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xiphiasThis past weekend was the science fiction convention Arisia. And some of you may remember that, last year, I totally burned out and decided that, while I loved everybody involved in Arisia, I was never ever going back again and life was horrible and all that.
Friends convinced me that maybe I wanted to try GOING to the con for once, instead of WORKING it. So, this year, for the first time in maybe six years or so, I actually got to see the FRONT side of the con, the part where the attendees go.
Anyway, let me get to the terrible idea. So, I hadn't figured out where I was going to be sleeping for the con. And I found myself thinking that I didn't want to figure this out, and I thought it was just because I didn't want to deal with it.
But then my brain said to me, no, you aren't listening: I didn't say I don't want to plan out where I'm going to sleep. What I SAID was I want to not plan out where I'm going to sleep.
What? I asked my brain. Look, my brain said to me. What you've been doing hasn't worked. You're burned out. So, if what you're doing isn't working, do something else. Remember when you started going to cons, when you had no money and had no ability to plan ahead, and were just a stupid teenager? You LIKED cons then. So . . . do that.
Do what? I asked. Be stupid? Have no clue where I'm going to sleep, and just see what happens?
Yup, said my brain. It's kind of like an adventure, but your worst-case scenario isn't all that bad. Worst case, you are sleepless and unshowered for a weekend, and make yourself miserable and have to take a day or two to recover. But, well, last year, you were ALREADY miserable and had to take a day or two to recover. So, why not see what happens? Lis isn't going to the con this year, so you're not going to mess up anyone else. So, do it.
So I did. I went to the con with no plans of how to sleep or anything.
And it worked. I brought a small suitcase with me with changes of clothes and stuff, and carried it around all day and night, which was a little inconvenient, and I have blisters on the palm of my hand, but it's okay.
Friday night, I was up until five talking to people I'd met that day, then I slept in the video room for a couple hours. I know, you're not supposed to sleep in the video room . . . I did anyway.
Saturday morning, I showered in the locker room at the fitness room/pool, then went swimming, because I'd actually remembered to bring a swimsuit. Saturday night, I tried sleeping in the video room again, but I was rousted out, because apparently the hotel was already annoyed at Arisia, so Arisia actually was enforcing their rules. So I dozed sitting up against the wall in the con suite for a bit.
Lis picked me up at 11 on Sunday, so I was able to shower at home, and sleep that afternoon. I was thinking of going back Sunday afternoon or evening, but I just crashed out, and didn't go back Monday, even though I was considering it.
So, what did I actually DO?
I showed up Friday afternoon, wandered around a bit, ended up in the game room, played a game of Ninja Burger with two strangers, one about my age, one about ten years old or so, and had a pretty darned good time. The ten-year-old and I had played before, but neither of us had done so in a couple years; the other thirty-or-forty year old hadn't, but he won anyway.
Then, I got dragged into a SERENITY roleplaying game. Pre-gen characters, the GM was worried she wouldn't get enough players, and worried that the game wouldn't go well -- and DAMN was it fun. The plot was good, the other players were BRILLIANT. As it turned out, the game was supposed to run from 7 until 11, and the GM and her boyfriend had to leave at 11 -- but, at that point, we were really only halfway through the plot. So five of the nine of us agreed to show up on Saturday afternoon at four, for another three or four hours. Because we WANTED to.
After that, I went to the Zig pajama party, making a stop along the way to hang out with Fluffy, who I hadn't seen in a while. How much of a while? Well, she wished me mazal tov on my wedding because we hadn't actually seen each other face-to-face in ELEVEN YEARS. It was good to see her.
Ziggurat Labs didn't do a Mad Science party this year, but did do the pajama party, kid-friendly until 9.30 or so, then, after that, more . . . INTERESTING pajamas were allowed. Still only PG pajamas, though.
I actually bought pajamas for the party. Which turned out to be REALLY REALLY comfortable, which is what allowed me to actually sleep in random places around the con.
I went down to the con suite after the party ended, and ran into two of the people who had been in the SERENITY game, and talked with them, and another random stranger, until five AM. I then went to the video room, and dozed through some animated movie about kids who were in some sort of sport where they created computer projections of gene-spliced animals or some such thing, and then fought with them. I slept through most of it, of course, but I'm not certain it would have made much more sense had I not done so.
At seven, I more-or-less woke up and watched a romantic movie called SOMEBODY'S HERO, about a guy who, for various reasons, buys a superhero costume and then goes around helping people, and the woman he falls in love with, whose former husband was an ordinary guy who was killed stopping a mugging, leaving her a widow, and their son fatherless. That movie was followed by ABBOT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS, in which Abbot and Costello do not, in fact, go to Mars, but do manage to get to New Orleans, and then Venus.
At 9:30, I went to the gym area, and showered, and swam. Then I grabbed things to eat at the con suite. I spent a while in the Dealer's Room, where I talked to cool dealers, and bought a bento box for Lis. The proprietor of Moon Bunny Imports is really cool. We talked about martial arts, and being a bouncer (which I haven't, but my sister has). She got her bouncer job when a drunk patron grabbed her breasts from behind when she was a server. She picked up a chair and knocked him down.
The owner looked over, saw that the guy's nose was broken, but he was not concussed, and was basically healthy, and said, "You didn't kill him. Want to be security?"
So, yeah. Cool people.
I got lunch at the overpriced hotel Irish-ish restaurant, went to a panel on designing roleplaying adventures (which didn't have a whole lot that I didn't know -- make good NPCs and just see what the NPCs do, and steal plots from everywhere you can, but three of the people on the panel run games for tweens and/or teens, and pointed out that, for THEM, you can steal plots from things like CASABLANCA and SEVEN SAMURAI) then got in line to eat a stormtrooper. Yeah, Amanda's Oakleaf Cakes made a life-size stormtrooper cake, which was served up at 2:30. THAT was cool. Cake wasn't bad, either. Obviously, fondant-heavy, but their fondant is actually edible. And there was buttercream under it, anyway.
I went back up to the fan tables outside the gaming room, sat down, and then heard a voice: "Ian? Ian Osmond?" I looked up. "Victor Lee, from high school."
Indeed, I DID remember Vic Lee. We were never, like, FRIENDS-friends, but we were friendly acquaintances. Both members of the computer club, things like that. I liked him, even if we never really hung out.
"It's great to see you, Vic! What have you been up to?"
"Well, my wife and I founded ANIME BOSTON."
For those who don't know, ANIME BOSTON is the Boston anime convention. Like Arisia, it's a fan-run, not-for-profit convention, run by fans, for fans. Like Arisia, they do what they can to keep costs for members as low as possible, and give volunteer options for people who can't manage even those costs. They're good folks. They're much, much bigger than Arisia: while Arisia's membership is in the three-to-five-thousand range, Anime Boston is four or five times that, in the seventeen-thousand range. That's warm-body membership: turnstile is more like thirty-five thousand. The only larger events are for-profit events like PAX East, and Anime Boston is trying to co-ordinate with PAX East for 2012, to create a true mega-crazy event.
Naturally, since Arisia and Anime Boston are both fan-run cons, there is a lot of crossover in the fans who run them. And, when Arisia started talking about who wanted to run the Arisia anime room and anime track, one of the people who works for both had a very clever idea . . . Arisia's anime room was, this year, run by Anime Boston. Kind of brilliant, hunh?
Vic mentioned that what he really loves about running Anime Boston is looking out over the crowds of teens and thinking, "Man! What I wouldn't have given to have this when I was that age! You guys don't know how good you have it -- you are SO LUCKY!" I nodded, and pretended to shake an invisible cane. "You kids!" I croaked. "Get on my lawn!"
When 4 rolled around, I showed up for the other half of our SERENITY game. Of the players who couldn't make it, two were reassigned to people who walked in, one was turned into an NPC (which was good, because he turned out to be a traitor, and I feel much more comfortable shooting at NPCs than PCs), and the doctor character just stayed in the ship and didn't do anything. Which was fine. Because why would we need a doctor during the shooting-things part of the story, right?
That ran until seven-thirty or so, and was AWESOME. I hung about a bit to chat with people, then I went back to the video room, and saw INCEPTION, which I'd never seen before.
At about ten-thirty, I went back to the overpriced Irish-ish restaurant, which was keeping their kitchen open longer, and had something supper-like.
At midnight, there was a showing of a 1977 porno called STAR BABE, which took themes and ideas from STAR WARS.
How was it? Well, the best parts were the three times that the film broke, which gave a respite from the ongoing horror of the thing. This was anti-erotica. It would be a useful film to show if you were trying to do abstinence-only sex ed, since I think it would convince the kids watching it that sex is just NOT a thing they wanted to do. It teaches important lessons, such as, "Just because you have a macro zoom lens doesn't mean you have to USE it," and "Gorilla suits are NOT erotic."
I went back to the video room to see about sleeping more, and caught some of VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL. Which I don't even want to attempt to describe, except to say that it is Japanese and very gory. I also fell asleep during TROUBLE IN MIND, but was woken up and rousted out, and I went to the con suite.
I found out that Stuff Had Happened with the parties, involving non-Arisia people being on a party floor, and parties being shut down. I talked more to the people who I'd hung out with the previous morning, and slept a bit sitting up against the wall. I then went back to the video room and actually watched a CAMILLE, a romantic comedy between a petty criminal, and the woman who loves and marries him, and won't let even her death stand between them on their honeymoon. Actually, a very sweet movie.
That was followed by a terrible 1988 Canadian educational-type fantasy film about a boy who travels the world with magical stamps, which was then followed by a ASTERIX AND THE VIKINGS, which was actually a very GOOD Asterix and Obelix movie.
I phoned up Lis, and she said that she wouldn't mind me coming home on the early side, and I went to the con suite until 11 when she picked me up. I went home, showered, and collapsed and slept. I considered going back that afternoon, but was too tired, and we didn't get up in time to make it worth going back on Monday.
And that was my Arisia. I had a great time. It was totally different than my last several Arisias. Which is what I needed.
Friends convinced me that maybe I wanted to try GOING to the con for once, instead of WORKING it. So, this year, for the first time in maybe six years or so, I actually got to see the FRONT side of the con, the part where the attendees go.
Anyway, let me get to the terrible idea. So, I hadn't figured out where I was going to be sleeping for the con. And I found myself thinking that I didn't want to figure this out, and I thought it was just because I didn't want to deal with it.
But then my brain said to me, no, you aren't listening: I didn't say I don't want to plan out where I'm going to sleep. What I SAID was I want to not plan out where I'm going to sleep.
What? I asked my brain. Look, my brain said to me. What you've been doing hasn't worked. You're burned out. So, if what you're doing isn't working, do something else. Remember when you started going to cons, when you had no money and had no ability to plan ahead, and were just a stupid teenager? You LIKED cons then. So . . . do that.
Do what? I asked. Be stupid? Have no clue where I'm going to sleep, and just see what happens?
Yup, said my brain. It's kind of like an adventure, but your worst-case scenario isn't all that bad. Worst case, you are sleepless and unshowered for a weekend, and make yourself miserable and have to take a day or two to recover. But, well, last year, you were ALREADY miserable and had to take a day or two to recover. So, why not see what happens? Lis isn't going to the con this year, so you're not going to mess up anyone else. So, do it.
So I did. I went to the con with no plans of how to sleep or anything.
And it worked. I brought a small suitcase with me with changes of clothes and stuff, and carried it around all day and night, which was a little inconvenient, and I have blisters on the palm of my hand, but it's okay.
Friday night, I was up until five talking to people I'd met that day, then I slept in the video room for a couple hours. I know, you're not supposed to sleep in the video room . . . I did anyway.
Saturday morning, I showered in the locker room at the fitness room/pool, then went swimming, because I'd actually remembered to bring a swimsuit. Saturday night, I tried sleeping in the video room again, but I was rousted out, because apparently the hotel was already annoyed at Arisia, so Arisia actually was enforcing their rules. So I dozed sitting up against the wall in the con suite for a bit.
Lis picked me up at 11 on Sunday, so I was able to shower at home, and sleep that afternoon. I was thinking of going back Sunday afternoon or evening, but I just crashed out, and didn't go back Monday, even though I was considering it.
So, what did I actually DO?
I showed up Friday afternoon, wandered around a bit, ended up in the game room, played a game of Ninja Burger with two strangers, one about my age, one about ten years old or so, and had a pretty darned good time. The ten-year-old and I had played before, but neither of us had done so in a couple years; the other thirty-or-forty year old hadn't, but he won anyway.
Then, I got dragged into a SERENITY roleplaying game. Pre-gen characters, the GM was worried she wouldn't get enough players, and worried that the game wouldn't go well -- and DAMN was it fun. The plot was good, the other players were BRILLIANT. As it turned out, the game was supposed to run from 7 until 11, and the GM and her boyfriend had to leave at 11 -- but, at that point, we were really only halfway through the plot. So five of the nine of us agreed to show up on Saturday afternoon at four, for another three or four hours. Because we WANTED to.
After that, I went to the Zig pajama party, making a stop along the way to hang out with Fluffy, who I hadn't seen in a while. How much of a while? Well, she wished me mazal tov on my wedding because we hadn't actually seen each other face-to-face in ELEVEN YEARS. It was good to see her.
Ziggurat Labs didn't do a Mad Science party this year, but did do the pajama party, kid-friendly until 9.30 or so, then, after that, more . . . INTERESTING pajamas were allowed. Still only PG pajamas, though.
I actually bought pajamas for the party. Which turned out to be REALLY REALLY comfortable, which is what allowed me to actually sleep in random places around the con.
I went down to the con suite after the party ended, and ran into two of the people who had been in the SERENITY game, and talked with them, and another random stranger, until five AM. I then went to the video room, and dozed through some animated movie about kids who were in some sort of sport where they created computer projections of gene-spliced animals or some such thing, and then fought with them. I slept through most of it, of course, but I'm not certain it would have made much more sense had I not done so.
At seven, I more-or-less woke up and watched a romantic movie called SOMEBODY'S HERO, about a guy who, for various reasons, buys a superhero costume and then goes around helping people, and the woman he falls in love with, whose former husband was an ordinary guy who was killed stopping a mugging, leaving her a widow, and their son fatherless. That movie was followed by ABBOT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS, in which Abbot and Costello do not, in fact, go to Mars, but do manage to get to New Orleans, and then Venus.
At 9:30, I went to the gym area, and showered, and swam. Then I grabbed things to eat at the con suite. I spent a while in the Dealer's Room, where I talked to cool dealers, and bought a bento box for Lis. The proprietor of Moon Bunny Imports is really cool. We talked about martial arts, and being a bouncer (which I haven't, but my sister has). She got her bouncer job when a drunk patron grabbed her breasts from behind when she was a server. She picked up a chair and knocked him down.
The owner looked over, saw that the guy's nose was broken, but he was not concussed, and was basically healthy, and said, "You didn't kill him. Want to be security?"
So, yeah. Cool people.
I got lunch at the overpriced hotel Irish-ish restaurant, went to a panel on designing roleplaying adventures (which didn't have a whole lot that I didn't know -- make good NPCs and just see what the NPCs do, and steal plots from everywhere you can, but three of the people on the panel run games for tweens and/or teens, and pointed out that, for THEM, you can steal plots from things like CASABLANCA and SEVEN SAMURAI) then got in line to eat a stormtrooper. Yeah, Amanda's Oakleaf Cakes made a life-size stormtrooper cake, which was served up at 2:30. THAT was cool. Cake wasn't bad, either. Obviously, fondant-heavy, but their fondant is actually edible. And there was buttercream under it, anyway.
I went back up to the fan tables outside the gaming room, sat down, and then heard a voice: "Ian? Ian Osmond?" I looked up. "Victor Lee, from high school."
Indeed, I DID remember Vic Lee. We were never, like, FRIENDS-friends, but we were friendly acquaintances. Both members of the computer club, things like that. I liked him, even if we never really hung out.
"It's great to see you, Vic! What have you been up to?"
"Well, my wife and I founded ANIME BOSTON."
For those who don't know, ANIME BOSTON is the Boston anime convention. Like Arisia, it's a fan-run, not-for-profit convention, run by fans, for fans. Like Arisia, they do what they can to keep costs for members as low as possible, and give volunteer options for people who can't manage even those costs. They're good folks. They're much, much bigger than Arisia: while Arisia's membership is in the three-to-five-thousand range, Anime Boston is four or five times that, in the seventeen-thousand range. That's warm-body membership: turnstile is more like thirty-five thousand. The only larger events are for-profit events like PAX East, and Anime Boston is trying to co-ordinate with PAX East for 2012, to create a true mega-crazy event.
Naturally, since Arisia and Anime Boston are both fan-run cons, there is a lot of crossover in the fans who run them. And, when Arisia started talking about who wanted to run the Arisia anime room and anime track, one of the people who works for both had a very clever idea . . . Arisia's anime room was, this year, run by Anime Boston. Kind of brilliant, hunh?
Vic mentioned that what he really loves about running Anime Boston is looking out over the crowds of teens and thinking, "Man! What I wouldn't have given to have this when I was that age! You guys don't know how good you have it -- you are SO LUCKY!" I nodded, and pretended to shake an invisible cane. "You kids!" I croaked. "Get on my lawn!"
When 4 rolled around, I showed up for the other half of our SERENITY game. Of the players who couldn't make it, two were reassigned to people who walked in, one was turned into an NPC (which was good, because he turned out to be a traitor, and I feel much more comfortable shooting at NPCs than PCs), and the doctor character just stayed in the ship and didn't do anything. Which was fine. Because why would we need a doctor during the shooting-things part of the story, right?
That ran until seven-thirty or so, and was AWESOME. I hung about a bit to chat with people, then I went back to the video room, and saw INCEPTION, which I'd never seen before.
At about ten-thirty, I went back to the overpriced Irish-ish restaurant, which was keeping their kitchen open longer, and had something supper-like.
At midnight, there was a showing of a 1977 porno called STAR BABE, which took themes and ideas from STAR WARS.
How was it? Well, the best parts were the three times that the film broke, which gave a respite from the ongoing horror of the thing. This was anti-erotica. It would be a useful film to show if you were trying to do abstinence-only sex ed, since I think it would convince the kids watching it that sex is just NOT a thing they wanted to do. It teaches important lessons, such as, "Just because you have a macro zoom lens doesn't mean you have to USE it," and "Gorilla suits are NOT erotic."
I went back to the video room to see about sleeping more, and caught some of VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL. Which I don't even want to attempt to describe, except to say that it is Japanese and very gory. I also fell asleep during TROUBLE IN MIND, but was woken up and rousted out, and I went to the con suite.
I found out that Stuff Had Happened with the parties, involving non-Arisia people being on a party floor, and parties being shut down. I talked more to the people who I'd hung out with the previous morning, and slept a bit sitting up against the wall. I then went back to the video room and actually watched a CAMILLE, a romantic comedy between a petty criminal, and the woman who loves and marries him, and won't let even her death stand between them on their honeymoon. Actually, a very sweet movie.
That was followed by a terrible 1988 Canadian educational-type fantasy film about a boy who travels the world with magical stamps, which was then followed by a ASTERIX AND THE VIKINGS, which was actually a very GOOD Asterix and Obelix movie.
I phoned up Lis, and she said that she wouldn't mind me coming home on the early side, and I went to the con suite until 11 when she picked me up. I went home, showered, and collapsed and slept. I considered going back that afternoon, but was too tired, and we didn't get up in time to make it worth going back on Monday.
And that was my Arisia. I had a great time. It was totally different than my last several Arisias. Which is what I needed.