…especially the chili cheese dog
Critter Con 15
Trip Day 7, Con Day Two: In which we celebrate a birthday, get all muddy, continue gaming, flex our DJ muscles, eat more great food, flex our DJ muscles again, and go all super at a party.
Before I write another word, let me say “Happy 3rd Birthday to Yoyo Brian Cross!” Have a great day, son!
(Yoyo: I will, because I have THE GREATEST FAMILY EVER!)
(Duke: I love you, brother!)
Once again, I turn the reportage duties over to somebody else, in this case, Mara.
NOTE: The Pub Crawl report will be delayed. Sorry.
Thank you, Doctor. So, yes, today we celebrated Yoyo’s birthday with a huge breakfast at Waffles From Outer Space. It was delicious, as always, and the birthday boy had steak, eggs, and a big waffle.
We went directly from breakfast to The House Of Mud, for our annual spa day. There were about 30 of us, and the cats once again declined the mud, but went along with everything else.
(Amy: Except for me. I’m more “oid” that “feline” after a century plus and most of that time married to a raccoon.)
(Omar: See? I have been a good influence on you.)
By the time our 2 hours were up, we had been bathed, laid in warm mud, showered, groomed, massaged, and dabbed with scented oils. Everyone was feeling like a new whatever.
(Yoyo: Okay, that was strange. Nice, but strange. The massage was the best part.)
(Duke: When we got massaged, the humans were drooling more than me!)
(Blue: LOL! True, little buddy.)
(Duke: Cakes and Tuck were snoring REALLY loud!)
(Blue: HAHAHAHAHA! Also true.)
Back at the con, we did the usual acts of geekery. I know the Doctor, Spike, and Brian were on seminar panels, Leon & Yoyo played some superhero minis game…
(Yoyo: it was Defend New York, with the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four battling hordes of villains and aliens. The good guys won, but just barely. I played Wolverine. It was a hella great, but long, game.)
(Leon: 6 freaking hours long. We both napped after that.)
…Avis, Ginie, Peter, Lettie & Roxie played in some murder mystery LARP set in a haunted house in New Hampshire, their home state…
(Roxy: It was really fun, even though I did get killed by an arrow in the third hour.)
(Lettie: Mom got pushed down the dumbwaiter shaft from the third floor about 15 minutes after you got taken out.)
…Duke, Tucker, and Duke’s new lady friend, Ophelia, played in an exhibition Crazy Game on the new one acre Crazy Game pitch. I’m told the all dog match lasted 4 hours and drew a crowd of 3,000…
(Duke: I was Left Chaser! Ophie was Right Chaser. Tuck was Toy Guard. It was fun!)
…and others of our group played various games, bought stuff, did walking tours of town, and went to the newly renovated NHT amusement park.
(Blue: Sacramento raccoons on the roller coasters, baby!)
(Omar: Hell yes!)
By 5:00, we were almost all back in our rooms to rest a bit before dinner. This did NOT include the Doctor, Mary, Spike, Brian, Avis, and Caroline, who all went over to the radio station to do guest DJ duties on the three channels available.
Doc and Avis did an hour long show where they each played a favorite song from different genres, then discussed it.
Spike and Mary covered songs from the US that were hits in the 50s-70s.
Brian and Caroline did the same thing for songs from Canadian artists.
At 6:30, we all went to dinner with a gaggle of other people at India Underground, which, like most of Critter City, is underground. The food was delicious and many of our crew can eat very large amounts of food from the sub-continent. I may have eaten a bit much myself.
(Blue: Baby, your tummy hasn’t looked that round since you were pregnant.)
We finished dinner around 8:00, at which point, myself, Grace, Amy, Cakes, Tuck, Yoyo, Leon, Ginie, Roxy, Peter, and the Doctor, all went back to the radio station to record more shows. These will, by the way, start in the station’s rotation at midnight and run until midnight Sunday. The shows were…
Grace, Amy and I sharing our love for soft rock, disco, and other music of the 1970s & 80s.
Cakes & Tuck doing an all instrumental NHT music show.
Yoyo & Leon playing “Action Music For Skateboarding Or Wargaming”
Ginie & Roxy doing a show of all French artists.
Peter & the Doctor doing “Spy Radio”, an hour of spy/thriller music interspersed with comments by “two old dudes who grew up in the 60s”.
So, now we are an hour away from the annual Big Friday Party. This year’s them is “What Superhero Are You?”, in which we all go into changing rooms and put together a super costume from many, many boxes of costume parts, all the while formulating our character name, powers, and story.
This should be fun.
We’ll tell you about it tomorrow.
Note From September 23rd, 2022: I did not finish this year’s CritterCon report. The weight of all the original dogs being gone now was just too much for me.
I WILL finish the report, and put the last few entries in the proper days & month, but it might take a while.
Note From January 27th, 2023: We have passed the first anniversary of Sasha’s death, but I’m still not able to finish the con report. I expect it will be many more months away.
Note From March 12th, 2024: It’s quite possible that I will never finish this con report, but then again, I may rewrite it in a year or two to have a different, time travel, form. We shall see.
Note from June, 13th, 2024: Pretty sure this will not be finished. Trying a new approach this August, then probably done with CritterCon. Still, never say never.
NOTE FROM SEPTEMBER, 4th, 2025: Despite having a lot on my plate, creatively speaking, I think I can finish this con report now. It might not be easy, but it will be easier than in previous years, Hopefully, I’ll have it done before 2026.
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