Arisia
Back from the convention, captainecchi is curled up napping, wish I could join her but I really need to stay up and prevent my sleep cycle getting any more screwed up than it already is.
Arisia was definitely a bit lacking this year, at least for me. Despite a few inconveniences involving parking and the elevators, Friday night was a lot of fun. Didn't do much as far as con events, just meeting all those people... Old friends you don't see often, the con acquaintances that you see at every con but never outside the con circuit, meeting friends of friends and hanging out. Did go to one actual event that evening though, hit the Rocky production with rigel(by this point, captainecchi was asleep... I probably should have been). Was fun, but boy am I rusty on my callbacks. Four years since seeing a production will do that to you I guess.
Saturday started with me not entirely willingly getting up with something like 3-4 hours sleep(at least it was a REM cycle worth). At 7, I just couldn't stay asleep any longer so dragged myself out of bed. After poking my head in one room(checking to see that, yes, Future Boy Conan does seem to have a US release now... yay!), I wandered off to see just how far one would have to trek for food, since bringing something back to the room for captainecchi and rigel seemed a good use of being stuck up at those hours. Then I discovered just how far it was to get to anything(I have no clue the actual distance, all I know is it took over an hour round trip, walking very quickly on the way out, and jogging most of the way back).
After that, captainecchi wasn't in the best of moods towards the start of her day(though she perked up by the evening), and the myriad of issues with the venue just grated on us most of the day. We saw a few interesting panels, and whatnot... but it just seems we spent more time walking up the stairs than doing anything interesting for most of the day of Saturday. By evening, the lack of sleep and minimal food was getting to me, and while Lise was feeling better I was just completely out of it. But, there was always the Masquerade, right?
After waiting in line for the Masquerade, we discover that between the sub-par space that was available for holding it, and the large number of seats reserved at the front, we had no chance of a decent view. In fact, even if we'd been at the head of the line, we'd have had a worse view than the video feed which went to the hotel rooms. So we head back to the room. (Via the stairs, yet again, of course).
There were some technical difficulties with the video, just to make things more interesting, but we managed to see all the full entries(and possibly even all the young fan ones). There were definitely some nice pieces this year, but there weren't any of the stand out great presentations this year that I'm used to seeing at least one or two of at every Arisia.
I was still out of it enough, I napped on and off from the end of the masquerade(not even staying up through the awards), till I crashed for good a little after midnight.
Sunday was pretty much briefly visiting the costume guild meeting, packing up and heading out. Oh, apparently captainecchi got bamboozled into our place being drafted for next months guild meeting while I was packing the room up...
However, there was one very good side to the con. With various downtime and whatnot, I managed to spend quite a bit of time reading Mode, aka captainecchi's novel. It's still a rought draft, awaiting its first revision, and there are aspects of it which need work, which we've talked about. But it really does show the promise to be a good work, even if she'll never admit that.
Arisia was definitely a bit lacking this year, at least for me. Despite a few inconveniences involving parking and the elevators, Friday night was a lot of fun. Didn't do much as far as con events, just meeting all those people... Old friends you don't see often, the con acquaintances that you see at every con but never outside the con circuit, meeting friends of friends and hanging out. Did go to one actual event that evening though, hit the Rocky production with rigel(by this point, captainecchi was asleep... I probably should have been). Was fun, but boy am I rusty on my callbacks. Four years since seeing a production will do that to you I guess.
Saturday started with me not entirely willingly getting up with something like 3-4 hours sleep(at least it was a REM cycle worth). At 7, I just couldn't stay asleep any longer so dragged myself out of bed. After poking my head in one room(checking to see that, yes, Future Boy Conan does seem to have a US release now... yay!), I wandered off to see just how far one would have to trek for food, since bringing something back to the room for captainecchi and rigel seemed a good use of being stuck up at those hours. Then I discovered just how far it was to get to anything(I have no clue the actual distance, all I know is it took over an hour round trip, walking very quickly on the way out, and jogging most of the way back).
After that, captainecchi wasn't in the best of moods towards the start of her day(though she perked up by the evening), and the myriad of issues with the venue just grated on us most of the day. We saw a few interesting panels, and whatnot... but it just seems we spent more time walking up the stairs than doing anything interesting for most of the day of Saturday. By evening, the lack of sleep and minimal food was getting to me, and while Lise was feeling better I was just completely out of it. But, there was always the Masquerade, right?
After waiting in line for the Masquerade, we discover that between the sub-par space that was available for holding it, and the large number of seats reserved at the front, we had no chance of a decent view. In fact, even if we'd been at the head of the line, we'd have had a worse view than the video feed which went to the hotel rooms. So we head back to the room. (Via the stairs, yet again, of course).
There were some technical difficulties with the video, just to make things more interesting, but we managed to see all the full entries(and possibly even all the young fan ones). There were definitely some nice pieces this year, but there weren't any of the stand out great presentations this year that I'm used to seeing at least one or two of at every Arisia.
I was still out of it enough, I napped on and off from the end of the masquerade(not even staying up through the awards), till I crashed for good a little after midnight.
Sunday was pretty much briefly visiting the costume guild meeting, packing up and heading out. Oh, apparently captainecchi got bamboozled into our place being drafted for next months guild meeting while I was packing the room up...
However, there was one very good side to the con. With various downtime and whatnot, I managed to spend quite a bit of time reading Mode, aka captainecchi's novel. It's still a rought draft, awaiting its first revision, and there are aspects of it which need work, which we've talked about. But it really does show the promise to be a good work, even if she'll never admit that.