Journal Jack William Bell's Journal: Penguicon, Warren MI, Friday May 2 2003 2
Dateline Penguicon......
OK, day one of the convention. The wireless Internet service is working fine, I have a good connection from my laptop next to the pool.
There were the usual snafus you see in a first-time convention, mostly relating to being understaffed. Registration was fouled up and didn't get working right until after 6:00. The Programming Goddess was stressing out. The cheese tasting served too much wine. That kind of thing.
Been there. Done that. And yes, I do have the T-Shirt. I have several...
I ran into Illiad at the Cheese Tasting. I didn't manage to freak him out -- he got me instead: "Heya Jack!"
"Whoa! Hey J.D. Hey, I was hoping to freak you out! I didn't think you knew I was out here."
"I didn't."
Oh well...
So I have two panels scheduled for tonight: At ten I am on 'Policing the Internet' with Rob Malda and at eleven I am on 'How is Microsoft Evil' with Phillip Williams. That last one probably isn't going to be a lot of fun for me. Others will probably enjoy watching me squirm. I mean, well ya I think they are 'evil'. But I don't think they are 'EVIL'. And I figure if they weren't doing it, someone else would be. Maybe even worse.
Software is hard people! Damn hard. Too hard to do right under market pressure.
But anyway, I am going to listen to Terry Prachett read (which should be a blast) in a few minutes. Hopefully Jim will get here first, he doesn't want to miss it.
Oh, and by the way, One of my best friends is coming to the convention at the last minute: Jim Kling! This is major coolness for me, 'cuz I haven't seen him in quite a while. I have lots of great Jim stories, but I won't tell them here. Jim reads it too I guess...
- - - - - Update - - - - - -
Getting pretty late now, so I will update with what has happened this evening. Anything that happens after this actually is happening on Saturday...
Jim made it to the Prachett reading before I did. Afterwards we went to dinner and went back to the hotel where I split off and hung around hospitality and the green room playing my Martin Backpacker and talking. The Backpacker can be a lot of fun because most people don't know what to make of it.
"What is that?"
"A guitar."
"..."
"Really. It's a guitar."
"Sure."
Also the Backpacker isn't very loud, so I can play to make myself happy without interfering with conversations. That way playing guitar isn't all about me.
After the green room I went to my first panel and found Rob Malda playing some kind of stupid game on a bright pink cell phone. I know it was stupid because he kept saying "This is so lame. This is so stupid."
Anyway, it turns out that Rob was expecting me to carry the conversation instead of the opposite, claiming he had nothing to say on the subject. So I got the ball rolling, the audience started participating and Rob started talking. A lot. Heh heh...
After that was the 'Evil Microsoft' panel. I said my thing, claiming that they were only 'evil'. The other guy said I was wrong, they were 'EVIL'. The audience chimed in and things got fun. I didn't squirm too much.
Gonna go look for room parties now. One funny; as I was typing this I got into a conversation with someone else about Jon Singer. Sometimes I think Jon is possibly the most omnipresent person in SF Fandom...
Jon Singer (Score:1)
Re:Jon Singer (Score:2)
I will edit.