Swancon 2010 report part II: Sunday-Monday
Apr. 5th, 2010 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgSee part 1
Swancon 2010 Sunday was all about surviving until our (relatively) late night Star Trek panel, so it was spent mostly quietly in my room trying to scrape up the will to live.
Sunday
I laugh in the face of communal morning exercise, I'm not interested in author readings, and I'm not a fan or even familiar with Girl Genius, so the decision to skip the 9:30AM sessions was pretty easy.
Panel: Future War. I was hoping this would be a bit more tech-oriented; I get my fill of ordinary cyber-terrorism from ACS meetings. Apologies to the panellists for arriving late, scurrying to the front row, stretching on the carpet, then slithering away. I limped back to my room to work on my collapse technique.
Panel: Avatar. Missed it. Totally wanted to go to it, but was incapable of movement.
Outing: Just kidding. Stayed in my room flat on my face. Tried to identify the origin of a multitude of tiny stains on the bedlinen. Wondered why anyone would imagine that white would be a good idea for hotel manchester. Admired the purple feature wall. Cursed the musak speaker right outside my door.
Panel: Sue and Gina's Excellent (Fantasy) Adventure. Much fun deconstruction of fantasy tropes based on a faux travel guide by Diana Wynn-Jones. Audience members got to volunteer to be standard party member characters. I'm not sure why I was instantly attracted to the position of Unpleasant Stranger, but there you go.
Presentation: Inside the SF B-movie. A clip show of screaming women and rubber monster shots from the US film industry 50's to the 00's. The presenter was remarkably calm for the several minutes it took to get the projector working, considering that the whole event was dependent on the viewing of clips. Pleasant way to pass the time, but a little disturbing to find out how much movie lore I've picked up from Husband over the years. Must chase up the Ray Harryhausen cowboys versus dinosaurs movie. I bet we've got it here somewhere...
Most startling moment: comment from GenY audient on seeing the trailer for Creature From The Black Lagoon (3D): "Wow. They had 3D back then?"
Just when did I get old enough to pass from being aware that Young Persons were different, to being frankly astonished at the gaps in their knowledge or experience? At the Masquerade I was utterly unprepared to explain what motion capture was and how it worked, because surely, anyone there would know...? A useful slap-in-the-face lesson for me in the gaps in my own perception of the world, even though I believe that I'm reasonably aware of the dangers of assumption. I assumed incorrectly it would seem. There is no spoon.
Educational things, Swancons.
Event: Swancon 2011 launch. I could have done without being slowly herded from space to space without the benefit of chairs, although I appreciate that the logistics involved in room setup made it necessary to delay the crowd a bit. But it was the third time at the con I'd been pushed into an empty noisy room and told to stand around and have fun. Am very excited about next year's bold attempt to scale and level up. The blue champagne looked pretty too, albeit lethal in multiple and exciting ways.
Apologies to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
logansrogue for my who-the-hell-are-you? expression when you came up to say hello, but you did kind of explode out of my blind spot and go straight for the hug :-) . I probably would have identified you eventually, but I find life is much simpler if I confess to not recognising people straight away if that is the case. Plus, crazy tired. You looked fab BTW. Sparkly FTW.
Scariest conversational moment of the evening:
"Are you the Steph that won the Iron Brain competition?"
"Yes. Where you there?"
"No."
Oh.
Event: Awards Ceremony. I wanted to go to this for many reasons, including the fact that I was nominated (albeit by myself *cringe*) for two awards. I'd also nominated other people in various categories and wanted to see if they'd won, and it's always nice to see the Mumfan award make the recipient cry. After about 10 minutes of waiting for the AV to be wrangled I realised I'd have to sacrifice the rest of the hour to rest up just a bit more for...
Panel I Was On: Star Trek Chit Chat. An intimate discussion (which I'd half hoped might have turned into a spirited shouting match) of the merits of the 2009 Star Trek movie vis-a-vis TOS and TOS canon in general. I was honestly curious to find out how much it *really* mattered that Vulcan was destroyed. I think we peaked at about a dozen people, but there were enough active participants (thank you!) to keep the silence at bay for an hour, and then some... HUGE thanks to Husband who took the ball and ran with it in surprising and helpful ways and kept things kicking along.
Spent a while with Husband winding down and trying to figure out my schedule for Monday and subsequent pickup. In my knackered state I knew I couldn't possibly last until the end of the closing ceremony. I liked Cloning at 2:30PM, but instinct said no. I kept looking at the Science in SF panel at 1:30pm that I was moderating and just knew I couldn't do it. Then I looked at the morning program and was interested, but not interested enough to push myself beyond reason... I couldn't think. In the end I assumed I'd have a decent sleep in and make a decision in mid-late morning. Husband away, to await the morrow's pleasure.
I alerted the authorities and my alternate moderator that I almost certainly wouldn't be at the scheduled panel the following afternoon. We'd prepared for this very eventuality, so while the decision was a little bitter, I didn't feel too much angst. I've heard one tweet from a trusted source that the panel went well, so I'm pleased about that. I can live with the missed opportunity to look clever in front of/boss around the GoH.
Party: 2012 Doomcon launch bid. I couldn't just go to sleep straight away, so made it as far as the threshold, which I counted as "making an appearance". Wow, that was loud, but looked good as these things go. Congrats to the team and I look forward to the next two years of development.
Staggered back to room. I think I ate (my version of) chocolate, packed a bit, then crashed.
Monday
I woke surprisingly early. Having discovered that the morning panel in which I was most interested had been cancelled, I decided to escape before the 10AM stampede because really, I had nothing left in the tank and there's only so many times I can rollercoaster in one long weekend. Time. To. Stop. In hindsight I'm surprised at how much I did manage to get done in the first couple of days.
So home, to do laundry and eat. I'm in surprisingly good shape at this point--which is nice--but I shall have to be gentle on myself for a couple of days. Let my ears rest.
General impressions, lessons learned and additional forgotten details to follow, no doubt. I hesitate to officially close the reporting period, because that would signal the start of After Swancon and the pressures of deferred life administrivia. I remain in the Post Swancon glow/haze for now.
Thank you all.
Swancon 2010 Sunday was all about surviving until our (relatively) late night Star Trek panel, so it was spent mostly quietly in my room trying to scrape up the will to live.
Sunday
I laugh in the face of communal morning exercise, I'm not interested in author readings, and I'm not a fan or even familiar with Girl Genius, so the decision to skip the 9:30AM sessions was pretty easy.
Panel: Future War. I was hoping this would be a bit more tech-oriented; I get my fill of ordinary cyber-terrorism from ACS meetings. Apologies to the panellists for arriving late, scurrying to the front row, stretching on the carpet, then slithering away. I limped back to my room to work on my collapse technique.
Panel: Avatar. Missed it. Totally wanted to go to it, but was incapable of movement.
Outing: Just kidding. Stayed in my room flat on my face. Tried to identify the origin of a multitude of tiny stains on the bedlinen. Wondered why anyone would imagine that white would be a good idea for hotel manchester. Admired the purple feature wall. Cursed the musak speaker right outside my door.
Panel: Sue and Gina's Excellent (Fantasy) Adventure. Much fun deconstruction of fantasy tropes based on a faux travel guide by Diana Wynn-Jones. Audience members got to volunteer to be standard party member characters. I'm not sure why I was instantly attracted to the position of Unpleasant Stranger, but there you go.
Presentation: Inside the SF B-movie. A clip show of screaming women and rubber monster shots from the US film industry 50's to the 00's. The presenter was remarkably calm for the several minutes it took to get the projector working, considering that the whole event was dependent on the viewing of clips. Pleasant way to pass the time, but a little disturbing to find out how much movie lore I've picked up from Husband over the years. Must chase up the Ray Harryhausen cowboys versus dinosaurs movie. I bet we've got it here somewhere...
Most startling moment: comment from GenY audient on seeing the trailer for Creature From The Black Lagoon (3D): "Wow. They had 3D back then?"
Just when did I get old enough to pass from being aware that Young Persons were different, to being frankly astonished at the gaps in their knowledge or experience? At the Masquerade I was utterly unprepared to explain what motion capture was and how it worked, because surely, anyone there would know...? A useful slap-in-the-face lesson for me in the gaps in my own perception of the world, even though I believe that I'm reasonably aware of the dangers of assumption. I assumed incorrectly it would seem. There is no spoon.
Educational things, Swancons.
Event: Swancon 2011 launch. I could have done without being slowly herded from space to space without the benefit of chairs, although I appreciate that the logistics involved in room setup made it necessary to delay the crowd a bit. But it was the third time at the con I'd been pushed into an empty noisy room and told to stand around and have fun. Am very excited about next year's bold attempt to scale and level up. The blue champagne looked pretty too, albeit lethal in multiple and exciting ways.
Apologies to
logansrogue for my who-the-hell-are-you? expression when you came up to say hello, but you did kind of explode out of my blind spot and go straight for the hug :-) . I probably would have identified you eventually, but I find life is much simpler if I confess to not recognising people straight away if that is the case. Plus, crazy tired. You looked fab BTW. Sparkly FTW.Scariest conversational moment of the evening:
"Are you the Steph that won the Iron Brain competition?"
"Yes. Where you there?"
"No."
Oh.
Event: Awards Ceremony. I wanted to go to this for many reasons, including the fact that I was nominated (albeit by myself *cringe*) for two awards. I'd also nominated other people in various categories and wanted to see if they'd won, and it's always nice to see the Mumfan award make the recipient cry. After about 10 minutes of waiting for the AV to be wrangled I realised I'd have to sacrifice the rest of the hour to rest up just a bit more for...
Panel I Was On: Star Trek Chit Chat. An intimate discussion (which I'd half hoped might have turned into a spirited shouting match) of the merits of the 2009 Star Trek movie vis-a-vis TOS and TOS canon in general. I was honestly curious to find out how much it *really* mattered that Vulcan was destroyed. I think we peaked at about a dozen people, but there were enough active participants (thank you!) to keep the silence at bay for an hour, and then some... HUGE thanks to Husband who took the ball and ran with it in surprising and helpful ways and kept things kicking along.
Spent a while with Husband winding down and trying to figure out my schedule for Monday and subsequent pickup. In my knackered state I knew I couldn't possibly last until the end of the closing ceremony. I liked Cloning at 2:30PM, but instinct said no. I kept looking at the Science in SF panel at 1:30pm that I was moderating and just knew I couldn't do it. Then I looked at the morning program and was interested, but not interested enough to push myself beyond reason... I couldn't think. In the end I assumed I'd have a decent sleep in and make a decision in mid-late morning. Husband away, to await the morrow's pleasure.
I alerted the authorities and my alternate moderator that I almost certainly wouldn't be at the scheduled panel the following afternoon. We'd prepared for this very eventuality, so while the decision was a little bitter, I didn't feel too much angst. I've heard one tweet from a trusted source that the panel went well, so I'm pleased about that. I can live with the missed opportunity to look clever in front of/boss around the GoH.
Party: 2012 Doomcon launch bid. I couldn't just go to sleep straight away, so made it as far as the threshold, which I counted as "making an appearance". Wow, that was loud, but looked good as these things go. Congrats to the team and I look forward to the next two years of development.
Staggered back to room. I think I ate (my version of) chocolate, packed a bit, then crashed.
Monday
I woke surprisingly early. Having discovered that the morning panel in which I was most interested had been cancelled, I decided to escape before the 10AM stampede because really, I had nothing left in the tank and there's only so many times I can rollercoaster in one long weekend. Time. To. Stop. In hindsight I'm surprised at how much I did manage to get done in the first couple of days.
So home, to do laundry and eat. I'm in surprisingly good shape at this point--which is nice--but I shall have to be gentle on myself for a couple of days. Let my ears rest.
General impressions, lessons learned and additional forgotten details to follow, no doubt. I hesitate to officially close the reporting period, because that would signal the start of After Swancon and the pressures of deferred life administrivia. I remain in the Post Swancon glow/haze for now.
Thank you all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-06 12:57 am (UTC)Treasurers represent!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-06 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 08:28 pm (UTC)In the words of my cousin who worked in hotel management for many years after being asked the same question...
"Because we can bleach the **** out of it!"
no subject
Date: 2010-04-06 02:31 am (UTC)and you wouldn't have seen that, even if you did turn up - Nikki was very stoic, even though it was obvious from about the second sentence who was being discussed, and she had to sit through the effusive praise from the presenter.