theMountainGoat

It is with great regret that I have decided to resign as Chair of TitanCon. Fear not, the convention will continue, but unfortunately, I can no longer be a part of its leadership. There are two inextricably linked reasons for this. Firstly, I am buying a house with my girlfriend which is a tremendously exciting step for me personally and for our future together. For the past few months we have been involved in an intensive process to sell my girlfriend’s house which has been problematic and stressful to say the least with many false starts and buyer’s dropping out. We intend to buy and move into our new home very soon and this is going to require my complete dedication for the next six months and probably longer. Secondly, I have found it increasingly difficult to complete the tasks needed to deliver this year's event - as I'm sure you may have noticed, given the delays in key announcements such as those for the Guests and Coach Tour. My biggest regret in all this is that it took me so long to realise that it would be impossible for me to run TitanCon for all of you again this year. I am painfully aware that I managed my time poorly during this period, resulting in late communication with volunteers and a failure to properly delegate tasks to those that were willing to help and assist me. I'm truly sorry to have let the team down in this way. I am hugely grateful to the group of senior staff that has stepped forward to ensure that this year's convention happens, and that we have a more sustainable approach in place for future years including the 2019 Eurocon event. I am very confident they will put on an enjoyable and successful convention. They have assured me that TitanCon 2017 will retain all the features of previous years - even if it is a little more compact and bijou. You have already heard from them and seen their efforts coming through in the recent announcements of the 2017 Guests and Coach Tour. I would like to thank everyone that has attended TitanCon over the past 7 years, your support and assistance has always meant a huge amount to me. Anyone that knows me personally will know just how much TitanCon means to me and how I would not take this step if it was not truly necessary. I will deeply miss being a part of TitanCon and the many great friends I have met because of it. But I hope you will all understand that I was faced with an incredibly difficult decision between this convention that I love, and my future together with the wonderful and talented woman that I love. All the best TitanCon and rock on! Phil Lowles

We are thrilled to announce that TitanCon is bidding for the right to host EuroCon 2019 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Proposed dates Our proposed dates are Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 August 2019. That is the weekend after the proposed WorldCon (currently being bid for and running unopposed) to be held in Dublin, Ireland on Thursday 15 to Monday 19 August 2019. We will also be running our traditional TitanCon Coach Tour on Sunday 25 August visiting beautiful locations around Northern Ireland that have been used as filming locations in HBO's Game of Thrones. The Coach Tour is an optional extra for convention attendees, but can be considered an essential part of the TitanCon experience including a delicious hog roast feast to round out the weekend. In addition we will have organised Coach Trips departing from Dublin on Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 August to bring attendees from WorldCon up to Belfast for EuroCon. These coach tours will stop at beautiful and interesting locations along the way, making a full day of it for those that want to see a little of the inspiring Irish landscape. Alternatively you could take a journey on the Enterprise train from Dublin to Belfast. Full details about all tours will be announced after we have secured our bid to host EuroCon. Proposed venue The venues we intend to use are the newly completed Waterfront Convention Centre and the Hilton Hotel. These two venues are located in the centre of Belfast with spectacular views over the River Lagan. The buildings are right next door to each other, and in fact there is a connecting corridor linking them so attendees do not have to go outside to go from one to the other. Please see our venue page for more details. Guests and Programming We will be offering a diverse and interesting programme of discussion panels and events focussed on European and Irish Science-Fiction and Fantasy literature. We will also have lots of participation workshops including crafting workshops (leather working, chain maille crafting, clay making) and combat workshops run by Historical Fencing N.I. including Broadsword, Staff and other medieval weaponry. Over the last few years TitanCon has developed a strong reputation for high quality literature programming with great author guests including Ian McDonald, Pat Cadigan, Peter F. Hamilton, Joe Abercrombie, Sarah Pinborough, Adam Nevill, Leigh Bardugo, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Jan Siegel, Peadar Ó Guilín, Ruth Frances Long, Jo Zebedee, Debbie McCune, Laurence Donaghy, Zoé Sumra, Rachel B. Kelly and many more. All of our guests have greatly enjoyed their TitanCon experience and many of them are now regular attendees coming back every year, including Pat Cadigan who absolutely loves TitanCon and has many lovely and generous things to say about our convention. TitanCon also features dedicated Game of Thrones programming with cast and crew member guests from the hit HBO show filmed here in Belfast. Past guests have included Maisie Williams (Arya Stark), Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran Stark), Art Parkinson (Rickon Stark), Kristian Nairn (Hodor), Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel), Eugene Simon (Lancel Lannister), Ian Beattie (Meryn Trant), Kerry Ingram (Shireen Baratheon), Ian McElhinney (Barristan Selmy), Dominic Carter (Janos Slynt) + many more. It will probably be well into 2019 by the time we know who our Game of Thrones guests will be, but we will annnounce our main Guests of Honour after we have won our bid at Dortmund EuroCon in June 2017. Get involved An event like this cannot exist without the help and support of a huge number of people. Everyone working to organise and run TitanCon 2019 are volunteers that give up their free time to help make this a successful convention for all the fans that attend. We are excited to be forming a strong committee from our regular Titancon members, as well as from the wider convention running community. We need to recruit as many volunteers as we can get to take on various roles, both large and small, from our organising committee, department heads, team leads and the hard working volunteers on the ground. We are looking for willing volunteers at all levels. Please visit our volunteers page for more details and fill in the form to volunteer. Thank you. Show your support If you love the sound of our plans and want to show your support then please purchase a Pre-Supporting Membership. The money will be used to fund our campaign to win the bid to host EuroCon 2019. The good news is that the money you spend on a Pre-Supporting Membership NOW goes towards the cost of your Full Attending Membership later. Thank you for your support! Please see our website at www.titancon.com for more information

8-10 September 2017 We are back again for TitanCon 2017 with more Fabulous Author guests, more Game of Thrones, more books, more workshops, more events and more awesome times than you can shake a spear at! Venue Once again we’ll be in the Wellington Park Hotel, Belfast. The Wellie are offering special room rate deals to TitanCon 2017 attendees at the same prices as last year. Literature Night We will be kicking things off on Friday 8 September with our popular Literature Night featuring readings from our author guests. This relaxed and informal gathering is the perfect opportunity to mingle with the other attendees, catch up with old friends or make some new ones. We'll also be offering a preview of our Art Show featuring incredible pieces of art by talented local and international artists available for purchase. For the first time, we are expanding our Friday plans with some additional Literature Programming taking place on Friday afternoon from 3.00 pm. We understand not everyone will be able to make it in time, but we want to provide more things for early birds to see and do at TitanCon. We hope this proves popular and if that's the case then we may expand the Friday further in 2018. TitanCon 2017 The convention itself is on Saturday 9 September and will be jam-packed with scintillating programming and events throughout the day. Our doors open at 9.00 am and runs till 6.30 pm, with evening entertainment from 7.30 pm through till 1.00 am. We highly recommend sticking around till late for a rare chance to see some of the Game of Thrones cast members on the dance floor! Guests We'll be announcing an exciting line up of amazing author guests within the next few weeks. This will include some of the biggest names in Science-Fiction and Fantasy Literature, along with some of the best new local talent in Northern Ireland. Because of the constantly changing nature of the production schedule for Game of Thrones we will only be able to announce our full line up of Game of Thrones guests a week or two before the convention. Rest assured that we are working hard to make announcements as soon as we possibly can and we are confident we'll have a great line up on the day. We are committed to not naming guests until we are completely sure that they will be in Belfast on that weekend and available to attend. We would hate to announce someone only for them to drop out when the schedule changes. Programming TitanCon 2017 programming will feature discussion panels, interviews, crafting workshops, combat workshops, a crazy-fun quiz, The Great TitanCon Booksale and author signing session, photo sessions with the Game of Thrones guests and of course a signing session. TitanCon Coach Tour Tickets for the 2017 Coach Tour on Sunday 10 September are not available for purchase yet because at this time we have not settled on a route. But we expect to announce full details of the 2017 Coach Tour and open ticket sales before the end of June this year. Sounds great! When can I buy tickets? Tickets for attendance to TitanCon 2017 cost £28. Tickets go on sale at 12.00 noon (UK time) on Saturday 25 February 2017. Your confirmation email will include booking codes for the special room rate at the Wellington Park Hotel, so please don't contact the hotel directly until after you have bought your ticket and received the confirmation email. Supporting Membership Perhaps you are unable to be at TitanCon 2017 but would still really like to see our convention succeed. Supporting Membership can be bought for just £5 and your greatly appreciated support will help us to continue in 2017 and beyond. Supporting membership can be upgraded to Full Attending Membership at a later date for £23, just in case it turns out you can make it. Supporting Membership also counts towards your Making the Eight number! Follow us for announcements! Over the coming months we'll be announcing more details about all aspects of TitanCon 2017 so please check back regularly for news or follow us on Twitter to get the latest updates as they are announced. Also check out our Official Facebook event page or Discussion Forum to get involved in the conversation. Please see our website at www.titancon.com for more information and to purchase your Membership. We look forward to seeing you at TitanCon!

Hi Secret Santas I usually post here on Christmas Day but I was away at my girlfriend's house for the last few days. I took my SS presents with me and it seems I must have been really good because I had two different Secret Santas and from the labels I am absolutely certain on their identities: From @Zar Lannister The Expanse Season 1 Blu-Ray Flamingo - Brandon Flowers CD Sworn in Steel, Douglas Hulick - book (there's a bit of a giveaway to who I was SS for since I gave away book 1 in this series) From @Lany Freelove Cassandra Game of Thrones Graphic Novel - Books 1 and 2 Not sure why Lany got me presents too, but I love everything I got, just exactly what I wanted. Almost as if you'd read some kind of list of all the things I wished for, so clever. Thank you Santas, great job! Hope everyone else had a very Merry Christmas!

And a second unexpected parcel has arrived today with three more packages from my Secret Santa...

An unexpected parcel has arrived from Amazon which can only mean one thing - my Secret Santa has delivered. But I have patience and will be waiting for the 25th to open the two gift wrapped boxes I found inside. They are a curious size though so I'm not quite sure what's in them, could be a pair of books methinks...

Thanks for the reminder Lany, I might have missed this otherwise which would have been tragic. If it's not too late then yes please, count me in for delivery to anywhere. Questionnaire 1 Are you over 18? YES Are you willing to ship internationally? YES Favorite Type of Food (i.e. Italian, Mexican, McDonald's, Burger King, etc): Italian Favorite Candy (things that won't melt or go bad in mail) : no candy Favorite Scent (i.e. Fruity, Vanilla, Flowery, etc): don't really have one Favorite Hobby (i.e. Scrap booking, Photography, things you collect, etc): reading, computer games, running Game of Thrones fan conventions. I have an Amazon Wish List for most of these things Favorite books or types (romance, true store, mystery or just one you would like): fantasy, sci-fi - see my Amazon wish list for more details Favorite animal: cat Favorite movies or types (romance, comedy or just a DVD/VHS you would like): action, comedy, sci-fi - see my Amazon wish list for more details Favorite Color : purple Favorite Music Artist/Type or a CD you would like: Rock, metal, indie - see my Amazon wish list for more details Do you collect anything? Not really Is there anything (not expensive) you want or need? Some computer games would be nice - see my Amazon wish list for more details Anything else you would like your SS to know about you: Have I mentioned my Amazon wish list?

Hi Woel, with Stylish you need to add !important to every CSS rule otherwise it won't be applied as Woftis is finding here. An irritating requirement and I don't know why they implemented Stylish in this way, it should have been the top layer CSS automatically overwriting all other rules but unfortunately that's not the way it is. As mentioned before I really like the skin, I think it's easier on the eye than my Targaryen skin.

Hi Woel Nice to see someone else working on forum skinning, I like the work you've done here. I did a similar thing a couple of years ago when the latest forum design was introduced and we lost the old Stark and Targaryen skins that were available on the previous version of the board. The Stark and Targaryen skins I created are for Stylish and there's a thread about them in the Help section here. It might be a good idea to add your information from this thread to the Help section before General Chatter moves on and this thread gets lost. ETA: or come to think of it a better suggestion may be to ask a Mod to move this thread to the Help section.

I missed this when the show first started but I've been catching up via iPlayer all this week and it really is a fantastic TV series. The cast is great, the setting, the costumes and any chance to see Game of Thrones actors in other shows is something well worth seeing. The scenes in episode 5 with Jerome Flynn and Iain Glenn were really great acting from them both. I'm looking forward to watching the last episode on Sunday and glad to hear there will be a second series next year.

Hi gubemton I'm not sure how that should look exactly. Do you just want to remove the parchment style background? Should all the colors remain unchanged or just certain bits? If so can you be more specific about which parts of the page should retain the default colors and which should be changed? Are you after lighter variations of the sandy and blood red colors or something different entirely? I'm not sure how much time I'll have to work something up but I'll help if I can.

White Walkers = Others Wights = Wights

Perhaps my experience of episode 2 was coloured by the fact that I was in a pub with 30 other fans and sat three feet away from George RR Martin, but I think I'd still think this was a brilliant episode had I been on my own at home. So many of the scenes used dialogue straight out of the book and everything looked great, especially Pyke. I definitely prefer it when some characters are left out so the show can put a greater focus on the storylines they are following that week. It works so much better. I was surprised there was no Renly this week but I'm sure there will be a big chunk of his story in episode 3. The only thing I didn't really like was the whole Yara/Asha thing but we knew about that long ago and it's already been argued to death. The gratuitous sex was gratuitous but is fast becoming the norm for this show. I did not mind the Ros/Littlefinger scene this week to be honest because we saw a different side to her character which felt like the right choice for her, although I do think it's a little incongruous with the previous episode where she appeared to have become the madam of the brothel and now she is back to being just another whore. I think making Bronn the captain of the goldcloaks is actually a really interesting change. I was surprised because I thought that Jacelyn Bywater had been cast but perhaps I am mistaken. It does make me wonder if they are going to keep Bronn around instead of having him disappear off to Stokeworth, but he's such a great character I don't think I'd mind if they do go that way. Also I'm glad they kept in the line about how much since that tells you everything you ever need to know about Bronn. The end of the episode was so awesome I can't believe that scene wasn't in the book. The absence of the Others in the second book has always been a strange choice and for the TV show we definitely needed that reminder that the White Walkers are still out there. I got chills when I heard the ice cracking language echoing through the trees and the visual of the White Walker picking up the baby and walking away was creepy and beautiful. It will be interesting to see how they handle Jon Snow waking up next week. Will they have already left Craster's when he awakes in a litter or will he awake in the midst of Craster and Mormont arguing. If I had one complaint about it I'd say the fact that they had not established that there was a newborn baby son in the household when the Night's Watch arrived made it seem like the baby came out of nowhere. Just one line about a pregnant daughter about to give birth or Gilly saying something about her sister giving birth to a son yesterday might have helped with that. And yes Ghost looked awesome. Overall it really was a fantastic episode, a great improvement on the first episode which I thought was awkward and had some poorly thought out ideas. I know George liked it and was happy to see so many fans enjoying it in person. He had already seen the first two episodes before they aired so we did not get to see any reaction from him as he watched but George has not seen any of the other episodes yet. I'm not sure if he will be able to watch episode 3 when he is in Portugal next week but if anyone finds him in a bar watching it you may get to see his reaction, although I suspect he may wait till he gets back home before watching it.