August 2007 Archives

What's your process for picking your con schedule?

Whatever your method, DragonCon's pocket program is 92 pages of 6pt single spaced type. OK, the pages are half size, and there are the occasional graphics and paragraph breaks. But it is a substantial amount of programming.

There are 32 separate tracks of programming, ranging from American Sci-Fi Classics to Young Adult Literature. The Main track includes the opening and closing ceremonies, awards, robot wars, film premiers, various stargazing panels (not the astronomy type stars), and anything else of which there wasn't enough to make a track of its own.

Elysa is going to spend a lot of time at the film festival. I hope they will sell a DVD of what they have here. It's amazing. About 27 hours of material will be presented, ranging from animation to fan produced movies.

I'm going to be doing some gaming, and I plan to go to the science, space, and EFF tracks. Perhaps some others. Elysa and I will watch the parade together, and we've got tickets to the banquet. Besides that we may well end up experiencing two entirely different cons. It's been that way in the past. Later we can compare notes. It's like getting two conventions for the price of one.

Michael Stackpole has panels on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I hope to corner him on one of those occasions.

Those are the plans. Here's the execution.

Went to bed too late. Got up later than we intended to. Discovered that some ants have made their home in our rental car, so we made a detour to Publix to buy some ant spray. Off to Dunwoody, park, and catch the train. Elysa took along a pillow because last year the seating was uncomfortable. As we walked to the train I realized I didn't know where our badges were. We were already back to our car when I think to look in my lunch sack, and there they are.

Eventually we got to Peachtree Center. I somehow felt a sense of solidarity with all those other geeks who got off the train with us. The Peachtree Center Foodcourt was already crowded with con goers. Elysa went off to buy a lanyard for her badge, and I went to find gaming registration.

The trouble with a large convention is that you have to departmentalize, and departmentalization leads to compartmentalization. That means that I never actually met any con staff who knew what I was looking for until I found it. Ditto places to put the HorrorCon flyers and bookmarks. I eventually dropped small stacks of them here and there, and if I find tomorrow that some spots were not so good I'll move them around a bit when I have a moment.

I signed up for three gaming sessions on Sunday. There's too much else going on I don't want to miss.

I went to an art panel (digital coloring line drawings) and then to the art show where I ran into Jessica Douglass. We first looked at each other like "that person looks familiar but are they who I think they are?" and then gave a hug and Jessica introduced me to her dad.

Anyway, the art show consisted really of two parts. There were panels, of course, about twice as many as we manage to put up for CONduit (which should tell you all we have a very respectable art show in Salt Lake City), and sales tables where artists were selling their wares directly. One woman had about 10 panels of her art, and it was clear that she used herself as the model for all of the big eyed elfin creatures she painted, some in the altogether. She was sitting at her sales table wearing a very small bikini top, and for some reason a lot of people wanted to talk to her.

And I bought another teeshirt.

The crowds were insane. I took some video walking around the fan area where various music groups where selling CDs and people were showing off their costumes. (I had a link, but took it back out when I realized the video was mostly of the ceiling.) I took some pictures of the most remarkable ones. Not all of them are of nearly naked girls.

I went to see some anime (Death Note, a fairly good adaptation of the manga) and then I was going to see our Dr Stephen Howe talk on antimatter. Except no sooner am I on my way across the street to the Hilton (programming is spread over three adjacent hotels) than my phone gets a signal and I get a message from Elysa. I try to find her, but somehow managed to overlook her where she was watching the Asian independent films. After a while I gave up and went back to anime, since Dr Howe's panel was half over by then.

When I finally hear from Elysa again she is waiting for me at the Dairy Queen, pretty upset because the crowds at the Hyatt had literally pushed her into the street and she couldn't force her way back in. When I tried to make my way back up to the foodcourt I found the fire marshal had closed the Hyatt's lobby (too many people), so I went across the street to the Marriott, and from there to Peachtree Center.

Elysa and I decided we'd had enough for one day and went to catch the train. It turned out the Northsprings line was still running, but packed with people because both the Braves and the Jaguars or whatever they call the football team had finished their games. We jammed in there, found out the Braves had lost, and tried not to fall over in the crowd.

Tomorrow Elysa will leave the pillow behind, because the seating is comfortable enough without it.

As some of you may know, Labor Day weekend they hold DragonCon here in the City of the Braves. Attendance is somewhere in the vicinity of 50,000, or the equivalent of almost 100 CONduit conventions all at once. I plan to give you all a day-to-day account of events here. For now just imagine me trying to cope with several dozen streets all named Peachtree, and running every direction like a crazed spider's web. Our hotel is surrounded by three streets all named Northside Drive, and a couple named Powers Ferry Road. (In Salt Lake City you know most streets run east and west or north and south. The folks here in Atlanta must have decided that if the Yankees ever want to invade again, they'll first get hopelessly lost.)

So far we've visited the Coca Cola Museum which is apparently based on Dante. And we ate lunch at CNN Center, which Turner Broadcasting has turned into a sort of theme park for news. (Before that it used to be where H.R. Pufnstuf was produced.) It didn't make my Killian's Red go down any better. Later we took the tour. Lots of security. Senator Craig doing a tap dance on all of the monitors.

The Georgia Aquarium was probably the best thing we've seen here. We could have spent hours there. Just watching the whales swim around and look at us was worth the price of admission.

These three spots are all separated by the Olympic Park, where Richard Jewel spotted that bomb. Only 11 years later he's dead. The slander he suffered from because of his quick action has never been settled. Lesson learned: take care of your health if you're suing deep pockets.

We've been to the High Art Museum, which was OK. Annie Leibowitz had an exhibition of photos. I'm not sure what the noise is about. Call me a philistine. I was particularly impressed by the exhibition of Cecilia Beaux's work.

We've been to the Carter Center (which seemed dated) and to the Atlanta History Center (which had a large but superficial exhibit on Ben Franklin, and lots of Civil War stuff).

Our oldest son lives here, so we visited him and met his two stepsons. We took them to the Atlanta Botanical Garden where they behaved themselves very well. I was impressed by both of them.

Besides that we've found that Georgia drivers may rival Italians for aggressiveness and Jerseyites for cluelessness. We've eaten way too much, and we've taken a video of an honest to gosh UFO.

Today we went to the Peachtree Center to pick up our badges. After about an hour of standing in line we were let in and snaked through about a mile of queueing barrier. I kid you not when I tell you that one fellow who was waddling about as fast as he could (which was not fast) had to give up about halfway to the registration booths.  He was pale and we asked him if he was OK. He said he'd recover and told us to go on, but after standing for a couple of minutes to catch his breath he collapsed in a heap. People hurried to get him help. Congoing is not for the physically unfit.

Elysa and I collected our bag of free swag, bought a couple of teeshirts, and got back on Marta to return to Dunwoody where our car was parked. This will be our routine for the next few days. Get up early, drive to Perimeter Mall, park, and take the train to Peachtree Center. Late in the evening things get complicated. They run two lines north and south. The one runs from airport station to Northsprings station, which is the line we have to take. The other runs to Doraville station. After 9 pm the Northsprings line only runs south to Lindbergh station, so we'll have to change trains there on our way home.

I've got 200 copies of the World HorrorCon flyer, and 200 bookmarks printed on bright yellow cardstock. I'll bring them along tomorrow morning.

Right now I have to decide what I'm definitely not going to miss, and just how much gaming I'll do. Then it's time for bed.

(Reposted for John Ortiz)

Brandon Sanderson is one of the nominees for the Campbell award this year (he was also nominated last year), and we wish him luck!

Okay, so it's only $0.49. Still if you want a little more detail on the world of Elantris, (by Brandon Sanderson), this is a very inexpensive way to get some additional information beyond the content of the book. You can find it on Amazon.com, under The Hope of Elantris. It's a good little read.

I just received this from Carl Stark, the chair of Mountain-Con. Please help out the food bank by participating in this.

Greetings everyone

Please feel free to pass this onto any other mailing lists or message boards.

One of the best things about organized fandom is giving back to the community.  It could be the Browncoats organizing a screening for a charity, Toys-for-Tots collections from the Star Wars fans, the Star Trek clubs participating in the Adopt-a-Highway or more.  Here at Mountain-Con, we want to continue the charity events at the annual convention.  Starting with this year we've adopted a new charity to continue on an annual basis.

In today's (Sunday 8-19-07) Morning Deseret News, there was an article talking about how food supplies at the Utah Food Bank are running low. http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695202203,00.html

We are issuing a challenge to each club and fan.  Bring in a canned food item and get a discount at the convention.  Each club can set up a collection box and the club that brings in the most donations will win a trophy.  The trophy will then be brought back the next year for another food drive competition. 

As a fan, you can submit your donation to the club that impresses you the most.  Different clubs will have booths and room parties at the convention.

Let me know if you have any questions.  Looking forward to the convention.

Carl Stark, Convention Chair
Mountain-Con III, September 21-23, 2007
http://www.MountainCon.org

Thanks to Ken Rand for pointing these out as being missing in my original post. He wrote:

A collector's edition DVD of Serenity is being released August 21, 2007. New features included on this version include:

• Two discs
• AC-3, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitles, Widescreen
• Extended Scenes (6:45)
• Take A Walk on Serenity (4:00) Cast and Crew take us on a special tour of the Serenity space ship
• A Filmmaker's Journey (19:49) Take A Journey with Joss Whedon from script to the big screen
• The Green Clan (3:03) An expose on Cinematographer Jack Green and his team
• Sci-Fi Inside: Serenity (21:41) Hosted by Adam Baldwin, an in-depth look at the film that was resurrected from a cancelled television show, as well as its supportive culture.
• Session 416 (7:52) These internet pieces document a portion of River's participation in a psychological study and her interactions with her therapist.
• Feature Commentary with Director Joss Whedon and Cast Members Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, and Ron Glass

Complete rules and entry forms will be available shortly at the CONduit web site or you may request them from the fiction contest coordinator at conduitfiction@gmail.com.

Anime Banzai, Utah's first and only anime convention, is coming up August 31 - September 1, 2007. They currently have three main guests: Artbeat (a Japanese glam rock band), Michael Richard Dobson (a voice actor), and Ichidan (an anime-themed theatre troupe). They'll be at the Salt Lake City Centre Sheraton on 500 South in Salt Lake City.

Mountain-Con III is back with more sci-fi goodness September 21-23, 2007 at the University Park Marriott near the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. They have an emphasis on media-related topics, but also have authors, artists, events, and activities for most genre fans out there. Their current guest list includes actors Garrett Wang, David Prowse, BarBara Luna, Felix Silla, and Femi Taylor, and author Diana Pharaoh Francis.

Support our local fandom and come on out to these events.

This blog will be used for posting updated news and information regarding the local speculative fiction scene. Check back often for updates.