OryCon Day 2
Nov. 13th, 2010 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeWe had no first-thing-in-the-morning commitments today, so we "slept in" to all of 8 AM, which gave us plenty of time to use our breakfast coupons (good for continental or half-price standard buffets, which brought the price of breakfast down to something more reasonable).
While getting cleaned up this morning, I realized that I'd left my electric razor back in Fremont. I have backup, but I don't like shaving with a blade; it's really hard on my face. I have the unfortunate combination of coarse dark facial hair and fairly sensitive pale skin, which razors do not love. I made do.
After breakfast, I spent some time sitting at the Westercon 64 table, and even sold one of the Agatha Heterodyne t-shirts, although no memberships. Things started to get busy for me with a panel at 1 PM about conventions other than OryCon, which at times appeared to the audience to be a Worldcon-attendance-comparison contest between me and Ben Yalow (Ben wins hands down, of course; as far as he can tell, the only person with a longer current string of Worldcon attendance is Robert Silverberg, who is way out in front of him. Mine only goes back to 1989.)
At 2 PM, Lisa and I ran over to the food court and grabbed some lunch and brought it back to the hotel room. Unfortunately, this took longer than I expected, and by the time we were done, it was nearly 3 PM and time for my next panel, which meant poor Glenn Glazer had been trapped at the Westercon table with no relief and no food for way too long. Lisa sat at the table to give Glenn his own chance to get lunch while I went off to do a panel about SF Awards.
The SF Awards panel nearly didn't happen, and was partially invisible. Although listed in the detail schedule, it had fallen off the program grid, which showed a blank spot at 3 PM in the Sellwood Room, and only three people attended with four of us on the panel. Nonetheless, we talked among ourselves about the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Endeavor, and many other awards for 45 minutes or so.
Then it was back to the table from 4 PM until closing. I did some work for the SMOFCon web site (about which more on Tuesday, I think) and wrote a piece for the OryCon newsletter about Match Game SF; however, because I had to give preference to people at the table rather than writing, I got my story turned in too late to make the newsletter. Nevertheless, Scott Sanford, who is doing the Daily Zine, kindly gave us a nice prominent plug for tomorrow morning's game show. We also have a volunteer to work as a production assistant during set-up, for which we're grateful.
After closing down for the day, I had little to do. Lisa and I did some non-fannish computer work up in the hotel room, then we hit the food court again for dinner. Again, we brought the food back to the room because we bought sodas last night when we popped out to the Safeway beyond the mall, so we saved some money there. After dinner, we moved the rest of the tech kit (mostly speakers, but also a sound board) from the van to the hotel room, despite it filling up much of this relatively small room. Lisa said that she didn't want to have the gear go directly from the cold parking garage into a warm ballroom tomorrow morning, but instead wanted it to sit in here and warm up overnight slowly so that it would be no shock to it when we moved it back down to the ballroom tomorrow morning.
We made a brief foray to the parties, but there wasn't a whole lot that kept us tied down, although Lisa had a cheerful time talking with the German Zeppelin Diplomatic Corps group. We'd seen this group around during the day, and now we got the back-story. Their gear is based on inter-war German military (not Nazi or WWII), and is based on an alternative history where, post-WWI, Germany operated a neutral transportation service for diplomats — using Zeppelins, of course.
Then it was down to the lobby again where Lisa enthused over a gentleman who has been wearing a series of 19th-century British military uniforms, each finely researched and smartly turned out. We admired a whole lot of people in costume; indeed, there seems to me to be an energy and vigor here that I've missed at some of the stodgier events I've attended (and yes, I'm including the last Worldcon, fun as it was). But then, I'm someone who enjoys costumes and sometimes wears them himself. I couldn't wear my WSFS uniform to OryCon because I couldn't fit it into my luggage, the space and weight having been taken up with Westercon 64 t-shirts.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
travelswithkuma had to fly the costuming flag, as he continued to wear his DangerMouse costume.
We returned "home" to the hotel room shortly after 10 PM, which is of course quite early for the Saturday night party scene, but we have to be up much too early on Sunday so that we have time to have breakfast and to move our gear and get it set up before the show on Sunday morning. I'm trying to not fret about show work, although I always do. We even have secured an announcer, in the person of Lisa's friend Ed Steiner, who found someone to staff his table for Sunday morning just so he could come and help us out with the show.
OryCon appears to be running pretty smoothly for the most part. If I were to point out something that could be improved, it is this year's membership badges, which make what is for me one of those fundamental errors of assuming that putting the name of the convention in the largest possible type is a good thing, while relegating the member's name to a much smaller type in a difficult-to-read font. But by now almost anyone who reads my LJ has read my rants about badges, which I codified in my article "Feeling Badgered," most recently reprinted in Argentus special edition #2. I don't think whoever designed this year's badges thought through the elements I address in my article, or if s/he did, s/he chose a different priority than I would in the same situation.
While getting cleaned up this morning, I realized that I'd left my electric razor back in Fremont. I have backup, but I don't like shaving with a blade; it's really hard on my face. I have the unfortunate combination of coarse dark facial hair and fairly sensitive pale skin, which razors do not love. I made do.
After breakfast, I spent some time sitting at the Westercon 64 table, and even sold one of the Agatha Heterodyne t-shirts, although no memberships. Things started to get busy for me with a panel at 1 PM about conventions other than OryCon, which at times appeared to the audience to be a Worldcon-attendance-comparison contest between me and Ben Yalow (Ben wins hands down, of course; as far as he can tell, the only person with a longer current string of Worldcon attendance is Robert Silverberg, who is way out in front of him. Mine only goes back to 1989.)
At 2 PM, Lisa and I ran over to the food court and grabbed some lunch and brought it back to the hotel room. Unfortunately, this took longer than I expected, and by the time we were done, it was nearly 3 PM and time for my next panel, which meant poor Glenn Glazer had been trapped at the Westercon table with no relief and no food for way too long. Lisa sat at the table to give Glenn his own chance to get lunch while I went off to do a panel about SF Awards.
The SF Awards panel nearly didn't happen, and was partially invisible. Although listed in the detail schedule, it had fallen off the program grid, which showed a blank spot at 3 PM in the Sellwood Room, and only three people attended with four of us on the panel. Nonetheless, we talked among ourselves about the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Endeavor, and many other awards for 45 minutes or so.
Then it was back to the table from 4 PM until closing. I did some work for the SMOFCon web site (about which more on Tuesday, I think) and wrote a piece for the OryCon newsletter about Match Game SF; however, because I had to give preference to people at the table rather than writing, I got my story turned in too late to make the newsletter. Nevertheless, Scott Sanford, who is doing the Daily Zine, kindly gave us a nice prominent plug for tomorrow morning's game show. We also have a volunteer to work as a production assistant during set-up, for which we're grateful.
After closing down for the day, I had little to do. Lisa and I did some non-fannish computer work up in the hotel room, then we hit the food court again for dinner. Again, we brought the food back to the room because we bought sodas last night when we popped out to the Safeway beyond the mall, so we saved some money there. After dinner, we moved the rest of the tech kit (mostly speakers, but also a sound board) from the van to the hotel room, despite it filling up much of this relatively small room. Lisa said that she didn't want to have the gear go directly from the cold parking garage into a warm ballroom tomorrow morning, but instead wanted it to sit in here and warm up overnight slowly so that it would be no shock to it when we moved it back down to the ballroom tomorrow morning.
We made a brief foray to the parties, but there wasn't a whole lot that kept us tied down, although Lisa had a cheerful time talking with the German Zeppelin Diplomatic Corps group. We'd seen this group around during the day, and now we got the back-story. Their gear is based on inter-war German military (not Nazi or WWII), and is based on an alternative history where, post-WWI, Germany operated a neutral transportation service for diplomats — using Zeppelins, of course.
Then it was down to the lobby again where Lisa enthused over a gentleman who has been wearing a series of 19th-century British military uniforms, each finely researched and smartly turned out. We admired a whole lot of people in costume; indeed, there seems to me to be an energy and vigor here that I've missed at some of the stodgier events I've attended (and yes, I'm including the last Worldcon, fun as it was). But then, I'm someone who enjoys costumes and sometimes wears them himself. I couldn't wear my WSFS uniform to OryCon because I couldn't fit it into my luggage, the space and weight having been taken up with Westercon 64 t-shirts.
travelswithkuma had to fly the costuming flag, as he continued to wear his DangerMouse costume.We returned "home" to the hotel room shortly after 10 PM, which is of course quite early for the Saturday night party scene, but we have to be up much too early on Sunday so that we have time to have breakfast and to move our gear and get it set up before the show on Sunday morning. I'm trying to not fret about show work, although I always do. We even have secured an announcer, in the person of Lisa's friend Ed Steiner, who found someone to staff his table for Sunday morning just so he could come and help us out with the show.
OryCon appears to be running pretty smoothly for the most part. If I were to point out something that could be improved, it is this year's membership badges, which make what is for me one of those fundamental errors of assuming that putting the name of the convention in the largest possible type is a good thing, while relegating the member's name to a much smaller type in a difficult-to-read font. But by now almost anyone who reads my LJ has read my rants about badges, which I codified in my article "Feeling Badgered," most recently reprinted in Argentus special edition #2. I don't think whoever designed this year's badges thought through the elements I address in my article, or if s/he did, s/he chose a different priority than I would in the same situation.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 07:07 pm (UTC)--Joshua
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 11:29 pm (UTC)