Far Point

A few weeks ago I went to my very first Sci-Fi convention, Far Point, up in Timonium. I didn't know what to expect for sure, but from what I told, it would be a fun weekend.

I took a half day at work that day, which was fine because this was the Friday after the two Snowlyshit blizzards. The roads were still not great so I wanted to drive up to Timonium during the daylight hours before things could turn icy. The drive itself wasn't terrible at least since I was sticking with 95 and then 695, those roads had actually been cleared off for the most part.

I got to the hotel, got the key from RB and met up with DB and MA briefly before I headed back down and started exploring the dealer area just to see who had set up. I also was checking out the program to figure out what I had wanted to see. The one thing I did know was that I was going to get an autograph of Mira Furlan for JN, since he couldn't make it and asked that I get that.

I would get to meet some new folks this weekend, and we ended up hitting it off nicely, especially as we hung out at the bar. I have to give some credit to the bar because they held up as best they could, considering that the storms screwed up getting any of their shipments before the con, however, collectively the con goers did kill quite a few of the bottles. Along the way, between GB, CiA, myself, we helped invent a new drink with Allie, the bartender there. It's called a Sex in the Snow, and in a glass with ice you add 1 shot each of vodka, creme de menthe, and peppermint schnapps. It was good, and we got pretty hammered on them. I had warned my friends that if I did any tweeting, it would be drunken tweeting, and yes, apparently I delivered in the form of tweets that looked like I just mashed random buttons on my phone. I ended up staying up and hanging out with folks until about 4 AM before I finally got back up to the hotel room and crashed out.

Saturday morning around 9 I woke up, pulled myself together and got dressed and headed downstairs. For a bit of fun, I did some cosplay, but not in the way you would think. I took the Rocky Balboa boxing robe, shirt, and shorts that I had used one Halloween and wore that for the day, including wrapping my hands in the gauze the boxers wear under the gloves. It definitely caught the eye of some folks and it was good for a laugh. I hit up some of the panels during the day, including a Q&A from Felicia Day. She was a real sweetheart and clearly she loved to interact with her fans. I also made a few bids on some items in the art auction there, including a few pieces I knew that ChA would love.

When the evening rolled around, I changed into the kilt and vest I would be wearing for the evening, and then hung out before the masquerade began. RB and DB had entered the contest dressed up as officers from Space Battleship Yamato, complete with lip-synching the theme from the show as they entered. There were a lot of well done costumes there, including a female mandalorian. It turned out that she had modified an original mandalorian costume, no easy feat because she had to cut it down from being for a 6' tall man to a 5'4" woman. She ended up winning an award for craftsmanship. One guy was dressed as a Cthulhu Cultist, another pair dressed as Orcs, one woman recrated Kaylee's social dress from Firefly. There was definitely a lot of good work put in.

After the masquerade was the charity auction, and this became one of the craziest con moments I had seen so far. One of the prizes was lunch with Felecia day. By the time the bidding sheet had been filled in and it went to the live auction, someone had bid 300 dollars. From there people started to bid like crazy. I thought it would end quickly because that would become too rich for some people's blood, but then a bidding war started between 3 folks and eventually dropped to two folks, and the price climbed into the four digit figures. Felecia looked a bit embarassed that the price was going that high for a lunch with her. In fact, her and the emcee mentioned a few times as a reminder that it was just lunch. By the time the dust had settled, the final figure came in at $5,000.  Just, wow, it turned out that was the single highest bid ever made in the history of the charity auction.  Ultimately at least the money went to something good.

Clearly I had blocked this part from my brain but it has now come back,  I was warned about one of the con goers, simply known as the troll or the cabal.  She is basically one of those folks who will hit on anything with a penis, even though she is truly nothing to look at, except to maybe turn around and run away.  I'm sorry if I sound mean, but really, if you wanted to destroy someone's belief that there is a God, just show them a picture of her.  Anyway, so the cabal was trying to get cozy with one of the guys down in the lobby, and she is wearing this super short black dress.  Well apparently somehow part of her skirt was flipped up and in the belt line, because someone in our group noticed and said look, we turned, and then there were about 15 of us screaming simultaneously because we realized that the cabal not only was in a short black dress and the skirt needed to be pulled down, but that bitch wasn't wearing underwear (this is why I drink, to forget!).  CiA would save the day by going over and basically pulling the cabals skirt back down into place.  I hope she got some kind of hazard pay for that one.

The rest of the night would be spent hanging out in the lobby at the dance area.  I also went and hit a late night panel as well.  Once again I would end up staying up until about 4 in the morning before coming in and crashing.

Sunday was the day to begin winding down and packing up.  I went down and finished the last of the art auction because a few pieces I had bid on in the bid sheet had gotten enough interest they went to the live auction.  I feel slightly bad for the woman I got into a mini bidding war for the udon noodle bowl because she wanted it as well, but all is fair at that point.  I walked away with several beautiful pictures (that I still need to put into frames!) and a bowl, plus I got the items for ChA as well.  I also got a copy of the first season of The Guild signed by Felecia Day during the autograph session, which was pretty cool.  Mira Furlan commented on how much she liked the shirt I was wearing that day, which was an asian shirt that my parents had sent to me the last time they were in the Chinatown section of San Francisco (hope to go there this summer!).  To wrap it up, I attended a showing of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which is still a riot to this day.  After that it was time to drive back to Greenbelt and recover from a rather busy yet awesome weekend.

Of course, now I am ready for more, DB, RB, and I have already signed up for Shore Leave in July, in big part because Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff will be there.  That part is what is exciting for me, I can't wait!