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Worldcon: Friday through Sunday
Woldcon got busier, so predictably, my journaling will be briefer.
Inserted After: Ok, so I lied. It's not really all that brief. But since most of it is written at a remove, it may be error prone in terms of details, omissions, or ordering.
(Cut is here)
Got up earlylate to make the Regency dance at 2pm, which was fun, if slow (as usual). Lisa may have made a breakthrough on waltzing (ie "all ypou have to do is always walk forward?" which is true in regency, though not in most later waltz), though she still has spinning issues (yet not so much in swing, somehow).
Left early from the Regency to helping out with the Giant Icetowers demo (and finding that despite not being on the schedule, the Zendo demo ran an hour earlier; was guiltily glad that it was left off the schedule, thus giving me a good excuse for mising it, so I could make one last dance: wouldn't have volunteered for it if I'd realzided it was cross scheduled against regency dance), which was fun -- Zarf and I played in the first game, and after that it mostly ran on its own, with enough intrest that I neither needed nor felt justified in playing. I spent my time either giving advice (rules or strategy; if nobody else has done so, I should write a strategy guide for Icetowers -- it's suprisingly richer than is obvious) or letting Ben Newman talk my ear off about Hidden Worlds, the icehouse space exploration game he's working on. After Lisa showed up, Ben led us to a surprisingly good Thai resturant he'd discovered (though I was disappointed when my curry had bean sprouts, not bamboo shoots).
After we got back, Lisa and I did a lot of obligitory party crawling (hilight: definately the lj/blogger party), ending at the filk, and eventually to bed. The filk was really good, and very non-chitter-chattery, though this was partially because Yaakov, and to a lesser extent, YT did a decent job of pushi ng things back to filk when they tried to drift.
We got up early (9:30ish) with enough time to make Neil Gaiman's reading, of Nancy's Boys. Was good.
After, I had a bit of time to hang out (I went to see Bill Roper's concert, among other stuff) before meeting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drcpunk to go to the A&E gathering, which was an amzing bust -- ILee and Bary forgot to show up on time, so Lisa and I showed at 1:10, and stayed 'till 1:25; Barry shpowed up, remembering, at 1:30, and we're told someone else showed some time before or after this. Since nobody else showed, it was probably just as well, though.
Then we went to the Fantasy of Manners panel, which was a blast. Drcpunk took good notes, while I took bad ones, and apparently destroyed them accidentally somewhen in the last day.
After some more hanging out, I went to the Filkado, which was lots of fun, and very silly, while being about the right length (ie, an hour long). Afterwards, Lisa picked me up and a big posse of us went to dinner (Lee and Barry Gold, YT, Lisa, Maureen S. O'Brian, er, um, others) at the large Move'n'pick, which was expensive, but very good -- we had a prime rib (nicely medum rare), salmon filet, ant some oysters, as well as clam chowder and yummy desert.
Aftrerwards, I went gaming for a while, since it was still early, and was taught Ticket to Ride, which I'm going to have to own. Very fun, and I cam in second pretty much only because I made a single mistake.
Then Lisa picked me up, and after visiting theautographedcat kitanzi, gorgeousgary, and Sheryl party, let Lisa pull me upstairs to get a Pan Galactic Gargle-Blaster from the Double-exposure party, which was dangeous when first made, awful (yet still more than half made) once the dry ice had boiled out, and actually quite nice perhaps an hour later (it lost acidicy, I think). And blue.
Then we filked, with very few, if any, parties in betwen. Filking was good, though this was the first crowded day -- I think a lot of people arrived on Friday, or otherwise just took it easy. It was also fairly polite, and I got a song in without undue difficulty duroing the heaviest time. OTOH, it actually got harder after the first wave emptied out -- - think a bunch of people failed to recalibrate their pushiness for the emptier room, or did recalibrate, for a room with 5 active performers, not one with 15+. Late, it got more polite (mostly), and I got a nice slew of songs in; late, we went and filked in the Arisia Party/Mini Arisia (with badges and everything) prior to playing innight1stalker's exclellent micro-WoD LARP (divide into bad and good vampires, fight with RPS until only one side survives), having icecream at the mini-ice cream social, heading to breakfast with Ben Newman, and then to bed.
Got up just in time to make it to the pre-tourney-Icehouse Demo only a bit late, demoing for two new players and one semi-veteran. Then the Icehouse tournament started, drafting Zarf so we could have exactly 8 players. I did fairly well in the perliminary rounds, winning two games (which with four player games, garunteed me a seat in the final), though not as well as Cthulia, who won 3 of her four games. We moved out by the con suite for the final, since I'd spotted very icehouse-suitable tables there earlier, and chose to play two games to decide the tournament. As it turned out, I won, with a very strong (and almost, but for my hesitation, 30 point) first game, and a not as wide loss to Cthulia in the second one as her loss to me in the first. Was amazing fun, with a very different feel from the Origins Icehouse tournament (which is also fun, mind).
Ater that, Ben got Cthulia and YT into another Hidden Worlds playtest with slightly different rules, and I stayed in that as long as I could, then raced to mete up with Lisa in the Dealer's room, meeting with the help from our phones in the fan lounge. We headed for dinner, and unsurprisingly, somehow, ended up joining and acreting with Maureen,tigerbright, teddywolf, bercilakslady, drsnark, Eugene Reynolds (of A&E and NYRSF), and two more guys I don't actually know, coopting three tables to make a cloverleaf thing we could have actual floating conversations in. Diner happened, conversations happened, with me bouncing between the Lisa+Eugene show on my left and the Gingi+Maureen converaation on my right. Was fun.
After dinner, Eugene, Lisa, and I continued our conversation for a few hours, hanging out, talking about the new indie RPG: With Great Power, other similar RPGs, and other topics. For a while, I relaxed in the game room, playing San Juan, among others, while Lisa and Eugene chatted and played a gme of Carcasonne. Eventually, however, we made it to the filkrooms.
That's right. I said filkrooms; this was the first night when the filk was really, at least while it was there, big enough to bifrictrate, into one room with Kanef, the Golds, Harold Feld, and enough others to make up the difference (about 12 in all while I was there), and the other the "big filkroom." However, the atmosphere was better than Saturday night throughout, with no noticable to me examples of even semi-filkhogging, and a very easy to break into filkroom even in the big room (which was where we mostly stayed).
The only bad spot was one time we came back into the main filkroom and found that it had devolved into general public chatter -- with people talking back and forth, but nothing resembling a performance for about ten minutes (partially, I'm convinced, because that kind of genral converaatipn is a lot harder to insert a song into than a normal chaos. After a bit of private grumbling, I got up and asked if I was in the right place, and got back "this is a southern-style filk, where a good story is considered as good as a song", but the songs started up again. I had a lazy night of it -- the occasional song or accompanyment, but a lot of the time used to work on this entry and listen. Eventually, we declared the filk done, at around 4:30; which is a bit early, but not as much for Sunday on a Worldcon (Saturday is really the late night). And maybe an hour to half an hour later, it's time for me to sleep.
From Worldcon, good night.
Inserted After: Ok, so I lied. It's not really all that brief. But since most of it is written at a remove, it may be error prone in terms of details, omissions, or ordering.
(Cut is here)
Friday:
Got up earlylate to make the Regency dance at 2pm, which was fun, if slow (as usual). Lisa may have made a breakthrough on waltzing (ie "all ypou have to do is always walk forward?" which is true in regency, though not in most later waltz), though she still has spinning issues (yet not so much in swing, somehow).
Left early from the Regency to helping out with the Giant Icetowers demo (and finding that despite not being on the schedule, the Zendo demo ran an hour earlier; was guiltily glad that it was left off the schedule, thus giving me a good excuse for mising it, so I could make one last dance: wouldn't have volunteered for it if I'd realzided it was cross scheduled against regency dance), which was fun -- Zarf and I played in the first game, and after that it mostly ran on its own, with enough intrest that I neither needed nor felt justified in playing. I spent my time either giving advice (rules or strategy; if nobody else has done so, I should write a strategy guide for Icetowers -- it's suprisingly richer than is obvious) or letting Ben Newman talk my ear off about Hidden Worlds, the icehouse space exploration game he's working on. After Lisa showed up, Ben led us to a surprisingly good Thai resturant he'd discovered (though I was disappointed when my curry had bean sprouts, not bamboo shoots).
After we got back, Lisa and I did a lot of obligitory party crawling (hilight: definately the lj/blogger party), ending at the filk, and eventually to bed. The filk was really good, and very non-chitter-chattery, though this was partially because Yaakov, and to a lesser extent, YT did a decent job of pushi ng things back to filk when they tried to drift.
Saturday:
We got up early (9:30ish) with enough time to make Neil Gaiman's reading, of Nancy's Boys. Was good.
After, I had a bit of time to hang out (I went to see Bill Roper's concert, among other stuff) before meeting
drcpunk to go to the A&E gathering, which was an amzing bust -- ILee and Bary forgot to show up on time, so Lisa and I showed at 1:10, and stayed 'till 1:25; Barry shpowed up, remembering, at 1:30, and we're told someone else showed some time before or after this. Since nobody else showed, it was probably just as well, though.Then we went to the Fantasy of Manners panel, which was a blast. Drcpunk took good notes, while I took bad ones, and apparently destroyed them accidentally somewhen in the last day.
After some more hanging out, I went to the Filkado, which was lots of fun, and very silly, while being about the right length (ie, an hour long). Afterwards, Lisa picked me up and a big posse of us went to dinner (Lee and Barry Gold, YT, Lisa, Maureen S. O'Brian, er, um, others) at the large Move'n'pick, which was expensive, but very good -- we had a prime rib (nicely medum rare), salmon filet, ant some oysters, as well as clam chowder and yummy desert.
Aftrerwards, I went gaming for a while, since it was still early, and was taught Ticket to Ride, which I'm going to have to own. Very fun, and I cam in second pretty much only because I made a single mistake.
Then Lisa picked me up, and after visiting the
autographedcat kitanzi, gorgeousgary, and Sheryl party, let Lisa pull me upstairs to get a Pan Galactic Gargle-Blaster from the Double-exposure party, which was dangeous when first made, awful (yet still more than half made) once the dry ice had boiled out, and actually quite nice perhaps an hour later (it lost acidicy, I think). And blue.Then we filked, with very few, if any, parties in betwen. Filking was good, though this was the first crowded day -- I think a lot of people arrived on Friday, or otherwise just took it easy. It was also fairly polite, and I got a song in without undue difficulty duroing the heaviest time. OTOH, it actually got harder after the first wave emptied out -- - think a bunch of people failed to recalibrate their pushiness for the emptier room, or did recalibrate, for a room with 5 active performers, not one with 15+. Late, it got more polite (mostly), and I got a nice slew of songs in; late, we went and filked in the Arisia Party/Mini Arisia (with badges and everything) prior to playing in
night1stalker's exclellent micro-WoD LARP (divide into bad and good vampires, fight with RPS until only one side survives), having icecream at the mini-ice cream social, heading to breakfast with Ben Newman, and then to bed.Sunday:
Got up just in time to make it to the pre-tourney-Icehouse Demo only a bit late, demoing for two new players and one semi-veteran. Then the Icehouse tournament started, drafting Zarf so we could have exactly 8 players. I did fairly well in the perliminary rounds, winning two games (which with four player games, garunteed me a seat in the final), though not as well as Cthulia, who won 3 of her four games. We moved out by the con suite for the final, since I'd spotted very icehouse-suitable tables there earlier, and chose to play two games to decide the tournament. As it turned out, I won, with a very strong (and almost, but for my hesitation, 30 point) first game, and a not as wide loss to Cthulia in the second one as her loss to me in the first. Was amazing fun, with a very different feel from the Origins Icehouse tournament (which is also fun, mind).
Ater that, Ben got Cthulia and YT into another Hidden Worlds playtest with slightly different rules, and I stayed in that as long as I could, then raced to mete up with Lisa in the Dealer's room, meeting with the help from our phones in the fan lounge. We headed for dinner, and unsurprisingly, somehow, ended up joining and acreting with Maureen,
tigerbright, teddywolf, bercilakslady, drsnark, Eugene Reynolds (of A&E and NYRSF), and two more guys I don't actually know, coopting three tables to make a cloverleaf thing we could have actual floating conversations in. Diner happened, conversations happened, with me bouncing between the Lisa+Eugene show on my left and the Gingi+Maureen converaation on my right. Was fun.After dinner, Eugene, Lisa, and I continued our conversation for a few hours, hanging out, talking about the new indie RPG: With Great Power, other similar RPGs, and other topics. For a while, I relaxed in the game room, playing San Juan, among others, while Lisa and Eugene chatted and played a gme of Carcasonne. Eventually, however, we made it to the filkrooms.
That's right. I said filkrooms; this was the first night when the filk was really, at least while it was there, big enough to bifrictrate, into one room with Kanef, the Golds, Harold Feld, and enough others to make up the difference (about 12 in all while I was there), and the other the "big filkroom." However, the atmosphere was better than Saturday night throughout, with no noticable to me examples of even semi-filkhogging, and a very easy to break into filkroom even in the big room (which was where we mostly stayed).
The only bad spot was one time we came back into the main filkroom and found that it had devolved into general public chatter -- with people talking back and forth, but nothing resembling a performance for about ten minutes (partially, I'm convinced, because that kind of genral converaatipn is a lot harder to insert a song into than a normal chaos. After a bit of private grumbling, I got up and asked if I was in the right place, and got back "this is a southern-style filk, where a good story is considered as good as a song", but the songs started up again. I had a lazy night of it -- the occasional song or accompanyment, but a lot of the time used to work on this entry and listen. Eventually, we declared the filk done, at around 4:30; which is a bit early, but not as much for Sunday on a Worldcon (Saturday is really the late night). And maybe an hour to half an hour later, it's time for me to sleep.
From Worldcon, good night.
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The small one generally had entres that ran for about $10 or so, but at the large one...
I think we got a prime rib, a clam chowder, some oysters, and some desert. We didn't so much eat a -lot- as -well- (and to be fair, my additude is that if I'm eating in a place that has fairly high-to-me-prices, I'd rather pay a little more and get the -really- good stuff than not.
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