Worldcon: Friday
Got to the con, checked out the dealers’ room, and took some photos of Elise Matthesen’s current work in progress…which I need to do some cleanup work on and post.
Headed off to the Con Suite for Charlie Stross’s kaffeeklatsch, which was fun; we had great discussions on all sorts of things, including nifty gadgets and how they may bring us closer to the Singularity.
I followed this with a quick refuel in the ConCourse, then to the Mended Drum for Joe Haldeman’s literary beer. That was also quite fun, though I didn’t get a chance to stick around afterwards as it was off to Lois McMaster Bujold’s reading.
I managed to squeeze into the over-packed room before it became totally full, got a seat when she announced that anyone who’d been at the reading at Balticon wasn’t going to hear anything new, and listened to her read from The Hallowed Hunt (her upcoming third Chalion-universe book), which means I am now stuck in that awful “must…wait…for…rest…of…story” zone.
At the end of the reading, it was announced that she’d be doing a signing that afternoon at 1600 at the NESFA Press table in the dealers’ room. I looked at my watch and realized that I had time to run home and get the books that I hadn’t brought (because, why haul them around if the autograph session isn’t until tomorrow?). Premature optimization can become pessimization.
I got home and back, with some minor glitches (like the #1 bus being stuck in traffic on the bridge), and got to the autograph line in time to be 17th. The line moved up as soon as she started, and after a bit the very nice couple behind me realized that this was not, in fact, the Neil Gaiman autograph line they thought it was. One of them was willing to stay with me long enough to get to the front of the line so I could get all three books that I’d brought signed (the regular signings had a three book limit, but the NESFA Press table signings had a two book limit), for which I would thank him again if I’d been smart enough to note his name down. (If you read this, thanks again.)
I then had to head off to run some outside-con errands, which I did without trouble. When I returned, I ran into some folks I had previously met at the LJ party; we went to get take-out food for dinner, and I headed to gaming to try to get into the Illuminati: Crime Lords demo.
When I arrived, it had already started (”missed it by that much!”), but it was 1900 on Friday, which is my gaming time most weeks anyway…so I went with tradition.
First, a pickup game of Chez Goth, then Early American Chrononauts, and after that the monster freakin’ Munchin-holy-cow-everything-including-Blender game, which lasted hours. Hours and hours and hours.
Warning: Great Cthulhu and Squidzilla are a bad combo to get hit with. It’s even bad if you don’t get hit with them, if a Space Ranger drags you in to the combat so you die too.
After that, I was too tired to stick around, especially since the Hynes gaming was going to close in a relatively short time. Off home and to bed.
