Brainwaves of Sken

I convinced my employer to let me out early for good behavior, so this was the first year in at least three where I’ve been to a con before 7:30.

blue_lucy and I set up the room for the party, and it was tremendous fun! I made grilled cheeses for half the night, lucy played wii with people, dave and benny made conversation, and netmouse held the fort while I listened to childe‘s panel.

I used up a loaf and a half of bread, gave away all 50 CD’s, and distributed 97 well-earned Free Hugs ribbons. The party was hoppin’ for a Friday night! I was too distracted to ask someone to take pictures, especially as the party picked up. I missed the sushi party, better luck next time. :)

Penguicon Photo Gallery

Saturday involved much wandering, massive amounts of hugs, and dinner at Chili’s with childe, benniferus, atropis and blue_lucy. There were a ton of fun moments, and only some of them were at my expense!

We changed and visited the dance area, but it looked pretty unpopulated, so we got our chance to roam from party to party. On one of these nights, we hit up the karaoke party, where I sang “Just a Gigolo”, to much applause and audience participation. Those kinds of songs are the most fun, y’know? Lucy says it was the best she’s heard me sing, and I presume that’s a compliment ;).

We hit up the pool with rennikins and netmouse. It was billed as a pool party, but I think it was perfect as the four of us swam about singing showtunes, opera, and children’s cartoons. :D We found ourselves in the sauna with friendly strangers, which can only be fun. We eventually found our way up to bed, and while I kinda wanted to explore, my muscles and mind were telling me that there was no place finer in this world than being under the sheets with my sweetie, and I was inclined to agree with me.

At 2:30 or 3 am, we’re woken by the sounds of people shouting “Bang! bang-bang!” outside our door. Clearly some people are playing a game! Not wanting to be fuddy-duddies, we let them chat for awhile, until we realize they’re using our door as a base of operations.

Seriously. What were they thinking? I wasn’t annoyed, so much as surprised at how they wouldn’t suspect someone could hear them directly outside their door. So I did what any honest citizen would do. I crept from the bed, mostly naked, and peaked through the door to see them sitting about, leaning against the inset area of our door. I quickly cracked the door and shoved my finger out, shouting, “BANG!” and slammed it again. They freaked out, and lucy and I could not stop laughing. Man, that was awesome.

And they stuck around for another hour. *sigh* Oh well.

We had fancy brazilian steak, cheese sandwiches with cheese for ‘bread’, fancy cinnamon apple cherry fudge, and whatever we could scrounge from the Con Suite. We dressed up and, though we didn’t dance this weekend, there were many appreciative stares. And a few bites. We painted figurines, which was surprisingly rewarding, and I saw old friends like Mia. Finally, we spent Sunday afternoon mostly in conversation until lucy had to go home to study. I stuck around for the dead dog party, and finally went home to crash for a few.

I volunteered my services for putting together a few promotional videos, so once I get my hands on some of the video people have taped, we should get a number of fun segments online. Of course, I particularly want to see the second annual liquid nitrogen pool experiment! – It was hilarious to watch people jump into a pool that has just burst into a foggy cloud of evaporated nitrogen.

Gripes? Con suite seemed the antithesis of last year – completely disorganized, messy, and -always- critically short on food and drink. Penguicon had almost 900 registrations, and it sounded like we were critically short on staff, but I think many problems would have been solved with better organization. When roxanne said she stocked the pop multiple times, I felt like a bit of an idiot for not attempting similar – I’ve been a con suite volunteer before, it’s no big deal. That’s my only gripe, actually – everything else seemed to go off just fine.

While I didn’t do much of what i expected to do (see an unprecedented number of panels), I spent a lot of time in conversation with people, both old friends and new. THAT is really the best part about con. I think the topics for this con (both in general and this specific year) are more relevant than any other state con, and it’s more likely to see growth because of it.

~ by Skennedy on April 23, 2007.

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