The adventure of CTCon '05 started for me at roughly 11:30 pm Thursday night with the tale of Boinky the World's Dumbest Beetle. This bug was not simply intellectually deficient, he was thoroughly inebriated. Goal-directed behavior was, quite simply, not his dictionary. From 11:30 until after 12:30 he would fly around, very loudly, in no particular direction until it hit a wall, bounce noisily off the wall a few times, and eventually knock himself out, fall down back behind somewhere hard to reach, and explore the wonders of its new location for some 15 minutes before deciding it was time to come back out and bounce around the room some more. The first time I went after him he somehow flew in behind my mirror and dropped under my dresser from behind. 15 minutes later he was out and I went after him again. This time he knocked himself out against my ceiling and fell down behind a pile of boxes. Another 15 minutes passed and I had to come after him a third time. By the time I found him he had landed on my desk and was crawling under the edge of my monitor stand and, consequentially, out of my reach. I could see him, however, and seeing him tipped me off to the fact that this was no ordinary beetle that couldn't fly straight. Oh no. Boinky couldn't walk straight either. He seemed to be doing everything in his power to overturn himself under the edge of my monitor stand. I eventually had to leave him there since he seemed disinclined to come out any time soon. 5 minutes later and he had come out and within 10 seconds hurled himself into the wall and fallen behind my desk. There's so little space back there and it's probably full enough off cobwebs that, silly me, I thought the problem was over. No bug that stupid could fly its way out. Little did I realize Boinky was also Teflon coated. I realized this when, after he made his unexpected return, he slammed himself into my ceiling and landed on my by this point thoroughly vacated pillow. Now I wasn't going to squash him there. I knew that much. So I figured I'd grab him with a piece of tape, ball it up, and be done with him. Only he failed 3 times running to stick to the tape, then took off and careened over to my closet. I found him again wandering around the floor under an inhabited spider's web, having utterly failed to stick to it either. And, clear out in the open, he was still making every effort to overturn himself on the ground, this time without any other surfaces to aid him. I watched, hoping if I kept him cornered he'd take off, get caught, and both the spider and I would be happy for the remainder of the morning. He took off, flew straight through the web, bouncing off a few strands, much to the chagrin of the spider, who ran off into a corner to sulk. I finally caught him under another, more vacant spiderweb using the patented card-and-dixie-cup method and, being too lazy to hike all the way outside, decided to dispose of him in the toilet. In which he valiantly and competently, if unsuccessfully, tried to swim downwards until he was flushed there forcefully. And then I got sleep, albeit an hour less than intended.

 Con day 1 started at 7:15 am and had me arriving to the convention center at roughly 9:00. While I just waltzed in last year in the middle of things, this year involved everyone who had shown up on time or early waiting in line for a badge. While everyone was in good humor, and lines were not to be unexpected, there was irony noted in the pre-reg line concerning the fact that the walk-in line was a third the size of and moving marginally faster than we were. At least we all saved $10-$20. Nonetheless, the time when I first ascended the escalator up to the third floor of the convention center, I felt something great had been accomplished.

 Connecticon has been described by its organizers as running on the basis of everything failing to go wrong at once. Compounding any traditional delays, however, was the fact that the Hartford Convention Center staff had not yet mastered all the sound systems sufficiently well to train the Con staff, so the Con staff ended up training themselves for what would otherwise have been the first half hour of opening ceremony. This delay gave me time to identify and chat with Ananth of AppleGeeks, who while generally subdued for any formal Con events, chatted animatedly for a minute or three over our shared high school and the crazy friend who had identified him as such to me.

 The Dealers' Room / Artist's Colony didn't open until noon, which meant that it didn't actually open until about 12:45, giving me time after the opening ceremony to play a game of oldschool M:TG with some fun guys, one of whom had a whole collection binder impressively full of Dragons, including a page and a half of autographed Shivans. My untouched-for-years mess-with-your-life Blue deck held its own, taking a hit early but going out only third of five. One $6 6-piece sushi lunch later and I had time to determine that the Dealers' room wasn't actually opening at noon and head in for a couple tries at a SNES Gradius which I really ought to know better than I did.

 After the Dealers'/Artists' room was finally open, I was parted from rather a larger portion of my money than I was expecting, but it was all to a good cause. Hawk and Ananth were pleasant and more than willing to sell me an official AG bandanna. Mookie of Dominic Deegan was wonderful and friendly and quite delighted to talk with me. Brian Clevinger of 8-Bit Theater was wonderful and friendly and quite delighted to take my $25 American in exchange for some apparently famous big yellow-covered hardbound thing with his name on it somewhere. Jenn and Beak of Studio Splurd were notably absent Friday, which made me sad. Around and about throughout the day I also had enjoyable dealings with Garth and Larom of Comedity, Dave Lister (no relation to Red Dwarf's similarly named protagonist) of Paradox Lost, Li Izumi of Comiku Girls (I'd say from the table that she does other things, but can definitely see how she attracts fanboys), some folks from Nero LARP who I'd met last year and tried their hardest to get me to sign up while once again refusing to present me with a worthwhile weapon, and Nikki and Brendan who tabled together but specialize in fantasy comics/art and chainmail respectively. Nikki likes Chrono Trigger, which is always a plus in my book, and Brendan knows his stuff and is a far braver man at metal weaving than myself. And they also sell the most adorable Evil Winged Flying Hamsters of Doom, which I believe I heard them alternately term ÔNoods.'

 Moving away from my parting ways with my hard-earned money, I attended 3 discussion panels. I bumped into and in fact encountered for the first time in the day the writer and artist of Comedity in a very empty meet & greet room while looking for the second and third thirds of a Photoshoppery panel given by Ian McConville of Mac Hall, accompanied briefly by Hawk. I eventually found the panel in a mislabeled room and picked up a few things which you may see sneak into SED. I also managed to catch a laptop case complete with laptop and fumble it back onto the table from which Ian had nudged it inadvertantly, probably saving him a lengthy and embarrassing explanation to Hawk later on. The third panel I made was a meet & greet with Mookie and Dave, attended by a reasonable crowd of some dozen or two humans and at least one sparrow. Both artists were quite friendly and entertaining, as was the sparrow even though it repeatedly refused to land on Mookie's finger. Even when he tried offering it a different one.

 Finally for the evening was the Uber Webcomics Panel, a collection of 30 artists and at least MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE: WILL BYRON PLEASE REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO BOARD ROOM A FOR SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION. a few more fans throwing questions and zingers at one another for, keeping with CTCon organizational tradition, not quite the time interval they were scheduled for. It was MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE: WILL BYRON PLEASE REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO BOARD ROOM A FOR SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION. generally entertaining, and most informative. The salient points included inspirations, the value of interwoven writing and art, the authenticity of ScMAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE: WILL BYRON PLEASE REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO BOARD ROOM A FOR SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION.ottish accents, the value of knowing when you aren't officially on the guest list, reasons not to lean back in a chair which is in turn on the edge of a stage, the importance of attention to detail in the meticulously hand-drawn work of Brian Clevinger, stupid reader tricks, geekdom through MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE: WILL BYRON PLEASE REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO BOARD ROOM A FOR SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION. the ages, and the demise, under mysterious circumstances, of individuals who cannot find their way around convention centers after missing important pieces of information.

End day 1.

 I took day 2 pretty easy. I showed up in costume at around noon (Red Mage- 2nd year running) and said hi to a number of artists again. The Red mage suit got a number of compliments, as did my various chainmail accoutrements, including the 10-pound 8-gauge copper behemoth of a bracer that got me into chainmail. Hawk gave me a kickass illustrated autograph on my rebuilt Wallstreet PowerBook, and Ananth added his bit when he and Mookie returned from a much-delayed luncheon outing (and more compliments to the wonderful Quilt cosplayer who ran Mookie's table while he was out). Daze in a Haze grabbed my picture for a second year and gave me a second card to go with, and an ambassador from Morlock Enterprises showed off a truly impressive scythe in the artists' corner of the dealers' room.

 Half a game of Munchkin later and I headed over to the Webcomic Auction wherein I very nearly made big. Mookie drove up a $65 bid within minutes, far too fast for my remaining $40 to be valuable. The excellent Klo Tark cosplayer who made the winning bid quite deserved the honor. I had a solid bid in on Hawk until Comedity's writer jumped in and added $10, eventually running off with him. I then made and held what would have been the winning bid on Comedity until AppleGeeks, in a grand show of camaraderie, outbid me by $1 on them, and lacking so much as one more dollar bill, I had to let Comedity go. So AppleGeeks and Comedity take each other to the post-con party they were both going to in the first place. And I lose. The last surprise came when Tim Buckley of Ctrl-Alt-Del came up for auction. About half way through, Brian Clevinger, who for most of the con had been channeling Thief more than any of his other characters, placed a surprising $65 bid just to keep Mookie from winning the day. So for a second year running, Ctrl-Alt-Del ended up winning the auction segment of the Webcomic Challenge. At least Team Deegan held strong in DDR and Halo, and seemed to be doing well in the photo scavenger hunt when they stopped me for my character sheet (my Wallstreet, alas, made Ctrl-Alt-Del's list and wasn't needed by Dominic Deegan.)

 I caught the end of Mookie's second and now solo meet & greet after the auction, and while there were no birds this time, his discussion of the DD Storm of Souls arc, his knack for bad puns, and a few shadowy hints as to what's coming proved just as interesting. Interesting enough, indeed, that I tailed him back to the dealers' room (still chatting amicably, even though I'd been in and out and around his table and panels for a day and a half- the man is a social wonder) and picked up a $10 limited-stock-remaining Infernomancer shirt and (after bugging AppleGeeks for a pen that would mark it) a free authentic Mookie signature. Another half-game of Munchkin and I called it a day.

End day 2.

 I went in for day 3 around noon not out of laziness (if needing sleep can be called laziness) but due to church and lunch and such things as the sort of people whom normal people call normal do Sunday mornings. I did, however, make the cosplay chess game, which was most entertaining. Mookie MC'd the battle which saw Bowser hugged to death, numerous adorable large stuffed anime critters, Naruto becoming a queen, and Captain Jack Sparrow being mauled to death by a giant rice ball. White team ultimately won, with King Han Solo getting pantsed by none other than the legendary hero PantsMan. The skills of Red mage having been less thoroughly utilized in the main game, I ended up facing off against Professor Sprout in the post-game battle-royale.

 Wandering the Dealers' Room after the game (and now needing to dodge giant paper airplanes, green foam balls and rubber bands, which had collectively replaced the dart guns of last year) I finally started to appreciate how much energy you have to have to do a con start to finish. Brian Clevinger had apparently cut out entirely, and a few other artists were beginning to be a bit less reliably present at their tables. Dave Lister was intermittently around and smiling, Hawk and Ananth were ultimately giving the impression of being only human, but they at least stuck it out Ôtil the end. Dead End, And Then You Die, Mac Hall, Comedity, Daze in a Haze and Partially Clips seemed to have a bit of fight left in them, but most impressive of all was Mookie. Three full days of tabling with only one notable break, one more meet & greet than most artists, a writing panel, cosplay chess, and he was still bright and cheery minutes before the artists' room closed for good. Kudos to all the artists for being nothing short of superhuman!

 I didn't quite stay for the closing ceremony due to SED #15 being not-quite-finished (it says something of how draining cons can be when I, going as a generic attendee with full control of my activities and schedule, have to take three times my usual passes at a sketch to turn it into an update) and needing to crash bigtime before taking a day trip to DC Monday. I'm special-attendee-price pre-registered for CTCon '06, however, so I'll hopefully be back next year. And who knows? If I can keep SED going until then, maybe I too will shell out for a table and get the full artist's experience.

End day 3.