Dragon*Con 2005 report, pt. 2
Friday, 9/2
It was kinda weird to wake up at a Con hotel before the Con’s started. Despite an attempt to mark the interesting early-morning panels in the 100-some-page program booklet, I got a slow start on Friday, and blew them off. Instead, I wandered over to the Marriott to see if the dealers’ room had opened.
Accidentally, I sat down to rest exactly where the WizKids envoys were meeting. One knew me, and the others reacted well when I dropped raininva‘s name. As a freshly-renewed Envoy myself, I was offered the opportunity to help out, but declined, as I needed a “vacation” con over a “working” one.
The Exhibitors’ Hall held larger dealers, such as game companies and prop dealers, and the Dealers’ room had the smaller stores and such. There was plenty in both I’d have bought with an unlimited budget; several times during the weekend, I had to ask myself, “If you take that gaming book home, will you ever actually use it?”
I wandered back into the lobby, and started to feel a real case of costume envy. There were so many incredible outfits there; I really wish I’d had time to pack more of my stuff. Not that much of it would be competition, but it might have been fun to show off anyway. I won’t bother trying to list everything I saw, as that would be boring. It started to get a little depressing, honestly – I could have worn anything I own and not looked out-of-place – and there I stood in jeans and t-shirt. I felt like an arch-conservative.
I went back upstairs for a badly needed nap, as the laps of the hotels in the warmth of Atlanta (and 30,000 fans) were beginning to get to me. Rain called to let me know she was on the final leg of her flight in, so I wandered down to the Food Court joining the Hyatt and Marriott: a tunnel leads to the local metro station, where she’d have been coming in. I misremembered her arrival time, though, and her plane was delayed and the flight’s luggage held up, resulting in me spending about 2.5 – 3 hours in that food court. I saw lots more great costumes, though, and recognized the trademark t-shirt and flame-boots of Jennie Breeden, author and artist of webcomic The Devil’s Panties. She needed directions to the Hyatt, and I talked briefly to her while taking her there. Very nice lady. I’m sure she thinks I was a borderline stalker.
Rain finally made it to the Con, and we went to the WizKids Envoy Appreciation dinner. Good food, and we learned to play WizKids’ first CCG, High Stakes Drifter. As well, Rain got to see something very very very cool at the Dinner which readers of her journal should get to hear about soon.
Tired. Slightly overheated. Rain went to the room WizKids had arranged for her, and I headed back up to mine. Fell into bed and blanked out.
3:00 Panel on Tail- and Ear-binding
Oh, I forgot to mention today’s Narbonic webcomic, in which Arnie the superintelligent gerbil has been accidentally locked in a human form, at least for now. Apparently, some of his other hyperintelligent lab animal friends on the Internet don’t believe him, and are accusing him of being a “thumbie”. No doubt there are thumbie-themed cons, animals who construct bareskinsuits, and thumbie porn 🙂
I think “Kevin and Kell” did that joke once too. Still funny, though.
Checking in
I’ve been gone for a while, here. Sorry about that, but I’ve been going through a rough time and haven’t been feeling quite outgoing enough to post stuff here. But I’ve got a lot of backed-up reviews and links, now, so I’ll at least slap them up here before they spill over.
Fantastic Four: Decently cast, well-executed, and pretty dull, at least until the last half hour. If you know some science, be sure to bind and gag that knowledge and lock it in the car trunk before entering the theater 🙂 OTOH, isn’t it great to be a comic-book fan in an year where the worst superhero movie of the summer is still fairly decent, and the best is Batman Begins?
War of the Worlds: Not necessarily better than the George Pal version, but certainly prettier. I sure would like to see Spielberg’s people do a Godzilla or Battletech flick – at least I would believe all the visuals. This is the first version of the story I know of that gives humanity a glimmer of a workable tactic against the aliens before the traditional denouement takes care of things. It would have been nice if they’d somehow worked a USS Thunderchild into the river crossing scene.
Half-Blood Prince: Far superior to Order of the Phoenix, both IMHO and in an unscientific poll of people I’ve asked. Hard to talk about it much without causing spoilers or boredom, but Tonks and Lovegood (not a 70’s cop show) are still two of my favorite characters.
Shortpacked! on why there will be a few changes to the G1 characters in the Transformers live-action flick.
Shortpacked! again on Batman reaching the pinnacle of human reflexes and agility.
Brad Hicks on “The Spaceship We Have”, parts one, two, and three. He talks about why we have the Space Shuttle instead of the equipment every space geek in the early sixties thought we were going to have by now; and why that’s going to be a real problem real soon.
The stars are right again
This is my Sci-Fi Horoscope, from a link seen on tzel‘s journal. I’m only posting this because it’s completely accurate:
Kirbii (Oct. 14—Nov. 20)
You will be unable to shake the feeling that society at large would be improved by even more chunky, quasi-cubist levitating machinery of mystic origin, as well as the increased use of triple exclamation points by the general populace.
You don’t know the power of the geek side…
Eric Burns, of Websnark.com:
“I’d like to go into depth on the Jedi philosophy, on the core of Hubris that led to the Fall of the Jedi Order, on the nature of denial and of ossification, and on the ways that Qui Gon Jinn represented, thematically, a break from all that in his methodology which led step by step to the next three movies and the redemption of the Jedi in the Expanded Universe. I would. And I’d like to show how David Willis has highlighted this succinctly. I even accept that if I did so, I’d never, ever get laid again. Somehow, this thesis would cling to me like lack of hygiene and even geek grrls would pause upon seeing me, say “well, no. Not him,” and move on.”
Instead, he just points us to this “Shortpacked!” comic. Which is freaking hilarious.
Oh, and I’ve stumbled upon a site with more remixes of the Doctor Who theme than any sane soul would ever need.
Captain’s Blog…
He shouldn’t have spent the latinum on that AssimilatedJournal account.
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/649.html
Rulebooks and Reviews
I have another gaming credit now, from a different company, no less. The rulebook for WizKids’ “MechWarrior: Age of Destruction” has been posted in PDF format, and Rain and I sit comfortably on page 47 as playtesters.
Rain and I watched “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “All The Queen’s Men” this weekend. ATQM was only worth watching for Eddie Izzard’s lines – it didn’t seem to know whether it was a comedy, a romance, or an espionage caper, so it failed at all three. And while I wouldn’t suggest that years of experience playing Shadowrun qualifies Rain and me as intelligence agents, that experience did reveal several big plot issues to us long before the trained secret agents noticed them. “Thomas Crown” opened and closed with better capers – the ending had us going, “Ohhhhhh…” – but the hour in the middle was tedious and irritating.
We’ve noticed in movies like “Ocean’s Eleven”, “National Treasure”, and these two that we’re often a little ahead of the film’s twist; this adds to the fun if the movie’s good anyway, and makes a weak movie weaker.
In the spirit of the breakdancing Soundwave, here’s another transforming mech that wants to boogie While I’m linking, southernsinger should find the premise behind this comic strip strangely familiar.
Happy belated birthday to jazzfish 🙂
It’s a… uhh… bunker! Yeah!
All the Battletech players, Clix players, Warhammer 40K players, and modelers on my friends list need to read today’s Dork Tower.
(hmm… that’s a big chunk of my friends list, isn’t it…)
Monday POEE e-supplement
Officials discuss postponing Election Day, fearing terrorism: would this not be another case of handing terrorists the very victory they ask for, that of disrupting our society and political process? Assuming an attack was planned, would not competent terrorists be able to adjust their plans for a postponement? Do we really want to give our government the power to delay elections as long as they feel necessary? When I was younger, I read the Reader’s Digest version of The R Document; a tale of a government conspiracy to declare martial law in the US and suspend the Bill of Rights indefinitely. Of course, I enjoyed it as a fantasy tale that “can’t happen here”.
Speaking of reading, I finished Perdido Street Station this weekend. I picked up the book after hearing much hype about this winner of multiple awards and runner-up for others. Book review
