Please Let Me Vent
My Confused Assent
Will I go? Won't I go?
I don't know.
Can I enjoy myself
In Guelph?
This is the first year
A con will be held here.
I go back and forth
On what it's worth.
...Of, Among Other Things, An Empty Pool...
The Holiday Inn at which GenreCon took place had a really interesting layout, with four floors of rooms that looked out onto a huge atrium. This walkway floated above the first floor. Not, perhaps, the best place for a dealer's table, given that con-goers could go to everything they needed on the first floor and avoid this one completely. Still...
...great, umm, view...
Comic Anarchy, To Be Sure, But Anarchy Nonetheless!
Honestly, if I were cloning Charlie Chaplins, I would want somebody with some authority to ride herd over them. Anything less, and I would be courting anarchy!
Sometimes, Even A Zombie Needs To Complain About Room Service...
Remember: It's The Knights And Barons Who Are The Real Wealthmakers!
Aah, the Galt Room, where disgruntled World of Warcraft players can sit around and complain about all of the moochers in their agrarian society who live off the hard work of their fiefdom's liege!
Parsing Evil
Dalek...
Daleker...
Dalekest!
Perhaps They Wanted Me To Do A Read-in For Peace...
THE STORY SO FAR: At SFContario the previous week, not only did nobody show up for a reading I was scheduled to give, but, about ten minutes in, somebody from the hotel asked if I would please vacate the room so that he could replace a small table with a larger one. It doesn't get any worse than that, right?
Right?
AT GENRECON: A revolving door in the programming department meant that much of the schedule was still in flux on the first day of the con. In one way, this actually worked well: on Friday, Stephen Pearl and I (but mostly Stephen) managed to get three panels onto the schedule (with the addition of J. M. Frey, they were a hoot - literally, we had to clean up the owl crap afterwards).
In another way, well: I asked for a time slot to do a reading. Initially, the only one that was available was five pm Sunday afternoon, the last hour of the con. I thanked them, but didn't take it; Sunday was get away day for people who were there all weekend, and I didn't expect there to be many people left. After a little juggling, a slot opened up at 10 am Sunday morning. I figured most people would be sleeping off parties at that point, but that perhaps one or two eager owlets would be up for a reading at that time.
When I got to the room, this is what I found:
I'm not sure if organizers felt that my reading would put people to sleep, or if they thought my prose would benefit from a cozy atmosphere. As it happened, nobody showed up to this reading, either, so there was no way to test either hypothesis!
Headline Is, For Once, The Appropriate Word
You can tell a lot about a person by seeing which disembodied head they prefer. If you like the head on the left better, for example, you are probably old-fashioned, wish you owned a Maserati, are a big fan of True Blood (even though you think some of the plotlines are a bit ridiculous), have trouble pronouncing the word "indefatigable" and supported the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War and the Sino-Japanese War. If you like the head on the right better, you're probably under 16 or over 27, like the look of fishnet stockings but don't like how they feel to the touch, believe the second Star Wars trilogy is better than people give it credit for, would kill for a good half-caf vanilla latte right about now and still believe - despite all available evidence - in the goodness of people. If you prefer the troll in the image on the right, get help. Now.
Now, There's Something I Bet You Won't See On The Walking Dead!
After a long day's shambling and moaning, a zombie deserves to relax with a glass of water, his cellphone and a couple of magic markers. Especially the moaning. A long day's moaning can really take it out of the undead!Don't Get Poutie,
But We're Outtie!
I don't resent
The fact I went.
Although rough, the way it was run,
I had lots of fun
At GenreCon one.
