Capricon report
WTF? I wrote this last night, but it didn't post, and I only noticed now.
I have returned from Capricon, where in spite of my initial feelings when I looked at the schedule, I was never without enjoyable ways to occupy my time.
Friday we arrived a little late and missed the beginning of billroper's Cafe set, but I got to hear several good songs. I realized while I was hearing those that 4:00 on Friday was a badly over scheduled chunk of time. I wanted to see beamjockey's presentation on Pluto, because pretty much all I know from the New Horizons mission is what made it onto the radio, which doesn't include actually seeing the pictures. After that ended, I walked through the dealer's room, where I found a few paperbacks I wanted to buy, and noticed that there were quite a few tables of authors hawking their apparently self-published books, which I think is a good trend in general, although between my slow reading speed and my limited budget, I generally keep my book habit satisfied with mass market paperbacks. I also got a quick run through the art show. At least there still is an art show. And there was some nice art in it. Hopefully the people who have money found some they liked. Then we went to dinner at Spear's which is just across the parking lot from the hotel, but that was quite far enough to go through the gale. Spear's is a gourmet $15 hamburger place, though they have a few things that aren't served on a bun. The food is good and the portions are reasonable; it's a bit expensive but everything is in Chicago. Friday open filk went pretty well, despite the fact that we never got the lights turned all the way on.
Saturday, after I got up and had a combined breakfast/lunch in the room, I went down to the game room for a bit. I sat at an empty table, stood my Splendor box up, and read my book, and just about the time I decided to go head to the cafe, a couple of people joined me for a game. It was a good game, but it ran longer than I expected and by the time it was done it was halfway through Sassafras' set in the cafe. So I decided to play the game that one of my Splendor players was there demoing, which has gone through a successful kickstarter and is apparently now in production. In a marketing failure, in spite of the fact that after playing a couple of games and geeking about game design, I walked away not actually remembering the name of the game. I think it's Legends of somethingorother. It seemed like a fairly well designed little game, there are several different strategies/ways to get points and they can all be valid. The theme is thin. The card art is decent. If I see it in the game store and I recognize it I might get it. Then I got to the last half of Mike Nixon's set in the cafe, which I have to confess I wasn't really paying attention to, and then Three Fifths' set, which was the high point of the weekend. Three Fifths are just getting better all the time, and they had sweetmusic_27 with them, doing her magic stuff which she claims she hasn't rehearsed, but she was sounding as wonderful as the others. Then we decided we didn't want to brave the elements so we went to dinner at Saranello's with filkart and ithiriel. Saranello's is a serious restaurant that people with expensive cars who aren't staying at the hotel frequent, and by those standards its prices aren't that high. (Pastas are about $15, fancier entrees like $25.) The food is quite good, and it's really convenient to be in the hotel. Note to self: next year, get Saturday's dinner organized on Friday and get a reservation. This might even allow closing down the cafe, getting dinner, and then getting to Space Time Theater, which we missed. After dinner, I dropped by the game room, and got another game of Splendor, which was a pretty good game. I was the last player, and I managed to sneak in with 15 points, with both of the other players ready to go to 18 if they had one more turn. Then open filk, where I was very tired but managed to enjoy the music for 3 hours or so before giving in to fatigue, where of course once I staggered into bed, I couldn't get to sleep for hours.
Sunday, we got our stuff to the car and went to Toast and Jam, which was pretty nice, and then we headed out into the growing storm, since tcgtrf had skipped out on his reading due to the weather forecast. There was a little snow on the roads, but it wasn't really a problem, except that birder2's windshield washer was not working, which made seeing the road a little iffy.
I have returned from Capricon, where in spite of my initial feelings when I looked at the schedule, I was never without enjoyable ways to occupy my time.
Friday we arrived a little late and missed the beginning of billroper's Cafe set, but I got to hear several good songs. I realized while I was hearing those that 4:00 on Friday was a badly over scheduled chunk of time. I wanted to see beamjockey's presentation on Pluto, because pretty much all I know from the New Horizons mission is what made it onto the radio, which doesn't include actually seeing the pictures. After that ended, I walked through the dealer's room, where I found a few paperbacks I wanted to buy, and noticed that there were quite a few tables of authors hawking their apparently self-published books, which I think is a good trend in general, although between my slow reading speed and my limited budget, I generally keep my book habit satisfied with mass market paperbacks. I also got a quick run through the art show. At least there still is an art show. And there was some nice art in it. Hopefully the people who have money found some they liked. Then we went to dinner at Spear's which is just across the parking lot from the hotel, but that was quite far enough to go through the gale. Spear's is a gourmet $15 hamburger place, though they have a few things that aren't served on a bun. The food is good and the portions are reasonable; it's a bit expensive but everything is in Chicago. Friday open filk went pretty well, despite the fact that we never got the lights turned all the way on.
Saturday, after I got up and had a combined breakfast/lunch in the room, I went down to the game room for a bit. I sat at an empty table, stood my Splendor box up, and read my book, and just about the time I decided to go head to the cafe, a couple of people joined me for a game. It was a good game, but it ran longer than I expected and by the time it was done it was halfway through Sassafras' set in the cafe. So I decided to play the game that one of my Splendor players was there demoing, which has gone through a successful kickstarter and is apparently now in production. In a marketing failure, in spite of the fact that after playing a couple of games and geeking about game design, I walked away not actually remembering the name of the game. I think it's Legends of somethingorother. It seemed like a fairly well designed little game, there are several different strategies/ways to get points and they can all be valid. The theme is thin. The card art is decent. If I see it in the game store and I recognize it I might get it. Then I got to the last half of Mike Nixon's set in the cafe, which I have to confess I wasn't really paying attention to, and then Three Fifths' set, which was the high point of the weekend. Three Fifths are just getting better all the time, and they had sweetmusic_27 with them, doing her magic stuff which she claims she hasn't rehearsed, but she was sounding as wonderful as the others. Then we decided we didn't want to brave the elements so we went to dinner at Saranello's with filkart and ithiriel. Saranello's is a serious restaurant that people with expensive cars who aren't staying at the hotel frequent, and by those standards its prices aren't that high. (Pastas are about $15, fancier entrees like $25.) The food is quite good, and it's really convenient to be in the hotel. Note to self: next year, get Saturday's dinner organized on Friday and get a reservation. This might even allow closing down the cafe, getting dinner, and then getting to Space Time Theater, which we missed. After dinner, I dropped by the game room, and got another game of Splendor, which was a pretty good game. I was the last player, and I managed to sneak in with 15 points, with both of the other players ready to go to 18 if they had one more turn. Then open filk, where I was very tired but managed to enjoy the music for 3 hours or so before giving in to fatigue, where of course once I staggered into bed, I couldn't get to sleep for hours.
Sunday, we got our stuff to the car and went to Toast and Jam, which was pretty nice, and then we headed out into the growing storm, since tcgtrf had skipped out on his reading due to the weather forecast. There was a little snow on the roads, but it wasn't really a problem, except that birder2's windshield washer was not working, which made seeing the road a little iffy.