Tuesday, October 31, 2006
NecronomiCon 2006
Quick recap, as I’m short on time this morning.
We had a great time, as usual. It’s been so many years since I’ve “worked” a con, that I forgot how much of the con you don’t see while you’re there.
Sharon and I had a “Sit and Stitch” room, and we’re already planning how to make it better next year. Maybe sit and watch Firefly, with extra yarn and needles to show people how to make their own Jayne hat. I also got a lot of attention in the lobby with my spinning wheel, a last minute bring-along. Big thanks to Ann for giving us such a swank room to hang out in!
It was wonderful to see Steve and Rob-- wish I’d run into them more, as they always keep me laughing, and it feels like home to see such good, long-time friends.
We had a party for Carol and Eric, who got married earlier this year. I wish we’d had more forethought in planning, but… what can ya do. Hey, maybe we can throw them a bigger, anniversary party next year!
And of course, although not as many as years previous (although there have been years where I’ve taken less), photos are up.
PS. Sophia, this one’s for you.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Good morning, Tampa!
We are safely ensconsed in our hotel, and other than being completely convinced that I left the oven on in my house and that by now it’s burned to the ground and killed all of my pets and I’ll have no books or yarn to come home to… we’re having a great time! Whoot! Gimmie another martini!
Last night was dinner in the hotel with Carol and Eric (now there’s an older photo!), followed by drinks in the bar with them, and Rob and Steve (no Hawk this year), and Bill (not a con photo). We also ran into Jeff of Jeff-and-Beth, and Louise (she comments here sometimes in the QOTW, so y’all know her voice but maybe not what she looks like-- and since I can’t find a photo of her, she’ll just have to remain shrouded in mystery).
Thus spoke Lorena on 10/28/06 at 08:50 AM in Conventions, Personal, Road Trippin'
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Monday, November 14, 2005
NecronomiCon update
Eric brought this to my attention. I know I haven’t finished writing my review of the con yet (damn sickness getting in the way of me doing anything). But if you are interested in the convention, if you went this year or are thinking about going next year, you really need to read this. (Damn frames! Go to that front page, then click on “Necro File”.)
Briefly--
There was a lot of damage to the hotel facilities. Some of it was merely accidental and can be avoided next year.
The damage that we want to avoid but have a harder time with is that which is either pranks or just plain malicious behavior.
Exit signs were stolen and broken. Walls were damaged by the removal of room number signs. There was other miscellaneous damage such as boot marks on walls and phones having been taken and dumped in inappropriate places. The bill for replacing signs and repairing wall damage was $1620.00.
That’s a total $3505.00 in avoidable costs. That is money that could have gone to our charities.
That is over a third of our total cost for the facilities at the Hyatt. That really is inexcusable.
The other damages are harder to deter. We will be hiring police officers and the hotel will put on extra of its own security. We will have more noticeable security of our own and nobody will be able to enter panel or game areas without a badge.
We gave our charities a total of $7000 but we had hoped to give more after a final accounting was done. Now, we know that we will not be able to do so.
We’d like to be able to blame our problems on Guavaween but it was not Guavaween folks who took the food all over the hotel and spilled it. It was not Guavaween people who damaged the signs. The damage was done on floors where nearly everyone was a NECRONOMICON attendee. The party floors were very badly treated. Many people will find that their credit cards have been charged for the damage they did to the hotel rooms in which they stayed.
So, how do you help us? If you attend NECRONOMICON and want us to be able to keep hosting it, please spread the word that we have to put a stop to the bad behavior. Tell everyone you know who attends that we need your support in making it a convention that the hotel will welcome back. If we can’t keep the Hyatt happy, NECRONOMICON will cease to exist. There are no other affordable hotels with the kind of function space we need in Tampa. Even if there were, once one hotel has problems with an event, the others won’t rent to it because they ask for references from past venues. What we need is for everyone who loves NECRONOMICON to exert peer pressure on those who jeopardize its wellbeing.
Friday, November 04, 2005
NecronomiCon 2005 - Friday
You may have noticed that my photos are up. Here’s a little rundown of the weekend.
Friday
Friday we picked up Matt and Penny and left Gainesville around 2-ish. After a brief stop in Ocala at Shells for a late, filling lunch (mmmm, lobster ravioli!) we got back on the road and hit Tampa around… well, including getting lost because there was no exit 44 due to construction… 5:30. It was run and check into the hotel, run and get our memberships for the con, and then run to the Cthulu Eye Scream social. Did I remember to bring Elvis Cthulu and get his photo with some ice cream? No, of course not.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Necro photos
I’m still working on getting mine together. Meanwhile, why don’t you check out Kelly and Robbie’s photos from the weekend?
Thus spoke Lorena on 11/02/05 at 06:59 AM in Conventions, Links
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Saturday, October 29, 2005
Oh, you’re not confused-- you’re just an asshole!
I’m loving the con at this new hotel. It’s spacious, the staff are polite and friendly, the room is nice, the food at the in-house eatery is tasty and not overly expensive, and the booze goes down nicely (they have a martini called the “raspberry lemonade” and how did they know to combine two of my favorite tastes?). It is a little strange trying to find my way around, but all in all it’s a huge improvement. And it’s good to see old friends.
Also? Snagged the $30 autographed first edition of American Gods Anansi Boys (why do I insist on forever calling this book by the wrong title?! Bad fan, bad!). Score!
I had to run to the car to get directions that I’d printed out (to the yarn store, yes, flame me now) and we’re parked in the parking garage across the street. When I went back to the elevator, there was a guy on his cell phone, kid in tow, also waiting. When we got on the elevator and I pressed the right button, he said “four, please.” I replied as how we were on the fourth floor, thinking that he might be confused since he was on his cell phone when he stepped in. He laughed… ruffled his kid’s hair… and said that I wasn’t nearly as gullible as the last person he tried that on; that he knew we were on four and he was just trying to mess with me. Yeah. Funny. Not.
Ah well. Off to the yarn store, and then panels, and the masquerade tonight; probably followed by more booze and fellowship in the bar. That’s a Good Thing!
Thus spoke Lorena on 10/29/05 at 12:28 PM in Conventions, Personal, Road Trippin'
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Sunday, September 04, 2005
Elvis Cthulhu; fun times at DragonCon
Elvis Cthulhu says you must look at some of his vacation photos, or he will eat your soul.
Cthulhu takes a little time out to get some knitting in and relax-- torturing souls is hard work.
Cthulhu and friends rock out before running off to torture souls.
The happy family, full after a meal of tortured souls.
Cthulhu drinks a nice steaming hot cup of tortured souls first thing in the morning.
More photos will follow. Elvis Cthulhu has gotten his photo taken with many soulless costumed folks.
Thus spoke Lorena on 09/04/05 at 02:10 PM in Conventions
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Saturday, September 03, 2005
I’m blogging this
Some comments today to my wearing my “I’m blogging this” t-shirt:
Some Random Guy: Will you blog about me?
Me: I sure will!
SRG: Great! Thanks!
Me: Girls! He’s tall! He’s strong! He’s good looking!
Some Pig at the Elevator: For your blog? Great presentation.
Me: That would have been subtle and funny if he’d managed to take his eyes off my breasts while speaking.
Lots of people: Great shirt.
Me: Thanks! You can get one too!
Lots of people: Are you blogging this right now?
Me: Not at this exact second. But trust me; the Internet will hear of this.
Now… here’s a shot of the hotel--
PS: To the stupid woman who opened the door and then stopped moving IN THE DOORWAY, with a crush of people still behind you trying to get out, and we all had to come to a screeching halt, piling into each other? Your vapidity is only topped by the woman who stepped off the down escalator and then stopped moving, WITH A CRUSH OF PEOPLE BEHIND HER WHO WERE ALL SUDDENLY PITCHED FORWARD AS WE HAD NOWHERE TO PUT OUR FEET BUT THE GROUND WAS MOVING UNDERNEATH US. You suck. You both suck. You both suck like a big sucking thing that sucks a lot.
Now I’m off to dinner with Kelly and Robbie and Sharon and Chris. We’re going to a Tiki Bar for dinner… this should be exciting!
Thus spoke Lorena on 09/03/05 at 05:14 PM in Conventions
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Friday, September 02, 2005
More freaks than you can shake a stick at…
... if you had room to swing the GD stick to begin with. This place is almost too crowded to have a good time! But maybe that just means I need more alcohol. Or less of this:
I mean… great costume, but… yikes. Killer Klowns indeed. Indeeeeeeeed.
Thus spoke Lorena on 09/02/05 at 10:18 PM in Conventions
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Aaaaannnnd… we’re off!
We’re off in a couple hours for DragonCon in Atlanta. Tim will be driving, I’ll be knitting (okay, who is surprised by either one of those statements?), and we’ll be listening to A Game of Thrones
And hey, Kelly and Robbie and Rikk and Sharon and Chris, and maybe Carol and Eric and Cathy and Deke and anyone else I’ve forgotten; see you there!
Thus spoke Lorena on 09/02/05 at 07:47 AM in Conventions, Personal, Road Trippin'
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Oh, the excitement!
Our rooms for DragonCon are now booked. Between Tim and I going to Dragon, and me going to Interaction a few weeks before… August is going to be a blast!
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/13/05 at 04:58 PM in Conventions
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Saturday, April 09, 2005
To GlasGOw or not to GlasGOw
Get it? To Go or not to Go? Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?
I might have the chance to go to Glasgow (Scotland, not Kentucky) to go to WorldCon in August.
Should I stay or should I go now? If I stay there will---
Yeah.
Thank you; I’ll be here all week. Please tip your wait staff.
Thus spoke Lorena on 04/09/05 at 10:43 AM in Conventions, Personal, My random life
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Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Whoops
I just realized that page 8 of the Necro pictures is not what it’s supposed to be; and page 9 isn’t there at all. Curses!!! So, I’ll fix that tonight, before Lost. Mmmkay? Sorry ‘bout that!
Thus spoke Lorena on 10/20/04 at 11:36 AM in Conventions
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Monday, October 18, 2004
NecronomiCon 2004
A fine time was had by all.
Our NecronomiCon 2004 photos are up here.
We had a great time, as usual. Oddly enough, we had the same room that we had last year. What are the chances?! So. Last year in this hotel. Last time to see the cool waterfall. Last time we get to eat at Chez Craptastic (motto: yes, it’s expensive. We have to pay for our snotty attitude somehow!). Last chance to steal this table. Last time to see the borg piano player. Last time to get a great balcony view.
We can’t wait to see what kind of changes next year brings.
Thus spoke Lorena on 10/18/04 at 10:17 PM in Conventions
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Sharon meets Grady Stiles III
I debated between giving this it’s own post and putting it in with the Necro pictures later when I put them up… getting it’s own post won out by a narrow margin in my head.
At one point Sunday morning, while standing in the lobby, Sharon suddenly goes as white as a sheet and starts whispering “Grady Stiles the third… Grady Stiles the third… there goes Grady Stiles the third...” and she’s doing this adorable little bouncy thing that lets us all know she’s excited. I look up in time to see a guy wheeling another guy into the dealer’s room, but that’s all I can see. I look at her as if to say, intelligently, “huh?”. She’s all, “Hello, Lobsterboy?!” Ahhhh, it’s all clear to me now. So he comes every year, and one year she got his autograph. But you know what she really needed? A photo. And you know what I had with me? A camera. But no, Sharon was waaaaay too shy to get a picture. This is the woman who’s been up on stage a couple of times, once to feed Enigma and once with… Mr. Lifto, I think? Remind me, Sharon...?
But anyway…
Thus spoke Lorena on 10/18/04 at 05:45 AM in Conventions, Randomosity
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Thursday, September 04, 2003
TorCon III - Sunday, part 2
So… the masquerade!
So… the masquerade!
Rikk did not go with us, as he’s way too cool to go to a masquerade (everybody tease Rikk!). So we got there about 45 minutes before it was supposed to start. And we waited. And waited. The people around us were having some pretty lively conversations… (Overheard: “I need to introduce you to my chicken” “Dude; that’s a little personal.” “No, no! My JUNGLE chicken!")
By 8:30 or so it was painfully obvious they weren’t starting on time. They decided to cut us some slack, though, and entertained us with a reel of film from TorCon II, in 1973. That was a trip! Shots of costumes, interviews, random crowd scenes… awesome. I was hoping there’d be a shot of my mom riding down the hotel hallways on a bike, handing out DC in ‘74 fliers (since almost everyone I saw told me about that happening) but no such luck.
The masquerade started, and it was good. We had great seats in front of one of the two big screens and I was able to photograph a lot off of the screens. Unfortunately much of it turned out to be blurry, but we’ll see what I can do about putting some up to show. The best one was a group done up like the Trumps of Amber… well executed and damn fine costuming.
They also did a retrospective of Canadian costumes (which weren’t considered part of the contest but were just there to be shown) and there were some amazing things, a few of which I remembered from previous cons.
The show let up for an hour at 11:30, winners to be announced at 12:30, but we were pretty wiped out by that point and just went back to the hotel to get a head start on packing and heading out the next morning.
But of course you can’t go anywhere at WorldCon without running into somebody… so…
Thus spoke Lorena on 09/04/03 at 01:25 PM in Conventions, Personal, Road Trippin'
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Sunday, August 31, 2003
TorCon III - Sunday
Today was busy, busy busy!
It started with a most excellent surprise reading by Neil Gaiman. One of the two pieces he read was Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu; which due to timing he was not able to finish reading. Two Pages. Two more pages and we’d know how it ends. Oh, the inhumanity.
Lunch was next, like you want details about that (can I just tell you I never in my life thought I’d get so tired of fried fish?). Oh, wait, fried fish was dinner. Whatever. Anyway, after lunch we went on what is called the Hippo Tour. It’s a bus that also goes into the water. That was fun!!! I got some great photos I’ll be posting later.
Thus spoke Lorena on 08/31/03 at 11:29 PM in Conventions, Personal, Road Trippin'
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TorCon III - Saturday
I should probably really get Tim to write about Saturday, because he saw way more panels than I did. I spent the morning sleeping late, waking up to the weirdest, non-offensive hangover ever (absolutely no headache and a stomach that calmed down after a Sprite. What kind of baby hangover is that?!)… anyway, then I spent most of the day walking back and forth between the two hotels trying to find Tim. BOR-ing! By the time we found each other, we could eat dinner or go to the Hugos. Sadly, dinner won out. Sadlier, it was not Benihanas-- where I’d been itching to go and looks like won’t ever get to. Then we hit a few parties, walked around, people watched… usual con stuff.
Thus spoke Lorena on 08/31/03 at 11:13 PM in Conventions, Personal, Road Trippin'
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TorCon III - Friday
If you’re interested in photos- mine aren’t up yet but there are a bunch here:
http://www.kcsciencefiction.org/03world01.htm
Friday was a full and busy day. We only made it to two panels: on one of which I was a participant (Is This Your First WorldCon). The other one was George R. R. Martin talking about his stint working with The Twilight Zone (the second TV series, not the first).
The panel I was on was fun. Of course, I was on it with three people who have known me my whole life, and they’ve been going to cons forever… so there was much laughter. It was good to give advice to people who’ve never been to a WorldCon. Some of whom had never even been to a convention! Imagine how lost you’d feel!
George’s panel on the Twilight Zone was great. He’s such a lively speaker. And he showed the episode he’d written and Wes Craven had directed’the uncut version, which is not the version that made it to TV for a multitude of networkian reasons.
Thus spoke Lorena on 08/31/03 at 08:27 AM in Conventions, Personal, Road Trippin'
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Saturday, August 30, 2003
TorCon III - Wednesday and Thursday
Okay, so Wednesday wasn’t all that exciting except that we got in, and got settled. I already posted a little bit about that… basically, we love the hotel. This may be the swankiest place I’ve ever stayed; I feel quite spoiled. LOVING IT!
We registered Wednesday night, but they were out of program books and goodie bags, so they told us we’d have to come back in the morning. And the souvenir books hadn’t come in yet, so we’d have to come back for those too.
Thus spoke Lorena on 08/30/03 at 05:39 PM in Conventions, Personal, Road Trippin'
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