I was at MFF 2012! Did I forget to mention that? Oh well. :3

WARNING - INCOMING WALL OF TEXT!!!

tl:dr version - Saw things! Met people! Ate noms! Fun times! Ermahgerd!!!

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So Thursday evening I went over to  calvinrequin's place to spend the night. Our two other roommates for the con  darkwolf33333 and  craftyandy showed up a bit later. Sleep was had by all, the car was packed in the early pre-twilight hours of the morning, and we set off on our way to Rosemont. One quick stop in my hometown to pick up a badge by  lowlysquid that was shipped to my dad's house, a bit of confusion about the toll roads, and about four hours later, we made it to the Hyatt Regency O'Hare at around 10:50am CST, getting there before Opening Ceremonies as we had hoped.



Opening Ceremonies went great, and established Gangnam Style as the con's theme song for the year, in my opinion. After that my roommates and I set to unpacking our stuff. The art show was a bit late in getting set up by 1pm, so I wandered downstairs to browse the Dealer's Den and Artist's Alley, looking for nothing in particular. I remebered my pet  taras asked me to look around for harnesses, but the only ones I saw were those by  lagarto and they were a bit out of my price range. Sorry hon. Saw my friend  mavuriku in the Artist's Alley, chatted for a short bit and wished her well in her sales.



Met up with my friend  hellkid5500 / Aiko Oller once he got to the Hyatt, went to my room, swapped stories and watched youtube a bit since the programming schedule was a bit light. We visited the Con Suite after the initial rush to get in had died down at around 5:30 and nommed some yummy hot dogs before hopping over next door to Uncle Kage's "Science, Pseudoscience, and Outright Crap" panel and stayed for his Story Hour, both were highly entertaining as always. Left after Kage's Story Hour and said goodbye to Aiko, and went to get dinner noms before the MLP Meet & Greet, run by awesomepony  steelthewarrior. Won a pair of Big Macintosh ears and saw a few very impressive pony videos I hadn't yet stumbled upon.



Saturday began a bit late, 10am-ish, fun times were had with Calvin *winkwink* before getting ready for the day. Went to the showing of an MST3K episode in the Tech Center and now I will never be able to listen to "Take On Me" again without thinking of The Hobgoblins. XD Got lunch noms in the Con Suite, conveniently located next door to the start of the Fursuit Parade. Took some decent parade pics for once, will be posting them here soon. The Charity Auction was next, supporting the lovely ladies at Felines & Canines, a non-profit, no-kill shelter for cats, dogs, and other animals in the north Chicago area. I had donated my +Anima Vol. 1-3 manga books that I hadn't read in years and were still in perfect condition (sold for $20), and managed to snag a piece of original Rainbow Dash artwork from MFF 2011 GOH  thornwolf (bought for $20). I sat with my very good friend  kiratora during the auction, she won a box of soon-to-be-disappearing-from-store-shelves-forever Hostess Cup Cakes. We paid the lovely ladies from Felines and Canines, thanked them for their work and wished them well, and petted their sleepy kittens.



The next event was the much anticipated "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" by The Neo-Futurists. Sat next to Calvin and near Aiko at about the 20th row center. Turned out to be a pretty decent seat, at least a dozen rows closer than where I was able to sit in previous years. Sadly no nudity this year from the Neo-Futurists, but one of the guys did go shirtless for one play, and the overall performance was good. Maybe not as good as the times they performed at MFF in the past, but I'm still glad I attended.



Next on the schedule was the infamous "Whose Lion" panel, which despite neither being on the main stage nor printed on the back of the con badges for everyone (the times of the biggest events like Opening Ceremonies and the Fursuit Parade were printed on the back of everyone's badge - awesome idea, MFF!), it still managed to draw a crowd of over 250 people, a bigger attendance level than that of the AC 2011 "Whose Lion" panel. Not only that, but it attracted so many furs while taking place at the same time as the Furry Variety Show and the Fursuit Dance Competition - Choreography portion. Big thanks to  semjay and  alkalibismuth for hosting yet another unforgettable improv panel. I'm going to have to find a way to play the "Yes/No Questions" game with my friends here at Grand Valley.



My most anticipated non-main-event item on the schedule was Cards Against Humanity on Saturday night at 11pm, in my opinion the greatest party card game ever. I had a great time with the CAH veteran  kaekiama, was incredibly pleased to be joined by  skippyfoxcub as Vin the Fox, talking through his squeaker of course, and big props to  auracle25 for playing the best combo of the night for _____ + ______ = ______ : The KKK + The Three-Fifths Compromise = The True Meaning of Christmas. Photos were taken of this card combo and posted to Twitter and/or Facebook, but I can't find them. If anyone can track them down, please let me know!



The CAH event, scheduled for 11pm - 2am, went on until about 4am - we didn't play for points, we just played for fun. Decided to stop when we either got too tired to keep going, or until we ran out of black cards. The former happened first. I went back to my room but couldn't fall asleep, so I took my laptop down to the lobby and Minecrafted for a while until the Con Suite opened and I was able to wake myself up with a sugary breakfast.



Before the Art Show opened for item pickup I went to the doors right outside the Art Show to check which item(s) I won. There, I ran into  bloodhound, a fur who lives very close to my hometown! I hope we can stay in touch!



The first event I attended on Sunday (first full event, that is; CAH started on Saturday, it doesn't count) was the art auction. There were two pieces I had bid on in the Art Show, one of which I won, so going into the auction there wasn't anything in particular I really wanted. Most of the audience must have felt the same way, because of the 15 or so items on the auction block, only about five of them received bids from the audience, and the first six or seven pieces went to the last bidder on the bid sheets. It was very strange to see that happen. There were only three good bidding wars, one of which I didn't participate in, one of which I won (fuzzy blue wyrm sculpture <3), and one of which I lost. Thank you, Kage, for the lovely shoulder massage you gave me during that last bidding war to encourage me to bid more, but I couldn't afford two $90+ items in the same auction. Sorry for that, and sorry you had to get up so early for such an underwhelming auction. You nevertheless did a great job as auctioneer as usual.



After the Art Auction I had a lot of things to do before Closing Ceremonies. I had to charge my camera battery before the Fursuit Games, pick up a badge I commissioned from Artist's Alley, and pick up the art I won in the Art Show and Art Auction. During my down time between getting those tasks done, I played "You Don't Know Jack" in the video game room. I'd have to say this was sadly the most disappointing event out of all of them that I was looking forward to attending. Last year drew a great crowd, and I was able to play for almost the whole time it was on the schedule. The last game I played last year was a round of four players who had won previous games. I was in last place going into the final round and ended up winning the game, earning the achievement "Taking It From Behind", a great memory from last year. This year, however, was not as fun by a large margin. You furs got smart on me this past year, because I lost all but one of the four games I played. Oh well, it did give me some good laughs.



The Fursuit Games was the last item on the schedule I wanted to go to before Closing Ceremonies. Again, a little disappointing compared to previous years. The games were a bit boring, and didn't give me much opportunity to get very many good pictures or videos. On the plus side, I did get to meet up with my friend  beastboy15 for a few minutes during the games. Great seeing you again, buddy.



Went to Closing Ceremonies with Calvin, the two of us nomming some mixed nuts I snagged right before the Con Suite closed. It was probably the greatest Closing Ceremonies of any con I had been to. Attendance numbers were announced as 3,216 attendees, making Midwest Furfest the new #2 biggest fur con. We raised over $40,000 for the Charity, Felines & Canines, and it's always great seeing the charity representatives crying with joy. MFF's $40,000 donation, as a happy coincidence, pushes the total amount of money donated by furry conventions to animal charities over the $1,000,000 mark. I nearly started crying myself when that figure was announced.



I visited the charity's table one more time and gave the women there one more hug and one more well wishing before heading back to the room, stopping to chat with my good friend  cinderelmcreek along the way. Met up with Calvin in the room, watched some Louis C.K. standup on youtube together before going back downstairs and wandering around. Watched some great break dancers doing dance battles, where I got some awesome videos (links coming soon). Nommed some yummy pizza with Calvin at the O'H American Grill right before the kitchen closed. Got to bed at around 2am for... um... reasons. XD



Monday was your pretty standard "leaving the con" day. Out of the hotel around 11:30, got food at Denny's along the way, more confusion about toll roads, and an otherwise uneventful drive back to Grand Rapids. Spent a bit more money during the weekend than I had intended, but hey, you can't put a price on memories.



To everyone I spent time with who didn't get shoutouts, sorry for forgetting you here, but you all made this my best MFF yet! I hope I never have to miss a Midwest Furfest, so you will definitely be seeing me back there next year!