Fencon Report

celticdragonfly covered most of what we did in her con report, but I'll fill in a few bits.

I spent the beginning of the con doing the last-minute prep for my RPG. This included sitting in on the Firefly episode so I could get myself in the proper mindset. I announced the game at the end, since the gaming track at Fencon had zero publicity. Okay, there were a few 8.5x11 signs saying "Gaming here" but nothing in the convention schedule and no schedule posted in the gaming area. Still got a few players including kd5mdk and the game went fine. I hit all the thematic points I was aiming for and all the players seemed to have a good time. The gaming track organizer asked if I'd be interested in running a game at another con he works. Sure, I'd just hope it'd be better publicized.

Steve Stirling's Guest of Honor speech was interesting. He talked about his original background as a lawyer, apprenticed to one of the most evil lawyers there ever were. This guy had a collegue who was the lawyer for the mafia: "It's interesting work, but you can't quit." So Stiring has spent the decades since trying to work the evil of lawyerdom out of his system by writing books. This explains a lot about some of his books, actually.

At one point Stirling was going on about how when he was a neo the GoH was someone who got respected by all and was brought drinks, etc. He asked if were we taking notes with a hopeful look on his face. Then a bit later he made a comment about how he was going to hand this over to questions now, as he was running dry. So celticdragonfly got up, filled a glass of water from the back, and delivered it to him on stage, saying "see, I fulfill your fantasy!" His comment was "Yes, but in my fantasy you were wearing less."

A fantasy I share, but then we got even more dressed up to attend the Cabaret. The bellydancers were dancing with spears in Xena-esque getups, which didn't add to the appeal for me. The costumes were good, the Tribble one cracked me up with the Starfleet guy cleaning up the baby tribbles. joyeuse13's Unseelie Sidhe outfit is breathtaking. And then there was filking, which is good. Lots of filking.

I got to finally meet balthrop and gridlockjoe. We spent a lot of our time hanging out with joyeuse13, Aaron, kd5mdk, and jazz007 which was a good way to spend the con.

And they've already updated the website for 2006. I'm looking forward to it.