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Crap. Woke up, felt like crap. Mildly nauseous, sore throat. Showered anyway (I'm gonna have to get Elayna ready for school, no mater what, and sometimes I feel less sick after being awake for a bit). Then read LJ, and saw that shadesong woke up sick in the middle of the night. Crap. So we've both got something. I think she's got it worse than I do, even, so I won't get any pity nursemaiding out of this. :-(

On the plus side, Neil Gaiman won the Hugo for American Gods. I'd rather have Connie Willis get the award, though, and feel less crappy. Although I strongly suspect the two aren't really connected.

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So, no long DragonCon summary. Folks like shadesong, morenasangre, and dslartoo are all doing great jobs. I lack the discipline to do one. I'll just go over highlights and lowlights:

Highlights:

Getting to finally meet auryn29e, astrophysicat, tikimama, melintur, catalyxt, chrisv, gwynraven (who Elayna bonded with faster than I've seen her take to any other adult, ever), adellyna, and probably others whom I'm forgetting because I'm too addled right now.

Finding the 8-disc Studio Ghibli boxed set containing just about everything other than Spirited Away.

Completing our Dork Tower and Nodwick collections.

Finding two On the Fastrack collections in the Plan9 $4.95 bargain bin.

Peter David's reading from Knight Life 2 (sorry, can't remember the actual title).

Elayna showing major Monty Python knowledge, as detailed here.

Having an awesome dinner at Edo on Friday.

Hanging out with bob_dot_com, of course.

As usual, seeing the B5 cast reunion panel.

Iron Artist (even though I only caught half of it). Once they get their act in gear, this could be the best recurring panel at the show.

The Forensic Pathology panel

All of us wearing shayara shirts, and shadesong getting interest in the concept from Judd Winick and Peter David, and getting information about the title to Chris Starros at Top Shelf (not to mention Paul Jenkins's fiance). And mousegrrl got some interest from NeNe Thomas, too!

Lowlights:

The usual bad design -- the dealer and exhibitor room setup was just as bad this year as last. They need one bigger room, with more open spaces. It's what they had a few years ago in the Merchandise Mart, and it worked nicely.

Not getting to see almost everyone named in the section above for any period of time. We did get to hang out with tikimama and melintur a bit last night, finally, and we hung with auryn29e and chrisv a bit on Friday, but we barely saw astrophysicat, not to mention podling and tanaise. And we only really saw darkmattr, adellyna, and edie22 at the beginning and ends of the con. And we spent no time with morenasangre and Farren, which really pisses me off, as they are two folks I dearly love, and was really hoping to see (no, I'm not pissed at anyone, just pissed that I didn't have the chance).

And a tangent off of that last one. Realizing that cons are really not Elayna's thing. Frankly, cons are tough for anyone with a kid. But we really can't try to bring Elayna again next year. Much of the stress we dealt with was a result of having her around, and it's not fair to her. We either need to arrange for someone like shadesong's sister to fly up for a weekend, or we need to forego the con. Period. Elayna was as well-behaved as could be expected, but with almost nothing to interest her, it was a long weekend, nonetheless (and not in the good way).

Running into the asshole who had attempted to take advantage of shadesong a couple of weekends ago, and having to play nice. Worse, said asshole was all busy promoting his big conference, which is proving to be every bit as elitist and exclusive as the conferences he claims to be challenging. Since he was with some mutual friends who don't know any better, I took the high road when dealing with him. Which I guess is something to be proud of.

Accidentally dissing voltbang and rloveking on Monday morning. I'm sorry, guys! I was so busy trying to chat for a moment or two with melintur and Tikimama, I didn't realize you guys were leaving until you had left!

Missing the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company show for the first time in five years. More frustrating, since I actually now know someone (dslartoo) in the show.

Frankly, just being shitty company all weekend. I wasn't too happy or fun going into the weekend, and I don't doubt that various stress and other stuff from Friday onwards just made me less desirable to hang out with. Personally, I wasn't enjoying hanging out with myself, so I can't imagine anyone else would have, either. A big apology to everyone named above (and anyone I missed) if my grumpiness or taciturnity rained on anyone else's parade.


Looking over that, it probably seems like there was more bad than good this weekend. There wasn't. It's just easier to go off on things that suck than it is to rave about stuff. I mean, I could write a paragraph gushing about Peter David or the B5 folks, but it's just wouldn't be the most interesting writing. But when something sucks, it's easy to rant. Overall, there was lots of good stuff this weekend, and much of the bad had to do with having too many good things conflicting with each other (too many friends at dinner on Friday to talk to anyone, too much time with Elayna to spend on adult tracks, etc). Such is life.

Anyway, I need to lie down for a bit. And I'm sure I'll update this when I realize the stuff I left out. I need to take notes at these cons!

A few more DragonCon notes

Crap. Knew I'd leave some folks out. Forgot two_star (someone I'd known for years online, but never met until now), and ariadnesthread, whom I've known for years (although I don't think I saw Missy Lee since Friday). Both are nifty nifty folks.

And one observation about the dealer's room. This is the first year I saw the bootleg sellers selling stuff on DVD (thanks to cheaper recordable drives). Although, at something like $25 per disc, I don't see anyone willing to bother. Given the crappy source material and lack of DVD features, it's not worth the money (not even taking ethics into account here).

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Wil Wheaton has come up in conversation and/or on LJ a number of times recently. So I feel a need to quote some lines from one of my all-time favorite break-up songs, Captain Tractor's "Sound Strange"

Since I found out you like Wesley,
It's been really hard to care.
Our taste in Star Trek characters,
is something we don't share.