You think I was kidding when I said I didn't take many pictures at con? I took four.

( All four behind the cut! )

This con report is dedicated to John Scalzi and Scott Westerfeld, for letting me know that other people have Google Alerts set up for their own names, and to Justine Larbalestier, because it doesn't seem right to include those two and leave her out.

I can't decide how to do this year's con report. Last year, it was mostly just a quote board and a silly cast list. In previous years, I've done photo reports, but I only took about 20 pictures all weekend.

I could do a statistics post...

• First hug: sarahmichigan about 2:45 on Thursday


• Last hug: netmouse, precisely 48 hours later. Well, not precisely, since I'm not even sure what time I hugged Sarah, but almost exactly 48 hours from the approximate time.


• People hugged: 13


• Text messages received: 38 from six people.


• Text messages sent: 42 to seven people.


• Panels attended: 3


• Panels attended featuring the same panelists: 3, Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier (new single-con record) (also ties career record, held by Marcy Italiano, John Scalzi, Jim Frenkel, Anne Harris, and I suspect others)


• Cars driven between Friday night and Saturday afternoon: 3

OK, that's really boring.

I'll just do the same basic thing as last year.

Cast:

• Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier: CF 2008's Author Guests of Honor. Famous young-adult authors. "Haute Bohemians", according to The Village Voice. Second and third-biggest New York Liberty fans alive.


• John Scalzi: CF 2008's Toastmaster. Steven Brust's idol. Lone ninja against a sea of pirates. Despite rumors, still has own head and kept it (mostly) unlicked.


• aiela: Best wife ever. Official staff member. Very happy drunk. Successful gambler. Not-as-successful plank walker.


• bunjamin: Con rookie. Veteran drinker.


• davehogg: Your fearful narrator.


• dionysus1999: Tireless volunteer.


• hannunvaakuna: Demure librarian by day, party girl by night.


• jenx: Unexpectedly present.


• netmouse: Teacher of Important Signals. Not Krissy Scalzi.


• novapsyche: Able to grow Big Hair in a matter of moments.


• realmjit: Art Queen.


• renniekins: Official Pirate Cabin Girl. Almost as tall as a plank.


• rikhei: Midnight shopper. Committed blog reader.


• sarahmichigan: Officially unpresent. Cute, quiet and deadly.


• shadowriderhope: Too briefly present. Too glamorous for Noodles and Company.


• tammylc: Edible Queen (she makes things to eat! perverts!) Spectacularly skirted.


• Yanni Decker aka Yanni Kunzia: Inspiration of the phrase "Jingle sexy". Author Wrangler Extraordinare. Voted "Most Likely to Kill You". Also not Krissy Scalzi.

Also appearing: drgnfly, Jacquie Floyd, jer_, larcb (Angie talked to her, though I didn't), nat94, nubianamy (Saw her about 122 times and never got a chance to talk to her), xaina

Unfortunately not appearing: alem, mandyloria, wouldyoueva, and, especially unfortunately but for very good reasons, gsguitar and marcy_italiano

Left to his own fate: thatguychuck

Quotes

"The kids got bored with the yoga pretty quickly, so we switched them to cartoons."
"Kids picked cartoons over yoga? Really? Wow."

"You know, one of those paintings would look really good on the wall in our back room."
"Sweetie?"
"Yes, dear?"
"We have that painting on the wall in our back room."
"Oh. Yes, we do."

"At one point, a man in a leather kilt licked my entire skull."

"Stand up again, Rennie."
"I am standing!"
"Try standing on the chair!"

"I was nervous, so I wrote out a few words. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ear. Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation..."

"You don't know that, with my ninja training, I've poisoned all of you. It's a slow-acting poison. It takes 60 years to work."
"He poisoned his own scalp!"

"You have to come down to the concierge lounge - the pirates need boobie ribbons!"

"This Meijer sucks!"

"Look, it's Peter Jackson!"

"That was a great panel."
"Thanks. And you were right, you should have been on it."
*blinks in confusion*
"I have a Google Alert set for my name, so I saw your blog post about being on the panel."
*gulps*

"Oh, then we've read your writing lots of times, since the New York Times isn't about to cover the WNBA on their own."

"I am drnk"

"I am in the room and I don't see you!"
"I'm sitting five rows in front of you, wearing a garish red-and-back striped shirt."
"Oh. I wasn't looking there."

"One of the reasons that people think SF is dead is that we've already gotten all the things that only used to be in science fiction novels."
"Except flying cars. They promised us flying cars."

"If you go to the library, the books have a sticker with a rocket ship on them, which isn't all that girly. There's no icon for a book about global social networking."
"Just put the MySpace logo on the stickers. Everyone would know that."

"I was supposed to give you Marcy's apologies for not showing up this weekend."
"That's silly - if she *had* shown up, I would have kicked her ass."
"That's the same thing that Angie and I told her."
"Who are you two talking about?"
"Marcy. She's unwell and couldn't be here."
"Actually, she's actually Notunwell."
"Well, yes, but she's slightly unwell as part of being very Notunwell."

"I thought I lost everyone - I went to ops and then everyone was gone."
"The problem is that it takes you 45 minutes to walk 50 feet to ops, because everyone knows you and wants a hug. Not that I blame them."

"AIEEEEEE!" (four people simultaneously after stepping out onto the roof of the parking garage Saturday night."

"Don't you think you are a little overdressed for Noodles and Company?"
"Maybe, but I wasn't sure how fancy it was, and you never want to be underdressed for dinner."

"Wow. John Scalzi's wife is really hot."
"Actually, that's not Scalzi's wife. That's Yanni."
"Oh. Is the other one his wif ... no, that's Anne, isn't it?"
"Yeah. I think his wife is in that group around him somewhere."
"That's more of a harem than a group."
"Yeah. Poor guy."

"What's the collective noun for a group of bellydancers?"
"A jingle?"

"Most people complimented me on my boobs or my hair or said I was cute. One guy said 'That's a very orange shirt', and I just thought 'Coward.'"

"I need a cabin boy. Are you interested?"
"Certainly!"
"Can you iron?"
"I'll learn. Sweetie, an iron is that triangular metal thing, right?"

"The problem is that these name tags are so hard to read that you can't be subtle about trying to figure out someone's name. You have to be pretty blatant about staring at their chest."
"Isn't that the point of half the outfits people are wearing tonight?"
"Yes, but it is hard enough to read them without the added distraction."
"That's a good point. Of course, I'm wearing mine on my hip."
"Trust me, your hips are just as distracting."

"I tried to walk the plank backward, but that didn't work."
"Sweetie, you are clumsy when you're sober, and now you're drunk and wearing four-inch heeled boots."
"I made it one step!"

"That was a terrible pirate joke. It's either the lash, eating a lime or walking the plank creatively!"
"I'm not into lashes, and I don't have scurvy, so can I Riverdance the plank?"

"OK, you did what to me in a short story?"
"I'm sorry - it was supposed to be a strawberry Moon Pie and then I wrote the story, and it turned out to be your disembodied head with a note that said 'Lick THIS!'"
"I see."
"Did Rikhei squeal on me?"
"No, I have a web search set up on my name and I saw the post."
"You too?!?"

"That's Scott Westerfeld and John Scalzi that have found my blogs because they are auto-Googling themselves. I'm going to have to be more careful about who I mention in my posts."
"No, you need to be more explicit about who you mention."
"So I should be careful to be explicit?"
"Right."

"We mentioned that a fantasy world doesn't have to have wheat, and an entire room full of people rose up against us. That was four years ago, and we're still traumatized."
"Yeah, we had no idea that wheat had such fanatical backers."

"OK, you owe him a $45 refund, because he registered both of us not knowing that I had already been registered as a staff member, so can we give you $5 and then count the $50 toward two $25 memberships for 2009?"
"Um. I think so. Yes. Just let me figure how the accounting will work on that."

So we're paid for 2009. That will be my sixth, Angie's fifth and Leon and Noel's first.

We can't wait. See you all in a year.

So, who is going to ConFusion in two weeks? There will be a lot of cool people, roaming pirates, the Ceremonial Licking of John Scalzi's Head, some interesting panels, a masquerade, a dance, a lot of drinking, the world's coldest 24-hour pool, a photo studio in A's and my room and, well, many things that might not make it into the con recap on the Monday.

The programming looks really good. Friday night is the Opening Ceremonies and the Dessert Reception, followed by rum tasting, which should get my darling wife right into the swing of things.

Saturday morning, I'll probably hit Giving Clear Signals at 10 - netmouse, you are a beautiful, brave soul - then the Sports Panel of Doom at 11. Damn, that IS opposite one of M's panels - and one that looks really good.

After that, there is no sense planning anything, because I never actually go to panels on Saturday afternoon. I'm always too busy socializing. M & G have back-to-back panels at 8 and 9, so I'll check on them after getting the requisite Masquerade pictures.

Then the partying starts. However, I'll stay sober so that M doesn't have to be the only one.

Since I'm not going to drink this year, I can actually plan to attend Sunday panels. At 11, there's one called "Gluten-Free Fantasy" about the shocking concept of a fantasy setting that isn't based on Medieval Europe. Given the fact that I've been playing for months with a setting based on pre-Columbian North America, I'm very interested in this.

So there you go. Everyone should come.

Fantastic Sports: Organized sports are a vital part almost every culture on the glove. But sf and fantasy novels tend to overlook this key aspect of world-building. We examine what sports are and what they tell us about a culture, and dig up some good examples in sf and fantasy. (Justine Larbalestier (M), Scott Westerfeld, Steve Ainsworth, Dave Klecha and Catherine Shaffer) - Saturday, 11am-12pm

How did they not ask me to be on this panel?!? I'm witty, urbane, funny, a professional sports writer, and able to talk for at least an hour just about the failings of Quidditch!

I will, obviously, be attending this. Thank God it isn't up against one of the Italiano Family Panels - I'd hate to leave Marcy without her paparazzi!

And, yes, I promise to behave myself.

OK, I promise to try to behave myself.

No?

How about if I promise to not spend 5,000 words of my con recap nit-picking the panelists to death?

I am not saying a word about Freon's mask panel. But I appreciate the reminder for my packing list.