A very lazy post con update and other stuff

[tenaya]

I went out tonight to buy a set of snow chains for my car for an upcoming trip to Yosemite Valley. I don't intend to use them since I have AWD, but sometimes the CHP insist that you have chains before they let you go into snow country. So, I was calling around to find some in stock somewhere when I called Walmart. There, I talked to a young lady who obviously felt she was in the most soul sucking job in existence and her voice was dull from despair. The part that made me cover the mouthpiece to cover my laughter is...her name was Serenity.

Also, I've been enjoying an audio copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban (sp) that sheepsclothing made for me. It works great! Thank you!

Escapade! For me, it was quite low key and relaxing. The few panels I was truly keen on were invariable placed against each other. So, I relaxed and had fun chatting with people, listening to their enthusiasm and trying not to rain on the parade of the SGA fans too much. At least this year they've gotten a clue that the PTB are not their friends. Sorry, but true. I used to take lots of notes and do up a nice con report but I didn't feel like it this year. Here's some highlights of my con-ish weekend:


I arrived late and discovered my poor roommate had not been let in the room, even though I'd specifically gave her name when I checked our reservation a couple of months ago. Major :(

As for eating out, we ate one night at Adria's near the marina but I must say I was disappointed for all fish dinners are measured against the King's Head high standards. The other was a Thai restaurant called Sawasee on Johnson near the 101. Excellent!

The Rome panel had a few interesting moments, like the statement "who would have guessed in Season One that Pullo would be the stable one." They also suggested that if one wanted to read a good series that really brought Rome to life, read Masters of Rome by Colleen McCullogh, starting with book three if you want to start around Caeasar's time.

The Quest for "guh", writing powerful sex scenes was quite good. The handout can be found here:
http://members.cox.net/mdase/Effective_Scenes.pdf

I went to a Snape panel to support my roomie and enjoyed the HP vibes. They gave some story recs which is always nice.

Next was the free webtools panel lead by treewishes. Oh, wow, there was lots of great sites and programs! She said she'd post them on the Escapadecon lj or on fandom_tech here in lj. She talked about Writely, Firefox, gmail, alt.binaries, del.icio.us, youtube, itunes, podcasts, slashcast, audacity, imeem, gimpshot.net, or was it thegimp.org?, utorrent, www.pxn8.com, google sketchup, librarius.com, isilo, directorium.org... Of interest was the idea that when a author wants to take their stories off the net to protect their privacy, why not just leave the stories up but change the author to Mary Sue Smithee (Alan Smithee is the name that directors put on their movies when they get screwed up by the studios and they don't want their own names on it.)

I'd give recs but I haven't checked them out yet.

A second panel about lj 101 mentioned a previous panel and referenced this site: http://stormheller.livejournal.com/tag/lj

Minotaurs sex tips for slash writers was a hoot as always. What was that foamy mixture of lube, semen and feces called again? Santorum, named for Senator Rick Santorum.

Saturday, I had a bit of tummy trouble and missed some panels. I missed a third tech toys panel and listened to the last half a going pro panel, then Deej1957 showed up and we went back to the room to chat. At 5 I split my time between Is Flocked the New Black? and a SGA meta panel. I'd missed the other SGA panel on the day before because it conflicted with webtools.

The vid show had some good vids. The lone SG1 vid was a real wtf? moment. It was very short and focused on the visual similarities between Jonas and Daniel and they had sped up the images. And...your point is??

The art show had some nice SGA b&w protraits, and there was a fantastic Clark and Lex by X.

So, go follow the links if you want more info.

Comments

[graculus.livejournal.com]

...trying not to rain on the parade of the SGA fans too much. At least this year they've gotten a clue that the PTB are not their friends.

They were bound to have to come back to reality at some point. ;)

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but to be given Malousy as show runner! Even the most optimistic were pretty glum.

[dopeydora-67.livejournal.com]

Ohh thanks for the writing powerful sex scenes handout. I am sure that will be very useful as I am in the process of writing my first short slash Mcshep fic...in fact this is my first attempt at anything slash.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

Oh! Excellent! I'm glad that info came in useful to you. And a McShep fic, too. You'll be posting it to your lj I hope?

[dopeydora-67.livejournal.com]

I will definitely post it to my journal and probably over at atlantiskink.
My friend, the wonderful, bluespirit_star, has been helping me with the grammar and punctuation, which is quite frankly I am appalling at! As well as helping to keep John and Rodney voices/language in charcater.

Poor bluespirit_star, I don't think she realized how much help I needed! But she has been an absolute star (forgive the pun). *g*

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

I suck at the grammar and punctuation, too. I bet your friend is enjoying helping to create something. That's usually pretty fun, even if it's a bit of work. I look forward to reading it.

[obelix]

Sounds like you had a good time :-)

And yeah what was the point in doing a vid about the similarities between Jonas and Daniel? *shakes head* It's been what 4 or 5 years now? Sheesh!

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

Personally, I assume 99% of fans have forgotten about Jonas, so I figure this vidder was either a Jonas fan or one that just liked to punch the buttons on Daniel fans. They had at least three sequences that were blocked exactly the same for both characters. And then they were speeded up too so it looked a bit like those old Charlie Chaplin films. So, I'm guessing they thought this funny?

[deej1957.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I didn't stick around and sneak into the vidshow after all, then.
Had a good time visiting with everyone, though :-)

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

I'm glad. :)

There were a few good ones, but I was tempted to leave at the break as my leg was bugging me. C was stern though and we just relocated to the annex room where I could put my leg up.

[geminia905.livejournal.com]

*perks up* Snape panel?

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

Yes, there were quite a few Snape fans there. I came a little late but I think they were all, Snape or death! I know we'd been discussing it at breakfast: would the Snape fans be able to continue if JKR both makes Snape a villain AND kills him off.

[geminia905.livejournal.com]

Heh. I've already decided if she goes against everything she's shown so far and makes him evil, Book 7 will be considered AU and not part of MY canon -- once I pick it up from across the room, that is.

I've suspected for a while she's going to kill him -- probably have him sacrifice himself for the ungrateful little brat Harry or something, but there are ways to work around that.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the worst thing she could do *to* Snape was to sacrifice himself for the ULB Harry, actually survive and be lauded for a hero by people he despises.

[geminia905.livejournal.com]

*snigger* I think he'd love the Order of Merlin, but otherwise, he'd probably be ready to hex most of them (with the possible exception of Remus says the defiant little Slasher within ;).