So Daniel and I are planning to get a hotel room for Arisia next year, which we've never done before. Hotel registration goes live at midnight on Tuesday morning. Do we need to stay up til midnight to make sure we get a room, or will there still be rooms left at a more reasonable hour in the morning?

Daniel is the sweetest. He brought me a dozen roses after work today, to celebrate my recent good news ( Read more... )

Monday

Dragged myself out of bed early to catch The Myth Of Fannish Tolerance. The panel was meant to discuss stuff like RaceFail, wherein the supposedly liberal/tolerant fandom community resists engaging with more advanced issues around race, orientation, gender, etc. But there was also some discussion from the audience about how people who are ( Read more... )

Sunday

What Women Want (in Their SF/F Females). The program description suggested that Rick Riordan was guilty of female tokenism, so I went to defend the honor of Annabeth Chase (and Clarisse, and Silena, and Rachel...), but one of the panelists did it for me. There was some good discussion, and I got a few recommendations. Next up was Avoiding ( Read more... )

There were tons of great costumes this year (including a Tiffany Aching that was WAY better than the half-assed costume I had planned), but these were my favorites. Dalek-inspired dresses! (I can't be the only one who finds the Daleks more adorible than terrifying, can I?)

Idols with Feet of Clay was a great idea for a panel: how do we react when authors/creators we love espouse ideas we find hurtful or offensive? There was some great discussion on this panel, until it got derailed by one panelist who decided that if he (a white, Jewish man) wasn't offended by these things then no one else should be, either. Major ( Read more... )

Thursday
No con until Friday, but fredericks came into town and Daniel and I took her to Cambridge for Ethiopian food.

Friday
Con time! We raced to the hotel, and I arrived just in time for Food Communicating Culture In Literature. I could go on and on abotu this panel, because they raised so many interesting ideas. What are some food taboos, and where do ( Read more... )

Arisia was mostly awesome, and I will do a real write-up later, but epic headaches have been epic the last couple of days, and I anticipate this one getting epicer thanks to the big-ass party I'm throwing tonight with my feminist group. Fortunately, I will have many friends there!

fredericks, thanks for coming up and hanging with us! Daniel and I both ( Read more... )

Ach, forgot to post the Sunday part of my Arisia report. Bullet points:

*The woman who checked my coat was wearing a shirt that read: "I beat the Kama Sutra. The last guy was hard."

*Checked out a panel called The Crossroads of Magic and Science. It was an interesting panel that covered some cool ideas, but I was a tad dismayed that the panel was ( Read more... )

So. Arisia ( Read more... )