Worldcon San Jose, California: August 16-20, 2018

[LugaJetboyGirl]

Thank you to the Bros for going to the Business Meeting! 

Also, DATEPALM SIGHTED in the wild!!!

[Frances Bean Corbray]

Protest seemed like a lot of talk without much walk, from what I could see (maybe I just didn't get a good angle to look at it).  Just a small, loud group positioning themselves for maximum annoyance factor (near the blood drive bus, of course).  Unscientific observation was that the pink shirt escort team outnumbered the protest group (and the SJPD presence definitely outnumbered them).

As someone who's never really been part of convention-attending society before I was more than a little curious as to WTF this wasall about ever since I got the warnings in my informational email, so I did some casual gawking during the short window when I wasn't shopping, eating, or listening to a cool panel discussion, and I gotta say I was pretty underwhelmed.  Which is probably a good sign.

So far, so good.  [I even managed to remember my courtesies in front of the king, and not be TOO starstruck as GRRM signed my copy of ADWD.  ]

 

[Xray the Enforcer]

Party is in the South Tower of the Fairmont. Room 498. 9ish to 2am.

[lady narcissa]

Well Worldcon 76 is over.  Most of us had made it home and are coming down with the beginnings of con-crude or are suffering from con-woe. It used to be in the days before the evil-book-of-faces took over for social purposes that people would come here and post some recollections of the weekend.  So I thought I'd try for that again.

First of all a huge HUGE THANK YOU to boiled leather and Red Woman, our local BWB hosts, for keeping us well fed and sparing us inevitable hours of where do you want to eat, I don't know, where do you want to eat.  And for ensuring that we saw something of San Jose outside of the convention center and convention center food.  And a special thank you to boiled leather's friend who turned over the patio of his restaurant to our group for dinner and kept everything smoothly running and delicious.

A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO LugaJetboyGirl-irra for all her years of tireless work with the YA award committee and getting to see the very first YA award presented at the Hugo Awards this weekend. And big thank yous to all the BWB who worked with her and assisted her in making this happen. I am sure many of us heaved a big sigh of relief when we went to our last business meeting to raise our hand to get it a name. May we not have to go to another business meeting for a long time to come.

A big thank you to Maid of Woodlynn for keeping us decked out in ribbons.  Con-beards are such an essential part of the con but you wouldn't want to be caught dead in any old ribbon.  So thank goodness we have her as our graphic artist extraordinaire!

A special shout out to the Utah Spice Girls for that special element of sparkle and fun for everyone with their unicorn horns and tiaras for everyone at the BWB party.

Frisco, it is not a Worldcon unless we are hanging party lights with blue tape.  But you are so demoted!

If someone had told me back when I first met Stego that he would become my go to get ice cream at 1 AM buddy I never ever would have believed them.  But there we were.  On multiple nights.  A big shout out to Mrs. Stego for being equally willing and excited for our ice cream excursions and for being one of the sweetest people ever.

Thank you to Mich for braving the what turned out to be a strange cult like Masons combined with Scientology Egyptian Museum with me!  We were lucky to make it out alive!  It was scarier than the Winchester House!  Which brings me to a shout out to my Winchester House bus tour cohorts.  So great to spend time with Elgeron and Mrs. Elgeron again - my fellow Awful Awful Burger company members.

Thank you to Pod for walking with me from one end of the convention center to the other about two hundred and fifty thousand times.

And thank you to Cueller for keeping me up to date on evil-book-of-faces posts so I knew where everyone was.  And special shout out to Mrs. Cueller for a most excellent book talk discussion.

A big thank you to X-Ray for being the Baroness extraordinaire!  And to Mr. X for being the amazing bartender that you are.

And I am so incredibly grateful to United for cancelling my flight yesterday so I got to spend another day with everyone!

It was so great to see old friends from past Worldcons and to meet new ones in San Jose.  For all of you who did not make it this year, you were missed.  Hope to see you all in Dublin in 2019!

[LugaJetboyGirl]

As usual, I had a great con and am now experiencing post-con emo, aka con-woe. 

Went to some good panels this year. I especially like the Post-Apocalypse Diversity panel which dealt with some heavy topics, such as 'what would a trans person, disabled person, or other cultural/racial minority experience after the apocalypse (and why aren't they in mainstream post-apocalyptic fiction.'

Great panel on the 50 year anniversary of the Last Unicorn, with Peter Beagle. I asked a question about his book Tamsin and he gave a very long in depth answer, which made me a little weepy. He said that Tamsin is one of the books he is most proud of, even moreso than The Last Unicorn.

Also loved the YA Award nominees panel, which was really entertaining. I loved all the YA award stuff, of course, especially the ridiculously easy Business Meeting vote and the award presentation itself. (Just a reminder that any BwB members connected to the award may not want their real names connected to their Board handles, myself included, so please avoid any specific references to who did what for the award!)

I was impressed by the dealers room, which seemed to have some great selection. I ended up spending lots of money.

And of course the best part was hanging out with the BwB and meeeting long-term Boarders.