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About 2:45am this morning I was chatting to the Vice Chair of Chicon, as you do, and wondering what the hell it would be like to go to a convention where you actually intend to go to the con rather than basically working a lopsided 12 hour day. This was a strange piece of circular fandom for me. Wayyyyyy back at Anticipation in Montreal I heard that James Bacon and others were organizing a party and I popped over to offer a small cash donation to the cause. James thanked me profusely and asked if I wouldn't mind hanging around 'for a bit' and 'helping' with the bar set up.... 9 hours later I staggered out in the dawn realising two things. I was knackered and that that had been a stealth bid party for the next British Worldcon. Two year later at Renovation, we were a bid and, again, I dragged myself down to Reno to help with 2 frantic nights of parties - my Pimm's were reaching, I am told legendary status among American fans.
Chicon was to be the end of this three bid cycle of excess Pimms and Lager and I really wanted to go. Due to work and the vague nature of start up cashflow, it was touch and go if I could get there. Fate stepped in and on a bright Thursday morning in late August I headed to Chicago to end the story and get some closure.
Let's start with the good stuff: I liked the Con. I met a lot of new people and had some excellent chats. Shout outs to Kari Spelling and Phil for a nice chat over a couple of beers on Sunday afternoon. Good to have Chicago Deep Pan Pizza with Chris Gerrib. Nice to finally speak to Jay Lake. Good to catch up with Stephen Laws and the most execellent party crew: Kim, Alissa, Tammy, Leah, and Hillary the cake wizzard. Special shouts to the batshit insanity of Barfleet who made our parties look dull, and also The Ankh-Morpork Seamstresses Guild and the George RR Martin fan group for the Blue Stuff that Helen and I were toasting with most of Saturday night until I had to sleep. The dealers room was perhaps a little too interesting. The writers were present and just wandering around. I got to thank Bob Silverberg for the adventures he'd taken me on and put a face to Jack McDivett when were in line next to each other.
The bad: Programming was just plain odd. There were some strange room choices. For any con runers out there - putting media SF related programming in rooms with 40 seats IS A BAD IDEA. There were lots of near duplications in the program i.e. they looked like duplications but were infact the same topic but with a slightly different slant and different people. People were scheduled back to back. The hotel itself had programming all over the place, and a weird internal layout not quite but almost as bad as the Raddisson non-Euclidian at Heathrow.
The biological: I got a frantic phone call on Friday afternoon that Tyson had had chronic diarrhea, and was vomiting things up. These are not unusal for a dog. What was unusual was that he wasn't eating. M took him to the Vet who took X-rays and sent him home with some anti-nausea meds, which didn't work, late Friday afternoon she had to get him to the Animal Hospital. Meanwhile, I am halfway across the country at a convention during a holiday weekend with limited travel home options... They did bloods and more and determined that he had a blockage that was slowly working its way through his gut, gave us more meds and instructions. He seems to be better, but dealling with a very sick dog from that far away was a strain.
Other thoughts:
- The hotel bar was fine, but they needed to open before 4pm. There were maurading packs of British fans seeking liquids and having them tantilizingly close was dreadful.
- I missed much of the con due to the 3 parties I was working on. The set up of the AV stuff for the excellent promo videos and the vast industrial quanities of booze we were drinking took significant time and the parties themselves were insanely busy
- I am older than I used to be and staying up drinking/partying/chatting until 4:30am takes significantly more out of me than it used to... I probably needed more recovery time and I didn't have it
- The London in 2014/Loncon Suite was absolutely f'ing nuts. Seriously batshit crazy.
- Kudos to James and the team for the Bid and looking forward I fully expect Alice and Steve to run an awesome convention and predict that Loncon 3 will the largest non-US worldcon in history
- Watching Assylum of the Daleks with the cream of British Fandom on Saturday night in the suite: best way to do it
It was all great fun. But by 4:30am this morning I was badly damaged. I had an upset stomach, probably a combination of too many 'interesting' samplers I was given of different drinks rather than drinking too much. And FAR too little sleep for too many days. Kim drapped a blanket over me and stuck a pillow under my head on the sofa at about 4:45am and that's how I remained, lulled by the chainsaw like buzz of James Bacon's snoring until 8:30am when I awoke and realised we still had some cleaning up to do and I needed to pack.
I'm sitting out next year. I need a break and I want my next worldcon to be London.
I will comment on the App. But I will comment on that in a Friends Locked Post were I can GO FUCKING NUTS ABOUT STUPID PEOPLE FROM STUPID LAND
Chicon was to be the end of this three bid cycle of excess Pimms and Lager and I really wanted to go. Due to work and the vague nature of start up cashflow, it was touch and go if I could get there. Fate stepped in and on a bright Thursday morning in late August I headed to Chicago to end the story and get some closure.
Let's start with the good stuff: I liked the Con. I met a lot of new people and had some excellent chats. Shout outs to Kari Spelling and Phil for a nice chat over a couple of beers on Sunday afternoon. Good to have Chicago Deep Pan Pizza with Chris Gerrib. Nice to finally speak to Jay Lake. Good to catch up with Stephen Laws and the most execellent party crew: Kim, Alissa, Tammy, Leah, and Hillary the cake wizzard. Special shouts to the batshit insanity of Barfleet who made our parties look dull, and also The Ankh-Morpork Seamstresses Guild and the George RR Martin fan group for the Blue Stuff that Helen and I were toasting with most of Saturday night until I had to sleep. The dealers room was perhaps a little too interesting. The writers were present and just wandering around. I got to thank Bob Silverberg for the adventures he'd taken me on and put a face to Jack McDivett when were in line next to each other.
The bad: Programming was just plain odd. There were some strange room choices. For any con runers out there - putting media SF related programming in rooms with 40 seats IS A BAD IDEA. There were lots of near duplications in the program i.e. they looked like duplications but were infact the same topic but with a slightly different slant and different people. People were scheduled back to back. The hotel itself had programming all over the place, and a weird internal layout not quite but almost as bad as the Raddisson non-Euclidian at Heathrow.
The biological: I got a frantic phone call on Friday afternoon that Tyson had had chronic diarrhea, and was vomiting things up. These are not unusal for a dog. What was unusual was that he wasn't eating. M took him to the Vet who took X-rays and sent him home with some anti-nausea meds, which didn't work, late Friday afternoon she had to get him to the Animal Hospital. Meanwhile, I am halfway across the country at a convention during a holiday weekend with limited travel home options... They did bloods and more and determined that he had a blockage that was slowly working its way through his gut, gave us more meds and instructions. He seems to be better, but dealling with a very sick dog from that far away was a strain.
Other thoughts:
- The hotel bar was fine, but they needed to open before 4pm. There were maurading packs of British fans seeking liquids and having them tantilizingly close was dreadful.
- I missed much of the con due to the 3 parties I was working on. The set up of the AV stuff for the excellent promo videos and the vast industrial quanities of booze we were drinking took significant time and the parties themselves were insanely busy
- I am older than I used to be and staying up drinking/partying/chatting until 4:30am takes significantly more out of me than it used to... I probably needed more recovery time and I didn't have it
- The London in 2014/Loncon Suite was absolutely f'ing nuts. Seriously batshit crazy.
- Kudos to James and the team for the Bid and looking forward I fully expect Alice and Steve to run an awesome convention and predict that Loncon 3 will the largest non-US worldcon in history
- Watching Assylum of the Daleks with the cream of British Fandom on Saturday night in the suite: best way to do it
It was all great fun. But by 4:30am this morning I was badly damaged. I had an upset stomach, probably a combination of too many 'interesting' samplers I was given of different drinks rather than drinking too much. And FAR too little sleep for too many days. Kim drapped a blanket over me and stuck a pillow under my head on the sofa at about 4:45am and that's how I remained, lulled by the chainsaw like buzz of James Bacon's snoring until 8:30am when I awoke and realised we still had some cleaning up to do and I needed to pack.
I'm sitting out next year. I need a break and I want my next worldcon to be London.
I will comment on the App. But I will comment on that in a Friends Locked Post were I can GO FUCKING NUTS ABOUT STUPID PEOPLE FROM STUPID LAND
