Anthrocon 2009


Wednesday 1st July

Most of wednesday was spent travelling. The flight was uneventful and crossing the border was somewhat less of an interrogation than in Detroit the previous year. Given that the travelling itself went perfectly, it was only right in terms of karma that the actual act of entering the hotel should go wrong.

What was supposed to happen was that Alondro would leave a set of keys in reception for the three people who had paid in advance, which if memory serves were myself, Mao and Reese. Unfortunately this didn't quite happen. Although I had a phone number for Alondro I didn't have a phone as I discovered last year that it wouldn't work in the US, so I left a message with the room and waited.
Shortly afterwards Mao turned up and ran into exactly the same problem. Although he had a phone it too did not work in the US so we ended up waiting for about 90 minutes until Alondro finally made it after some horrible accident had screwed up the traffic.

Once this was sorted, we got in and settled down. While preparing on the forums, we had been unable to come to any agreement regards sharing the beds, as a consequence the entire room ended up sleeping on the floor and not using the beds at all.


Thursday 2nd July

Today was setup day for the 'con, and fairly quiet. I have to confess I was left wondering whether the 'con had finally lost its shine for me, but that feeling quickly left.

Registration took place in the open area of the Westin outside the room that would become the Dealers' room, and after that most of our time was split between the Zoo and the tea-party that evening.
Keaton turned up at the Zoo, and promptly tried to get a drink from one of the water tanks situated around the room. Not noticing the tap, she removed the lid to try and scoop some water out and promptly wondered why it was filled with ice. There was a quick battle staged between Keaton and Yugo which I was not able to shoot properly - when I was using still they were moving too much and when I switched to video they both froze.

I think the tea-party came next. I arrived just in time for Gabi's Kinder eggs to be handed out - apparently Keaton forgot they had a toy inside and tried to bite through the inner capsule. Jairus read out a remarkable piece of MGS fanfiction now known as 'the brofic' - I will never be able to use the word 'respect' in the same way again. I believe it was about this point that Keaton presented the lovely plush of Kirian to me.

Back at the Zoo, Amber read through the program guide, paying particular attention to the 'Women in the fandom' panel, and 'Webcomics - Artist fundamentals'. The 'Women in the fandom' rant cannot be done justice here, but should be up on youtube shortly. For the webcomics panel, she contemplated getting up on the stage shouting "Listen up, bitches! Everything you know is wrong!".
Amber was also asked the meaning of life, which she summarised as "Make as many people as you can happy, without making as many people as you can unhappy." I don't remember who asked the question, but their reaction was "Shit! I've really f___ed that one up."

Meanwhile, someone dressed as the spy from TF2 was wandering around with a mask of Uncle Kage (Anthrocon President) and asking people if they were enjoying the 'con. Also in the Zoo, someone had converted an empty Pringles tube into a car, using a ducted fan through the length of the can and a remote-controlled steering chassis. Again, this will be on youtube.

Friday 3rd July

The 'con began in earnest on Friday. I went to the Zoo for a bit before we attended the opening ceremonies which as with last year had a superb video. At about noon Jairus and I were chatting to Ren on AIM for the last time before he left for The Village until the 19th. He sent me the lineart for the comic and the cast picture of Dorcan, and we tried to find out what the Village was called. Apparently it has no name but the closest town is called Tuchkovo. Ren requested a sketch from Amber of her gryphon character, Ruby, and I made a note to try and get one for him.

At this point I decided it was time to switch to Jakob's dress, so with some reluctance I donned the trenchcoat and headwings that I had brought with me for the purpose. Given how other people were dressed I got used to it fairly quickly, I guess. As Ren signed off AIM, Keaton signed on which surprised me. I suggested she to go to the Dealer's Den, and headed there myself.
My first action was to find Pegasus-316 to pick up last year's commission and see about getting a new one. When I got there, I saw an exquisite badge of Keaton that I'd requested as a gift, but never got a reply about. I paid for it, picked it up (along with mine) and set about finding Keaton.

Once this was done, she presented Fi to Amber, who was delighted. When this was taken care of, we headed out at Yugo's suggestion to get some hotdogs. This worked well enough except for afterwards when we attempted to cross the road. Haz and Sofox had somehow made it to the other side before I'd worked out quite what was going on and were yelling at us to cross. Keaton, Cog and myself attempted to do so, and in spite of my protests that we should be using the crossing, blundered out into the road. The first two lanes were okay, but at the third one I didn't stop with the others and wandered into the path of an oncoming mini. Fortunately there was a lot of braking distance and I leapt back as soon as I'd realised my mistake. I suspect that I was subconciously expecting the traffing to flow from the left, and thereby didn't look right until the last moment. Nonetheless, this incident became known as "Keaton pushed me in front of a mini".

Back at the Zoo, I managed to obtain Ren's sketch from Amber and we discovered that Keaton had again managed to swindle herself out of the last - and usually best - day of the 'con. At 9:30, we headed to room 310 of the convention centre, where Jay Enfield had planned to give Amber and Mason medals, recreating the final scene from Star Wars - A New Hope.

Saturday 4th July

After eating I went to the Dealer's Den to see about a few commissions, having spent Friday scouting the available artists. My secondary goal was to meet up with Keaton, an endeavour which went very wrong. At about 12:00 I and a couple of others managed to locate Haz, who promptly took a call. "Who is it?" I asked, hoping it was Keaton. He made a strange gesture with one finger that looked rather like a half-hearted attempt at giving us the finger and walked very quickly to the exit without telling us who he was talking to. Since he seemed to be in a mood, I did not follow. Later I learned that it was Keaton who'd called and that he was beckoning us to follow him.

After eating, Jairus and I went back to the Zoo at about 2PM after discovering from someone that Keaton was at or near the Dealer's Den. Unfortunately this coincided with the fursuit parade, with the immediate result that the toilets outside the Den were blocked by an unending stream of people in full costume, which stretched from the Spirit of Pittsburgh room through to the Dealer's Den, and back out again. This was a problem as I needed to go rather urgently. I entered the Den, hoping to get to the gents at the back of the room, only to find that the procession had blocked that too. There were around 600 people in the procession, twice that of last year, which made for a rather painful half-hour wait.

Once we were done there, we headed back to the Zoo. Among other things, I requested a sketch from Keaton of her character, and out of curiosity filmed how she drew. This proved interesting later as she held the pencil in a rather unique way that only came out when someone spotted it on youtube.
She managed to finish it a little while before leaving to eat and watch the fireworks. During this time I surreptitiously slipped an entire box of Kinder Eggs into her as something to take home since I wasn't sure we'd be able to meet again during the 'con. When she eventually did return about two hours later I discovered that they had all been eaten.

Finding Amber, I requested a sketch of Daryil. Apparently this was going to be of him riding a giant marshmallow peep. I wasn't sure I'd heard that right, but it seems I did. Unfortunately it wouldn't fit so he ended up standing there insolently. While this was ongoing, I hung out with Keaton who was checking some forums. At one point someone yelled "Free Food" and there was an enormous stampede. Unlike most of these the person who'd yelled had actually brought a substantial quantity of food, a hundred or so packets of Animal Cracker type-things. At one point I overheard someone chuckle and say "Wait 'till you work out Why they're free." The best-before date on the back read "October 2008". To this day I'm not sure if they were old stock, or whether as some people claimed, they were misprinted... either way, they seemed to be fine.
Amber completed Daryil (sans Peep) and as payment I gave her a Kinder egg, with the usual "Don't eat the toy" disclaimer. "That's the best part," she replied. The last two eggs were smashed so I gave them to Keaton who promptly ate them.
I'm not entirely sure quite what happened, but the next thing I knew, Amber and Sofox were wrestling. The latter part of this was captured on shakey video, with Sofox holding her by the arms and dropping her. Once on the ground she rolled over and punched him in the nuts. Jairus declared Amber the winner.

I believe this was also the night that the Blue Spy and someone dressed as the Red Engineer came to blows. Again, this is on youtube. Spy insisted he was a red Spy disguised as a blue Spy, after which Engineer demanded a password which Spy couldn't provide. Spy flew into a rage and insulted Engineer, who ignored this completely and raised a large spanner. Spy looked at the gathering crowd and said "Okay, I'm not going to lie to you, I'm scared. I'm going to run away now." The two of them promptly dashed out of the Zoo. They came back a few minutes later, after which Spy left with Engineer lying slumped on the floor.

Sunday 5th July

I went to the Dealer's Den as my top priority, hoping to organise some last-minute commissions. After this I met up with Jairus and Jouster and we headed off to get something to eat. I was thoroughly sick of pizza by now, so we went to Fernandos instead. Outside they were selling T-shirts. They were too large and sold in pairs which made me a bit hesitant, but Jouster wanted one so I bought a pair.

Most of the rest of the day was spent in the Zoo, trying to find out where Amber was. Jairus went on AIM and had a chat with Keaton while I started to do some initial colour work on the next Project Future comic. At one point, Keaton disappeared for a stretch, leaving us waiting for a reply. In a slightly uncharitable moment I whispered something like "speak to us, bitch". Jairus immediately began to type it in, which prompted a wrestling match for control of the keyboard. I attempted to type "Keyboard fight" but he managed to erase it. He won.

Amber had organised a Paranoia session in the evening, but the time and place was unclear. Worse, she wasn't around. Nonetheless, I asked Keaton (via Jairus) if she wanted me to try and get her a sketch from Amber, and she requested one of Keaton.
Shortly afterwards, Jairus headed off somewhere and Tony took his place. His AIM session was interrupted by two fursuiters who attempted to take control o of the keyboard, among other things using a pen to type messages while his friend restrained the laptop's owner.
Among other things which happened that night, a guy in an otter suit showed up. He had green, glowing eyes and proved difficult to photograph. Each time I attempted to photograph him with his eyes visible, it crashed the camera's logic. I did manage to get one fuzzy shot of him, but only through great perseverance.

Amber finally made it at 10:30pm and, because the Zoo was incredibly noisy we found a quiet spot on the second floor to play in. The game was awesome, finally finishing after 2:15am, and incredibly with all players still alive. Though I'd promised to try and get Keaton a sketch, I decided not to ask that night as a 3AM sketch would likely be very weird indeed. I did, however, get Amber's room number.

On the way back from the game, I felt real paranoia as Sofox was convinced that Alondro only had the room until Monday morning. Reluctant to wake Alondro just to ask him that, I made a memo to ask him in the morning. There was another problem, though - the sheets I needed were on his bed (this was unusual anyway as he spent most of the time on the floor). While he wasn't using them, his legs were resting on them which made things awkward. In desperation I attempted a variation of the tablecloth trick, very gently and slowly pulling them out from underneath him and pausing if it looked like he was being disturbed. This worked perfectly until the last moment when the sheets popped out, his feet fell down and somehow the entire room awoke.
Sheepishly I apologised, and since he was awake anyway, asked him when the room ran out. Fortunately we were okay there.

Monday 6th July

Going from a 3AM bedtime to a 6:30AM start did me a power of no good. While many people are a bit depressed at the end of the 'con, it really was bad for me this year, to the point at which I was crying about the time Gabi left - to my great embarrassment. It doesn't usually hit me that bad, so my excuse is that 3.5 hours of sleep is far less than I need to remain emotionally stable.
Anyway, prior to that we got something to eat, and ran into Mason and Tikiman in the hotel foyer, sans Amber. We went out and eventually found somewhere that did sandwiches - I confused the guy by asking for wholemeal bread, but managed to get some anyway for the first time during the 'con. I think it's called 'wheat bread' in US parlance (Gabi: "But all bread is made from wheat!"). Afterwards, I managed to find Amber and requested a sketch from her for Keaton. She took my sketchbook but then had to head out to herself to eat.
I popped back some hours later with Alondro to see how she was doing, and also to apologise for collaring her, giving her the sketchbook and running away about three times in total. While Amber drew an extremely freaky rendition of Keaton (Mab: "She'll either love it or hate me and demand a proper one."), Mason and Tikiman played a game which was a cross between chess and rock-paper-scissors. Each piece was one of the three types and the 'taking' rules depended on the type, following the usual rules (scissors cuts paper, paper wraps rock, rock blunts scissors etc). Each type of piece could only move in a specific manner, and the game was won when one player had lost every piece of any one type.
Meanwhile, I got to see some photos of a burger the size of a human head which Mason had mentioned at breakfast.

The rest of the evening was spent largely watching Bleach, though I did manage to photograph and send Keaton her sketch, some 45 minutes after it was drawn. I also discovered a 'hidden' sketch in the book, which I think was done by Mason.

Tuesday 7th July

Not much to say, really. We did a final check on the room to make sure it was in good order and went our separate ways. I took a taxi to the airport, the taxi-driver mentioning that he'd taken an Irish guy to the airport the previous day, who had gone on to New York. While Sofox is probably not the only Irish guy to have attended the 'con - let alone been in Pittsburgh that weekend - I can't help but think that it may have been him, not least because it later turned out that he had returned via New York.

Of the journey I can say only two things - firstly, they had a Cinnabon place in Charlotte Airport (there were about 3 in the whole of the UK and they closed them all), and secondly, the trains in London were so badly screwed up that it took longer to get from Gatwick station to Newport than it took to cross the Atlantic.

Pics and Video

Spy vs Engineer: [link]

Miscellaneous video from the Zoo: [link]

Photos: [link]