9 AM : Officially awake after a sleepless night of watching TV and cursing myself for having forgotten my sleeping pills back in Richmond. See, my sleeping pills work great. They do not force you to sleep, they just make it a lot easier to get there and (the most important thing for me) they help you stay asleep even if you are a restless type like myself. But they have one little drawback : no pills, no sleep. This should make the rest of the convention fun.
10 AM : Allowed into the Dealer’s Room after a brief detention by officials. Apparently when they say it opens at 10 AM, they really mean it. Not one minute earlier. Lots of fun things that I can’t afford in there, including caffeinated soap. I kid you not. Soap with caffeine in it. I express doubts as to the efficacy of supercutaneous caffeine application to the vendor. He concurs, but notes that their soaps also smell very nice. And they do!
11:00 AM : I check out the Hangout Room. To my surprise and delight, it is full of video games. IRL Events are there, and they have a ton of video game consoles, old school and new, set up to play. I get to try out the Wii U, and enjoy playing New Super Mario Brothers. The level of detail and the vividness of the colors make for a gorgeous and very rich visual experience. Plus, of course, it’s quite fun.
But even better than that, I end up participating in a card game called Cards Against Humanity. It’s like someone combined Apples To Apples, Match Game, Madlibs, and Satan’s thesaurus to make a game designed to produce and reward the most depraved and hilarious answers possible.
It’s perfect for me, and I laugh like hell the whole time. What fun!
1:00 PM : Hanging out with my friend William Graham in the lobby, chatting about science and watching the fursuiters go by in the fursuit parade. (A fursuit is like an animal-themed mascot costume. ) There must have been at least fifty of them. Vancouver has a very active and thriving fursuit community. I loved seeing them all.
3 PM : I eagerly participate in a Harlem Shake video shoot. Despite misgivings about the final product due to a cluster of snafus, it does turn out fairly well. You can find it here if you would like to check it out yourself : http://youtu.be/oBk0F1QK0YI. I am the very fat fellow in the suspenders and glasses with long hair, a beard, and absolutely no shame.
3:30 PM : I attend a Furry Media Relations panel hosted by my friend Carthage with (surprise!) his father as a guest commentator. Being a professional journalist, he ends up being our official representative of “the media”. This is a somewhat perilous role, as we of the Furry ilk tend to be pretty touchy about how the media portrays us. It always hurts to be misunderstood, and our little world is far too strange and outre for the mainstream media to possibly “get”, and so on those rare occasions when we are noticed, we tend to be portrayed as nothing but a bunch of hilariously deviant perverts with a thing for Bugs Bunny. And we are so much more than that.
Despite this tension, the panel generates a lot of really interesting discussion about how The World Outside portrays our World Within, and a lot of fruitful insights as to the causes of our poor image are gleaned. We discuss articles done about us in the popular press, mentions in popular culture, and a Certain Episode Of CSI That Shall Remain Nameless. We talk about how much of our bad rep comes from the mainstream world’s inability and unwillingness to understand us, how much of it we bring upon ourselves with indiscreet behaviour and poor media relations, and how much any of it really matters. After all, it’s not like they are rounding us up and putting us into camps.
All in all, an excellent discussion.
5:10 PM : With nothing in particular to grab our attention, Joe, Julian and I go back to our room, Room 278, at the Accent Inn to chill a while before going out to hunt up some dinner. The room continues to be comfortable and cozy. We chat, relax, and ponder our next move.
6:30 PM : Having been thwarted by extremely long lines at both the Sushi Garden and White Spot, we are forced to retreat all the way back to our hotel again and end up eating at ABC Country Kitchen for the second night in a row. There’s nothing wrong with ABC, in fact, we often eat at the one here in Richmond. But part of the fun of being away from home is eating someplace new, and so I am kind of disappointed to be back at ABC yet again. But oh well, that is what happens when you and an entire convention of hungry furries are all looking for supper at the same time. Next time I will either just plan on eating later, after the rush, or pack a lunch.
8:30 PM : Back to Chez Nous (alias our hotel room) for a little rest and relaxation before we head back to the convention for Bad Movie Night.
10:00 PM : Oops! We fell asleep. All that good ABC Country Kitchen food must have done it to us. Joe and Julian head off to the convention anyhow. I decide to stay in the room and try to catch up on the sleep that has eluded me so far.
10:45 PM : Bad idea. I am unable to get back to sleep, so instead of having fun at Bad Movie Night, I end up just listlessly watching television in our hotel room with only the rubber duck for company. (He’s cute but he’s no conversationalist.) I end up feeling lonely and depressed. Not one of my better calls, trying to stay back to sleep. Conventions are the opposite of sleep!
Oh well, there is always tomorrow. We all make bad decisions sometimes.