Readercon 18, preliminary report

[ckd]

This is not a full writeup by any means, and is not organized in any particularly useful manner. Think of it as an Impressionist painting, or something, I don't know. I'm tired. There are also no panel writeups in here.

Those will be coming; I have my notes from the various panels, and they're somewhat more complete than last year's. With luck, this means I won't confuse Glenn Grant and Greer Gilman again. (Look, I was taking notes on a PDA with a thumb keyboard. You try being verbose while trying to keep up with five fast-talking and very erudite panelists.)

Plans, Best-Laid: I couldn't make any of Thursday, and figured on a half day at work on Friday. Planned time to leave office: 1330. Actual departure: 1445. Rental car reservation: 1500, two T stops away in Harvard Square. First panel I wanted to attend: 1600. Friday afternoon traffic: not too bad overall, though 128 between Route 2 and Route 3 was pretty craptastic. Arrival time: made the 1600, but not by as much as I would have liked to.

Once again, I am second-guessing the decision to commute. It's sometimes useful to have a vehicle available at the con, but I only left the hotel once (Friday dinner mall run); driving home at 0230 after a long Mafia game is not fun especially with no passengers to keep me awake (air conditioner + radio = some level of alertness); and I'm at the mercy of the rental agency as far as available cars (I wound up with this thing, which should be called the Chevy WTF if you ask me).

Apparently Readercon 19 will be somewhere else TBA, which may tip the balance either to staying at the con hotel, or not going at all. Insufficient data at the present time. (I still bought my membership for it; at worst, I'm sure someone will want it for $40.)

Panels: Very good, as usual. All of the panels I went to, with one exception (that one didn't grab me; I'm not sure if it was me or the topic or what. I left ~15 min into it) were interesting, dynamic, focused without being narrow...oh yeah. I think that giving the panelists comfy chairs instead of those evil flat-back things you usually see makes a real difference, and I'm not saying that in a selfish way at all because I'm not on program.

People: Hi! If I saw you, I saw you; if I didn't, then I didn't. The Monster Name-Check Paragraph of Doom is on vacation.

Purchases: I managed to escape the bookshop without buying anything, unlike last year. I did buy a very tasty lemon-poppyseed muffin from the Tiptree Bake Sale, though. The only non-food purchase of the con was next year's membership. How restrained! No, I don't know how I managed it either.

Pros(e), Meeting/Hearing Bad Examples of: Yes, the alliteration is getting very silly. Deal. The Meet the Pros(e) party was interesting, but the room lacked airflow and was fairly loud, which made it less fun. I don't think there's anything that can really be done about it, though, since the whole point of the event is for people to talk to each other, and if you have lots of people in a room talking, it will be loud.

The Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition: if you were there, you know how it was. If not, nothing I write will give you the flavor of it. Congratulations, again, to Yves Menard for his great last-round knockout.

Pain: The Palm folding IR-blaster keyboard is a heck of a lot better than the Tungsten C thumb keyboard. However, it is not wide enough for my hands/wrists to be in good positions, has no tilt, and very different key feel (and some very odd/broken key locations...the "/?" key in particular is Not In The Right Place). This is particularly noticable when I'm trying to balance it on my lap. My wrists say "ouch".

Play: The con has no gaming track or gaming room, intentionally. However, it would be nice[1] to have a space with some tables and chairs for people to sit at and do one or more of the following: chat, play games they have brought, read, use their laptops while said laptops are not actually on their laps, and/or argue about the serial comma. The bar does fill some of this, but not all, and the lighting in there seems to have mildew on it. (It was obscured, as though the wick of the cosmic torch had been turned down; but nevertheless, it was light.)

I did get in a few hands of No Thanks!, which I keep in my backpack as a great game that is small, quick, and easy to explain. I highly recommend it.

The Saturday night games of Mafia, however, were not small, nor quick, nor necessarily easy to explain to those who hadn't played before. But oh were they ever fun, even if buymeaclue is the most incredibly poker faced Mafioso in the known universe. I only have one thing to say to her about that.

[1] No, I didn't get my feedback form filled out nor did I stay for the gripe session. Either venue might actually bring this to pass, which this post most likely will not. Apologies.

kate_nepveu is collecting other Readercon reports over at readercon.

Comments

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

It's a very evil thing you just did. Almost as bad as the Howard Dean video...

[kate_nepveu]

Hadn't heard that about the hotel. Interesting.

I trained myself to remember that the Palm IR keyboard's ? is in the wrong place by using it a lot over the last few weeks, and now I'm having trouble on actual keyboards. However, the only external keyboards that have that key in the right place are these: http://www.igo.com/searchresults.asp?search_id=9 , which are not only very expensive, but either have no dedicated number row or look really unwieldy. (I looked into replacing the Palm recently because it had been flaky and going to Japan with it seemed like a bad idea; but the options aren't good and a driver upgrade fixed the flakiness.)

hotel

[(Anonymous)]

The hotel violated the contract by closing the restuarant for remodeling before the con.
--Kathryn Cramer

Re: hotel

[kate_nepveu]

Ahhh.

Thank you for the information. That does make sense.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

and the lighting in there seems to have mildew on it. (It was obscured, as though the wick of the cosmic torch had been turned down; but nevertheless, it was light.)

::sporfle::

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Which panel was unfocused? I'm gaining impressions from hither and yon.

anyway, glad you had a good time--if you get a chance to type up those panel reports, would love to see them.

[sdn.livejournal.com]

it was good to finally associate you with a person face and not a shark face.