LOSCON and Bike-along Cassidy

[zrath]

So Last Saturday, I went to LOSCON.
What is LOSCON? Here's what their website says:
"Los Angeles, home of the world's oldest, continuously-active science fiction club (LASFS),
is now home to Loscon, the oldest, continuously-held SF Convention in Southern California."
It's a literary sci-fi con held on Thanksgiving Weekend, so it's definitely more relaxed.


I got up at the crack of 11am, and after the usual preparations, including lunch at Carl's Jr. (the Portobello
Mushroom Six-Dollar Burger is nifty and tasty! Hmmmmmmm, 'shrooooooooooooooms...), I went to the bus stop.
Since the con was being held at the LAX Marriott, I could basically take one bus to get there.
So, I hopped on the Culver City 6 and rode down Sepulveda until we got to the LAX Transit Center.
I walked a couple of blocks toward Century Boulevard and walked into the hotel. It seemed rather deserted.
I checked the sign outside. It was the "Courtyard LAX - Marriott". DOH!!!
The nice people at the counter informed me the LAX Marriott was 2-3 blocks thataway!
After a 30-minute walk (okay, more like 10 minutes), I reached the correct hotel.
I knew it was the correct hotel because obishawn's H-Wing was parked out front.
And right next to it sat a Chevy Chevelle muscle car paying hommage to the Millenium Falcon.
Both cars are part of "Road Squadron", a group of Star Wars fans who customize their cars the Star Wars way.
Wacky.

So anyway, I got there and wandered around for a bit because the signage in the lobby was abysmal.
Aside from the Gaming Room, nothing else was signed. I had to ask a badge-wearing con-goer to find out where
the con was, exactly. And the answer was: downstairs. All the function rooms were in the lower level, an area
with absolutely no cellphone reception at all. I didn't hear a single cellphone ring the whole time I was there.
There was an atrium area outside where you could go for a smoke and/or get some cellphone reception.
They even held a panel there, it was so big.

So, I went downstairs and immediately ran into people I knew! The Elusive Spino and Sweetie were there, manning a
table. I also saw my buddy Warren (no LJ), Rod and Mark (the ex-ConFurence and now Califur people), Tadao, selenesue, thalek, darrelx, doodlesthegreat, and chythar (whom I actually didn't see until the evening parties).
And I have photos! Just in case you thought I was making Spino and Warren up.
This is The Elusive Spino, sans Sweetie, avec usual accessory (several decks of cards).
His battlecry is "Is this your card?!?!"


Sweetie had a very interesting carrybag, apparently a Red Dwarf-related item:


Funny though, it's not red. Let's take a closer look...

Oh dear, what an amusing coincidence! The Shangai Media & Entertainment Group! SMEG!! Har!!

And here's Warren, dressed up as an ancient Irish person, Renaissance era. Huzzah!
His battle cry is "Where's the whiskey?!?!"


And this is Warren's ginormous stein:


And this is Warren's flask'o'booze:


darrelx was Official Party Maven for this edition of LOSCON, so he was pretty busy, making sure the
evening parties were clearly announced and registered with the con and actually on the party floor of the hotel.
He was SO busy that he couldn't possibly be everywhere at once, so the con staff was able to generate an
Emergency Party Hologram (EPH) to help him handle everything. Here's a photo of the EPH in a rare calm moment:
Its battle cry is "Please state the nature of your party emergency..."


The usual con activities took place, but I mostly ignored them in favor of hanging out and chatting with friends.
Dealers' room (including those darn Scientologits!), panels, teen room (videogames!), masquerade, the usual.
At around 8pm, the first party started. Other parties opened up at 9pm. The Leprecon party was the coolest,
because it had wacky and unusual drinks, including some I had always wanted to sample (but was afraid to):
Kickapoo Joy Juice - tastes like Mountain Dew, except good! Must be the grapefruit!
Moxie - Original Formula - which was just blech! OMGWTFBBQ! Tastes like horrible cough syrup!!
Jolt Electric Blue - "Tastes like a blue raspberry slurpee" said either darrelx or the EPH.
Black Lemonade - which tasted like super-duper-sour lemon candy! Interesting, but painful. Photo of label:


All the parties had food and drinks of some kind. Doodles, Warren, Chythar and I ninjaed into the Writers
Of Tomorrow (aka Scientologits) party to steal their ice cream, which according to one person, was "good".
Apparently, the 'Gits have learned because this year, they were serving plain old bucket ice cream.
We took it anyways, then we hightailed outta there before the mind-rays took effect.
Various highjinks and shenanigans took place, most of which I can't remember. I failed to drink anything boozy.
I ran into a Jamdat colleague, and then also a new employee who was starting that Monday. Wow, freakY!
At 1am, the Prime Time party opened. They had quality food and drinks, like seriously. And Warren found his
thrill there, as they had brought some very nice pricey whiskeys. He was all over dat, yo!!
Eventually, at about 2:30am, I started feeling kinda tired. Warren was feeling tired too, so we left the con
and he dropped me home. He was going back the next day, but I was done. I only wanted to go Saturday.
Besides, I had plans for Sunday.
I had IMAX tickets for myself and the sibling for "Harry Pothead And The Bong Of Fire"!
(See previous post for details)
End of con report.



In other news, I got a $25 Best Buy gift card at work Friday, so I dragged the sibling to the local Beast Buy.
We wound up buying the new Kate Bush double-album ("Aerial") and a DVD of Orson Welles' "Touch Of Evil",
which is awesome and really ahead of its time, except for having Burt Lancaster play a Latino detective.
I'm happy to report that the new Kate Bush is kick-ass, and eventhough it is on Columbia Records (aka Sony),
it does NOT contain the evil Sony DRM thingy that foobars your computer!! W00T!! Both CDs are single-session
(ie: there's no computer data on them) and it's not listed on the official Sony DRM exchange program list.

This weekend has been slow, yet filled with various activities. On Saturday, I almost went to a LUGOLA meeting,
but there was a miscommunication and some bad timing, so that fell through. Instead, I biked to the local
bicycle store to get me some gloves. I put a lot of weight on my palms when I ride, so I was looking for some
appropriately-padded gloves. I found some nice black and blue fingerless ones, in size XXL. They fit great!
Then I biked to the hardware store to get a new lock for my room's door. We don't have a key for the current
lock, and there's a bit too much traffic at the ol' place these days, so a new lock was in order.

Today, Pascal and I biked to the bicycle store again, this time to get him some gloves.
He can bike, but he can't put both hands on the handlebars for too long (left arm still tender from operation).
We found him some nice orange Kona gloves, then we saddled up and headed for the local Target.
Pascal veered oddly towards the Taco Bell as we approached it. Guess he was hungry.
We stopped to get a little somethin' somethin'. Chicken quesadillas, y'all! Taaaasty...
After this culinary interlude, we set out once more Targetwards.
I was on a mission to get me a new watch. Unfortunately, I ran into a little snag: none of the watches had
wristbands big enough for my wrist. And yet, I've replaced the wristband on my faithful Casio G-Shock from
1992 about 5 times, and each wristband was big enough. I guess I need to go back to the place where I get my
wristbands from (a watch store on Olympic and Westwood) to buy a watch there. If the wristband is too small,
odds are they will have larger replacement wristbands on hand to do a hot-swap while-I-wait.
I looked at other watches, including Timex, but the wristbands were also too small. Curses!!
We then hit the Ross to see if they had anything interesting. There's usually nothing my size there,
but sometimes, I get lucky. I once found 2 Nike and one And1 t-shirts in 4XL for, like, $8 each. Score!
There was nothing. I looked at their watches, but they had even less than nothing. Blargh.
We put our bike lights on, saddled up, and headed for home, in the sunset, like in the cowboy movies.

Whew, that was a whole lot of typing!!
See you next time!

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a manufacturer of large appliances in Europe called SMEG, which caused me to ROFL during a British cooking show on Food Network - Who knew Jamie Oliver was a Red Dwarf Fan? No, apparently not, that was just the brand name on his fridge. Ah well.

Honestly, the only place I have seen watches with extra-size bands for extra-sized people lately has been at Catherine's, a chain of upscale/office clothing for women. Alors, you might look into the Big'n'Tall men's clothing store for the corresponding item.

If that does not work, do your watch-shopping at a watch store with an in-person watch repair person and have them install extra links as appropriate. Not Cheeeeep but it will accomplish what you need. Besides, a well-made watch of a good make will outlive a long succession of cheap watches and you'll wind up spending less money overall.

[zrath.livejournal.com]

Oh by golly you betcha!
That's why I'm planning to go back to my regular watch store to see if I can find happiness there.
They're the ones who have been supplying me with replacement bands for my beloved G-Shock.
The watch still works, it's just that chunks are falling off of it...