This weekend: Fun at a KoL meet. Next weekend: Recovery from hernia surgery. I think that years from now, when I look back, I will enjoy this weekend more.

My first photo at the meet. Here, MrGreenSmiling can be seen (barely) in our hotel room, which was still presentable, unlike how it looked forty-eight hours later, after it got indoctrinated into the world of KoL.

The hotel was across the street from a cemetery (or, to those less eloquent, a corpse grove). MrGreenSmiling and I determined that this made it good that we had a room on the third floor, because if the area ended up having issues with zombies, we'd hear the noise and screaming and gunfire from the people they met at ground level, and we'd have plenty of time to prepare to defend ourselves and visually assess the situation while all the poor saps on the first floor were being eaten. And, considering the guy at the desk refused to so much as lift a finger to provide me with another towel after every one in our room was filthy, I'm okay with that. (What kind of hotel refuses to provide towels upon request? Jesus...) We were also above the main entrance so even though we were on the third floor, we had the option of escaping out the window onto the roof over the entrance.

Yes, we really did discuss this.

KoLers doing what they do best: Loitering and drinking. This was the only time I was in this room all weekend, so I did not sign the inflatable penis. And yet, somehow, life goes on.

Jelloboi is not evil, he just looks... He just appears to be... I just caught him at a bad... Oh, bloody hell, he's evil, there, I said it.

However, when pinched properly, he will shriek like a six-year-old girl. Seriously, this was Ned Flanders territory. I admit surprise.

I don't know who this is, because the mask masterfully conceals their identity.

TechSmurf and MrGreenSmiling finally meet. They got along well. Everyone gets along well with these two. Along with me, we made up the Cool Hair Crowd.

Though the dorky hat stack look wasn't really for me, and I abandoned it after a trial run in which it was panned by test audiences.

This may be the only picture of Tech all weekend that doesn't show him smiling. Perhaps the hat led to cranial circulation issues. I dunno. Do I look like a doctor to you?

The moment I saw this photo, I knew: Instant Classic [tm]. Need I say more?

Okay, so this picture is full of cute people (and someone's not-so-cute elbow), and TechSmurf is being presented with a vagina on a stick (technically a purple light saber). The truly important thing is the horrific news that Miss America is once again without a tv home. And there's a hockey game on behind them! Why? Why wasn't the Miss America story on every channel? Why wasn't Fox News covering this 24/7? (Okay, Fox News probably was covering it 24/7, but CNN should have, too.) Why were people still allowed to travel the streets of this country freely while this august competition was without a place to be televised?

Seriously, it is my opinion that anyone caught operating a beauty pageant should be shot without trial, and if the contestants are twelve or under, the parents should be shot too.

Ummm... Yeah. I got nothin', so I'm just going to point out that Rutabega once told me that her name anagrams to Rage Tuba. I find that explicably hilarious.

On the left, Princess Sunshine tries to figure out what the hell is happening behind her. In the middle, MrGreenSmiling enjoys the hell out of being at another KoL meet. On the right, my attention-whore finger barges into the shot.

Here, a cow molests a ninja, as is the ninja tradition.

This was the first meet I've attended that was not also attended by MrSkullhead and Jezerfly. However, I don't think that anyone was aware of that when there was brief talk of a MrSkullhead look-alike competition. How they could even think of such a thing when the Miss America competition lacked a tv home is beyond me.

This is a demonstration on some examples and techniques of card tricks. There are times when I would have found this fascinating, but not at 2:30 in the morning in my room when I wanted to go to sleep. This is one of the hazards of KoL meets. The option is to be anti-social and avoid people, but if I want to do that, I'll just stay home. This wasn't that bad, though. The next night (morning), the lights were already out for the night when some people came in to, well, I dunno actually. I do remember the extremely considerate woman who said, "Oh, there are people trying to sleep in here. Okay, I'll smoke fast." Really warmed my heart, you know. The subsequent note that read "Leave us alone or fucking die" is currently hidden behind the dresser between the beds in the room for some future resident to find and wonder about. I do what I can to make people's lives more confusing and baffling.

Princess Sunshine often says negative things about photos of herself. Princess Sunshine generally does not like pictures that are taken of her. Princess Sunshine typically sees herself as looking anywhere from unattractive to downright hideous when photographed. Princess Sunshine is completely out of her mind for genuinely believing this.

Little known historical fact: This particular ship was actually used during the American Revolution. It wasn't armed yet, and the cannons and whatnot were added later, but they put this ship at the mouth of the river and turned it sideways to block the river mouth and prevent the Germans from reaching and attacking cities located on the river. The Germans tried to overcome this by inventing the U-Boat, but they didn't have advanced metallurgy technology so they had to make the U-boat out of compressed cheese, and ultimately the ship's captain, named Jimmy, was able to sink it with his harpoon. True story.

This ship wasn't used in the war. As you can tell from the antenna, it was an early part of the SETI project.

We shoulda had the meet at the Hyatt. I bet we could have gotten rooms on the floor where the bridge traffic goes through real cheap.

I am not putting this photo online, so don't pretend you got to see it, because you didn't. (UPDATE: Okay, to be fair, I should make the following point clear: I got kissed by three people at this con, and two of them were guys named Bob. Actually, that's what I was telling people my first day back at work when they asked me how my weekend was. They'd ask, I'd tell them about the Bob thing, and they wouldn't ask any more questions. They wanted to, but they didn't.)

When operating a camera, it is vitally important to know which end to point at yourself and which end to point at the person you want to immortalize on not-technically-film-anymore.

Karl Dark briefly had a pierced face. That he took it out in less than twelve hours, or roughly half the length of time that Freebird lasts, is not a mystery. What is a mystery is what possessed him to do this in the first place. I do not pretend to understand.

Hester_Prynne is a wonderful person and a lot of fun to be around, and she looks great when you catch her unaware, but for some reason, when she has time to pose for a camera, she's only a set of widened eyes away from achieving an unfortunate, creepy runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks look. (I, of course, always look fine in photos, as you can tell from this page's fine selection of photos from the meet taken with my own camera, intended for my own website, and chosen based on my objective unbiased opinion on what photos are most representative of the meet, representativeness determined by the photo's value in Varjak Units, which measure my ability to come up with a smart ass caption for said photo.) Also she never returned MrGreenSmiling's room card, which we didn't realize until after she'd fled the state, so she can safely assume the Comfort Inn Commandos will be bursting in through her door any second now. Watch out for black helicopters.

I get a palm reading from Lady Farfalle Rouxs The Day while a Guinness commercial takes place behind us.

Words to live by.

Dazz and MrGreenSmiling: Friends for life. (No, not THAT kind of "friend," you goddamn pervert! Jesus! Do you think about your mother with that brain? You disgust me.) When they first met each other they spent about fifteen minutes ripping each other apart, and I think they each convinced the other they're all right. If I hadn't caught the camera flash in the mirror behind them, they might actually be easily visible.

We had Sylar in our room, and his eyes were growing red. If anyone in the area of the hotel was found during the weekend with the top of their skull popped off like a bottle cap, this guy was responsible.

A tarot reading for Princess SUnshine reveals a metric fuckton of swords. Yes, not just a ton, not just a fuckton, but a metric fuckton! Do you have any idea how many that is? It's a goddamn lot of them, that's how many. (Actually, it looks like thirteen to me, but, um, well... That's a lot for a tarot reading. Right?)

I had no clue this is where marshmallows come from. KoL meets are educational, too.

TechSmurf with MrGreenSmiling's severed head.

Another one for the Instant Classic file.

I took a picture of a picture taken by TechSmurf. It came out much better than I expected it to. Later, AiluroDragon took a picture of my picture of a picture taken by TechSmurf, and got someone else to take a picture of his picture of my picture of a picture taken by TechSmurf, and so on. If we can get them all together, we might be able to make an interesting animated image out of them. (UPDATE: Here's the picture a couple of generations along, as taken by Glebs.)

A different approach to more or less the same concept.

We were finally described as something other than a cute couple, which was nice. We were described as "the weirdest fucking couple I've ever seen" by roux, though she also insists we're still cute. My understanding is the rumors about us are far more interesting than the reality, but as a subject of those rumors no one will simply tell me what those rumors are, so I can't say for sure.

"Why, I just had the strangest thought. MrGreen, I would absolutely love it if you put your foot up my ass." "Way ahead of you, Techie!"

MrGreenSmiling shows his pipe to Xlyinia's friend whose name I'm sorry to say I've forgotten, I'm sure she'll clue me in when she sees this (thanks in advance), while, in the background, we see the festive corpse grove. I took a few pictures of her but she must have been as tired as I felt and I kept catching her with her eyes closed. (UPDATE: Xlyinia informs me this is Kyrelle. That would've been about my 231st guess. Thank you.)

I don't remember what this photo was supposed to be, but what I ended up with Princess Sunshine, a pile of hair, and the shocker. I'm so... proud...

The Kingdom took over a Mexican restaurant on Sunday. The best part of our restaurant trips during our meets is the look in the eyes of the person who meets us at the door when they see just how many of us there are and they realize the staff's nice easy day just went completely to hell.

This is my bill as it was handed to me. I know I wasn't recovered from the two nights before because when I looked at this I couldn't understand how my bill came out to $76.51.

She was sitting there when we entered the restaurant. She was sitting there when we were in the restaurant. She was sitting there when we left the restaurant. I truly hope she's not still sitting there.

MrGreenSmiling saw this sign and he asked me to take a picture of it. He really likes the word "Rockhill" for some reason.

On Sunday a lot of people had to check out, but we decided to stay until Monday, so a lot of people dropped off their things in our room until they were ready to go. I don't know how many people did so or who they were, but I'm assuming they worked it out. Later, glebs and associate whose name I don't know barely said a word to us as they came in and went through this bag and then left. If it was their bag, then great, no harm done. If it was someone else's bag, then whoever's it was, I just want to say sorry man, but glebs totally stole your shit. (UPDATE: Glebs has identified "associate whose name I don't know" as Archandia. He did not, however, confirm or deny that this bag is his or hers, so while I expect everything's on the level, there's an outside chance he's setting her up to take the fall if the Comfort Inn Commandos come after him.)

This is Haplo. She has a theme song. Dazz was greeted with it when he entered the room, with his name in place of Haplo's. I would have included that here under a picture of Dazz, but I don't know how the hell to transcribe that particular song, so you get a picture of Haplo instead. I don't know the math on that exactly, but I think it means Dazz wins.

Cuddlepile on my bed. I had to stand on the other bed to get this shot, but you don't care. Later MrGreenSmiling and I were standing on the bed (no I do not remember why) and my head was just short of the ceiling, and he told me "If I jumped now you'd go right into the ceiling." I consider this funny because he said it but didn't do it. If he had just jumped, everyone would have found it funny but me. (UPDATE: I am informed by TechSmurf that it was not MrGreenSmiling who said this, but rather him. Him being TechSmurf, if that was unclear, which I think it probably was. I humbly groveling beg forgiveness for the error and apologize to everyone for any negative side effects that occurred as a result of this, including but not limited to drowsiness, flatulence, insanity, death, or surprise buttsehks. Thank you.)

The cuddlepile continues. Karl no longer has metal rammed through his face. TechSmurf feels up Rage Tuba. Life is good.

Some person committed an act of graffiti on the ceiling light in the hall. That so totally rocks.

Scroll up to the top and look at the first picture and say to yourself, "This is your hotel room." Then scroll back here and say "This is your hotel room on KoL. Any questions?"

The Dread Pirate Wesley (not properly capitalized here) chose this restaurant for dinner on Sunday night. It wasn't especially well lit but the food was excellent. On the way down we passed a Hooters with some letter burnt out so it read "HO     ERS". We also saw someone exiting the highway next to the ramp. Not on the ramp, but next to it, on the grass, slowly following the curve of the road, and Princess Sunshine had left Philadelphia six hours earlier. I enjoyed that meal so much more than I would have enjoyed my original plan of ordering a pizza.

"Yeah, I'm sitting here. Ya wanna make something of it?"

The next time someone tells you the Bible says homosexuality is wrong, you can just tell them that the Bible says penis, as pictured above. That is not my fault. And yes, the Bible is in the bathroom. That is not my fault either. MrGreenSmiling brought it there for some reason. I don't know why. There was plenty of toilet paper left. (No letters about that, please.) Still, you have to admit that as a general rule, a penis will provide more comfort in a time of loneliness than Psalm 23. You should save Psalm 23 for rest in a time of weariness, once you're done with penis. Pushy Psalm 23, trying to be two things... Psalm 23, be happy with what you are!

Wow. I'm yelling at psalms. What a great fuckin' weekend I had...

Abandoned road construction sign in the corpse grove! I call dibs on using the planks to board up the windows to protect against zombies.

This struck me as a rather lame selling point for the hotel. How many people drive along, looking for a hotel, going, "No," "No," "No," and then they see the lights, and sign comes into view, and it says, "IN-ROOM MICROFRIDGE," and they say, "Sweet merciful Jesus, this hotel provides an in-room microfridge? Oh, fuck yeah, we're staying here!" I just don't see an in-room microfridge as being a valid selling point on a hotel, especially one that is resistant to providing towels upon request.

This is the photo they wanted me to take. I'm not sure why. I've learned not to ask too many questions, because asking questions greatly increases the danger that I'll get answers. For example, there was a person I knew in high school named Amanda, but everyone called her Stella Gugenheim. I finally broke down one day and asked her why people did that, and she told me "Because I wouldn't let them call me The Beast From The East."

It was a hard-learned lesson.

Message sent. Hopefully message received.

In case it's not clear, this car has a John Kerry For President bumpersticker on it, and the remains of another bumpersticker that was torn off. I wondered what the other one could have been that the owner felt the need to tear it off if they were willing to leave that one behind. It's kind of like people who say "Fuckin' A." What in the world could the A possibly stand for that you can't say it after you've just used the word "fuckin'." MrGreenSmiling suggested it was a Nader For President bumpersticker. That's a really good guess.

He also suggested that if I could get a picture of motorcycle cops and put them with this picture, I would have chips and salsa. What can I possibly add to that?

Thus ends my pictures of this weekend. There will be no pictures of next weekend. Thank you.