Boskone Quick Notes

This was the super-ultra-minimalist version of Boskone for me, because I had a cold and other commitments. The weekend basically went like this:

Friday: Arrive. Immediately crawl into bed and doze. Go have dinner with parents. Get back to hotel around 8:45 (too late for bias panel). Marvel at the many ways of killing Peeps (Tesla coils! blenders! microwaves! dissolving in many solvents!). Eat three Peeps and feel vaguely ill. (More ill.) Fail to stay up even long enough for the good food at the art show reception. Go to bed, but wake up about once an hour thanks to cold.

Saturday: say, "screw programming, I'm not getting up until I feel like it." Eventually driven out of bed by hunger sometime around 10. Have over-priced but filling breakfast in hotel restaurant. Make circuit of dealer's room, then sit around waiting for noon programming feeling ucky, also stupid for forgetting my PDA keyboard and having to lug around heavy laptop. Attend "Appeal of Lawless Elite" panel, take notes as best can in non-acoustically-ideal room. Lie down for forty minutes. Eat energy bar, attend "Best Things in the Worst Books" panel, take notes as best can in non-acoustically-ideal room. Nap until time for dinner with malkingrey and and red_mike_yog. Eat too much at Legal's Test Kitchen. Make it all the way past 11:00 at the Tor party before abruptly turning into pumpkin. Take forever to get to sleep but then sleep reasonably well.

Sunday: eat faster cheaper breakfast from food cart in hotel lobby. Attend Chad's talk on quantum teleportation for dogs, which goes very well. Pack. Drive to suburbs for luncheon bridal shower. Pick Chad up after shower, drive home. Collapse.

So, only two panels, and not a lot of socializing either—though what I did, was very good. And because of the peculiarities of my weekend, I can't say much about the hotel situation either. Breakfast at the restaurant was overpriced, but the food cart in the lobby was indeed the cheaper promised option (I'm not sure if it was already sold out on Saturday or if I was too zonked to notice its presence) and was perfectly edible. But I had neither lunch nor dinner at the hotel, and went to a known restaurant for my only other at-con meal, so I don't know if the non-breakfast food situation was materially improved. (I note that the hotel is adding three restaurants next month, and hope that at least one of them is fast and cheap.)

Things I can say about the hotel: double showerheads look ridiculous but are really, really nice. Despite the bed not being immediately uncomfortable, both of us spent Saturday and Sunday with aching backs. We got a 4 p.m. checkout just by asking (and being members of the free rewards program), which is nice. The parking situation remains absurd.

What else? The con suite was very well stocked; for instance, if I'd realized and wanted, I could have had instant oatmeal for breakfast. The projector for Chad's talk worked. The dealer's room looked a little small, but I spent approximately five minutes there. (Chad wondered if the con itself was smaller; I don't know if attendance numbers are or will be available, but I did notice that the Tor party was not an insane crush.) Two of the three program rooms had sound problems: one was long and narrow and had speakers of inadequate power to reach the back, and the other was wide and narrow and had no microphones. (The third was of a reasonable shape, but also had Chad speaking, who is used to projecting his voice to a room.)

Panel reports forthcoming. And I am collecting links on delicious and automagically posting them at boskone.