My first Arisia-type post -- more as I think of it

Lesse. Saturday night, I got to meet theferrett; Lis's comment to me was, "He's much cuter than his userpic. . ."

We got introduced to Eric Burns, who writes a well-respected column-thingy about webcomics, and his now-fiancee Wednesday White. As you probably already know if you're the kind of person to whom this would be interesting, Mr Burns asked Ms White to marry him with a little help from his friends.

So, when we were introduced, I said, "Congratulations", and then turned to his fiancee, and said "Congratulations" to her, too. And she looked at my badge, and said, "It's nice to finally meet you."

My face went blank. Lis says she WISHES she had a camera. I presume that my jaw dropped. It's one of those things that people use as a cliche, but it actually happens. Basically, you're startled enough that every muscle in your face suddenly relaxes, including the ones holding your mouth closed, except for the muscles which keep your eyes open, which tense, and widen your eyes.

". . . . You're THAT Wednesday??" I finally managed.

See, there was this person I'd known online since, like 1992 or something like that. Someone who I really even considered an online friends. And her name was Wednesday.

I'd, obviously, not emailed her for, well, nearly a decade. Neither of us was still posting in the same Usenet groups. And we'd clearly lost touch. Since that point, y'know, I'd flunked out of school, gotten married, become a bartender, bought a house, and stuff. And, apparently, she's done stuff since that time, too, like, including getting engaged earlier that day.

I love fandom. I love cons, and Arisia.

A post guaranteed to offend pretty much EVERYONE on my friends list

So, at Arisia, there was a BPAL meet-up on Friday night. It was right next to the gaming room.
Wow. Two rooms with offensive enough smells to make them un-enterable right next to each other.

To my nose, the BPAL room smelled worse.

Things we were chatting about in Massage Den and Staff Den

A guy from Security had come up for his massage on Sunday, late morning, early afternoon. After his massage, he was mentioning how calm Security had been this year. They'd had a betting pool going about "what time Saturday night the drunken rowdiness would require Security intervention."

As of noon on Sunday, nobody had collected.

We were trying to figure out why, and came up with a number of theories.

One, the elevator problems and layout things worked in our favor. You could go to a party and start drinking, but then, if you wanted to party-hop to another party with booze. . .
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I suggested that perhaps the membership cap was a factor.
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And of course, another reason was the layout. With an open layout to a central court, Security could really see what was going on, pretty much everywhere. You had good sightlines -- there weren't many places you could be staggering through a hallway where you'd be hard to spot.

Anyone who needs this one can borrow it:

Over the weekend at Arisia, I developed a new mantra which helped me a number of times.

Feel free to use it.

It goes:
"I love other fen and have no need to kill them. I love other fen and have no need to kill them. I love other fen and have no need to kill them."

Chanting this mantra was very useful, and I think that I should maybe lead meditation groups for Ops and Security chanting this mantra -- I think they're the groups most likely to need it.

A negative comment about a party at Arisia

Far as I'm concerned, you can EITHER have an invite-only party OR you can advertise your party.

But it's FUCKING RUDE to advertise your invite-only party.

Don't mind invite-only parties. Don't even mind invite-only parties who, apparently, were going around handing out invites only to women who were dressed slutty. Heck, if someone took that to the extreme, and walked around the con handing out slips of paper which said, "You're sexy. Come to my room at 11 pm," that wouldn't bother me. And if he or she got people to show up, more power to him or her.

DO mind people who do that and also put posters up in the stairwells advertising their party. It's fucking RUDE to do that, then set up a velvet rope outside, and do the "club" thing. Dunno about you, but I go to cons to get away from that kind of dynamic.

Yes, I'm pissed off at not being pretty enough to get into that party.