Wednesday 2nd July

With much trepidation I made my way to the checkin desk in Manchester. Things went fairly smoothly, except that Daryil's box wouldn't fit on the luggage conveyor and had to be taken to a special desk for unusual objects.

The flight to Washington was uneventful until I got to customs, who were suspicious of the Daryil container. "What's that?" the guy asks. "It's a mascot costume."
"What are you going to use it for?"
I was floored for a bit. The obvious answer was "wear it" but I had a feeling that wouldn't go down too well. Some days prior I had read an news item about two superheroes being arrested for a scuffle in Times Square because they needed some kind of permit to wear costumes there. Even in my sleep-deprived state I intuited that they were concerned I would be doing some weird street-performance for money.

"What are you going to use it for?"

"I'm attending a convention..." I began, flustered, "...where people dress up as furry animals."

"Have a good time," the customs guy said and waved me on.

The flight from Washington to Pittsburgh was delayed somewhat when it started to thunder and rain down like nobody's business. Fortunately this only lasted for about half an hour and things got back to normal afterwards.

Catching the transit was interesting, since someone boarded at the very last moment, causing the doors to stop and re-open. "Someone has interfered with the door closing mechanism," the transit announced in a slightly accusative tone. I was amused that they'd bothered to record a message for that at all, let alone something more specific than a simple "Doors blocked" or something.

At the baggage claim, Daryil came down the chute first. This pleased me, though I became concerned with the lack of suitcase - having Daryil is one thing, but clothes are also useful. Eventually the suitcase came, but I had a little difficulty recognising it since the Blackberry Alliance tag which I'd been using since 2007 had somehow gone missing. Which was a bit of a shame - while having to program Blackberries has not endeared me to RIM, it was a very nice tag and I was sorry to see it go.

Walking towards the taxi rank I spotted a familiar figure sitting by one of the baggage claims. "Sofox...?" I said, disbelieving. But it was Sofox - sitting on the wall with a laptop, trying to purchase a house in the baggage claim of Pittsburgh airport.

After that things were pretty uneventful - we took the bus, walked the rest of the way to the Omni, though Sofox kept stopping to try and get a GPS fix to unlock content in his game. This would have been okay if I wasn't desperate to get to the room and collapse.

Thursday 3rd July

We woke up, Gabi earliest, since she needed to go to registration to help set things up. We had breakfast at the Au Bon Pain, which was open - unlike last year. I tried a cinnamon scone to compare against British scones - it was more like a rock cake, to be honest.
We went to the Zoo. I had heard that it was moving to the DLCC building but we went to the original ballroom anyway to see what was going on, and whether we could figure out when Registration was because even Gabi didn't know and she was doing it. It was still the Zoo at that time, and the data displays didn't tell when reg opened, so we just hung around the Zoo, with Sofox and co sitting in front of a table set up with various microphones and doing their own fake panel.

I phoned Wuff, who turned out to be in the Omni lobby. I eventually persuaded the others to come too and we hung out with Wuff, Amber and various others. Amber was inking a commission for Paladin Sheppard, and at one point proclaimed herself to be the Rasputin of webcomics. When she left to go to the ladies, Sofox borrowed a sheet of paper from me and did a very hasty and rough copy of the commisssion pencils, hiding the original under something else. Amber returned, sat down and began inking the changeling picture as if nothing had happened.
"Hmm," she said, "It doesn't look as good as I remember. Actually it sucks... but the commissioner approved it at the sketch phase, so..."

Eventually we went to register, tried to work out where the New Zoo was, but found that it wasn't open yet. So we went back to the old zoo and hung out with Mab and Agent Elrond until Keaton arrived. Eventually she turned up and we went back to the registration area to get her and Shax registered. Shax got stuck in the queue for about 4 hours solid. Eventually we had to go back to our room for the Tea Party, and there found Mab retelling her cheese stories, which I managed to get on video this year.

The tea party ended with a game of Cards Against Humanity, which was fun, but threatened to last all night so we had to cut it short. I believe Sofox won.
Finally we went to the New Zoo where I dressed as Daryil for a bit while the others tested Darkmoon's new RP system ("There's a Game In This Book").

At every juncture, Sofox would fly into a rant about halfbreeds and racism and what the Baron's policies were on halfbreed integration.

Friday 4th July

We got up around 9, but procrastinated. We had to skip breakfast in order to make it to the opening ceremony. However there was no early entrance for sponsors this year and the queue was so long that the ceremony had been running for about 10 minutes before we got inside. Afterwards we queued for the Dealer's Den, which did this time give us a slightly early entrance. I was approached by someone who praised me for the anti-walkthroughs I've written, which was rather flattering. I'll try and get another one done this year, promise!

Inside the Zoo I set up some commissions with some artists I've been commissioning regularly such as Agent Elrond, Sandy Schreiber and Pegasus, chatted with Amber, Wuff and Darkmoon, and then, around 3, went to meet up with Keaton who was in the Omni. This could have been more interesting but I could use the break in any case - Keaton mostly played Animal Crossing with Alice while we discussed medieval torture implements and the Jyraneth clan. At this point I flicked through Keaton's copy of "There's a Game In This Book" and discovered that the printing was messed up.

Around 5, we went back to the Zoo, which was conveniently just under the Den, so leaving Daryil with Keaton and Alice I went back up to check on the the commission statuses and report the misprint to Darkmoon. He disappeared, trying to find Keaton in the Zoo to replace her copy and was unable to locate her, which worried me a little since I'd left Daryil with them.

From there I spent the rest of the day in the Zoo, being Daryil, trying out Dippin' Dots for the first time and finally joining the game. Spotting that Wuff's character was a mermaid I asked if she had to be carried around in a bucket.

Investigating clues for the murder of the Baron's only son, I said something about interrogating the shadows. Somehow this became "Tape wants to interrogate the shadows!" Darkmoon made a foul expression and resignedly said that I should roll for it.
"Nevermind, he failed the roll."
"Good."

Saturday 5th July

We tried to get up in time for the Jim Cummings panel at 10am, but this was like herding sheep. Sofox again used his legendary powers of procrastination and was late, but as it happened the panel didn't take place as planned anyway. We came across a troupe of about 7 people on Segways - we stopped to take photos of them, and they stopped to take photos of us.
I wasn't planning to go to the Jim Cummings panel so I just went to the Dealers' Den instead. I wasn't sure what to do with the CDs this year since the New Zoo didn't have a nicely-located flyers-and-freebies table like the old one does. I left them on the Old Zoo table as an experiment and they disappeared anyway, so I guess it worked.
Inside the Den, Mab came past excitedly talking about a gigantic jelly snake which was being cut up into slices about the size of a fist by the Ops table near the door. This was no exaggeration.

Eventually I ran into Sofox again. The fursuit parade occurred, with one of the suiters running up to the crowd and saying "Ooh! A people parade! Look at that one! They're so cuuute!" and suchlike. After it was finished we spotted someone who had been shooting the parade on 8mm film, which should be interesting to see if it turns up on youtube.
Afterwards, we went to Fernandos for food, and then Sofox joined a queue to try and get Jim Cummings' signature. I met up with Keaton and eventually we went off the Zoo. She drew a fantastic picture of Jyraneth while I went to get Daryil from the Omni.

Keaton showed me a game called Outlast on her laptop, which was a horror game in the mould of Amnesia and so on. At one point Sofox said that the monsters simply needed psychiatric help, but I pointed out that the game was set inside a psychiatric hospital anyway so it clearly hadn't worked. I alternated between this and being Daryil for a couple of hours until the others arrived and the RP continued.

In the game, we tried to locate the Baron, but got lost in his castle - much like Hitchhiker's Guide, where you have to exactly memorise a set of instructions given in passing which later become critical. Keaton stole things and the campaign finally ended with Sofox seducing and screwing the Baron, who drifted into a contented sleep only to have his neck broken by Wuff. As an experiment I walked home as Daryil, which worked out fairly well for the most part - though people tended to lead me as if I was totally blind until the very end when they ran off just as I actually needed help.

Sunday 6th July

We got up around 9, had breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, which to my relief did sell things like bagels as well, since doughnuts didn't exactly seem like part of a balanced breakfast to my eyes. We headed again to the Dealer's Den, via the Old Zoo so I could leave more CDs there. Sofox ran into an old friend, and took him to see Fox Amoore. Owing to some confusion he ended up showing him Alexander James Adams instead.

We hung out at the Den until about 2pm, at which point I went to the Zoo with Keaton.
Around 3:30 I went back to the Den to help Darkmoon and company tear down their stall and move the contents back to the Omni so that they could pack it into their car later, with Keaton due to show up later. As I left the Zoo I went past someone with a trainee guide dog, chatting to someone else and saying "He keeps bounding up to the people with the realistic masks, and then stopping and going 'Huh, you're not real!'..."

The teardown got a little confusing on the way back since we ran into Keaton and Alice who had the last parts of the stall, but didn't know where they had to go. We knew but we weren't sure we'd be able to put things there without Wuff to identify us. But Wuff had to go back to Darkmoon to deal with something else, and in the end it turned out rather like the puzzle with the goat, the lettuce and the wolf crossing the river.

Afterwards Sofox and I hung out with Keaton, Alice and Shax. We were looking for somewhere to eat that was still open and eventually settled on Double Day's Best Burgers, which turned out to be a bar far enough away from the centre to make me get a bit self-conscious about having ears and tail. It was good, though.
It turned out that Keaton had an early flight so she had to go right back to her room and try to sleep, so we had a teary farewell in the Omni and then Sofox and I made our way back to the Zoo, which confusingly had now been moved back to the Westin again.

I took photos of fursuiters, was Daryil for a bit, laid out the last of the CDs (as Daryil) and then we went to find somewhere quiet to film the All-Purpose Fox video, which had me cameoing as Daryil. There was another singalong on the second floor which we went to watch for a bit, and then went back to the Omni.

Monday 7th July

We hastily packed and left around 10. I was getting a bit worried because the flight was at 2pm and there was a lot of procrastination going on. We had a hasty breakfast at the Au Bon Pain again, and then caught a bus to the airport. I was still getting rather stressed about the flight, but I managed to get a tag at the airport at which point Sofox was invited to buy something to help US Troops, which made us uneasy since we aren't from the US and supporting the troops of another nation is... politically complicated.

We got separated at Security, but eventually managed to find each other. I updated the comic from the airport lounge, and then we ran into Agent Elrond who had been bumped onto the same flight as me. Wishing Sofox a safe journey I boarded, and at Washington had a chat with Elrond about how the convention went.
Eventually I touched down at Manchester, got the baggage - both items, with tags still in place - and at this point discovered I still had the hands-free kit for Wuff's phone.

Photos are here:
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/tapewolf/library/con/ac14?sort=9&page=1

Commissions are here:
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/tapewolf/library/con/ac14/artwork?sort=3&page=1

...and Mab's cheese stories are here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp4EhxMxb9k&feature=youtu.be