The second day of BayCon 2006 has ended and it is now time to prepare for day 3.
Some of the action on Saturday.
Trivia for Chocolate was a moderately attended game event where the trivia master awarded chocolate to the first person to get the correct answer. The questions ranged from print, comics, movies and TV, and included questions on pen names, matching planets to authors or books, Hugo winners, characters as well as books/authors who inspired films. It was a lot of fun, and I managed to score a nice pile of chocolates that Sue confiscated. Okay, I did manage to get to eat SOME of my rewards.
Next on the list of panels was the Cassini Update, presented by Bridget Landry, who is part of the JPL’s Cassini Project team. The presentation included images and video, as well as a sound clip of Cassini-Huygens passing through the outer rings of Saturn.
Cassini has provided huge amounts of data to the scientific community on Saturn planetary neighborhood. This included some details on Titan’s dense atmosphere, and Iapetus’ strange “belly band,” a ridge that runs along the equator just as if it were a rubber ball stamped “Made in China.” Cool images.
Bridget will be making this presentation at Convergence in Minnesota this summer, where she will be the Science Guest of Honor.
After Cassini, it was time to head over to the bar where we were having a gathering of Klingons and the new babies (both sets of Hansens). This evolved into a fairly large party and central gathering place for a dinner run. I met the Klingons of the IKV Blackdragon, a relatively new ship in the Ring of Fire Fleet, led by a fairly hoopy frood.
After dinner, I wen out to the truck and changed into my leine and Klingon headpiece, then rendezvoused with Sue and Anna to line up for the Masquerade.
The Masquerade is a bit of a disappointment for me. It was supposed to begin at 8PM, however, they didn’t even begin to let people in until after 8:30. Although there was a false emergency alarm, even that took place AFTER 8 PM. Not sure what the problem was, however, it was not making people very happy. It was after 9 before they started the Masquerade, but first, we got a dull speech from the MC on toastmastering, with some inappropriate political jokes. Hint: not everyone thinks the same as you politically, unless you are at a MoveOn rally.
The number of entries were small, however, there were some very imaginative and creative costumes, from Sailor Ballon, which was made up of ballons, to the San Jose Sharks Quidditch team, and Qui-Gon and Darth Maul done Lego style.
While the judges went off to deliberate, Stephne furst held the floor and ran a silm short that he recently made called Game Day. This film is not my cup of tea, not so much because of the violence and profanity, but that the bad guys aren’t caught. One of them wins. Bad message. Furst then answered a number of questions about his career. When someone asked about his favorite role, a muttered whole wheat, a few people heard, snickered, and Sue called out “Whole Wheat.” Furst paused, muttered back whole wheat questioningly, thought about it, then realized it was meant as whole wheat rolls. This did get a lot of laughs. He also auctioned off a script from Animal House which he would autograph. It went for somewhere around $350.
After this, it was party time. We made our way, with Anna sleeping in her stroller up to the party floor, and joined the Klingons for fun and games. There were a number of very good parties, including: Mara’s Bar, the Feddies next door, Bridget’s party serving up samples from the Venus Drug Company (think Mudd’s Women), and the Tiki Room.
As we were heading out, we ran into Pete and Mary, fully “Klin’ed” up, and indoctrinated Pete into the Clan MacDude. After that, it was time to head back to the house, and take care of the “Little One.”
More tomorrow, when I report on day 3.
