SMOFCon Day 1

I had the morning free here as the portion of SMOFCon programming I wanted to attend didn't start until 4 PM, so I was able to sleep in (despite the time zone difference, I needed it) and then went out to do a little exploring. I got to have breakfast at Eggspectation (a chain I wish was in the USA) and go shopping at World's Biggest Bookstore before it closes for good in a couple of months). And I rode the subway a little bit, but the weather was so not-as-cold-as-expected weather (it was, I think, colder in the Bay Area, and very definitely colder in Fernley, where Lisa reports that she's having a difficult time keeping the living room above +12° C due to the -15° C outside temperatures). I spent the early afternoon hanging around the Con Suite enjoying the conversation immensely before attending the late afternoon programming. I missed my dinner connection but did manage to eat and return in time for the Opening Night event, which was "Worldcon is Coming," in which people presented Worldcon bids for various places in Game of Thrones as badly as possible, and we were given bingo cards to check off their various failings ("Fumbles with Tech","Rambles into irrelevant points," "Argues with Audience questions," etc.). When you had five ain a row, you called "Bingo!" and won a prize. (I got one, just before they ran out of prizes.) It was surprisingly fun.

I hung around downstairs catching up with people for a while before making a brief trip to the Con Suite. Alas, the Con Suite is too small, and the function space is also too small. The Royal York is huge, but it's mostly full of holiday parties using up all of the bigger space, and we're making due with what we can manage. I expect tomorrow night's Fannish Inquisition (which I will be recording) is apt to be hugely overcrowded. I hope that will be an incentive for people to not ramble and not show how witty they are in asking stupid questions.

I actually bailed out fairly early tonight (before midnight and headed back to the room, simply because it was too crowded, hot, and uncomfortable in the Con Suite. But there are definitely a lot of people here, and the conversations I was having and overhearing were generally very good. For what SMOFCon does, it's working fine. I just wish we had more room in which to do it. Function space for this convention is difficult, and the challenging part includes the fact that we're not allowed to rebuild the hotels where we want to hold it and have to make the best of what's available.

I did get 20 sign-ups for the Probability & Statistics Seminar so far (40 slots possible, 30 is a good starting number), plus several people complaining that we scheduled for the same time as the beer tasting. I shrugged and said, "When do you think I should schedule it?" and to their credit, nobody had a good answer. If anything, it's a good idea to counter-program things when you just don't have a big enough space to hold everyone in the same place, even for the only 100-150 SMOFCon attendees.

SMOFCon Day 2

Today was just packed. Programming started at 9:30 with a panel looking at the Bidding Process. I had to skip the next block due to a CanSMOF Board Meeting (we took advantage of actually having a quorum of our directors present at a Canadian convention to hold an in-person meeting). After that I went off for lunch, on my own searching for the deli in which Lisa and I had eaten during Torcon 3. As near as we make it out, that would have been Shopsy's, which has actually moved from the location where it was ten years ago, but I found the new one. Lisa's instructions were to see if the food was as good as at the Manhattan Deli in the Atlantis Casino in Reno. I concluded that the Atlantis location is better. I took the subway (all of two stops, which is somewhat wasteful) down there, but walked back.

I had to skip both the 2:30 PM panels I wanted to attend ("Better Badge Design" and "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the Concom") because I was one of the panelists on "Changing the Scale from Small to Big"), about how to organize your convention through growth. at 4:30 there was a "Wild Card" panel (selected at con) on improving the condition of the NASFiC in which I was an enthusiastic participant.

The Marché Restaurant near the hotel (accessible through the underground PATH system so I didn't even have to get my coat) was the next stop. I had to work hard to avoid getting stuck for choice, there being so many good things to eat there. I was also highly distracted by the party of Gothic Lolitas having a dinner outing. I complimented one of them on their great outfits.

I didn't want to get an elaborate dinner because I was on to record the Fannish Inquisition at 8 PM, and the room was not big enough, so I felt obliged to get there early so I could set up without disturbing people. I though the Inquisition went as well as could be expected given the undersized and overheated room. (There was nothing larger available in the hotel; most of the larger Royal York rooms are booked up months or years ahead of time for holiday parties.) I had a bit of a fright when I changed memory sticks and discovered that the spare stick was half-filled, but fortunately, I didn't manage to fill it up as well because there was nothing left after that. I will probably not get these videos uploaded until I get back to the west coast, and maybe not until I get home.

Next year's SMOFCon will be in Manhattan Beach, California (Los Angeles area), December 5-7, 2014, at the Manhattan Beach Marriott.

After the Inquisition, I had to rush over to the Probability & Statistics Seminar (Texas Hold-Em Poker Tournament). We had a lot of late scratches due to the Bheer Tasting, the Dessert Bar, and the Chicon Midnight Hotel Horror Stories panels, so we started with only two tables instead of three. After (as usual) an initial hour of players feeling each other out, carnage started erupting, and when the dust settled, the winners were (all amounts CA$):

4th Place: Christopher Hwang ($10)
3rd Place: Cliff Goldstein ($20)
2nd Place: Tony Parker ($30)
1st Place: Kevin Standlee ($100)

Yes, for the first time since I started organizing these things, I not only ended up "in the money," I managed to win my own tournament. W00T!

Now I have to figure out how to get the two cases of poker chips out to LA for next year. They weigh about 5 kg each, and I don't think I can fit them both into my luggage.