Saturday, October 5, 2013

10:30 AM : Woke up too late to make it to the breakfast buffet, which mysteriously ends at 11 am instead of the much saner hour of 1 PM like a normal place. Whatever happened to brunch? I am really more of a brunch person. We night owls love brunching. It’s everything that is good about breakfast, but later.

Guess I will be dining a la Chez Hospitality today. It’s a good thing I am the sort of person who is just as happy with sandwiches as I am with eggs and bacon.

12 PM : Brunchfast turns out to be two pre-made roast beef sandwiches snagged just before the lunch rush hits. Oh, but I am a clever one. I feed the Alien Head a few bucks, and Hospitality feeds me. Boffo. Feeling almost human now.

I peruse the mendacious program book and discover there is nothing I really care to attend until 3 PM, when there is, of course, three different things. Isn’t that always the way? Either nothing, or too much.

Beret of purpose, I decide to return to home base and go back up to Chez Nous with no particular agenda. When in doubt, return to home base, I guess.

1 PM : I return to our room to find Joe is there, freshly awoken. After a few minutes chat, I get a great idea, and ask Joe if I can borrow his laptop so I can write a blog entry for the day. This turns out to be a more complicated procedure than I had anticipated, as it requires Joe to make an account for me on his computer, and so I feel a little guilty for putting him through all that trouble.

Still, mission accomplished. I log into my website and tappity type away my one thousand words for the day. I had expected to be unable to blog during the festivities, so this is a pleasant bonus. I have blogged at least a thousand words a day for years now, so it is far more than a habit and something a lot more like a need.

1:30 PM : Having done my writing for the day, I catch a little extra sleep. Conventions are like being in the Army. You learn to take sleep whenever you can.

3 PM : After much agonizing, I decide to go to the Justify The Science Flaw panel, mainly because I went to it last year and it was a hoot. The basic idea is that Karl Johnson brings a list of example of blatantly wrong science in popular media, and he, the panel, and the rest of us nerds in the audience try to come up with explanations of why that isn’t really a flaw.

It echoes the Marvel No-Prize, which Marvel used to award (or non-award?) to fans who came up with justifications for seeming errors in continuity, science, or whatnot in Marvel comics.

The real fun comes in the ridiculousness (not to mention flimsiness) of the justifications required to cover up some of the most egregious flaws.

And, despite back pain problems (damn this getting old thing), I have just as much fun this year.

4 PM : Ah, the Elrons, the always hilarious “awards” bestowed by the inimitable (but very imitworthy) R. Graeme Cameron every year to targets which richly deserve it, one way or another. They are a highlight of the convention every year, and extremely popular, a fact which seems to have escaped the convention planners because the room booked for it is tiny and cramped and many people, including my dear friend Felicity Walker, simply cannot get in to see them. This was a crushing blow to those who did not make it in, and I am very upset at this oversight. I really hope it never happens again.

Seriously, with his dry wit and stentorian voice, R. Graeme is like a rock star to us local fans!

5 PM : Regroup at our room, AKA Chez Nous, for the usual confab about dinner plans. Felicity has discovered that the TV in our room no longer gets Channel 30, her favorite. It got it just fine the previous evening, but now we get nothing but static. She calls down to the front desk to tell them about it, and they deny ever having had a Channel 30, or indeed to know what this “tell ee vish un” we speak of might be. Felicity manages to convince them of the existence of both, so they send up a tech, or at least, a worried looking Asian dude in a white dress shirt. He tries the denial trick too, but we see through it. He eventually leaves while mumbling something about checking “the box” somewhere. Well, we did what we could.

5:30 PM : Dinner at ABC Country Kitchen restaurant, another of our favorite local haunts. That’s what is great about a convention that is practically in your own back yard. You already know all the good place to eat.

7:15 PM : I catch 3/4 of the Video Game History panel. Learned tons of cool video game history trivia from the man, Ryan Cousineau, who curated the video game history exhibit for the VAG. He really knows his stuff!

8 PM : A panel intriguingly titled Are We Your Bitches? It is based on a comment Neil Gaiman made to a bunch of unruly fans that George R. R. Martin is “not their bitch”, and it was about the eternal question “What, exactly, does an author owe their fans?”. Very interesting to me as both an enthusiastic fan and an aspiring writer.

I figure all authors owe their fans is quality product and politeness in interaction. The rest is negotiable.

10:30 PM : Felicity and I head out into the night for a supply run. We return with some McD’s, a lot of food from 7-12 that I should NOT be eating, various beauty supplies (not that she needs them), and a gassed up car.

12 AM : Felicity and I settle back and get comfy Chex Nous, and unwind from the day’s activities with our old friends, television and junk food. Hope I sleep better tonight.