I spent the weekend before last at Philcon, The Philadelphia Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Nita and her younger sister Dannette let me crash in their hotel room for the weekend, which was awesome of them. We arrived Friday night and I let them “dress me up” for the evening. The major reason behind my spur of the moment attendance at the con was generally feeling lousy about myself lately and not getting out enough – so what’s better for feeling lousy than dressing up and looking good at a con? I let them have their way with eye makeup and lipstick, and borrowed some of Nettie’s clothes. I am unconvinced that the makeup did me much good (or it could be my general loathing for makeup), but I did like the clothes. I should probably do some shopping soon, standard issue sysadmin t-shirt and jeans really aren’t doing much to make me feel fantastic about myself. After dressing me up (Nita has pictures, must nag her again for them), we had time to catch a couple panels, around midnight I went back up to the room to sleep while Nita and Nettie had other plans for the late night (which I skipped simply because I was tired).
Saturday was fun. It started out with breakfast buffet in at the hotel with some of the con organizers Nita knows. I quickly diverged from Nita and Nettie’s panel choices and went to a bunch on my own. I bumped into waltman (who I know from PLUG) sometime during the day and after hitting a few panels we snagged a local university professor he knows from his SciFi book club and the three of us went out for dinner at Nodding Head Brewery. I had one of their BPA (Bill Payer Ale) and some chicken fingers, which I enjoyed, it was a very nice little brewery. Upon arriving back at the hotel after dinner I wandered around for a bit, ended up bumping into Bill, a former co-worker of Michael’s whose house I’ve been to a couple of times. After chatting for a bit it was time for the Masquerade, where costumers in the community showcase their creations. Last year I wasn’t too into the Masquerade, so I didn’t have high hopes, but I was pleasantly surprised this year. Following the Masquerade was the musical guest for the con, Voltaire, which turned out to be one of the highlights of my weekend. His music is goth and morbid (which I can be very very into if the mood strikes, and it was striking that night), but he can geek out with the best of them and had a pile of SciFi inspired songs that, while sometimes perverse, were quite a lot of fun. It was really ashame the concert was only an hour long, especially when I learned he was prepared to play longer and the time slot for his show was just short. I’m really sorry I missed him play at Dracula’s Ball over Halloween, but the intimacy of the con show was great and lacked the hoards of goth fangirls that I’m sure generally accompany his shows. Of course Saturday was the night for con parties, but after a whole day of conning I was ready to hide in the hotel room. Events like this where I’m with a lot of people really exhaust me.
Sunday! I woke up before Nita and Nettie, who had stayed out past 4AM. I went to a couple panels before our 1PM hotel checkout time. In the early afternoon I ended up meeting Voltaire and buying one of his CDs, which he signed. Nita and I also got our pictures taken with him (Nita, I need piccys!). We caught some late lunch and the rest of the day was pretty much spent hanging out with people. I finally got to meet drkmage1016 in the gaming room at the con, Nita knows him from gaming and who I’ve known him just via LiveJournal for a couple years now. A bit embarrassingly, when I said “Hey, I know you…” he realized who I was and went ahead and introduced me to the rest of the table as some Linux guru, hah! I went ahead and mentioned that I’m the contact for PLUG now too, and that’s when one of their table mates turned around and took notice – it was none other than Eric S. Raymond. What an introduction! I knew he was at the con, he’s a local and I’ve seen him around town a bunch of times. So I ended up chatting with ESR, his wife, and a couple of folks who he spent the con with for a bit, and he said he might be willing to do a talk for PLUG in the near future, hurrah! Sunday wrapped up with Nita being invited to a dinner with a bunch of the con organizers, to which she was able to get Nettie and I invited to as well. By the time we had this dinner around 8PM I was beat from another full day of human interaction and didn’t talk much, but it was an enjoyable dinner anyway. After dinner a bunch of us piled into Nita’s car for the ride home, she ended up giving rides to a couple of people, including Mark Wolverton, who I had the pleasure of being squished next to in the back seat.
It was after 11 by the time we got back to Nita’s, and I was so tired that she let me crash in her spare bedroom. Thanks again Nita! Fun weekend, I’m really glad I decided to go.