Its now the morning of Day 2 of Convergence 2005. and I am just a wee bit hung over.
Yesterday, after getting checked in and overcoming problems with the card key programming for the elevator so I can get to my room on the club level, I headed down to the con, picked up my badge, made a first pass through the dealers room, then went to the Friday panel I had planned to visit.
The panel, “Blogs as Literature” started off talking a bit about different blog sites, mostly Live Journal, which is popular amongst SF fans, then degenerated into blogs, the internet and politics. The winner of this round was Kevin Trainor, the lone Libertarian/Conservative type on the panel, the others being two liberals and one rabid left-wing nut whos idea of facts on the internet seems to be similar to Dan Rather and his National Guard memos. Kudos do go to Elizabeth Bear, one of those on the panel (not the left-wing nut) for getting the panel back on topic.
Evening party time was, well, a blast, with three party floors this year, and many of them top notch. The clan MacDude ranks bloomed with several new members with the addition of Jed, Rick, Corncob and Pro. Jed is a Minnesotan, Rick is from Chicago, but spends a lot of time out here and has a number of friends hear, including Jed and Elisa. Corncob and Pro are from Madison Wisconsin.
Fluffy MacDude and the World Defense force had the Bog up again, and I delivered up to fluffy a bottle of 12 year old MacAllen, which we promptly went through about half of the bottle.
Then there was the tribble sweat. I had filled my flask with Wild Tribble 101, which neer failed to get a reaction.
The IKV Rakehell was running its party room, with the groups standard drink of choice, supplemented by numerous other intoxicants, including (and most notably) a fine homebrew provided by Jed.
Corncob, Pro, and their group from Wisconsin were running one heckuva party, with loud Rock and Roll and dancing. Much fun was had until the party shutdown around 3 AM to the group of party goers singing along with American Bye.
After that, it was crash time.
I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the excellent staff of the Sheraton Bloomington, who are once again taking great care of all the crazies (myself included) and dealing with a weekend of non-stop mayhem. They are a darn good crew, and I think this is due to a lot more than the t-sirts the con gives them every year.
More later.
