Penguicon 2.0
Apr. 19th, 2004 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quasigeostrophyToo brain dead and tired to post yesterday after we got home, so here's my con report.
Friday
First thing in the morning,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
computerchix, aliciar, and I headed up to the Detroit area to attend Penguicon. It would be my first scifi/fantasy con. Didn't plan on dealing much with the Linux side of things (not that I have anything against Linux, mind you, I love it, but until it can run the complete equivalents of Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Photoshop (and not just what the GIMP can do), I can't use it), but Toni got a request to write up a con report for LinuxWorld magazine, and I could take pictures to accompany her story. Press Pass!! :-) We got to the con hotel, checked in, grabbed food, and got our credentials. I took a picture of Tux, the Linux mascot, and of course my flash batteries decided to slow down - I had to laugh at whomever was in the Tux outfit tapping zir foot impatiently waiting for me to take the picture. :-)
We checked out the Dealer Room and Toni got a brass wombat.
Met Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games. He was very personable, funny, and just plain nice. He brought the Chaos toy and several people were setting it up in the computer lab (free wireless 'net access) throughout the weekend. Toni lined up an interview with Steve and we went off to forage for dinner and the first scheduled event.
At some point I also ran intodjinnthespazz and lintra. I was hurrying down the hall and must have walked right past them and heard behind me, "Hey, indyansel!" I must have stopped quickly enough to make the Road Runner envious. Sometime later, we also met barbarakitten_t.
Neil Gaiman Reading
Neil arrived fashionably late and read his short story A Study in Emerald, from the Shadows over Baker Street collection (all stories that combine Doyle's Sherlock Holmes with the mythos of H. P. Lovecraft). Must have. Neil's story was terrific. Met his liaison for the con and briefly met Neil after his reading. He seems very humble and unassuming in person. Reading his blog feed for several months helped me build up a good impression of his public persona, I think, but he seems even funnier IRL.
Opening Ceremonies
Stayed in the main ballroom for this - all the special guest introduced themselves, and the Con Chair even proposed to his girlfriend. Someone (staged, of course) showed up dressed as the MSN butterfly and Tux the Penguin chased him out of the ballroom with a net.
Four Musicians of the Apocalypse
The four filkers/comedy musicians (including Tom Smith, who was the funniest and most entertaining by far) did a group concert. I can't think of the name of the piece, but one of my favourites from Friday night's set was about Winnie the Pooh and Cthulu.
After the concert, we tracked down Steve Jackson in the hallway and got a personal preview of his upcoming game release, Burn in Hell. Must have. Toni did her interview with him while Al and I accompanied (and I got a couple of photos).
Chocolate Ritual
They started off with a pretty funny parody of an Opening the Circle ritual; imagine a chocolate version of this. Then there was plenty of free chocolate of various sorts (mainstream retail stuff like Hershey's and such - no Scharffen-Berger or even Godiva here) to munch, but otherwise, meh.
In between some of the stuff we hit the Con Suite several times for caffeine and munchies.
Saturday
Geeks Are Sexy: Flirting 101
After breakfast, we went to this panel. It started off slowly - I was starting to wonder if I should have gone to the Oh Pun Contest instead, but it picked up after a while. Didn't learn much other than I think I'm a better flirter than maybe I give myself credit for. The women in the audience helped some of the guys who really felt they needed it, as much if not more than the panel did. I was trying not to be too obvious that I was there with both Toni and Al, concerned I might get lynched by the guys afterward. :-)
What's New at Steve Jackson Games?
Al went off to Buffy: The Wake while Toni and I attended this briefing by Steve and his head of Warehouse 23. He talked about the upcoming release of GURPS Fourth Edition, Burn in Hell, Munchkin RPG, Chez Goth, and a lot of other cool stuff.
Autograph Session
After lunch at Taco Bell across the street (the looks Toni and Al were getting for their outfits were interesting to say the least), Toni went up to the room - she needed to get out of her corset after having an asthma attack ,and Al went to an LGBT Issues in SF Media panel. I took our nice hardback edition of Neil Gaiman's Stardust that was illustrated by Charles Vess and my 1982 first edition of Steve Jackson Games' The Ogre Book to the main ballroom for the start of the autograph session. When I presented my copy of The Ogre Book to Steve to sign, he seemed impressed I still had such an old edition in pretty good shape. I then waited for my row to be called for the line for Neil. He commented that my copy of Stardust was his favourite edition of the book and was really hard to find now. Must get Charles Vess to sign it as well sometime when he is in Abingdon when I'm there.
Al came in after her panel and got in the line for Neil with her books, and I went over to the Dealer Room to get some of the games I'd been drooling over. Picked up copies of these Steve Jackson games, and can't wait to play them:
I checked on Toni and she came back down to the ballroom with me to accompany Al (who was still waiting in line for Neil). Got a pic of the two of them on either side of Neil after he signed Al's books.
Tom Smith Concert
Tom was fabulous - improvising at least two filks at the beginning of the show. He got Luke Ski (one of the other comedy musicians) and Steve Jackson to help him on his Talk Like a Pirate Day song (Steve added a great line about carrots and being on Atkins). My favourite, though, from that set has to be his Operation: Desert Storm.
After the concert, we changed (I put on my kilt) and went down the street to Arby's for dinner (getting an interesting reaction from the girl at the counter (Toni realized while we were eating that she still had on her horns).
Can Humour Be Learned?
A couple of the younger filkers and a couple of web comic artists (sorry, I forget - I don't read their strips now, and this panel didn't help them stick in my memory) tried, but I don't think they did a very good job at answering this question. To quote Stewie from Family Guy, "Very Funny! Now tell the one that doesn't Suck!" It's a bad omen when a panelist brings a book to quote from to a panel on such a topic, IMNSHO.
Masquerade
There were some good costumes. One girl should have gotten an award for bravery if nothing else - she was a Sea Nymph and essentially topless. Mother Superior was pretty good, as were the Pengui-Cons (penguins under arrest by a law enforcement officer from SCO) and Hedwig.
After the Masquerade, we wandered about a bit, hitting the Con Suite again (where I rescued Al from a conversation once), and killing time until the supposed Filk Jam at Midnight. That didn't appear to be happening, though, and my stomach was really bothering me so I went back to the room to bed while Toni and Al stayed out for a while longer, in the Con Suite and the ConFusion room.
Sometime during the evening, before I crashed, though, it was great to see Toni tell Jeff "Hemos" Bates "I can't interview you now; I'm drunk" and to see Al get a second chance at a missed opportunity to use a terrific witty comeback to something Eric Raymond said to her.
Sunday
I didn't sleep well at all, with my stomach problems and a festering pissy mood, and none of us woke feeling too human that morning, but we managed a couple of great panels before leaving.
47 Things to Do with a Brick
The woman who ran this should have run the Can Humour Be Learned? panel. She was terrific - improvising a lot of stuff and being really funny about a brick. Al ended up winning the brick at the end for her own suggestion on what to do with it. Y'all will have to let her post what she said and read it in her journal later. I'm not spoiling it.
Blogs As Literature
Neil Gaiman, Steve Jackson, and Jeff "Hemos" Bates (of Slashdot) hosted a great discussion about this topic. They digressed (with much help from the audience, of course), but still led an intelligent and interesting discussion on blogs (I hate that word) in general. Neil even lapsed into a couple of Monty Python references, confirming my unpublished theory (related to Godwin's Law, I believe that any conversation among Geeks will always contain at least one Monty Python or The Simpsons quote...indyansel's Theorem?? ;-)
We checked the progress of the Chaos toy one last time (I'd been taking progress photos all weekend), and then hit the dealer room one more time to get another brass wombat for Al. On one of our visits I got a couple of good buttons from NancyButtons.com:
It was a wonderful weekend, and I'm very glad I got to spend it with my sweeties. Hopefully I'll have some of the pictures available soon. Need to get the processed film back and scanned, and then see which ones, if any, LinuxWorld wants to use.
Friday
First thing in the morning,
computerchix, aliciar, and I headed up to the Detroit area to attend Penguicon. It would be my first scifi/fantasy con. Didn't plan on dealing much with the Linux side of things (not that I have anything against Linux, mind you, I love it, but until it can run the complete equivalents of Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Photoshop (and not just what the GIMP can do), I can't use it), but Toni got a request to write up a con report for LinuxWorld magazine, and I could take pictures to accompany her story. Press Pass!! :-) We got to the con hotel, checked in, grabbed food, and got our credentials. I took a picture of Tux, the Linux mascot, and of course my flash batteries decided to slow down - I had to laugh at whomever was in the Tux outfit tapping zir foot impatiently waiting for me to take the picture. :-)We checked out the Dealer Room and Toni got a brass wombat.
Met Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games. He was very personable, funny, and just plain nice. He brought the Chaos toy and several people were setting it up in the computer lab (free wireless 'net access) throughout the weekend. Toni lined up an interview with Steve and we went off to forage for dinner and the first scheduled event.
At some point I also ran into
djinnthespazz and lintra. I was hurrying down the hall and must have walked right past them and heard behind me, "Hey, indyansel!" I must have stopped quickly enough to make the Road Runner envious. Sometime later, we also met barbarakitten_t.Neil Gaiman Reading
Neil arrived fashionably late and read his short story A Study in Emerald, from the Shadows over Baker Street collection (all stories that combine Doyle's Sherlock Holmes with the mythos of H. P. Lovecraft). Must have. Neil's story was terrific. Met his liaison for the con and briefly met Neil after his reading. He seems very humble and unassuming in person. Reading his blog feed for several months helped me build up a good impression of his public persona, I think, but he seems even funnier IRL.
Opening Ceremonies
Stayed in the main ballroom for this - all the special guest introduced themselves, and the Con Chair even proposed to his girlfriend. Someone (staged, of course) showed up dressed as the MSN butterfly and Tux the Penguin chased him out of the ballroom with a net.
Four Musicians of the Apocalypse
The four filkers/comedy musicians (including Tom Smith, who was the funniest and most entertaining by far) did a group concert. I can't think of the name of the piece, but one of my favourites from Friday night's set was about Winnie the Pooh and Cthulu.
After the concert, we tracked down Steve Jackson in the hallway and got a personal preview of his upcoming game release, Burn in Hell. Must have. Toni did her interview with him while Al and I accompanied (and I got a couple of photos).
Chocolate Ritual
They started off with a pretty funny parody of an Opening the Circle ritual; imagine a chocolate version of this. Then there was plenty of free chocolate of various sorts (mainstream retail stuff like Hershey's and such - no Scharffen-Berger or even Godiva here) to munch, but otherwise, meh.
In between some of the stuff we hit the Con Suite several times for caffeine and munchies.
Saturday
Geeks Are Sexy: Flirting 101
After breakfast, we went to this panel. It started off slowly - I was starting to wonder if I should have gone to the Oh Pun Contest instead, but it picked up after a while. Didn't learn much other than I think I'm a better flirter than maybe I give myself credit for. The women in the audience helped some of the guys who really felt they needed it, as much if not more than the panel did. I was trying not to be too obvious that I was there with both Toni and Al, concerned I might get lynched by the guys afterward. :-)
What's New at Steve Jackson Games?
Al went off to Buffy: The Wake while Toni and I attended this briefing by Steve and his head of Warehouse 23. He talked about the upcoming release of GURPS Fourth Edition, Burn in Hell, Munchkin RPG, Chez Goth, and a lot of other cool stuff.
Autograph Session
After lunch at Taco Bell across the street (the looks Toni and Al were getting for their outfits were interesting to say the least), Toni went up to the room - she needed to get out of her corset after having an asthma attack ,and Al went to an LGBT Issues in SF Media panel. I took our nice hardback edition of Neil Gaiman's Stardust that was illustrated by Charles Vess and my 1982 first edition of Steve Jackson Games' The Ogre Book to the main ballroom for the start of the autograph session. When I presented my copy of The Ogre Book to Steve to sign, he seemed impressed I still had such an old edition in pretty good shape. I then waited for my row to be called for the line for Neil. He commented that my copy of Stardust was his favourite edition of the book and was really hard to find now. Must get Charles Vess to sign it as well sometime when he is in Abingdon when I'm there.
Al came in after her panel and got in the line for Neil with her books, and I went over to the Dealer Room to get some of the games I'd been drooling over. Picked up copies of these Steve Jackson games, and can't wait to play them:
- Munchkin - This just looks too funny!
- Hacker - I've been curious about the game inspired by his company's run-in with the Secret Service for some time.
- Snits! - I haven't played Snits' Revenge since Jr. High School, and never played the prequel, Snit Smashing before. It's so cool that he's brought these back!
- Chez Geek - More silliness.
I checked on Toni and she came back down to the ballroom with me to accompany Al (who was still waiting in line for Neil). Got a pic of the two of them on either side of Neil after he signed Al's books.
Tom Smith Concert
Tom was fabulous - improvising at least two filks at the beginning of the show. He got Luke Ski (one of the other comedy musicians) and Steve Jackson to help him on his Talk Like a Pirate Day song (Steve added a great line about carrots and being on Atkins). My favourite, though, from that set has to be his Operation: Desert Storm.
After the concert, we changed (I put on my kilt) and went down the street to Arby's for dinner (getting an interesting reaction from the girl at the counter (Toni realized while we were eating that she still had on her horns).
Can Humour Be Learned?
A couple of the younger filkers and a couple of web comic artists (sorry, I forget - I don't read their strips now, and this panel didn't help them stick in my memory) tried, but I don't think they did a very good job at answering this question. To quote Stewie from Family Guy, "Very Funny! Now tell the one that doesn't Suck!" It's a bad omen when a panelist brings a book to quote from to a panel on such a topic, IMNSHO.
Masquerade
There were some good costumes. One girl should have gotten an award for bravery if nothing else - she was a Sea Nymph and essentially topless. Mother Superior was pretty good, as were the Pengui-Cons (penguins under arrest by a law enforcement officer from SCO) and Hedwig.
After the Masquerade, we wandered about a bit, hitting the Con Suite again (where I rescued Al from a conversation once), and killing time until the supposed Filk Jam at Midnight. That didn't appear to be happening, though, and my stomach was really bothering me so I went back to the room to bed while Toni and Al stayed out for a while longer, in the Con Suite and the ConFusion room.
Sometime during the evening, before I crashed, though, it was great to see Toni tell Jeff "Hemos" Bates "I can't interview you now; I'm drunk" and to see Al get a second chance at a missed opportunity to use a terrific witty comeback to something Eric Raymond said to her.
Sunday
I didn't sleep well at all, with my stomach problems and a festering pissy mood, and none of us woke feeling too human that morning, but we managed a couple of great panels before leaving.
47 Things to Do with a Brick
The woman who ran this should have run the Can Humour Be Learned? panel. She was terrific - improvising a lot of stuff and being really funny about a brick. Al ended up winning the brick at the end for her own suggestion on what to do with it. Y'all will have to let her post what she said and read it in her journal later. I'm not spoiling it.
Blogs As Literature
Neil Gaiman, Steve Jackson, and Jeff "Hemos" Bates (of Slashdot) hosted a great discussion about this topic. They digressed (with much help from the audience, of course), but still led an intelligent and interesting discussion on blogs (I hate that word) in general. Neil even lapsed into a couple of Monty Python references, confirming my unpublished theory (related to Godwin's Law, I believe that any conversation among Geeks will always contain at least one Monty Python or The Simpsons quote...
indyansel's Theorem?? ;-)We checked the progress of the Chaos toy one last time (I'd been taking progress photos all weekend), and then hit the dealer room one more time to get another brass wombat for Al. On one of our visits I got a couple of good buttons from NancyButtons.com:
- Master of Pun-Fu
- Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult
It was a wonderful weekend, and I'm very glad I got to spend it with my sweeties. Hopefully I'll have some of the pictures available soon. Need to get the processed film back and scanned, and then see which ones, if any, LinuxWorld wants to use.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Linux:
Date: 2004-04-20 06:43 am (UTC)Re: Linux:
Date: 2004-04-20 06:49 am (UTC)Re: Linux:
Date: 2004-04-20 04:49 pm (UTC)After I bought a working computer (my Dell, which I have been very happy with) I upgraded to 2000 and basically rebuilt the innards of the original box - so I have a spare machine to play around on.
This makes a big difference in both my willingness to experiment with it and my ability to do so.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 06:46 am (UTC)Was happy to see a couple of guys in Utilikilts. Yumm.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 04:44 pm (UTC)If you are going to do that, then why kilt it at all?
I noted that one of the fellows had on green bike shorts beneath. How did I note this? He was in one of the forums with the kilt hiked up and his foot crossed on one knee. Hard not too notice the teal green spandex. *grin*
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 04:46 pm (UTC)There ought to be a game, like slugabug, for spotting utilikilts...
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 06:48 am (UTC)Oh, yeah. I'll have to look for this one next year. Perfect.