VisionCon: day one
Feb. 17th, 2007 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterSo I went down to VisionCon at about 1:00 today. Got in, met some friends, and tried to call the Robotech person with whom I'd be meeting up. No dice. No answer on the phone number from which he called me last night.
So I hang around for a couple of hours, browse the dealer room, nothing much really happens. I check out the anime room and am less than impressed; they have a projection TV with which they're showing their titles, but they have no speakers—just the tinny speaker on the projection TV unit. It's a pity; I might have enjoyed watching some of their titles, but I'm too spoiled by my 5.1 surround to want to watch it when it sounds like crap. I keep calling the Robotech guy, and eventually I get an answer on the phone number—but the people who answer have never heard of him. So about 4:00 I catch a bus back up to my apartment, thinking to print out an artwork commission sheet for one of my characters and catch the bus back down a half hour later so as to be sure to be in time for my game.
I don't find the commission sheet at all. I guess it must have been on my USB thumb drive that I lost some time ago. And when I head back out to catch the bus, I miss it—I'm on the opposite side of the street from the stop, separated by heavy traffic, when it goes by. I wave frantically at the bus driver, but apparently he doesn't see me. I then proceed to bike back down to the Clarion—several miles in bitterly cold weather wearing a heavy backpack. Oh well.
I get back down about 5:20, find signs put up by the Robotech person pointing to his party room. I trudge all the way down to his room (all the way across the hotel) and find nobody there. I leave him a note, then wander back to the game room to play Fluxx for a bit. Then it's 6:00, time for my Universalis game. So I stake out a table, put out the Universalis reference sheets…and wait. Nobody comes to play. One person stops by and is vaguely interested, but can't stop now, maybe tomorrow. I show him that I have copies of the game to sell, give him my name and cell number, and hope for the best. I'm starting to suspect it might have been a mistake to buy those six copies of the Universalis game thinking that I might sell them to players after I get them hooked—it won't work if I never get any players to get hooked. Well, I still have opportunities tomorrow at 2:00 and 6:00—though if anyone is interested in picking up a copy of Universalis for $20, shipping included, let me know; I may have a few left over to sell. Doesn't help that the description I sent in was somehow left out of the con booklet, grumble grumble.
I hang around for about an hour of the two that my game was scheduled to go—technically, I'm getting into the con for free on the basis of my running these games, so I should at least make an effort—then I wander back to the Robotech person's room. He's still not there, though I see my note is gone.
And then he phones me up, I tell him where I am, and he comes up to meet me. He lets me into the room where he has his DVD player hooked up to the hotel TV—but he can't make it work because the hotel TV doesn't have an "Aux" channel. And a call to the front desk confirms that all the hotel TVs are like that; they don't have any others they can send up. So much for his plans of showing animé all evening, and so much for my having brought down Megazone 23, Genesis Climber Mospeada, and Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross. He's also immensely overestimated the attendance his party will get; he brought food sufficient for 10 or so people, and I'm about the only one who showed up. He plans to drive the two hour trip back home tomorrow morning and bring back his TV set so he can at least show animé tomorrow.
I have a cup of ramen noodles, a large slice of cheese, and some chips and salsa, and then I wander off to check out the other parties for a bit. At 9:35, I try to catch the bus home—but am stymied when I realize too late that due to construction and detours, no bus actually stops at the stop in front of the hotel. So I go back into the convention and spend the next hour wandering to the party rooms.
One of the party rooms has some homemade chocolate-covered cherries that were marinated in various liqueurs, with a free sample and then a "suggested donation" of $1 for three. I have $2 worth. Then I notice a sign for a "Beelze Pub" party room, and head that way. It's a double room with dim lights and decorative lighting and a liquor counter. On the wall is a banner listing all their various D&D potion themed drink recipes—and in lieu of a cocktail umbrella, they drop an activated mini-lightstick in each drink. The drinks are free, but there's a tip jar. (I'm not sure how they can manage to give away free drinks like that, but I'm not going to say no to free booze!) I have two drinks, a "Levitation" (Gin, Blue Curacao, and Sweet & Sour) and a "Delusion" (various kinds of liquor plus Coke) and tip $2. Then it's time to try catching the bus again.
This time, I manage to catch the bus—but when it gets to the transfer station, it turns out it's the last bus of the night. However, the bus people are running one last out-of-service bus as a taxi to take people to where they need to go. One of them is north of Kansas, another is way south of town on Campbell (at a place where the bus I was on passed much earlier in its route—if I'd known it was going to go that far south I would just have biked from the transfer station!), and then there's me. So I end up going almost all the way back to VisionCon before getting taken home again.
So here I am. And so now I'm going to whip up another commission sheet for one of my City of Heroes characters, on the off-chance that I sell a copy of Universalis and have the money to drop on it, then take a shower and go to bed.
I had thought about taking my computer and 5.1 surround sound system down to the con tomorrow so that we chould show animé in surround sound in the Robotech party room—but with the lack of attendance so far, I don't think it's worth the hassle to unhook everything and then rehook it back home again.
And that was my day. I still haven't managed to locate either Brad Sinor or Toni Weiskopf, the two featured guests I want to contact. Hopefully I'll be able to run into them tomorrow.
So I hang around for a couple of hours, browse the dealer room, nothing much really happens. I check out the anime room and am less than impressed; they have a projection TV with which they're showing their titles, but they have no speakers—just the tinny speaker on the projection TV unit. It's a pity; I might have enjoyed watching some of their titles, but I'm too spoiled by my 5.1 surround to want to watch it when it sounds like crap. I keep calling the Robotech guy, and eventually I get an answer on the phone number—but the people who answer have never heard of him. So about 4:00 I catch a bus back up to my apartment, thinking to print out an artwork commission sheet for one of my characters and catch the bus back down a half hour later so as to be sure to be in time for my game.
I don't find the commission sheet at all. I guess it must have been on my USB thumb drive that I lost some time ago. And when I head back out to catch the bus, I miss it—I'm on the opposite side of the street from the stop, separated by heavy traffic, when it goes by. I wave frantically at the bus driver, but apparently he doesn't see me. I then proceed to bike back down to the Clarion—several miles in bitterly cold weather wearing a heavy backpack. Oh well.
I get back down about 5:20, find signs put up by the Robotech person pointing to his party room. I trudge all the way down to his room (all the way across the hotel) and find nobody there. I leave him a note, then wander back to the game room to play Fluxx for a bit. Then it's 6:00, time for my Universalis game. So I stake out a table, put out the Universalis reference sheets…and wait. Nobody comes to play. One person stops by and is vaguely interested, but can't stop now, maybe tomorrow. I show him that I have copies of the game to sell, give him my name and cell number, and hope for the best. I'm starting to suspect it might have been a mistake to buy those six copies of the Universalis game thinking that I might sell them to players after I get them hooked—it won't work if I never get any players to get hooked. Well, I still have opportunities tomorrow at 2:00 and 6:00—though if anyone is interested in picking up a copy of Universalis for $20, shipping included, let me know; I may have a few left over to sell. Doesn't help that the description I sent in was somehow left out of the con booklet, grumble grumble.
I hang around for about an hour of the two that my game was scheduled to go—technically, I'm getting into the con for free on the basis of my running these games, so I should at least make an effort—then I wander back to the Robotech person's room. He's still not there, though I see my note is gone.
And then he phones me up, I tell him where I am, and he comes up to meet me. He lets me into the room where he has his DVD player hooked up to the hotel TV—but he can't make it work because the hotel TV doesn't have an "Aux" channel. And a call to the front desk confirms that all the hotel TVs are like that; they don't have any others they can send up. So much for his plans of showing animé all evening, and so much for my having brought down Megazone 23, Genesis Climber Mospeada, and Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross. He's also immensely overestimated the attendance his party will get; he brought food sufficient for 10 or so people, and I'm about the only one who showed up. He plans to drive the two hour trip back home tomorrow morning and bring back his TV set so he can at least show animé tomorrow.
I have a cup of ramen noodles, a large slice of cheese, and some chips and salsa, and then I wander off to check out the other parties for a bit. At 9:35, I try to catch the bus home—but am stymied when I realize too late that due to construction and detours, no bus actually stops at the stop in front of the hotel. So I go back into the convention and spend the next hour wandering to the party rooms.
One of the party rooms has some homemade chocolate-covered cherries that were marinated in various liqueurs, with a free sample and then a "suggested donation" of $1 for three. I have $2 worth. Then I notice a sign for a "Beelze Pub" party room, and head that way. It's a double room with dim lights and decorative lighting and a liquor counter. On the wall is a banner listing all their various D&D potion themed drink recipes—and in lieu of a cocktail umbrella, they drop an activated mini-lightstick in each drink. The drinks are free, but there's a tip jar. (I'm not sure how they can manage to give away free drinks like that, but I'm not going to say no to free booze!) I have two drinks, a "Levitation" (Gin, Blue Curacao, and Sweet & Sour) and a "Delusion" (various kinds of liquor plus Coke) and tip $2. Then it's time to try catching the bus again.
This time, I manage to catch the bus—but when it gets to the transfer station, it turns out it's the last bus of the night. However, the bus people are running one last out-of-service bus as a taxi to take people to where they need to go. One of them is north of Kansas, another is way south of town on Campbell (at a place where the bus I was on passed much earlier in its route—if I'd known it was going to go that far south I would just have biked from the transfer station!), and then there's me. So I end up going almost all the way back to VisionCon before getting taken home again.
So here I am. And so now I'm going to whip up another commission sheet for one of my City of Heroes characters, on the off-chance that I sell a copy of Universalis and have the money to drop on it, then take a shower and go to bed.
I had thought about taking my computer and 5.1 surround sound system down to the con tomorrow so that we chould show animé in surround sound in the Robotech party room—but with the lack of attendance so far, I don't think it's worth the hassle to unhook everything and then rehook it back home again.
And that was my day. I still haven't managed to locate either Brad Sinor or Toni Weiskopf, the two featured guests I want to contact. Hopefully I'll be able to run into them tomorrow.
