The first event of the day was the Fursuit Parade. The fursuiters started from the ballroom level, then went down to the mezzanine and the lobby. Half of them took the stairs, and the other half took the escalators. (Anthrocon had a rule against fursuiters taking the escalator, for safety reasons, but an exception was made in this case.) They went through the lobby, out the main doors, and over to the little open area between the Wyndham and the GlaxoSmithKline building. (Mr. Glaxo founded the company, so Messrs. Smith and Kline didn't dare make fun of his name.) There were some conflicting reports on the exact number of fursuiters in the parade, but the count was in the vicinity of 150.
Then it was about noon, so I went to lunch at Subway, conveniently one block from the Wyndham. Lots of
AC attendees were out and about, and within Subway they outnumbered the normal people (granted, that's not hard;
this Subway location was tiny). It was like Philadelphia had been taken over by furries! Yaay! I mean oh no!
I saw two guys out in front of Subway wearing ears and tails, hanging out with a third guy sitting on a bench. Just for fun, I asked the guy on the bench, "Excuse me, what's with the ears and tails?" I didn't expect to fool him; I had taken off my badge so I wouldn't lose it, but I have a beard, I'm a fat guy, and I was wearing my pi T-shirt, which is geeky (granted, it's not furry). I was sure I was going to set off his "fur-dar"! So I was surprised when he started explaining furry to me. "You know the idea that cartoons are just for kids? Forget that." etc. I, um, don't really remember most of what he said, partly because I'm a furry too so I don't have to, and partly because I was trying to decide when would be the best moment to pull my conbadge out of my bag and show it to him. I do remember that his explanation was getting kinda long, though.
Eventually the moment came. I took out my badge and said, "By the way, I'm KT." He looked at the badge, laughed, and said, "Ohh, you bastard!" I grinned and went back to the Wyndham.
Up in one of the salons, Kristy Tracer presented the results of the Iron Author challenge. My story, "Super Otter", got honorable mention. The winners included a story written as a Choose Your Own Adventure that had a crate-pushing sokoban puzzle in the middle and ended with an infinite-loop sex scene. Another story was written, rather incompletely, on a series of randomly numbered index cards.
Then I went to Kigeni's improv panel, which I'd missed the beginning of. No improv panel starting points for me
this year, I guess! I got chosen to play a game of Props. I love Props! The prop my partner and I were given
was a set of fuzzy white cat ears. They looked handmade; the ears were held onto the barrette with Scotch tape,
so I decided to be careful with them. We used them as many things, including a bra and a beard.
The last game we played, and the one with the most people participating, was World's Worst.
We all lined up and came up with idea after idea for, first, the World's Worst Lawyer. Examples:
"I move for a... bad court thingy..."
"Your Honor, my client could not have mugged the defendant because at the time, he was helping me break
into a warehouse!"
Before long, it was time for Closing Ceremonies. Kage announced that in 2006, Anthrocon would be moving to the
David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. He showed a promotional/informational film about the Convention
Center, showing CGI views of the Center's various facilities, and narrated by a deep-voiced seven-foot-tall man
who has been smoking cigarettes since childhood. I realized that the Wyndham had probably never hosted a furry
con before, and might never again. I pictured the staff, years from now, sitting around unsure that what they'd
witnessed had been real or not.
