Rindis.com

Well, lived through another Further Confusion. That shouldn’t be any kind of challenge, but then we keep getting sick in the middle of it….

Actually, we pretty much all got sick before the con, which should count as good planning, other than the fact that we were still recovering when going into the high-stress environment of the con. For the second year in a row, we hosted doronjosama at our place during the con, which is fun, we don’t see enough of her. We got her at the airport Wednesday night, and pre-con stuff was done while I went to work. -bleh-

Friday was pretty good, Radio Comix did good business, everyone had fun, and… tried to figure their way around the new hotel the con is in. The Fairmont is a bit more plush than I’m used to, with kind of a lobby in front of all the bathroom areas (carpeting, decorations, I thought I’d gone into a regular hotel room for a couple seconds the first time). Still, I think they’re not quite used to a convention that packs in this number of people, and the logistics got behind (like trying four different water coolers to find one that still had water). Our panel that night was “Where Does it Come From?”, which went very well, though we had a bit more topic drift than usual. Dinner was at the Pita Pit, which I highly recommend.

I stood almost all day Friday, which was a mistake, since my feet and legs are still recovering. So I took it easy the rest of the con, which meant loafing around the computer area keeping up on my reading. Took a look at the various furry prose-publishers around, and wondering if any of them were any good, I realized I needed Fred Patten’s reviews. *sigh* Wish you were here Fred. Baron didn’t look well to begin with Saturday morning, and looked worse as the day went on, and he drove himself home before he got so bad he couldn’t drive. Dinner was at Gordon Biersh—or it should have been, Smudge and I had appetizers and had to leave Elin and Team Shuffle (the Japanese crew Elin manages for their con appearance here) there to make our panel. Nobody’s fault really, but there was a Sharks game that night, so every place in downtown was slammed. The calamari I had was good, and I understand the dinner was excellent. Our panel was a repeat of “Fashion Tales”, which went very well. It’s a subject that’s weaker for me, but I had a few good points to put in.

On Sunday Baron stayed home, and Smudge wasn’t doing too well. And she got worse as the day went on. This created a problem, since Dave and I aren’t really qualified to drive something as big as the van, which was needed to haul out the Radio Comix stock after the dealer’s room finished that night. We got a Smudge a ride home with Drew and arranged for a friend to do van driving. After a discussion with Dave, we decided to go on with that night’s panel anyway. I wasn’t feeling entirely well, but figured I’d least make it through the day. And then Baron showed up! He had been planning on driving in, when Drew showed up with Smudge, and rode in with him instead. I was dubious about this, since he wasn’t doing so well, but thankfully he got better as the day went on. The traditional “Coffee, Tea and Memes” panel was a bit slow, thanks to being scheduled opposite of Furry Night Live, which not only drew people away, but caused a line to be going in front of the door to the room, which was probably off-putting. Of course, we’re probably one of the few things you can put opposite of it and get anyone at all. Dinner was cookies at the panel (there was a lot to do beforehand). Despite a little confusion, breakdown went well, and Baron drove us home.

I got myself some bookmarks (becoming a habit, but I cycle through them with different books, so the variety is nice), issue one of Scavengers by Flinters (I followed it on FA, and figured I owed him for the entertainment), The Van Rijn Method (collection of classic SF by Poul Anderson), Black Dogs by Ursula Vernon (I like to get something by the author guest of honor, which I guess is Ursula this year; Sofawolf Press is also a GoH and published the book, and this is one of the few things in their catalog that looked interesting to me), and Mel White’s latest little prose piece A Servant of the Consortium.