Talkin' 'bout my generation (X)

By the time I got to the party after the Masquerade, the room was literally so crowded that there was no chance of squeezing a big guy like me into the space without blowing out the windows and defenstrating several of my fellow Luminaries.

But I gotta say, that party was a lot easier to be *near* than to be *in*. All of the actual conversation I got into occurred at the Making Light Standing Around Blocking The Hallway Party Annex.

(Which was, don't get me wrong, great. Thanks to the Party Annex Regulars for dragging me in. That being Bill Higgins and Avram, mostly, I think.)

(I'm trying to talk Keith into it for next year.)

Ah well, next year in Jerusalem Montreal!

Skwid, right back atcha. Great hanging with you, man! (No, you're D'Argo; I'm Crichton.)

Speaking of NomNomNom, someone (Tom B?) thought up a line which, slightly edited, I'm going to have put on a button at my next opportunity:

EVOLL CHOCOLATIER
I've read the NecroNomNomNomicon

Non-euclidean confections! Or should that be Nom-euclidean confections?

Me three, wish I'd been there.

Xopher, D'argo is definitely not how I would self-identify...but that was definitely some Con-Buddy-dom to repeat! I wonder if there's a decent Goth club in Montreal, too...

Speaking of, did you remember this comment on Sunday night?

And yesyes on the conbuddydom. Excellent time had by all. Both. Whatever!

I'm thinking, if we do that again next year in Montreal (and I'm seeing no reason why we shouldn't, really), we should publicize it and make it more of an event for many. Particularly in light of the thread on Tor, y'know?

I must admit I spent much of the party sitting against a handy wall with a dazed, goofy grin on my face. (Although this didn't stop me from getting to enjoy conversation with B. Durbin, Jon Singer, and Skwid--among others--and from waving madly across the room/playing air guitar at Elise.) Eventually I ran out of air and went home for more. On our way out on the sidewalk we ran into Xopher on his way in with his set of travel speakers. We got accosted by drunks who, seeing my little red ice chest, started demanding burritos. Xopher told them we were from the planet Xerps, and John and I played it up for all we were worth, and eventually the drunks found themselves totally outweirded.

Apparently Serge arrived sometime after that. We've spent a small series of emails bemoaning that fact and vowing not to miss each other in Montreal.

There appeared to be a sort of almost an after-party reunion at Teresa & Tom's panel Sunday morning. Yays! (Teresa, I haven't posted that picture anywhere yet, but I'm thinking of putting it on a belated Denver Metblogs post in which I taunt the rest of town for having missed the con.)

Anyone who missed the ginger chocolate thingies, btw, missed a miracle of the confectionery art.

(Others might want to avoid viewing tor.com for now; I don't know if just visiting the site can cause problems, but it pays to be careful.)

First drunks, then me.
It went downhill after that.

The white-shirted back with the long blond braid hanging down it would be John LeBoeuf-Little. In one of the shots he's in, you can just make out my neck (with chatelaine chain) and my hand (holding up a red plastic glass of mead) between his chin and the left edge of the photo.

I see Mac came by after I left for the night an' I MISSED her - darn the luck! darn! *hugs to Mac*

I recall seeing Charles Stross's T-shirt and absolutely loving it, but failing to recognize the person it was being worn by. Ditto Andrew Plotkin and his Hungry Grue (Is Hunnngreee) T-shirt.

Many, many thanks to Kathryn for setting this up. You Rawk!

*blush* Thanks!

To your anecdote about the drunks, I should add that I made every attempt to be polite to them, then every attempt to politely get rid of them, and only when they were persistent, rude, and persistently rude resorted to the Mundane Repellent.

He really has a knack for awkward timing.

Being very far away from it was pretty cool, too, though I spent a lot of time waving mutely rather than chatting...by the time Xopher and Nicole had run the gantlet, my chance to actually have a face to face conversation with Teresa had vanished. One day...

I am still amused by spotting Patrick in the back corner with his head bent down, wondering what he was doing, and suddenly hearing the *clunk* of my Google chat firing up from his Blackberry.

It was a real pleasure attending the party and chatting to the people I did. Kathryn is owed at least 1,000 kudos for setting it up.

I was proud to have been in the room when that was uttered.

and lovely chocs, by the way.
and lovely grapes, grape tomatoes, and fancy chips.

and Nicole -- you live here?

No, she lives on a space ship with her brother and an ill-assorted crew, skirting in and out of legal trading as they travel from settlement to settlement, searching for freedom.

She's much nicer than she comes across in the series. But she can still kill you with her brain.

It's strange being an extrovert with claustrophobia - I love people but can only handle them in small groups. So sorry I missed seeing Serge at the party, but happy to have seen him in passing a couple of times around the convention center.

Not that I've ever had to clean that kind of mess up or anything. Never.

Of course, they still ought to make sure that nothing nasty got hidden on the site…

Xopher, #12, that'll be a great button!

But I think I like Serge and abi's version better.

So I take it you're a local too? We really need to have that Farmer's Market meetup!

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/msg/bf9d7078e32dcc3a

("It is very dark inside this bear, and you are likely to be eaten... re-eaten... never mind.")

I mopped some dinosaurs, too, if that's okay....

According to the Hayes Directive, that was ok, as long as one of the people involved had one foot touching the ground.

Ahem.

Signed,

Missing out on TCM's Summer Under the Stars, because of foolish real-life commitments, like that there Worldcon thingy.

PNH has to reinstall it, though, because apparently the comments are still there and he wants to marry the post and the comments. So it might be a day or two. No biggie.

I have like three other things I want to post and No Time to Write.

Feh.

Kind of like this?

The working jpg is not in faked button mode.

(Sometimes the "proper application" involves 1-kg blocks at 0.9c, of course.)

Fragano: That would be up to Charlie, wouldn't it? I wouldn't object though.

Speaking of buttons, my many thanks to Lee for being the provider of the party's lightbulb badges.

There are a lot of WMBENs who look like you—in Phil Foglio art. In what we laughingly call the Real World, you're fairly distinctive among WMBENs, IME.

By the way, Bill is awesome at giving scientific demonstrations using balloons and empty water bottles.

*sigh*

In other news (from the Hugo awards pictures), whoever Mary Robinette Kowal is, she has AMAZING taste in golden gowns. *sigh*

By the way, Bill is awesome at giving scientific demonstrations using balloons and empty water bottles.

What's more, I was making ice cream with liquid nitrogen before it was cool. Wait-- that doesn't sound right...

Perhaps it's the saying "More hair than wit"?[0]

[0] ... which in his case would clearly suggest an exuberant head of hair

Do you understand what I'm telling you? The lurkers support me at WorldCon. Bwahahah!

Seriously, I was amazed and delighted by this. I tend to inwardly assume, even though I actually know better, that the only people reading these comment threads are the ones who post. Dumb, especially considering how much I've read when I have nothing in particular to say.

I had a very happy WorldCon, all things considered.

Two and another fortnights past,
Dominion day, voweltakers spoke.
Abi in seaground asked party Skypped?
Then the towerfolk, festive powered.

Helpwork handled, locals leading,
Foodbeds brought by road and rainhome
Simple sleephut turned to Tardis,
Meadroom, feasthall, lemon's end.

------------------------------

Thanks to the co-makers of the party: Bill, Cynthia, Lance, Madeline F., Nicole, Serge, Tania, Tom, Xopher
(he who gifted godstree seeds),
Geri S--for that timely question,
the person who I'm sure I'm forgetting in this comment,
Jo, for leaving the breakfast chocolate,
Tim Walters, who single-maltedly kept the libations revolution going,

and an extra thanks to Carol Kimball: she drove us us to drink (and to food) supplies. She kept the Too-Much-Food (which happened even after taking into account that one always buys too much food) from becoming Way, Way Too Much Food*. She made the lemonade, ginger syrup, and wall-sized disemvoweller. She stayed to the end, helping to turn the room back into a pumpkin.

And to Brad, who took the ever-changing definition of "a get-together" in stride.

-------------

* another thanks to Geri S. (& Reno in 2011) for integrating the remains of the party into their own, down to the 10 pithy lemons.

I took all of one photo at the party, but at least I made it count.

Next WorldCon will be a little easier for me to get to parties and such, because that will be 2011 for me and I shouldn't have too small of a fry to cope with.