Congenial VIII
Yesterday and today I was at Congenial VIII in Racine, WI, just south of Milwaukee. Congenial is a small relaxacon founded by my good friend Jim Rittenhouse, and in fact Congenial IV, way back in 1992, was the first SF convention I ever went to. (Ironically, it was being chaired by the woman who would later become my girlfriend for two years. She has since GAFIAted from fandom.)
Although Congenial was a nice introduction to fandom, in reality it is not really my kind of con anymore. It is essentially an excuse for a party, and the science fictional elements are thin. It also may be just about on its last legs; after peaking at an attendance of a little under 200 a few years ago, its membership was a mere 65 this year. Part of this may have been because it was scheduled the same weekend as First Contact, another struggling Milwaukee con. (How did this happen? I don't know.)
Anyway, I mainly went to see Jim, and some of my other Chicago and Milwaukee fannish friends. I also met a few folks I've corresponded with via the Minicon mailing list.
Actually, one nice thing about Congenial is it gives me reason to drive through the back-roads of Wisconsin, which are really very pretty, especially at this time of year with the corn high and the trees changing color. The rural villages around here remind me of the northeast where I grew up, too.
So, it was a pretty mellow time of just hanging out. I saw snippets of the movie WaterWorld, which looked pretty mediocre, and also about an hour of cartoons based on the comic book The Maxx, which I may have to look into. (I think I can borrow all of them from a friend.)
My friend Brian, with whom I game often (including last Thursday's Robo Rally session) called to ask if I'd like to go to dinner with him and his wife, and play some Robo Rally with them afterwards. So we went to Fat Jack's Barbeque, which has all-you-can-eat chicken on Sundays (which might as well be all-you-can-eat garlic bread where I'm concerned; I'm no vampire!), and we introduced his wife to Robo Rally, too, which might have gone better if she hadn't had a beer with dinner!
I love barbeque ribs, but I've been timid eating them ever since I contracted food poisoning from them while at Minicon last March. It's probably just as well; they're probably the least-healthy thing that I eat.
Oh, yeah; and I finished the first cut of my games Web page this evening. Still more text to put in to make it a little smoother, but at least it doesn't have gaping holes anymore. From start to almost-finished in a week; not bad!
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