Back. Um, yay?
Am here! Am in the tundra! Flat was +9C when I returned! And cat fatter than ever! No surprises there, really.
Um. Con report? What con report? I really should start taking down notes of things as they happen, as I can never remember the exact dates and times of past events, meh. All in all, I had a *fantastic* time, it was totally worth it. Yay! Will see how many things I can remember...
Wednesday:
-Connecting flight to Copenhagen cancelled. Got put on a Stockholm plane. That was leaving twenty minutes after I got to know I was to go on it. Erp. Much running around Helsinki Airport.
- Was very bored at Arlanda, officially The Most Boring Airport In The World.
- So was Moley.
-Very bored.
- Despite drinking my diet cola and cuddling Missus.
-Upon Stockholm-->Birmingham plane, realise that the bloodbath has started. Double over in pain. Continue to do so until Friday evening. Decide to have fun nevertheless.
- Am bored on plane. And BLOODY SCANDINAVIAN AIRLINES have started CHARGING FOR FOOD on the plane. Fuckers. I can understand that on cheapo airlines, but this is just taking the piss.
-Arrive at Birmingham. Sit in bar, drink lots of hot tea and draw stuff. Doodles getting increasingly insane. ("Gan/wall OTP!!1!")
-halimede's flight is delayed. Again and again. Sit in bar some more. Drawings completely brainless by now ("Soolin/gun that doubles as hair curler OTP!1!"). Spot clones of Ika and Nova. Except they aren't. Drat.
-msmanna texts (ooh, I deprived her of txt msg virginity!) that she's managed to grab Halimede and is on her way to Hinckley. Yay. Jump on train(s) and start making my way towards Hinckley station.
-Arrive at Hinckley station. msmanna is bouncy and giggly and lovely as usual. Scary Sparkly Music on car stereo slightly frightening, but I'm ok with everything considering I've been up for about thirty hours and am starting to get dizzy with blood loss. Stop at the chemist's to get some Paramol. Thank fuck for prescription-free codeine in the UK.
-Am at the Manna Bed And Breakfast! halimede is there too, and is lovely! Yayness! N'Sync puppets bloody scary though.
-Manna does Catering. There's a WHOLE SHELF FULL OF LOW-CARB FOOD AT SAINSBURY'S. Am moving to Britain. Am.
-Fall in love with Lilah. She's very talkative. And *tiny*, weighing next to nothing. And every time you pass her by she lets out a miserable screech as if you were standing on her tail. Erp. Whereas Tipsy is such a scaredy-cat that she's frightened by Mr. Moley.
-Collapse in bed at around nine or ten. Bed wonderful. Earplugs wonderful too (especially when there's boyband fangirling downstairs). Zzzzzzz.
Thursday:
-Get up ridiculously early. At about eight. Don't know what's wrong with me. Patch self up, down half a packet of painkillers, then head downstairs. Richard's up early too. Didn't get to see him much the previous night. He's yayful as usual, yay!
-Get to check email. Yay #2 for several 'puters in the house. Can't fiddle for long as Lilah falls asleep in my lap whilst crawling up my bosom and/or clutching my neck. Yeeesss. Not easy to reach the keyboard when you're being huggled by a cat.
-The Brits are going insane over a bit of snow. Point and laugh. "Extreme weather conditions" reported on the BBC consist of two snowflakes. Point and laugh again, as it's 20 to 30 degrees warmer than it is in Finland. Am evil.
-Halimede showed us a fucking excellent Kirk/Spock songvid (To Nine Inch Nails' "Closer") that is now officially THE BEST SONGVID EVER. And I'm not even a K/S fan... seeing the video (which looked like a NIN video because it was so cleverly done and coloured and everything) made me research vidding for hours afterwards. Watch this space.
- Um, what else happened on Thursday? I collapsed early again? Too much blood loss and acheyness, can't remember.
-Ooh, Manna made cauliflower cheese. This was good, yes.
-Ok. Yes. We rehearsed Man of Iron. I can see why my brain would've tried to wipe that from memory. Manna had made wonderful spiral-bound copies for everyone, with vilakins' splendid artwork on the cover. 8-). The genius ("AN EEEEVIL GENIUS") of MoI healed Halimede's back. Yay.
Friday:
-OMG CON!!1
-Arrive about elevenish. Meet jekesta and there's much happy squeeing. alicamel and carmen_lj appear, and make the reception's alarm go off with their credit cards. Criminals on the run omg!
-carmen_lj doesn't look like The Dune Woman and alicamel doesn't look like Buffy. This is most confusing and I keep associating Carmen with the Buffy icon as she is blonde. Erp.
-Jenbun and I can't get a room until two PM, so we head to Alice and Carmen's room to babble. There is SQUEE. Don't be fooled by Carmen's sensible(ish) LJ posts, the woman is BONKERS. Absolutely bonkers. In the best possible bouncy cheery squeey way. Alice is sensible and lovely and cute, Jen is as squeey and mad as ever (Crackpot Theories R'Us and "when's Ian Hislop coming on stage?"); et cetera.
-Go back downstairs to bother people. Unlike any con hotel I've been to, this place is *cold*. Brr.
-Go to the registration desk and wail "we're here omg". Dave M hands me all the PR booklets I've missed. Feels strange to have them on paper. Wow. mr_moley gets his own lickle badge and wears it with pride.
-May have bumped into gordon_r_d at this point. I think. He is wonderfully insane and silly and alive and happy and yay! Connery the Armadillo meets mr_moley. Yay!
-There is much wandering about. Dealers' room tempting. Random people start chatting to us at the bar. The bar has overpriced drinks. 5 quid for a pint of diet Coke? Pfffffttth.
-We have a gigantic room. There is A Huge Giant Bed with frilly curtains on the sides and a mirror on the ceiling. NORTY. And then a small sproingy sofa bed. Grouse is smaller, so Grouse takes smaller bed. And does not have to look at her own reflection the first thing in the morning, yayness;).
-Servalan vs. Grayza (or, What Farscape Ripped off B7) panel room empty. Damn, just when I'd dragged Gord to do the panel with me since the other panellists were ill. Get to meet kalypso_v more or less properly. She has droolable clothes and shoes and I die. Nobody attends. Might have something to do with that Jason Carter chap being nuts in the main hall. I think it's the hat. We bugger off to the pub.
- Og was in the pub. FEAR.
-matildabj's camera is identical to mine. Well, on the surface at least. Worry slightly. This, of course, calls for a silly teenage "let's take photos of each other taking photos of each other" photo. My idea. Sorry.
- Hafren joins the crowd, with Kerr Bear in tow. Yay! At this point it should be noted that the hotel corridors had shop windows full of all sorts of tat. One of them had a huge collection of Steiff bears and more or less everyone lamented the fact that entropy_house couldn't make it this year. "Marian would love all those bears!" She was present in spirit though, with so many B7 and B5 and other random bears having their adventures at the con:).
-Six PM. MAN OF IRON. Aaaaaaagh. Everyone was *fantastic*. Just fantastic. I fear this may turn into a Redemption tradition;). And what do you mean, Soolin wouldn't show two fingers "up yours" at Gaybor?
-Um, I think we went back to the pub. And rooms. And perhaps there was the opening ceremony. In which Og Ruled (with spacefall translating the grunts,) and JARRIERE KILLED PEOPLE AGAIN. I can just about forgive Blake and Avon, but killing The Doctor as well? *cries* Although Jarriere eventually got arrested by Judge Dredd. Did I mention I love these people? Lots?
-After ten there was the FC room party in pinkdormouse's room. Yay. There was squeeing and bouncing and chatting and wine and quite a lot of people squashed into a small space. I met glitterboy1--he had glitter and was a boy, so yay, easily recogniseable:). The HIGNFY gals bounced on Servalan's bed lots and then I pounced Dormouse. *blush* Moral: don't let hormonal Grouse near free wine and snoggable dormice (Boy, did Steve regret not being there with a camera--slash the slashers!1!). At some point Dormouse managed to escape my clutches and I was about to fall asleep on the floor. At which point Jenbun and I went back to our room omg. You will have noticed I didn't get as smashed on the other nights, for obvious reasons. *blushes again*
-Dormouse's room had a Finnish telly. So did ours. I suspect a conspiracy. Hands up, anyone who had a Finlux or a Nokia telly in their room. WE ARE GOING TO TAKE YOU OVER. With shite tellies.
Saturday omg:
-Jen gave Liz and Alice a wakeup call. Turns out they actually needed one every day:D.
-Brekkie. Omg brekkie. Which was good. And nice and nourishing and yay.
-People scatter. To listen to that "Marcus Cole is Space Jesus" bloke again, it seems.
-Park arse at modelmaking vs. CGI panel. Mat Irvine is yayful. CGI blokes great too. Going by audience comments and questions, it's surprising how many people still think that anything computer-generated is really easy and fast. Um, no. So I piped up and heartily defended the "omg no graffix take ages AND visual skillz" POV. Good panel.
-Stayed to listen to insane Space Jesus. He has thirteen testicles. And wants to know whether he's a porn star without knowing it (reference to slash). He went on a bit and then did singing and dancing, which made most of the people late for the next panel. Because, dude. Pretty man dancing. Oh yes. There was a panel.
-Which was Fanfic Writing Styles. Not much new stuff there, but still some good discussion. Realised how evil characters can be, because sometimes I've written stuff with things I don't think they'd say or do, just like that. Why does Avon come to me drunk and/or high and demand I write weird stuff? Bastard. Oh. And then there was the bit when Elfin said HIGNFY was a huge fandom. EEEP.
-And then... Blake's Junction 7!!1 Fantastic stuff omg yay. And only now I recognised Racquel Cassidy as Jenna--it's only when she started smoking when my brain clicked and said "hey, Susan from 'Teachers'". And yes, they were all brill. Martin Freeman IS Vila, and Mackenzie Crook made a *fantastic* Servalan. It's... eek. Bizarre BritCom meets Blake's 7. Scary, scary, scary. And I did like the fact that Tim Plester had read really sweet and romantic slash and thought it was terribly naughty:D... and then proceeded to put the Avon/Blakeness in the film. JOHNNY VEGAS IS MY DADDY. And I'm so proud that I squealed "CAN WE SEE IT AGAIN?!?" so loudly that they did, in fact, show it twice. Yayyy! *does a happy fangirl dance*
-The Zocalo fair, yay. Snurched the third B7 annual off spacefall's Bring'n'Buy sale table, for some loony was selling them for five quid apiece. (They fetch at least ten quid on eBay). Now I have all three! Long-haired Servalan! Muscular, broad-shouldered Avon and Vila! Fat Cally! God, I love these illustrations8-)...
-Also, there was The Weakest Geek sci-fi quiz. How proud am I that the two finalists were from our party and were both massive Doctor Who fans? Three cheers for carmen_lj and TEH CHAMP, gordon_r_d!
-Blank. I seem to have missed the f/f panel and curse myself. Grah. Oh yes, I think we vegged out with Jen and Liz and Alice in our room. For there was slight tiredness. Still, damn. Will now proceed to poke pinkdormouse to write that Dayna/SoolinWithAStrap-On. Because. Not that I had a theme of Soolin With A Strap-On going through my head all throughout the con. Oooh no.
-Cabaret omg yay! I liked the Van Helsing costumes the most. Those were just so fab. All the costumes were fantastic, though. Loved 'em all. But the Van Helsing ones just stuck in my mind. And let's not forget the 8th Doc and Grace, yay!:) There were piss-your-pants-laughing filks again, yay, and jokey stories and poems and OMG DIVINE FIDDLER LADY and and and Oriental dancing and and and EVERYTHING. Fans are just the bestest people. There's no denying it. And Redemption is the best con in the world. Sorry, but it is. :)
-10 PM: Blokes who like slash panel. Dougs goes on about his MASH fic up until the point where it goes past the point (even if the "I slashed a Catholic priest because it was political" angle was most cool). Have to try and stop him a couple of times just so I can quiz Pseudnik. And steverogerson, who thought he could hide in the audience. Sorry, dahling, it's not like the world can forget Steve Sue/Avon;). The conclusion? These blokes like slash for the same reasons we do. Good characterisation, good stories, good sex. Yay:).
-Gord shows scary vids (HASSELHOFF OF EVIL OMG OMG NOOOOO) and trailers. Stepmania might be v. fun next time... bring it over, bring it over!!11!
-Then it's off to the Rotunda for WOBBLEVISION! *dances* The pics aren't up yet, but I'm waiting for them to appear any minute. Hint. Probably my one and only chance to take part, and I enjoyed it lots. Hee. We did Children of Auron and I got to play Franton. Whilst using poor mr_moley as an embryo and poking a needle (i.e. antenna) into carmen_lj's arm (since she was Eval Servie). Sorry, Moley. And hey, as Gord and That Other Bloke played Cally and Zelda, we got Two Tall Dark Blokes for the identical sisters, which is probably the greatest accuracy Wobblevision has ever had in its casting. Tee hee.
-Then it was 1 or 2 AM and I went to bed. Except Jenbun and Alice were talking HIGNFY and getting more insane by the minute. I spent an hour half moaning and half snickering under the quilt until the insanity died down. Mad people. And I love them.
Sunday:
-Up at a more normal hour now. Even if 9 AM is AN EVIL HOUR. Liz and Alice get a wake-up call from Jen again. We shuffle downstairs to see a very perky and awake Gord (how does he do it?) and wait for the girls to arrive. Then there's Food. And I realise that shitfuckhell, I have Another Panel at 10AM. Whoever scheduled this to be on at 10 AM? Oh. Steve. Will get you for this.
-The panel, "Can het romance be feminist?" is attended by a grand total of ten people. Including the panellists, i.e. myself, Dormouse and Kathy Sands. My heart is warmed by the fact that we have four blokes in there, and they aren't scared of the word "feminist". *cuddles them all SO MUCH omg* We moan about the classic cliches, halimede brings up my pet peeve of how "powerful women" have more or less been *behind the scenes* rather than in public, no matter how people want to bring up these "oh, but in *insert society* it was the women who controlled the household and bossed their husbands about" arguments. Because, duh, they may have, but they still didn't have *the vote*, reproductive rights, etc... But general feminist ranting aside, we did get good story ideas (ok, well, *I* did, and they involved Soolin with a strap-on, surprise surprise), and altariel1 recced some fab LotR fics. To the cries of "omg you're such a brilliant writer, why on earth did you post your stuff at Fanfiction.net?!?" and so on.
-Liz emerges from the charity auction wearing one of Gemma's t-shirts, signed by PD. I facepalm; at least she didn't have to endure PD in full Seedy CD mode, because, omg, signature ON A GIRL'S CHEST. The shirt suits her, although I keep doing double takes, imagining she's Gemma.
-Room 101. To the great disappointment of the HIGNFY fangirls, Paul Merton does not appear. But Mat Irvine bins Elvis (WTF?) and Jason Carter bins tons of other stuff. Whilst ranting. Again. And Jim Mortimore is fairly quiet. But it is fun.
-For the next two hours, time is spent in the pub reading zines. Hooray. I stealthily borrow a copy of Resistance 3, assuming it's going to be shite, but then Sylvia Knight's stories blow me away and nearly make me cry. Because there's Vila in strip clubs. And B/A fightsex, leading into emotional B/A angstsex. And more angst. And I wail aloud. I feel slightly better when Gord flips through his Big Finish Who audio book and shows a picture of Gareth Thomas with a Dalek plunger up his nose. All is well.
-Also, I voted for Og. OG OG OG OG OG OG OG became the official chant of the weekend. Not that our group started it or anything. Oh no. And and and then we vegged out again.
-There were a couple of boxes, throughout the con, lying about with some educational B7 pics in them. The boxes said "free, take one or two". I took a huge pile. BECAUSE THE LOBSTER TROUSERS CALLED TO ME.
-SF music quiz. Not a surprise that the team with Liz in won. I think. Gaspode banged his triangle so hard I thought it'd break. I probably should've been on one of the teams as I instantly recognised Delia Derbyshire. AND MOST WHO GEEKS DIDN'T. Shame on you, heretics.
- Alice mistakes a water cooler for Bender the robot. (Told you I could fix it in post.)
-Closing ceremony fun but sad. It can't be over yet, can it? Wah?
-OG IS THE RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!11! (Link to Og film clip. Do watch. I can't make out what Rita says, but the Og dance is worth it.)
-Wah?
-Chaos film baffling. Apparently Sgwun, so no wonder why I was baffled. Fun, though.
-6PM and we *drag* Alice to the video room to watch The Way Back. Only the DVD decides to die during the last minutes, which is just WRONG. She didn't get to see "No. I'm coming back", which is just brilliant and we die. So we filled her in on the PERFECTION THAT IS ROJ BLAKE, then gushed a bit more on how young and Welsh he is in that ep "Wot abjooot my mjeemory?" AND BLAKE IS JUST LOVE AND I DIE. *squees*
-Then we retreated to the Rotunda again. And did charades. Lesley put her Londo costume back on and all was well with the world. (That may have been the point at which Alice exclaimed "YOU'RE Londo?!?", the con virgin that she was omg. Since they're both laughing.) We even persuaded Chris O'Shea to take part in the charade game. This being Geek Central, we just did episode titles off B7, B5, Who and Trek. Tee hee.
-At about 9 PM: Rocky Horror on video. Was slightly baffled when people didn't do the usual call-backs and I was the only person in the room to shout "ASSHOLE!" at Brad and "describe your balls! 'Heavy, black and pendulous...'" erp. So I wasn't as loud as usual. Harrumph. But we did get people singing along. And the Og poster I nicked suffered a bit when two or three people did The Time Warp over it. Sorry, Og. But we just needed to take that jump to the left, etc...
-Then, for some reason, possibly related to scary books I can't mention by name, the HIGNFY ladies ran up four flights of stairs to get to the top floor. Presumably because it was secluded. And proceeded to brush their own and each other's hair. OMG JEN/ALICE OTP NOW. I do have more piccies but they have Jenbun in them and I don't have a death wish. So am not putting them up. My mum said Alice was pretty, so there you go.
-Connery and Moley got even more friendly. Which was rather scary. And then people compared ringtones. Gord so wins.
-The Evil HIGNFY people drew two pages of my sketchbook full of HIGNFY WINGFIC. Am scared.
-There may have been sleep after this.
Monday:
-OMG IT CAN'T BE OVEEEER! Or something like that. Jen groaned in bed about not wanting to go back to the horrid RL and I agreed. RL isn't RL. It's an evil illusion and only geek gatherings have proper life. I mean, fuck, most of RL doesn't know THE WORTH OF BLAKE. So there.
-Jen didn't give Liz'n'Alice a wakeup call. Therefore, they were very late for breakfast. Tch, kids:).
-Gord up again. HOW DOES HE DO IT OMG?!?
-While we were waiting for them gals, Dormouse came by with her Beeblebear! EEE! I'd completely missed the Beeblebears' picnic and was oblivious to the fact that the universe actually held Zaphod Beeblebrox teddybears. But now I know better. Yay! Also promised not to bite Dormouse again. Eep. *Grouse slaps self*
-There was brekkie and... lots of huggles as the people started wandering off. WAAAAAAAAAH. Sadness. People swearing to come back in '07, which was of the good.
-I had to take one last photo of Alice, Liz and Gord, and I'm glad Alice and Gord were still smiling. I put Liz's scary stare down to being tired;). I LOVEYOUALLOMG. *squidges*
-Manna comes to pick me up. And announces Steve, Una and Glitterboy are coming to their place for lunch! Yay! Con extension!:D *grousedances*
-Am slightly embarrassed that have just been upstairs, fiddling with LJ and saying hello to Glitterboy and then bump into him downstairs... duh. Sillygrouse.
-People leave. Aiee. Con really over? Meh? Eep?
-Richard puts Professionals on. This v. educational for Halimede. On the trouser department, at least.
-We watch Shaun of the Dead. Halimede is hurty but seems to enjoy it. Um, yay?
-Sleep for 15 hours straight. Tired? Me?
Tuesday:
-Wah! Wake up to Halimede leaving. *criz omg*
-Am zombified. Scritch cats.
-Anna and Richard take Grouse with them to PC World and Borders. There is much drooling over Shiny Tech and books. I buy a 50-pack of DVD-Rs for 17 quid. Bargain. In Finland I'd get maybe 10 discs for that price. So, yay.
-Bookstore has ONLY ONE TUFTY AUDIOBOOK. And only one Moley book with a Professor Mole explaining how stuff works. But it costs 12 quid and that is just too much. Meh. Although now my suspicions of the world being operated by tiny animals have been confirmed. Professor Mole sez that electric shavers, aeroplanes and washing machines work just because they have tiny bunnies and hamsters operating them. Sorted.
-CSI: Miami has Soolin in it. An icy blonde mad about guns. Who is very Sooliny. Yay.
-Fall asleep. Again.
Wednesday:
-Omg must catch train! Bid farewell to cuddly Lilah (MEEEEEEEAAAAAAAOWWWW), lovely house and eeply things. Meh.
-Crunch a few of Anna's ribs at train station.
-Realise I've misread the plane ticket and that the plane leaves NOT at 19:50, but at 19:05. Oops. The trains being late because of two snowflakes on the rails make me even more nervous. Damn.
-Make it to the airport, eventually. Even if Virgin Trains always have the jar of sardines effect.
-Fucking SAS bastards cunts argh insert expletive for charging money for food. Die.
-Planes late again. What a surprise.
-Doze off at Helsinki. Then board bus. Then get taxi to 'rents because it's closer.
-Fall asleep.
Thursday:
-AM HERE OMG.
-Cat has gained weight. Dad sez: "if you think any cat left in my care will lose weight, you're dreaming". Quite. Am tackled by an elephant on arrival. She's still begging for scritches. And judging by the scales at the airport, WEIGHS MORE THAN ANY OF MY BAGS. And moans and wails and urrriuwrks for attention. And tackles me. Ough.
-Spend hours and hours and hours typing down con report. Erp.
-Will fuck off now. Promise.
Whew. Possibly my longest LJ entry ever. Hope it won't be completely b0rked...
Um. Con report? What con report? I really should start taking down notes of things as they happen, as I can never remember the exact dates and times of past events, meh. All in all, I had a *fantastic* time, it was totally worth it. Yay! Will see how many things I can remember...
Wednesday:
-Connecting flight to Copenhagen cancelled. Got put on a Stockholm plane. That was leaving twenty minutes after I got to know I was to go on it. Erp. Much running around Helsinki Airport.
- Was very bored at Arlanda, officially The Most Boring Airport In The World.
- So was Moley.
-Very bored.
- Despite drinking my diet cola and cuddling Missus.
-Upon Stockholm-->Birmingham plane, realise that the bloodbath has started. Double over in pain. Continue to do so until Friday evening. Decide to have fun nevertheless.
- Am bored on plane. And BLOODY SCANDINAVIAN AIRLINES have started CHARGING FOR FOOD on the plane. Fuckers. I can understand that on cheapo airlines, but this is just taking the piss.
-Arrive at Birmingham. Sit in bar, drink lots of hot tea and draw stuff. Doodles getting increasingly insane. ("Gan/wall OTP!!1!")
-halimede's flight is delayed. Again and again. Sit in bar some more. Drawings completely brainless by now ("Soolin/gun that doubles as hair curler OTP!1!"). Spot clones of Ika and Nova. Except they aren't. Drat.
-msmanna texts (ooh, I deprived her of txt msg virginity!) that she's managed to grab Halimede and is on her way to Hinckley. Yay. Jump on train(s) and start making my way towards Hinckley station.
-Arrive at Hinckley station. msmanna is bouncy and giggly and lovely as usual. Scary Sparkly Music on car stereo slightly frightening, but I'm ok with everything considering I've been up for about thirty hours and am starting to get dizzy with blood loss. Stop at the chemist's to get some Paramol. Thank fuck for prescription-free codeine in the UK.
-Am at the Manna Bed And Breakfast! halimede is there too, and is lovely! Yayness! N'Sync puppets bloody scary though.
-Manna does Catering. There's a WHOLE SHELF FULL OF LOW-CARB FOOD AT SAINSBURY'S. Am moving to Britain. Am.
-Fall in love with Lilah. She's very talkative. And *tiny*, weighing next to nothing. And every time you pass her by she lets out a miserable screech as if you were standing on her tail. Erp. Whereas Tipsy is such a scaredy-cat that she's frightened by Mr. Moley.
-Collapse in bed at around nine or ten. Bed wonderful. Earplugs wonderful too (especially when there's boyband fangirling downstairs). Zzzzzzz.
Thursday:
-Get up ridiculously early. At about eight. Don't know what's wrong with me. Patch self up, down half a packet of painkillers, then head downstairs. Richard's up early too. Didn't get to see him much the previous night. He's yayful as usual, yay!
-Get to check email. Yay #2 for several 'puters in the house. Can't fiddle for long as Lilah falls asleep in my lap whilst crawling up my bosom and/or clutching my neck. Yeeesss. Not easy to reach the keyboard when you're being huggled by a cat.
-The Brits are going insane over a bit of snow. Point and laugh. "Extreme weather conditions" reported on the BBC consist of two snowflakes. Point and laugh again, as it's 20 to 30 degrees warmer than it is in Finland. Am evil.
-Halimede showed us a fucking excellent Kirk/Spock songvid (To Nine Inch Nails' "Closer") that is now officially THE BEST SONGVID EVER. And I'm not even a K/S fan... seeing the video (which looked like a NIN video because it was so cleverly done and coloured and everything) made me research vidding for hours afterwards. Watch this space.
- Um, what else happened on Thursday? I collapsed early again? Too much blood loss and acheyness, can't remember.
-Ooh, Manna made cauliflower cheese. This was good, yes.
-Ok. Yes. We rehearsed Man of Iron. I can see why my brain would've tried to wipe that from memory. Manna had made wonderful spiral-bound copies for everyone, with vilakins' splendid artwork on the cover. 8-). The genius ("AN EEEEVIL GENIUS") of MoI healed Halimede's back. Yay.
Friday:
-OMG CON!!1
-Arrive about elevenish. Meet jekesta and there's much happy squeeing. alicamel and carmen_lj appear, and make the reception's alarm go off with their credit cards. Criminals on the run omg!
-carmen_lj doesn't look like The Dune Woman and alicamel doesn't look like Buffy. This is most confusing and I keep associating Carmen with the Buffy icon as she is blonde. Erp.
-Jenbun and I can't get a room until two PM, so we head to Alice and Carmen's room to babble. There is SQUEE. Don't be fooled by Carmen's sensible(ish) LJ posts, the woman is BONKERS. Absolutely bonkers. In the best possible bouncy cheery squeey way. Alice is sensible and lovely and cute, Jen is as squeey and mad as ever (Crackpot Theories R'Us and "when's Ian Hislop coming on stage?"); et cetera.
-Go back downstairs to bother people. Unlike any con hotel I've been to, this place is *cold*. Brr.
-Go to the registration desk and wail "we're here omg". Dave M hands me all the PR booklets I've missed. Feels strange to have them on paper. Wow. mr_moley gets his own lickle badge and wears it with pride.
-May have bumped into gordon_r_d at this point. I think. He is wonderfully insane and silly and alive and happy and yay! Connery the Armadillo meets mr_moley. Yay!
-There is much wandering about. Dealers' room tempting. Random people start chatting to us at the bar. The bar has overpriced drinks. 5 quid for a pint of diet Coke? Pfffffttth.
-We have a gigantic room. There is A Huge Giant Bed with frilly curtains on the sides and a mirror on the ceiling. NORTY. And then a small sproingy sofa bed. Grouse is smaller, so Grouse takes smaller bed. And does not have to look at her own reflection the first thing in the morning, yayness;).
-Servalan vs. Grayza (or, What Farscape Ripped off B7) panel room empty. Damn, just when I'd dragged Gord to do the panel with me since the other panellists were ill. Get to meet kalypso_v more or less properly. She has droolable clothes and shoes and I die. Nobody attends. Might have something to do with that Jason Carter chap being nuts in the main hall. I think it's the hat. We bugger off to the pub.
- Og was in the pub. FEAR.
-matildabj's camera is identical to mine. Well, on the surface at least. Worry slightly. This, of course, calls for a silly teenage "let's take photos of each other taking photos of each other" photo. My idea. Sorry.
- Hafren joins the crowd, with Kerr Bear in tow. Yay! At this point it should be noted that the hotel corridors had shop windows full of all sorts of tat. One of them had a huge collection of Steiff bears and more or less everyone lamented the fact that entropy_house couldn't make it this year. "Marian would love all those bears!" She was present in spirit though, with so many B7 and B5 and other random bears having their adventures at the con:).
-Six PM. MAN OF IRON. Aaaaaaagh. Everyone was *fantastic*. Just fantastic. I fear this may turn into a Redemption tradition;). And what do you mean, Soolin wouldn't show two fingers "up yours" at Gaybor?
-Um, I think we went back to the pub. And rooms. And perhaps there was the opening ceremony. In which Og Ruled (with spacefall translating the grunts,) and JARRIERE KILLED PEOPLE AGAIN. I can just about forgive Blake and Avon, but killing The Doctor as well? *cries* Although Jarriere eventually got arrested by Judge Dredd. Did I mention I love these people? Lots?
-After ten there was the FC room party in pinkdormouse's room. Yay. There was squeeing and bouncing and chatting and wine and quite a lot of people squashed into a small space. I met glitterboy1--he had glitter and was a boy, so yay, easily recogniseable:). The HIGNFY gals bounced on Servalan's bed lots and then I pounced Dormouse. *blush* Moral: don't let hormonal Grouse near free wine and snoggable dormice (Boy, did Steve regret not being there with a camera--slash the slashers!1!). At some point Dormouse managed to escape my clutches and I was about to fall asleep on the floor. At which point Jenbun and I went back to our room omg. You will have noticed I didn't get as smashed on the other nights, for obvious reasons. *blushes again*
-Dormouse's room had a Finnish telly. So did ours. I suspect a conspiracy. Hands up, anyone who had a Finlux or a Nokia telly in their room. WE ARE GOING TO TAKE YOU OVER. With shite tellies.
Saturday omg:
-Jen gave Liz and Alice a wakeup call. Turns out they actually needed one every day:D.
-Brekkie. Omg brekkie. Which was good. And nice and nourishing and yay.
-People scatter. To listen to that "Marcus Cole is Space Jesus" bloke again, it seems.
-Park arse at modelmaking vs. CGI panel. Mat Irvine is yayful. CGI blokes great too. Going by audience comments and questions, it's surprising how many people still think that anything computer-generated is really easy and fast. Um, no. So I piped up and heartily defended the "omg no graffix take ages AND visual skillz" POV. Good panel.
-Stayed to listen to insane Space Jesus. He has thirteen testicles. And wants to know whether he's a porn star without knowing it (reference to slash). He went on a bit and then did singing and dancing, which made most of the people late for the next panel. Because, dude. Pretty man dancing. Oh yes. There was a panel.
-Which was Fanfic Writing Styles. Not much new stuff there, but still some good discussion. Realised how evil characters can be, because sometimes I've written stuff with things I don't think they'd say or do, just like that. Why does Avon come to me drunk and/or high and demand I write weird stuff? Bastard. Oh. And then there was the bit when Elfin said HIGNFY was a huge fandom. EEEP.
-And then... Blake's Junction 7!!1 Fantastic stuff omg yay. And only now I recognised Racquel Cassidy as Jenna--it's only when she started smoking when my brain clicked and said "hey, Susan from 'Teachers'". And yes, they were all brill. Martin Freeman IS Vila, and Mackenzie Crook made a *fantastic* Servalan. It's... eek. Bizarre BritCom meets Blake's 7. Scary, scary, scary. And I did like the fact that Tim Plester had read really sweet and romantic slash and thought it was terribly naughty:D... and then proceeded to put the Avon/Blakeness in the film. JOHNNY VEGAS IS MY DADDY. And I'm so proud that I squealed "CAN WE SEE IT AGAIN?!?" so loudly that they did, in fact, show it twice. Yayyy! *does a happy fangirl dance*
-The Zocalo fair, yay. Snurched the third B7 annual off spacefall's Bring'n'Buy sale table, for some loony was selling them for five quid apiece. (They fetch at least ten quid on eBay). Now I have all three! Long-haired Servalan! Muscular, broad-shouldered Avon and Vila! Fat Cally! God, I love these illustrations8-)...
-Also, there was The Weakest Geek sci-fi quiz. How proud am I that the two finalists were from our party and were both massive Doctor Who fans? Three cheers for carmen_lj and TEH CHAMP, gordon_r_d!
-Blank. I seem to have missed the f/f panel and curse myself. Grah. Oh yes, I think we vegged out with Jen and Liz and Alice in our room. For there was slight tiredness. Still, damn. Will now proceed to poke pinkdormouse to write that Dayna/SoolinWithAStrap-On. Because. Not that I had a theme of Soolin With A Strap-On going through my head all throughout the con. Oooh no.
-Cabaret omg yay! I liked the Van Helsing costumes the most. Those were just so fab. All the costumes were fantastic, though. Loved 'em all. But the Van Helsing ones just stuck in my mind. And let's not forget the 8th Doc and Grace, yay!:) There were piss-your-pants-laughing filks again, yay, and jokey stories and poems and OMG DIVINE FIDDLER LADY and and and Oriental dancing and and and EVERYTHING. Fans are just the bestest people. There's no denying it. And Redemption is the best con in the world. Sorry, but it is. :)
-10 PM: Blokes who like slash panel. Dougs goes on about his MASH fic up until the point where it goes past the point (even if the "I slashed a Catholic priest because it was political" angle was most cool). Have to try and stop him a couple of times just so I can quiz Pseudnik. And steverogerson, who thought he could hide in the audience. Sorry, dahling, it's not like the world can forget Steve Sue/Avon;). The conclusion? These blokes like slash for the same reasons we do. Good characterisation, good stories, good sex. Yay:).
-Gord shows scary vids (HASSELHOFF OF EVIL OMG OMG NOOOOO) and trailers. Stepmania might be v. fun next time... bring it over, bring it over!!11!
-Then it's off to the Rotunda for WOBBLEVISION! *dances* The pics aren't up yet, but I'm waiting for them to appear any minute. Hint. Probably my one and only chance to take part, and I enjoyed it lots. Hee. We did Children of Auron and I got to play Franton. Whilst using poor mr_moley as an embryo and poking a needle (i.e. antenna) into carmen_lj's arm (since she was Eval Servie). Sorry, Moley. And hey, as Gord and That Other Bloke played Cally and Zelda, we got Two Tall Dark Blokes for the identical sisters, which is probably the greatest accuracy Wobblevision has ever had in its casting. Tee hee.
-Then it was 1 or 2 AM and I went to bed. Except Jenbun and Alice were talking HIGNFY and getting more insane by the minute. I spent an hour half moaning and half snickering under the quilt until the insanity died down. Mad people. And I love them.
Sunday:
-Up at a more normal hour now. Even if 9 AM is AN EVIL HOUR. Liz and Alice get a wake-up call from Jen again. We shuffle downstairs to see a very perky and awake Gord (how does he do it?) and wait for the girls to arrive. Then there's Food. And I realise that shitfuckhell, I have Another Panel at 10AM. Whoever scheduled this to be on at 10 AM? Oh. Steve. Will get you for this.
-The panel, "Can het romance be feminist?" is attended by a grand total of ten people. Including the panellists, i.e. myself, Dormouse and Kathy Sands. My heart is warmed by the fact that we have four blokes in there, and they aren't scared of the word "feminist". *cuddles them all SO MUCH omg* We moan about the classic cliches, halimede brings up my pet peeve of how "powerful women" have more or less been *behind the scenes* rather than in public, no matter how people want to bring up these "oh, but in *insert society* it was the women who controlled the household and bossed their husbands about" arguments. Because, duh, they may have, but they still didn't have *the vote*, reproductive rights, etc... But general feminist ranting aside, we did get good story ideas (ok, well, *I* did, and they involved Soolin with a strap-on, surprise surprise), and altariel1 recced some fab LotR fics. To the cries of "omg you're such a brilliant writer, why on earth did you post your stuff at Fanfiction.net?!?" and so on.
-Liz emerges from the charity auction wearing one of Gemma's t-shirts, signed by PD. I facepalm; at least she didn't have to endure PD in full Seedy CD mode, because, omg, signature ON A GIRL'S CHEST. The shirt suits her, although I keep doing double takes, imagining she's Gemma.
-Room 101. To the great disappointment of the HIGNFY fangirls, Paul Merton does not appear. But Mat Irvine bins Elvis (WTF?) and Jason Carter bins tons of other stuff. Whilst ranting. Again. And Jim Mortimore is fairly quiet. But it is fun.
-For the next two hours, time is spent in the pub reading zines. Hooray. I stealthily borrow a copy of Resistance 3, assuming it's going to be shite, but then Sylvia Knight's stories blow me away and nearly make me cry. Because there's Vila in strip clubs. And B/A fightsex, leading into emotional B/A angstsex. And more angst. And I wail aloud. I feel slightly better when Gord flips through his Big Finish Who audio book and shows a picture of Gareth Thomas with a Dalek plunger up his nose. All is well.
-Also, I voted for Og. OG OG OG OG OG OG OG became the official chant of the weekend. Not that our group started it or anything. Oh no. And and and then we vegged out again.
-There were a couple of boxes, throughout the con, lying about with some educational B7 pics in them. The boxes said "free, take one or two". I took a huge pile. BECAUSE THE LOBSTER TROUSERS CALLED TO ME.
-SF music quiz. Not a surprise that the team with Liz in won. I think. Gaspode banged his triangle so hard I thought it'd break. I probably should've been on one of the teams as I instantly recognised Delia Derbyshire. AND MOST WHO GEEKS DIDN'T. Shame on you, heretics.
- Alice mistakes a water cooler for Bender the robot. (Told you I could fix it in post.)
-Closing ceremony fun but sad. It can't be over yet, can it? Wah?
-OG IS THE RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!11! (Link to Og film clip. Do watch. I can't make out what Rita says, but the Og dance is worth it.)
-Wah?
-Chaos film baffling. Apparently Sgwun, so no wonder why I was baffled. Fun, though.
-6PM and we *drag* Alice to the video room to watch The Way Back. Only the DVD decides to die during the last minutes, which is just WRONG. She didn't get to see "No. I'm coming back", which is just brilliant and we die. So we filled her in on the PERFECTION THAT IS ROJ BLAKE, then gushed a bit more on how young and Welsh he is in that ep "Wot abjooot my mjeemory?" AND BLAKE IS JUST LOVE AND I DIE. *squees*
-Then we retreated to the Rotunda again. And did charades. Lesley put her Londo costume back on and all was well with the world. (That may have been the point at which Alice exclaimed "YOU'RE Londo?!?", the con virgin that she was omg. Since they're both laughing.) We even persuaded Chris O'Shea to take part in the charade game. This being Geek Central, we just did episode titles off B7, B5, Who and Trek. Tee hee.
-At about 9 PM: Rocky Horror on video. Was slightly baffled when people didn't do the usual call-backs and I was the only person in the room to shout "ASSHOLE!" at Brad and "describe your balls! 'Heavy, black and pendulous...'" erp. So I wasn't as loud as usual. Harrumph. But we did get people singing along. And the Og poster I nicked suffered a bit when two or three people did The Time Warp over it. Sorry, Og. But we just needed to take that jump to the left, etc...
-Then, for some reason, possibly related to scary books I can't mention by name, the HIGNFY ladies ran up four flights of stairs to get to the top floor. Presumably because it was secluded. And proceeded to brush their own and each other's hair. OMG JEN/ALICE OTP NOW. I do have more piccies but they have Jenbun in them and I don't have a death wish. So am not putting them up. My mum said Alice was pretty, so there you go.
-Connery and Moley got even more friendly. Which was rather scary. And then people compared ringtones. Gord so wins.
-The Evil HIGNFY people drew two pages of my sketchbook full of HIGNFY WINGFIC. Am scared.
-There may have been sleep after this.
Monday:
-OMG IT CAN'T BE OVEEEER! Or something like that. Jen groaned in bed about not wanting to go back to the horrid RL and I agreed. RL isn't RL. It's an evil illusion and only geek gatherings have proper life. I mean, fuck, most of RL doesn't know THE WORTH OF BLAKE. So there.
-Jen didn't give Liz'n'Alice a wakeup call. Therefore, they were very late for breakfast. Tch, kids:).
-Gord up again. HOW DOES HE DO IT OMG?!?
-While we were waiting for them gals, Dormouse came by with her Beeblebear! EEE! I'd completely missed the Beeblebears' picnic and was oblivious to the fact that the universe actually held Zaphod Beeblebrox teddybears. But now I know better. Yay! Also promised not to bite Dormouse again. Eep. *Grouse slaps self*
-There was brekkie and... lots of huggles as the people started wandering off. WAAAAAAAAAH. Sadness. People swearing to come back in '07, which was of the good.
-I had to take one last photo of Alice, Liz and Gord, and I'm glad Alice and Gord were still smiling. I put Liz's scary stare down to being tired;). I LOVEYOUALLOMG. *squidges*
-Manna comes to pick me up. And announces Steve, Una and Glitterboy are coming to their place for lunch! Yay! Con extension!:D *grousedances*
-Am slightly embarrassed that have just been upstairs, fiddling with LJ and saying hello to Glitterboy and then bump into him downstairs... duh. Sillygrouse.
-People leave. Aiee. Con really over? Meh? Eep?
-Richard puts Professionals on. This v. educational for Halimede. On the trouser department, at least.
-We watch Shaun of the Dead. Halimede is hurty but seems to enjoy it. Um, yay?
-Sleep for 15 hours straight. Tired? Me?
Tuesday:
-Wah! Wake up to Halimede leaving. *criz omg*
-Am zombified. Scritch cats.
-Anna and Richard take Grouse with them to PC World and Borders. There is much drooling over Shiny Tech and books. I buy a 50-pack of DVD-Rs for 17 quid. Bargain. In Finland I'd get maybe 10 discs for that price. So, yay.
-Bookstore has ONLY ONE TUFTY AUDIOBOOK. And only one Moley book with a Professor Mole explaining how stuff works. But it costs 12 quid and that is just too much. Meh. Although now my suspicions of the world being operated by tiny animals have been confirmed. Professor Mole sez that electric shavers, aeroplanes and washing machines work just because they have tiny bunnies and hamsters operating them. Sorted.
-CSI: Miami has Soolin in it. An icy blonde mad about guns. Who is very Sooliny. Yay.
-Fall asleep. Again.
Wednesday:
-Omg must catch train! Bid farewell to cuddly Lilah (MEEEEEEEAAAAAAAOWWWW), lovely house and eeply things. Meh.
-Crunch a few of Anna's ribs at train station.
-Realise I've misread the plane ticket and that the plane leaves NOT at 19:50, but at 19:05. Oops. The trains being late because of two snowflakes on the rails make me even more nervous. Damn.
-Make it to the airport, eventually. Even if Virgin Trains always have the jar of sardines effect.
-Fucking SAS bastards cunts argh insert expletive for charging money for food. Die.
-Planes late again. What a surprise.
-Doze off at Helsinki. Then board bus. Then get taxi to 'rents because it's closer.
-Fall asleep.
Thursday:
-AM HERE OMG.
-Cat has gained weight. Dad sez: "if you think any cat left in my care will lose weight, you're dreaming". Quite. Am tackled by an elephant on arrival. She's still begging for scritches. And judging by the scales at the airport, WEIGHS MORE THAN ANY OF MY BAGS. And moans and wails and urrriuwrks for attention. And tackles me. Ough.
-Spend hours and hours and hours typing down con report. Erp.
-Will fuck off now. Promise.
Whew. Possibly my longest LJ entry ever. Hope it won't be completely b0rked...