Went to the 4th HarmonyCon over the weekend. The trip down was much better this time. Attendance was 1,081 this year. A big jump from last year. The con was pretty good. The only VA guests were Bill Newton, and Nicole Oliver, the latter being the main reason for me going. I could finally get my Cele and Daybreaker trucks autographed by her.
 One of the highlights was a plushie meetup on the last day, which drew in at least 500 plushies, including my collection of 40 (incl. my G1 Firefly I've had since my single digits. My collection is the top left photo, and my Luna is in the big pile too).
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
 (that Cadance is actually someone in a fursuit)
And my collection expanded by one while there: In the form of a giant Luna plushie (body 3' long, length horn to tail tip 5') which surprisingly cost less than a grand. Also got an awesome Kerfuffle custom.

Here's my haul:
 visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Full story here: https://www.deviantart.com/lonewolf3878/journal/HarmonyCon-2023-950482839

 I was sure we had seen the last of conventions when the pandemic started, but they've been slowly coming back with restrictions, and after only being online last year, Harmonycon was back at a new place (the old hotel went under thanks to financial troubles capped by the virus); the Sheraton next to DFW airport. The restrictions was masks all the time and proof of vax or negative test (other pony cons were only allowing vaxxed people which doesn't sit right with me).
 
 Once again though I had to deal with winter weather for the trip. Kansas got hit by a big storm that ended early afternoon Thursday, and I was going to leave around 2AM Friday, so I was sure the roads would be uncleared by then. I was constantly checking the road condition sites for KS and OK, and even called a couple of the KS Turnpike service areas when the KanDrive site wasn't updating. Things seemed to had been cleared, so I waited until 5AM to leave.
  Well the first 100 miles was a slow white knuckle drive as the turnpike was not completely clear, and there were plenty of snow and ice spots left. I seldom got above 45mph, and there were times I felt my truck's wheels spinning out. Finally south of Wichita things got better and by the time I reached Oklahoma the interstate was dry. The only other delays were 4 spots of construction in OK where traffic was at a standstill. I finally got to the con at about 2PM which meant missing the opening ceremonies.

 It took another hour to get checked in and unpacked and get into my Flash Sentry cosplay. There wasn't any panels I was really interested in, so I went to the autograph session. Special guests this year were Claire Corlett (Sweetie Belle), Black GryphOn (now engaged to Claire), Ingrid Nilson (Maud), Tony Fleece, Lea Dabssi (does work for G5 including designing Izzy, Sunny, and Sprout), and  the return of Elley Ray (Mistmane). I brought my Celestia R/C pickup to have Claire, Ingrid, and Gryphon sign it (all 3 thought it was awesome), and of course Elley recognized it from the 2019 Harmonycon (when she signed it) and had me drive it around while she filmed it: https://twitter.com/Elley_Ray/status/1494821705294008320 (she is such a character). Later that night I had my entire fleet of R/C pony trucks and cars out:

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Running on fumes from being up over 24 hours, I went to bed around 11PM and didn't get up until after 10AM Saturday, which meant I missed a couple of things I wanted to attend. Got into my Joker Pinkie cosplay (Heath Ledger Joker with a pink and green wig. Couldn't do the face scars and paint due to the mask mandate, so I found a mask printed with the Joker's mouth, then just used facepaint on the upper half of my face) and caught the rear half of the special guest Q&A panel. Elley talked about another pony con where The Joker and Batman were bidding on a charity auction item, and there I was in a full Joker costume .  I stayed and entered the cosplay contest after that (didn't win anything but I wasn't expecting to), then caught the tail end of a panel on storm chasing.
 During the con someone was placing plushies of the OC Anon Filly around the con for people to find. I was in the lobby when they posted one had been planted on Discord with a vague photo of it. I thought it looked familiar so I checked a little room for people to use their laptops about 30 feet away, and there it was.
The rest of the night was just hanging out in the lobby until a "brony roast" panel at 11 which I only stayed for an hour of.
 During that time I decided to eat at the hotel's lounge. As you can imagine the prices were astronomical, but I ordered some brisket mac and cheese for $24. It wound up being a serving big enough for 3 or 4 people and oh man was it good. Took 3 tries to eat it all (glad I got it in a takeout box).

Sunday I got up around 7:30 and finished packing and putting on my NLR pilot cosplay, and after getting some pic's and videos of planes landing at DFW (one approach path was right next to the hotel), headed out to a comic reading by the VIP's. After that it was more hanging out in the lobby until the closing ceremonies. The charity auction raised 12 grand for the Dash Network (nonprofit group helping asylum seekers). At one point Ingrid came out, and in Maud's voice, offered Boulder up for auction (it was an actual rock autographed by her). It went for $500.

  The drive back was way nicer than the drive down. Plus this time Google Maps gave me detours to get around the stopped traffic at the work zones in Oklahoma. The first detour put me next to  some RR tracks and I got a photo of a train as a bonus.

Anyway here's what I got: visitors can't see pics , please register or login

 There was one person selling blind bags and G4 brushables in bags, and they had this g1 for $10. What's the name of the pony?

Edit: Found it. It's winger Lady Flutter.

Went to some city wide garage sales in another town Saturday, and one sale had bagged toys, including a bunch of ponies. They said make offer on the bins, so I got a bin full with the MLP stuff for $15 (the blind bags are worth a dollar apiece so I got my money's worth. Plus 2 of the sparkle BB's I didn't have).
Turned out to be mostly G4 blind bags (including those MLP Busy Book ones) , McD, one Funko, 3 plushies (the Pinkie head is a pouch), and brushables; but also a few G1's and a G3, plus a fakie from the 80's. Unfortunately nearly all of the brushables are bait condition (cut hair and worse). There's also a light up Twilight necklace and a homemade Rainbow Dash charm.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Made my first brushable custom in IDK how long. This time Strawberry Sunrise:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

https://www.deviantart.com/lonewolf3878/art/Strawberry-Sunrise-Brushable-Custom-864754847

She's the strawberry loving pony that infuriated Applejack with her opinion about apples in the episode "Honest Apple".
She's grown on me, and when that happens with a character I have to make a custom of them.






Apples are disgusting.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

http://cheezedoodle96.deviantart.com/art/Character-Strawberry-Sunrise-685707229

2 months after MyLittlePlush in Russia sent her out, my 17" Pacific Glow plushie arrived today. Immediately gave her the glow and pacifier necklaces to complete her. She weighs quite a bit.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Maker's pic's on Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/my-little-plush/art/Pacific-Glow-Plush-842054484

I was seriously wondering if she'd ever show up, but on the 11th of this month Russian Post's tracking finally showed she was in the US.
She's one of the rave ponies that appeared in the FiM episode The Saddle Row Review:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Attended the 2nd year for the con in Addison, TX last weekend. I brought my fleet of R/C trucks and cars to carry plushies around with, and as part of my 80's Shining Armor cosplay; my 9 G1's from my childhood. 4 of which i put on a 1980's vintage R/C Porsche (which many liked):
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


visitors can't see pics , please register or login


I had Kelly Sheridan autograph my Starlight semi, and the Celestia R/C pickup, which she tweeted about:
https://twitter.com/KSheridanVoice/status/1226337121969082369
Also had Brenda Crichlow sign the pickup.

As for the goods: I got a  custom Vapor Trail from Sanada Ookmai  (my 4th from her), a Luna pin from Sophie Scruggs, some other items including a shirt and pin for being a sponsor, and a little Fluttershy beanie plushie by Gleamy dreams, who held a "waifu toss" where people in 2 person teams tossed these into wastebaskets to get points. Winners each got to select one of the beanies used.
The Shining Armor stickers were the con "meme" (someone was putting them everywhere in the hotel, including on my Celestia pickup ).

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


visitors can't see pics , please register or login


They've already announced next year's con. Hopefully I'll be able to attend it.

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/groups/SLN31010.html

Starting Monday the 28th you will no longer be able to upload stuff, and on Dec. 14th all files, photos, and messages will be deleted, and the groups become nothing more than an email list.

If you have a group(s) or are a member of one, there's a program called PG Offline that you can use to streamline downloading stuff from them (you get a 14 day free trial). I'm already using it to  download some groups I had or were a member of. This will include the mylittlepony2 group which was the first MLP place I was active in before coming to the Arena (it's been dead for years). Some of the groups I'm with are moving over to Groups.IO which is a site made by one of the developers for Yahoo groups.

Why Verizon would do this IDK, unless they're worried about illegal file sharing or something.