy, filled with unmotivated dancers. This year there was a trend to stand around in a ring and watch people dance in the middle; while there were a few good dancers to watch, I was more interested in waggling, playing with the LED boards inside popped balloons, and congalining. Afterward, there was much trading of hats, a glowsaber duel between Mynx and I (which I lost), and a tired Cami taking a little nap.

We meet up again with RD and I get separated from the host, so Mynx and I follow him around meeting popufurs like Scurrow (who I get to help carry for a bit) and NeonBunny (who hypnotizes me with their mismatched eyes). We play a little Zombie Fluxx for a little, and they try to convince me to stay past my bedtime by almost losing a few times - but I was a tired otr by this point, so I went back to crash.

WHEN

I

WOKE

Airy was already setting up for Artist's Alley - I packed and checked up on Airy, then took a quick romp around, meeting Lyssa/Simmo with Javs trying to get his sweet sweet artist loot.

I wander around a bit, and run into MrWolf - complete with his new head. I also run into Mynx, who's buying a fancy new tail to put in people's faces, and Liz, who's helping him shop for tails. I also meet Vis and BlurryAstro again, who accompany us up to Bliz's room in a crowded elevator where more gaming went on which included tron/pong/spelunky (and spelunky terrorism) (as well as Astro's tribunal). Michal had the urge once again to try on my hair, and people slowly trickled out.

Eventually it was just Airy and I with Bliz and Vis. We headed down to the bar for some dinner; I ordered some (disappointing) pho, which granted me use of a larger spoon compared with the rest of the table. I ran my mouth about owning the superior silverware on the table, until the waitress brought Bliz a giant pantsing knife. We finish our pre-Thanksgiving dinner in cheer, and then parted ways with Bliz.

Vis, Airy, and I clustered underneath some heat lamps for a few minutes, then did what people do on trains and busses: got on and off.

The end.

...until next time

...

...

*POUNCES*

I'm sorry I missed a lot of stuff and a lot of talking with people ;-; Correct me in comments and I'll publically humiliate myself (and correct my report) - hop to it! >:3

One year older, bring on the next five babby

Moving to Grand Rapids is basically complete, gonna visit Indiana for a few days. Gonna miss Cali something fierce, but a new adventure awaits...!

Fill this out to let others know your limits and (hopefully) avoid awkward situations! Consider what you feel comfortable doing accounting for gender, relationship (strangers/friends/special-somebodies), and anything else you want people to respect.



Personal space (situational of course, but generally how close should people be from you?)

As a rule, if I have to move my neck more than a couple degrees to see your face you’re too close to talk (I don’t mind proximity - but if you’re significantly taller than me I don’t want to strain my neck looking up at you). If you startle me from behind I might punch you |:

Talking/Conversing (should I start conversations with you? how do you feel about talking in general?)

I love listening - but speaking vocally is a SEVERE drain on me if the convo lasts more than a few sentences. If I suggest I need to do something else please let me go before I have to start ignoring you ): HOWEVER - online chatting is something I love to do! All that communication goodness without the stress of figuring out how my vocal cords work ._.;

Off-limit topics (what do you not like talking about?)

I do tend to shy away from emotionally-charged discussions whenever possible - by that time people aren’t listening to reason and are often dismissing every contrary point - and should you corner them, they get hostile or bitter. The exception is if I’m not getting into a theoretical debate (e.g. discussing with friends if socks are necessity for life) but a practical one (trying to convince a storeowner to sell socks).

Otherwise, I’ll talk about (and answer any question!) that 1: doesn’t hurt anyone, and 2: contains information that is entirely mine to give away (e.g. don’t ask me about a secret someone told me). Things that break rule 1 I may lie about, otherwise I’ll only lie temporarily if it serves the person I’m lying to (like planning a surprise party) or as a joke. Let me define a lie as “any statement that does not represent 100% of the facts known by the one giving the statement - including misrepresenting, withholding, or adding information that may cause a listener to make a different conclusion”.

The sole exception to this rule is something I’ve been lying about since I was about 8. While I don’t mind talking about it in general, I will not reveal my true stance on the topic for a good long while - it’s much easier to stay quiet, and this is one fight I do not want to get into. I’ve only heard maybe a couple dozen sentences about this topic ever in my life (not counting when I told my girlfriend) so you likely haven’t even thought about it v0v

Pictures (can I take personal pictures of you? post them on the internet?)

My face has been on TV across the nation, I don’t think I can hide from the facial-recognition crawlers if I wanted at this point xD I’d still like a heads-up if you take my picture so I know how popular I am :P

That’s not to say you can take my picture whenever - I just don’t tend to do questionable activities if someone can see me, much less take my picture :q An exception is if I’m drunk - I’d appreciate it if you ran the picture past me before posting it publicly :)

Brief G-rated touches (can I poke your old arm scar?)

Go for it - but keep in mind I startle easily and may defend myself :|

Sharing clothes/accessories (can I borrow a sock? your hat? your undies?)

I’ll throw you something if we’ve talked more than a dozen or so times once in awhile, but I prefer having all my stuff together v0v

Sharing food (and drink, and smokeable objects)

Ask and ye shall receive - but if you’re infectious let me know so I can cut something off for you! If you know how much food I give out as samples you can take that amount from my plate. Also by accepting my food you’re required to give me a bite of something you’re having if I ask :V Also I’d prefer if you’d waterfall my drink when possible (especially if it’s from my water bottle). Also I don’t smoke.

Holding hands/linking arms (skipping through a field of flowers optional)

If your hands/arms are clean!

Head ruffles/noogies (who gets to muss up your hair?)

Gentle ones from anyone~ My hair is awesome, but not untouchable.

Hugs (jus’ plain ol’ hugs)

Anyone, but I’d prefer it if you weren’t smelly (though I have had pretty good sweaty hugs before) However, anything that makes me feel suddenly trapped if I don’t know you is subject to…counter-measures :|

Snuggles (arbitrarily defined as 15+ second hug or prolonged torso contact)

See above for restrictions, but yes please :3

Cuddles (call it a snuggle with some degree of leg-wrapping)

Maybe - I’d have to know you pretty well if you’re going to wrap your legs around me - and even then it would be VERY conditional (mostly a no).

Kisses (do you differentiate between Frenching and pecks on the cheek?)

Special someone only, the area around my face is a bite-your-lips-off zone :|

State of undress (do you let it all hang out, or stay dressed in the shower?)

Ain’t afraid of changing in front of people (but I tend to hide so I don’t accidentally scandalize someone) - but if you’re staring or making lewd comments and I don’t know you, I’ll probably consider you a stalker and treat you accordingly :|

Sleeping in same room (not necessarily together - that’s the next question |: )

I’ve slept in public places before (lounges, trains, etc) - but if I’m going to be the same room as you, alone and helpless, I better have a trusted buddy vouching for you :|

Bed-sharing during sleep (do you need a king to yourself, or is three-to-a-twin your thing?)

Out of necessity (sharing hotel space, or crashing at my place, or if you’re in a rough spot and emotionally need someone to sleep next to) sure - but you have to be a friend or be vouched for by my friends. Rules for cuddles apply for prolonged contact in bed. If you’re asking just because, your name better be Agni :V

X-rated activities? (no need for the details, kids V: )

Occasional jokes aside, actual activities are reserved for my special someone only :3

Anything else? (this text is in parentheses)

I think that covers it! Oh also I like giving and receiving piggyback rides :3 ALSO: for you kind souls offering to hear me out about my ~secret~ I appreciate it but it's more along the lines of something I really don't want to talk about. People have irrational fears over certain things, and one of mine might be talking about this - while I admit it's cruel to leave it all cliffhangery, I'd appreciate it if you didn't ask :3

25121619

Nooodle's chibi drawings: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9768652/
the bear/folf/wolfox piece Vulp/Procy fought over: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9490117/
My pictures: http://imgur.com/a/TF7U6#0

This is a bit late holy butts everything wanted my attention after FC then I sort of forgot to post this sorry ;_;

So this probably marks my last FC for a long while, given I'm moving to Michigan in about a month. Knowing that, I was ready to PARTY HARD - and party i DID. Read all about it >:3 As usual my brain's not a model specimen and thus prone to errors - shout out if something looks feeshy!



THURSDAY

Woke up at 3AM, doodled around san francisco for a few hours including a sciency meeting at 8AM, then took BART/Caltrain/DASH to the con in the 'ftrnoon.


Pre-reg line was long, and per my sneakiness I removed my hat so that my buddies wouldn't be able to find me as easily. Vulpecula from  TheFoxtailTavern walks right on by (citing he requires my hat to find me), but  Procyon spotted me and a good catching up was had :3. They went to get  net-cat (who I roomed with last yurr) and  Noodletown (who I met for the first time this con) from the airport while I got my badge, dropped off stuff in room, then went back to wait in line with them (hereafter referred to as The Quartet). Vulp decided to stay with us lower furries despite having Sponsor line-cutting privliges because he's cool like that.


We head up to the room triumphantly, and by that I mean everyone stays in line for elevators while I walk up 24 stories of stairs with my backpack on. I start out taking stairs two at a time, but by floor 8 I realize that ain't sustainable. By floor 10 I'm triggering every motion-sensitive light because no one's passed for hours, by 17 I convince myself I need to stop to "tie my shoe", and by 20 I'm using the handrail quite extensively. Still, I manage to beat my roomies to the room by about five minutes. I unpack my food stash including my prize: a box of Nutty Bars that net-cat immediately eyes. I share around, and happiness spreads until the fire nation attacked.


We commence chilling for a long while (talking about Noodle's handmade tutu, ponies, and ourselves). net-cat and Noodle in particular drink a fair amount - and apparantly both have been drinking for hours beforehand. I see net-cat's fabulous custom tail for the first time, based on a fox because, while felid, he really likes foxtails. Vulp gives Noodle Yippar, a little fennec plush that spends a fair amout of time riding in Noodle's hoodie (and one time attacks Noodle via net-cat in a fennec/cuddle attack). We also discuss the fact that between the con registration system and the hotel system, we got a single king bed instead of two queens promised on Vulp's confurmation e-mail - and decide I'll be rooming with  Astroq to relieve the space constraints. I pack my stuff, and toss net-cat a pair of Nutty Bars and make him a happy kitty :3 We get word Astro's at the bar so we head down where  Durj is also waiting - first time meeting this wacky raccoon, who'll turn out to be awesome :3


Vulp: What are you guys bribing the DMV with that you get such short waits?
Tai: If I had that kind of money I'd have a fursuit by now.
Vulp: I never said anything about money, given you're a furry a few alternate methods of payment come to mind.
Tai: >:(


Noodle and net-cat of course drink more, saying something along the lines of "I think I've had too much to drink but it's ok because I'm going to drink more".


After a bit o chat and me moving into DurjAstro's room (hereafter referred to as The Duo), the quartet and I decide to go to Gordon Bierch for food, with Noodle and net-cat very much more...energetic than the rest of us. A few blocks from the con, we pass a guy in a partial hazmat suit cleaning up copious amounts of blood on the ground O_O After discussing the merits of ESPN hosting EXTREME MENSTRATION as a sport alongside the XFL and skateboarders, we arrive. I order a plate of potato chips and Procy tries to buy me more food till he sees the chips are topped with probably 1000 calories worth of stuff. Vulp at one point says something along the lines of "I'll spread SO MUCH BUTTER ON YOUR FACE," and gets into a very spirited debate with Procy about science, mostly about the merits of continuing an overbudget spaaaaace telescope vs funding smaller projects. Next to us is a table of what I think were spies because they had nametags with weird titles like "Signal".

We head back, I go to The Duo's room and Procy comes over with lots of beer O___O Procy shares a sip of coconut beer, which may well be the first beer I might find tolerable. We talk, I ask for pillows to make my floorbed a bit more comfy and get one from Durj and two from Procy stealing pillows from Astro's bed, and am quite contented with my very comfy pillowbed >:3


Somehow I end up in The Quartet's room alone with Procy, who's busy trying to use the Hubble Space Telescope (yes, that Hubble Space Telescope). Procy is generous (and patient) enough to give me a crash course in using the program used to orient the 24,000 pound telescope (which was very cool), as well as let me watch him finish up his work. Unfortunately the program decides to crash a few times in my presence, but eventually science is successful :D


Eventually the dance floor opened. Procy suited up as Cami, Vulp put on his tail, Noodle got on her best Pinkie outfit (and gave us all beads, including one string around net-cat's tail), and I brought my...backpack? I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make sure I didn't smash anything, never mind trying to be wild with a giant thing of inertia on your back making you look goofy and throwing off your balance - lesson learned, don't bring (large) backpacks to dances. Also the suiter cooldown room had an interesting PVC pipe tree to cool down suiter heads.


Went back to The Quartet's room for a bit, then to The Duo's room. I forget what we did till 2AM but we sure did it. I discover I don't have my phone charger - shit. Curled up by the window, wrapped myself up in my blanket, and went to sleeeep.


At some point today Astro said "That harness makes it look more like a coyote". I forget why.





FRIDAY -





Woke up semi-early to attend a panel on Trends in Veterenary Medicine. I try to figure out the coffee machine, but it takes both Astro and I awhile to figure out how to turn it on. They should name this the hotel coffee-machine paradox - you need the machine to make coffee, but you need coffee to know how to work the machine. Astro's still sleepy so I entice him with Nutty Bars - his lips literally say "No, don't give me that. Stop >:(" but his hands say "Oh yeah. Gimmie those sweet sweet Nutty Bars." Astro also has something to deliver to dingbat, so I guide him to the appropriate spot.


Coffee is acquired, I go downstairs and run into  TsukiKitsuneTanuki
and  LadyDucky! We talk about Duck's impressions of her furst furcon, Hoshi's fursuits-in-progress (buck with fawn spots, not quite stripes but still gives me the murrs), and how Vulp also couldn't recognize Hoshi for a bit because she dyed her hair. Vulp has quite a memory, remembering my very Asian name from a passing mention a year ago - I thought maybe Vulp's more exact than generalist when remembering faces (perhaps a big change over one detail throws him off, I have that problem to a slight degree), but he's been told that he has an extremely sharp auditory memory - still, I like to think Vulp identifies everyone entirely by their hair.

Anyway the vet panel was really cool and interesting to a science geek like me. All about how vet specialists are starting to become more popular, vaccines are getting overhauled, and the ethics of taking stray pets to the vet. Volleybalcon is starting to set up, of whom I have fond memories of from last year (one group asked me how to "register to be a furry").


I swing by The Quartet's room to check if I left my charger there, and come away with a suggestion to check front desk for spare chargers (which they didn't have - but they did have a few spare popular chargers. my next phone is def. having a more generic charger, special-snowflake chargers aren't worth it, even for otterphones that work underwater). I'll go ahead and spoil it - not having lines of communication at a furcon makes hanging out a crapshoot at best, I spent way too much time wandering alone :|


Also apparantly Vulp and Procy are in a bidwar for http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9490117/ . Vulp offers a gentle[fur]'s agreement - they'd reveal their max bids for the piece and the other person would bow out voluntarily. Procy, being Procy, bid $1,000,000. The debate turned to whether the piece featured a bear or a folf, then to if folf or wolfox was a better word. Things went to shit when we noticed the "Inappropriate channels may be blocked by request" sign by the TV, which escalated to "Furries make their own porn and don't need to pay for it because others would probably let them watch free", culminating in Vulp's priceless "I'll give him a 7 for creative use of the orifice".


I also run into Noooodle on her hunt for ears/tail (at her first furcon :V) and we go on a grocery run. She reveals the pains of cosplaying pinkie pie - all the male bronies are utterly drooling at there being a REAL GIRL dressed as a pony, and a substantial amount of children think she's Katy Perry xD


Most of today ends up being a chill day - lots of hanging out in rooms, bars, and whatnot. Eventually I end up in The Quartet's room with Astro and Procy, and manage to get drunk. And by drunk I mean disoriented and sick after maybe two shots each of vodka/bourbon. The rest of The Quartet returns and we go to Smile Sushi - I eat vicariously through them, since I'm still feeling ill. On the walk back either Procy's worried or I'm visibly drunk and he makes sure that I'm ok :3


We head back and I wander a bit. I find out Vulp's having a room party, so I head up and run into Hoshi on the way. I ask if she's going to Vulp's room party and she says she didn't know anything about it - oops.


I scurry back to the room party and find a room full of nobody except Vulpecula. Apparantly everyone left a little while before I got there - but this story arc isn't over yet, stay tuned. We talk about Tetris, and I curl up at the foot of the bed - either the alcohol or the con has really burned me out at this point and I want to keep up when Cami comes back to dance.


And come back he does! I literally jump out of bed and we go to dance (and I discover Astro dances when he's drunk enough) and it's much more awesome when you're not wearing a backpack V: I escort Cami back up, fetch my pack and forget my jacket, and head to the Duo's room.


I find  Kresblain in The Duo's room - apparantly he's our room
neighbor! We talk a bit about old cartoons, he gives me a business card and I derp out, thinking the names of his webcomic characters are his name, and otherwise hang out until 2-3AM and then I pass out.


Oh and just before we sleep I use Procy's phone to text Astro to get his attention despite Astro being in arm's reach. Astro seems...adamant that Procy texted him, but Procy insists correctly it wasn't him that texted despite "Procyon" being the sender. Not sure if we ever told Astro.





SATURDAY -





Woke up a bit sore, but alright. Much coffee was imbibed, and Durj reveals he ate all my food and soda (but really didn't). I make fun of Durj because I'm a mean otter like that.


Volleyballcon's present in force, with dividers up between furcon and volleyballcon (which makes shortcutting through somewhat awkward) and teenage girls wandering around in groups of 2-10ish. They don't serve much of a racket, but there's certainly much love in the air as they interact with fursuiters. I'll show myself out for those puns.


Anyway, wandered around and found Kresblain in Dealer's den.
Wandered a bit with noodle, then went to play with the nekomimi brainwave ears. I worked with brainwave readers before and wanted to try to consciously make them move, but I tried experimenting during the initial calibration phase and ruined everything ): They work by reading the difference between alpha waves (which peak during rest/closed eyes) and beta waves (which peak during mental activity like mental math and open eyes - and to some degree large muscle group stimulation), so in theory doing complicated mental math/tensing muscles should make them do something, and closing your eyes/relaxing might do something else.


Also ran into Hoshi and Ducks in the den - turns out Hoshi's heading out soon and if I hadn't run into her I'd've missed her entirely -_- Later today I discover that Vulp wasn't talking about a room party, or even to me last night - he was telling somone else about who was at the con. I also discover that because of my ill-informed encounter with Hoshi, Hoshi texted Vulp about the party-that-never-existed and they met up and got a chance to have a long talk that would've been missed since Vulp didn't know Hoshi was heading out. I'm not sure if I caused more trouble or help, but both of them tell me it worked out ok. Either they're telling the truth or love me enough to lie to me, either way it works out :V


I find a spot for the furparade and do a bit of calligraphy to pass the time. Astro and Durj find me and we watch Cami pass us by entirely ;_; We find out that he had been stuck behind a slow suiter, and unfortunately the line sped up just as he got to us, so he whizzed past.


Around 4PM I go up to take a nap - I want to be refreshed for my poker tourney at 5, so I set my alarm for 4:35 and of course get up at 5:10. shiiiiiiit. A bit of rushing later, I'm saved by the fact that Astro leaves his table and notices someone's crossed themselves out from the list, thanks Astro :3 Unfortunately they decide our table was to be broken up because we all played awesomely, and I get placed in another table where everyone has big chip counts (thankfully I wasn't placed in the table where three people got knocked out at once) and a different set of strategies. Regardless, we play valiently and both survive past 50% of the knockouts before deciding we need to drink more.

I follow the duck to the bar and durry Durj is there too. And then I realize they're pantsing LEAVING tomorrow - leaving me out of a room for Sunday night :| Something to work out later, but the company's good and my margarita's tasty. I act mean to Durj again by smacking him with my backpack. He's just so abusable and I'm so abusive, don't judge me :|


Vulp finds me via Astro and we go to Johnny Rocket's for dinner with Noooodle and net-cat. net-cat's an awesome buddy and misses an elevator to go back for my jacket, such a buddy :3 I voice my concerns about the room and they unanimously vote to 1: let me stay for a night, and 2: overrule Procy's vote because non-dinnergoer votes don't count. To be fair I have faith that Procy likes me enough to have let me stay, but it was fun to out-sneak the sneaky raccoon (but he'd get revenge on me for an unrelated matter, stay tuned). While waiting for a table, a former Fairmont hotel worker confurms that people would fight over who got to work during the furcon, and we enlighten her about furries. At our table we talk about food and jobs (including how Nooodle was working for a military contractor (and would later threaten a drone strike against Vulp)).


We go back to Tanq where Procy and Astro and Durj are still. Durj gets a passerby's compliment on his Guild of Calamitous Intent hoodie :q I briefly meet  sunshyne as well :D We talk about how popufur cat_on_the_couch is and how awesome he is and how much Durry loves him :3

The quartet and I go up to our room, Astro becomes Cami for awhile, Procy takes this opportunity to go the Communist and Klingon parties, and says he requires an otter to attend otter party later. In the meanwhile I join a game of Munchkin with net-cat Noodle (who's drawing chibis of lots of people) and Vulp until Procy returns and demands my presence |: Astro's tagging along and obviously had a really good drink so I bow out from Munchkin to see what's the score on the party floor.

I tag along for another party hosted by Procy's friend (which required a bit of room-hunting and resulted in many hugs in the presence of a guy doing push-ups with people on his back), then go to the party floor in all it's plastic-covered floor glory. The entire floor was wall-to-wall lined with plastic. The always-talented  Scrimno is hosting otterparty again, serving sushi and his wondmurrful new invention: otter-pop jello shots (which are DELICIOUS but too big to fit in my mouth in one piece ;_; in hindsight I should've nibbled at the frozen jello instead of being in the GO BIG OR GO HOME mindset). I also find  Romanpower there from my Berkelellyly furmeet days and we catch up a bit. Procy hands me a "hastily made margarita", I contribute to the Otterparty fund, and make my way back to The Quartet's room.


The same game of Munchkin's still going on, which I delay for a turn by being an asshole and sabotaging everyone once. Apparantly net-cat's been a bigger gargantubutt and ruining everyone's game because both Noodle and Vulp seem less-than-pleased with him V: Noodle slays me with kindness by helping me out despite my backstabbing, so I relent and do nothing to stop her from winning next turn. We break out SPAAAAAAAACE MUNCHKIN (which involves Vulp changing genders a lot) but decide to call it quits after a few turns because it's late-o'-clock.

By now Procy is undrunk enough to dance safely as Cami and Astro is still drunk enough to be convinced dancing is a good idea. We dance into the night with the stroke-simulating strobe lights until they kick us out, a roughly five-year-old girl in a Renamon kiga takes interest in Cami and they play for a bit, I snag my stuff and go back to the Hilton side without my jacket AGAIN.

Astro and Durj were watching Archer when I got back - I watched for the first time with them, found it to be one of those "I like this but only with friends," type deals. We chilled until 4AM and then promptly passed out.





SUNDAY -





Waking up was hard. I manage and pack and then unpack in The Quartet's room and forget what happens for about the next four hours. I do the 24-story climb again and find that if I pace myself it's really not bad. At some point I give net-cat my last nutty bars.


We play Seven Wonders and Powergrid in games room (which takes a lot of hours). Lutris comes by and carries be a bit, despite me trying to make another pass at his knees xD [Last year there was an...incident involving Lutris coming to our room and me tackling him but hitting him in the knees because of our size difference, which led to the fateful "until I took an otter to the knee" quote.]

I arrive just after FC:U starts - which was pretty ok. Second ep of My Drunk Furry Kitchen was alright, though I preferred the spinoff "My Drunk fursuit making" - however I *really* liked the smash-poet reminiscing on what cartoons teach you versus what you have to do to be "professional" and referencing some awesome cartoon in almost every line (including a gnodab from one of my favorite movies - Kung Pow: Enter the fist). Sprout and Humble announce their retirement from organizing, and tears were shed when they got a well-deserved standing ovation. At the end the crowd was given a choice to pick next year's FC theme from four choices but the crowd wouldn't have it and chanted "VOLLEYBALL!". Sadly the board didn't cater to the crowd and stuck to the four choices; I voted for "Fur Con vs. the world" thinking it was the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure thing at first but Scott Pilgrim is just as awesome - good thing considering that choice won :V


Head to the Quartet's room to await Procy for dancing. Vulp and net-cat are there and we partake in a time-honored tradition of talking on IRC instead of irl despite literally being in poking distance of each other. Vulp throws me a pillow and I sit the butts down on it. Vulp heads down to karaoke with noodle and Ducky and others, but puts the internet in his pocket and leaves us internetless ):


Given this was our last day of dancing I let out all the stops and flail double-time at the dance \m/ Procy sees a sign saying "Volleyball tournament in progress NO ENTRY" with someone's scribbles underneath reading "California anti-furvert code s.131.4".


Back in the room Procy insists I at least use an inflatable pad to sleep on the floor. I wanted to sleep under the table again but there was another table underneath - making it inches too small for me :|

PS: this morning I woke up entirely unable to stand, and after partying super-hard I wasn't looking forward to tomorrow :V

MONDAY -

Wake up amazingly refreshed - whaddya know. I think Procy's air-pad thing is infused with magic. Today we say goodbye to nooooodle, who's leaving but can't do much because net-cat's in the little furry's room.

Noodle: net-cat's really throwing off my groove, hogging the bathroom like that.
Vulp: You should have a good talk with him.
*net-cat exits*
Tai: Noodle, KILLLLLL!


To the sadness of my entertainment gland, Noodle leaves net-cat alone in favor of not missing her flight. Boo. A round of hugs goes around before she departs and the rest of us pack. Vulp mentions the tubes DA uses to ship art with are great for travelling with his tail, but I am unimpress and let him know that they'd only work for lesser, non-ottery tails. We head down, check out (and finally get a refund for the rollaway bed), let Vulp take care of "car luggage Tetris" and head to Subway. Vulp seemingly randomly wanted a pen, but declined to use mine - I guess calligraphy dip pens with sparkly ink are too fancy for calculating how to split the bill.


Earlier I had snuck a glance at the bill and calculated my share for a night and give it to Vulp at Subway to give him a minimum of time to give it back to me. I out-asian them and refuse to take it back, despite him and Procy trying :V But they eventually settle and finish their food. I'm a slow eater, and sort of feel bad boring everyone to the point of checking their phones. We head to Psycho Donuts and find interesting signage regarding where the bathrooms are, then back to the car so I can fetch my stuff and head out.


Just after I fetch my luggage a wild Vulp appears - trying to stuff money folded in paper into my backpack's mesh pocket! I spin away as I'm pursued throughout the parking-lot by Vulp - I manage to juke away, Procy moves to block and I twist his arm back (probably a bit painfully) before I realize what I'm doing :( Vulp eventually manages to re-insert money since my luggage was well guarded, but I get the last laugh and throw the money into the open car door - and after agreeing to a truce so I can say goodbye, I hug the lot of them :3

I walk out as they pack into the car, find my corner of internet so I can check my mail, and turn on my phone so I can coordinate my ride home.

...and discover Vulp's text saying their distraction worked and the money is with me. Apparantly after Procy's seemingly empty threat at Subway, he started coordinating a plan via text that consisted of Vulp distracting me with a slip of paper (with no actual money inside if I had bothered to look) while Procy snuck the money into my suitcase. They didn't count on me believing the paper was *actually* money past sneaking it into my backpack - but I was dumb and didn't actually check XD In hindsight I think they got lucky that I didn't bring my large backpack and that I didn't notice (I was looking pretty intently at my suitcase for a chance run off), but they played their part exceptionally well, even when I muddied their plan and thought the paper was actually money :V


All-in-all it was amazing being conned, and easily worth the ~honor~ I lost. Good game, you win guys xD


There you have it fuzzies, tune in next time when I possibly regale the time I accidentally melted a paper towel with my hands!

*ruffleruffle*

*edit 1 Dec '12 - Forgot I graffiti'd Skan's arm Saturday. ADDED. Also miscopied, airy's pictures show up correctly now*

*3 Dec - oops twas the hague conventions not geneva V:

*4 Dec - oooops left Vis out from the pizza party and made Aeron appear before he appeared

MFF. Awesome again. I have a sad lack of notes this year but LET ME TELL YOU WHAT IT IS BAYBEH. Also there was a lot of hugging so just imagine everyone hugging whenever someone met as well as randomly throughout.

I don't take many pictures because everyone else has better cameras. My stuff is here...

http://imgur.com/a/n2nfx#26
http://imgur.com/rdDMO

As requested by LinusMynx I made a graph: my sensitive otter-emotions (ottmotions?) over time as Figure 1. In Figure 2, you can see my distance from Mynx over time. Both are viewable here: http://imgur.com/a/IjhxX


...and other people's pictures are HERE

Airyu's: http://imgur.com/a/JGjcG#0
Swift's: http://www.swiftsden.com/photos/mff2012/

---

THURSDAY 15

---

Woke up at 6 after 3 hours of sleep. Ran to campus, studied, took part in environmental chemistry discussion, ran to microbio exam, ran to lab to pick up suitcase (and vainly look for a few things I lost), ran to the airport. At the airport, I worked quickly to finish the last of the DC badges nametags, which consisted of me writing peoples' names fancy and adding a secret message in invisible ink. There were also a bunch of old board games, originals from almost a hundred years ago. Ran past security and got arrested only after spending almost half an hour rearranging my luggage - while my bag fits comfortably in overhead bins, the bag-checker is a little more restrictive and SFO decided to crack down suddenly. After ruining my well-organized packings to get everything to squish down, I run to the plane and fly fly fly over to Chigager.

I land around 1900 local time and scoot over to the Hyatt shuttle, hoping to surprise Airyu. Halfway there I get a text saying she's with Vis and they're already at the airport. I go back to the airport, sneak to where Agni was, surprised Agni with a kiss and a spinny hug. Vis comes down from downstairs, Airy gives me a donut, and we head to the Hyatt shuttle. As we pull out, we get a text saying Procy just landed. Welp.

One traffic-congested shuttle ride later, we're at the con. Airy leads us to Michal's room, where he Swift Lyssa and Simon and Sasha await. I talk with Vis about tech stuff and $60 tablets. We discuss the merits of searching for "[our name] the Hedgehog" and finding some terrible results, sharing the literal version of "Total Eclipse of the Sun", and learning how to count to twelve, 90's style. At some point, Michal gives Airyu a piggyback ride, and well as me - where MAJOR SCANDAL OCCURS. Swift gives me an awesome "Romp of Otters" Magic the Gathering card with a secret Giant Spider behind :3 Airy informs me that Swift's been taking stalker pictures of everyone the entire day, which Swift defends as "candid" shots. Michal gives us a lesson on certain serrated knives being outlawed by the Hague Conventions and shows us his really pretty blade. Somewhere in here Simon starts talking about pokemen and spidermen. We also watch The Count who likes to, uh...count?. Procy catches up and is hungy, so we decide to head to Red Bar 5 different times and wait for Astro and Mari.

Our waitress reveals she drew an anthro head on a whiteboard in the back room. We go back to Sasha's room to grab the last few badges Airy had made to hand out (Astro, Mari, and Cami) and Astototo's birthday gift.

Liz curls up on a bed to rest her eyes for awhile, and is quite asleep - Cole shakes Liz a lot but she remains dead until a few coaxings of "Liz the pizza's ready for eating," make Liz suddenly wide awake. Sasha only woke up due to a threat from Airy stepping on his face.

Airy and I head back down to Red Bar. After Airy hands out her presents, we eat a little bit more. Airy and I get a little sweepy ourselves, so we say our goodnights and scoot back to get our stuff.

We head to the front door and taxi over to a Motel 6 since we couldn't find a room for Thursday.

---

FRIDAY 16

---

Airy and I leave around 9:40 and split a cab with another motelsixer over to the convention center (not MFF). Airy and I check in to the hotel proper and check into our room; she works on a bit of homework while I get my registration in order. We head to the front desk and bump into Vis around the front area and he walks with us to the Artist's Alley (l)ottery announcement. A call of "EVERYONE GOT IN!" went out, much cheering went around, and we headed out - Airy went to snag her wares and set up, while I went on my own adventure.

Vis generously accompanies me to the SCIENCE surplus store, also providing me with oodles of CTA money on a CTA card designed to expire and delete all your money after the expiration date. I needed a blacklight since I wrote everyone's name all fancy on a piece of paper with an invisible message - but I forgot which ones had invisible messages. They were going to be badges but I forgot to buy badge clips - so they became ID cards instead V: Before heading out we make a Consuite run for FREE FOOD and bump into MrWolf and Keyla, and talk a bit. A CTA ride and a mile walk later (whilst talking about anti-graffiti measures, the yawnfest that is Jefferson Park, and Vis's old adventures around the area), we get to a store chock full of fancy telescopes, do-it-yourself genetic experiments, robotics stuff, and so on. I buy myself a blacklight (so I can read the invisible messages I wrote), munch at Subway, and walk back talking about lunchrooms next to radioactive experiment labs, the future and purpose of the educational system, the value of taking care of your belongings, and Shamir's Secret Sharing.

Back at the con, I catch sight of Vulpecula (who's with Skan and Kalylia). I bump into Vulp (literally) and we start arguing with each other, me calling his brainwave-sensitive ears stupid and Vulp dissing my hat. The humor of the situation is lost on the other two, who worry a bit before Vulp and I begin acting more like friends. I head up to the room to snag the folder with badges and fancy-writing equipment and head down to Artist's Alley.

Airy's all set up by this point; Michal and Swift didn't get tables for today so they're out gallivanting somewhere. To our left was someone who sold a lot of buttons, and to our right was Merrick, a kilt wearing wolf Marine who does stamped leather work. He was really nice so Airy made a badge with his character and I callig'd out his name with "Thank you master of the scissors" in invisible ink. Ratface comes by with animal cookies to everyone in artist's alley.

Airy was nearly out of business cards by this point, so I take a bit of time to callig' out a few. Airy steps out to finish a grant proposal and I shopkeep for her a bit. Airy comes back, so I move outside the Alley with Simon Lyssa Michal Astro Swift Procy and Izixs so I can have a bit of room to finish the cards. We discuss the finer points in life (which include Flyssa writing 'poop' on her arm with invisible ink) before everyone bounces out for Red Bar - except Procy who keeps me company for awhile :3 He eventually goes to eat too, and I finish up Airy's business cards. Someone stops and asks me about my calligraphy and we complain how hard it is to make a proper feather pen.

I drop off Airy's cards and go to FedEx to laminate/cut my ID cards out. This takes a considerable while since I lacked the foresight to align all the cards. Airy stops by and helps with the last bit of cutting, and we go back to Artist's Alley to hang around until closing. Somewhere around here I get the clay mini-me that RelaxingDragon commissioned of DC people, such an awesome raccoon even when he's not around~

After Artist's Alley closes we scoot over to Red Bar with the others and get a bite to eat. Airy and I order a Salmon burger (which was shredded salmon instead of a steak ;-; ) fries a pina colada and wings. I try to hand out my presents but realize I probably left most of them in the room because I am a butt >_> I fetch them and dish them out and everyone has a lol about their secret messages.

I excuse myself to give the last of my IDs out - I track down Vulp Izixs Kalylia and Skan in the Executive Wing and find them engrossed in a battle trying to make their version of Puerto Rico the most likely Puerto Rico to become real in the realm of quantum mechanics. I dole out their IDs and scurry back to Red Bar.

Eventually Cole Bliz Sasha (in suit) come by with a fairly drunk Liz in tow. Astro decides to touch Sasha's eyes and teeth; Sasha tries to get angry but his fursuit face remains in the same happy expression despite being touched and being a pornblog star thanks to cuddlechubby reblogging the murry pictures depicting him and Sleet (who have a fanbase going for their relationship). Liz tells us about how DC is full of beautiful people (but her Virginia fur buddies are the most beautiful group ever), and brings an awesome picture featuring Michal Swift Astro Matugi and RD.

We head up to Michal's? room around 8? Simon mentions the upcoming DC birthday, I comment on if his sixteen-year-old self knew he'd be creating so many friendships (and furries) and we reminisce about the old days of DC. Josh becomes a senpai somehow? and Astro talks about how he cracked his tail (feathers) breakdancing in his younger years. Michal scars me for life as well :(

Airy and I are tired as butts at this point, so we peace out before Aeron gets there ):

---

SATURDAY 17

---

I wake up sometime early o'clock to wander around. I bump into Vis and we head over to consuite for a bite.

Airy's set up for artists alley by now, with Michal two tables down. Swift's on standby and has to wait awhile before he can claim a table - so I set up my calligraphy stuff on a table until Swift was allowed to officially take my place :V Meanwhile Michal sells an original drawing for $5 (which probably could've fetched upwards of $30) because the person was wearing Rarity stuff.

I run up three stories to lady to rest to get Airyu's phone charged, but I forget it and run down to get it again. I run up and charge it a bit, then run down again before running up to order the pizza and start coordinating DC Dinner, then run up so I can meet the pizza guy but he can't deliver to our room so I run down and meet him and run down more to deliver the pizza. Michal offers to cut it with his bayonet, but Airy and I decide the pizza is not worthy of his beautiful knife. We saw through the pizza with plastic forks and the four of us manage to almost eat half of it before calling it quits.

I ferry the pizza back up and go for a second round of DC coordination and redesigning Airy's less-ghetto business cards from her template. I go down, talk with a few people for awhile, get carried by Aeron the lion-maned squirrel (who also kindly loans me his pocketknife to fix one of my feathers that I write with), and go up to print Airy's cards.

While at the FedEx, I get into a conversation with the shopkeep about how the Hyatt hosts lots of conventions, but furry conventions are the only one he can't understand. According to him, he fully supports the con and loves the awesome suit designs - but couldn't understand why people his age (30's or so) would still want to be experimenting and dressing up in multi-thousand dollar suits . I try to boil it down into how some things are hard to empathize with - people with phobias are by definition irrational (I know better but TV static still sends shivers down my back), people who re-enact Civil War battles down to uniform design because they're passionate about it - and furries surround themselves (ourselves) because they (we) are passionate about our critters - some people have strong feelings about certain things that other people can't really empathize with.

I head back; the person next to Airy leaves, so I deviously steal the table and unsuccessfully offer calligraphy services (except for a calligraphy badge trade in exchange for a George the Dollar-Fox) Airy and I pack up and wander a bit. Airyu buys a giraffe tail :3 Vulp and Skan swing by the doorway and after a bit of discussion I scribble invisible ink on Skan's arm to the tune of "Only otters otter other otters in the knee" - which may have something to do with me crippling an adventureotterer after launching an otter to his knee (the otter WAS MEEEEEEE! DASVIDANYA LUTRIS!!)

Around four we head to Too Much Light makes the Baby go Blind and watch some skits (that seem to be declining in quality as years go on). It was still awesome; it started out with a plea from the charity agency to donate or adopt one of the kittens that con-goers had "pet the shit out of", then moved to the skits; one skit had two performers take two wallets from audience members with no explanation, then dug through the wallets and tried to reverse-engineer their personalities and names from the receipts and amounts of cash they found (ending with "Can you take me out to dinner?" "Uh let me see...nope"); another had them reading out the side effects from Viagra as if in a Victorian-era drama; another centered around a guitar ditty involving one member trying to find, find find the dong with some tongs as the other members remained strong and not put their hands where they don't belong; to a female performer sitting on the lap of an audience member and eating watermelon while another said 'Honey, you look too skinny, let me get you some ice cream''; to one of the FtM members going on a rant about all the assumptions he runs into due to being a trans man and keeping a childlike personality, ending with a loud "YOU THERE," (pointing at someone in the front row), "HOW OLD DO YOU THINK I AM??", to a skit with two men reciting poetry to each other starting with wanting to live in a country with twenty words for 'wind' and ending with one wanting to be the best Mariah Carey he could be.

Around six I order $100 worth of pizza (and a salad) for seven. We chill at Red Bar for awhile with some others; I mention how Muffin's hands don't look like paws, and Bliz jokingly calls me out on being intolerant: Muffin's paws can look however they feel like identifying with. I sign on IRC and discover Matugi's generated a waggleTugi, and I share this (along with Tugi's other waggleanimals) with our tablemates. Procy and I discuss the modes of transportation raccoons prefer, and settle on scampering to be a default. For some reason Aeron jumps over the booth and scurry scurries off.

Just after seven I get a call that the driver will be there soon - but they neglect to mention that the driver's carrying 10 other orders. We eventually get our loot: medium deep-dish stuffed cheese, spinach, and Chicago (pepperoni peppers olives and onions) pizzas and a chopped salad. We ended up moving from the conference foyer (big and comfy) to consuite (has drinks) back to the foyer (consuite was full) to the floor near the foyer (foyer is designated quiet zone). Joining us was Vis Bliz Lyssa Simon Cole Sasha Procyon Astro Mari Aeron Tai Airy Izixs and Liz (Swift Goldenrod? and FerretParade were there too but did not partake in the duty of pizzaeatings and Michal was off gallivanting with The Ranting Gryphon). Many shenanigans were had, but mostly we were busy chewing the inch of cheese Giodano's calls pizza. FanaticFox aka FerretParade brought some homebrew beer which had quite a sour note to it. I space out and miscalculated the bill split, which led me to make a shameful $10 profit off DC dinner ;-;

Airy and I wander up to our room with Vis in tow and take a quick hour point five break. Airy and I play a bit on our violin/viola, before Airy takes a short nap. After a bit of Vismischat I wake Airy up with her favorite song from Ke$ha: Dinosaur. Airy is unimpressed and sticks an "extra-small" sticker on a very certain part of my pants :(

We scoot down and meet Astro Ferretparade Goldenrod Swift and Michal doooodling on the tables at ConSuite around 11PM. Cami comes by and we follow him to the dance, where dubstep is wub wub wubbing. Vis makes the trek home soon after, and Airy goes back to Consuite to draw a bit while I rock out (dub out?) with Cami for awhile before tracking down Airy and heading back to our room for slp.

---

SUNDAY 18

---

I wander around fairly early, bumping into Vulp who's been wandering around sleepless since last night. I bump into MrWolf and Vis somewhere around ConSuite; the CO2 compressor at the soda fountain wigs out again, producing a beat that was easier to dance to compared with last night's music. Vis and I head up to Bliz's room for a bit, where I return Kate's pants and comb after a two-year rental (she forgot them two MFFs ago in my room). Josh gives in and wears a tail...

Airy and I pack up and check out; we say goodbye to everyone and give a half-dozen rounds of hugs before embarking on the next leg of our journey. Airyu asks me to protect her from dying. I tell Airyu that she will die anyway, then happy music ignites the air.

And we lived happily ever after!

---

APPENDIX A: LIST OF FANCILY WRITTEN NAMES AND SECRET MESSAGES THAT DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST (may be slightly inaccurate due to being re-recreated from memory)

---

Cami - What's that?! What's that?!
Simmo - fuckin' oath mate
Swiftcutter - Life mission - peeing on trees.
Flyssa - Bunny ears = more piercings
Javs - Hello my name is [oodles of Javs' alternate names]
Bliz - Part bunny. Part puppy. All pillow.
VisCactus - Librarian cactus armed with Clamato - you've been warned.
Airyu - Dr. Dr. in training.
Astro - Master of the coffeeverse
Liz - EUUUUUUUUUUUURGHGHHGHH
Lgnota - Hoot hoot poot.
Mari - Opthamolology, can you see it?
MrWolf - If you can read this, you better be slobberproof.
Muffinpaws - White ears, striped black/red tail, exactly six chocolate chips
Michal - Piggyback rides by invitation only.
Aeron - [Something about a lion's mane?]
Vulpecula - Tavern master, stargazer, and caramelldanser".
Skan - S...straight otters?? NOOOooo
Izixs - Ph.D in dragon lightning.
Evauk - squeak squeaky squeak squeak!

---

APPENDIX B:

---

Key of events in figure one. NOTICE: ALL MEASURES ARE ESTIMATES, TAIOTTER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY AND ALL DAMAGES THAT MAY ARISE DUE TO INACCURACIES WITH THESE GRAPHS

1: ffff left some things at home
2: fffffff exam studying while in group discussion
3: ffffffFFF professor says "This exam was longer than I thought it would be..." I NEED TO MAKE IT TO MY PLANE ON TIME
4 ffffFFFFF I FORGOT ALL THE THINGS EVERYWHERE
5 FFFFF SECURITY LET ME THROUGH MY LUGGAGE FITS REALLY ok thanks
6: lol gonna sneak up on Airy ehhehe
7: YAAAAAAAY CHICAGO AIRYU AND EVERYONE
8 yaaaaay Airy's badge, Swift's card, Michal's...ride
9: ehehe pretending to fight with Vulp
10 yaay artist's alley
11 yaay RelaxingD's gift
12 yaay lyssa poop'd her arm
13 yaay redbar
14 aww missed Aeron.
15 lol tableholding for Swift (spike in hap/focus)
16 yaay carried by Aeron
17 ehehe stole an artist's alley table for myself
18 aaaa I just ordered $100 worth of pizza what if everyone flakes
19 yaay people came to dinner and I don't have $100 worth of pizza to eat alone
20 aww we have to leave soon
21 yaaaay hugging EVERYONE
22 We left T_T

hope to see you all there

part warned quite little kick told looks chat work board station stop Slurpee sloppy down hilly 2 their meet decide again seems scab cute honey raincoat strawberry taquitos rounds along stay about Regular Thurs too USED toilet Ohio Panera BEDROOM hunts fursuit kept unfortunately downs assignment megaman rush giving watching thing adding skill struggled owned Also ride seated trademark quick kiwi maybe recall unplayable yorkshire theme doors credit able crumbly seen moans There canister finger burned wanting remind continue select text major sweat property feather identifies segment throw calligraphy ability watching escalates via IRC peacing neck ottercoil hugs Pony fresh dehumidifier search buried pull design Terminal prefer cuddle drop canadians farting Hopefully


~~a Masterpiece by Tai~~

~~by taking all the randomly deleted words~~

~~from the last journal~~

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.

Dan's house is really nice, everyone get up here

dear previous homeowner

i would like to thank you for gluing down every square inch of the master bath flooring instead of just the perimeter, on top of installing it incorrectly so water leaks. i've always wanted to spend hours scraping away at someone else's failure.

love,

tai

Ever since I went fishing for my $150 retainer in a dumpster filled with the breakfasts of a thousand children, sour milk baking in the springtime sun, I've been rather desensitized to gross stuff. Dissections, cow farms, and the like are unpleasant but not insurmountable.

That all was awhile ago...but today, I was reminded of how nasty the world can get this afternoon, changing out a 16-year-old garbage disposal. Nearly two decades worth of food scraps and pink/black slime mold in every possible nook and hose, releasing black effluent and the smells of staleness everywhere.

On top of that, the old disposal was so...old, that it broke free of its mounting assembly, requiring the use of a hammer, two extra screwdrivers, and copious amounts of WD-40 to perform an extraction never intended by the original manufacturer.

Then there was the puzzle of how to remove the snap ring, the ghetto wiring (ask me about using a hammer on a power cord), and having to hacksaw through various yuck-infested pipes to get things to fit...

I've lived more in these past three hours than I have since the beginning of summer vacation.