Arisia 2007

[marcmagus]

NOTE: If you went to Vassar with me, you may be interested in the last couple of paragraphs even if you're generally uninterested in convention reports. Just saying...

Arisia was this weekend. Friday I got there just in time for the Victorian Ball. They had live music, which worked out quite nicely, and the Pugliesis called/MCed/taught. There were a good number of quite good dancers, including some new people who caught on quickly. I hope some of them made it to the tea dance on Sunday. (I didn't.) After the dance I wandered around a bit getting a feel for the new hotel, and did some hanging out in the Con Suite and the like. Then I got tired astonishingly early (around midnight) and headed home.

Saturday afternoon I got a chance to try out a cute card game called "King's Blood". It's basically an Uno variant with a heredity theme, incredibly cute artwork, and a couple of features supporting the theme and making it not Uno. Of course, the guy who was teaching the rules had them completely wrong, so I kept finding things as I flipped through the rulebook to the extent that we were playing a completely different game.

Except for a couple hours filking (late-ish Sat, Sun afternoon), I think that's it for the stuff I did. The weekend was primarily characterized by spending time with friends, which I really can't complain about. And this was the convention of "OMG You'll Never Guess Who I Saw!"

So I'll tell you. But first, some of the unsurprising people I hung out with.

As I got to the hotel, I walked up the stairs in front of the hotel toward what one would have thought would be the front door. So there I was with my bicycle on my shoulder and I realize I'm walking directly toward a bunch of floor-to-ceiling windows on a restaurant, and there's a table of people looking at me. The natural thought enters my mind, "I probably know them." And I did, as captainecchi and electric_d_monk were sitting there watching me. So of course I had to turn around after looking embarrassed, and, as I was in a hurry to get to the ball, I didn't actually talk to them until hours later (and then only the latter, IIRC).

Then there were the CVD-type dance folk, who are always interesting to spend time with. And Susan, who lured me into the game of King's Blood. pixel, who was his usual entertaining self and almost provoked me into getting up to some serious mischief (sadly, we only thought about it). Some other people who were great to see, but if I turn this into a laundry list then I'm really going to have to worry about missing people.

And of course there were ladymondegreen and akawil, who I never see often enough, and with whom I'm apparently forming a tradition of post-convention dinners...

Then...Saturday afternoon I was checking the Voodoo Message Board when I heard, "Hi Marc!". I looked up . . . and I don't know if the delay was because it was taking time for me to connect the face I was seeing to the one I remember (and resolve the page fault and pull in the appropriate memory and the like), or if it was because it was so unexpected that it just took a little while to confirm that I was seeing what I seemed to be, but darkteddybear had seen me on his way into the convention and recognized me. For those who don't know, we went to college together; he introduced me to the idea that poker could be a good game. I'm not sure if I've seen him since . . . 2001? If even that recently?

And then, a couple hours later, I did it again. Again, standing by the Voodoo board, again with the "Hi Marc", again with the longer pause than I would have liked (this time I'm sure it was the cache miss). She doesn't have an LJ, and I don't refer to RL names without permission. This should suffice for those who know who I'm talking about: I used to play in a Werewolf LARP called RAW. She played Natasha (and I now start kicking myself because I can't come up with her Garou name at the moment...this is rather embarrassing), Black Fury Theurge, about whom many storys could be sung. Dropped off the face of the earth (the player, not the character) sometime in . . . 2003? Good catching up there.

And Sunday after dinner I went home and fell over, missing both the tea dance and rehearsal. I managed to make it in to work on Monday without having to prop my eyelids open, so that was good. And I think I only got a minor case of con crud (::knocks on his desk::).

Comments

[mneme]

Oh, bah -- tea dance! I'd forgotten about that one; might have pushed to make Arisia (was a slow weekend as it was) if I'd remembered -- though traiditonally, Boskone + Arisia is TOO MUCH.