I just got around to uploading the pics and video we took at Balticon with our new camera (Canon SX10 IS).

Everything looks great... but apparently the "mute" setting got turned on in the video menu, so there was no audio recorded with the videos we got. (AFAIK, the dedicated audio recorder worked fine, so it's not a total loss.)

We got on the road Friday a bit later than we planned, and stopped to pick up a few things (part of starmalachite's outfit, the saddle bridge pad for my glasses). Despite that, and Memorial Day traffic, we got to the con in time to unpack and settle in.

Generally, the con went rather well. My egoboo highlight was trotting out "Mandate of the Titans" during Friday open filk with partiallyclips in the room.

( Five-verse spoilery account of one of the main Erfworld character arcs )


Mostly, I did my usual alternation of filk and gaming. Both programs went rather well (thanks to gorgeousgary for the former, and whoever was responsible for the latter -- I ought to know but it escapes me at the moment). I picked up a copy of Zooloretto along with the Zooloretto Exotic expansion, taking advantage of a "buy one, get one half price" sale; I recall playing it once and finding it interesting but will need to re-learn the rules; I never did get around to trying it during the con. I did manage to maintain my unbeaten streak at Stone Age and get into a game of Cities and Knights that ran until 5 AM Sunday night.

The music track was very good; I particularly remember the Kids' Concert, quadrivium, maugorn, and decadentdave's performances, and much of the FuMP show. Open filk broke up a bit early Friday and Sunday; people seemed to be saving their energy for Saturday.

Overall, the con seemed a bit smaller than usual -- not surprising given the state of the economy. I recall mentioning to jannyblue that I'd reserved our hotel room months in advance to make sure we got on in the con hotel and she said that she'd been able to get one much later than that. (Just the same, I'm planning to reserve early next year.)

We did a bit of last-minute planning so that there'd be room in the car for starmalachite to ferry quadrivium and Wesley to National Airport while gorgeousgary and the_sheryl schlepped me and some of my luggage to stevenjoel and museinred's place for a post-con gathering until starmalachite returned. All went well, and we had a nice get-together until it was finally time to head home.

I've got my clothes and basic supplies packed, printed out and packed a batch of Concertino flyers, and checked the schedule to see if there's anything Friday afternoon we really want to catch. I'm at the point of double-checking the essentials list -- grooming bag, cell phone charger, AA battery charger, etc.

Heidi and Vir have figured out that the humans are leaving, and gotten extra neurotic and clingy.

Also, I found us a good price on Southwest for flying in and out of Providence for Concertino; the hours are a little inconvenient but it's hard to argue with two round-trip tickets for under $300 (not counting $100 or so for the rental car).

We got on the road a bit later than planned on Friday, and ran into a bunch of holiday traffic, but nothing too serious. About fifteen minutes before we arrived, madfilkentist  called; apparently either I didn't get his name on the room or they lost it from their records. Other than that, checkin at the hotel and con was uneventful (I made sure they had ccrazy 's name on the room, and as far as I know she checked in without incident when she got there).

We got home around midnight last night. The cats were being particularly clingly -- Heidi (in icon) actually imitated Vir's (the tabby-point Siamese) standard chirp for attention (which is especially unusual for her; usually the only time she speaks up is to complain that she can see the bottom of her food dish).

More later.

Open filk Saturday night ran somewhat later than Friday night, with a good crowd until about 2:30 when things broke up. We got back to the Hampton Inn (the current Balticon hotel sold out long before it occurred to me to start making plans) and paused at the front desk to report some jackass who had parked across two spaces (including a handicapped space -- no, he didn't have a plate or tag for that, and stupidity and moral turpitude don't count as "handicaps" in this context). I started writing an LJ entry for the con, until 

starmalachite needed the laptop to look up some things for a filk she was writing, which shall be revealed to the world in due course.

Sunday was a bit quieter; I caught a few art/comics/techie panels, the FuMP concerts, and open filk (which didn't run quite as late as Saturday; people were winding down a bit). Monday I hung around the dealers' room and FuMP table for a while, then went to gaming until they finally closed down the function space. I played a couple games of TransAmerica and Thurn and Taxis, but my brain fatigue was clearly taking a toll, and I more or less crashed in the lobby until we left for home.

 

 

I got to Balticon with starmalachite fairly late Friday evening after a rush to get our wedding invitations in the mail, tweak the Conterpoint web site a bit, and take care of a few other bits of administrivia. We got to the registration desk, caught part of Paul "Dr. SETI" Shuch's concert, and then joined the open filk until it broke up (fairly early; people tend to pace themselves on Friday to stay up later the rest of the weekend).

Yesterday, I met partiallyclips at the FuMP table. After asking if I was the same person who posts on the Erfworld forum as "SteveMB", he thanked me for my participation and contributions toward raising the signal-to-noise ratio. I thought I was just reading and commenting, but it's nice to know that the author thinks I have that kind of positive effect.

I got to a few interesting panels (more than usual, actually): a "What's New In Comics" panel that gave me a few pointers toward some other webcomics I'll need to check out (free time is overrated...) and a "Writing For Webcomics" panel with a few interesting observations on pacing when presenting an ongoing story at the rate of one page every few days.

Another highlight was the Bohnhoffs' concert set, including a few of their standbys and several songs I hadn't heard before, including (obvously) one that was being performed for the first time.

After dinner, we got to the masquerade. We lucked out and got second-row seats behind the judges -- we weren't that early in line, but apparently the first wave avoided those seats because they thought the judges' table lights would interfere with their view (I didn't notice that being a problem, so the joke is on the people who passed up the great seats). The one that most sticks out in my memory is, perhaps not surprisingly, a horrible pun: a children's division "Dark Dorothy and Toto-rantula".

starmalachite says she needs to use the laptop; more later.