Anthrocon 2011 Days 0, 1, 2
There wasn't much going on yet Thursday morning so after a breakfast at Hanlon's (the diner that took the place of Big Mama's, which took the place of Steel City Diner), I crossed the yellow bridge over to the north side to do two geocaches, Cache of the Month Challenge: April and Everybody Loves Blue 26. The former is a challenge cache requiring that I have already found caches on every day of April before I can log that cache. Not a problem since I already have all 366 days filled in my geocaching stats calendar. I was having trouble with the latter until I discovered that my phone GPS did a lot better in the city than the automotive GPS. It's usually worse. Go figure.
Registration opened up while I was out walking so I just headed to the convention center and picked up my badge. Got into the coyote fursuit again. I solved the air flow problem. It was a silly way to do it but it works. I have one of those squeaky dog toys from Big Lots that looks like a large candy. I put that in the mouth of the costume head and that props it open just enough to breathe. So now it's a coyote holding a pink thing in its mouth. However, I did remove it for some photoshoots. That evening, I went out for dinner with jbadger and friends to August Henry's. I had sweet potato chicken. Then the rest of the party returned to the hotel and the two of us took a walk in downtown Pittsburgh for some geocaches: Yes! We have no bananas and Market Square Nano. We also walked to two others that I'd already done.
Went to the dance that night. I was out in the coyote fursuit again for a bit but returned to my room to change to the husky fursuit because that one is better for dancing. All together, it was 3 hours at the dance and I was there until the end. It's funny because I didn't go to the main ballroom dance much last year but this year, I became some kind of dance fiend.
Friday began with breakfast at Hanlon's. Then I went to the opening ceremony since I had to wait around for the dealer's den to open anyway to do what I needed to do. One thing they're doing this year at Anthrocon is a scavenger hunt. (There was something like this last year too but I didn't play that.) There were "spells" hidden in the con book and other con publications. You just have to read those to figure out where to go to ask for the set of stamps you need to finish the game. It was a snap. I figured that some stamps were at multiple locations mostly on one side of the convention center so I got most of those while dropping off my charity raffle item at the dealer's den. Then I visited the info desk and got the prize, which was a magic wand.
In the afternoon, I got into the husky fursuit and went to play fursuit charades. It wasn't a competition. It was just a bunch of fursuiters taking turns acting out a series of words. I thought I did well but I have to admit the audience had some pretty good guessers too. The most fun word I got was "MC Hammer". I did the hammer dance and mimed "stop" and "hammer" and after a few times, someone got it. "Decorations" and "cheese" were quite difficult. "Mime", "necktie", "backpack", and "money" were easy.
That night, I went with jbadger, rukario71, Mint, Val, and Hoofm to India Palace Buffet for dinner. The Anthrocon dining guide had an incorrect address for this restaurant but Google Maps on my phone was correct. I had vegetable pakoras and lamb curry. The server asked us how spicy we wanted the dishes on a scale of 1 to 10. I asked for 9, but that lamb curry actually seemed more like a 5 or 6 to me. Then again, I have had lots of spicy food before. Returned to the hotel and changed into the husky fursuit again for the dance. On Friday night, there were both fursuit-friendly (at the Westin) and regular (at the Convention Center) dances going on. I went to both.
Went to the masquerade rehearsal on Saturday morning to rehearse magnusdiridian's skit, "Plight of the Buccaneer". We were done surprisingly early so I had time to change out of fursuit and go to lunch, which was cheeseburgers at Fernando's. Then I got back into fursuit, switching from husky fursuit to coyote fursuit, and joined the fursuit parade lineup. This year's fursuit parade was the reverse of the previous year's parade. This time, we started in Hall C and did the photoshoot first before parading to the ballroom. I thought it was much better this way because we got the most time-consuming part of the parade over with at the beginning.
That afternoon, I went out in fursuit in public to visit the Toonseum. I only planned it halfway. I heard that the Toonseum was having a street fair and they wanted fursuiters to visit. I didn't know anyone who wanted to join me there but when I went down to the front of the hotel, I saw another group going there so I joined them. The museum curator was really nice. He gave out some ice treats. (although I declined) We posed next to figures of Superman and Spiderman in the museum for photos. Incidentally, fursuiters on sidewalks around the convention center and hotel are attracting a lot of attention from Pittsburgh folks. I noticed a lot of people waving at us from cars and stopping their cars (in traffic!) to take photos.
In the evening, I got into fursuit again and went to the masquerade setup. By now, it's pretty much routine. We waited in the green room. Then when it was our turn, we went down the secret corridor to the backstage area. Got on stage, did our thing, and went back to the green room. Then we all went back to the ballroom for the curtain call. By the time I was done with the masquerade and changed out of fursuit, it was pretty late and most dinner places were closed. So I went to the 24-hour Primanti Brothers in the Strip District for a colossal fish sandwich.
Registration opened up while I was out walking so I just headed to the convention center and picked up my badge. Got into the coyote fursuit again. I solved the air flow problem. It was a silly way to do it but it works. I have one of those squeaky dog toys from Big Lots that looks like a large candy. I put that in the mouth of the costume head and that props it open just enough to breathe. So now it's a coyote holding a pink thing in its mouth. However, I did remove it for some photoshoots. That evening, I went out for dinner with jbadger and friends to August Henry's. I had sweet potato chicken. Then the rest of the party returned to the hotel and the two of us took a walk in downtown Pittsburgh for some geocaches: Yes! We have no bananas and Market Square Nano. We also walked to two others that I'd already done.
Went to the dance that night. I was out in the coyote fursuit again for a bit but returned to my room to change to the husky fursuit because that one is better for dancing. All together, it was 3 hours at the dance and I was there until the end. It's funny because I didn't go to the main ballroom dance much last year but this year, I became some kind of dance fiend.
Friday began with breakfast at Hanlon's. Then I went to the opening ceremony since I had to wait around for the dealer's den to open anyway to do what I needed to do. One thing they're doing this year at Anthrocon is a scavenger hunt. (There was something like this last year too but I didn't play that.) There were "spells" hidden in the con book and other con publications. You just have to read those to figure out where to go to ask for the set of stamps you need to finish the game. It was a snap. I figured that some stamps were at multiple locations mostly on one side of the convention center so I got most of those while dropping off my charity raffle item at the dealer's den. Then I visited the info desk and got the prize, which was a magic wand.
In the afternoon, I got into the husky fursuit and went to play fursuit charades. It wasn't a competition. It was just a bunch of fursuiters taking turns acting out a series of words. I thought I did well but I have to admit the audience had some pretty good guessers too. The most fun word I got was "MC Hammer". I did the hammer dance and mimed "stop" and "hammer" and after a few times, someone got it. "Decorations" and "cheese" were quite difficult. "Mime", "necktie", "backpack", and "money" were easy.
That night, I went with jbadger, rukario71, Mint, Val, and Hoofm to India Palace Buffet for dinner. The Anthrocon dining guide had an incorrect address for this restaurant but Google Maps on my phone was correct. I had vegetable pakoras and lamb curry. The server asked us how spicy we wanted the dishes on a scale of 1 to 10. I asked for 9, but that lamb curry actually seemed more like a 5 or 6 to me. Then again, I have had lots of spicy food before. Returned to the hotel and changed into the husky fursuit again for the dance. On Friday night, there were both fursuit-friendly (at the Westin) and regular (at the Convention Center) dances going on. I went to both.
Went to the masquerade rehearsal on Saturday morning to rehearse magnusdiridian's skit, "Plight of the Buccaneer". We were done surprisingly early so I had time to change out of fursuit and go to lunch, which was cheeseburgers at Fernando's. Then I got back into fursuit, switching from husky fursuit to coyote fursuit, and joined the fursuit parade lineup. This year's fursuit parade was the reverse of the previous year's parade. This time, we started in Hall C and did the photoshoot first before parading to the ballroom. I thought it was much better this way because we got the most time-consuming part of the parade over with at the beginning.
That afternoon, I went out in fursuit in public to visit the Toonseum. I only planned it halfway. I heard that the Toonseum was having a street fair and they wanted fursuiters to visit. I didn't know anyone who wanted to join me there but when I went down to the front of the hotel, I saw another group going there so I joined them. The museum curator was really nice. He gave out some ice treats. (although I declined) We posed next to figures of Superman and Spiderman in the museum for photos. Incidentally, fursuiters on sidewalks around the convention center and hotel are attracting a lot of attention from Pittsburgh folks. I noticed a lot of people waving at us from cars and stopping their cars (in traffic!) to take photos.
In the evening, I got into fursuit again and went to the masquerade setup. By now, it's pretty much routine. We waited in the green room. Then when it was our turn, we went down the secret corridor to the backstage area. Got on stage, did our thing, and went back to the green room. Then we all went back to the ballroom for the curtain call. By the time I was done with the masquerade and changed out of fursuit, it was pretty late and most dinner places were closed. So I went to the 24-hour Primanti Brothers in the Strip District for a colossal fish sandwich.