Penguicon: Day 3
Tuesday April 25, 2006 • Howard Tayler
The day began with the disassembly of the Chaos Machine. I got a few pictures, and then began organizing the bins to quickly recieve parts. A few volunteers showed up, and the half-dozen of us had the machine completely disassembled and in its bins within about 90 minutes. It always surprises me how fast it goes. Packing it back into its boxes went fairly quickly, too. Steve Jackson recently created partitioned boxes, with labels and everything, so that once you've got things in their bins, it's a simple matter to get them shipped. I was done with the Chaos and all checked out of my room by about 12:15pm. I then headed to the Writers Workshop, where a couple of other artists and I were supposed to draw based on what was being read. It was an interesting exercise, but I was too tired to fully appreciate it. I believe the artists' time could have been better used in a more straightforward "draw what we tell you to" session. Have the authors describe a character, and let one of the artists render it. With four artists and 12 authors there would have been no problem getting a drawing for everybody. Of course, that assumes the artists WANTED a drawing. If what they wanted was a READING then I'm sure the panel worked fine. At around 2:00pm a truly hardcore Schlocker showed up from Ohio. Trent checked into the convention after almost everything was gone just so he could pre-order a sketch edition. I took care of that, and I also gave him a Schlock sketch, and hooked him up with the gaming guys... I hope he had a good time. The nice lady running Operations told me that on Saturday a Schlocker named Tim had come through, again, just for a sketch edition. He had gotten married on Friday, and was headed out on his honeymoon on Sunday. I checked my notes... yup, I got his order placed. But I feel a little guilty. Are there Schlock Mercenary Widows out there? Is this the beginning of a home-wrecking trend? (Answer: No. Buy a book, and read it with your family.) I was told that Michael Z. Williamson and Eric Raymond wanted to meet with me in the dealers room. I wandered in and got distracted... my friend Rob Balder was there hawking his (excellent) wares, so I chatted with him for a moment. Unbeknownst to me, a crowd was gathering behind me at Mike's instigation. Suddenly I was surrounded by high-fidelity, low-quality gregorian chant. Ahh-Ahh-Ahh-Ahh-Ommm-eee-nooooos HUMMMMMMMMMMM You got me, Mike. Nailed me, even. Thank you for that. At some point early Sunday afternoon the Con Suite folks decided they had to dispose of the last of the Liquid Nitrogen, which was being used to make ice-cream. One bowlful was thrown into the hot-tub. The resulting nitrogen fog was so impressive they decided to throw the next bowlful (these are big bowls, holding at least 4 liters of LN) into the pool proper. I got that on video. Maybe the Penguicon folks will share it with you, but that's their call, not mine. That's pretty much it for the convention. Just before 4:00pm I hitched a ride to the airport and flew home exhausted. But happy, too. Exhausted and happy.
