Mishalak

Or Uncertain Calculations
I was rather disappointed by COSine in Colorado Springs. I was not expecting an incredible convention, since this was the first year, but it was undoubtedly the least energetic con I have ever attended. We, Rose, Amanda, and I, were not able to arrive in time for opening ceremonies on Friday night. We also discovered that there was nothing else going on that night aside from opening ceremonies. We hung out kibitzing in the consuite for a while and then Amanda, then Rose, and finally myself tried to find something going on. There were three people watching the movie and there was one person besides us in the room designated for filking. I was in high spirits and so participated in doing some acapella versions of Buffy the Musical and trying to remember any other filk like songs. After a while Rose abandoned us for bed (a sensible choice). Amanda and I went back to the consuite for a while and I opened a bottle of port. I enjoyed that with a few companions, but the crowd was rapidly winding down. Supposidly there were 100 warm bodies there somewhere, but I certainly didn't see them

Breakfast with two friends from Colorado Springs was quite nice. I went back to see Barbara Hambly speak about writing while Rose hung out a while longer with Arlen & (drat blanking on his sweetie's name). I was stunned and disappointed to find the consuite closed until 2pm when I decided I didn't want to see the next item in the single track of programming. I wandered around and changed my outfit once before deciding to go on the Book Crawl, a tour of several nearby bookstores. I didn't buy anything since nothing really caught my eye and I have very little money to spend. That was the best part of the convention in my opinion. Virtually nothing else happened before we had to leave for Denver at 5pm.

The convention was far too expensive for what was available in my opinion. The programming was bare bones and the alternatives virtually non-existent. There was no day rate for people wishing to attend only one day and the at the door rate is as high as MileHiCon and the early bird rate for next year is higher than Denver's con as well. Given how it came out I very much doubt I'll go next year, I'd be better off spending my money to get some interesting people to chat with to come over to my apartment.

Some of the chats I had about Worldcon were interesting. Though looking back on it some of them made me feel like I was talking to time-share condo salespeople. While I was in the room with the people advocating it everything seemed so reasonable and doable, but as soon as I get a chance to think about it I felt much less fired up about the idea. Say they are correct about the Permanent Floating Worldcon Committee wanting someone to challenge the Chicago in '08 bid. That's no guarantee that they would give the amount the help needed and a successful Colorado bid would need a lot. Fandom in this state is thin on the ground and the interest in Worldcon is even thinner. Then there is the issue of a lack of experience among Coloradans and we don't have the favors to call in that fandoms with more people involved in helping with the Worldcon have.

In addition I'm not totally convinced that it is true that PF Concom is upset with Chicago. And while I don't know that they could not do a good job they either did not help with COSine or else they were not very organized in getting a 160 person con running. That would not bode very well for a Denver Worldcon bid, if I thought there were any danger that a Colorado bid for Denver would get very far. If they actually start throwing bid parties I'll worry, otherwise I'll just assume it is the same sort of fannish blowing off steam like I do when I talk about DASFA getting a clubhouse. Never going to happen.

Good Times - INXS and Jimmy Barnes
Friday

I awoke fairly early for having stayed up too late packing and cooking. The remainder of my hasty preparations took until noon. After picking up some fresh fruit and dropping off food at a friend's house I arrived at the Denver West Sheraton for MileHiCon 35 at about 1pm. I'm sure I made quite an entrance wearing a casual outfit of black jeans, my blue Hawaiian shirt, and a turquoise & bone necklace. I was also deliberately scruffy since that goes with a sort of beach bum look. Hardly anyone realizes how much thought I put into looking the way I do. <grin>

( Big Day One Report ) Fin day one.

Comments and Corrections Apreciated!

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Delvian Dreams – Farscape Soundtrack
Saturday
I woke up about 8:30am when Rose did. She wandered off to the consuite without me because I warned her that I would probably take 30 minutes in the shower. When I finally arrived in my Farscape outfit to snag a bagel for breakfast it was about 9:30. I got numerous complements on how my peacekeeper vest and vinyl pants went with the whole space pirates theme.

( Day Two at Bubonicon )

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Or
Road Trip to Albuquerque!

My convention experiences seem to start with a customary last minute rush to buy things and get packed. Perhaps if I were a different person I could be utterly organized and waltz out the door without a worry in the world. Being me I spent my time after work on Thursday going to my credit union and several stores. I needed food for the trip and this was also an opportunity to pick up items I'm sometimes reluctant to buy without the excuse that it's for my vacation.

The last task was a visit to an ophthalmologist. Those reading my livejournal probably already know that I woke up on Monday the 25th of August and was quite disturbed to find that I could only see dimly out of my left eye. So I was getting a check up on my eyes and finding out if this was a sign of terribly bad things. It turned out that it might have been because I was reading so long under a high frequency bright light, giving me a mild and more general form of the after image people see after seeing something bright. No permanent harm done, but I should break up my reading in the future. I got home at eight and promptly crashed out after writing for a bit. I could not see very well after having my eyes dilated and I thought I could get up plenty early to pack my bag in the morning.

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(P.S. I changed my mind, I'm not going to put my entries behind cuts anymore unless someone actually complains to me. I'm tired of having trying to guess what people find annoying with no actual feed back.)

Dancing Queen & Bohemian Rhapsody – arr. for Player Piano
Tuesday
Tuesday found me playing with my camera for much of the morning. Larry has a tripod so I couldn't help but start messing about with the timer to take a few pictures of my favorite person in the whole world. (Yes I'm kidding, mostly.) Also I thought no one had taken a picture of me in the Goth outfit, so I decided I would get that as well as me in my new tee shirt. [1]

As it was getting close to noon Sue informed me that there would be room in the junket to the Mall of America. I had been planning on doing some sight seeing around town, but hanging out with fans sounded outstanding to me, so that's how I came to be at the Mall of America with Sue, Alison, Steven, Jonathan, etc... (big group) The only way I can describe the experience is as Minnesota big. The mall is huge, but it doesn't feel that huge when walking around in it. The only time a person gets an impression of the scale is when looking across the little amusement park taking up a sort of covered courtyard space surrounded by the mall. It was interesting to see, but as usual I was out of luck in the shopping (just as well I technically had no money left). It was still fun to go once and now I'll be able to skip it the next time I go to Minneapolis. [1]

After we were done we went to the home of Dean Gahlon & Laura Krentz. Two things were planned barbecue and seeing the legendary player piano of Minneapolis Fandom![2] Sue Mason holds the opinion that it is somehow wrong for a player piano to be playing Meatloaf songs. I was quite amused, especially by putting on the ABBA's greatest hits roll. "Beelzebub, Beelzebub, has a devil for me!!" (Which is strange since Bohemian Rhapsody was by Queen.) Surprisingly it seemed like Jonathan and Marianna were not as fascinated as the adults were. The barbecue was good and I had a wonderful time. Fin day seven.

[1] Me in tee shirt and jeans. Hurm suspect I must work on being prettier than Legolas.
Me acting silly for the camera. Note the cute ass.
[2] Us at the Mall of America
[3] The famous player piano
And the great wall of piano rolls
 

Teenage FBI – Guided By Voices
Sunday
No hangover greeted me on Sunday, so I count that as a minor victory. Two of my friends from the previous night invited me out to breakfast with them. That worked out just dandy and was not too expensive, though I was told later that I could have had an even better meal at Hell's Kitchen for about the same price. Maybe if I am able to go next year I'll try that. The one thing I was really annoyed with myself over is missing the slide show of early Worldcons including Denvention I. I would have liked to have seen that, I think I'll try tracking down whoever has the slides and seeing if they're going to do this again or might consider sending them to Milehicon.

About forty minutes later I was hanging under the dome with my fellow photograph aficionados. The light through the clouds was very good for taking pictures and the dome made for an interesting background. Especially for Alison who was taking and showing off her 3-D pictures.[1] Everyone there had a go at looking through the little plastic image combiner at the photos on her laptop. Being fans we were all impressed by this combination of technological wizardry and a traditional pastime.

It was also noted that the dome was a hot spot for open wireless networks and many fans were logging on to check email or upload photos. This felt like what the future should be to me. Checking mail using electronic devices in a plexiglas dome.

Most of the day was filled with tasks of minor interest like buying more books, paying for my Sue art, claiming a tee shirt (size small, yay!), and helping out with some clean up of abandoned eating detritus. Things got interesting again after closing ceremonies (which I accidentally missed, much to my dismay). I got to join the Minsif and GoH dinner party at Ruth Chris's Steakhouse. Good food, great conversation, and very cool dinner companions! I got a nifty 1940s sort of dinner party picture of the group too.[2]

When I got back to the con Alison was showing off even more photographs and we were having the usual fannish discussions about everything from employment issues to 'zine production. I was told that people were needed to come help finish off beer in the penthouse consuite and by the time the filking was winding down there were a fair number of us down there drinking and eating. Mostly drinking.

I had enough bad wine that I thought it would be a good idea to take off my shirt and wear Marti Gras beads instead. And it was tremendously bad wine, though not as bad as the turpentine kosher brandy which no one partook of. I didn't get totally drunk, though I kept myself nicely buzzed to mildly inebriated for the rest of the night. I again took over as bartender when the previous tender of that post left us around 2am. My good deed for the night was to keep pushing water on Alison, Sandy, and Lydia Nickerson when I could not convince them to slow or stop drinking.[3] (Hey, you try to come between them and a drink!)

Many things were discussed, some of which I cannot reveal due to my sense of honor and self-preservation. But the conversation kept on circling around to certain points. About the sixth time the same point had been made, the sun was coming up and a small amount of beer was spilt upon me. (I had been on the floor.) At this point I decided it was time for me to leave the conversational merry-go-round and head to bed. So I washed out my shirt and turned in. It was 5am. I was told later that Alison and Lydia didn't go to sleep for another four hours (1) and were much worse off than me due to having a higher blood alcohol content at the end. (And still went for Sushi!) Sandra slept with Joel in the consuite while we were there... just in a same bed. They did it in the same room where the rest of us were drinking and talking under the theory that with lots of people around to see it would be clear that nothing happened. Though we didn't even notice they were asleep in bed for about two hours. Very little could have distracted us from our serious bout of drinking and talking.

[1] Alison in background with computer, general picture of the dome crowd.
[2] Our Dinner Party in Black and White
[3] Wheee, I'm shirtless! This would be at a tipsy stage.
And the rest of the drinking party.
 

Bubak and Hungaricus – Arranged by Jaroslav Krcek
Friday
I generally awake after eight hours of sleep so I was up at about 9am. An hour later (yes, I take a while getting ready in the morning) I was dressed in my Levi 501s and a black DASFA t-shirt. I headed up to the Bar and got started cutting up the melons. With four down and two to go, I was grabbed to go back down to the loading dock to help unload food.

The pile of edibles was quite impressive. I particularly remember the 18 gallons of chocolate milk, skim milk, and orange juice. Back up to the con-suite to complete my task. A bit more organizing and set up and I was off for my first clothes change of the day. I wore an orange sleeveless top with my slim cut black jeans. It was my intention to get a picture of myself wearing this next to Orange Mike. I ran into him when I went downstairs, but he was just getting in so I left him alone and grabbed a sandwich from registration. (Those sandwiches from the Vietnamese restaurant were great, by the way. I'm not totally sure what was in them, but they were near perfect. I'm going to have to try to replicate them at home.)

After stopping in the "Online Communities" panel[1] I was puttering about helping and taking pictures in the 14th floor con-suite when I ran into Alison. She asked if I would like to go for all you can eat sushi with her, Steven, and Sue. Yes! Sushi is v. good in my opinion and the company for this meal sounded ideal. I met them downstairs at 5pm and we walked down the block to Ichiban Japanese Steak House. The sushi, while not extraordinary, was very good and quite plentiful on the endlessly circling boats of the sushi bar.

I was surprised that Alison and Steven's children, Jonathan and Marianne (respectively two and five), were along and eating the same things as the rest of us. I thought it quite nifty that they were being treated as much like adults as they were willing to behave. I doubt that I would have eaten sushi at that age, or anything too "weird" for that matter. They were a bit of a handful, especially Jonathan, but for children they did pretty well. I tried to be helpful with Jonathan, telling him a story when he was getting wiggly towards the end. That's the system I use on Maya (the five year old daughter of my friends Richard Morman and Carol Angel back in Denver) at brunch, but that trick seems to work better with older children because it only kept Jonathan's attention for a little bit.

I enjoyed the eel and the roe sushi best out of all the different things I tried. We all left fairly well stuffed, though Alison said she could have crammed in a few more pieces. Inspired by Marianne I had a Shirley Temple and water with my sushi. Alison and Sue had beer, in some ways they are a good deal more butch than me. I also got Sue to sign my copy of her chapbook. Eeee! Such a wonderful convention, and it's only the first day!

Back to the con for opening ceremonies. At one point before it started the very cute daughter of Orange Mike caught my eye. Kelly was looking angelic and willing to play to the camera, so I snapped off some pictures of her. [2]

I'm told that I looked good flouncing about in my outfit and I got some excellent pictures of the goings on. Toastmaster David Levine, whose name is quite similar to someone I knew at Pyramid Magazine, was a good speaker. He also did an excellently brutal job of killing the messy inflatable alien as the example of what might happen to people who don't bathe regularly at the con. Our noble guests of honor all got up in turn to speak and in one case sing and they all appeared to be okay with the four or five people including me snapping their pictures.

The last speaker, Elise Matthesen, dressed up as the high priestess of Vegetology, the convention's new religion. Using the holy book of Burpee she pronounced the convention's vegetable to be multi-ton hybrid cabbage. Then there was more music and everyone took an alcoholic or non-alcoholic Bloody Mary as the sacrament of Vegetology. Smooth! (Though spicy.) Afterwards I got my picture with Orange Mike[3] and then I changed into a slightly more sedate outfit of a black t-shirt with a embroidered shirt over that.

I wandered around, put out food in the con-suite and generally hung about until the 10pm panel; "Melbourne in 2010, why fans shouldn't drink at cons." In deference to the topic, almost everyone on the panel was drinking "tea." Late in the course of things, Geri Sullivan told Michael Bentley as he got up to leave, "The next person to leave the room has to chair a Worldcon™." Unfortunately, she forgot this fact five minutes later when she left to use the facilities, as is often necessitated when one has had large amounts of "tea." Almost the moment she left the room Erik Olson pointed out what she had said. In the twinkling of an eye her fellow panelists and friends from the audience were putting twenties on her chair and signing their names as pre-supporters for her Worldcon bid.[4]

When Geri returned she was informed of her new position and she proceeded to fall down laughing and saying, "You bastards!" to the many conspirators. I was very happy to get a nice picture of the exact moment she was saying this.[5] Very fun.

The panel broke up and we proceeded upstairs to the con-suite where people continued to bring Geri money and sign the pre-supporters sheet as word of what had happened spread. I was nominated as treasurer, a position for which I did almost no work other than counting the money because Geri wasn't totally sure that she had got it right the first time (she had). Sue Mason was located because we needed an illustration for the bid and she is the traditional choice for drunken bids (e.g. Melbourne in 2010). She drew a picture of Geri covered in money and looking rather annoyed which appeared in the next issue of the Bozo Bus Tribune. I eventually turned in around 2am after a lot more chatting and having fun with the fans.

[1] Online Communities Panel, picture by yours truly
[2] Kelly Lowery
[3] And here we are in all our Orangeness
[4] The Money
[5] Geri's Reaction