Ganked from rinnytintinny on Facebook.
It made me think for a minute about how much time I've spent at conventions and/or working on them.
( Would you like to know more? )
I don't tag people, but I am curious about my friends' experiences, especially oldermore experienced fans like badger2305, materia_indigo, chebutykin, qob...you know who you are, people.

Worked the Night Job for about eight hours today, including the time I took to retrieve onsenmark from the hotel so he could dump his stuff at the Burrow and return for the tail end of Katsucon. I'll also be working tomorrow night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night, so the paycheck at month's end should be pretty decent. Depending, of course, on how I hold up through the week.

Nothing else to say, really; this article on the Amish and how they adapt to technology (or adapt it to their uses) is interesting; also via Instapundit, the flowering of romance now that Iraq is (mostly) peaceful again. In other terror news, Terrorists Quit over Pay Dispute, leading Glenn to quip "Geez, everybody's suffering from the recession!" Lots of cool tech stuff here, and that's just the first six weeks of 2009.

Very hard time getting started this morning, and in fact I blew off the 1000 Web comics/print comics panel because my motivator chip was stuck in the off position, also because I was busy committing insurance fraud and losing Badgers full of spare parts and ammo.

I eventually did make it to the hotel in time for the Philosophy in Anime panel, which was actually at 1530. This was more of a discussion than a lecture panel, which was a Good Thing, because like most folks I'd rather be part of a discussion than get lectured at. Also seen and talked to were Rob Balder and Phil Foglio. This time, I managed to avoid reminding Phil about D'Arc Tangent. Win.

Unfortunately, after that there wasn't much of interest going on. Hanging out in the driveway and hallway watching the people go by is interesting for a while, but the frequency of good hall cosplay wasn't really high enough to keep me engaged, so around 1900 I headed out to Fairfax by way of the burrow, where I coordinated with P about dinner. This eventually happened at Moby's in Fairfax, where we got caught up on stuff. Things appear to be going quite well for her, which hopefully will be a continuing trend.

Don't know if I'll be going back to Katsucon next year. For one thing, it's going to be at National Harbor next year, and for another, it's just too goddamn huge. It was more crowded than Detour's last years at the Thunderbird, without the central courtyard or the low-rise construction to provide relief. Katsucon posted an attendance cap of 6500, which they hit pretty easily, but IMAO this was way too many people for the space. Maybe that'll be improved by the new facilities, but TBQH I'm not much interested in finding out.

Got a good night's sleep mainly by virtue of resetting the alarm to 0800, and am now awake trying to make sense of various senseless things that went down while I was being an otaku last night. Among these is Ringo & Cochrane's Honor of the Clan, which arrived yesterday and was read while laundry was processing. Review later, after I've read through it a couple more times.

Should have done EVE stuff last night and didn't, which might make getting my shit to Delve interesting. Meh, it's all insured, and even the blueprints can be replaced.

Plan calls for me to be showered, dressed, and at the hotel by 1000 for the comics panel. It could happen and probably will. deathquaker will probably not be joining us since she has family issues to deal with, but that's life; hopefully therevdrnye will not also be a no-show. For now, I must do coffee and other drugs. I suspect things will make a little more sense after I do this.

UPDATE: Plan has failed miserably mainly due to inertia and a surfeit of internet spaceships. Showering now. Will probably make it to the philosophy & anime panel.

Got off work around 1500, went home to take care of some business, and wound up getting to Katsucon around 1630, well in advance of the Utena panel that started at 1700. Good panel; a lot of intelligent discussion of color symbolism and male/female roles in the context of Utena. I think the panelists are making a mistake in addressing the series from a solely Western cultural context, since anime isn't the product of a solely Western culture, but hey, it's their panel and it was 90% interesting.

After the panel, onsenmark went upstairs to grab his smokes and then we headed over to Marino's for foodz, which we ate while discussing anime, Inferno, and the need for a convention that was more oriented toward mature discussion of anime and getting otaku better acquainted with traditional SF & fantasy. As opposed to the current crop of conventions, which are really aimed more at teenagers...not that there's anything wrong with that, but you ought to be able to have a space for the older fans to do workshops and SERIOUS BUSINESS panels. This convention idea can stand to gestate for a couple more years, though; I don't know enough local fans aside from my old friends (who are either broke-ass fans like me or busy with RL stuff) and I'm not ready to end my sabbatical from convention staffing yet.

I dropped Mark off at the hotel after dinner and headed home, because one of the panels I want to see tomorrow is scheduled for 1000 and there's no damn way I can get up early enough on Saturday, do laundry and get to the hotel in time. Therefore, laundry is being done tonight and I'll get a decent night's sleep before plunging back into the mix.

Still a few (well, OK, many) things to do while waiting for onsenmark to call from the downtown DC Greyhound terminal. He'll be happy to hear that deathquaker will be popping down for part of Saturday to join us, which will be cool.

The day job was largely a waste of time except for the five checks I bashed out; spent most of it surfing the web and half-listening to Laura and Rush. Still some hope that the Congressional Democrats may have overreached themselves on the Porkulus bill and set themselves up for a Blue Dog revolt in the House or a GOP filibuster in the Senate, though with the Terrible Trio of Spector, Snowe and Collins using up oxygen on our side of the fence I don't have much faith in the latter.

Tape arrived today but no sign of the book I ordered from Borders yet. Up and at the cleaning/repacking thing.

Hey, onsenmark, threvdrnye: there any plans for a get-together of the Herd/our vile & treacherous friends at the Hyatt Regency or some other Crystal City dive?

Finished my tax returns tonight; will be getting ~$500 from the Feds (soon) and paying ~$475 to the state (on April 15). I think they screwed me out of the 20% discount I was supposed to get, at that.

Put in four hours at H&R Block tonight and will be doing the same for the rest of the week. We'll see what happens over the weekend. I'm currently looking at banking the federal refund and using the H&RB pay to build up a fund for Detour and Balticon. Or seeing a wound care specialist, if Kaiser doesn't repent and let me back into their HMO. There's other insurance available through the NRA, but if I can get coverage through Kaiser, I'd much rather do that. They already know what's going on, after all.

With that, I'm toddling off to bed. It's going to be a long couple of days ahead...and sometime in the next couple of weeks, I need to clean up and empty the living room some so onsenmark has someplace to crash the Thursday before Katsucon.

Oh, yeah, burrito: since I didn't get home until almost 1700 today and got called in to work at H&RB immediately, I wound up doing dinner at Chipotle around 1900. Good as usual, and maybe better without the expensive guacamole.

To be honest, I didn't see all that much of Katsucon. I stayed out of artists' alley and the dealers' room (didn't want to spend money) only sat in on one panel, and mostly sat in one of the main corridors watching the crowd go by as Mr. B talked to various of his friends among the staff and membership. Still, having shooped a few whoops run/staffed a few conventions in my time, I did notice a few things that made me think about coming back next year.
( Cut for people who, frankly, DGAS about anime conventions )

It was a pretty good time; got to talk briefly to bam2 who was very surprised to see me there.

Well, it took the lads from Two Guys and a Truck (not to be confused with Two Men and a Truck, which isn't around here) three and a half hours -including travel time- to empty out my storage locker and move it all into the apartment. Holy crap, I have a lot of stuff...and some of it is going to the dumpster, since it's broken. So far I've resigned myself to the necessity of buying at least one floor lamp since its base is broken and the threading on the top has gotten stripped; the less said about the old microwave the better. Most of my coffee mugs seem to have survived, and I see that I packed a bunch of bowls & storage containers along with some very necessary utensils and flatware. Anyway, first priority for tonight after dinner will be getting enough boxes unpacked and flattened so that I can take the computer desk off the table, which will then move over by the thermostat by the kitchen. Hopefully I'll find the bedroom lamp in decent shape, otherwise I'll be making a little trip to Home Depot (or Walmart) tonight for some new floor lamps and appropriate bulbs. Can't unpack in the dark, after all.

Unpacking will be suspended tomorrow while I serve as chauffeur to Mr. B, who has asked me to do him the favor of driving him to Katsucon. It's a measure of how little I've had to do with local fandom that I was completely ignorant of when Katsucon was, and at that I doubt I would have agreed to drive except that Greg Ayres is one of the GoH, and it would be good to see him before Detour. Whether that's actually going to happen is questionable; while Katsucon isn't exactly Otakon or the SDCC, it's a damn sight bigger than Detour, and with all the otaku clogging the halls I figure my chances of actually spending any time with Greg are slim and none, but if I didn't make the effort they would be zero, period. Besides, if things get boring at Katsucon, I can always go across the street to the Marriott Wardman Towers and see what they've done with the place since it stopped being the Sheraton Park of fond memory.

So, yeah...booked my flight for Minneapolis this morning after making sure I could come early and stay late. Whether I'll be staff or not is up to tatsmaru, redmartel and of course stuckintraffik; I wouldn't mind helping as best I can (holding down desks & chairs, mostly) but won't be offended if they say no. I'm doing a couple of panels for revolutionaryjo, and if that's all I do that's fine with me. We'll see.