collacentaur | Entries tagged with cons

I keep thinking I'm going to write full-length posts for some of the things I've been doing, but it's just not happening. So, then, here's the essence of it:

( Where I've been )

( Where I'm going )

( and other random stuff )

Current Mood: content

I've been trying to do a proper writeup of last weekend at Wicked Faire, but between my laptop dying, and the need to actually do work while at work, I've gotten nowhere. So this is the Reader's Digest version:

I have a lovely new corset, thanks to

palingyuan, who went shopping with

oidhche and her co-worker Natalie while I was otherwise occupied. Now I need the rest of an outfit to wear it with.

Speaking of Oid and Paling, take a look at ( this picture: )

That's courtesy of Hugh Casey Photography, where there are many other beautiful pictures of the event. Hugh is a talented photographer, and he's trying to make a business out of doing portraits at events and other such things. I spent most of the weekend working for him, trying to keep things organized and hassle-free so he could focus on the art. I was really pleased to have the chance to be useful.

And I had so much fun! I talked to people from life-before-cons, people I've met more recently, people I was meeting for the first time. I spent the whole weekend talking. Then I had no voice at all for three days.

Pictures of me? Oh, no. No one takes pictures of the photographer's assistant. Mostly.

Current Mood: happy

( Sunday and Monday – In which Scheherazade makes an appearance. )

And so that was Arisia. The office was still standing after my being gone for three days, and my boss managed to not call me even once. Of course that meant it's been crazy catching up. Today, I'm coddling a cold. I don't know whether to blame it on concrud, which I've managed to escape in the past, or reading-to-preschooler crud, which catches me every time. Don't suppose it matters much.

Next up: Wicked Faire, February 18-20, mercifully close to home.

Current Mood: sick

( Friday and Saturday – In which things get very peculiar. )

More to follow!

Current Mood: amused

( Action! Adventure! Romance! (three things you won't find below the cut) )

Current Mood: thoughtful

I can't find the right superlative for my weekend. None of them seem good enough. It was so much better than what I expected.

A brief recap: Last year's Philcon was my first con. I don't think I'd ever even been in a hotel that big, let alone stayed there by myself. I knew exactly one person who was there,

clarkesworld, who I hadn't seen in years. The only other person who talked to me all weekend was one of the panelists on the first panel I went to, who figured out I was a shy scared first-timer and chatted with me then and again later that weekend. The only times I saw people within twenty years of my age were after 10 PM.

After four more cons and two Jeff Mach events, I hope the wide-eyed newbie look had worn off. I'm still terminally shy (just because it hasn't killed me yet, doesn't mean it won't) and terrified of saying the wrong thing, but determined to take the chances anyway. And, as I turned into the Crowne Plaza hotel on Friday evening, I felt like I was coming home. ( What I saw and did )

Next up: Arisia, in Boston, mid-January.

Current Mood: ecstatic

Philcon is only a few days away, and the schedule is not yet posted to the website. This does not surprise me in the least. Last year I think it went up all of 24 hours before the con started. Of course, last year I didn't know that other cons get everything finished with a little more time to spare, so I was more patient. I find that loading the site every 45 minutes or so is not producing results. Sad day.

The panelists did get their panel assignments yesterday, and I've been hunting down posts to find out what I can. First the panelists I actually know. Then friends of friends, friends of Philcon... I wonder whether it would be possible to reconstitute the whole schedule given sufficient webcrawling? Probably not, but it might be interesting to try. However, that pesky gainful employment thing will keep me from finding out.

At least I'm finding a taste of what's in store. No, maybe, probably, none of those... well, THAT'S got my name written all over it... Ooh, I'll go to anything that lets me listen to her talk.

But the burning question in my mind will probably not be answered until the full schedule goes up: Is there a theremin performance, and if so, when and where? Because I wish to be as far away as possible. I have learned that I loathe the theremin with a deep and abiding passion. It's not just because it can be played very badly. The people who play at cons are generally very talented. It turns out that even a well-played theremin still causes a visceral reaction in me which is not quite illness and not quite nails-on-the-chalkboard, but has elements of both. I think it's got to be something subsonic, because I have this problem only with live performances and not with recordings.

Current Mood: impatient

( Said Friday night: I'm in a hotel bar in Connecticut. On purpose. )

Current Mood: happy

I took no pictures, although I had my camera with me the whole time, so I have no visual splendor to share. ( You get only my summary of things done and seen. )

Current Mood: relaxed

I had a delightful time this weekend at the Steampunk World's Fair. The event was a great success. Attendees were plentiful, and a number of the vendors said they did much better than they expected. It seems likely to me that it should easily become an annual event.

Steampunk is not really my thing, of course, and since

demongrey couldn't make it after all, I didn't have a lot of motivation to get to most of the programming. I did see and hear the things I was most interested in.

( A lot of blather about what I did, and a couple of pictures. )

Current Mood: cheerful

The event schedule for the Steampunk World's Fair this weekend has been posted. Now that I can see what's going on when, I'm getting excited. (I'd be more excited if I could print the schedule out. Apparently despite being a PDF, it's not printable.) There are a couple of things I don't want to miss.

Steampunk is not my thing, but this event is practically right on my doorstep (roughly half an hour away), so I'd be crazy not to go when I have the weekend free. I convinced

demongrey that he would enjoy it – not that it was hard – and so most likely he'll be out for the day Saturday. His enthusiasm will probably be infectious.

Current Mood: excited

In today's mail, I received a confirmation of my registration for Balticon.

One might ask why I am receiving this today, when I registered two months ago. One might also ask why I am receiving a paper confirmation of an electronic registration and payment.

However, if there is one thing I have learned about this sort of event, it is that you don't ask. If you do, someone might tell you.

Besides, it's nice to get mail that actually has bearing on my life. The rest of today's mail: a credit card advertisement, a flyer for a clothing store which doesn't carry my size, and an advertisement for a dating service.

Current Mood: amused

I decided spontaneously, by which I mean Wednesday, to day-trip to Lunacon on Saturday. Lunacon hadn't been on my radar, despite being close, largely because I seem to recall that

jaedeth and

demongrey went ten or twelve years ago and didn't much enjoy it. However, upon seeing the schedules of several panelists and finding things I wanted to hear, I decided that wasn't really a good enough reason, not when it's just a little way on the other side of the Tappan Zee Bridge, and thus not more than an hour and a half away.[1]

So, yesterday morning I left home a little before 9:30, arriving in plenty of time to register and browse through the dealers' room before the 11:00 panels. ( Short version: went to panels, chatted with a friend, more panels, then home, plus some general thoughts, and references to the previous cons I attended. )

Current Mood: geeky

( Oh, nothing much, boss... (that I'm willing to tell you) )

Current Mood: cheerful

...in the needing advice and reassurance sense, that is. I can handle the physical part of it. Mostly.

( So on Sunday I'm going to this thing they call the Wicked Faire... )

ETA: picture and another footnote.

ETA2: I think it'll be option C - it's the one making me happiest. Also, I located an accessory which improves its quirkiness.

Current Mood: worried

If anyone's interested, Hugh's posted up some video clips from the Humor in Fandom panel. Sound necessary. He's the one telling the story. (I'm the one with very shaky hands holding the camera.)

And no, just because I'm linking to YouTube doesn't mean my computer goes there. :-P

Current Mood: amused

Short version: Wow. That was so incredibly amazing.

( Medium-length version )

Current Mood: giddy

It's been seven months since my last public entry, and six since the last locked entry. It's like I've fallen off the edge of the earth - or at least into the black hole known as Facebook.

( But where have I been? )

In other news, I need a new picture of myself. My default userpic is what, five years old? Six? Time to try again.