Okay, a little backstory before the pictures. This trip got off to a somewhat rougher start than usual. The plan was simple. My friend MrGreenSmiling would drive down to my house, and he'd leave his car there while we drove my car from Wilkes-Barre down I-81 to Harrisburg, then hop over to I-83 to Baltimore, and hopefully arrive between 4 and 5 PM. No problem. However, MrGreenSmiling has been working snow removal at his workplace, which means he's been busy beyond description recently, what with the foot and a half of snow containing a layer of several inches of sleet in the middle. (This storm also cost me a day of work and led me to state to management where I work, in writing, that the company places monetary considerations over human lives. I can't imagine they're going to like that.) He had to change our plans because of the storm and I had to go pick him up, which was fine. He was a little later getting back from work than he expected, so I turned on the news at noon to see how the highways were doing, since there had been closures. The lead story? I-81 was closed over a stretch from--wait for it--Wilkes-Barre to Harrisburg! Perfect! Thank you sir, may I have another! I quickly went online and pulled up alternate directions using the Turnpike, which I couldn't print out for various reasons, so I scrawled the directions quickly on the back of the other now-useless directions. Then I killed time waiting for the call from my compatriot MrGreenSmiling (Robin to my Batman, Smithers to my Mr. Burns, Ron Weasley to my Harry Potter, Wendy to my Welcome To Jamaica Have A Nice Day). He called a little after one, and I headed north to pick him up, only a small crisis had prevented him from packing, and it turns out he packs like a woman (no offense, anyone), so he brought about three times as much shit as I did and it took him over an hour to pack it. (He may contest this description. He is cordially invited to get his own website to do so.)

At about 3:30 we finally got to south of where I live, making the chances of completing the four hour trip by 5 PM relatively small. The Turnpike was free because of the storm-related highway closings, which was nice, but the Turnpike goes through Philadelphia, which we hit on Friday at 5:30 PM, which meant bumper-to-bumper traffic for, um, ever, really. Then I-95 in Baltimore, which wasn't much better. We finally got to the hotel around nine. It was a hell of a drive, though MrGreenSmiling helped keep things entertaining, which helped a lot. Finally, though, we were at the hotel, and even as frazzled as I was, I knew things would improve, and I would meet a bunch of friends from previous meets, and make new friends, and get lots of wonderful pictures, many of them incriminating. So here we go!

Oh, Jesus Tap Dancing Christ in a motherfucking chicken basket, you have got to be kidding me! No, no, no! Don't do this to me! This is not happening. This is not happening!

Thankfully, as it turns out, it actually wasn't happening. The corruption was minor and most of the photos came out great, certainly more than enough to put together this nice little photo set. Let's try this again.

Here's how out of it I was after the trip into Baltimore. After I dropped my stuff off in my room, I decided to go looking for the rest of the KoL crowd, see if I could find some familiar faces, including Lillith and LadyBoobsalot, who I figured would probably be with just about everyone else down in the conference room. I walked down the hall toward the staircase, because it's always seemed a bit silly to me to take an elevator down one floor. I walked to the end of the hall, past a few people who were lingering outside the door to the last room in the hall, and started toward the stairs when someone (not quite) literally jumped on my back to get my attention. I turned and saw it was Lillith. She and LadyB were both in the group of people I had walked right past, focused as I was on tracking down Lillith and LadyB downstairs. Made me feel real bright, that did. Fortunately, I later went to the get-together in BlueFish's room and had a bit to drink, which cleared my head right up.

I admit I'm a bit miffed that yet again I failed to get a picture of LadyBoobsalot, also known as Little Miss Hotel Drama Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, who continues to try despite never having any luck. Those wishing to congratulate her for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the next meet can do so at the rickety plywood and blanket structure set up in front of a burn barrel located about a block from the hotel where the meet is, just far enough away that they don't call the police on her.

And just to make it clear for those who may have wondered, there was absolutely no party in Lillith's room, so we can put those rumors to rest right now. Thank you.

"But occifer, I swear I only had one drink!" Personally, I don't drink much, so I am pretty much certain that this one drink would have knocked me completely on my ass. She would have too, if I had come off with the line about her shirt that one of the kids did. I'm glad the comment never even occurred to me. (We love you how you are. Don't change.)

I am sure that there is some fabulously witty thing I could say here about how "Doc Trauma's face is completely obscured by her penis," but for the life of me I can't figure out how to make it work, so I'm not even going to mention it.

For some reason, every time I look at this photo of Princess Sunshine and Mr Skullhead (or, tragically, as I keep saying it in my head, Princess Skullhead and Mr Sunshine), I get this mental image of him saying, "Wow, do you suck. This is the worst game of Hide And Seek ever." Then I start giggling to myself. I think that "some reason" is almost certainly sleep deprivation.

For every picture I take that turns out well, I end up with two like this. Thank goodness for digital photography, which saves a ton of money on film.

You never know what's going to happen at our parties. God, I love KoL meets. There may have been some purpose to what was going on here, but I don't know what it might have been. Don't care, either. Things got even more interesting and shocking, as you can see from my next picture.

Son of a bitch! All right, so you can't see it in this picture. Just try to imagine it, though. Seriously, go on and imagine it. It'll leave you interested and shocked. And a little sickened, too, if you imagine it right.

"But occifer, I swear I only had one bottle!"

Me and Princess Sunshine. Figuring out which of us is which is up to you. Apparently there was some sort of law passed that required everyone to describe us as "a cute couple." I'm not complaining.

"If there's one thing in the world I need right now, it's more cock!" Actual quote. Poor bastard--we'll never let him live it down, and I'm doing my part.

I thought the "breast cancer screening" excuse was a bit obvious, but he didn't seem to mind.

This one really speaks for itself, doesn't it?

MrGreenSmiling got into the swing of things real quick. For the record, he takes credit for corrupting me. So does Jezerfly and some of the KoL gang. So do the people I work with. Everyone is missing the boat on this one. The fact is, I'm already corrupted. I just tend to be quiet about it, so people don't realize it right away. When I met him, MrGreenSmiling was clean-shaven and had a buzzcut, and now look at him. I think I should start taking credit for corrupting him. (The only problem is, anyone with even a passing acquaintance to the two of us will never believe it.)

Princess Sunshine complained my eyes are closed in way too many pictures of me, and looking through my photos, I have to agree. Let me see if I can do something about that.

Apparently I can't. Don't say I didn't try.

This is stinkbug on the left, unless my unfailing memory has failed me yet again (as it has with the person on the right... I'm sorry. Lemme know who you are and I'll identify you, unless you'd rather not be identified. The same goes for anyone else in my photos--if you want to be identified by name, just let me know). Anyway, I have way more stories about cheese than stinkbug does. It's kinda hard to explain how we discovered this... Let's move along.

This really surprised me. Apparently at some point during the weekend some sort of subspace parallel universe dimensional vortex opened up and I didn't even notice despite getting a picture of it somehow. What are the odds?

Ah, poor Naners. She lost her voice on Thursday before the meet. Perfect timing. I don't know whose idea it was for her to carry around a dry erase board to communicate, but it was a total stroke of genius. More on this as we go along.

This duct tape suit is one of the greatest things ever. I imagine it would have been better if the wiring in the staff hadn't crapped out so the gem would light up red. As it was, he got some wonderful stares in the lobby from the non-KoL crowd. The only sad thing about this is the clear picture it paints of time's impact on Bob Mackie.

Here, MrGreenSmiling determines that his expensive camera would best serve him as a doorstop. My camera, on the other hand, I got for free at work, and it still works fine despite the structural damage it suffered when I dropped it on the concrete at the St. Louis meet. Well, fine except for the few pictures that corrupted... *sigh*

If this man had any idea at this point what was coming, he would've gone back to his room and gone to sleep right after this picture was taken. That he didn't is to the benefit of the rest of us.

Elevator shots. Captive subjects. Boo-yah.

I believe it was right after this that MrGreenSmiling said to me, "Everyone looks great. Everyone here looks great... You should change." I know I overdressed for prom. I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.

See? Totally overdressed. What the hell was I thinking?

Here's the cute couple now! (Well, not THE cute couple. One of many.) This picture was taken from a less-than-ideal distance from the subjects of eight inches.

Between the facial expressions and the red eyes, I don't think this photo could have come out any worse. Naturally I'm putting it online.

I didn't attend my school proms, so I don't know if limbo is standard. I suspect not, but I also suspect that this was enough fun that no one really cares.

The song Pour Some Sugar On Me led to quite a line of dancing people. It was great watching as the line grew.

And grew...

...and grew...

...and grew...

...and spawned new lines... It's a good thing the song is only about four minutes long, becuase I think the prom was only about two or three minutes away from reaching critical mass, with lines snaking out from the hotel in all directions, drawing in more and more people in Baltimore, surrounding states, neighboring countries, maybe even spreading through the aforementioned subspace parallel universe dimensional vortex. As it turned out, though, the song ended and everyone drifted off. Kinda anticlimactic, really.

Here's Princess Sunshine and Xlyinia.

Here's Princess Sunshine and Xlyinia again.

Here's Princess Sunshine and Xlyinia one more time.

Naners and her board, updated.

The happy and lovely prom King and Queen, pictured here in the earliest stages of plotting their revenge. The next day I thanked Merle for all he did for this con, and said, "And your reward was getting to dance with jelloboi. No good deed goes unpunished." Frankly, both of them handled it with grace and dignity.

More or less, anyway.

This is us. If you have to ask who us is, you have not been paying any attention and will fail the test at the end of this chapter.

Naners sign grows more surreal. This was without a doubt my favorite dry erase board message of the night.

"Oh my god! They killed Skully!" "You bastards!"

This is one of the cooler shirts I've ever seen, seen here on Kitch Wing of Angmar, who I didn't get to talk with too much, but I have nothing but good things to say about him.

Another cool shirt.

MrGreenSmiling wanted me to take more pictures of him. I'm not sure this is what he had in mind.

The actual conversation here? Me: "It's a lot colder out today, isn't it?" Her: "Yes, I am Queen Of The Fucking Universe, thank you for asking." And thank you for your efforts in coordinating the meet. The people who put these things together just don't get enough credit.

I printed out a map so I wouldn't get lost on the way to or from Baltimore. It worked out well.

The last photo I took in Baltimore. (UPDATE: Xlyinia has informed me that this is her favorite picture of herself taken at the con, which I am taking as high praise. In your FACE, Femmy!)

We hit snow on the way back. That was just what we needed. The snow hit, um, about a mile before Delano would be my guess. Just a hunch.

If you ever take I-81 through Pennsylvania, there's a point right outside Hazleton where the Interstate runs along the side of a mountain, midway up, with a fabulous view of the valley that extends for miles. It is one of the best pieces of scenery you'll find on an Interstate anywhere. MrGreenSmiling managed to get a few pictures for me before the batteries finally died completely. This one is okay. The next one was the best.

Oh, son of a bitch! That's it... I quit!