Dragon*Con 2005 report, pt. 4
Sunday, 9/4
Sunday I decided to finally drag out the only costume I’d packed, my Enterprise uniform. On a whim, I headed to the Dealers’ Room where a booth was selling animal ears, and found a pair of ‘cat ears’ which perfectly matched my head hair. The combination had unexpected results; all day, people decided I was dressed as John Candy from Spaceballs, and I was in too good a mood to correct anyone. I must have been asked to pose 7 or 8 times, so my vanity was well stoked. Costuming felt good. I will be bringing more outfits next time.
I suppose it’s possible that more people saw Spaceballs than ever saw an episode of Enterprise.
Headed to one of Connor Trineer’s panels in hopes of a picture with him, but the line outside the ballroom in question stretched practically into the next hotel. A shame, as he was always my favorite part of Enterprise. I wandered instead into a MSTing of The Empire Strikes Back, which to my great surprise, was hilarious. I’d always assumed you couldn’t MST an actually good film. Another panel with the actors who portray the Weasley twins in the Harry Potter flicks had been cancelled, so I wandered about the con for a while, making most of my actual purchases.
It was either today or the day before that I picked up my favorite bit of loot: a brand-new copy of Fourth Edition Shadowrun, personalized to me by Mike Mulvihill (inventor of Shadowrun) and Jordan Weisman (inventor of FASA and WizKids). My wife rocks, BTW.
The masquerade was broadcast on the hotel TV network, so we opted to watch from the comfort of our room. Some of the costumes were incredible – the three Warhammer 40K Space Marines, painted not realistically but as if painstakingly detailed by a giant with a telephone-pole sized paintbrush, were completely stunning – but believe it or not, Technicon and Rising Star’s masquerades run smoother and more professionally. Honestly! Perhaps at Dragon*Con’s level, it’s just too much to easily handle, but we local con staffs have nothing to be embarrassed about.
EDIT: Oh, and speaking of such, they had one filker, a relatively famous one on the con circuit, cover the kids’ costume judging; and another one cover the main judging. Keith, we have to get you to Dragon*Con. The first guy had fair material, but no singing voice to speak of. The second guy might be useful in extracting information from suspected terrorists. White Plectrum may not be as well known, but honestly – not as a fanboy at all – it’s a better act.
Masquerade over, and the hotels start truly rocking for the last evening of the con. The noise several floors up is quite distinct, and according to people’s photo journals, some of the best hall costumes of the weekend came out. Sadly, your hero is old and tired. I didn’t leave the room after we turned off the TV, and conked out before midnight.
Dragon*Con 2005 report, pt. 5
Monday, 9/5
We got packed quickly on Monday morning. Experienced con-goers all, none of the three of us had packed much or strewn it about. and we were checked out by 10:30 or 11. The Hyatt had started handing out custom Dragon*Con room keys on Friday, and we’d missed those by checking in on Thursday; but they were giving away blank ones Monday morning, so I snagged a couple for Rain and myself.
Final con wandering occurred. On one of her few breaks, Rain dragged me into the Exhibitor’s Hall where she bought my anniversary present (she jokes that WizKids bought it, since the money came from the sale of a bit of her terrifyingly vast Limited Edition figure collection).
The con forced valet parking on us Thursday, so we were glad to be able to fit all our stuff on a single luggage cart for when they brought the car back around. We made it out by 1, grabbed lunch, and hit the road. Thanks to good planning, we were back in the land of less painful gas prices by the time we needed to fill up. (We stopped for gas at Fuel Club. I’d say more, but we all know you do not talk about Fuel Club.)
We listened to all 12 half-hour episodes of the original two Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series in the car on the way back 🙂 I got home at around 11:30pm, was greeted by a loudly indignant cat, and just as in the days before, had not trouble at all dropping swiftly to sleep.
Thus endeth my first Dragon*Con experience. I wanna go again next year.
Dragon*Con 2005 report, pt. 3
Saturday, 9/3
It’s been over a week, so lots of stuff about the con are fading. But I still remember a bunch, like the Lisa Hayes costumer in the elevator in a nice SDF-Macross dress uniform (original TV series). I think she was pleased someone recognized it. There were 3 or 4 uniforms from the old V miniseries, and even a large group of Stonecutters from the Simpsons. While Neos and Trinities and Agents weren’t hard to find, I was pleased to see a well-done Morpheus who looked the part.
The only panel I managed to attend all day was a panel on casting makeup appliances from liquid latex. It was very informative, and there’s no doubt that it makes a lot more sense to buy unless you absolutely need a custom piece. Sadly, the first thing one needs for the process is some sculpting ability, which I’m short on; I took it better, though, than the one fan who got very angry that the panel wasn’t going to teach her to sculpt.
I was pleasantly surprised by one attribute of the con. Crowded it was, and rhaps‘ head probably would have gone all ‘splody by mid-Friday. But it wasn’t the packed mosh pit I’d expected – I rarely had much trouble getting to where I needed to go, and never felt dangerously short on elbow room or oxygen.
When dinner rolled around, we tried to eat at a nearby Steak and Ale, but it was a 90 minute wait, so we ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe in Atlanta (my first time in a Hard Rock!) instead. Still lots of congoers there, and some even in costume. I felt sorry for the half-dressed catgirl in a tearful argument with two males outside another restaurant on the way back.
When I got back to the con, I hooked up with a hot gamer chick, headed up to her room, and slept with her. (Translation: Rain’s roommate let her know she’d be out all night, so I got to cuddle my sweetie for the first time all weekend. Too bad sleep was all we could manage *smirk*)
That garment is not available at your security clearance.
Card Night was at our place last night, instead of at team_kitty‘s place. This had the advantage that we didn’t have to fight yups for use of the clubhouse at Kitten’s apartment complex, plus shorter drives for some people – with gas prices the way they are, this means something. (I’m not sure I could afford to make Rising Star this year if it weren’t for the fact that I miss everyone there so badly!)
We played my new copy of the Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game last night – with 8 players and a new game, it ran very long. The Computer killed off three of each Troubleshooter’s clones in mid-game because of the traitorous amount of time the missions were taking 😉 But the game itself was great… there was much cheerful backstabbing, though the players took a while to understand that it was body count that would eventually win the game. It had that perfect Paranoia feel, though, and I think I might have more people interested in a few sessions of the RPG.
I’m running out of time to assemble my EmCee costume for Rising Star this year. It would help if a) my bank account was healthier, and b) if I actually had a final idea picked out. I’d love to have this Halo Master Chief armor I saw at Dragon*Con… it vaguely fits into the con’s ‘mecha’ theme… but neither of the websites that feature it are actually selling copies at the moment, and it would probably be hard to hear me through the helmet.
Speaking of the con, I will probably finish the report today. Probably.
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.
Dragon*Con 2005 report, pt. 1
Thursday, 9/1
I couldn’t sleep Wednesday night – a combination of a wired state and generally poor sleep lately anyway. I had to get up quite early to get cleaned up, tuck last-minute stuff in the suitcase, and make a trip to the bank. I finally got to meet thatwhichisgene – a very intelligent, charming fellow, even if we don’t agree on Shadowrun and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Gene made good time driving down, and we arrived less than 9 hours out from Norfolk – without speeding! Gas was as high as $7.00 a gallon in Atlanta, so after determining that the rented station wagon’s tank was good for about 400 miles, we made sure to gas up about 150 miles out where the prices were more reasonable.
On Thursday evening, the Dragon*Con registration lines are non-existent – I strongly recommend getting one’s badge this early. Hall costuming was already starting, though the Con was not to begin until 9:00 the next day. I found David Allen (once of Starfleet, now of Plan Nine Publishing) outside the registration hotel, and chatted for a few minutes before returning to the hotel where I was staying.
Dragon*Con 2005 consisted of three hotels – the Hyatt, home of filking, gaming and half the panels; the Marriott, home of two dealers rooms, the art show, an artists’ walk, and more panels; and registration, buried in the Atlanta Hilton. I stayed in the Hyatt. It wasn’t as crowded as the horror stories would have had me fear, but the five elevators where always unusably queued. Luckily, our fifth-floor room was easy to walk up and down to and from. (Room 523 – a nice Discordian number.) During the con weekend itself, every room in the Hyatt was occupied by con-goers: one wasn’t allowed in the hotel without a Con badge. The street between the Hyatt and the Marriott was blocked off for Con traffic. I began to get the idea that this was a big con.
It was late. I was pooped. I went to bed.
Deep breath before jumping in the deep end
Grumpy me pokes his head out of his LJ cave and says, “write some stuff, it’ll help you get over yourself”.
I have a job interview tomorrow, and tonight I work a trial shift at a typesetting job. If either one of these jobs works out to a steady paycheck, I can stop sweating and resume planning for the future. I’ve been filing unemployment claims with the state for a month now, and haven’t seen check one, so things are pretty tight.
I’ve missed every summer con I wanted to go to this year because of money issues. Bleh. This is, of course, part of the general fan experience – not news to almost anyone reading this journal – but it’s still disappointing. I keep reading about cartoonists and gaming people who will be at DragonCon and grumping.
Moving my Doctor Who episodes over to DVD so I don’t have to drag around the laptop for showings; it’s a lengthy process, involving converting the episodes to DV streams, and then letting iDVD convert them back down to MPEG-2 files. Unfortunately I don’t have software that will skip the middle step. I hope the quality stays okay, there’s clear artifacting in the AVI files already. A friend pointed out that the first season never managed to get to an alien planet – only England, Utah, and a couple Earth-orbit space stations. I hope the second season’s more ambitious.
We watched Constantine a couple nights ago. It’s an okay flick if you don’t think too hard about the religious aspects involved… which, for obvious reasons, is next to impossible to manage. It’s not even that I disliked the movie, it’s just that I kept thinking, “But, but, but…” afterwards. It was also a shame that the movie was unable to rise above killing off the three obvious redshirts.
One thing is now clear to me in WoW; soloing sucks, partying generally rocks. This has of course been obvious to most of the players of the game for ages, but I am sometimes slow. Clearly I must bite the bullet (WoW does have firearms) and find more folk to group with on a regular basis.
Booklist: finished Eragon (N), Wizard’s Holiday (N), Debt of Honor – Tom Clancy (R), Just a Geek – Wil Wheaton (N), Catch Me If You Can – Frank Abagnale (R), First Lensman + Gray Lensman + Second Stage Lensman – E.E. “Doc” Smith (R), A Morbid Taste For Bones + The Hermit of Eyton Forest – Ellis Peters (R). I wish I could find my copy of Doc’s Galactic Patrol – methinks that I’ll need to start haunting used bookstores again, which is how I got the Lensman books in the first place. I have been putting off reading Chobits 6 because it’s been long enough that I’ll want to re-read the comic from the beginning, and I’ll probably also want to be able to afford 7 & 8 soon thereafter. BTW, I’d recommend anything on this list. Eragon especially was interesting to me by being remarkably unoriginal, yet well-written enough that I look forward to the next volume.
Oh, good lord, avoid The Reality Dysfunction. Nothing at all happens for 300 pages; dozens of characters are introduced and then left by the wayside; and then we start the lovingly, orgasmically detailed torture scenes of animals and small children. Really. I darn near threw the book across the room, and I certainly won’t be finishing it. My guess is that the author has serious issues to work out, but I don’t see any need to let him do so through me at $7 a book for a six-book series.
I’ll let everyone know how the job thing pans out!
Ringworld and kabobs
A poster on websnark this weekend pointed out exactly what’s bothering me about the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds trailers; they make it look like a run-of-the-mill disaster flick. Instead of concerning invading aliens, most of the scenes in the trailer could be cribbed from any asteroid impact – tidal wave – volcano – invading commies / killer bees / killer tomatoes / plague-carrying R.O.U.S. – movie.
Finally finished Ringworld’s Children. It was substantially better than The Ringworld Throne, and had an interesting bit at the end that nevertheless seems somewhat implausible for a Larry Niven novel. Still, two months to finish a single genre hardcover is a depressing record for me, and the Public Library isn’t much happier about it. 🙁
Scientifically implausible, with spoilers
