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Feb. 21st, 2006 02:02 amWhen I put up that poll last week I thought that attending Boskone and the thon on the same weekend was the least likely of the things to happen, but it's what I ended up doing anyway.
Two things caused this: First, I met with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daerr to go over the Boskone programming schedule, and we discovered that it actually looked really good. This sold me on the idea of attending at least one day, so made plans for Saturday. Later I wrote dictator555 to ask if she had any interest in coming to the thon. I intended this to be a token effort that would allow an honorable withdrawal from the event, since it was already Thursday and therefore I didn't expect her to respond as affirmatively as she did. Writing my response to her initial questions was all it took to hook me on the idea of initiating another newbie into the fold, and so that was that.
I had a great time at both events. I may or may not note my memories here about the panels and presentations I attended at Boskone and the films and features I saw at the thon. We'll see.
Thon: The dictator and I arrived with an hour to go, and were fortunate to find good adjacent seats.kyroraz joined us few pictures in, but I didn't spot derspatchel, despite my occasional scanning of the Cinema 1 crowd. I didn't spend any time wandering around Cinema 2 or mingling in the lobby; as with most cons and con-like events I actually do attend more for the programming than the schmoozing. (And more to the point, leaving or returning to my seat meant climbing over several other people, since we were parked right in the middle of our row.) However, I did find myself sitting next to "L.A. Connection", the perennial procurer of much of the thon's prints (he scored nine of them this year) and I got to shake his hand. He's very friendly and I thought he looks kind of like Jerry from It's JerryTime!.
The thon venue was fine, a nice theater in a nice Newton neighborhood. I found the seats quite comfy. Though I didn't avail myself of their services, I appreciated that a little deli next door decided to join us in staying up all night. The main negative aspect of my experience was the temperature, which became sauna-hot towards midnight. Someone finally adjusted the thermostat before I could complain, but it still stabilized at a degree or three higher than I would have liked.
Boskone was also great, featuring eight happy hours spent wandering between different events with various combinations of J,radiotelescope and meerkitty around me. Was also in an unacknowledged accidental-stalker relationship with Cory Doctorow, who kept showing up at like every place I went to, including food places. (At one point he did turn to me and describe a detail of a current WiP after J and I were talking about the light-bulb-cube-output computer at the Mathematica exhibit at the Museum of Science.)
Came home with energy to attend to certain aspects of the company, and a half dozen old paperbacks. The nice old gentlemen selling them for a buck each had a 6-for-$5 special, and when I picked two and had trouble choosing any more, he (based on my selection and a brief interview) pulled out four more books from his collection and thrust them at me. I thought that was pretty awesome. We talked about other stuff for a while... he grunted in disgust when I confessed ignorance about a certain publisher that was infamous for being crappy (well before my time), and really wanted me to go find a certain Poul Anderson novel, "The People of the Wind". When I was recounting this story to my friends later that day, a random woman overheard and agreed that, yes, this is a very good book. So I guess I'll go look for that sometime.
Age: after I attended Boston's Worldcon 17 months ago, I wrote about how old everyone was compared to, say, Arisia. At Boskone, there were a few knots of teenagers and slighty-older-thans, and the median age was younger than Worldcon's, but not by much. At a glance, the crowd was, again, largely middle-aged and older, and you can't really blame high attendance fees this time. I have (optimistic) thoughts about this -- J and I had a conversation on this topic while taking a coffee break at the adjoining Ur Ban Pain -- but suspect they are too half-baked to stand alone as yet.
Two things caused this: First, I met with
daerr to go over the Boskone programming schedule, and we discovered that it actually looked really good. This sold me on the idea of attending at least one day, so made plans for Saturday. Later I wrote dictator555 to ask if she had any interest in coming to the thon. I intended this to be a token effort that would allow an honorable withdrawal from the event, since it was already Thursday and therefore I didn't expect her to respond as affirmatively as she did. Writing my response to her initial questions was all it took to hook me on the idea of initiating another newbie into the fold, and so that was that.I had a great time at both events. I may or may not note my memories here about the panels and presentations I attended at Boskone and the films and features I saw at the thon. We'll see.
Thon: The dictator and I arrived with an hour to go, and were fortunate to find good adjacent seats.
kyroraz joined us few pictures in, but I didn't spot derspatchel, despite my occasional scanning of the Cinema 1 crowd. I didn't spend any time wandering around Cinema 2 or mingling in the lobby; as with most cons and con-like events I actually do attend more for the programming than the schmoozing. (And more to the point, leaving or returning to my seat meant climbing over several other people, since we were parked right in the middle of our row.) However, I did find myself sitting next to "L.A. Connection", the perennial procurer of much of the thon's prints (he scored nine of them this year) and I got to shake his hand. He's very friendly and I thought he looks kind of like Jerry from It's JerryTime!.The thon venue was fine, a nice theater in a nice Newton neighborhood. I found the seats quite comfy. Though I didn't avail myself of their services, I appreciated that a little deli next door decided to join us in staying up all night. The main negative aspect of my experience was the temperature, which became sauna-hot towards midnight. Someone finally adjusted the thermostat before I could complain, but it still stabilized at a degree or three higher than I would have liked.
Boskone was also great, featuring eight happy hours spent wandering between different events with various combinations of J,
radiotelescope and meerkitty around me. Was also in an unacknowledged accidental-stalker relationship with Cory Doctorow, who kept showing up at like every place I went to, including food places. (At one point he did turn to me and describe a detail of a current WiP after J and I were talking about the light-bulb-cube-output computer at the Mathematica exhibit at the Museum of Science.)Came home with energy to attend to certain aspects of the company, and a half dozen old paperbacks. The nice old gentlemen selling them for a buck each had a 6-for-$5 special, and when I picked two and had trouble choosing any more, he (based on my selection and a brief interview) pulled out four more books from his collection and thrust them at me. I thought that was pretty awesome. We talked about other stuff for a while... he grunted in disgust when I confessed ignorance about a certain publisher that was infamous for being crappy (well before my time), and really wanted me to go find a certain Poul Anderson novel, "The People of the Wind". When I was recounting this story to my friends later that day, a random woman overheard and agreed that, yes, this is a very good book. So I guess I'll go look for that sometime.
Age: after I attended Boston's Worldcon 17 months ago, I wrote about how old everyone was compared to, say, Arisia. At Boskone, there were a few knots of teenagers and slighty-older-thans, and the median age was younger than Worldcon's, but not by much. At a glance, the crowd was, again, largely middle-aged and older, and you can't really blame high attendance fees this time. I have (optimistic) thoughts about this -- J and I had a conversation on this topic while taking a coffee break at the adjoining Ur Ban Pain -- but suspect they are too half-baked to stand alone as yet.