Hello there, chappies. Got back from my spontaneous trip to Philly the other day, so here's my lil roundup.

Thursday (Arrival)
Took the long flight to Philadelphia, watching the odd movie along the way. Getting to the hotel was surprisingly piss easy, so it wasn't long before I met up with all manner of NGers, including Tom, Luis, Egoraptor, Hans, Happy Harry, Oney, and quite a few ones I hadn't met before including Stamper, Krinkels, MakoPudding (Gretel+Hansel), Brad Borne (Fancy Pants), along with others. After figuring out how to sort out the suites (all graciously paid for by Mr Fulp), we had some dinners at TGI Fridays (conveniently next door to the hotel) before hitting a couple of pubs, where my poor abilities of fishing a cherry out of a Shirley Temple were made apparent. After that we went home for a bit of Street Fighters. I seriously cannot use arcade sticks for these things. Heck, I can play better with the 360 analogue stick.

Friday (Pico Day)
Got out a bed early after being informed by Jonas there was a complimentary breakfast buffet happening at TGIF, and quite yummy it was. (This also happened for the following two days so I shan't repeat.) We then hopped in Luis' car and arrived at the Newgrounds office, where a giant projector was ready to stream all the offerings Pico Day had for us, ranging from the more awesome stuff like Operation Graveyard, to your classic 'NG Staff jacking each other off'. There was also barbecue and a Pico-shaped cake, but the best part had to be the chalk wall. Literally an entire wall (and door) covered in chalkboard material, what else would we NGers do but draw a load of cocks on it. Oh and was there a lot of cocks. I drew quite a few, including some, erm, self portraits, that I'm understandably shy about sticking online. There was also a webcast of the thing, of which I can safely admit was a total twat on. Also got to see a couple of in-progress stuff, such as Pox/Bomtoons' upcoming Abobo game, a hands on of Fancy Pants World 3 and a trailer for that upcoming Newgrounds documentary. Silly me forgot to ask for a tour of the office though. X|

After that, we tried going to a karaoke bar, but it was too full, so we instead went to Luis' house where we played some Street Fighter III and Brawl. I came in 3rd a lot in Brawl. This went up til about 4am, which is probably the reason why some people like Ego didn't show at Baltimore.

Friday (Baltimore Meetup)
After breakfast, we got shoved into various cars, mine mostly being shared with people I don't know who apparently have a hardon for PopEye's, and drove the long drive to Baltimore. After taking forever to park and trudging through the ungodly heat, we made it to the Inner Harbor, where a couple of dudes such as Starogre and Nogfish were, and went to ESPN Zone. I'll say it right now, it has NOTHING on Namco Station (particularly its absence of bumper cars and a place to sit down to chat and play Jungle Speed) but there were some neat stuff, such as arcade games that implemented fans and vibration to give you an immersive feeling of speed. I briefly popped into a place for some sushi and a book store for some Batman books midway. We later went to said bookstore for some cooling beverages and general flaming. After that, it was unanimously decided that Baltimore has bugger all else and returned to Philly, stopping at a Taco Bell along the way where some git clerk gave me a cup of water with some sour cream in it. >=U After that we spent the night watching The Thing, playing some vidyagames, stealing pizza someone else paid for and erm... doing my laundry.

Sunday (kthxbai)
After nabbing a bit of brekky and saying farewell to whoever was awake, I went back to the airport. Getting home was confusing, as when I checked in, I was told that my final connection between Paris and Birmingham was cancelled. O.o Thankfully this turned out not to be the case, but still tedious. Also annoying was the constant malfunctioning of the on-demand service on the flight from New York, where I also somehow lost one of my Batman books =(. And finally, there was a tedious half hour wait for the baggage claim to get its shit together.

So all in all, it was pretty fun. Was perhaps missing a lil of the interaction from the London meets, although that might just be me being an antisocial git. Next stop is San Diego Comic Con in July, followed by the next London Meet in August. Woo.

Flashwise, I didn't have time to make anything for Pico Day, though there is this. There's also a new Cat Face, which is only partly animated by me this time due to the holiday (or as Weebl would put it, 'me going to some furry convention').

Right now, I'm working on getting my final animation for uni, working with some second year students to make it look awesome. One of them's promising 3D cyber penguins. Awesome.

Here's my pics of the weekend's activities, though clearly the best picture is this one taken by Luis. Enjoy the mindfuck, guys.