A Con Report (Unfortunately, no pictures)

[sessifet]

Ye gods, I'm exhausted.



Friday:

I annoyed azekeil by spending about the last half hour of our journey to the hotel going 'Are we there yet?' Are we there now?' 'How about now?'. Considering he did not kill me, I am going to assume he knew I was only (mostly) joking.

'We'll check in, go to registragtion and then get our bags. Afterwards, we will say hi to people.' That was me. You'd think this was my first, not my second convention. It was not quite so straightforward. There were a few 'hang on, didn't I just have a girlfri...oh hang on, she's veered off to left to hug someone' moments between entering the hotel and getting to registration (and, in fact, getting back from registering to the car to get bags). We hung out in Biers and said hi to people and I met up with some poor souls who volunteered to help make dwarf bread bags (big thanks to ciciaye, the_hatstand and Lee (of whom I am not sure he exists in Livejournal format)) for the Cookie for Low King Campaign. At five it was time (for me) to go to Teach Yourself Tech. It was quite fun and I ended up volunteering to stand over Nick's shoulder at the Maskerade rehearsal (at nine on Saturday morning. I could handle this...really).

After the opening ceremony, it's all bit of a blur. I know I bought the current and future (or is is previous and now current?) chairman a beer, met quite a few people outside, including Shivers (a most excellent Igorina and deputy of the The Reformed Athothiation of Thurgeonth, Igorth and Igorinath) and hugged a lot of people that I had previously met.

Saturday:

Spent about 4-5 hours up on the Tech tower looking at this massive board of buttons and sliders and touch screens and if you touched buttons in the right order, it made Stuff happen on the stage. The order to 'Just Jazz It Up' was fun!^*

Unfortunately, I decided to use the follow spot for a bit (practicing by aiming and following crazyscot (I think) who was doing mic checks. I do apologise for blinding him). This made the rest of my back go 'fuck you!' and then my hip went 'you know what? I'm off for tea' and I was on my own. The rest of Saturday was spent in gradually increasing amounts of 'okay, ow' but painkillers and a cane helped a lot. I wandered around inna corset for a few hours (for which my back and hip thanked me profusely). I fangirled Dianne Duane for a bit (not just because I love her Young Wizards books, but also because she hangs out on another community/group online and...well, she is Dianne Duane and cool. So's Peter. The group gradually expanded as there was talk of trees and other authors and voices in our heads (different from the ConCom's voices, of course) and what makes a good G&T and then we were joined by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen (I did not switch their last names! I did not! Anyone who says otherwise is telling vile, vile lies!) and then I got to sign the book for Terry. Let me tell you, following Dianne, Peter and Ian was enough to make my brain go 'bzuhgniwurble'. I did, however, not go 'heee, gnyurgle!' or even 'vlierpvlierp!' on the page.

Saturday evening was the Hedgehog Party, which is a highlight for a lot of people. People brings weird sweets and usually there are various types of chocolate covered Things. There was also some awesome dried beef from Wild Dutch. They do mail order. Check them out. There were balloons, and After Eight vodka and after some running around, licorice vodka. I also managed to meet the Lesser Spotted khrister(a.k.a. Mort). We sang 'Happy Birthday' to drachii, who is now no longer a teenager. There was gmh in eye-watering, brain-breaking spangly silver tights (which will go down in history, I'm sure) and making them look good. There was an awesome purple crinoline dress and, inevitably, a game of 'how many balloons can go under the crinoline'. There was dancing and laughter and general merriment and bouncing around. I like the Hedgehog Party. Then I went to bed and snuggled up to azekeil who'd gone to bed earlier.

Sunday:

After (somewhat) of a lie-in, we reconvened in Biers for the purpose of D&D (4th Ed rules). It was a lot of fun and the day flew by. troo and I then met up to prepare for the evening, with a quite sleepy (and possibly somewhat bemused) azekeil snoozing on the bed while we flitted about getting ready. The idea was to have some food and then go and watch the fun in the Dysk. As is usual at a Con, the plan changed. Instead, azekeil and I joined troo, jelmer, artela, Gabe (and offspring), Kate, Hayley, Donal and a few others (whose names I unfortunately cannot remember) for food and later Fluxx. It was good. There was much hilarity. People wandered in and out. Some stayed, some went away, but the Ops Gestalt remained. swaldman joined the Ops Gestalt just as he was planning to go to bed and managed to finish the game in five minutes. This was impressive as we were doing 'just a quick one to show you how it works'. When he joined, we'd been at it for an hour and ten.

Around midnight, azekeil wandered off to bed and I was firmly planning to join him not long after. And then I got distracted (have you noticed a pattern yet?) by purplepooka and we talked for a while. We eventually found ourselves outside talking some more to various people, including natural20(Brian) and his shirt. Every time I decided that now was time for bed, something else happened to divert me from this course of action. At 2AM, I said 'I'll go to bed in half an hour'. Quite why I then wandered up to the room at gone 4AM escapes me, but it probably has something to do with getting caught up in a conversation about steampunk glasses, single malts and Stuff.

Monday:

Checked out, put bags in car. More D&D. Exhaustion. Silliness. Missed the play due to 'ow' and needing food right there and then. Tiiiired. Closing ceremony in which a lot of winners were announced and a lot of people were thanked. Had a minor 'oh dear' when I saw how many Con Com members there were, knowing I was going to hunt them all down afterwards. It was amusing to see some not so subtle plotting going on in the background. From the perspective of the audience, it looked a lot like this:

Brian: *talktalkgesticulatetalk*
Assorted ConCom: *plotplotwhisperpointplot*
Brian: *talktalkoblivioustalk*
Audience: *snigger*

After closing ceremony, I performed my age-old duty (do it once, it's a tradition. Do it twice, it's an age-old tradtion) as ConCom hugger. After sitting in the bar for a bit, I hunted down people to say goodbye to, managing once again to miss hugging umlj goodbye. It seems this is becoming a pattern. We finally made our way back up north, arriving home at 20:00 or so. I will admit to throwing a minor wobbler as we came home and I started crying and asked azekeil to take me back to the hotel straightaway. He was sensible and said no (well, he was the one driving).

Once again, a brilliant convention. Things were not perfect and there were definitely some puzzling (and annoying) differences between the hotel day shift and evening/night shift, but all in all, it was tons of fun. Roll on 2012!



Duties performed:

Official Cookie For Low King campaign manager: My candidate did not win. I hope this means I get to live another day...

Tech volunteer: Up on the tower during Maskerade rehearsal, helping create such things as fire (not real fire. Don't look at me like that) and a rising full moon. There was a Thing with many buttons and sliders and a touch screen and if you pressed the right buttons, Lights happened on stage. Unfortunately I was not able to be back-up during the actual Maskerade, which was a shame.

Official ConCom Hugger: Well, I did it once so I had to do it again. It is actually a pretty straightforward duty. After closing ceremony, find all the exhausted looking people in burgundy shirts and offer a hug as thank you. In some cases, you can offer to hug them more than once if they seem open to this idea. I am unsure what to do if one is not amenable to the idea of a thank you hug at all. The hardest bit is to find the little^** blighters, because they move fast. Some of them may also not wear their shirts, having fiendishly changed into something completely different. In that case, it is a matter of checking badges which can get tricky because of the aforementioned 'moving fast' aspect. I think I got all of them. If I did not, please accept a virtual 'thank you' hug. :)

Not a Con Quote File (Honestly)

'Ops is easy!'

'It is not about turning the bands that you can't hear up, but about turning down the bands that you don't like.'

Cookie's response to a query about his height: 'In this new era, does it not behoove the new King to keep an ear to the surface?'

'The Ops gestalt welcomes you. Your call is important to us, please hold.'

'We are ConCom. We have voices in our heads.'

'You haven't lived until you've seen Gideon in spangly tights.'

'What happens at the Discworld Convention, stays on the internet.'

'I've got a single room. It has a double bed and a sofa bed.' 'What do they expect you to do?' 'Airhostesses!'

Donal as Igor: 'Jaythuth.'

'We're killing Kate one diaphragm at a time.' 'That's a bit of a bugger, because she's only got one.'

Al: 'Good evening, low people. Could someone pin up my trousers?'

Maskerade winner: 'Don't worry. If I fall forward, I bounce.'

Gabe (after attempting to put a daughter to bed): 'She pointed at the bed. Presumably so that if I need one, I know where to find it.'

'Please stop shooting at the unstable portal!'

'I am a tiefling paladin. I am a bit conflicted.'

'This is James, our narcoleptic dwarf.'

^* Okay, we may have giggled a bit hysterically at this request. This may have been because it came after the request for fire, a moon, an audience blinder and lightning. All to be done on a quite intricate board we were still getting to know. Sooooo. Maaaany. Buuuuuuttons.
^**In some case, they can actually be quite tall little blighters.

Comments

[ruthi.livejournal.com]

You were fabulous! *many hugs*
Al;so I have a photo or two of you trying on Al's steampunk glasses.

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I remember that now. Especially the bit where the chain and my fascinator conspired to eat my hair.

*hugs* It was brilliant seeing you again. :)

[megamole.livejournal.com]

Yep, it was my dear friend crazyscot :)

[khrister.livejournal.com]

It was great to meet you, and the con in general was great fun. :)