Geek Tragedy Con Reports

	Con Reports
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21 / MAY / 05 - 0800 CST : It really is a stereotype, but it's also true... Keycon '05 (part I) Well I was a little late getting out of the house, but I did end up heading out the door early enough to check out a few of the late night hours of KeyCon. And while I really didn't get to see much, here are a few of my thoughts so far... First off, the venue was quite nice. A lot better than I was expecting actually. The con pretty much has the run of a few of the middle floors of hotel, so everyone attending the con is essentially free to wander around without having to worry about bothering any of the non-con guests. Something I feel that both parties are equally happy about. The other thing I like about this venue is that for the most part it wasn't that tough to navigate around. This was a huge thing for me because I once went to a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Con in New York, and the "resort" (and oh for the love of God do I use that term loosely) was like some sort of neigh unnavigable (not a word, right Leone?) labyrinth. Seriously, I half expected to see a Minotaur wandering the halls every time I made the uncertain trek back to my room that weekend. I could actually go on and on about how crappy this place was (though the con itself was excellent!) but lets stick with KeyCon for now. One of the places that was still up and running when I got there was the Star Trek theme hospitality suite called "The Captain’s Lounge." When we (and by we I mean my friends Jay, Steve, Travis and myself) checked it out there was a fairly constant stream of people heading in and out so we sort of sat outside the entrance for the first while. Now before I go any further, let me first get out of the way the observation I had that was alluded to in the header for this post. I know when it comes to "geek" sub-culture, a group I like to include myself in, one of the stigmas that is often attached to us is that acts of personal hygiene aren’t always too high on our "to-do" lists. Now as someone who tries his best to stay sweet smelling all day long I find this kinda insulting. However, judging from the…um…aura wafting from every fifth or sixth person who passed by us as we sat outside "The Captain’s Lounge", I very much doubt this stereotype will go away anytime soon. Okay, enough said. So our buddy Steve decided to head into the lounge and get himself a nice refreshing bevy. When he came out with a drink in hand, here is a paraphrased version of the conversation that followed. Travis: What’s that? Steve: They said it was beer. Here taste it. Travis: (Takes a sip and hands it back) It’s kinda sweet, are you sure it’s beer? Steve: I don’t know man, they had a whole bunch of crazy names for the drinks they were serving so I just stopped them when they said something that had "beer" in the title. Travis: It’s not very good whatever it is. Steve: Maybe not, but it’s got two things going for it. Travis: Which are? Steve: It’s alcohol, and it’s free. Travis: Fair enough. And here is another snip-it of conversation that happened as we were heading back to the elevators. Steve: (catches up with us after stopping to look at something in one of the rooms) Why are they showing cartoon porn in that room? Travis: It’s not cartoon porn, it’s Anime. Steve: What’s "Anime" mean? Jay: It’s a Japanese word for cartoon porn. Also at the con were a good number of people walking around in costume (also known as Cos Players). I know a lot of people like to look down on this type of self expression and say nasty things about it, but I personally give these people serious props for doing it. Seeing as how we live in a world that is so filled with people who just want to conform so they can be just like everyone else, I think it’s healthy to see people getting into the spirit of an event like this and having some fun dressing up. I mean who doesn’t enjoy Halloween right? So what’s the big deal about these people having Halloween more than once a year? The way I see it, it’s not really any different than "Swing Dancing" in that it’s something totally harmless that a lot of people really enjoy doing. And much like swing dancing, while I do get a kick out of seeing people do it once and a while, I still have no desire to take part in it myself. But maybe if I had more guts, or if I looked better in chainmail... Last but not least was the poker tournament that Travis and myself entered into at midnight. Now most of the time I fully enjoy a night of poker, but for some reason I just didn’t feel like playing tonight. Travis on the other hand, was in the mood for poker, and did a great job of coming in one spot short of the money. I guess that’s it for now folks. Not sure if you guys will get a kick out hearing about the Con this weekend or not, but it’s pretty much going to the hot topic I’ll be posting about for the next couple of days. I’m going to take a camera with me tonight so that maybe I can share a few pics with you over the rest of the weekend. Later, -Ed PS: I’m posting this kinda on the fly as I have to run right now, so I haven’t proof read it yet, but I’ll be sure to do so ASAP once I get back into the house. In the mean time, sorry about any typos. 23 / MAY / 05 - 0940 CST : It’s amazing what only 12 hours of sleep can do for a guy… Keycon '05 (part II) Howdy folks. Sorry it took so long to post this update for the second day of the con but after two days with about 3 hours of sleep, oddly enough I needed to crash for a while. Which, incidentally, is why I won’t really have much to report about the third day of the con as I pretty much slept through it. Shooting your friends for fun and glory… First off, as I mentioned earlier, my buddy Travis had his Halo 2 tourney on Saturday. Unfortunately the turnout in the beginning was a little weak as it ended up being scheduled opposite of one of KeyCon’s most popular events, the masquerade. However once that was over a fair number of people who participated in that event headed on over to the console room and started blasting the hell out of each other with extreme prejudice. So in the end he was able to get enough people together to have four qualifying rounds, and the finals. I myself participated in the competitive carnage. However I’d only played the game a couple times before in my life, so my roll in the event was pretty much to provide the other competitors with a constantly respawning victim that they could in turn corpsify in any number of horrific and embarrassing ways, over and over and "oh for the love of God could you people just let me take three freakin’ steps before you blow the living shit out me" over again, in an effort to help pad their own kill totals. Still, I guess it’s always good to have a purpose in life, even if in this instance it was essentially being everyone’s Halo bitch. As well, between the tournament rounds there was plenty of time to get some casual play in, complete with ample amounts of trash talking. And judging from the creative and colourful nature of some of the verbal barbs being thrown around (some of which, usually spoken by someone who was just killed, took the form of requests for other players to commit various acts to themselves that if not outright physically impossible, would certainly produce the need for life long physical therapy in their aftermath) I think the smack talk was more enjoyable to a few of the players than the game itself. I was able to snap pics of both the event and it’s participants which I’ll be sharing with y’all soon. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a pic of Robert, the tournament winner, with his trophy (and btw, thanks to our buddy Steve for providing that for the event) as I was too busy taking a bunch of other pics at the time. Jimmy Olsen would never have this problem… Speaking of photos, I ended up taking more this one weekend than I think I’ve ever taken before in my entire life, and I am very eager to start sharing them with you guys. That being said, I wasn’t able to get them developed yesterday like I’d hope, but I’m going to try and get that done later today. The only thing is, this being the Monday of a long weekend here in Canada, I don’t know if any place other than Wal-Mart will be open to develop them for me. And while I could just drop by one of the Wal-Marts in the city to get them done, I won’t. You see I have a bit of a problem with the policy they have about choosing which photos they will and will not develop for their customers. Now the reason I feel this way isn’t because I’m in the habit of taking pictures of questionable morality, and seeing as how I have no plans to become an amateur pornographer anytime soon, I don’t really think this will ever be much of an issue for me in the future. Nor is it because I feel a business doesn’t have the right to choose what they do, or don’t do for their customers, at least not as long as their policy is the same for all their customers. Granted I find this policy to be amazingly stupid and, as long as the pics aren’t illegal in nature, I don’t think that they should have any objection to developing them, but I still respect their right to make their own policies, and in turn follow through with them. No, the reason I have a problem with Wal-Mart’s photo lab is because they won’t actually inform their customers about this policy when they bring their film in, nor do they make any mention of it once the pics have or have not been developed. Hell, I wouldn’t have ever known it even existed if some friends hadn’t told me about it in the first place. And once I did find out I looked back at the negatives of some photos I had developed there, only to find that they did in fact not produce a print of a photo that had someone mooning the camera in it (I didn’t take that one btw mom, it was someone else using the camera, I swear!). Anyway, I’ll step off of my rant box now and just say that as long as I can find a place to develop the photos today, I’ll have some posted today. Otherwise you’ll get your first look at some of them tomorrow. Chainmail, it’s not just for ‘80s Metal bands anymore… I mentioned in a previous post about how there were "a good number" of people walking around KeyCon in various costumes on Friday. Well, I was wrong. ‘Cause compared to the legion of people getting into it on Saturday, their was just a handful doing so the day before. Jedi, pirates, knights, necromancers, borg…if it’s ever appeared in some incarnation within the fantasy and / or sci-fi genre, then it was roaming the halls of KeyCon on Saturday night. It totally amazes me just how much time these folks had put into their costumes. In order for you to even come close to grasping what I’m trying to get across here try this. Think of every Halloween party you’ve ever been to. Now, from all the costumes you’ve seen put only the people wearing best costumes into a room, and subtract all the obviously readymade store bought ones. Okay, multiply that by a hundred or so, and you’ll start to come close to the incredible spectacle that was Saturday at KeyCon. I did my best to take as many pics of these costumes as I could, but even then I had to limit myself because I wanted to save some of my film for other parts of the con. The thing is though, the costumes themselves weren’t what fascinated me. What really sent my mind spinning was talking to the people inside the costume, and hearing what they had to say about process involved in making it. The time, planning, and care that goes into these wearable works of art is unreal. Honestly, if I devoted half as much energy to this site as some of these people did for their costumes, I’d a household name the world over by now. As it stands, I’m barely a household name in my own mother’s house. And lets face it folks, it takes a seriously secure sense of self to walk around in public dressed up as an axe wielding warrior, or a dragon toting wizard. I mean, do you know how self conscience I’d be walking around dressed up like Frodo? Sure, most of the people who they’d run into were going to be con goers, but there was a lot of other people staying at the hotel that weekend as well. Of course from what I saw, even the people who didn’t know what was going more than enjoyed the brief glimpses they had of some of these inventive folk who walking around. One of the biggest non-con fans of all the costumes was a freshly blushing bride who just happened to be holding her wedding reception at the hotel the same weekend as KeyCon. She got such a kick out of what was going on in fact, that she even ditched her own wedding party for an hour or so to run down and take some pictures with a bunch of the costumed KeyCon goers. Now that’s my kinda woman! I wonder if she’s seeing anyone? -Ed