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Last year, it was looking as though ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mnemex and I would be the only ones in our hotel room for Arisia, so we asked for a Main King, with a second choice of a room with 2 double beds.
Then, we learned that we could convince Beth Bartley to come. And one of the many Marks we know needed crash space. And, at the last minute,agrumer decided that he could indeed make it.
By then, I'd been frantically emailing Arisa's concom folks, as I had not gotten any confirmation that we had received a room. They assured me that a room was booked, and I said that if we could have a room with 2 double beds, that would be preferable, at this point.
mnemex suggested that he, Beth, and I meet at Stephen Tihor's on Thursday, and, if Stephen agreed, crash there. Stephen agreed, on condition we leave the place GC-ready and be out of there by the time he had to leave. This was good, as it forced us to get an early start.
So, Thursday, I grabbed overstuffed knapsack, drum case, and walking stick, and made it to Stephen's, with some agony. The backpack had tins of grapeleaves. The drum case could not go over my shoulder, so hung from my forearm.
I put stuff down at Stephen's, then went out for food with Beth. We got a bit, um, carried away, or at least, I did. See, mnemex had heard from a Boston fan that it would be so cold on Friday that the schools would be closed on account of cold alone, and that we should not count on being able to go out of the hotel. And I was assuming we would not do the expensive hotel restaurant. So, we got 2 boxes of granola bars, 3 things of brie, liverwurst, roast beef, corned beef, bread, a tin of sardines, and a tin of mackerel, and maybe a few other things to go with the grape leaves and nutella we'd already had.
Back at Stephen's, we ate pasta and Chinese food, and games were played till the wee hours. We got a bit of sleep, and actually managed to get out the door before 8.
The Plan was to hop a cab to Chinatown. Ha. All the cabs were full. We hopped a bus instead, my bag being somewhat lighter, as Beth now had all the heavy food. Off the bus at about Canal or so. No cab, so we started walking, figuring we'd hang out till the 9 o'clock bus.
And on the way to the Official Bus Stop we knew about, we encountered a bus. Much closer than the stop. The woman in the driver's seat confirmed that it was the correct bus, and we piled on. We were prepared to pay for an extra seat for mnemex's harp, but this proved unnecessary -- lots of space on that bus. The only bad part of the trip was I got carsick. We made a note to get dramamine for the way back.
Off the bus, we staggered to a restaurant in Chinatown, and thought we ordered like pigs. Congee. Weird dim sum type dishes. No leftovers.
Then, we staggered to the train station, and caught a cab at the station. This was to go one stop, basically. This was a distance we could walk if the weather had been warmer and I had not been so weighed down. As it was, we were very glad to get the cab.
We checked in and found, to our delight and relief, that we had a room with 2 double beds. We got our badges, did a bit of walking around to see where things were, got the schedules. My only problem with the schedule was that the drumming jam, the thing for which I had lugged my doumbek, and which was one of the main things that made me pick Arisia over Boskone (that plus the fact that doing Arisia leaves open the option of doing Boskone at the last minute, where doing Boskone instead closes the option of doing Arisia at the last minute) was a mere 2 1/2 hours, from 8 to 10:30. The conchair for next year says that they'll try to rectify this.
The man leading the drumming circle -- I am blanking on his name, and I've seen him year after year, doing this -- said that he was given the option of the slot we had, or a room all night Saturday, but only after midnight. The hard core drummers do not stay up till dawn. I think an 8-12 or 8-2am slot might be viable, or a 10pm till whenever, but not a midnight - dawn slot, especially given that a lot of the people at the circle do the Masquerade. Still, it was a fun 2 1/2 hours, and the focus of the circle was trying to listen to what everyone contributed to the sound.
Ironically, a guy on one instrument -- I think a dijeridoo, but I won't swear to that -- was correct when he said folks wouldn't be able to hear it. It sounded plenty loud when played alone, but was utterly drowned out by the combined drumming. Cisterns and chimes sound above that fine. For one of the bits we did, our leader had everything end except that guy's instrument, and he got a cool solo.
And the belly dancers were eye catching as always. It doesn't really matter what the shape of the dancer is -- big, with belly roll, or svelt, with no ounce of fat. The muscle control is impressive.
Having danced and drummed, I dropped my stuff at the filk, and went to the larp Celebration to see if the GMs needed walk on NPCs. Turns out they didn't, but I caught a truly impressive climax, and mnemex and Mark joined me for game wrap. One of the GMs, another Mark (aka Justin, IIRC), explained to me that he tended to customize each run of any given larp for his players, something that I hadn't considered.
After that, I did some shopping, mostly getting small things. The exception was a black mesh cape that looked really cool. I showed it off to Harold Feld, pointing out the train.
Harold: Catch it! It's a runaway train!
We got down to the filking. Usually, Saturday's my big filking night, but I liked the Friday filk a lot. As things wound down, there was a fair amount of singing songs other people hadn't heard and actively wanted to hear. That's nifty.
Beth crashed early, and Harold not too late thereafter. Hm. Early may be midnight or 1 am. The rest of us declared a virtual dawn sometime around 3 am, I think. Hey, we actually wanted to make the GoH speech this time!
mnemex and I would be the only ones in our hotel room for Arisia, so we asked for a Main King, with a second choice of a room with 2 double beds.Then, we learned that we could convince Beth Bartley to come. And one of the many Marks we know needed crash space. And, at the last minute,
agrumer decided that he could indeed make it.By then, I'd been frantically emailing Arisa's concom folks, as I had not gotten any confirmation that we had received a room. They assured me that a room was booked, and I said that if we could have a room with 2 double beds, that would be preferable, at this point.
mnemex suggested that he, Beth, and I meet at Stephen Tihor's on Thursday, and, if Stephen agreed, crash there. Stephen agreed, on condition we leave the place GC-ready and be out of there by the time he had to leave. This was good, as it forced us to get an early start.
So, Thursday, I grabbed overstuffed knapsack, drum case, and walking stick, and made it to Stephen's, with some agony. The backpack had tins of grapeleaves. The drum case could not go over my shoulder, so hung from my forearm.
I put stuff down at Stephen's, then went out for food with Beth. We got a bit, um, carried away, or at least, I did. See, mnemex had heard from a Boston fan that it would be so cold on Friday that the schools would be closed on account of cold alone, and that we should not count on being able to go out of the hotel. And I was assuming we would not do the expensive hotel restaurant. So, we got 2 boxes of granola bars, 3 things of brie, liverwurst, roast beef, corned beef, bread, a tin of sardines, and a tin of mackerel, and maybe a few other things to go with the grape leaves and nutella we'd already had.
Back at Stephen's, we ate pasta and Chinese food, and games were played till the wee hours. We got a bit of sleep, and actually managed to get out the door before 8.
The Plan was to hop a cab to Chinatown. Ha. All the cabs were full. We hopped a bus instead, my bag being somewhat lighter, as Beth now had all the heavy food. Off the bus at about Canal or so. No cab, so we started walking, figuring we'd hang out till the 9 o'clock bus.
And on the way to the Official Bus Stop we knew about, we encountered a bus. Much closer than the stop. The woman in the driver's seat confirmed that it was the correct bus, and we piled on. We were prepared to pay for an extra seat for mnemex's harp, but this proved unnecessary -- lots of space on that bus. The only bad part of the trip was I got carsick. We made a note to get dramamine for the way back.
Off the bus, we staggered to a restaurant in Chinatown, and thought we ordered like pigs. Congee. Weird dim sum type dishes. No leftovers.
Then, we staggered to the train station, and caught a cab at the station. This was to go one stop, basically. This was a distance we could walk if the weather had been warmer and I had not been so weighed down. As it was, we were very glad to get the cab.
We checked in and found, to our delight and relief, that we had a room with 2 double beds. We got our badges, did a bit of walking around to see where things were, got the schedules. My only problem with the schedule was that the drumming jam, the thing for which I had lugged my doumbek, and which was one of the main things that made me pick Arisia over Boskone (that plus the fact that doing Arisia leaves open the option of doing Boskone at the last minute, where doing Boskone instead closes the option of doing Arisia at the last minute) was a mere 2 1/2 hours, from 8 to 10:30. The conchair for next year says that they'll try to rectify this.
The man leading the drumming circle -- I am blanking on his name, and I've seen him year after year, doing this -- said that he was given the option of the slot we had, or a room all night Saturday, but only after midnight. The hard core drummers do not stay up till dawn. I think an 8-12 or 8-2am slot might be viable, or a 10pm till whenever, but not a midnight - dawn slot, especially given that a lot of the people at the circle do the Masquerade. Still, it was a fun 2 1/2 hours, and the focus of the circle was trying to listen to what everyone contributed to the sound.
Ironically, a guy on one instrument -- I think a dijeridoo, but I won't swear to that -- was correct when he said folks wouldn't be able to hear it. It sounded plenty loud when played alone, but was utterly drowned out by the combined drumming. Cisterns and chimes sound above that fine. For one of the bits we did, our leader had everything end except that guy's instrument, and he got a cool solo.
And the belly dancers were eye catching as always. It doesn't really matter what the shape of the dancer is -- big, with belly roll, or svelt, with no ounce of fat. The muscle control is impressive.
Having danced and drummed, I dropped my stuff at the filk, and went to the larp Celebration to see if the GMs needed walk on NPCs. Turns out they didn't, but I caught a truly impressive climax, and mnemex and Mark joined me for game wrap. One of the GMs, another Mark (aka Justin, IIRC), explained to me that he tended to customize each run of any given larp for his players, something that I hadn't considered.
After that, I did some shopping, mostly getting small things. The exception was a black mesh cape that looked really cool. I showed it off to Harold Feld, pointing out the train.
Harold: Catch it! It's a runaway train!
We got down to the filking. Usually, Saturday's my big filking night, but I liked the Friday filk a lot. As things wound down, there was a fair amount of singing songs other people hadn't heard and actively wanted to hear. That's nifty.
Beth crashed early, and Harold not too late thereafter. Hm. Early may be midnight or 1 am. The rest of us declared a virtual dawn sometime around 3 am, I think. Hey, we actually wanted to make the GoH speech this time!