WisCon-sciousness
The first half of WisCon was certainly different from the second half! It didn't start that way, though: I woke up Sunday morning and got out the door just in time to make a 10:00 panel, but when I got to the con, I realized I'd left my badge at home, in yesterday's pants. Plus, it was chilly and raining out. I sighed, and walked home to get my badge.
I decided that since the lunch break was right after the panel, I'd just stay home, read the paper, play with the cats, and drive to work to bring my new computer home. So I did all of that (carefully making sure to put my badge somewhere where I wouldn't forget it). I caught up on e-mail at work, and determined that apparently I will not be moving offices like some of the other programmers on my team. For now, I've dodged a proverbial bullet, but I suspect there will be further, small office shifts at some point.
I went in for the 1:00 panel, "Maintaining Fringe Societies", which was about just that: How a subculture can survive on the physical, economic and/or social fringes of mainstream society. A kay for a lot of the discussion was Pat Murphy's novel Nadya, which I'd always been skeptical of reading since I generally don't read fantasies, but after this discussion I went to the dealer's room and picked it up. Now I have three Murphy novels to read!
Later on I went to a panel entitled "Why do Americans Love a Lord, not to Mention a Starship Captain?", which was basically another panel on class and why so much American SF revolves around strict hierarchical structures, although it was not quite as interesting as the earlier class panel. Ellen Kushner sure is neat to hear, though.
After dinner were the guest of honor speeches, and they were very excellent speeches. Sheri S. Tepper confirmed that this was indeed her first SF convention, and she gave a very powerful speech about her belief that we need to perform population control, and in particular that women need to take control of their bodies to this end. Apparently she'd worked in the reproductive support industry (birth control and the like) in the 50s and 60s, so she'd seen a lot of draconian and tragic things happen during that time.
Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman were lighter in tone, talking about their relationship and an experience they'd had when they'd discussed Delia's writing approach. Good stuff.
This night, unlike Saturday, I was quite social. After the speeches I spent a couple of hours talking to a woman, Jennifer, whom I'd run into in the hallway afterwards, who had been coordinating volunteers for the con. (She goes by "Fer". That's what her badge said...) It was fun; she watches Babylon 5, is a fan of the original Star Trek, and she has a friend who's going to start working at Epic in a few weeks (maybe that's next week; people usually start on the first Monday of the month).
I went to the Minneapolis in '73 party afterwards (it's named for the 1973 Minneapolis Worldcon bid, which was withdrawn when they decided they didn't want to run a Worldcon, but gosh, throwing bid parties sure was fun. So they still throw bid parties) and talked to my friends Jeanne and John from Minneapolis, as well as several others from the Bay Area and elsewhere in the Midwest. Without even trying (perhaps with even pointedly not trying) I seem to have gained a fairly decent reputation among some fannish folks. If I could bottle that ability, I could be rich!
I hung out in the con suite a little long, but crumped out around midnight again and came home.
We got back to the con and I picked up the art I'd won in the auction, which looks very nice hanging on my apartment wall. I'd planned to go to the Tiptree Auction just to see Ellen Klages do her stuff as emcee, but instead Jenifer drafted me to help take down the art panels from the art show, move them into the van, and later drop them off at the house which, uh, houses them. This took a chunk of the afternoon and a lot of semi-heavy lifting, but since I volunteered fairly little this year I figured I should go ahead and do it.
Intermittently during the afternoon I also played The Great Dalmuti in the con suite, and generally did very well, finishing as Great Dalmuti twice and Lesser Dalmuti three times - out of about eight games. Too bad we weren't playing for money!
The dead dog party was held in James Madison Park, a few blocks away, and the weather was absolutely beautiful. I was again starting to feel some people overload, so I only stayed a little over an hour and then headed back to the hotel to grab my stuff (and do a tad more lifting stuff into a van). On the way back I ran into a woman in the local group who said she was sorry we hadn't hooked up to talk sometime during the con, though she was quite busy the whole time.
Oh, and I also picked up Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint out of curiosity to see what her stuff is like. Happened to get a first edition hardcover for cover price... or maybe it's not actually valuable. A friend of mine asked if I'd gotten it autographed. I didn't, because I don't feel comfortable getting something autographed if I haven't read it yet. What if I don't like it? Then I'd feel like a schmuck. And I have no interest in getting something autographed just to have it autographed. I don't do this for money or prestige or coolness or anything, I get a few things autographed that I enjoyed, by authors I enjoy. Strange, huh? (I think the only books I have autographed are Mary Russell's The Sparrow and Children of God, and Jonathan Lethem's Gun With Occasional Music, which I haven't read but which was already signed when I bought it.)
But otherwise the machine is working well. All my software seems to port neatly to it, and my modem even seems a little faster - probably because 8.1 is closer to PowerPC native code than 7.6 was, I'd bet. I was a little annoyed at the configuration of the modem and printer ports, since I can't use both at once due to the way my modem plug is set up. Fortunately, I discovered that I can configure the software so the ports get switched, so maybe Apple is smarter than I thought! I'm not quite used to this turning-the-computer-on-from-the-keyboard stuff yet, though.
After work I ran some errands - bought some much needed stuff like more cat food and a replacement bulb for my front hall, which makes those photos I bought look much nicer. Then a guy I know through my APA came over to pick up my old laptop (the Powerbook 190). It's a two-year-old, under-powered, under-memoried machine with a mechanical problem with the flip-up display, so I just gave it to him. He's not very computer-literate (although not a computerphobe by any means; he just hasn't had the opportunity to use them yet), so I spent an hour showing him the basics of the Macintosh. I also gave him all the attendant manuals and the like. I hope it works out for him; I cautioned him strongly that it's not a great machine, and not in great shape, but he seemed willing to give it a go. Can't beat the price, I suppose!
Met Karen for coffee later in the evening, and came home to finish off this entry. New Babylon 5 episode tomorrow - woo-hoo!
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