Norwescon

I went to Norwescon on Saturday. That's the big local science fiction convention, you know.

That description confused me when I first moved up here. See, I come from San Diego, where the big convention is the San Diego Comic Convention, which is absolutely enormous. Paid attendance of over 50,000. Dealer's room the size of eight football fields. Panels by everyone in comic books and most people in science fiction and gaming. It's great. I've been to that convention a lot (and I even did a series of entries about my memories of the convention and the things I've done there, if you're interested), so I was under the impression that all conventions were that big. And when I got to Seattle, everyone said Norwescon was The Thing To Do, so I thought it was going to be the same sort of unimaginably large geekfest. It turns out to be smaller than I thought, although fully as geeky.

I only went on Saturday, even though I had plenty of free time, what with having taken the week off from work. Did I not mention I was taking a week off? Oh. Sorry. Anyway, I lounged about all week, and then I went to the con on Saturday. So there's your backstory.

The first thing I did was hit the dealer's room. It's not as big as the one at Comic Con, but I still found stuff to buy. That's not surprising; I'm capable of finding something to buy almost anywhere, let alone a science fiction convention. I picked up a Howard Waldrop book and a few cds, and then I was off to the art show. It had about the usual ratio of worthwhile stuff: about a quarter of the pieces were neat. And then there were a bunch of paintings of wing�d kittens. Weirdly, the art show was the least air-conditioned room at the convention; I guess they're not worried about the effects of heat on the paint and resin and whatnot.

After awhile, I wanted to sit down and do some reading. That's what I do for fun, you know. Anyway, I think it's okay to sit down and read a science fiction book if you're, y'know, at a science fiction convention. You'd think there'd be more of that, but in fact most people are devoting their time to coming up with entertaining outfits.

Whoops. Got ahead of myself. I was trying to sit down. See, although Norwescon isn't as big as Comic Con, it's still plenty big enough to fill up the hotel. And all the easily-accessible chairs are usually filled up. But this time, I figured out a way to sit down in some peace and quiet. See, there's this outdoor smoking area. And most of the people at Norwescon don't smoke. Some do, of course; the goths have a pretty strong tendency to smoke. But they don't tend to hang out outside on a beautiful day. So my point is that it was really nice out and there weren't any smokers in the smoking area, so I had it all to myself. There was still a little smell of stale smoke in the air, but it wasn't really any worse than the rest of the con. If you know what I mean.

I enjoy Norwescon, because I get to see people I haven't seen in awhile. And I don't even know some of them. "Oh, look! There's that guy with the fans! And the guy with the white top hat!" And so on.

I don't get all dressed up for conventions, although I'm impressed by the people that go all-out and have elaborate costumes for each day. Some people are dressed up as specific characters (note to the world: Sailor Moon costumes are not for everyone. Also, Stormtroopers aren't impressive anymore), and some people just have really fancy outfits. The thing is, you can be in a huge black taffeta evening gown and look great, but the convention nametag kind of ruins the effect. I think the thing to do would be to come up with an outfit that incorporates the badge in some way. Like dressing up like a 1940s reporter and wearing the badge in your hatband like it says "PRESS" or something. Come to think of it, it would be really cool to wear a grey suit and wear stage makeup so it looks like you're in black and white.

Saturday evening, I went to a party, which I don't usually do. I mean, I've gone to some parties, but I don't go to parties all the time or anything. It was a good party, with a whole lot of people, some of whom I knew. I'd say I knew just enough people there to make me not feel like I was in a room full of drunken strangers. Really, I ended up leaving before anyone got really, really drunk. But there was this one drink people were getting into -- it involved Everclear, Amaretto, Triple Sec, Absinthe, and dry ice. And a long tube. I had non-alcoholic cocktails, which is mostly code for "random fruit juices poured together". There was also an auction for, um, weird stuff. Let's just leave it at that.

So that was Saturday. Wacky convention time. Some year, I ought to just get a hotel room and do it up right.