MFF 2009: Day Two - Pyat amongst the Martians

[pyat]

I slept very soundly, and awoke to bright sunshine on Friday morning. Friday morning was the appointed time for leonard_arlotte's traditional Cheese Quest, an annual pilgrimage to the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This was my first year taking part in the journey, and I was not disappointed.


Leonard and the Fae one!

sassy_fae, leonard_arlotte and I piled into halfelf's car and we journeyed northward into the wilds of Wisconsin...




leonard_arlotte and halfelf! The Mars Cheese Castle was everything I hoped for, and more, though I was somewhat disappointed that the attached art gallery was closed. Still, there was cheese. And wines. And specialty sodas. And nicknacks. And delicious speciality foods of every description.


leonard_arlotte bought an extremely aged gouda. He shared it with us on Saturday night, and it was fantastic. I bought cheese curds and small presents for the girls and some friends.


warphammer introduced me to Sprecher's last year, and I gladly reaqquainted myself with the brand this year.


And I had the best grilled cheese sandwich I've had in many a year. The first cheese of the day!


And this bag of meat ends of curd bits, which I devoured on the way back to the con. The second cheese of the day!


halfelf drove us back to the hotel, and we listened to the track "Chilly Down" from the Labyrinth soundtrack. This has always sort of been my unofficial furry con soundtrack - good times, bad food, etc.


Once the dealer's hall opened, I ran in... and bought almost nothing, save for a couple of presents for Erin that were not particularly relevant to the con. I did say hello to dhstein and hrbuton!


Best fursuit ever!


Aha! seritaph! Last year's roommate and this year's con!


I had no idea there was an Omaha LP.


Folks from an Animal Rescue Charity were at the con, with lynxes and fennecs and a kinkajou and raptors of various kinds!


I retired for part of the afternoon to the con suite, where the TigerDen computers once again provided reliable, free, plodding Internet connections.


While in the suite, I ran into sassy_fae and zorinlynx. Zorin had brought the rest of last night's pizza, and we had lunch. More cheese!


Once again, the con suite buffet was fantastic and free.


And served more than just dog biscuits.


Various sodas and juices were available as well.


I spent some time wandering the con, checking out the costumes and generally schmoozing.


Room after room of enthusiastic nerds. The vibe at a furcon is very different than that of an anime or gaming con.


Feeling a bit overstimulated by all the noise and crowds, I checked out rikoshi's excellent novel reading.


Then ventured to the gaming suite to join in leonard_arlotte's meticulously prepped Ironclaw game. I took on the role of a goat paladin. It was the first time I'd ever played the game, as opposed to running it.


I'm very impressed by Leonard's accessories.


Then another jaunt through the dealer's room to bring halfelf a drink and food.


Followed by more random wandering in and out of con events...


Steampunk wuff.


Finally, once the dealer's hall closed, halfelf and I went to dinner at a very upscale restaurant.


Yes, this one, to the right of the weiner hut.


Friday night was movie night. leonard_arlotte and I had brought some choice titles. First up was the animated "classic" rock musical, Rock and Rule. We were joined by sassy_fae, halfelf, Lukas Otter and Zombie Bunny. As the movie played, I drank cider and ate my bag of fresh curds. More cheese!


Then norman_rafferty showed up with one of his famous homemade pizzas. A homemade cheese pizza. Naturally, I ate more.


norman_rafferty is an excellent person with whom to watch bad movies!


And Rock and Rule is a very entertaining bad movie to begin with.


Following the main feature, I put on a DVD of odd animated features given to me last year by dronon. Only normanrafferty, sassy_fae and I recognized this one.


The others were so obscure (Willow the Wisp, Colargol the Bear) that only the Fae one and I remembered them. The Americans drifted out one by one and we cackled at weird and wonderful cartoons from our youth.

I took one more turn round the con, took a bath, and went to bed...

Comments

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

I was glad to have you along on the Cheese Quest. Hopefully you will be able to do it again, and perhaps we can look into visiting the Bobby Nelson Cheese Shop, and try out the world's best bacon!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

That would be most excellent!

[anidada.livejournal.com]

My name is Mok and thanks a lot... *loves that movie*

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Likewise!

[seritaph.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see I was looking particularly well mauled that afternoon!

Sorry I missed you for the dinner, good sir. The evening conspired against me.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

No problem. One of the rules of Furrycon is the realization that plans are fluid. :)

[stress-kitten.livejournal.com]

Omg... cheese!

I love cheese.

I am more envious of the cheese consumption than any other aspect of what looks like an excellent time.

*grins*

[kfops.livejournal.com]

Jealousy! And not just the cheese!

Okay... the sheer amount of the cheese is definitely enviable, though.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Come on down next year! There's gaming and cheese.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

I try to make sure that both are excellent, personally! I shared my super-gouda with many people with almost all giving supremely positive reactions!

I try to please with the games I run too.

[summerfields.livejournal.com]

Dr. Snuggles?!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed!

[katepufftail.livejournal.com]

[insert obligatory mouse/cheese comment here]

[relee.livejournal.com]

Oishii Thai? Is that a Japanese operated Thai restaurant? I imagine it's sort of like the Japanese restaurant here in Sarnia that is run by a Korean guy. ^.^;;


... Oishii is the Japanese expression for deliciousness. They utter it when they eat something delicious. They utter a lot of things. They have a very uttery language.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure! It was pretty good.

[paka.livejournal.com]

I love Rock and Rule. It's so heartfelt and earnest in its crapitude and let's face it has a seriously classy villain. Also, one of the local radio stations around here truly fits the lame "Ohm Sweet Ohm" musical number.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I also love it. :) And yes, in high school we made various efforts to adapt it as an RPG.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

That is a serious amount of cheese! The con looked like a lot of fun, too.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I think I OD'ed on cheese!

Cheese Quest

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

My rat will keel over from sheer envy.

Re: Cheese Quest

[pyat.livejournal.com]

You can join us next year!

[dronon.livejournal.com]

You cruel-but-amusing video-playing host! Hee hee... Well, your guests survived, so this is good. :-)

The strange thing is, I don't remember giving you that DVD, nor what I put on it. Did I, er, put in a menu with titles, or did I present it without giving any idea what you were in for? I hope I gave you the English Dr. Snuggles; because originally all I had were some German copies, and it just wasn't the same.

(...Colargol? What was I thinking?!)

[pyat.livejournal.com]

You mailed it to me (I think?) after the con last year, after I'd mentioned something about Renard the Fox. It was primarily Renard with a selection of animated oddities appended. Dr. Snuggles was, indeed, in English!

[archai.livejournal.com]

Wolf reclining on sofa: I just love Qarrezel's (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2914096/) work. Her suits are easy to recognize by one of two methods: either 1) you notice the distinctive (and markedly more realistic) head shape, or 2) your first reaction is "holy shit, that's some realism!" Naturally the first method has a slightly better rate of accuracy, but the second performs acceptably. (Almost creepy: her work is at least equally impressive in motion. She's still one of maybe two performers I've seen, ever, that can speak while garbed in her work without ruining the magic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf0ubUcnO04). It's nearly enough to make one suspect that small amounts of magic are involved.)

Also, hooray, you found Flux! I know that blue kangaroo! He was made by (and still owned and performed by) Kiro, who works with Fizz, who is usually the otter responsible for the lasers at con dances.

Also, you do the bestest con writeups. Bless you.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I've seen a few of her suits, and they always stand out from the muppety, mascoty crowd.

And thank you!