ConReport: ConTemporal 2012

Can I just start out saying – North Carolina is really distinguishing itself this year with conventions! Not only do we have our longstanding faves –WTHCon, StellarCon, ConCarolinas, HeroesCon, MACE, CarolinaRenaissance Faire – but we are coming up with a whole new crop of first year conventions (illogicon, ConTemporal, Festival of Legends) and quite a few fantastic one day events. It's so cool to be a part of this thriving community! And ConTemporal really brought their A-game to this past weekend; it was a spectacular show. As I wasn’t vending, I can’t say whether or not it was a profitable show for folks (I know some people made out like bandits), but the atmosphere of the convention was wonderful.

Thursday night was mostly just checking into the hotel and chilling, as well as the guest dinner. It was a nice way to start the convention, sitting down and talking with people. Also cheesecake. Conventions, if you’re ever wondering how to win the love of your guests, food is definitely not a bad way to go about it. Two of my roommates and I sat down at a random table and soon befriended/traumatized the two guys who sat with us, an artist named Ruben and Wookie, one of the security guys. 

Friday morning we got our schedules. I decided to hold off on the bikini’ing until the Nerdiquette panel, so I spent the afternoon roaming around in total disguise.

"total disguise" of course meaning "wearing clothes." Photo by Chris Burnside

It’s amazing how many convention goers do not panic when they think a total stranger has just run up and tackle-hugged them.

My first panel was a body paint panel with my friend Mary. Unfortunately for us, the girl who was supposed to be heading the panel was also on the cast, and so she had to attend opening ceremonies, leaving us to improvise our way through the panel. But between Mary and I, we spend almost as much time in paint as we do in our natural colors, so we were able to give a pretty thorough review of our different approaches and techniques. Mary uses Ben Nye and brushes, while I prefer alcohol based paint such as Kustom Kolor and an airbrush! Just goes to show you there’s not one right way to go about doing your costume J

*Disclaimer – which is to say, there are plenty of right ways. And also a lot of wrong ways. Do your research!

Nerdiquette was next up – for those not familiar with it, some friends and I started a small group called Nerdiquette 101, dedicated to promoting social skills on the con scene. We discuss everything from personal space to approaching strangers to getting out of awkward situations, and we also did an offshoot panel Saturday night about Geek Dating (how to meet geeks! How to flirt with them! How to maintain your relationship with your prize catch!)

Since Jennie Breeden was at the con, it wouldn’t be complete without a kilt blowing! A kilt blowing, for those not in the know, is when kilts are made to flutter and fly up (but hopefully not *too* far up, lest it become an X-rated event) through the strategic use of a leaf blower. Many daring gentlemen (and one HELLA BALLSY LADY) volunteered to be blown, and we audience members were appropriately appreciative of everyone’s efforts – especially when poor Jennie got the tables turned on her by the emcee!

I am starting to think panels at or after 10pm don’t do so well. (unless they’re dating or adult themed)  Friday night, we had “What Judges Want”, a panel about how to dominate a costume contest, which was attended by almost nobody who actually entered the contest (alas) and then after that, “Costuming for every body type”, about how to plan a costume to your best advantage (which was slightly better attended but not really). 

Costuming is tricky to begin with, and the more extreme your proportions are (super skinny, super curvy, very tall, or quite short), the more you have to finagle to make a costume look right for you. The wrong cut dress on me, for example, makes me look rather boxy and stumpy, because I’m so short and busty. Our recommendations included: tailoring, shapewear, making your own version of a costume (like Steampunk Slave Leia, for example), and not giving and damn and making an awesome costume and having a great time regardless.

I think there was a dance or something going on Friday night, but after my panels, I was about ready for sleep. And by sleep, I mean staying up to use our room’s wifi connection to get my gaming fix for the weekend. *like a nerd!*

And suddenly Saturday! Matt and Cord arrived Saturday morning and dragged me and Kelly out to the parking lot to help them armor up. Which, given that it was roughly the temperature of the surface of the sun, was a terrible idea (neither black leather or metal are particularly cooling). Once we got them suited up and rehydrated, and I played around with my new found green hair sufficiently, we went exploring around the con floor. We saw the renowned Penny Dreadful Productions, promoting their new post apocalyptic project, Remnant, as well as the Imperial Anti-Piracy Squadron, who were a little hindered in their efforts by the fact that one of the children at the con took it upon himself to warn all potential pirates about the Squadron.

 There was lots of cool stuff in the dealer room, everything from jewelry to books to steampunk comics/graphic novels to (of course) chainmail to leatherwork! I got to chat with Kaja and Cheyenne of Girl Genius, and they complimented my Zeetha/Skifander inspired get up. *fangirl squee moment*

nothing builds friendships like chainmail! Photo by Chris Burnside

We also stopped by Brute Force Studios to check out Thomas’ AMAZING leatherwork. I have to admit, as a novice leatherworker, I am *dreadfully* jealous of his laser cutter. He was happy to show off all of his neat goodies, including a steampunk gauntlet with working Bluetooth compatible keyboard:

And…the very arm that Nathan Fillion wore on the steampunk episode of Castle!

I don't care that it's way too big for me, I feel like a  pretty steampunk princess!

Also Nathan’s hat.

If this expression doesn't scream crazed fangirl...

As part of our wandering around, we tracked down photographer Paul Cory and did some impromptu shooting with him. While Matt was getting his pictures done, Cord and I had a little photoshoot of our own…

the little known musical side of bounty hunters

We spent a lot of time talking to different craftspeople and costumers, and I definitely came home with a ton of ideas that I want to try out. One of the really neat things about the con was that they had dedicated staff members in costume as specific characters created for the convention, as well as people whose job it was to build set pieces and decorate the hotel walls. The end result was a very immersive environment that really did make you feel like you’d temporarily stepped into a different world. James Christopher Hill's designs featured prominently on several walls

 and the fabulous machinery and costumes of HattonCrossSteampunk caught everyone's attention! 

At 4pm, Angela and I had a panel about cosplay modeling, which went pretty well. We covered differences in body language and posing between men and women, how to fool the camera into flattering you, and what to do/not to do at a photoshoot (both for models and photographers)

Later that evening was the costume contest, and I have to say, it was one of the most difficult ones I’ve judged yet. There were so many high quality costumes, and such excellent craftsmanship! One of the things I love about steampunk is how it encourages people to incorporate a wide variety of talents (wood work, metal work, electronics, leather work) in their costumes, whereas in other genres, you’re a bit more limited in what you can use. 

John Strangeway, or Steampunk Boba Fett as many people know him, was our delightful MC, and he kept the audience from rebelling suitably entertained while the judges frantically deliberated.

one of these things is not like the others! clue: it's GIANT and RED.

After the costume contest, we sprinted away to get food, only to have to immediately sprint back for my 10pm panel on Geek Dating. I sat on the panel and shoveled food into my mouth like a maniac, and yet, somehow, people still listened to my advice. The panel was slightly derailed by two pretty boys kissing

...uh...what was I typing about?

But we mostly stayed on track and talked about the hurdles of navigating the dating pool as a single, the challenges of resolving issues once you were in a relationship, and the benefits of improving your communication overall. We also discussed general issues of self esteem, and how they relate to your dateability. Really, 50 minutes was not enough time to talk about everything, and I'd love to see this turn into a two part panel.

Saturday night was also room party night! There were several good ones to choose from (and some yummy cider and brownies, thanks illogicon!) so we ended up migrating a lot, and finally just found a little lobby area to hang out and talk. We also met Blaise, an ENORMOUS purebred Alaskan Malamute – they look like super sized huskies, very intelligent – and he won all of us over by being the sweetest and most cuddle friendly dog. All us girls went nuts over him and I kind of want one now. (Yes, animal lovers, I know they are a lot of work! I have no plans of getting a dog until I’m really really really certain I’ll be able to care for it properly)

Despite our best intentions to be reasonably responsible, we all went to bed around 4ish, and when I crawled out of bed around 10:30am on Sunday, I was deeply repentant. We packed up and loaded the cars, then went to do our round of goodbyes (which, as everyone knows, takes several hours). I fully intended to corset up for the last day but was overcome with a tremendous case of not giving two sh*ts about how sleek my waist looked and took it off so I could hug people better.

Overall, the programming needed a bit of fine tuning (such as my friend’s conflict that I mentioned earlier) but the staff was tremendously helpful and friendly, and thanks to the combined efforts of the Green Room and the consuite, I did not starve to death over the weekend. Congratulations to all the staff and volunteers for their hard work and a job well done! I can't wait to see what ConTemporal does next year!

(Unless they do zombies. F*ck zombies.)

Con report: illogicon

This past weekend, I kicked off my con season with a convention in my former haunting grounds, Raleigh NC. It was a first year con, very small, but tons of fun. In some ways, I like small cons better than huge ones, just because you actually get to hang out and connect with people, as opposed to the big cons, where you have to have drive-by-conversations. It’s like the difference between going to Mardi Gras, and having a dinner party with a bunch of good friends. I will admit that despite being a tiny weekend event, it completely kicked my ass, and I was so exhausted by Sunday night that I couldn’t even stay awake enough to play a button-mashing side scroller on the Xbox with my sister. In gamer speak, that's pretty freakin' exhausted.

Technically, my illogicon started on Thursday night, when Matt and I drove down early so I could shoot with my dear friend and mentor Alan Welch, of Reverie Realm. We’ve been planning an image as an homage to Frank Frazetta’s “Egyptian Queen”, and finally got a chance to shoot it, using our friend’s large garage/workshop area. For anyone unfamiliar with it, Little Miss Egyptian Queen is wearing some kind of gold pasties, and a long blue loin cloth, and….nothing else. Oh, she has a fancy Egyptian hat. Which is all well and good when you are lounging about warm, sunny, well heated Egypt, but holy cow it’s January and we’re practically outdoors and why couldn't he paint her in a nice cashmere sweater or something. Thank god for set assistants and fluffy bathrobes is all I have to say. The pictures turned out great, though, and hopefully I’ll be posting the finished image soon!

On Friday, Matt and I headed over to the hotel to set up. We were nicely tucked into a corner with Shaun, my chainmail guy, and GarthGraham, a really unfairly cute webcomic writer and artist. Every year at WTHCon I bid on him at the geek auction, and every year I get outbid because he can do the David-Bowie-in-Labyrinth-glass-ball-thing. Pro tip, fellas, the ladies just love that. Also in the dealer’s room were the artists of Firetower Studios, a Jedi Academy (where you can learn to fight with lightsabers!), and some cool vendors selling books, jewelry, and art. I finally got to meet (officially in person) two of my con buddies, Animaze Guy, whose awesome pictures I will be linking throughout this blog, and Mike Penny, who does videography.

I had a record (for me) EIGHT panels, including the Zen Scavenger Hunt (the panelists bring 10 random items, then the audience makes a scavenger hunt by calling out what they want us to “find”, and we have to explain why one of the random things we brought is what they want. It’s like an awesome exercise in BSing, because you have to explain how a typewriter is really like a bass guitar. Unfortunately, I kinda skimmed the explanatory email, and brought nothing besides my jazz hands, so I was designated scorekeeper), Trivia for Chocolate (answer geeky trivia questions, receive chocolate for correct responses), a couple panels about modeling, costuming, and art (with the aforementioned Firetower Studios guys, who are very funny).

Friday night also saw a very fun dance party thrown by the infamous Formal Vader (with his beautiful wife as Formal Leia, making them a very-well-dressed-but-exceedingly-weird-to-think-about-in-canonical terms couple). 

Just before the Father-Daughter dance!

As it was a winter formal, I endeavored to find something appropriate to wear.

Clearly I failed.

We had Mandalorians and Master Chief (in a pinstripe suit), raver girls, elves, lots of people in formal wear, and Matt even got down on the dance floor in his full armor.

In addition to enabling people to dance their butts off, there was also a fundraising and support effort for Baby Leah, affectionately known in the fan community as “Princess Leah.” Leah is the infant daughter of two Star Wars fans, Zev and Fran Esquenazi, and she suffers from a very serious condition that has baffled doctors. As anyone who’s ever had a family member go to the hospital… those bills get kinda scary. So the fan community has banded together to help raise money for her family, and so far has sent $65,000 to her family to help them out. You can check out their facebook page and blog if you're interested in helping out! This time, we also took turns recording video messages of hope and encouragement, so hopefully the Esquenazis will be getting their video of all of us NC geeks wishing them the best soon.

Saturday saw the debut of my newest outfit for conventions: my fleece? Pikachu onesie. Oh, I can sense your jealousy from here. My dear friends Cord and Kelly came up with it for my Christmas present, and it’s the perfect thing for wintery conventions, warm and soft and fuzzy. Also, it’s the best way ever to one-up someone’s Pikachu hat/tshirt/shoes/whatever. “Oh, you’re wearing a Pikachu? I AM PIKACHU, BITCHES.” (I may have a small Pikachu one-up-manship contest going on with my friend SpaceJesus) Words can’t describe the amazingness of this outfit, so I think these pictures will have to:

Chu!

Back view... yes, it has a tail!

Me, clearly about to kick some Mandalorian's ass

There were more panels….and more parties! ConTemporal, a Chapel Hill based steampunk convention, threw an excellent party which was promptly shut down by the hotel, then discreetly reopened by the ConTemporal staff, and was very fun, especially for a party that periodically had to shush itself. For all the Whovians out there, we taped an episode of GallifreyPirate Radio (which you can watch here). I also helped host Trivia for Chocolate, as the self-designated Chocolate Girl. Like Vanna White, but handing out M&Ms. Is it true that I was caught sneaking a few M&Ms? At this time I can neither confirm nor deny such allegations…

Sunday is always a very laid back day at conventions, partly because everyone is leaving to get home and get ready for the week to start again, but mostly because everyone is dead tired from partying/gaming the night before. In a cruel twist of fate, Sunday is actually when I had the most panels, so I was forced to feign coherence and wittiness. I confess, I couldn’t even bring myself to get into the bikini, and spent the entire day as The Pajama Chick, and now I’m strongly considering lining my bikini with some flannel.

By Sunday afternoon, I was falling asleep in the lobby waiting for my last panel to start. The panel, named “See I’m So Pretty,” was not actually a panel about stunning good looks, but rather how to get great pictures of your costume. You might be surprised to know how much sorcery is involved with this process, so it was a pretty informative panel, but we also forced the audience to preface any comment or question with a compliment about the panelists, preferably related to how pretty we were. Our very creative audience complimented the sturdiness of our noses, our lack of split ends, and how nice our relatives were. Next time I’ll have to be a lot more specific with the wording.

We capped off our Raleigh visit with a trip to Brewmasters, to sample their famous burgers, which were ungodly delicious and probably totally unhealthy. And then I slept for 14 hours straight.

I hear illogicon was a success this year, so there will be another next year, and I’m looking forward to it! Congratulations to the illogicon team for putting together such a fun event :)

Origins 2011

Last year, Tanner and I attended Origins for the first time. I was going as part of the D20 girls, and Tanner was going because he wanted to binge himself on games. We had a pretty fabulous time, so we were definitely looking forward to this year’s trip. It’s really nice being able to remain close with someone you’ve dated, especially when that means you can continue to beat their ass down in games. Yay friendship!

(Tanner would like it known that he won 50% of the games, so perhaps *someone* is taking a few creative licenses with her claims of ass kicking)

Origins isn’t going to get a day-by-day breakdown, because honestly, I was working most of the time, and that cannot be interesting to read about. So here’s an overall blurb about it!

The drive up was nice – we stopped in Tamarack for dinner, which was fantastic. West Virginia is really pretty but Ohio roads suck balls. If anyone ever asks you to road trip through Ohio, run away as fast as you can.

Working for GAMA was pretty neat, my first day I helped with the guest breakfast, which was fun. Basically, you pay for breakfast, and you get to eat and hang out with some of the con guests, which is prime time to pick their brains with all those questions you didn’t get to lay on them at their last panel. It was a nice way to interact with the guests, much more intimate and low key than you normally get. And I got to see my friends Tim and Anna and Ed and Destini! The rest of the day, I was in the game library, so I got to play a bunch of award nominated games. Oh, the grueling labor…  “Zombie Dice” was cute:

Roll three dice at a time, eat brains, do not get killed by shotgun!

and “Last Call” was a big hit. 

Compete with your friends to see who can make their drinks the fastest and most efficiently!

I also worked in the theme bar Saturday night, where we played my new favorite game “Three Dragon Ante” (sort of the love child of Dungeons and Dragons and poker)

The rules don't condense well, so let's just go with "play poker with dragons!"

Gambling games bring out the worst in me, as you can tell by my (wooden monocle) dastardly villain moustache!

 and I got to talk to a lot of cool cats and was introduced to a fun and silly little card game called “Godzilla Stomp!” 

Throw down a semi-random card! Get points! 

It wasn’t all fun and games though! I manned the volunteer booth for a day, and as you might expect, there weren’t a ton of people wanting to sign up to volunteer while they were rushing from one game to the next.  The Secret Service showed up and jammed everyone’s wireless (including cell phones) as they ushered Vice President Biden to a speech at the convention center, so I was promoted from “gopher” to “messenger pigeon”. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to sprint through a convention center in a corset, let me tell you, it’s not quite Baywatch-in-slow-motion-sexy.

The highlight for me was running a game demo in the miniatures room for Faultline Studios, called DADOS. It’s Spanish for “dice”, and it’s a fairly simple strategy/luck game where you roll dice and place them to try and “win” a tile by having the most points on it at the start of your next turn. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins – but some of the tiles help you and some of them don’t, so it’s a gamble as to which tiles you try to win. It’s the kind of game that’s easy to learn and tricky to play well – there’s a few permutations in strategy, and a lot of it depends on your opponent as well.  And, I may or may not have gotten owned by a 9 year old.

Tanner’s views on Origins were somewhat different, since he was attending as a regular person having fun. In typical concise Tanner fashion, his review is thus: less people and less free stuff than last year (from when Rio Grande Games was sponsoring the board game room, I guess?). Still a really good supply of games to play, still a really good dealer room. Not as much interesting scheduled stuff. Good panels. Really cool miniatures set up. Got to game with people from last year, which was cool. Less going on at night and everything shut down earlier. Had a lot of fun and the attendees were really nice. Recommended games: Fiasco, Confusion.

Thanks, Tanner!

Also interesting is watching Origins work on accommodating a younger crowd – this year, the theme was “steampunk”, and there were so many more costumes than last year! It probably helps that steampunk is one of the few genres of costuming that’s comfortable to sit and game in for several hours…

Anyway, we had a good time, and we’ll be back next year! To everyone I saw at Origins, I wish we could have had more time to hang out! You must forgive my workaholic  tendencies. V_V

Till the next con! <3 

ConCarolinas 2011

About four years ago, I attended ConCarolinas for the first time. It was my first real convention experience – I met the Mandalorian Mercs and the 501^st, placed “Most Original” in the costume contest (my first costume contest, I was so nervous I couldn’t stop bouncing on the balls of my feet) and met many of the people I consider good friends today.

This year, I attended ConCarolinas as a guest, and I reflected on how far I’ve come in the convention scene. After about 30 seconds of introspection, I decided that was enough, and got on with the con. Because who has time to stand around gazing thoughtfully off into the distance when ConCarolinas awaits?

Thursday Night/Friday Morning (Con Prep)

4am photoshopping and costume wrangling and printing and oh god why did I leave all this to the last minute I regret my decision making. I crash for a couple hours, wake up, try to pack things, and lack the presence of mind to pack things like shorts and toothpaste. Nevertheless, eventually I hit the road with a vendor friend, and without a map or gps but with a great deal of overconfidence we take off for Charlotte.

Friday Afternoon

We drive past the convention hotel

Friday Afternoon, a few minutes later

Vendor friend does not have any booth help. I am charged with the dubious pleasure of helping him set up and organize.

Fridays at conventions are usually a bit slow, although ours is a combination of frantic unpacking and sitting around waiting for traffic in the dealers’ room to pick up. I actually have a little half table out in the hallway this year, so I set up my table and camp out, hoping to sell some prints. Roughly half the convention comes up with the exceedingly witty “Hey Chainmail Chick, where’s your chainmail?” Yeah, I’d like to see you people set up a 10x10 booth in a metal bikini.

I have no Friday panels, so I thoroughly intend to run around and cause havoc after hours. SpaceJesus, Padawan Clayton, and a few friends come out to eat. The nice little Mexican restaurant is half filled with normal people eating dinner with their family on a Friday night, and half filled with steampunk couples and leather-clad dragons.

After dinner, we crashed the panel SpaceJesus was moderating, “How to Write a Sex Scene”. If they have the same panel next year with the same guests, I will totally attend again, because it might as well have been called “The Panel of Thinly Veiled Sexual Innuendos And Also Some Useful Writing Advice.”  Angela and I sat against the wall and snickered every time they said “hard”. (there were way better double entendres but you really just had to be there!) 

Unfortunately, this is about where my steam ran out, and I went back to the room and crashed. My posse did way better than me and stayed out talking and having pillow fights and gaming (although to be fair, they didn’t have a 10am Saturday panel)

Saturday

OH BALLS 10AM PANEL. I wake up sick and manage to only be slightly late to my panel and successfully did not puke on any of the panelists. “Budget Costuming” had Brian Holloway, Mandalore the Uniter, Kirsten of the Bibbering Humdingers, cutie actor Michael R. Williams, and myself, basically explaining how to do costuming on the cheaps. While my initial suggestions would include “wear practically nothing” and “make it out of duct tape”, it was actually a very informative panel with a lot of good tips.

Useful Tips for Those Who Slept In Like I Wish I Could Have

1. Invest in good tools, it’s better to have the right tool you need that will last you for a while than the wrong tool or a cheap tool than needs replacing. (Air brushes, hammers, dremels…)
2. With good costuming, you either have to sink in a lot of time or a lot of money. Be patient. Wait for good deals on things you need. Scour ebay, etsy, craigslist, etc.
3. A good paint job will get you far. With the right materials, you can make plastic look like weathered metal and turn a water gun into a steampunk ray gun or a
4.     Join costuming groups, make friends, and ask around! With so many veteran costumers, there’s always someone who’s willing to help you out or give advice on products and techniques. And even newbie costumers might discover a good resource or trick that everyone else hasn’t heard of.

Lots of sitting around at my table – my younger but taller sister Alyssa was supposed to be there, but family matters kidnapped her from me. I learned a couple things while sitting at my table, namely that I hate sitting at tables. I wanted to be out and about and enjoying the con! I harassed some of the Mandos into coming over to my table so I could leer at them and got some priceless footage out of it :D

Also, SpaceJesus continued our feud by putting a bounty on my head – basically you pay the Mercs a fee, give them a description, and they hunt down your friends and stick them in a cage. But it’s all for charity! Which means that they can’t leave the cage without seeming like an uncharitable douchebag. Ha HA!

The Mandos arrested me first. Now, last year, I was wearing Organic Armor, which is designed for actors and dancers and is super lightweight and flexible. I made a daring and roguish escape and eluded capture for a good fifteen minutes or so. This year, I was wearing gold scale mail all over, and was about as stealthy as a tapdancer wearing jingle bells. Emma and Cord cornered me and brought me in. Curses!

Daphne fed me French fries through the cage bars and smuggled me a sword, which I used to harass my guards. Eventually I attained freedom again, and promptly put a counter bounty on SpaceJesus. It took the Mercs a while to find him, and he hoped to evade them because he was in a panel, but he underestimated the galaxy’s fiercest bounty hunters! One of the Mercs came in and sat next to him for the entire panel just so he could arrest SpaceJesus when the panel got out. Ah, sweet vengeance.

Next up was the “Sci Fi Whose Line Is It Anyway?” panel. Now, a quick bit of info, I love that show more than anything, so when I saw the panel on the list, I begged and pleaded to get on it. And glad I did, because it was one of the most fun panels I’ve ever done! We had three authors, including Harry Turtledove, and one of the guys from the Geek Comedy Tour, who more or less carried the show with his awesome improv skills. We played “Interrogation”, where we found out that author Edward McKeown stole William Shatner’s hair, I got to choose from three bachelors  in “Let’s make a date” and passed over Kirk and Batman in favor of Mario. (unfortunately, when he came to pick me up, I was in another castle). There was an infomercial selling holodecks with complimentary commemorative Princess Diana plates, and ended with a  round of superheroes, where the Hatless Avenger was called upon to prevent a mass of tiny poodles from slamming into the earth and bringing about an adorable apocalypse. He was aided by Captain Thinks His Feet Are Hands And His Hands Are Feet, Miss I Whip My Hair Back and Forth, The Man Who Writes His Way Out of Things, and Only Wears a Bikini Girl. (Guess which one I was)

Next was a quick stop by the fabled con suite, which was run by Caterer X and his talented team of minions this year. I grabbed a bowl of tasty jambalaya (just the thing for the perpetually cold blooded like myself!) and a roast beef sandwich au jus. The only downside to our feast was that the con had forbidden any food to leave the room because…well, I wasn’t super clear on why, because all I saw food-wise from the hotel was the bar, but there was some sort of competing issue. Which meant that everyone who stopped by the con suite had to jam into one tiny room and eat as quickly as they could so there was more room for the next people to come in.  

Later on, I judged the costume contest, aided by Podcasting Rich, my friends Angela and Kelly, and Conor McCullagh. It was a fun contest, with some cute skits – I cannot emphasize how much better costume contests are when you have a witty skit. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of people strolling across the stage with a few awkward pauses. On the flip side, the painful skits are painful…

After the costume contest, I had a panel on fetish costuming. Honestly, I could think of at least half a dozen people better qualified to speak on that panel, because fetish costuming (to me) is very glam and accessorized and on a good day I can sort of manage to put regular amounts of eyeliner on and maybe match my socks. However, it ended up becoming a hodgepodge of stories about cons and personal experiences, and I was the only person on the panel who’s ever had to match their pasties to their see through bikini, so I felt much better about being there!

The fetish costuming panel ran from 10pm-12am, which meant I missed Geek Comedy Tour’s 10pm show (NERTS, I WANTED TO SEE THAT), but we ended the panel a little early on account of the fact that it was drinking o’clock and everyone wanted to hit up the room parties.

Room parties continued to be great! I think we spent most of our time in ConTemporal’s party, but we had a blast at the Deep South Con/Lunar Party (who always has these AMAZING chocolate covered peanut butter balls) and Illogicon’s delicious brownie party. Sadly, Professor Schrodington was not in attendance at Illigicon’s party, but we hung out with several of the artists (in my experience, artists are great partiers) and discovered that one of the Mando Mercs has uber self-styling anime hair.  

Sunday

 I think the 11am panel was even harder to get up for than the 10am panel! Just means the parties were fun ;)

The  11am panel was called “Should I Quit My Day Job”, and it was basically about making that leap from hobbyist/part timer to making your passion your full time career. Since the panel had six writers, it was geared a bit more towards people trying to finish that first or second novel and make it big so they can stop working the 9-5 they mildly despise.

Let me sum up the panel for you: Should you quit your day job? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

In a nutshell, unless you have hit it big, and can pay your insurance, mortgage, car payments, bills, etc  with your earnings, you’re better off keeping the 9-5 for the benefits and trucking along with the novel as a side job. Many published authors (in fact, almost all of the ones on the panel) have to keep a regular job (or have a spouse who does) because the average yearly earnings for an author who is doing well are somewhere around a low starting salary for an entry level 9-5 job.

Dreams crushed yet? Good, goooood. (Mine were squished a bit, but I’m not completely banking on being a writer.)

12pm panel was a quick sketch contest, which was actually moderated by someone else, so I drew my panther with my typical stick figure elegance and scooted out of there.

This con report is getting a bit long, so suffice to say that it went by too fast and I’m already looking forward to next year! Pics can be seen here. 

Things I Heard Were Good But Did Not Get To Experience Personally:

1. The gaming. The good folks of MACE hosted much of the gaming, with help from S.C.A.R.A.B, and everyone must have done a good job because one of my friends was out every night till 4am playing games.
2. The guests. John Billingsley and Bonita Friedericy were apparently incredibly funny and supremely down to earth and friendly. Always good to have fun media guests!
3. Geek Comedy Tour! Nuff said.
4. Ghost Trek, Charlotte’s home brewed horror/supernatural/comedy series based around a paranormal reality show.

Things That Might Need a Bit of Work:

1.       The art room/back hallway is the least trafficked (and coldest!) area of the con, which is frustrating for guests and artists trying to sell their stuff. Other than that, I got nothing!

Edit: OH OH! Randy Richards made this awesome video of the con: