Khaaaaaan (Con)
Most of this I wrote most of this a few weeks ago, but then shit happened that I needed to address and I only just now came back to it. Yes, I think I'm about pushing the limits of recall for a personal con wrap up. Did the last 10% or so yesterday, and posting today to get it posted in the *same* month. Pics to follow, in July.
I'm going to "bullet" point this otherwise it'll get into a 10 page wordy and rambly bit.
Driving. I drove all of the way there and back. Sarah and I usually drive separate vehicles when we drive to con (I believe TCJ1 was the only other time we drove together). It was nice and relaxing and reasonably stress free. I prefer to do the driving anyway. Our carload of people arrived early Thursday afternoon.
We settled in, relaxed, hit registration about 3 minutes after it opened. Looking at the BOsscar awards ballot, we noticed that Sarah and I got a nomination as cutest couple. Even though I knew we wouldn't win (that was John and Ed's award from the start ;-), it was just cool to be recognized for that. Me and Sarah in general had a great/relaxing con. After the total disaster that was Atlantic City, I was determined that I was going to make it as easy on her and that she had as good of a time as I could control, and it worked to mostly great success.
Drawbridge - It's a "Rocky Hotel" (a definition/post in itself). Liz' ( sexychicken ) comment put it the best (paraphrasing, since I wasn't there), "It's a weird freaky maze of rooms and corridors. It's like something out of The Shining. I keep thinking I'm going to turn the corner and find the twins there in a bloody hallway." I like weird hotels for Rocky cons, myself. I'll take a Drawbridge or Americus over a Hyatt or Hilton anyday.
Montgomery Inn. Ate there twice, just me and Sarah. Good food, nice wind down time for us.
Cos __cosmo__ and Kev richteaboy and Nathan nsummers . My brothers. Wished we all lived in the same area. Didn't get enough time to spend with any of these guys this con (running a con is just like that, and Nathan spent most of the con time working). Had to stop Kev in the hall to do a shot or two of Jack, because I knew that I'd never be able to get his time/attention otherwise.
BOSS Award. This is kinda a big deal that I don't want to consolidate or bullet point, so I'm going to do an entire separate post later. But a couple anecdotal things that don't really go with that post.
Lot's of kudos and congrats all around from everyone, and I do thank everyone. I think the comment I enjoyed the most was from Liz Stockton sexychicken when she said, "I was afraid the were going to pick someone lame - I was happy it was you - yay, not lame!"
Chelsea (Hand of The King!). No, she didn't slap me for my commentary to this pic I posted of her before con (because she hadn't seen it ;-), but post official Friday festivities through the course of talking, we got on the subject of Game of Thrones and we were geeking out over that, I think I said something like "it's good to be the king." She was wearing her broach at the after room parties, and she became, "Hand of the King." She did note, that wasn't necessarily a good thing as it hasn't worked out well for past Hands. ;-)
I won't be modest or lie, I did pretty much love or eat up walking up to groups or into rooms and having people shout, "Look, it's Rocky Horror Lengend / 2012 Boss Award winner jefF Nurkiewicz!" and having everyone applaud. Yeah, I like that.
Though I know that the vote between me and someone else (and I had no idea who the someone else was, until long after the con) was pretty close / even and I barely won, I took solace in something that (I believe it was) Bernie said to me (might have been Cosmo or Shawn, kinda fuzzy), he said "while the vote might have been close, there isn't a single one of us that doesn't believe you don't deserve it and that you haven't earned it." Bernie and Shawn were very congratulatory throughout the rest of the weekend, giving me kudos several times. I love that Bill Brennan came out for this and that I won it at what could be his last con appearance / performance. Bill has been in my corner to get a BOSS for a dozen years now, and I'm glad he was there for it.
Not being drunk. I spent a lot of the weekend surprisingly / mostly sober. I think I can only pinpoint about 3 hours total the whole weekend where I would put myself in the category of not being able to drive level inebriation.
FIRE! Well, fire alarm. Went off in the middle of Rocky on Saturday night, and we spent 45 minutes in a parking lot hanging out. Douchebag redneck / baptists tried to film us from their hotel rooms, and I got all up in them and started taking pics of *them*. When they closed the curtains on me, got a little bit confrontational and started yelling at them. Nothing threatening, just a lot of, "Oh, why is it okay for you to film us, but I can't take pics of you. Cowards!" Fuckers - just needed to remind myself, that even though it was a Rocky convention at a reasonably laid back hotel, we were still in a redneck area with redneck "Christian" morals and values. Monika moniusia calmed me the fuck down from that. Didn't help matters much that when Sean Weller started offering drinks from the bucket after 20+ minutes standing around in a parking lot and watching post show partying minutes dwindle away, I gave into my "no bucket" drink abstention.
MM/Trixie Brigade. Beautiful is all I can say. Looked spectacular from the audience, and I kept saying to myself, wow these ladies are all from MY cast! :-) Sarah did a great job putting it all together and with Amie, Monika, Holly, Julia, Mellissa, and Bones, they were all spectacular. Even if you weren't my cast, that would have been a highlight of the con.
MM bonding. Amie, Larry, George - the suite room *rocked*. So doing that again. While it wasn't the epic / party room of the con, it was a good fun place to be. Most of my non official con time was spent there. I like the bonding we have done as a cast over the last few cons. We don't get nearly as much group cast casual time in Chicago, so it's nice to have it at con.
Thursday Party - The Indiana room is where it was at. Most people I saw for the first time at con, it was at the party there. MM left en masse though when the security started warning us and we knew it was about to break up or bust up. Didn't do a whole lot after.
Friday Party - Spent most of the early part hours in the MM room, which was cool as the people were all coming to us for the most part. A couple hours into it, The Hand talked me into going up to the HOH room. It was kinda neat walking in to the cheers and applause for the award win. Hung out there for about 45-60 minutes, then they broke it up. And I decided to call it a night too.
Saturday Party - Was all about the MM room - didn't move around / float for the night. Was already too late after Rocky (FIRE!). We all know how that ended too. Was standing by Ruth and Wally and Audrey, and started hearing the all to familiar "uh-oh - MAKE A HOLE" callout from the back of the room, and looked over to see Ogre projective vomiting towards us. From my angle it seriously looked like a slew of arrows from a Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings battle coming at us. I only got a little on my shirt/arm. Wally took the full brunt of it (if they were arrows, he'd be dead). Only took me a few minutes to change/clean up, but by the time I got back, all non MM people had been cleared from the room. Tried to stick it out for a little while longer, but gave up shortly after.
Official Con stuff.
Thursday karaoke; not a big karaoke person myself, but was nice to see everyone who was there at the time.
BOSScars. Loved it. My plan is there will be a BOSScars type of award (award show with a Chicago twist or five) at Chicago 2014... prolly something phallic.
Panels - I *really* love the fan panels. I could sit in on a full day of fan panels and workshops. It's too bad they aren't better attended by con goers, but I'm a big fan of the technical, creation, business side of things Rocky, so these are totally in my interest zone. I learned from these - yes, BOSS award winner 25 year veteran me learned things. Sat on the Web Site / Rocky in the digital age panel. Not sure anyone learned anything from me, but didn't talk much either.
Shocky - Great as always, a highlight of the con for me, as always too.
Other Sat stuff. Once you've seen one costume contest, auction, raffle, there's not a whole lot of variation. Kinda Like what they did with the Costume contest questions, though not so much in execution. They should have pre pub'd the question list for the contestants, it would have been a lot more rehearsed, but would have been a lot easier (less lame) for most of the contestants that aren't used to having a mic shoved in their nads and thinking on their feet (it's a totally different animal than shadowcast performing, and an emcee I know this). Still, stuck around for it all. Didn't watch any films (outside of Rocky/Shocky), cartoons, or other stuff.
Rocky - Again, good show. The 45 minute fire alarm really took a toll on the tail end for post show partying, and it seems that at least half of the audience never came back after the alarm. Beyond acknowledging it, I'm not even going to get into the ridiculous childish drama that happened during / after the show. It's done and passed, and no sense rehashing it here.
And that was TCJ2 for me.
j
I'm going to "bullet" point this otherwise it'll get into a 10 page wordy and rambly bit.
Driving. I drove all of the way there and back. Sarah and I usually drive separate vehicles when we drive to con (I believe TCJ1 was the only other time we drove together). It was nice and relaxing and reasonably stress free. I prefer to do the driving anyway. Our carload of people arrived early Thursday afternoon.
We settled in, relaxed, hit registration about 3 minutes after it opened. Looking at the BOsscar awards ballot, we noticed that Sarah and I got a nomination as cutest couple. Even though I knew we wouldn't win (that was John and Ed's award from the start ;-), it was just cool to be recognized for that. Me and Sarah in general had a great/relaxing con. After the total disaster that was Atlantic City, I was determined that I was going to make it as easy on her and that she had as good of a time as I could control, and it worked to mostly great success.
Drawbridge - It's a "Rocky Hotel" (a definition/post in itself). Liz' ( sexychicken ) comment put it the best (paraphrasing, since I wasn't there), "It's a weird freaky maze of rooms and corridors. It's like something out of The Shining. I keep thinking I'm going to turn the corner and find the twins there in a bloody hallway." I like weird hotels for Rocky cons, myself. I'll take a Drawbridge or Americus over a Hyatt or Hilton anyday.
Montgomery Inn. Ate there twice, just me and Sarah. Good food, nice wind down time for us.
Cos __cosmo__ and Kev richteaboy and Nathan nsummers . My brothers. Wished we all lived in the same area. Didn't get enough time to spend with any of these guys this con (running a con is just like that, and Nathan spent most of the con time working). Had to stop Kev in the hall to do a shot or two of Jack, because I knew that I'd never be able to get his time/attention otherwise.
BOSS Award. This is kinda a big deal that I don't want to consolidate or bullet point, so I'm going to do an entire separate post later. But a couple anecdotal things that don't really go with that post.
Lot's of kudos and congrats all around from everyone, and I do thank everyone. I think the comment I enjoyed the most was from Liz Stockton sexychicken when she said, "I was afraid the were going to pick someone lame - I was happy it was you - yay, not lame!"
Chelsea (Hand of The King!). No, she didn't slap me for my commentary to this pic I posted of her before con (because she hadn't seen it ;-), but post official Friday festivities through the course of talking, we got on the subject of Game of Thrones and we were geeking out over that, I think I said something like "it's good to be the king." She was wearing her broach at the after room parties, and she became, "Hand of the King." She did note, that wasn't necessarily a good thing as it hasn't worked out well for past Hands. ;-)
I won't be modest or lie, I did pretty much love or eat up walking up to groups or into rooms and having people shout, "Look, it's Rocky Horror Lengend / 2012 Boss Award winner jefF Nurkiewicz!" and having everyone applaud. Yeah, I like that.
Though I know that the vote between me and someone else (and I had no idea who the someone else was, until long after the con) was pretty close / even and I barely won, I took solace in something that (I believe it was) Bernie said to me (might have been Cosmo or Shawn, kinda fuzzy), he said "while the vote might have been close, there isn't a single one of us that doesn't believe you don't deserve it and that you haven't earned it." Bernie and Shawn were very congratulatory throughout the rest of the weekend, giving me kudos several times. I love that Bill Brennan came out for this and that I won it at what could be his last con appearance / performance. Bill has been in my corner to get a BOSS for a dozen years now, and I'm glad he was there for it.
Not being drunk. I spent a lot of the weekend surprisingly / mostly sober. I think I can only pinpoint about 3 hours total the whole weekend where I would put myself in the category of not being able to drive level inebriation.
FIRE! Well, fire alarm. Went off in the middle of Rocky on Saturday night, and we spent 45 minutes in a parking lot hanging out. Douchebag redneck / baptists tried to film us from their hotel rooms, and I got all up in them and started taking pics of *them*. When they closed the curtains on me, got a little bit confrontational and started yelling at them. Nothing threatening, just a lot of, "Oh, why is it okay for you to film us, but I can't take pics of you. Cowards!" Fuckers - just needed to remind myself, that even though it was a Rocky convention at a reasonably laid back hotel, we were still in a redneck area with redneck "Christian" morals and values. Monika moniusia calmed me the fuck down from that. Didn't help matters much that when Sean Weller started offering drinks from the bucket after 20+ minutes standing around in a parking lot and watching post show partying minutes dwindle away, I gave into my "no bucket" drink abstention.
MM/Trixie Brigade. Beautiful is all I can say. Looked spectacular from the audience, and I kept saying to myself, wow these ladies are all from MY cast! :-) Sarah did a great job putting it all together and with Amie, Monika, Holly, Julia, Mellissa, and Bones, they were all spectacular. Even if you weren't my cast, that would have been a highlight of the con.
MM bonding. Amie, Larry, George - the suite room *rocked*. So doing that again. While it wasn't the epic / party room of the con, it was a good fun place to be. Most of my non official con time was spent there. I like the bonding we have done as a cast over the last few cons. We don't get nearly as much group cast casual time in Chicago, so it's nice to have it at con.
Thursday Party - The Indiana room is where it was at. Most people I saw for the first time at con, it was at the party there. MM left en masse though when the security started warning us and we knew it was about to break up or bust up. Didn't do a whole lot after.
Friday Party - Spent most of the early part hours in the MM room, which was cool as the people were all coming to us for the most part. A couple hours into it, The Hand talked me into going up to the HOH room. It was kinda neat walking in to the cheers and applause for the award win. Hung out there for about 45-60 minutes, then they broke it up. And I decided to call it a night too.
Saturday Party - Was all about the MM room - didn't move around / float for the night. Was already too late after Rocky (FIRE!). We all know how that ended too. Was standing by Ruth and Wally and Audrey, and started hearing the all to familiar "uh-oh - MAKE A HOLE" callout from the back of the room, and looked over to see Ogre projective vomiting towards us. From my angle it seriously looked like a slew of arrows from a Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings battle coming at us. I only got a little on my shirt/arm. Wally took the full brunt of it (if they were arrows, he'd be dead). Only took me a few minutes to change/clean up, but by the time I got back, all non MM people had been cleared from the room. Tried to stick it out for a little while longer, but gave up shortly after.
Official Con stuff.
Thursday karaoke; not a big karaoke person myself, but was nice to see everyone who was there at the time.
BOSScars. Loved it. My plan is there will be a BOSScars type of award (award show with a Chicago twist or five) at Chicago 2014... prolly something phallic.
Panels - I *really* love the fan panels. I could sit in on a full day of fan panels and workshops. It's too bad they aren't better attended by con goers, but I'm a big fan of the technical, creation, business side of things Rocky, so these are totally in my interest zone. I learned from these - yes, BOSS award winner 25 year veteran me learned things. Sat on the Web Site / Rocky in the digital age panel. Not sure anyone learned anything from me, but didn't talk much either.
Shocky - Great as always, a highlight of the con for me, as always too.
Other Sat stuff. Once you've seen one costume contest, auction, raffle, there's not a whole lot of variation. Kinda Like what they did with the Costume contest questions, though not so much in execution. They should have pre pub'd the question list for the contestants, it would have been a lot more rehearsed, but would have been a lot easier (less lame) for most of the contestants that aren't used to having a mic shoved in their nads and thinking on their feet (it's a totally different animal than shadowcast performing, and an emcee I know this). Still, stuck around for it all. Didn't watch any films (outside of Rocky/Shocky), cartoons, or other stuff.
Rocky - Again, good show. The 45 minute fire alarm really took a toll on the tail end for post show partying, and it seems that at least half of the audience never came back after the alarm. Beyond acknowledging it, I'm not even going to get into the ridiculous childish drama that happened during / after the show. It's done and passed, and no sense rehashing it here.
And that was TCJ2 for me.
j