logomancer | Technicon. Word.

This Weekend, I was at Technicon, the sci-fi convention put on by VTSFFC every year.

On Friday, I started my day waking up and getting a call from the Red Bull distributor in Roanoke -- not our usual contact, but the person who apparently handle people like us now -- who was interested in sending some people over to the con to distribute Red Bull. I was glad to hear that, as I had all but given up on the Red Bull people, them not having responded for the past week. Anyway, Ed was happy, and so I would be later on.

I arrived at the hotel at about 14:30, owing to the buses being wonky. I stood in line and eventually got my badge. It was the time standing in line that I was exposed to Red Bull for the first time. "Red Bull: with Taurine!" "What's Taurine?" I asked. One of the others in line said, "It's an amino." It isn't. But that's not important.

After getting my badge and my gear stowed, I then worked Ops for a few hours. Nothing of any note happened. At 17:30, I was scheduled to run a game of One False Step in Spiel, so I got someone to take over for me and left for the Spiel room. Nobody showed up to play in the half-hour I waited, so I went and got dinner -- chicken and pasta. The chicken was a bit dry from renuking it, but otherwise it was good. And it kept me going -- I didn't want a repeat of last year's scenario.

Having fed myself, I went back to the Spiel room for more games. I played was Falling, a Cheapass card game that I haven't played since I was in the 8th grade. After a game or two of that, I went to the Polyamory panel, where Shen, Sean, and Janna discussed with us the benefits and consequences of a polyamorous relationship. The biggest thing they got across was that the complexity of a relationship is equal to the square of the number of people in it. I'm not sure whether or not I could be polyamorous. I haven't really been in a monoamorous relationship, so it's hard to gauge how comfortable I'd be with the idea of being in a relationship with more than one person.

After the Polyamory panel, I rambled around for a bit, then went to the midnight Werewolf game. In the first game, I was one of the werewolves. nixve was the other one, and, to be fair, much better at it than I was. My obviously erratic behavior got my ass lynched within three rounds. She held out a bit longer, making it until the round before she was to win. We played another game, where jazzfish and jay were werewolves. jay was lynched within two rounds. Tucker held out for a few rounds longer. After that, we called it a night. I got home around 3:30, but didn't get to bed until 4:15 due to email and Internet catch-up.

The next day, I woke up around 8-ish, and got my costume and stuff together to prepare to get on the bus at 8:45. It didn't occur to me until I made it to the bus stop that I didn't know if a bus came around at 8:45. Turned out it came at :15 every hour until 10:00. So I wandered around Burruss, costume in hand, waiting for the bus while a tour group made their way around campus. When I got to the con, I hit the dealers room, where I bought three books for $3 that I wanted -- Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold (I like the Vorkosigan series; plus, Bujold is supposed to be coming to next year's TCon and I want to be familiar with her works), Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear (to complete another book I bought earlier, Darwin's Children), and The Truth by Terry Pratchett (whose work is hilarious).

I then went to the Spiel room, where I ended up playing Nanofictionary. My brain didn't want to create interesting stories yet, so I ended up in last place. Then, I was reminded that Ruthann was DMing a DND campaign. I hadn't played DND in a while, so I decided to go.

It took a great deal longer than I anticipated, primarily owing to the need of getting a character set up (I made up a human sorceror), and having no character sheets with which to streamline this process. The campaign itself was a crawl through an ancient temple, with Driders as the primary bosses -- at least for the first bit; it took so long that the need to prepare for the Masquerade forced us to hold off on the DND session until after the Masquerade. I didn't go back -- it wasn't very fun for me compared to the things I could have been doing.

The other players were generally hostile towards me. Ruthann later told me that the other players and her were annoyed at me taking so long to decide on my action. Now, I haven't role-played very often. This was, in fact, my second DND game. I don't know the PHB cover-to-cover, so it's only natural that I should take a minute to consider my course of action. When I do know what I want to do, the actions of the other players forced me to reconsider my action. Plus, there was little actual room for role-playing, so I, being a fairly underpowered sorcerer, wasn't really allowed to do much except follow everyone else's lead. So, it wasn't very much fun.

I got dinner, put on my costume -- an Imperial officer's uniform -- and went to the Masquerade area, where the con's Main Programming was to be. It went spectacularly. I particularly liked the "Gnome Liberation Front" (and the "Gnome Liberation Back") characters in the scene. In the Masquerade competition, I won the "May Lord Vader Promote You to Admiral" award -- never mind that I dressed up as an Admiral. nviiibrown and tigerofthewind won Best of Show for their Sockbaby impression. I don't know if I should bother doing a costume for next year -- there's too much competition for medieval garb. I'd wear the costume again, though, but I need to get Mom to fix the hat brim -- she sewed it on crooked, and I didn't notice until the con.

After Main Programming came the dance. It would've been good if the DJ put on music that one could dance to. That said, he did put on good music to listen to. I kinda ventured in and out. I got kinda depressed, mainly because I looked stupid out on the dance floor, and I wasn't having a good time. I knew few people there, so I couldn't really dance with them. So I left at about 1 to see what else was going on. Shen and Dawn and Phred were sitting on the couch. Dawn was giving Phred a foot massage, and he was moaning orgasmically.

That was on my way to Con Suite, where I found Ruthann. I kept her company for a bit, while she told me of her DND exploits. Eventually, she told me that I didn't have to keep her company, so I went to the Fest Halle, where video gaming was in progress. I tried playing some DDR, but it was getting much too late for that. Besides, Adam, Janna, and two other people whose names I don't know (I know one of them was the Not-Amira Belly Dancer) came in to play Karaoke Revolution. The game itself was OK (though the mic provided with the game isn't really suitable for playing). Adam singing was not fun, but I endured it. The Belly Dancer has a good voice, I discovered. Around 5:30 or so, I went to sleep in the Staff Crash room.

I woke up at about 11:30 or so on Sunday. I arrived back on the con side of the hotel in time for lunch. There wasn't much left that I could see. I made my way to the dealers room, where I bought a bookmark and a mini-portfolio from Heather Bruton and Michelle Light (respectively). I was going to commission a con badge, but I wasn't sure what I wanted on it.

Then White Elephant started, and I made my way down there. I got a few things, including a Japanese con poster with some nice artwork. There were several other pieces of art I wanted to bid on, but others outbid me, and so they went with them. I bid fairly conservatively, as I was on a budget and I didn't want to break the bank.

I did, however, get some other things -- a cellular phone, some full-isolation headphones, and a bigger laptop case. I was excited about some of this stuff until I found out that the cellular phone was an old analog Motorola MicroTAC, and the headphones were mono. The laptop case, however, I can say, was worth it, if for no other reason than the fact that I can carry my laptop accessories without worrying about overstuffing the bag. All in all, only $3 wasted.

There's really not much else to tell. Cleanup was soon after the auction, which ran over because there was too much stuff to auction off. I headed with zerblinitzky to India Garden, where TCon traditionally has their "evening after" dinner. Not being very adventurous and wanting to save cash, I only got bread and some Indian-breaded chicken tenders. Methinks India Garden's overpriced.

Some amusing quotes:

"The Red Menace has been washed down the toilet" -- matthiasrat

(More here as I remember them -- or feel free to post them yourselves!)

And there it is. I didn't take many pictures this year, so I'll only post a few of the good ones. I'll also, at some point, post on how I got together my Imperial Officer costume, including where to find the accessories. Comparing this con to last year, I probably would have enjoyed last year more than this year, had I not had con crud last year. I did have fun this year, though not as much as I hoped. I do want to thank nius for putting this whole con together, vond for making the con run smoothly, and vt_komainu, nviiibrown, brenderlin, mephox, matthiasrat, ypawtows, epawtows, dpawtows, kirigoemimarin, cxi162, and all the others that helped make Technicon function. Here's hoping that next year will be better.