(no subject)
So I’ve been working on this for like a week now. I wanted to make it all flashy and link it to pics and stuff. But it’s getting tiresome. I think it’s good the way it is and it’s time to move on to the next project. Enjoy.
For those not in the know, MarsCon is a sci fi con in Minneapolis, MN. In the last few years, it has become THE Dementia gathering of the year due to there HUGE dementia track and almost non existent filk track.
So I’m writing this from an airplane with a 45 minute delay before we can take off. Fortunately I have a row all to my self. But more on that later. Let’s go back to Friday morning and go from there, shall we?
So I woke up at 6:30 am on Friday and as always, the 1st thing I do is check the net. I got a few emails read and a few other things that I needed to get done, and then the power goes out. Fortunately, the computers are on UPS’s so they never got powered down. My parents have a HUGE back up generator and that kicked on soon enough. However, the cable company must not have such power protection, because the cable modem did not come back up. I had a few things left I wanted to do, but nothing that important, so I just went about doing what else I needed to get done. But the random cast was down if I didn’t have internet. With out internet, I couldn’t really tell any one to take over easily. Calling blaksmith wasn’t really an option as he was most likely just waking up to get on the van. Being that it was so early on the morning and on Friday of MarsCon, I didn’t care.
So I had an uneventful trip to the airport and through security, got to my gate and waited to board. About the time my ticket said we were boarding, I began to notice there was no airplane for us to board. With all the other delays all the other MarsCon flights where having, I wasn’t really surprised that I was going to have an issue. So shortly after this, they came on and said the flight in from Chicago was late getting here as they were having high wind issues. I was flying to Chicago(insert ominous music here). So it landed and we got on and took off and all that good stuff. Being very tired, I pretty much slept the whole way. It was rough due to high winds and we had to circle a few times before being able to land. On the way down to land, we suddenly accelerated and had to circle a few more times. Phtttt. So we finally landed at noon cst. My flight to MN was to take off at noon. However, all fights in and out were delayed and my next flight was now due to take off at 12:20. So I raced to the next concourse with just enough time to use the restroom and sit down for a second. ronnie1969, madmanotl ’s wife, was on the same flight as me. She was there waiting and very happy I made it. After about a minute of sitting they called us for boarding. It was a pretty cramped flight, but the flight was just under an hour total, so it wasn’t bad. I was worried about my carry on making to the next flight. It had all the party room stuff I was brining, so it wouldn’t be horrible if it was lost, but would affect the room party.
We landed in MN and I had a bit of lunch, and we headed down to the baggage claim. My bag was already down there waiting for me. YAY! We called for a shuttle to the hotel and it only took about 20 minutes for it to arrive. We made it to the hotel about 2:45. The big dementia van was just about to get there. Rob Balder of PartiallyClips was in the lobby and I chatted with him for a bit. We grabbed a luggage cart in preparation for the van arriving. The van arrived with much fan fare and celebration as there is every year. We all said hello and those of us who had not meet yet got to introduce our selves. After all the excitement of meeting up again at the biggest dementia event of the year, we went about the business of getting settled in. I went up to the Dementia Radio Party room with wildcard9 to start setting up. It was a very nice place for every one to gather and meetup. I still got to spend time with folks while setting up, which is good. We got the room moved around as we needed and set up the mass quantity of food we had and started setting up the studio. About 6, Lady Omnicious and Jason showed up and suggested dinner, to which several of us agreed was a good thing to do before opening ceremonies at 7.
Yay I’m in the air! More later.
So the original dinner group was 5. Then we picked up 2 on the way. Then 1 more arrived, and then just as we ordered, another arrived. So 9 total. The waitress didn’t seem to happy with us. Oh well, we tried to tip her well. The food was quite slow, so we actually didn’t get done until about 7:20. By this time, the best part of the opening ceremonies was done. A few went to check out what was left. I went up to keep on with the room party set up. The movie "Stupid Teenagers Must Die" was actually unable to be shown as the movie never made it to con. So the 8 pm pool party I scheduled went on unopposed. It was quite fun. Me, wwetuesday, breakmanz, and blaksmith (I think that’s all of them) had a cannon ball competition. I think breakmanz won. Can’t remember. lukeski was able to join us for a bit. We tried to start up some group sing in the hot tub, but the muse was not with us. Got back to the room, finished a few more things for room party set up, and then went to the main stage for the Friday night concerts.
Friday night line up was suppose to be emiofbrie aka DJ Particle, Rob Balder of PartiallyClips, wormquartet, and The Gothsicles. We had been hearing several times of wormquartet’s progress. He had been delayed several times. It almost looked like he would make it in time, but in the end, he didn’t get in until about 1am or so. So he traded places with devospice of Sudden Death. emiofbrie aka DJ Particle had a good set of some of her old and new stuff. There was several verbal spares between the (former) Almighty NateBoi and Dj Milla in preparation for their upcoming, much talked about, drinking contest. Nateboi had an interesting wife beater wrestler get up on. At one point in the taunting, he got up on stage and tore his shirt off. Things where definitely heating up. The referees had to be called in several times to call the two adversaries to their corners.
Rob Balder of PartiallyClips did a great job as always. He started with “Goth Chick” and we he got to the line about “she’ll never admit she’s from Tennessee” Several of us pointed to Lady Omnicious and dement1a, both of whom currently live in Tennessee. It caused a big laugh and was very fun. The highlight was when he did the Johathan Coulton cover “Re: You’re Brains.” We all played the zombies and did arm waves n’stuf to the “all we want to do is eat your brains” part.
That’s the kind of awesomeness you get at MarsCon, full group interaction. Always tons of fun. He did his paint ball song that is his 1st song to make the funny 5. lukeski hammed it up acting out parts of the song behind Rob.
devospice did an awesome set as always. Can’t recall right now if there was anything new during his concert.
More on Devo later on though. The Gothsicles.com”>The The Gothsicles came on after much set up. A few chants of “what the bill” where started as well as a group sing or 2. Finally the The Gothsicles started and they came out with their power hit “Kanomi Code” joined by devospice and lukeski. We screamed the code out loud and proud and during the break down, devospice and lukeski took over with an awesome rap. Eventually, several of us got up and started dancing to the music with Dark NES and DJ EYG playing such songs as “one second Ghost” and “Devistator.”
After the concert ended, we headed up to get the party started. The party floor was pretty dead, much to our surprise. We had a bit of technical issues getting things sorted to cast the big drinking contest. With much madness, taunting, and general Friday night tomfoolery we eventually got things working. Being one of the few parties open, we soon had a packed house. Finally the drinking contest was ready to begin. I really didn’t care about contest, but we were having every one toast for the opening drinks and of course the toast was to Blindwolf and Logan. I asked if I could make the toast, told every one to shut up and briefly told the stories of Blindwolf’s and Logan’s passing in 2006, all the while choking back tears and trying not to let my voice crack to much. We all toasted to them and the drinking contest was on. wildcard9 was the judge and eye_ar_smaurt was holding the bet money. A portion of the bet money was going charity. Soon after it started, I decided to check out the karaoke room. The Dementia Radio Room party was located between consuite and the karaoke room. Several minutes after that, I got a report that the contest was over and that Milla had won after just 4 shots. The former Almighty Nateboi had a sudden exiting of stomach contents, there by being disqualified be the rules of the contest. In a ceremony, he had to give up his title of “Almighty” to Milla and now the “Milla Mix” is the “Almighty Milla Mix”. Nateboi soon after started billing him self has the all Powerful Nateboi. The night progressed with more such sillyness, much casting of random rantings and interview, and singing of songs. We kept the room party open until 5:30. About 5am, the karaoke room came in and said “you still open? Damn, you beat us” and we happily declared “We Win!” But soon sleep got the better of me and nateboi and we chased every one out so we could sleep.
I awoke to knocking at the door and calls of “housekeeping”. DAMN! Forgot to put that damn sign on the door. Hate when I do that. They soon saw us sleeping and left, but it was to late. The Damage was done. Despite my tiredness, I couldn’t fall back asleep. My mind was racing with all that was going on today and the things I needed to do before my “advanced techniques in shoutcasting” panel that I was holding in the room at about noon. It was 9:30. I got out of bed and found the lights I had hung around the room had fallen on nateboi in the night on his pull out bed/couch. I headed to consuite and was delighted to not only find they were open, but also had cereal. Last year, they didn’t open until 11am and had almost no edible foods. I went back to the room after breakfast, and finished my set up of my laptop for my panel and uploaded Friday’s pictures to http://conpics.org. I then did clean up of the room and set the room up for the panel. A little before noon, ppl started showing up for the panel. I tried to quickly located devospice. He had said I could barrow his projector for the panel, but was unable to locate him. Me and blaksmith tried to figure out a way to have vnc connect a few laptops to mine so that ppl could see from various laptops around the room. About this time, devo came walking down the hallway and some one grabed his attention for me. He said he’d bring up the projector after his consuite run. So me and breakmanz got a sheet set up to use as a projection screen. Also in attendance was Kristi, madmanotl, Chris of Power Salad, wildcard9, eye_ar_smaurt and druidsfire. I think there was one or 2 others, but those are the ones I remember asking me questions. So we quickly got the projector set up and I went through several of the techniques I wanted to go over. It went very well and I was able to get out a lot of good information some of them didn’t know before. Towards the beginning of my panel, winamp decided to error out. I quickly turned this bit of adversity into a group chant of devospice’s song “Whoops there it goes again”. We discussed a few other similar topics and eye_ar_smaurt was able to show us a few tricks that even I didn’t know. I think he’s defiantly earning his title of Dementia Radio Prodigy. Finding us new awesome music, MAKING new awesome music, showing me up on casting techniques, and he can even do the hand noises of Musical Mike!!! After we got every one up to speed on everything we had talked about, we moved on to talking about some other things about Dementia Radio while we had the projector. It was very productive panel to be sure.
So now I’m back home and writing to this from various rooms around the house on various days.
Soon after that, we decided we needed to start getting ready for the Saturday Concerts. ericcoleman was up 1st, followed by Carla Ulbrich, both of whom at last report, were stuck in Iowa due to the blizzard closing down roads. We had lunch at the little stand they set up in the lobby for the con and soon learned that ericcoleman was on his way but would be late. So ericcoleman was bumped to 2:30 and he got in moments before he was to perform. ericcoleman did a great set, but he sat the whole time. He said he lost weight but now has to sit when he plays guitar and that he would explain this later. He never did though. wormquartet got up with him and we KNEW it was going to be a great song. Turns out it was an acoustic cover of…. KONOMI CODE!!!!!!!!!! It friggin rocked! We all got to do the chant again and you could see Dark NES in the back of the room laughing and rocking out to it!
Possible Oscar came on next and performed their songs, several of which I had not heard before. They were good in concert, but I have to say, I like them better on album, has a much fuller sound to it.
Next up was wormquartet. He did a great set including “R2D2 lives bum” and as normal, he shoved the mic to his ass at the end of the song. This is important to remember. Just before lukeski’s set, devospice came back and they performed Sudden Death’s new song “Pac-Man”. The one where wormquartet “Sings like a bitch.” I can’t believe that wormquartet can sing like a boy band that well. Great song.
lukeski came on next. His cheer squad had a new cheer.
He did one night at quarks bar and Got Chris of Power Salad up and did "Play that Filk music." OH YAH! That was fun, but because they were running late, he had to cut his set short. Next there was a break for Ookla the Mok to set up. We had plans for going to Buca De Beppo’s right after Ookla, so I made a list of every one who wanted to go. I got 28. So me and dadindinda went to make reservations. Took awhile to get through though. I went up stairs to the room to get my coat and everything and get some other things ready. By the time I got back down, the Ookla concert was mostly over. I watched the last few song. I like Ookla, but their songs sound exactly the same in concert, so it wasn’t anything much special.
So after the concert, we had the HUGE cat hearding of getting 28 ppl to buca, but 2 droped, then 2 added, then some dropped, and some more added. And where is this person, and where did that person go. AHAHAHAHHAHHAA. It was a night mare mess. Not to mention getting every one in vehicles. We finally got most every one ready and ended up with a new total of 30 ppl. Shouldn’t be to bad. So I start marking every one off as they load into different cars. But we can’t find Byron or blaksmith and Art and Theo apparently left already. We finally found Byron and blaksmith, and Theo. As we were heading out, we noticed a small group looking at the moon with telescopes and camera’s. We looked up and easly saw what they were looking at. There was an eclipse going on. Very cool! We got everything loaded finally, and I went with madmanotl to help direct him there. We took the huge van as we had so many ppl. We got to the restaurant and unloaded everyone. I went with madmanotl to help him find a parking spot. We got parked and walked back to the restaurant and and there were ALREADY 30 ppl setting. WHAT? Art and Theo apparently picked up wormquartet and wife Kim who originally told me they weren’t coming. So now there was 32 ppl. Me and madmanotl had to shove on the end of one table along with Byron. It was cramped, we were sticking out of the aisle, but we were all there.
It was great fun if not hectic and cramped. Chris of Power Salad jokingly starting to sing a little bit of the Dementia Radio Theme song, not realizing how beloved his theme had become in the years he’s been away from the station. Very quickly, every one else at the table joined in followed by our second table. It was quite fun. Several times there was birthday parties around us and they song the happy b-day song. We being a highly musical group, were more then happy to sing along and make lots of noise. A few other songs broke out and much fun was had. We started getting food and the plates where emptied as soon as they came out. For those that don’t know, buca is a family style Italian restaurant. There was a couple sitting in a 2 person table next to us that left about half way through our meal. Me and Byron quickly took over the table so we had leg room and called our selves the leper colony. Before long, dinner was over and it was time to go. Getting the bill paid was another hearding cats moment. Thanks again to madmanotl, he knows why. madmanotl and I took off 1st to get the van as we had a good 5 minute walk. We got every one loaded and back to the hotel. We were planning on doing the big group picture when we get back. We told every one to meet in the lobby. Me and madmanotl had to find a parking spot for the huge van though. Fortune was with us though and we came across a car that was pulling out. We got parked and headed done to the lobby. A pretty large group was there and we found a nice spot for the Dementia Radio DJ photo and the big Dementia group photo.
By this time, it was time to get the party started again. We did some quick clean up and set up and with just the dementia radio folks hanging around, it was quite the party. emiofbrie started up her show with a bit of technical difficulty. We opened up the party and quickly again became one of the most popular. I helped out as much as I could, dement1a did a great job bartending. blaksmith helped the casting go smoothly. I wandered around a bit to see other rooms to see if there was a better one to use for next year. I wandered in to the Karaoke room, but not much was going on. Later in the night, eye_ar_smaurt was going to do his concert of a few songs. I told him I’d open for him with a few of my craptacular stuff. What I lacked in skill, I made up for in high energy. I performed me and davroz’s classic “Jango”, my old song “Refrigerator Raider” and a brand new song about tetris. Went over fairly well. eye_ar_smaurt had a few technical issues, mostly with the volume of play back and mic, but it got worked out and he did a pretty good set. He has much skill that needs to be worked on and honed. We kept on with random casting of much silliness. Nateboi got some impromptu songs from DarkNES, Rob Balder of PartiallyClips, and others. There was an incident involving cheese at one point, but what happens at the con stays at the con. We kept casting and being silly on the mic tell well over 5 am. At one point, we finally shutdown casting when a bunch of ppl went to bed. We still stayed up and chatted for awhile. I called the front desk and managed to get a 1pm check out. At about 5:45, I was WAY to tired to stay up any more. I walked over to the karaoke room and admitted defeat. As it turns out, they closed at 7:30 and Byron kept the room open until 8:30. WOOT! We win (:
I wook up about 10am. A bit more sleep then Saturday night, but not as much as I wanted. I went to consuite and they had TONS of cereal donated by a room party. Had some nice conversation and food. I went back to the room and started cleaning up and packing. Eventually others came and helped and get the stuff they left. Big thanks to breakmanz for helping out. We get everything packed up and moved what was left to poohbear’s and wildcard9s rooms. They were both staying Sunday night too. Art Paul was due to start at 1:30. We hung out on the 2nd floor mezzanine for a bit. They didn’t have the food stand set up again today though. I was going to try to wait until I got to the airport for food, but I was STARVING. So I went to the restaurant and got an expensive burger. Hung out with dement1a and druidsfire for a bit. I ate the burger back up stairs. It was really good. I didn’t get a pop though. So I ran up to consuite quickly and got something to drink. By the time I was done with all that, Art Paul was mostly over. I went to the main room and watched the last few songs of his set. He was working the crowd really good and went over pretty good. Carried was up next and had some great songs. Her father played GREAT guitar to back her. At one point, she made a cheese reference to the room party the night before. Those of us in the know LOLLED! Power Salad was on next. I haven’t gotten to see him in concert in YEARS. Great to see him perform again. He did a great set. I’m VERY glad he did Katie’s Dream, a request by lukeski. It is a favorite of some of the Dementia Radio listeners. It’s also a great song to do the hand wave thing and stuff too. Great song for our group! He finished with his GREAT song “My Cat is afraid of the Vacuum cleaner.” Awesome to see him do it live and you could see him faking singing to get air every now and then. Great Job! I hope we can see more of Chris in the future. We managed to squeeze Carla in before the Smackdown. She had only just arrived about 15 minutes before with much fanfare when we noticed. She did and awesome set as well. She had a new parody to “what if your girlfriends was gone” called “what if you only had one good song.” It was great. But trust me Carla, you have far more then one good song. Part way into the set, she smelled the mic and said “Who’s been using this mic?” and we ALL pointed to wormquartet who was turning BEAT red. Carla continued her set and was really working the crowd. She is a great performer. She performed as her fanaly “if I had the copy write on the word BEEP.” She cleverly had an harmonica holder to hold a new years eve horn to blow for the beeps. She changed one of her lines to be “I could retired on shoe box alone” and broke into a pg version of one of his runchier songs and again got a huge laugh and he started turning red all over.
Finally it was time for the big Dementia Smackdown! Rob Balder of PartiallyClips’s plane was leaving in 55 minutes, so he quickly did his song and left. I’ve never heard the song he did before, so I can’t even remember what it was. Possible Oscar came out with the “opening” song. It was a parody of “the final count down” called “the Dementia Smackdown.” It was awesome, and Pumped out the crowd even more if that was possible. Carla was suppose to be up, but she was busy selling cd’s, yay. So ericcoleman came up and tried to do an audience participation cover of “the Philosopher’s Song,” but the cards he had them printed on were far to thin and small to flip in time to the music. Micheal was holding the cards and he did the best he could, but it was a losing battle. It was still lots of fun and got lots of laughs. Carla came up and did a great cover of Weird Al’s one more minute. Carrie did a great cover of “Virus alert,” also by Al. The Chris of Power Salad did a cover of Larry “Wildman” Fisher’s song “Merry go Round.” It was awesome. This was followed by lukeski singing “My name is not Mervi Griffin” and had an appearance by “Gilbert” which was great! Art Paul came up and did a cover of “My Dead Dog Rover” and put some great twists on it and you know, it’s WORLDS better then the orginal version which I HATE. Rand of Ookla performed “Hockey Monkey” only adding a great opening to it. How cool would it have been if he had done “Code Monkey” instead!!! wormquartet came up with devospice and he said “I’m sorry if MarsCon does not utilize standard post wormquartet concert serilization” and put the mic in a plastic bag held by devo who then through it into the Stargate. He did (fill in later). DJ Particle aka emiofbrie did a version for “Home Coming Queen’s got a Gun” and did a great job updating it. At the end when Debbie is shot in the ear, emiofbrie rand down and said “Why did you do it?” “I did it for Chris Waffle” “Chris Waffle of Hot Waffles MarsCon 2007 GOH? You mean your THAT Debbie?” It was AWESOME and hot a huge response form the audience. The The Gothsicles came up and started setting up for their set, but while they set up devospice did he song. It was a song most of us were expecting and I’m VERY glad he did. lukeski did a great introduction. Basically he mentioned the passing of Blindwolf and how much he ment to us and how sad we were of his passing. BTW just thinking of this moment through out the show I was starting to get teary eyed. By this point there was small rivers falling down my cheeks. lukeski then through it to Devo who talked about Logan and said this song was for them. He preformed “Robot Cat” an obvious choice with it’s great audience participation. At the end, most of us immediately gave it a standing ovation as a final good bye to Logan and Blindwulf. Shame on those who did not stand up and cheer. A tough act to follow, but The Gothsicles were up to the task. The did a cover of “House Party at Arkum Asylum” which rocked HARD followed by a covoer of the “Perfect Strangers” theme song. Finally it was time for the big fanally. ALL the artists got on stage and some one yelled “what are you doing? We are the world.” CLOSE. They performed Al’s “Don’t Steal this Song” with each of them taking part of the verse. OH it was the best thing ever!!!! I SO hope we can release the video of it some time. That song alone was worth the entire trip. Of course when it got o the part of “By our cds” they all pointed to the merch table. A GREAT way to end the smackdown and the con.
Soon after several ppl had to leave right away and we said good byes. I had to leave fairly soon my self. I got my luggage and went around and said all my good byes. So sad. Got to the lobby just as the shuttle was loading up for the airport. Micheal and his son Ian were joining me on the shuttle. Makes it easier to leave if your leaving with some one, that’s for sure. Side note, during the party, we discovered Ian also likes warm flat pop like me. We suspect him of also being a super taster. So we got the aiport and through security together and finally parted ways. I wasn’t that hungry due to my large lunch. So I didn’t bother eating opting to eat dinner after I got to Chicago. I had about an hour to kill. I wanted to get online and see what was going on, but the wired access was pay not free. Phttttt. I said the heck with it, to celebrate having a job, I got a day pass. But I couldn’t get logged on. So I found their 800 number and called them and was like what’s up. They finally got it fix and then I found out my gate was changed. So moved all my crap and found a new power outlet. Only had about 30 minutes at this point. PHTTT. Oh well. I’ll use internet at Chicago. So I logged in, did my report to those on the channel let them know I was on time n’stuff and told them to pass the news onto the van. My flight was called a bit early and we got loaded. There wasn’t many ppl on the flight, so we all got a row to our selves. We loaded early and were going to take off 10 minutes sooner then was planned. Just as we were about to take off, we got called off because of high winds in Chicago. So we had to wait for 45 minutes. This is where you came into the story (:
So we finally took off. I got to do lots of this report written up while I was waiting to take off and while I was in the air. So the flight crew kept telling us we would get in time to make our connections. My flight was due out of Chicago at 9:36 and had to start boarding at 9:10. There were several very loud and obnoxious ppl on the plane with me. While we were coming down for a landing, one of them got up to go use the restroom and the flight attendant had to threaten being arrested before he sat back down. There was like 4 or 5 ppl fighting to get to the restroom 1st when we landed. We landed at 9:17. They let those of us with a connection out 1st. 4 of us rushed down to the gate we were connecting with. We got their at 9:32 and the door was closed. They called in to the plane and fortunately, they were willing to let us in. I don’t know what would have happened if I didn’t make that connection. I had to get home to feed all the animals at my parents. This was a VERY packed flight and I was stuck in a middle seat. Fortunately, the guy on the aisle was REAL small, so I had room on one side. I stretched out best I could and watched the in-flight TV show. It was ok and distracting. Got in to Detroit on schedule and went down to the luggage claim to wait. I was expecting my bags to not have made it this time for sure. I found a power plug and got online. At least I could use my internet pass some more. I checked in again with the channel and got reports from every one else. After a bit, the luggage started coming down. I waited until most every one else was gone then went looking for mine. Surprisingly, mine had made it. I packed everything up, and headed for home. My car started up just fine. I was starving, so I grabbed what food I could from something that was open. Got to my house about 2am and feed the animals and then went to SLEEP. Sleep the sleep of the dead from all the fun I had at MarsCon 2007. Can’t wait until 2008 to do it all again!
Thanks to every one who helped make MarsCon great!