tired
nolly and Disneyland together, on Bat's Day no less. Worked a bit for info desk, busy busy, saw why nolly was so busy most of the con. Worked for Westercon 60 table a bit (woo, Westercon in San Jose in 2007). Made it to a few panels. Initiated into some club, apparently run by kiuricumber, which got me my "Want some toast?" ribbon. Must make more cool ribbons to give out.Helped with the
eric_in_elevatr party, and got a room service dinner out of the deal and had lots of fun. Stayed up till 4am, met up with dzayde and friends, and drove home.Went to Mom's house for a few days, continued my job search from there. Ate with Mom, and ate with
dzayde.Bat's Day at Disneyland with
nolly! We had lots of fun and made it on the rides we decided we wanted to ride the most. Happy fun yay. Lots of goths around for Bat's Day, and saw lokiz_mom and karlito1984 and his daughter. ART bus left us behind, long sore walk back to the hotel. Bleh. But still fun, yay. Thanks for the idea, hadn't been to Disneyland in years. Did I mention the cool pirate/mouse ears she got with "Nolly" embroidered on them? I saw a few more at the con later on. Way cool. :)I volunteered a few hours for info desk under the boss, nolly. :) The main desk is busy busy busy. Whew. The second time I was placed in the Hilton info desk, which was a lot quieter, but still plenty of questions asked and mostly answered.
I volunteered a few hours for the Westercon 60 table and met Ita from the Westercon 60 hotel. We chatted a bit about cons and anime and Japanese. She's nice, and I'm glad we'll be working with someone like her on that convention.
I got Alan Dean Foster's autograph, which was quick and easy. I got Anne McCaffrey's autograph, which took quite a while. I waited in line with Tilly the Wonder Dog, wonderful service dog, and her human, which made the line seem a lot faster.
I paid for some internet from the Hilton across the street, but after a few days, some people plugged in wireless routers into their wired rooms, and most of them were unsecured. Special thanks to whoever ran "deepthot," which I connected to the most.
The first panel I attended was Aliens Among Us, using other cultures to get ideas for alien cultures. We kind of talked all over the place. I mentioned ASL and Deaf culture, which got a few good responses. They touched a lot of actually researching and not using some overly-simplified copy of a stereotyped culture as an alien race.
The second panel was "Girls in Anime." The title itself and the description (kick-ass heroines!) brought on some feminist reaction. Things have apparently come a long way. I watched Fruits Basket and acknowledged Honda Tohru as a very strong character who doesn't go around kicking people's asses without thinking anything odd about it, but I suppose I expect strong female characters. My first best friend was an older female who I looked up to and thought was strong and smart and really cool, which she probably was.
The third panel was on Japanese Science Fiction. No panelists ever showed up, so we had a lively discussion amongst ourselves. We were lucky to have an author who has had some translated stories pulished in Japan, and an aspiring story translator who is going to translate one short story and then contact the author about it. I'll probably see most of those people at next year's Worldcon in Yokohama.
I relaxed a number of ways during the con. I finished reading Fires of Aggar, mostly in the Con Suite. The Con Suite was 24 hours and excellent. It had lots of connecting rooms, some quiet enough to read in. Just had to get far enough away from the people with the loudest voices. :)
kiuricumber was initiating people into her secret organization and giving out "Want some toast?" ribbons. She wore some creative costumes, like River from Firefly. She wound up with a small group of fans she led into fun adventures. They wound up in the con suite pretty often, and I got initiated too. I watched the Firefly showing with them too. Unfortunately, it was being shown on a laptop with inadequate built-in speakers. It was nearly impossible to see and hear well *before* the room got all crowded. I offered my projector, but the guy running the party wasn't interested. Now I'm sure I want to watch the series. Thanks for creative efforts effecting the balance of fun, Kiuricumber.Shot foam rockets in the con suite with
super_star_girl and Taylor. Whee.Helped out with the
eric_in_elevatr party. I provided my projector and helped set it and the bed-sheet screen up. I watched the whole thing for the first time. Eric bought me room-service. Thanks! I got some ideas for Japan in 2007. Maybe I'll have an original video content party and try to get people like Eric to submit some stuff to show. I could even work on doing some subtitles... in Japanese... Wound up staying up till 4am.I woke up at 11am, feeling ugh, when the phone rang. It was
dzayde. Got kinda packed up, then met her and baisleac and Mark and his son in the dealer's room. Mark looks a lot different than... 16 years ago? Heh. His son Logan was sleepy. They weren't very impressed by the dealer's room. Hey, it was big for an SF convention! They're used to San Diego Comic Con.Said good-byes to them and then to Nolly. Drove home 1pm to 7pm. Flying J had vegan (except for possibly the refined sugar) chocolate chip cookies! Yay. Had a headache on the way home. Took stuff, got better. Phone is quite shot, pretty useless unless plugged in.
It was my third Worldcon in Anaheim, and I would say my favorite yet, though the first one in 1984 was my first con ever, which is a hard-to-beat sort of thing.
