Revision planning continues. I admit I get a little stircrazy with it sometimes. Here’s a list of problems and fixes, for example:
Other highlights, from my chapter review:
- Sigh. This chapter sucks but it has good information in it.
- Prophecy: Suddenly in FULL FORCE
- Relationship: Weird
- Notes: This chapter feels really…not good.
- Prophecy: Hanging out in the back
- Relationship: Going down like a lead balloon
- Kira is a butt.
- Notes: I like this one too. Good job, me. I guess.
- Relationship: Still a mess
- Dan and Lana are awkward and useless.
- Relationship: Basically the worst
- Relationship: Whoops
- Notes: God, I love Paran. He’s so fun once he’s in his own element.
- Relationship: Very confusing
Yes, yes, it’s very good that no one else is relying on my notes.
Going to print out the book tomorrow for the next step, so wish me luck.
In other news, I learned today that our local Star Trek/scifi convention, celebrating 45 years this year (apparently their first year they showed the trailer for Star Wars before anyone knew what that was), is shutting down. I guess it’s still run by the original people, and they’re retiring, but I’m very sad.
Cons seem to be going the way of these giant, commercial things, like San Diego Comic Con. We have our own version of that here, which regularly pulls in over a 100000 people. And they’re interesting! But they’re also overwhelming. The last time I went to SDCC I think I spent more time standing in line to try to get into things than actually doing anything, and half the time you wouldn’t even get in. What’s the point of spending a gazillion dollars to do that? I mean, yeah, you can get access to information and guests that you can’t at a smaller con, but at some point I feel like the trade-off is not worth it.
(I haven’t gone to the local one in several years either. I went the first few years before it got ginormous, and now I just can’t be bothered most of the time.)
I haven’t been to the Star Trek/scifi con in a few years either, but that’s more because the timing hasn’t really worked since I had the small, mobile ones. But it was my first con. I went for the first time when I was 12–don’t even remember how I learned about it, since this was early Internet days–and for a shy geek like me who thought that she was alone, it was eye-opening. I went every year after that, first with my parents, though later they’d just drop me and my friends off. I feel like smaller cons–this one, and MileHiCon, for example–are a good place for teenagers to really be able to grow into themselves. I have a ton of happy memories.
Like the time the Klingons crashed a panel about the Dominion war with a Cardassian skull. Or the time the Klingons stole my candy. (Lots of Klingons.) The time my then-boyfriend and I got professionally done up as Vulcans and then came in as finalists at the dance contest later that night. I first found out about Pokemon there, having wandered into an anime room showing the first episode in Japanese (with no subtitles, so I had no idea what was going on).
My friends and I would go and just hang out, maybe attending panels, maybe not. It was a great way to find out about new shows and movies we didn’t know about and to just be around like-minded people who weren’t going to make fun of us for knowing the difference between a Galaxy-class and an Intrepid-class starship.
The last time I went, I didn’t even go into the con proper. I put on my original series mini-dress (that I made for Halloween one year, off the pattern in the Technical Manual) and hung out in the bar with my mother-in-law and her friends, and we watched the people in costumes go by and chatted about nerdy things.
So, I mean, I understand why they’re shutting down. I didn’t realize it was the same people running it all this time. And it’s all volunteer-run. But it is the end of an era, one that I will remember fondly.
(And, of course, I can’t go this last year, because of small, mobile one activities. I’m tempted to blow them off, but I have committed to stuff, so alas.)
What was your first con, squiders? Do you have fond memories? I’d love to hear one.
