First SpoCon after-report . . .
Okay, back home, still alive (barely) and waiting for a big van to show up and help me and countessaleska move roughly half the living room contents today.
No time right now to do a full SpoCon after-post, but the fast rundown is that it was a good, nay, excellent convention, the only downside being the weather, which was freaking hellfire hot. 100F on Saturday. No air conditioning in the dorms where everyone was housed on the Gonzaga Campus, resulting in elektras 's chocolate bar looking like this first thing in the morning:
Note that we were all trying to sleep in temperatures that did that to a bar of Special Dark. Oy. I officially named it the Con Of Bendy Chocolate in honor of the event.
The Torchwood CoE Therapy Session went brilliantly (after a lot of frustration in figuring out just where I was supposed to set up!); my fears that nobody on-site would "get" it were assuaged when the lady at Registration who signed me up was wearing a little sign that read, "You killed Ianto . . . you bastards!!" LOL! I gave her a Therapy Session poster (gorgeous posters, made for me by countessaleska , who rocks at desktop publishing), which she loved. I will have to post an image when I get a chance.
My sponsored table at the larger party ended up looking like this (note the good, solid sunburn I've got going):
Taken just before the party opened to the general public. Photo credit: Mike McWatters (who may or may not want to have his name associated with something like this, though we did have a great discussion of what the next season of Doctor Who will bring, so he's got pretty decent geek cred when he's not being a Srs Weapons Scholar). Sadly, the black silk roses in the vase don't show up well in any of the photos. The green blobby thing in front of them is a little ceramic Halloween tombstone from the Dollar Store, and the munchies are home-made Cream Scones, a la azriona (yummy, easy recipe here), one batch with mini chocolate chips. the other without (a couple boxes of grocery-store mini-donuts lurk in shame behind the thermos of coffee, providing backup munchies). The spoilery character picture was this one, ganked from the anon meme (do let me know if there's a creator's name to attach and credit):
Best photoshop job on a really goofy-to-begin-with promo pic I've ever seen. <3 SpoCon attendees who "got" it laughed their asses off after lifting the covering sheet, everyone else just looked mystified, but thanked me for the scones very nicely anyway.
Oh, and I gave out badge stickers to those who stopped by the table, also made by Aleska. Here's one on my badge (pretty badge this year!) with an added "Fan Enough" ribbon (the con's theme was "Are you Fan Enough?" and Tim from the concom gave me the ribbon, so I guess I passed muster . . .).
The Registration people apologized for the misspelling of "Avalon," but said the typo was only noticed when it was too late to reprint. I figured the type was small enough, I wasn't gonna worry. They got my badge name right, at least! I do get a giggle out of the implication that I'm only an adult for 3 days, though -- after that, it's back to being an overgrown 12-year-old, yeah!!
Got bugger-all in terms of Avalon demo/panel pics, since I was up there blithering to the crowd in my usual Dame Ruth's Free Association Hour mode, but everyone really seemed to enjoy them, so I felt good. Even though I apparently gave a bit more of a "wet t-shirt contestant" show than I realized during the "hitting bottles and cans of water with sharp swords demo." *facepalm* I don't normally do those demos in a t-shirt and street clothes (it was just too hot out on the lawn for garb this time, hardcore reenactor or not), so that's not a hazard I usually worry about. Well, nobody screamed in horror and tried to gouge their eyes out (I might have been able to get away with that look 15 years ago, but now . . . not so much) so maybe they were looking more at the swords than me, or else they just thought it was all part of the show. A bonus extra, if you will. :P
Anyway, more to come . . . someday, anyway. We're taking down the Mac later this week, and shifting phone and internet service to the apartment at roughly the same time, so the only reliable internet I'll have for a while will be work . . . and while I do use the work computers occasionally for blogging and fun stuff, I do try to keep it mostly about, you know, work.
Later, all! Sorry again about not keeping up with the f-list and comments and stuff for a while, but you guys are being really cool and supportive, and I look forward to talking more when I get "back"! :D
No time right now to do a full SpoCon after-post, but the fast rundown is that it was a good, nay, excellent convention, the only downside being the weather, which was freaking hellfire hot. 100F on Saturday. No air conditioning in the dorms where everyone was housed on the Gonzaga Campus, resulting in elektras 's chocolate bar looking like this first thing in the morning:
Note that we were all trying to sleep in temperatures that did that to a bar of Special Dark. Oy. I officially named it the Con Of Bendy Chocolate in honor of the event.
The Torchwood CoE Therapy Session went brilliantly (after a lot of frustration in figuring out just where I was supposed to set up!); my fears that nobody on-site would "get" it were assuaged when the lady at Registration who signed me up was wearing a little sign that read, "You killed Ianto . . . you bastards!!" LOL! I gave her a Therapy Session poster (gorgeous posters, made for me by countessaleska , who rocks at desktop publishing), which she loved. I will have to post an image when I get a chance.
My sponsored table at the larger party ended up looking like this (note the good, solid sunburn I've got going):
Taken just before the party opened to the general public. Photo credit: Mike McWatters (who may or may not want to have his name associated with something like this, though we did have a great discussion of what the next season of Doctor Who will bring, so he's got pretty decent geek cred when he's not being a Srs Weapons Scholar). Sadly, the black silk roses in the vase don't show up well in any of the photos. The green blobby thing in front of them is a little ceramic Halloween tombstone from the Dollar Store, and the munchies are home-made Cream Scones, a la azriona (yummy, easy recipe here), one batch with mini chocolate chips. the other without (a couple boxes of grocery-store mini-donuts lurk in shame behind the thermos of coffee, providing backup munchies). The spoilery character picture was this one, ganked from the anon meme (do let me know if there's a creator's name to attach and credit):
Best photoshop job on a really goofy-to-begin-with promo pic I've ever seen. <3 SpoCon attendees who "got" it laughed their asses off after lifting the covering sheet, everyone else just looked mystified, but thanked me for the scones very nicely anyway.
Oh, and I gave out badge stickers to those who stopped by the table, also made by Aleska. Here's one on my badge (pretty badge this year!) with an added "Fan Enough" ribbon (the con's theme was "Are you Fan Enough?" and Tim from the concom gave me the ribbon, so I guess I passed muster . . .).
The Registration people apologized for the misspelling of "Avalon," but said the typo was only noticed when it was too late to reprint. I figured the type was small enough, I wasn't gonna worry. They got my badge name right, at least! I do get a giggle out of the implication that I'm only an adult for 3 days, though -- after that, it's back to being an overgrown 12-year-old, yeah!!
Got bugger-all in terms of Avalon demo/panel pics, since I was up there blithering to the crowd in my usual Dame Ruth's Free Association Hour mode, but everyone really seemed to enjoy them, so I felt good. Even though I apparently gave a bit more of a "wet t-shirt contestant" show than I realized during the "hitting bottles and cans of water with sharp swords demo." *facepalm* I don't normally do those demos in a t-shirt and street clothes (it was just too hot out on the lawn for garb this time, hardcore reenactor or not), so that's not a hazard I usually worry about. Well, nobody screamed in horror and tried to gouge their eyes out (I might have been able to get away with that look 15 years ago, but now . . . not so much) so maybe they were looking more at the swords than me, or else they just thought it was all part of the show. A bonus extra, if you will. :P
Anyway, more to come . . . someday, anyway. We're taking down the Mac later this week, and shifting phone and internet service to the apartment at roughly the same time, so the only reliable internet I'll have for a while will be work . . . and while I do use the work computers occasionally for blogging and fun stuff, I do try to keep it mostly about, you know, work.
Later, all! Sorry again about not keeping up with the f-list and comments and stuff for a while, but you guys are being really cool and supportive, and I look forward to talking more when I get "back"! :D