Archived Con Reports
Nov. 17th, 2020 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenite0Facebook just nuked the notes feature, which I'd used for long items such as con reports. There's an obnoxious workaround that lets you access them if you dig deep enough (activity log, filter, scroll way down to notes).
I'm going to dump them all here to retain them.
"Firefly: The Musical" Review 6/1/2012
When I saw the announcement of "Firefly: the Musical" I immediately wanted to go see it. Once I got there I had qualms--was this going to be good entertainment or just an attempt to take advantage of Browncoats' willingness to throw money at anything with the word Firefly on it? When the cast finished singing the theme song those qualms were gone.
The Highball is more bar than theater, but a corner of it was curtained off for the show. The audience all had a good view of the stage. I didn't notice any problems with the acoustics but can't speak for the back corners. There was minimal scenery. The actors were as likely to use mime as to pull out a table for a scene.
The pre-show was a series of videos including songs from other Whedon works (Dr. Horrible and "Once More With Feeling") and fan vids. The projector also had some use during the play. A starfield was projected for all the bridge scenes and a clip of the river ambush opened the show.
The Firefly actors are a tough example to live up to but our local heroes did well. Stephen Robinson (Wash) and Jason Vines (Jayne) stole most of their scenes. Robinson's comic timing gave us a classic showstopper--the audience was laughing so hard at an off-hand wink that another actor was frozen, waiting for us to quiet down so she could say her line. Michael Thomas (Mal) had the toughest role--stepping into the shoes of an actor talented enough to anchor a multi-year prime time series isn't easy--but he held the stage and kept us engaged with the story. Linsey Reeves (Inara) did a smooth job of showing a professional liar telling clumsy lies. Adam Mengesha (Book) solidly laid down the law for our captain. Sabrina Jones (Saffron) got to display her range from naive country girl to seductress to cold professional.
The crew introduced themselves singing the theme song together. The settlers' celebration was the setting for Mal and Inara's "I Won't Let You In" duet (a lovely song reprised at the end). That was the saddest of the songs as the couple explained their reasons for rejecting love. Jayne's "Guns and Women" was hilarious as our favorite thug dithered over which he was more attracted to. Saffron steamed up the stage with "Let Me Have My Wedding Night." Then we switched to vaudville as Wash sang "When Did This Stop Being Funny?" and got great laughs with some really bad jokes. Inara had another duet with Saffron, flirting in the ways "Only a Woman Can See." The action climax was Jayne saving the day with "One Shot"--a duet with Kaylee who felt she only had one shot with Simon. The soundtrack will be coming out on CD, including an additional song: "Special Hell."
On top of the songs the script added some grace notes to the original, usually going for laughs. Kaylee vamped on Simon in the background when the script allowed (and then in the foreground during the climactic "One Shot" song). The deleted scene from the episode was included, giving Simon and River their best moments in the show.
This is not a good way to introduce your musical-loving friend to Firefly. The play assumes you've seen the episode. This let them save time and effort by not explaining setting changes or having scenery to show which room they're in. As much as I'd like better visuals this is a small scale production. A $5 ticket doesn't get me a Serenity marionette sailing across the stage. For someone who hasn't seen the show they're going to be very confused by moments such as the carrion house crew walking on stage and making some cryptic remarks. Rewriting the scenes to provide context to that and other bits wouldn't be that hard--but there's probably not enough newbies in the audience to justify spending the time.
"Firefly: The Musical" was a wonderful show, well worth driving for hours. We were apparently the fans who'd come the farthest to see it so far (Fort Worth to Austin). Given that they've had to double the run of the show to deal with demand someone will probably beat that. With luck the Institution Theater will be inspired to tackle another episode. "The Message" and "Objects In Space" would work well in their format ("Out of Gas" would be great but harder to translate).
Strongly recommended for all Browncoats.
Soonercon Report 7/3/16
Okay, the con was a week ago, I should have had this up days. I've been busy.
So, the short version: great con, looking forward to going again next year.
Longer version:
- Loved Toni Weisskopf's writing workshop. Lots of great feedback, good interaction with the other members. I'll never listen to Margaritaville the same way again.
- Enjoyed seeing friends, especially TRMN. It's good to meet people I've only known online. I finally got to Roll Pods. We'll have to see if we can do that at Fencon.
- Had interesting panels. I only had time for four, and was on the panel for three of them. Great discussions.
- Unfortunately just didn’t have enough time to do all the stuff I wanted to. Didn't get any gaming in, didn't have time to chat with everyone I wanted to.
- The Heat. My last couple of panels were moved because their scheduled rooms were over 90 degrees. I don't know how much of that was the weather and how much was record attendance.
Fencon Report 9/29/16
I go to Fencon every year, but what I do there varies. Sometimes I'm watching panels, sometimes running games, sometimes just hanging out with friends. This was Panelist Year for me. I was on ten panels, plus a reading and an autographing session. I was even moderating for the first time.
Friday started with the Manufacturing the Future panel, which covered an interesting mix of near and far technology. One of the panelists didn't show, so I drafted J Storrs Hall out of the audience to cover us on nanotech. The next couple of panels were on space technology so I cheerfully babbled away.
The autographing session was quiet except for this one crazy chick who wanted me to sign her breast. I was sharing the session with Bill Ledbetter who had several current and former GoHs visit him with interesting conversation.
Saturday's zombie panel went well for almost everybody. I didn't want to ask the boring question, "What should the rules of engagement for fighting zombies be?" Instead I waited for someone to enter late, made him say "brains," and asked "He sounds like a zombie. Can I shoot him?" Unfortunately the poor guy I picked had enough stage fright that it took him a painfully long time to get the "brains" out. I was going to apologize later but didn't see him. I hope he didn't flee the con.
My reading had a decent crowd, about a dozen people. The best part of doing a live reading is hearing people laugh at the funny bits. It's hard to be sure if my humor is going to work for anyone else.
The HMS Homer crew met for dinner that evening. That was the only part of the TRMN operations I could participate in. They were running a recruiting table but I never sat down there, just said hi in between panels.
Hopping room parties was fun and let me catch up with friends I don't get to see often enough. I sold a few books out of my backpack, which is a weird experience. I felt like I should be wearing a drug-dealer's trench coat. I also registered for ConDFW at their room party. I'll see if I can do panels there . . . but not this many. When I was socialed out I listened to the bardic filk circle for a bit. Lovely, but I was too tired to stay long.
Sunday's panels were a bit less space-focused so I didn't have as much to contribute. The Replicator panel was very Star Trek focused. We kept quoting bits from various episodes as arguments over the capability of replicators. I pointed out the Classic Trek replicators could make more than food, since they produced the knife Tormolen killed himself with in "Naked Time."
Then I saw the closing Filk GoH concert with the Suttons, which was marvelous. I'm looking forward to next year.
Death Star Plans
Some folks might be wondering how a copy of the Death Star plans could be useful to the Rebels. If they don’t have experienced engineers and time to go through billions, maybe trillions of drawings, how can they find a weakness in the few hours before the Empire catches up to destroy the Rebel Base?
Well, it turns out what they needed to do was run a keyword search on the Death Star Project's email archive:
From: Lead, Power System Engineering
To: Lead, Infrastructure Systems
Subject: Design Change Request 894-546-165
Problem: Recently discovered vulnerability to enemy fire in thermal exhaust port. (See attachment A: Torpedo impact simulation)
Consequence: A lucky hit could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction in the reactor core. (See attachment B: Reactor failure simulation)
Solution: Build an S-bend into the exhaust path with rapid-action armored doors to prevent core penetrations (See attachment C: Preliminary S-bend design)
Resources: (Preliminary estimates only) 5.4 Megacredits parts and labor, 6 week delay in completion of reactor venting systems. This will place the RVS on the critical path and lead to a two week delay in system completion. (See attachment D: Manhours spreadsheet)
Recommendation: Approve. This could be catastrophic if not fixed.
From: Lead, Infrastructure Systems
To: Lead, Power System Engineering
Subject: CR 894-546-165
Have you been chewing deathsticks!? I can't believe you're seriously proposing a schedule delay after the Emperor's last message. We've been at this for eighteen years, if it was a real design flaw we'd've already found it. CR rejected.
PS: The next time you ask for a delay I'm forwarding it directly to Lord Vader so he can crush your throat as an example to the next engineer who doesn't care about meeting deadlines. How are you coming on my suggestion to remove the personnel station shielding from the beam projection conduits? That should save us at least 15 hours in assembly.
NTRPG Con Report 6/7/17
North Texas RPG Con is a different kind of convention than I'd been to before. I'm used to gaming cons being mostly about pick up play. Someone pulls out a game, finds an empty table, and gathers some friends or adventurous passers-by to play. This one requires players to register in advance not just for the con but for each game they want to play. If you really want to be in a particular game you can register early, paying $5 for the privilege for each game.
Being new at this, I decided to pass on paying for it, but then missed the free game registration window and next checked the site after pre-reg had closed. So I showed up having to pay admission at the door. How much they encourage this can be noted by the fact that I had to start a forum thread to find out how much that cost.
I showed up Friday afternoon in time for the Awful Green Things From Outer Space tournament. Which had been cancelled . . . presumably for lack of pre-registrations. I then found the TRMN Royal Dragoons, met Jeffrey Webb and some other Dragoons, and introduced Roon to Awful Green Things. He was a good sport about my monsters gobbling up all but one of his crew.
That evening the room held a Bunnies and Burrows session, gamemastered by the game's designer, Dennis Sustare. I told him I was tempted to sign up but thought the waiting list was too long. He told me to sign up anyway. We wound up with twelve players around the table, which I expect to be my personal record for a tabletop RPG for a long time. When he asked who'd played the game before I said, "Yes--thirty-three years ago." I was drafted as party leader because my PC had the highest charisma, and my Manticoran beret looked impressive. With a dozen players this actually required a bit of effort to cut short digressions and keep us moving. "We're rabbits, not beavers. We're not going to bridge the stream. Let's go upstream to find a place we can all cross." The adventure was great fun. Dennis included a great touch. Knowing one player was blind he created tactile maps of the area and warren.
Saturday I started the con by joining Alex, the publisher of Cirsova Magazine, for lunch. He'd published one of my stories but I'd never had a chance to meet him in person before. We talked games and publishing before heading back to the con.
The Royal Dragoons let me play in their Starships and Spacemen game--another Fantasy Games Unlimited product I'd last played in the early 80s. I played ship's helmsman as we investigated an evil Klingon plot to wage biological warfare against the Federation. We even broke out the Star Trek fight music (thanks, youtube!) for the brawls and space battles. As helmsman I was decisive in the space battles, but at STR 5 my only contribution to the brawl was calling for help before being knocked out. Jeffrey Webb is a good gamemaster.
In the evening I broke out my Ogre DE portable set--a tote bag with a fraction of the total game. Still enough for seven people to play at once. Roon and I played Kill the CP. After he left Alex and Bryan came by. Bryan had never played Ogre so they teamed against me for the Mk IIIs attack scenario. They followed their victory by playing the three player "Salvage" scenario on the GEV map. Alex ran away with it.
There was more gaming on Sunday, but the cold I'd been fighting caught up with me and I collapsed for a nap after church.
It's a fun con. Next year I'll pre-register and volunteer to run a game. Ogre is Old School enough to fit the theme of the con. We'll see if we can get a nine-player game of the Ogre "Salvage" scenario going.
Soonercon 2017 Report 7/10/17
I started out the con with some writing and tech panels. "Writing Outside Your Experience" was focused more on researching locations than cultures. The Star Wars panel was a great chance to trade ideas with Tim Zahn. The "Boring Ol' Moon" panel had no one who thought the Moon was boring on the panel or in the audience.
That evening I had my first ever chance to play Twilight Imperium. I did pretty well, putting a scare into the experienced player before he whipped out some cards to immobilize me and win the game. Researching the FAQ later I found one of the cards he used wasn't supposed to apply to my race . . . but I was playing my race wrong, so that's fair.
Saturday morning I manned the TRMN table before going off to my reading. The previous time slot had the horror writers. One went over time wanting to reach the 'climax' of his zombie necrophilia erotica. Not something I'd expect for the noon slot and it took a few minutes for the science fiction writers to get back on track. My reading went fine, the audience (and there were actually more listeners than writers) laughed in the right places.
The autograph tables aren't busy at that con, but they're a great place to watch cosplay, which Soonercon has a fantastic variety of. Afterwards I joined some friends for dinner and went to a few room parties.
The Sunday morning Koffee Klatch was lovely. I shared a table with a fascinating group of people. Afterwards was the traditional "Where's My Flying Car?" panel. The audience wasn't comforted by the actual flying car designs out there. Until we get the Jetsons' anti-gravity tech we're still better off buying a car and a Cessna.
LibertyCon Report 7/20/17
This is a fantastic convention. The high points:
- Meeting people I'd only known over the net (Hi, Declan, Dawn, Jon, Vanessa, John, and more).
- My USAIAN ribbon from Sarah Hoyt.
- Playtesting games with Steve Jackson
- Fascinating panel discussions, and getting to moderate two of them. Getting the ultimate praise for one of the ideas I tossed out: "Stealing." I'm also impressed that the attendees liked panels enough for a hundred people to show up for a 1pm Friday one.
- Getting through the Future of Military Flight panel without having to say anything I could be fired for.
- Striking up interesting conversations wherever I went. This was not a con where I propped up the wall much.
- The Mad Scientist Roundtable, a 100+ person discussion where anyone could speak up. Which went amazingly smoothly, but then so did everything else at this con. I might have shot my mouth off a little more than I should have as a first time attendee.
- Selling some books. And noticing a jump in Kindle sales after the con.
Low points:
- The Choo Choo booting most of the con attendees into another hotel. But that won't be an issue in future years.
- It's a long drive from Texas. But Todd's taste in music let us LARP The Martian. (Tennessee is lovely.)
I will be back.
LibertyCon 32 Report 7/3/19
I carpooled to Chattanooga with Todd and Alex. Todd posted the travel saga. The short version: despite drunk drivers, keys locked in vehicle, illness, trains, and flaming eighteen-wheelers, we made it to the con.
For me the con began Thursday night with a practice game of Terraforming Mars, a wonderfully complex game of remolding a planet to meet human specs. Much fun, though utterly deserving of on my wife's "Too many fiddly bits" comment.
Friday I started in Author's Alley, selling a few books, which puts this well ahead of other cons I've been to. Then it was off to dinner with John Van Stry, Jon Del Arroz, A M Freeman, and their wonderful spouses who I don't have friended on FB.
The big event of the day was the official game of Terraforming Mars. I placed in the middle, which is an achievement worth taking pride in given the competition. Then it was off to the Con Suite for alcohol-enabled professional discussions.
Saturday I joined Jeff Greason for the Beamed Propulsion panel. I shared some of Jordin Kare's work on adapting SDI laser designs for propulsion.
Then I tried to donate blood. Last year they wouldn't take me. This year . . . they tried to take my blood. On the second attempt I wound up with three phlebotomists standing over my elbow wiggling the needle until one said, "I think that's a tendon." Whereupon they tossed me out. Still gave me the T-shirt. And the Heinlein Society gave me a ribbon for trying (seen above).
My autographing session was a chance to catch up with friends, though I did sell a couple of books. Then I attended some panels with useful professional information, which for me includes both the publishing and science tracks. My reading was reassuring--it always helps to have an audience laughing to convince me that my jokes worked.
Another game of Terraforming Mars demanded my presence . . . which meant missing panels, but if the Programming Chair wants you to skip something, you skip. Then there were fun room parties with great people and great booze. That's foreshadowing for not making it to the 10am panel I wanted to attend on Sunday. Once I was going I found more great panels for learning about editing and networking with other writers.
And then the lovely Dead Dog Party, chatting at length with many friends, including Rob Howell, Gray Rinehart, Julie Frost, Arlan Andrews, John Van Stry, Paul Mauser, and more I can’t remember offhand. I'm looking forward to next year!
Fear at Fencon 10/1/19
Fencon gave me a chance to terrify the heck out of some authors, and I took full advantage of it. I spoke on publishing contracts with examples from various real world ones. This made for some of the worst slides I've ever presented (pure wall of text) but the content was horrible enough to keep the audience awake. Hopefully they will read future contracts with more attention now, and not lose their homes to bad indemnification clauses.
I moderated a few other panels, with some great groups that had lively discussions. Talking about augmented and virtual reality kept drifting to games. Role playing game roles focused on tabletop--we had several panelists who never played videogames. The social prosthetics panel kicked around a bunch of useful applications and wrestled with some of their dangers.
The other four panels I was on I could just relax and shoot off my mouth. I took advantage of an empty table to set up for my autographing session early. This let me sell a few books right away . . . which was good because I didn't sell any during my official time slot. Sales are weird.
GoH Trevor Quachri met one on one with congoers. I picked his brain on markets, particularly for a story of mine that doesn't fit into any obvious genre. That was the one I chose for my Sunday reading. The (small) audience liked it, so I'll keep trying to find a home for it.
As always, one of the best parts of the con was the room parties. Soonercon threw a big bash, I hope I can make it back to that con. TRMN poured me exotic and tasty shots. And the NSS party gave me a chance to actually talk rockets. Hallway conversations with friends were also a joy. I only caught one of the Doubleclicks' concerts, wish I could have heard more music but it was a busy con. I came away happy but tired and behind on my writing goal, which is why it's taken me a week to put up this con report.
Here's looking forward to seeing everyone at next Fencon!
I'm going to dump them all here to retain them.
"Firefly: The Musical" Review 6/1/2012
When I saw the announcement of "Firefly: the Musical" I immediately wanted to go see it. Once I got there I had qualms--was this going to be good entertainment or just an attempt to take advantage of Browncoats' willingness to throw money at anything with the word Firefly on it? When the cast finished singing the theme song those qualms were gone.
The Highball is more bar than theater, but a corner of it was curtained off for the show. The audience all had a good view of the stage. I didn't notice any problems with the acoustics but can't speak for the back corners. There was minimal scenery. The actors were as likely to use mime as to pull out a table for a scene.
The pre-show was a series of videos including songs from other Whedon works (Dr. Horrible and "Once More With Feeling") and fan vids. The projector also had some use during the play. A starfield was projected for all the bridge scenes and a clip of the river ambush opened the show.
The Firefly actors are a tough example to live up to but our local heroes did well. Stephen Robinson (Wash) and Jason Vines (Jayne) stole most of their scenes. Robinson's comic timing gave us a classic showstopper--the audience was laughing so hard at an off-hand wink that another actor was frozen, waiting for us to quiet down so she could say her line. Michael Thomas (Mal) had the toughest role--stepping into the shoes of an actor talented enough to anchor a multi-year prime time series isn't easy--but he held the stage and kept us engaged with the story. Linsey Reeves (Inara) did a smooth job of showing a professional liar telling clumsy lies. Adam Mengesha (Book) solidly laid down the law for our captain. Sabrina Jones (Saffron) got to display her range from naive country girl to seductress to cold professional.
The crew introduced themselves singing the theme song together. The settlers' celebration was the setting for Mal and Inara's "I Won't Let You In" duet (a lovely song reprised at the end). That was the saddest of the songs as the couple explained their reasons for rejecting love. Jayne's "Guns and Women" was hilarious as our favorite thug dithered over which he was more attracted to. Saffron steamed up the stage with "Let Me Have My Wedding Night." Then we switched to vaudville as Wash sang "When Did This Stop Being Funny?" and got great laughs with some really bad jokes. Inara had another duet with Saffron, flirting in the ways "Only a Woman Can See." The action climax was Jayne saving the day with "One Shot"--a duet with Kaylee who felt she only had one shot with Simon. The soundtrack will be coming out on CD, including an additional song: "Special Hell."
On top of the songs the script added some grace notes to the original, usually going for laughs. Kaylee vamped on Simon in the background when the script allowed (and then in the foreground during the climactic "One Shot" song). The deleted scene from the episode was included, giving Simon and River their best moments in the show.
This is not a good way to introduce your musical-loving friend to Firefly. The play assumes you've seen the episode. This let them save time and effort by not explaining setting changes or having scenery to show which room they're in. As much as I'd like better visuals this is a small scale production. A $5 ticket doesn't get me a Serenity marionette sailing across the stage. For someone who hasn't seen the show they're going to be very confused by moments such as the carrion house crew walking on stage and making some cryptic remarks. Rewriting the scenes to provide context to that and other bits wouldn't be that hard--but there's probably not enough newbies in the audience to justify spending the time.
"Firefly: The Musical" was a wonderful show, well worth driving for hours. We were apparently the fans who'd come the farthest to see it so far (Fort Worth to Austin). Given that they've had to double the run of the show to deal with demand someone will probably beat that. With luck the Institution Theater will be inspired to tackle another episode. "The Message" and "Objects In Space" would work well in their format ("Out of Gas" would be great but harder to translate).
Strongly recommended for all Browncoats.
Soonercon Report 7/3/16
Okay, the con was a week ago, I should have had this up days. I've been busy.
So, the short version: great con, looking forward to going again next year.
Longer version:
- Loved Toni Weisskopf's writing workshop. Lots of great feedback, good interaction with the other members. I'll never listen to Margaritaville the same way again.
- Enjoyed seeing friends, especially TRMN. It's good to meet people I've only known online. I finally got to Roll Pods. We'll have to see if we can do that at Fencon.
- Had interesting panels. I only had time for four, and was on the panel for three of them. Great discussions.
- Unfortunately just didn’t have enough time to do all the stuff I wanted to. Didn't get any gaming in, didn't have time to chat with everyone I wanted to.
- The Heat. My last couple of panels were moved because their scheduled rooms were over 90 degrees. I don't know how much of that was the weather and how much was record attendance.
Fencon Report 9/29/16
I go to Fencon every year, but what I do there varies. Sometimes I'm watching panels, sometimes running games, sometimes just hanging out with friends. This was Panelist Year for me. I was on ten panels, plus a reading and an autographing session. I was even moderating for the first time.
Friday started with the Manufacturing the Future panel, which covered an interesting mix of near and far technology. One of the panelists didn't show, so I drafted J Storrs Hall out of the audience to cover us on nanotech. The next couple of panels were on space technology so I cheerfully babbled away.
The autographing session was quiet except for this one crazy chick who wanted me to sign her breast. I was sharing the session with Bill Ledbetter who had several current and former GoHs visit him with interesting conversation.
Saturday's zombie panel went well for almost everybody. I didn't want to ask the boring question, "What should the rules of engagement for fighting zombies be?" Instead I waited for someone to enter late, made him say "brains," and asked "He sounds like a zombie. Can I shoot him?" Unfortunately the poor guy I picked had enough stage fright that it took him a painfully long time to get the "brains" out. I was going to apologize later but didn't see him. I hope he didn't flee the con.
My reading had a decent crowd, about a dozen people. The best part of doing a live reading is hearing people laugh at the funny bits. It's hard to be sure if my humor is going to work for anyone else.
The HMS Homer crew met for dinner that evening. That was the only part of the TRMN operations I could participate in. They were running a recruiting table but I never sat down there, just said hi in between panels.
Hopping room parties was fun and let me catch up with friends I don't get to see often enough. I sold a few books out of my backpack, which is a weird experience. I felt like I should be wearing a drug-dealer's trench coat. I also registered for ConDFW at their room party. I'll see if I can do panels there . . . but not this many. When I was socialed out I listened to the bardic filk circle for a bit. Lovely, but I was too tired to stay long.
Sunday's panels were a bit less space-focused so I didn't have as much to contribute. The Replicator panel was very Star Trek focused. We kept quoting bits from various episodes as arguments over the capability of replicators. I pointed out the Classic Trek replicators could make more than food, since they produced the knife Tormolen killed himself with in "Naked Time."
Then I saw the closing Filk GoH concert with the Suttons, which was marvelous. I'm looking forward to next year.
Death Star Plans
Some folks might be wondering how a copy of the Death Star plans could be useful to the Rebels. If they don’t have experienced engineers and time to go through billions, maybe trillions of drawings, how can they find a weakness in the few hours before the Empire catches up to destroy the Rebel Base?
Well, it turns out what they needed to do was run a keyword search on the Death Star Project's email archive:
From: Lead, Power System Engineering
To: Lead, Infrastructure Systems
Subject: Design Change Request 894-546-165
Problem: Recently discovered vulnerability to enemy fire in thermal exhaust port. (See attachment A: Torpedo impact simulation)
Consequence: A lucky hit could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction in the reactor core. (See attachment B: Reactor failure simulation)
Solution: Build an S-bend into the exhaust path with rapid-action armored doors to prevent core penetrations (See attachment C: Preliminary S-bend design)
Resources: (Preliminary estimates only) 5.4 Megacredits parts and labor, 6 week delay in completion of reactor venting systems. This will place the RVS on the critical path and lead to a two week delay in system completion. (See attachment D: Manhours spreadsheet)
Recommendation: Approve. This could be catastrophic if not fixed.
From: Lead, Infrastructure Systems
To: Lead, Power System Engineering
Subject: CR 894-546-165
Have you been chewing deathsticks!? I can't believe you're seriously proposing a schedule delay after the Emperor's last message. We've been at this for eighteen years, if it was a real design flaw we'd've already found it. CR rejected.
PS: The next time you ask for a delay I'm forwarding it directly to Lord Vader so he can crush your throat as an example to the next engineer who doesn't care about meeting deadlines. How are you coming on my suggestion to remove the personnel station shielding from the beam projection conduits? That should save us at least 15 hours in assembly.
NTRPG Con Report 6/7/17
North Texas RPG Con is a different kind of convention than I'd been to before. I'm used to gaming cons being mostly about pick up play. Someone pulls out a game, finds an empty table, and gathers some friends or adventurous passers-by to play. This one requires players to register in advance not just for the con but for each game they want to play. If you really want to be in a particular game you can register early, paying $5 for the privilege for each game.
Being new at this, I decided to pass on paying for it, but then missed the free game registration window and next checked the site after pre-reg had closed. So I showed up having to pay admission at the door. How much they encourage this can be noted by the fact that I had to start a forum thread to find out how much that cost.
I showed up Friday afternoon in time for the Awful Green Things From Outer Space tournament. Which had been cancelled . . . presumably for lack of pre-registrations. I then found the TRMN Royal Dragoons, met Jeffrey Webb and some other Dragoons, and introduced Roon to Awful Green Things. He was a good sport about my monsters gobbling up all but one of his crew.
That evening the room held a Bunnies and Burrows session, gamemastered by the game's designer, Dennis Sustare. I told him I was tempted to sign up but thought the waiting list was too long. He told me to sign up anyway. We wound up with twelve players around the table, which I expect to be my personal record for a tabletop RPG for a long time. When he asked who'd played the game before I said, "Yes--thirty-three years ago." I was drafted as party leader because my PC had the highest charisma, and my Manticoran beret looked impressive. With a dozen players this actually required a bit of effort to cut short digressions and keep us moving. "We're rabbits, not beavers. We're not going to bridge the stream. Let's go upstream to find a place we can all cross." The adventure was great fun. Dennis included a great touch. Knowing one player was blind he created tactile maps of the area and warren.
Saturday I started the con by joining Alex, the publisher of Cirsova Magazine, for lunch. He'd published one of my stories but I'd never had a chance to meet him in person before. We talked games and publishing before heading back to the con.
The Royal Dragoons let me play in their Starships and Spacemen game--another Fantasy Games Unlimited product I'd last played in the early 80s. I played ship's helmsman as we investigated an evil Klingon plot to wage biological warfare against the Federation. We even broke out the Star Trek fight music (thanks, youtube!) for the brawls and space battles. As helmsman I was decisive in the space battles, but at STR 5 my only contribution to the brawl was calling for help before being knocked out. Jeffrey Webb is a good gamemaster.
In the evening I broke out my Ogre DE portable set--a tote bag with a fraction of the total game. Still enough for seven people to play at once. Roon and I played Kill the CP. After he left Alex and Bryan came by. Bryan had never played Ogre so they teamed against me for the Mk IIIs attack scenario. They followed their victory by playing the three player "Salvage" scenario on the GEV map. Alex ran away with it.
There was more gaming on Sunday, but the cold I'd been fighting caught up with me and I collapsed for a nap after church.
It's a fun con. Next year I'll pre-register and volunteer to run a game. Ogre is Old School enough to fit the theme of the con. We'll see if we can get a nine-player game of the Ogre "Salvage" scenario going.
Soonercon 2017 Report 7/10/17
I started out the con with some writing and tech panels. "Writing Outside Your Experience" was focused more on researching locations than cultures. The Star Wars panel was a great chance to trade ideas with Tim Zahn. The "Boring Ol' Moon" panel had no one who thought the Moon was boring on the panel or in the audience.
That evening I had my first ever chance to play Twilight Imperium. I did pretty well, putting a scare into the experienced player before he whipped out some cards to immobilize me and win the game. Researching the FAQ later I found one of the cards he used wasn't supposed to apply to my race . . . but I was playing my race wrong, so that's fair.
Saturday morning I manned the TRMN table before going off to my reading. The previous time slot had the horror writers. One went over time wanting to reach the 'climax' of his zombie necrophilia erotica. Not something I'd expect for the noon slot and it took a few minutes for the science fiction writers to get back on track. My reading went fine, the audience (and there were actually more listeners than writers) laughed in the right places.
The autograph tables aren't busy at that con, but they're a great place to watch cosplay, which Soonercon has a fantastic variety of. Afterwards I joined some friends for dinner and went to a few room parties.
The Sunday morning Koffee Klatch was lovely. I shared a table with a fascinating group of people. Afterwards was the traditional "Where's My Flying Car?" panel. The audience wasn't comforted by the actual flying car designs out there. Until we get the Jetsons' anti-gravity tech we're still better off buying a car and a Cessna.
LibertyCon Report 7/20/17
This is a fantastic convention. The high points:
- Meeting people I'd only known over the net (Hi, Declan, Dawn, Jon, Vanessa, John, and more).
- My USAIAN ribbon from Sarah Hoyt.
- Playtesting games with Steve Jackson
- Fascinating panel discussions, and getting to moderate two of them. Getting the ultimate praise for one of the ideas I tossed out: "Stealing." I'm also impressed that the attendees liked panels enough for a hundred people to show up for a 1pm Friday one.
- Getting through the Future of Military Flight panel without having to say anything I could be fired for.
- Striking up interesting conversations wherever I went. This was not a con where I propped up the wall much.
- The Mad Scientist Roundtable, a 100+ person discussion where anyone could speak up. Which went amazingly smoothly, but then so did everything else at this con. I might have shot my mouth off a little more than I should have as a first time attendee.
- Selling some books. And noticing a jump in Kindle sales after the con.
Low points:
- The Choo Choo booting most of the con attendees into another hotel. But that won't be an issue in future years.
- It's a long drive from Texas. But Todd's taste in music let us LARP The Martian. (Tennessee is lovely.)
I will be back.
LibertyCon 32 Report 7/3/19
I carpooled to Chattanooga with Todd and Alex. Todd posted the travel saga. The short version: despite drunk drivers, keys locked in vehicle, illness, trains, and flaming eighteen-wheelers, we made it to the con.
For me the con began Thursday night with a practice game of Terraforming Mars, a wonderfully complex game of remolding a planet to meet human specs. Much fun, though utterly deserving of on my wife's "Too many fiddly bits" comment.
Friday I started in Author's Alley, selling a few books, which puts this well ahead of other cons I've been to. Then it was off to dinner with John Van Stry, Jon Del Arroz, A M Freeman, and their wonderful spouses who I don't have friended on FB.
The big event of the day was the official game of Terraforming Mars. I placed in the middle, which is an achievement worth taking pride in given the competition. Then it was off to the Con Suite for alcohol-enabled professional discussions.
Saturday I joined Jeff Greason for the Beamed Propulsion panel. I shared some of Jordin Kare's work on adapting SDI laser designs for propulsion.
Then I tried to donate blood. Last year they wouldn't take me. This year . . . they tried to take my blood. On the second attempt I wound up with three phlebotomists standing over my elbow wiggling the needle until one said, "I think that's a tendon." Whereupon they tossed me out. Still gave me the T-shirt. And the Heinlein Society gave me a ribbon for trying (seen above).
My autographing session was a chance to catch up with friends, though I did sell a couple of books. Then I attended some panels with useful professional information, which for me includes both the publishing and science tracks. My reading was reassuring--it always helps to have an audience laughing to convince me that my jokes worked.
Another game of Terraforming Mars demanded my presence . . . which meant missing panels, but if the Programming Chair wants you to skip something, you skip. Then there were fun room parties with great people and great booze. That's foreshadowing for not making it to the 10am panel I wanted to attend on Sunday. Once I was going I found more great panels for learning about editing and networking with other writers.
And then the lovely Dead Dog Party, chatting at length with many friends, including Rob Howell, Gray Rinehart, Julie Frost, Arlan Andrews, John Van Stry, Paul Mauser, and more I can’t remember offhand. I'm looking forward to next year!
Fear at Fencon 10/1/19
Fencon gave me a chance to terrify the heck out of some authors, and I took full advantage of it. I spoke on publishing contracts with examples from various real world ones. This made for some of the worst slides I've ever presented (pure wall of text) but the content was horrible enough to keep the audience awake. Hopefully they will read future contracts with more attention now, and not lose their homes to bad indemnification clauses.
I moderated a few other panels, with some great groups that had lively discussions. Talking about augmented and virtual reality kept drifting to games. Role playing game roles focused on tabletop--we had several panelists who never played videogames. The social prosthetics panel kicked around a bunch of useful applications and wrestled with some of their dangers.
The other four panels I was on I could just relax and shoot off my mouth. I took advantage of an empty table to set up for my autographing session early. This let me sell a few books right away . . . which was good because I didn't sell any during my official time slot. Sales are weird.
GoH Trevor Quachri met one on one with congoers. I picked his brain on markets, particularly for a story of mine that doesn't fit into any obvious genre. That was the one I chose for my Sunday reading. The (small) audience liked it, so I'll keep trying to find a home for it.
As always, one of the best parts of the con was the room parties. Soonercon threw a big bash, I hope I can make it back to that con. TRMN poured me exotic and tasty shots. And the NSS party gave me a chance to actually talk rockets. Hallway conversations with friends were also a joy. I only caught one of the Doubleclicks' concerts, wish I could have heard more music but it was a busy con. I came away happy but tired and behind on my writing goal, which is why it's taken me a week to put up this con report.
Here's looking forward to seeing everyone at next Fencon!
