Blogging the con
Jan. 28th, 2008 03:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theyellowhobbitVericon is wrapping up today, and I have to say that it was amazing.
Friday:
Friday was insane. I got up around 7:30 after going to bed at 3:30 AM on Thursday night. I eventually got out of bed and showered and dressed and had breakfast, and brought insane amounts of stuff over to campus.
We had to move the food from DW's room to the con suite, and I started doing that, but then I got to go help![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
landofnowhere and go to the Quad to get stuff which was much lighter than all the food. Plus we took the shuttle both ways.
We got back. I had an army of people with dollies and we brought over the rest of the food except for the stuff we were saving for the Masquerade Ball (Mask).
Then we made the con suite look like a con suite and it was very pretty and very shiny. I did random things until Shabbat started and I could no longer do random things.
For the first 2 hours of Vericon I volunteered in the con suite. I was kind of hoping Randall Munroe (writer of xkcd) would stop in when he arrived (since everyone needs to eat at some point) but he didn't.
Then there was Friday night dinner, which was quite classy. (dr_whom helped with the choosing of food. It was me, him, C[A]D, and B.Z.) We had classy Apocryphal Pita (left over from last week) as well as classy Italian bread, then there was classy sun dried tomatoes in olive oil and classy hummus and classy spreadable cheese to go on the breads. We had classy couscous with classy caramelized onions that I had made on Thursday night. There was also a classy salad. For dessert we had classy ice cream cake and classy blackberries and blueberries with whipped cream. What didn't get eaten went down to the con suite, which was transformed into the Classy Con Suite.
(JTB informed me that Randall stopped in between 7 and 9, which was when I was upstairs in my Shabbat dinner.)
I also returned after dinner and worked until 10:30 when we got kicked out, and then I ran Settlers. Settlers ended early, and we all got to go to bed early. Yay!
Saturday:
On Saturday morning KH woke me around 8:15ish so I could be in the con suite at 9, except I got there around 9:15. I was pretty dead, but the coffee in the suite woke me up, and then there was Capture the Flag with Stuff (CTFWS), which was amazing. Before CTFWS, hKC and I went over tointeluser's room to get the bagels and cream cheese. The mini fridge in inteluser's room was already in the con suite, so we just needed to grab the bagels and whatever else was in there. hKC ended up carrying most of it, because he could.
CTFWS was amazing. I was on Yellow. We lost, and orange won but it was still amazing. And I caught myself a prisoner (I think I was the one to capture you,yaleartificer, right?) and interrogated some prisoners with the Truth Serum potion. Yay for truthiness!
Then I ran Mafia, and that was fun. We had two short games, and then it was webcomics time!
The panel consisted of Randall Munroe, Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance and Jeff Jaques of Questionable Content. The three of them together were quite entertaining. Also, Randall had a billion water bottles in front of him, which solved the mystery of the disappearing water bottles.
Afterwards I asked Randall if I could talk to him after the signing and he said "sure." He also said he didn't need all of the unopened water bottles that had been in front of him so I stole those back.
The line for the webcomics signing was huge and slow-moving, so I talked toyaleartificer while he was in line for a while, until I realized that I had never eaten lunch. I went downstairs and got a bagel and cream cheese and then hung out in the room of webcomicsness. Pete Abrams was folding a paper airplane, which was badly flying (I threw it a few times. We had been talking about how if something is all fun and games until someone loses an eye, if someone loses an eye, that makes things retroactively all Fun and Games. The first time I threw the plane it actually flew off course and hit him in the head above the eye, but it was fine and amusing and luckily not all Fun and Games. Then Randall took the plane and refolded it to make it more aerodynamic. I had all three of them sign the plane, and Pete wrote "insert eye here" in the middle and Randall drew a guy flying on the plane saying "onwards!" (Jeff just signed it).
Then I got to hang with Randall for a little bit and I told him about how the "dangers" comic generated a positive response from the online knitting community. He said his little brother crochets and he used to do braiding. I offered to teach him how to knit. I realized after the fact that I didn't get to tell him how much I liked the "Your Mom" comic. :(
Around this point, Shabbat ended. I ran back to KH's house to get my Chinese Dress of Awesome for the Mask, as well as essentials like deoderant and my toothbrush and toothpaste, etc. (Who ever said that con-goers neglect personal hygiene?) Then I returned to the con suite, and Randall came in! He admired the classiness of the con suite. And we made your mom jokes. And he told a bunch of dirty limericks, some of which were truly amazing.
Then JB and I went off to the Orson Scott Card book signing and after waiting in line we abused our powers to get to the front of the line so we could go set up food for the Mask.
Then I finally got to go over and change into my dress and dance at the Mask.
And it was amazing. I could have danced all night. I danced a lot more than I thought I would. There was mixed dancing.1 Apparently I'm not the awful dancer I thought I was. And since it was a dance full of nerds, we were all awkward together, so it worked. And the songs were all nerd songs. Andyaleartificer is a good dancer and it was fun to dance with him. And the last song with inteluser was also fun, though that involved a bit of crashingness. Ooops.
Afterwards we cleaned, and then we headed to the Science Center, where there was gaming and then I got to go home and go to bed.
I'll blog about Sunday later, since I'm lazy now. It was less exciting than the other days, though still fun.
1Mixed dancing is something that is very frowned upon in Orthodox Judaism (though it wasn't always. In the 1950s it was acceptable among many Orthodox circles). There are fun jokes about it. For example:
Q:Why aren't Orthodox Jews allowed to have sex standing up?2
A:Because it could lead to mixed dancing.
2There are debates about how much the rabbis forbid with sex. Some say it has to be done in bed, in the missionary position, under sheets, with the lights out, etc. Some are a lot more permissive and say you can do pretty much whatever you want, with some exceptions, and I'm not going to get into the details because I'm lazy. Ask your local competent halachic authority.
Friday:
Friday was insane. I got up around 7:30 after going to bed at 3:30 AM on Thursday night. I eventually got out of bed and showered and dressed and had breakfast, and brought insane amounts of stuff over to campus.
We had to move the food from DW's room to the con suite, and I started doing that, but then I got to go help
landofnowhere and go to the Quad to get stuff which was much lighter than all the food. Plus we took the shuttle both ways.We got back. I had an army of people with dollies and we brought over the rest of the food except for the stuff we were saving for the Masquerade Ball (Mask).
Then we made the con suite look like a con suite and it was very pretty and very shiny. I did random things until Shabbat started and I could no longer do random things.
For the first 2 hours of Vericon I volunteered in the con suite. I was kind of hoping Randall Munroe (writer of xkcd) would stop in when he arrived (since everyone needs to eat at some point) but he didn't.
Then there was Friday night dinner, which was quite classy. (
dr_whom helped with the choosing of food. It was me, him, C[A]D, and B.Z.) We had classy Apocryphal Pita (left over from last week) as well as classy Italian bread, then there was classy sun dried tomatoes in olive oil and classy hummus and classy spreadable cheese to go on the breads. We had classy couscous with classy caramelized onions that I had made on Thursday night. There was also a classy salad. For dessert we had classy ice cream cake and classy blackberries and blueberries with whipped cream. What didn't get eaten went down to the con suite, which was transformed into the Classy Con Suite.(JTB informed me that Randall stopped in between 7 and 9, which was when I was upstairs in my Shabbat dinner.)
I also returned after dinner and worked until 10:30 when we got kicked out, and then I ran Settlers. Settlers ended early, and we all got to go to bed early. Yay!
Saturday:
On Saturday morning KH woke me around 8:15ish so I could be in the con suite at 9, except I got there around 9:15. I was pretty dead, but the coffee in the suite woke me up, and then there was Capture the Flag with Stuff (CTFWS), which was amazing. Before CTFWS, hKC and I went over to
inteluser's room to get the bagels and cream cheese. The mini fridge in inteluser's room was already in the con suite, so we just needed to grab the bagels and whatever else was in there. hKC ended up carrying most of it, because he could.CTFWS was amazing. I was on Yellow. We lost, and orange won but it was still amazing. And I caught myself a prisoner (I think I was the one to capture you,
yaleartificer, right?) and interrogated some prisoners with the Truth Serum potion. Yay for truthiness!Then I ran Mafia, and that was fun. We had two short games, and then it was webcomics time!
The panel consisted of Randall Munroe, Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance and Jeff Jaques of Questionable Content. The three of them together were quite entertaining. Also, Randall had a billion water bottles in front of him, which solved the mystery of the disappearing water bottles.
Afterwards I asked Randall if I could talk to him after the signing and he said "sure." He also said he didn't need all of the unopened water bottles that had been in front of him so I stole those back.
The line for the webcomics signing was huge and slow-moving, so I talked to
yaleartificer while he was in line for a while, until I realized that I had never eaten lunch. I went downstairs and got a bagel and cream cheese and then hung out in the room of webcomicsness. Pete Abrams was folding a paper airplane, which was badly flying (I threw it a few times. We had been talking about how if something is all fun and games until someone loses an eye, if someone loses an eye, that makes things retroactively all Fun and Games. The first time I threw the plane it actually flew off course and hit him in the head above the eye, but it was fine and amusing and luckily not all Fun and Games. Then Randall took the plane and refolded it to make it more aerodynamic. I had all three of them sign the plane, and Pete wrote "insert eye here" in the middle and Randall drew a guy flying on the plane saying "onwards!" (Jeff just signed it).Then I got to hang with Randall for a little bit and I told him about how the "dangers" comic generated a positive response from the online knitting community. He said his little brother crochets and he used to do braiding. I offered to teach him how to knit. I realized after the fact that I didn't get to tell him how much I liked the "Your Mom" comic. :(
Around this point, Shabbat ended. I ran back to KH's house to get my Chinese Dress of Awesome for the Mask, as well as essentials like deoderant and my toothbrush and toothpaste, etc. (Who ever said that con-goers neglect personal hygiene?) Then I returned to the con suite, and Randall came in! He admired the classiness of the con suite. And we made your mom jokes. And he told a bunch of dirty limericks, some of which were truly amazing.
Then JB and I went off to the Orson Scott Card book signing and after waiting in line we abused our powers to get to the front of the line so we could go set up food for the Mask.
Then I finally got to go over and change into my dress and dance at the Mask.
And it was amazing. I could have danced all night. I danced a lot more than I thought I would. There was mixed dancing.1 Apparently I'm not the awful dancer I thought I was. And since it was a dance full of nerds, we were all awkward together, so it worked. And the songs were all nerd songs. And
yaleartificer is a good dancer and it was fun to dance with him. And the last song with inteluser was also fun, though that involved a bit of crashingness. Ooops.Afterwards we cleaned, and then we headed to the Science Center, where there was gaming and then I got to go home and go to bed.
I'll blog about Sunday later, since I'm lazy now. It was less exciting than the other days, though still fun.
1Mixed dancing is something that is very frowned upon in Orthodox Judaism (though it wasn't always. In the 1950s it was acceptable among many Orthodox circles). There are fun jokes about it. For example:
Q:Why aren't Orthodox Jews allowed to have sex standing up?2
A:Because it could lead to mixed dancing.
2There are debates about how much the rabbis forbid with sex. Some say it has to be done in bed, in the missionary position, under sheets, with the lights out, etc. Some are a lot more permissive and say you can do pretty much whatever you want, with some exceptions, and I'm not going to get into the details because I'm lazy. Ask your local competent halachic authority.
