Eastercon

[blufive]

Belated random thoughts:

Friday

As is traditional, the (normally prompt) trams on the way to the station manage to arrange a delay just when we need to get there on time to catch a train. Signal failures lead to repeated demonstrations of the fact that Metrolink is fitted with automatically-triggered emergency brakes.

Shock! Someone at Virgin trains has rendered the automated ticket machines at Manchester Piccadilly actually USEFUL by making it possible to buy tickets to more than the top 20 stations.

Lots of fun waiting for 40 minutes in the hotel reservation queue due to (apparently) a disaster with the computerised reservations system...

Best news of the day: a convention hotel with a choice of cider!!!!!

I notice several of the hotel staff giving some fans (discreet) funny looks, leading me to think: you ain't seen nothing yet.

Saturday

Contemplating the stack of fanzines I've acquired so far: my god, I'm turning into a fanzine fan. [Side note: swisstone, write bigger! I've got good eyesight, and I'm thinking how tiny that text is]

The hotel copes well with breakfast: there's a horde of fans, but it doesn't look like stuff's running out, and everone seems to be getting fed fairly efficiently.

Holy crap, that's a big dealers' room.

Met a truckload of LJ-ers for the first time (or, in several cases, made a connection between someone I'd met before and an LJ handle I know, or got a proper introduction to people I was vaguely acquainted with) [waves to ang_grrr, cleanskies, cloudhigh, del_c, dougs, green_amber, hawkida, ladymoonray, oxfordslacker, pickledginger, sbisson. Phew. And that's not including the people I should have spoken to, but didn't (sorry)] OK, maybe LJ is taking over fandom.

sbisson looks nothing like his south park LJ alter-ego [later thought: Oh yes he does! It's me memory going, guv]

Sunday

Beyond cyberdrome:

• Silly, silly.


• Ooh, a Lego gatling-catapult! (Bazooka does it again)


• Cuileann, left to his own devices in the BC arena, does what any small child would, and goes ahead crawl-factor 7 towards the mousetraps. The Spanish Inquisition, with a mighty bound and a cry of "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!", comes to his rescue with big stompy boots.

The Masquerade:
Short. But silly, and for the most part, funny. Makes me guilty about not doing anything (and thereby extending my participation-spectating record to 4½-3½ - someday, I'll break even) [note: I'll tell anyone who listens that I'm shy and downright phobic about being in front of an audience. So how on earth did I end up participating in more Eastercon masquerades than I've watched?]

Given how most of fandom seems to regard filk as the lowest of the low, I am forced to speculate whether putting a filker on as the masquerade interval entertainment was more cruel to the audience, or to the poor guy who had to watch two-thirds of the audience get up and leave when he came on.

Dawning realisation: zotz isn't who I've been thinking he was for the last 6 months (at least; I think we've been on a shared mailing list for far longer). Well, least that makes a slight reduction in my total confusion level.

Ouch, the air in the rotunda is dry in the evenings [retires to bed with very sore eyes]

Monday

Bleurgh. Mornings, who needs 'em.

Yay! Someone's managed to do most of the FONTzine crossword! Looks like I succeeded in making it not sicko-bastard-hard this year.

Monday afternoon, and they've still got cider on! This hotel gets my vote! Oh, we're back here in 2 years? Cool.

Comments

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I must have had an even more confusing Eastercon than I thought, because I don't remember talking to you (I don't even remember seeing Cal). And yet here I am with a copy of FONTzine, so I must have done...

Nice Eastercon report: and as you say, faster is better, as I've found with Novacons. I finally finished my Boskone report after two months knowing I wouldn't finish it at all if I didn't do so by Eastercon. And I was only able to do that due to extensive note-taking, so I doubt I'll be able to reconstruct my Seacon at all, unless I invite people to write up "Del's Eastercon" as a Ran- or The Great Gatsby-style multiple viewpoint narrative.

Hmmm. That's an idea...

[blufive.livejournal.com]

We chatted for a few minutes at the LJ-meet, with ang_grrr and dougs. It might help if I point out that what you can't see in my userpic is the waist-length hair, which I think I had let down by that point.

And how did you miss Cal's appearance as one of an Army Of Superb Costumes, which will beat all the other costumes, which don't exist! (Before the lights didn't go out)

[del-c.livejournal.com]

We chatted for a few minutes at the LJ-meet, with ang_grrr and dougs. It might help if I point out that what you can't see in my userpic is the waist-length hair

Yes, I know what you look like, from the registration desk at SECCOND if nowhere else; I'm just embarrassed to say I don't remember talking to you at the LJ-meet.

And how did you miss Cal's appearance as one of an Army Of Superb Costumes

Ah, well I wasn't at the masquerade. Sorry I missed it.

[blufive.livejournal.com]

I'm just embarrassed to say I don't remember talking to you at the LJ-meet.

I was only slightly more talkative than usual, so there probably wasn't a huge amount to remember.

Ah, well I wasn't at the masquerade. Sorry I missed it.

Cal's not sorry you missed it. I think she's going to be trying to live that one down for YEARS. (The perils of saying "yes" to last minute masquerade entries) Still at least people might forget last year's bunny ears now.

[blufive.livejournal.com]

On Con Reports:

I think this is about the first one I've ever done (unless I did one for Novacon and forgot, or you count the newbie's guide I wrote, which is sort of a multi-convention meta-report).

Half the reason I spent most of the con carrying a bag or a batbelt was to keep my superfluous tech on me, thereby allowing me to jot things down whenever I had a spare minute. These were really brief notes (e.g. "choice of cider") intended more as mnemonics than anything else. Over the weekend, I racked up about a dozen such scribbles. Then I just expanded each one up to a sentence or two (or a bit more in a couple of cases), trimmed a couple of boring ones, added a couple of other things that came to mind, and that was it.

If I tried to write anything much longer, I'd probably have an apathy attack and end up not writing anything much at all, but the brief form suits me well :)

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I know, I know ... I shan't do that next time.

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Heh. I had a feeling half the con would have nagged you about it by now :)

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

Met a truckload of LJ-ers for the first time

Unfortunately I crashed out and missed this completely, though I had been wondering if any FONTers were also LJers.

Found your journal when you popped up on the comments pages of mutual friends. Hope it's OK that I've friended you.

Geneva

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Hope it's OK that I've friended you.

Oh good grief, yes.

In terms of regular FONT attendees, I think we're it so far, though there appears to be a campaign underway to get SMS on LJ. swisstone used to attend FONT regularly, but now doesn't due to some piffling excuse like living at the other end of the country; and there are a few others on my friends list who would be recognised by half the attendees if they walked in, but I doubt you've ever met any of them IRL.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

::waves hello::

Nice to have met you, and hordes of others, too!

Yes, shame about the way the mid-masquerade concert was handled - I know there were at least a few christo fans who missed his show, because they didn't know it was happening.