My Weekend of Rampant Geekery: A Trip Report

Being, up until this weekend, a Con virgin, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into, geek-wise.

After checking into the hotel and discovering that we were both so hungry we were on the verge of keeling over, grrwoo and I decided to suck it up and get dinner at the horrendously overpriced hotel restaurant. I was highly amused at the ( oh-so-suggestive hotel napkin. )

While we waited for dinner, we entertained ourselves by looking through the windows and categorizing the geeks as they came in: "Well, okay, there're the old guys with the weird fisherman-esque hats, and the guys with long scraggly ponytails and crazy facial hair, the dowdy maternal types and the cute slutty goth girls..." ( And then there was the skinny guy with greasy hair and a stringy mustache/goatee combo with all-black clothes, baggy pants, and a beret. )

That evening was the first Neil Gaiman reading. I spent most of the hour in a drooling fangirl daze, but poor grrwoo was suffering from a pretty awful headache stemming from, among other things, pretty ghastly sleep deprivation and the first big blast of Michigan blooming season, so we retired soon afterward for naptime.

Saturday went by in kind of a blur of geeky goodness. There was the Neil Gaiman signing I wrote about earlier, the chatting in the lobby with dandanar, adam_oddfellow, and Erica-who-I-hadn't-talked-to-since-Freshman-year, the crazy Dr. Demento songfest about LOTR and Star Wars and Buffy and assorted other fandom-related topics, the Masquerade/costume contest thingy (grrwoo couldn't stop ogling the mostly-nekkid sea-nymph girl, much to my amusement), the 4-hour long charity auction at which I bought nothing but was highly entertained at Neil's stint as a very witty Vanna ("How many times have we said to ourselves, if only I had a small bronze cat, my life would be complete! It will raise the dead and smite your enemies!"). That afternoon, we decided to avoid the overpriced hotel food in favor of the Kerby's Koney Island across the street. ( I think someone had a little too much fun with his pancakes... )

At some point, several different Con parents must have said to themselves, "I know how to keep my small children entertained! I'll set them up as elevator attendants for the next several hours!" Thus, for much of Saturday evening, every time we stepped into the elevator we were greeted by two little girls cheerfully asking, "what floor?" They seemed to be really enjoying themselves. Sunday morning/afternoon came with a new set of miniature attendants, this time a brother/sister set with matching Samba t-shirts and, for some reason, cups of ice to munch on. I kinda wanted to get pictures, as they were adorable, but decided that such a thing would be creepy.

Sunday was blearily running around getting things packed, buying a cheap but really pretty kimono purse from the dealer room, more Neil witty repartee during Sandman Jeopardy, and his last reading, from which we unfortunately had to scamper away a few minutes early so I could get grrwoo to the airport in time for his flight.

I'll leave you with my fave pic from the weekend, which I'm not gonna lj-cut because it's pretty little and I think it's damn cute:



If you're so inclined, you might want to hop over to grrwoo's journal and check out his trip report. Among other things, he took significantly better pictures than I did.