Bisto Con 2016, #7
Sunday came too quickly for me--people would begin to depart so soon! And we still had 53 more episodes to watch!
We kicked off Sunday morning with a perennial favorite: Pros Pictionary. This is about as raucous a game as you can imagine, since the clues to be drawn were on the risque side and the folks drawing were trying their best to go fast. Doyle became a bundle of curls, Bodie was reduced to an eyebrow, and Cowley came out as glasses; they didn't even get bodies, poor things. Murphy became an elongated stick figure with straight dark hair, sort of an El Greco effect. The troops laughed and laughed at the things drawn, and a few really really wrong suggestions had me dying with laughter ("a taser to the prostate"--really??) The things people can come up with when they're in a hurry! Some of the clues were taken from plots of fannish stories or fanzines, while others were the workings of my own imagination when it came to Bodie and Doyle (no, I did not put anything for them to draw that involved a taser! Handcuffs yes, taser no.)
After Pictionary, we had another panel called Sir, Yes Sir, which I led. This one was about the military and police backgrounds of a lot of CI5 agents--what Cowley was recruiting for that might or might not be found in those service groups, and what sorts of problems might arise from recruiting in them. We discussed who the biggest rulebreaker in CI5 was (and concluded it was Cowley himself), and we considered how Cowley was, in a way, recruiting to find people like he had been during wartime. Also, Cyanne gave us an address online for viewing the conzine, which had many stories and puzzles--a real triumph for her and Flamingo, who got them formatted into a variety of modes (Word, epub, mobi) for different users. I've read the whole zine, and I have to say, hats off to all the contributors! If you read the conzine, please take a moment to thank the contributors who offered their work to it, to make the con a more fun thing overall. The zine is linked from the BistoCon main website page, and you can also see copies of the programs for the 2014 and 2016 BC, to get a flavor of the con activities.
Lunch was from the nearby Lebanese restaurant, and people seemed pretty content to enjoy the prolonged lunch that gave them plenty of time to exchange photographs and addresses as well. After lunch we had our final program panel, Our Anniversary Is....? led by krisserci5. I think we concluded that one could build a case for the Lads getting together after virtually any episode, but many people leaned toward it happening after DIAG. Folks began to drift away, to catch planes or drive home, as we settled in for the Dead Dog Panel, in which a lot of ideas were thrown out for how the con had gone. Seemed most people were pretty happy with everything (food, programming, timing of things, the auction, the games) but there were lots of suggestions for improvements--and many volunteers to assist with the next BistoCon.
Yes, there will be another BC in two years. Folks were having so much fun that it seemed sad that we might have to wait that long, but wait we must. przed announced that con responsibilities will be even more divided up than they were this time, to spread the load a bit more broadly, and we'll be circulating a list of con comm jobs to be done that we'll work with going forward. If you're interested in helping, or you want to attend BistoCon 2018 (right now, we're looking at August again, a good time of year for a lot of our attendees), drop a line below.
We kicked off Sunday morning with a perennial favorite: Pros Pictionary. This is about as raucous a game as you can imagine, since the clues to be drawn were on the risque side and the folks drawing were trying their best to go fast. Doyle became a bundle of curls, Bodie was reduced to an eyebrow, and Cowley came out as glasses; they didn't even get bodies, poor things. Murphy became an elongated stick figure with straight dark hair, sort of an El Greco effect. The troops laughed and laughed at the things drawn, and a few really really wrong suggestions had me dying with laughter ("a taser to the prostate"--really??) The things people can come up with when they're in a hurry! Some of the clues were taken from plots of fannish stories or fanzines, while others were the workings of my own imagination when it came to Bodie and Doyle (no, I did not put anything for them to draw that involved a taser! Handcuffs yes, taser no.)
After Pictionary, we had another panel called Sir, Yes Sir, which I led. This one was about the military and police backgrounds of a lot of CI5 agents--what Cowley was recruiting for that might or might not be found in those service groups, and what sorts of problems might arise from recruiting in them. We discussed who the biggest rulebreaker in CI5 was (and concluded it was Cowley himself), and we considered how Cowley was, in a way, recruiting to find people like he had been during wartime. Also, Cyanne gave us an address online for viewing the conzine, which had many stories and puzzles--a real triumph for her and Flamingo, who got them formatted into a variety of modes (Word, epub, mobi) for different users. I've read the whole zine, and I have to say, hats off to all the contributors! If you read the conzine, please take a moment to thank the contributors who offered their work to it, to make the con a more fun thing overall. The zine is linked from the BistoCon main website page, and you can also see copies of the programs for the 2014 and 2016 BC, to get a flavor of the con activities.
Lunch was from the nearby Lebanese restaurant, and people seemed pretty content to enjoy the prolonged lunch that gave them plenty of time to exchange photographs and addresses as well. After lunch we had our final program panel, Our Anniversary Is....? led by krisserci5. I think we concluded that one could build a case for the Lads getting together after virtually any episode, but many people leaned toward it happening after DIAG. Folks began to drift away, to catch planes or drive home, as we settled in for the Dead Dog Panel, in which a lot of ideas were thrown out for how the con had gone. Seemed most people were pretty happy with everything (food, programming, timing of things, the auction, the games) but there were lots of suggestions for improvements--and many volunteers to assist with the next BistoCon.
Yes, there will be another BC in two years. Folks were having so much fun that it seemed sad that we might have to wait that long, but wait we must. przed announced that con responsibilities will be even more divided up than they were this time, to spread the load a bit more broadly, and we'll be circulating a list of con comm jobs to be done that we'll work with going forward. If you're interested in helping, or you want to attend BistoCon 2018 (right now, we're looking at August again, a good time of year for a lot of our attendees), drop a line below.