Kelly L Creighton / Kya White Sapphire writes...

Con Report, 2004:

Friday
August 6th Julie and I wandered through the underground mall-thingy and found breakfast. The place we ordered from, The Cedar Grill, had very small bagels. Not even half the size of real bagels. Weirdoes. Anyway, then we spent hours wandering around Montreal looking for an arcade. We never found one, and since the registration desk was supposed to open at 10am, we headed back to the hotel. Of course registration did not open on time, but we did finally get our badges, schedules and shirts.
At Noon I hosted the "Con Virgin 101" panel. Not many people showed up, and the crowd was a little amorphous as people came and went. Still, we managed to kill time for an hour, before Julie and I decided to go swimming. The pool was heated, but not quite heated enough. We spent a half hour shivering before finally leaving. At that point I spent a lot of time running around looking for people- Kyffin, Ethan, Liz, Ian, Taylor, trying to get everyone settled into their rooms. Then Ethan, Kyffin, Julie and I practiced my skit for the cosplay. I also begged Julie, Kyffin and Karlyl to sign up for the clan olympics with me, and Taylor drew a Green Dragon sign for us to use during events.
Opening Ceremonies were much of the usual, though the first clan olympics event was set purposely to disrupt the ceremonies. Half of each team stood at the back of the room near a large bin of plastic balls. One person from each team stood at the front of the room. One person was the runner. The people in the back were supposed to bring balls to the runner, who then ran them to the person at the front and stuffed the balls into the T-shirt that the leaders were wearing. Kyffin and Julie had a good idea- they stole a blanket and were trying to load a bunch of balls in it for Karlyl to take to me. Alas, the plot was foiled by the other teams, who never let Julie and Kyffin fill the blanket. So Karlyl, providing much amusement to the onlooking staff, looked around helplessly as Kyffin and Julie were nowhere to be seen. Our team tied for last place, and was saved only because we managed to find a BONUS BALL.
Greg went through his usual shpeel, which we all love to hear. Then after opening ceremonies Liz, Taylor, Julie, Karlyl, Kyffin, Ethan and I went out for dinner. (Someone asked us if we were going out to the Crepes place with the staff. "No, we weren't invited." I replied.) We went to Le Marche, which was a neat concept, but poorly executed. The restaurant was set up like an open market, where you could wander from stall to stall and take whatever food you wanted. The selection was amazing, and the food was very good, however the place was so poorly designed that (as Kyffin put it) "The only thing harder than finding what you want, is getting someone to actually serve it to you once you've found it." Dinner was good and not too expensive though, so all was well in the end. We then had to be back for the next clan olympics event: A shot in the dark. There were targets set up on chairs, and we had to hit the targets with kooshballs to earn points. Again, the only reason we stayed in the game was due to BONUS POINTS, because another team was eliminated, and we're still dead last. By that point we were all so totally exhausted (even having fallen asleep waiting for our turn at the event) we all just went to bed.

Saturday
August 7th started with a shower, and a review of Friday's events. Then Julie, Kyffin and I went to Tim Horton's for breakfast. At 10am we had to participate in the Clan Olympics. The event was Trivia Torture. In the interest of not being bitter, let's just say the "evil spirits" (Teams that had already been eliminated, but still got to participate by messing with the game) decided to help all the other teams, and screw us over, therefore kicking us out of the olympics since we were /already/ in last place. That didn't sound too bitter, did it?
Julie, Amina, Kyffin and I went out to find DDR. This time I was armed with a map from the concierge. The first two places he'd marked down were both empty buildings, but the third (the Pepsi Forum) finally turned up DDR. 7th mix and Extreme, I played several times, my feet hate me, I'm very happy. We took the bus back to the hotel and watched the Radio Play (The Journey).
After the Radio Play I got ready for dinner. Being that I wasn't going to wear any makeup, this was very easy. While waiting outside the banquet hall I had a few opportunities to get on camera (In case you didn't know, Disney had a film crew here all weekend, making a documentary on the con for the Gargoyles DVD, due out December 7th 2004!!) So hopefully *one* shot at least will make it on to the DVD. Dinner was good, though I don't know that it was worth the $55CAD price tag. The food may cost that much, but I didn't enjoy it that much. Karine at first announced that Keith David would be sitting at our table. Then it changed to Greg. I love Greg, but Liz was really looking forward to Keith David, so she was disappointed. However we had a great conversation with Greg all night, while Keith didn't show up til after dinner.
Julie, Kyffin and I practiced our skit several times, then performed it for Karlyl. She laughed her ass off, so we knew we had a winner. We were the first performers in the Cosplay, and people loved the show. Despite the fact that the lights did not turn down the way we needed them to, so we didn't quite get the effect we wanted. Ah well. There were great costumes this year, I took lots of photos, which are below. We won honorable mention for cosplay.. not that there was any competition. There was one staff cosplay, and staff is not eligible to win. Then the only other cosplayer won Best of Show because his costume and play were fantastic. So really, we got last place ;P
Karaoke and Dancing followed, though not really a lot of dancing. I had to lay down for a while because I was feeling ill. I went to the bar to get something to settle my stomach. A guy, Nate, came over and started hitting on me, and wouldn't let me go back down to the convention. Once I left, he even came down to the convention to see what it was about (which is fine because I told him he could). Luckily he left shortly, I think we were too weird for him.
I followed Liz upstairs and just socialized with Liz, Taylor, Karlyl and Julie. Taylor is fantastic, he really is. I'm so glad he came this year, I hope I get to see him again soon. We did wander up to the con suite for a while, but by 4am we were so tired, we decided to crash.

Sunday
August 8th I did not want to get up this morning. But by about 10am everyone else was stirring, so I decided to get ready too. Julie and I spent a long time, again, looking for food. We finally found a Denny's-like place and asked for our food to go, and picked up breakfast for Liz on the way back. I just hung out in the dealer's room, signing the Phoenix Gate Anthology. It was weird, I felt like someone important or something :D
I hung out in the dealer's room for a while, signing the PGA and then listening to Keith David. Closing ceremonies came all too soon. Much more hanging out was done, waiting for dinner. I've also registered for next year's con, and volunteered to be the schedule coordinator. We had closing ceremonies, then the first official meeting of the Gargoyles Fans .Org corporation. I took minutes. The meeting ran for an hour, a lot was decided. I hopefully impressed Chris enough that I'll be allowed to do minutes and newsletters for the corporation (as secretary perhaps?).
Everyone not in the meeting left for dinner, so Ethan, Julie and I went to the same restaurant from which we'd gotten breakfast. The food was fantastic. When we got back from dinner we did a lot of goofing off, talking, playing video games and being silly. That's my favorite thing about the gathering- just hanging out with my friends.

Monday
August 9th At this point everyone is wholly exhausted, since we stayed up til the wee hours of the morning. Still, knowing that we had to be in the hotel lobby for the La Ronde trip by 10am, we all woke up early to get ready. Flanker, Ian, Liz, Julie, Karlyl and I wandered down to the underground mall and had tea cakes and other pastries. Flanker had a very large cup of coffee, which woke him up more by burning his tongue and less by caffeine :D And since few things at the con ever start on time, we didn't actually get out of the hotel until something like a quarter to 11.
What can I say about La Ronde? It's an amusement park. We rode a few coasters- the Monster was great. It was the world's largest wooden coaster at the time of it's construction, though whether or not that is still true is up for grabs. What a great, great coaster. We also rode the Dragon, the world's cheesiest and silliest coaster. It was amusing for the sake of it's lameness. Liz and I played DDR a few times. By the end of the day it was pretty much just Liz, Julie, Taylor, Ian and I in a group, and we had a great time with each other. Ian had to go home after our day, we were sad to see him go. We wanted to have dinner at La Marche, but despite the fact that they told the concierge they were open til midnight, their doors were locked at 10 when we got there. Dorks. We ended up eating at Tim Horton's, AGAIN. Not that I mind the sandwiches, which are very good. I just seemed to spend a lot of time there this weekend. I kept trying to go to sleep, but with the girls and Taylor chatting in the room, I kept wanting to join in. I didn't want the weekend to end. Liz did a con badge for me, YAY!

Link for photos: http://www.coloden.com/sapphire/g2004.html