MarsCon DAY 3

It's hard to tell where Day 2 ends and Day 3 of the Con begins, usually thanks in no small part to PARTIES!!

As I mentioned in the previous post it was also my birthday weekend and my boyfriend's gift to me was a 1/4 scale remote controlled "K-9" (the robot dog from the "Doctor Who" series, for those not in the know). He even talks! With all the Brits around the parties that night I had to take K-9 out for "walkies." Of course he HAD to put in some face time at the TARDIS Tea Society party. Later on I was driving him around on the tile in the ConSuite - which apparently makes robot dogs quite thirsty because (as the picture shows) he had a sip of my beer. Or maybe his fuel cells recharge with alcohol like Bender's from "Futurama?" It wasn't long, though, before he was tired (well, his batteries were going flat) and called it a night. I, however, had some more Green Death with my name on it.

Then some other stuff happened, as is often the case when Green Death is liberally applied.

Sunday of MarsCon started waaaaay too early for my liking. "Karaoke Joes" across the hall didn't seem to run quite as late as the previous night, but I'm guessing we still only got about 2 hours of actual sleep in. Had to get up and get going because checkout was at noon and I wanted to get some breakfast at "Snarky's Cafe" before all the yummy stuff was gone.

Caught a little more of the Dementia Music track, went through the Art Show again and a quick turn through the so-called "Science" room. The day actually seemed to be flying by and before I knew it we were up to "Closing Ceremonies." The military group's head honcho was asked to come up on stage and say a few words and thanked everyone for being so respectful and giving them such a wonderful send-off, which I'm sure only those who've been in the military really can understand what it meant to them.

[Note: There was a request from the military honcho to MarsCon, which the convention has been trying to pass on to everyone who is blogging and such about it, asking us NOT to say who these military personnel were or where they are going and to blur their faces out of any photos online. While I'm big on "free speech," don't like governments trying to police the Internet, and highly doubt nefarious bad guys are really monitoring MarsCon Reports - I will nonetheless be respectful to them and have voluntarily redacted anything I wrote which would identify who they were, where they came from, what branch of the military they were, or speculate on where they might be going. After all, the IS a war on, right? ]

A brief announcement about what's coming for next year's con and then MarsCon 2008 was over.

By the time I was loading up my luggage and Con Swag I had become a bona fide "Con Zombie." I wonder how many people take Monday afterwards off just to sleep and recover from these things?

In previous years I've only taken in part of a Con - maybe Friday night and Saturday, usually skipped Sunday because it seems like a throw-away day without much going on (though MarsCon really made an effort to actually HAVE things going on for Sunday to make it worthwhile); or I've done Saturday and part of Sunday if there was a music act or something I wanted to see. This was the first time I've done a Con from front to back, and actually stayed at the hotel - which was great to not have to worry about driving home (just had to worry about finding the room! LOL).

Oh, yeah, pictures? Well, I had my camera at the Con but only took one picture with it. I seriously need to get a smaller camera that fits in a pocket - my digital SLR is just too darned big to lug around at a convention. The photo with this post is courtesy of my boyfriend, who has a more "Con-friendly" camera. :)

MarsCon DAY 2 (Part II)

Well there WERE a couple of last minute additions to the "Anime Smackdown" and I DID have time to update the visual presentation beforehand. The panel itself went really well, though we obviously have some bugs to shake out of it before next time, but it was a very energetic panel as the audience voted (and sometimes debated) why one character or the other should win the smack down.

The way this worked was that all the character names which had been selected beforehand by the panel were put in a hat. Two names at a time were randomly drawn from the hat by the "Referees" and handed to me at my laptop. My laptop was connected to use a LCD projector as a second monitor, so when I clicked the pictures on my laptop the big versions showed up side-by-side on the projection screen. The random selection, though, seemed to wind up with a lot of lop-sided matches for the first round. As the winners of each round were put against each other it narrowed down to the final smack down. The audience voted by show of hands which character won each round. By the end there was standing room only and we had quite a crowd clustered in the hallway outside the door too.

For those who are wondering, "Akira" ultimately won - though the picture I was given to use was actually of Kaneda, not Akira. However the character description the "Referees" gave was actually of Akira.

I do, however, need to come up with a better/faster way to find the character pictures for the matches and probably to set up matches between more than two characters at a time.

That was the only panel in which I was involved. Afterwards I caught some of the "Dementia Music" track programming, went through the Art Show (I actually had something in it this year - or at least 1/3 of something as it was a collaborative effort). Never heard if anyone bid on it or not. Also got through the Dealer's Room and Propatorium. The prop guys seemed quite impressed with my wooden replica of the Star Trek "Assault Phaser." I should have my movie Tricorder done by next year - maybe on the day(s) I'm not using those with my costume I'll put them on display. They certainly seemed to think my Phaser passed muster! Yay!

In the late afternoon I noticed a bunch of guys in camouflage in the hotel lobby and restaurant. It's not unusual to see an entire group come in costume, but they were the real deal.

I gotta say, it was a bit of a wierd and wonderful experience to see real military at the parties mixed in with people dressed as Space Marines and Stargate SG-1. Of course, some of the folks who do those costumes at the Cons are also served in the military for real. They were off to "somewhere" and the convention invited them to join us for the evening. Their CO wasn't keen on the idea at first, but eventually let the men who wanted to attend the evening of the convention. The convention provided "day pass" badges to them so they could get into the room parties that badge people. One party room in particular was clearly a familiar "touch of home" for those guys as it was packed. Their presence at the convention was an unforeseen, but interesting factor that made for a unique convention experience, that's for sure!

I think most of the people I meet at Cons are actually pretty smart folks, and they showed a lot of class in welcoming those guys to join us as both guests and heroes. Despite what the current administration thinks, you CAN make a distinction between the "war" and the "warrior." Soldiers go where they're sent, after all. It's the politicians who need to be made to answer for it.

I'm sure it will mean a lot to them too, they'll no doubt remember the night they had a drink or two with a Klingon, met a friendly Dalek, chatted up some Anime Cosplayers in a room that looked like the Firefly ship Serenity, and enjoyed a glass of "Green Death" in the "World Defense Force" room decorated like the inside of an Army tent. Hopefully all those guys will remain alive and well so they'll have those memories for a long, long time.

[Note: There was an request from the military honcho to MarsCon, which the convention has been trying to pass on to everyone who is blogging and such about it, asking us NOT to say who these military personnel were or where they are going and to blur their faces out of any photos online. While I'm big on "free speech," don't like governments trying to police the Internet, and highly doubt nefarious bad guys are really monitoring MarsCon Reports - I will nonetheless be respectful to them and have voluntarily removed anything I wrote which would identify who they were, where they came from, what branch of the military they were, or speculate on where they might be going. After all, there IS a war on, right?]

It was also my birthday on DAY 2 and my boyfriend threw an impromptu birthday party for me in our hotel room with a small gathering of friends who were also at the Con. We had a big cake which thankfully only had ONE candle on it. There were like 10 of us and we ate about half the cake and donated the rest to the ConSuite for whomever wanted a slice while it lasted. I went back in there about an hour or so later and it was all gone. :) LOL

MarsCon 2008 DAY 2

It's not even noon yet, but I can't complain. Woke up with no hangover from last night - and after I'd been warned about the WDF's "Green Death" mixed drink (whatever it is).

It occurred to me this morning that I never actually picked up one of the program booklets, and so had no idea what panels there were this morning - though I'm not a huge fan of panels anyway. I'm inclined to think my time was better spent taking my time getting ready this morning and enjoying hot waffles with strawberry, blueberry, and maple syrup topping, scrambled eggs, bacon, and a fresh, piping hot cup of coffee - which will work for "Brownian Motion" as a power source for your Infinite Improbability Drive in a pinch.

Right now I'm back in Ops at the "Martian Militia" table. I can at least get on the Internet in here (unlike in the room - despite Holiday Inn claims to the contrary regarding "free wireless internet anywhere in the hotel"). There will probably be a couple last-minute additions to the "Anime Smackdown" panel that will require an update to the visual presentation - but that panel isn't until this afternoon so there *should* be time to change it. That is if I actually find out which characters are being added!

MarsCon 2008 DAY 1

Loaded up the Jeep and headed out to MarsCon this morning. The hotel is doing renovations and the room wasn't ready yesterday but thankfully was today - though you can tell they just finished it because it smells like fresh latex paint.

This is my first year volunteering at this Con, rather than just attending it. Anyone who's been to one of these things knows there is "downtime" in your schedule, like you might be waiting for a panel or something later on so basically you're just waiting. Waiting is boring. Volunteering at least is DOING something, even if you're still just sitting there - hey, at least you're racking up volunteer hours toward fabulous prizes like buttons, patches, t-shirts, even a free meal and massage!

I've basically been camped out in Ops at the "Martian Militia" (Volunteer) table. In fact, as I write this that's where I am. Opening Ceremonies just started so there aren't a whole lot of people wandering into Ops right now. So far, though, things seem to be running smoothly. Yeah, I know, I just jinxed it.

Then the Daleks invaded ops and exterminated everyone. See? There's photographic evidence!

For those who weren't exterminated by the Daleks, there were parties! Parties with food, drink, and drink, and drink some more. Anyone who didn't swing by the World Defense Force party and get a glass (or three) of "Green Death" clearly wasn't trying to party at all, imo.

Counting Down. . .

So, it's now down to just HOURS before MarsCon 2008. Am I ready? Of course not! I've got some last minute fixes to do on my costumes, have given up trying to rush my prop building (it can just wait until the next con. I cannot change the laws of physics!). I DID, however, just finish working on a kick ass visual aid for an Anime discussion panel - which I'm not even on, but will probably have to run the thing since I seem to be the only person with a laptop that can S-Video output to the LCD projector. Which isn't a feature I use all that often and I'm glad I checked it tonight with my TV because "Eris the Goddess of Chaos" struck yet again and my S-Video cable had gone bad so the laptop wouldn't recognize that a TV was connected. Thankfully I have a bunch of S-Video cables around so it was just a matter of digging out a different one.

MarsCon 2008. . .T-minus 1 day and counting down. . .

Purina Blog Feed

I've had this blog hosted a couple of other places since I started it last year and finally decided to just move it to Blogger and feed it elsewhere (like back to my main site). Though I noticed that the dates on the feed all show the day I created the feed, rather than the dates of the posts. It would also be nice if the feed would let you comment directly from it without having to go to the Blogsite first, but oh well. Not like I ever got many comments anyway, though for the last setup for this blog the comment function wasn't working.

So, anyway, blog is up and running and people can comment to the posts if they like, blog is being fed into my web site - now I can cross that little project off my "to do" list. :)

MarsCon Is Entering Orbit

I can't hardly wait for next weekend to get here and bring MarsCon 2008 with it. It's a welcome break from the cold and gloom of a Minnesota Winter, that's for sure. Assuming that, unlike last year, the season's big blizzard doesn't hit that weekend.

I'm working on another "Star Trek" prop to go with my costume, but I don't know if I'll get it done in time. It may have to debut another time. Seems like that's always the way, doesn't it? Trying to get something done at the last minute, where if I'd had my brain in frontwards I'd have started working on the darned thing right after LAST year's convention.