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For those of you who don't know, AggieCon is a yearly event held at Texas A&M University. It is run by Cepheid Variable, the science fiction club at the University. It's the oldest student run science fiction convention in the United States. If you want more details into the particulars of this convention, you can visit their website:
http://aggiecon.tamu.edu/default.html
Thursday, March 22
Sheryl
We had motivations for going to AggieCon this year. Our daughter, Sidra, is a member of Cepheid Variable, and would be working the convention. A&M is less than a 2 hour drive from our house, and I discovered way too late that I was off work that weekend. It's hell to find someone to cat sit and parrot sit on short notice, so Paul and I decided that I would drive up Thursday for the day, and that both of us would drive up Saturday for the day. I have fond memories of AggieCon. The last one I went to, 27 years ago, I attended a performance of the musical "My Fair Ripper," performed by the Houston Science Fiction Society. There was a cute piano player, and after the musical, I was strolling over to introduce myself to him. I got about three feet away from him when someone shouted, "Hey Paul! Where's your WIFE?" and I did a U turn and skedaddled out of there. Which actually was for the best. I met the cute piano player six years later, long after he had been divorced, and on March 21st of this year, we celebrated 20 years of marriage.
I arrived up at A&M about 11 am. I met Sidra and Zack (my writer on Consoletations) and we went over to con ops to obtain my press pass. Sidra introduced me to her friends, and then we discovered that there were no badges. Brian Stelfreeze had been up till 3 am designing the art for the badges, and they weren't ready yet. So, Sidra, Zack and I went over to one of the dorm food joints on campus. Having heard from both Sidra and Zack about the terrible cafeteria food, I was leery of eating anything. However, the food turned out to be good. I don't know what they are complaining about.
Sidra and Zack had classes, and Sidra also had to meet with her engineering group, so back I went to con ops. No badges yet, and they informed me that the badges wouldn't be ready until Friday, so everyone was getting in free on Thursday. I then discovered that the dealers room and the art show and the charity auction art show wouldn't be open until 2 pm. It was about 12:30 pm when I got this news. I also got informed that a lot of the dealers wouldn't be arriving until Friday. So, having an "in" with Sidra's friends, and trying to kill a little time, I strolled into the unopened dealer's room to get a sneak peek at the goodies to come. Oh man, there were rows and rows of boxes of comics, so I knew I was in the right place. I ran into Jim Steele, a comics dealer from the Dallas area that I knew from the old cons here in Houston. We chatted awhile, and he told me that he was informed that the dealer's room would open at 1 pm. I got hopeful that the wait wouldn't be too long. I went out, strolled around campus awhile, and watched a Western Blackbird try to make romance with the lady Grackles. He wasn't having much luck, but I had to give him an A for effort. 1 pm rolled around, and I went back into the Student Center to see if the dealer's room had opened yet. No, it hadn't. 2 pm. So I flopped myself down on the couch outside the dealer's room, and watched the frenzied preparations in progress. Right before 2 pm, I called Sidra, and frustrated by the wait, informed her that she had better come over and keep me company, and that if the dealer's room didn't open at 2, I was driving back home. I had a few choice things to say about the organization of the entire shindig, too, at this point. Sidra was with her engineering group, but shortly after the dealer's room opened at 2 pm, she was over to keep me company. We perused the dealer's room, such as was there, and were very impressed with the variety of wares folks were selling. There were comics, videos, SF books, gaming companies, and a whole slew of interesting things. One guy had custom made anime figures that were very nice. The one I was sort of attached to was a female anime character in a nursing outfit, holding up a shot with a long needle, and her stethoscope was sticking straight out. As a nurse, I found it extremely amusing, and would have bought it, if I could have figured out where I was going to put it. It didn't go with any color scheme in my house, and I'm not fond of anime, so I just sighed at it, and moved on. I then discovered The Couple With the Buttons. I went nuts. Paul and I bought a ton of buttons from these folks 16 years ago at the North American Science Fiction Con held in Austin that year. We, in the interim, had lost a lot of them. Well, I remedied the situation right then and there. There was also a young man there perusing the buttons, and he and I had a grand time sharing some of the funny ones we found with one another. I bought buttons for myself which read, "That which does not kill me had better run damn fast" and another which read "Am I a Catholic? No, I can stop bringing home cats any time I want to." I also bought a button for either Sidra or me to wear at San Diego this year "Does anal retentive require a hyphen?" Sidra and I are plotting our big budget (50 bucks) schlock movie we are filming this summer, for next fall's Aggie SchlockFest. We are doing our own live action movie of Lord of the Rings Texas Style, and I bought a button which says, "Honestly, the dwarf was on fire when I got here" for the character of Legolas to wear. Man, is it *ever* going to be a bad movie, too. Happy with my purchases, and with a preview of things to come, Sidra and I left the dealer's room.
Next we went to peruse the Charity Art Show and Auction. Cepheid had decided to give the proceeds to an abused children's facility in College Station, which is a charity I can get 100% behind. I discovered a Black Panther #2 with a print drawn and signed by Mark Texeira. I never get into the cattle gate at the Marvel booth at San Diego, so this was a real attractive find for me. I love the artwork on Black Panther, and I decided to bid on it Saturday when Paul and I returned.
We then hit the Art Show and Silent Auction. Almost all of it were fantasy prints. Sidra and I made bad jokes about werewolves, there being so many wolf and werewolf prints there. Sidra and I were particularly impressed by the signed prints of Ellisa H. Mitchell. I liked the one with cats in a spaceship, looking out the window of a view of Earth, and Sidra fell in love with a picture of a winged kitten staring curiously out the castle window at a baby dragon. We both liked the print of a siamese cat looking crosseyed at a winged mouse drooping over it's forehead. We decided not to buy anything on quick sale right away, to hang back and see what the auction looked like on Saturday.
After that, we camped on the couch and talked. Then Sidra had to go to yet another class, and I drove home. Although there were procedural glitches along the way, the beginnings of the show pretty much made up for it.
Friday, March 23
Zack
Well, my day began bright and early at 7:30 a.m. studying
for a calculus test till 10:00am, followed by taking the test, and
then another hour of lecture in my next class (discrete math.
Dont ask, Im not sure what it is either). Anyway, at 12:20, all
my academic responsibilities were done for the day, and I was
free to run amok, err, I mean check out Aggiecon. I went down
to registration, and grabbed Sidra, and then we went to the
Dealers Room to go pick up Frank, one of my friends from
Texas Tech who is helping to work one of the dealers tables in
exchange for a free pass into the con. Sidra went in to get
Frank, and I stayed outside, because they charge a whopping
$0.50 to get in, and since Im cheap-er I mean a poor college
student, I couldnt afford it, so I settled for drooling from the
door. After picking up Frank, we walked down stairs to have
lunch, and then Sidra went back to registration, and Frank went
back to his table. Thus fed, and with a lingering scrambled brain
from the calculus test, I went to go register. Because of some
weird campus rules, all ticket sales for anything at all has to be
through the MSC (Memorial Student Center) Box Office. What
this translates to is that one goes to registration to get a pass,
and they tell you have to go downstairs, buy a ticket at the box
office window, then come back upstairs to get your pass. This
didnt bother me greatly, but there was some great grumbling
and complaining on the part of some of the umm . . .
Chronologically Enhanced People (*looks around warily* a.k.a.
old farts). So after a quick trip down stairs I got my ticket at a
student discount, and presented it to registration. I wrote my
name on a badge, which they laminated, and received a program
book. Before leaving registration, I checked out all the gaming
stuff, which games they were doing and when. I then set out to
scope out the dealers room, which unfortunately had enough
worthwhile security to make an armed assault and robbery
unfeasible. It really was unfortunate, too, because the place was
absolutely marvelous. There was so much cool stuff that I
wanted: games of all sorts, books, books, some more books,
comics, some more games, buttons, toys, and swords. The
sword prices were unbelievable. On average, they were a good
33-50% off what the prices should have been (drool). Feeling
my willpower fading quickly, I decided to beat a hasty,
temporary retreat. I lose track of the exact order here, but
generally, I spent some time running back and forth, talking to
Sidra in registration, and Frank. At one point I finally went and
checked out the art show. There were some absolutely fabulous
pieces there. I liked most near everything done by one guy
whose name rhymes with Monet, the Boring French
Impressionalist Painter Dude. There were also some various
other pieces, cats and dragons, and this one really cool one that
I liked, it was like an F-16 flying, and this angel floating upside
down above the canopy, touching it, and the pilot touching on
the glass where her hand was. Unfortunately, it was $50. I was
so tempted. though. If I werent so cheap-er such a poor
college student, I would have bought it. After some more
running around, I tracked Frank down playing a game of Ogre
miniatures. Next door there was a guy teaching Ogre basic, so I
sat down to learn. Ogre is an interesting game, but horribly
overbalanced. One side is the Ogre, the other side gets an army
of tanks, Howitzers, and marines in power armor, etc. The
Ogre is basically a supertank some 100 or so yards long. The
Ogre almost always wins. I was the Ogre first, and I annihilated
my opponent, he hardly scratched my paint job. Then I
defended, and with a little better luck and strategy, I managed to
hurt him a lot before he annihilated me. Are we noticing a trend
here? Afterwards, for trying out the game, I received my very
own Howitzer. Cool, huh? Too bad it wasnt real. It was
made of pewter, for the Ogre miniatures game, and you had to
glue it together and paint it and stuff. I put it in my pocket :)
After the game, I went back up to registration, where I proudly
proclaimed to Sidra that I won a Howitzer and that it was in my
pocket. After some strange looks and some explaining, Sidra
put me to work cutting out con badges from the printer. At one
point there was a spectacular paper jam, where the circa 1996
Epson Bubble Jet printer decided to eat half a ream of paper
and not regurgitate it. This other guy and I ended up halfway
disassembling the thing, and fighting it for 15 minutes to make it
give up the paper, centimeter by centimeter. More amazingly
though, we managed to put the printer back together.
Sometimes I impress even myself. While in registration, I learned
that the con attendance was going well, and that originally they
had a box with 1000 laminents and 1000 chains, but that it had
been stolen. They had managed to get more laminents, but no
chains. I had a chain, but I got mine from Frank, who didnt
need his. (His badge was on a clip with his library ID from
Tech. He wanted to look important with 2 badges.) I also
learned that they had gone through 3 computers, and had run out
of ink several times. After about an hour, I left registration, as I
was no longer needed. I ran through the dealers room once
more, and then decided to go take a nap. I had a headache,
and had worn myself ragged with school stuff that week. It was
around 6 oclock at this time. I dozed for an hour or so, and
had dinner with Frank and Sidra. We then sat around my room
for a while, played risk, watched half of Pink Floyds The Wall,
and killed time until around 11:30. We (Sidra and I) went to the
midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Oh boy,
here it goes. *Deep breath.* Ok we walk up, and they are
weeding out the virgins and marking a V on their heads with
lipstick. They know Sidra, shes in Cepheid Variable. The girl
door guard says to Sidra, "you dont look like a virgin." The girl
looks at me, and gleefully proclaims, "but you do!" Im thinking,
"oh sure, this is fair." Its not MY fault I look like a innocent
nerdy little 15 year old. Anyways, before I had decided on
either lying or ratting out Sidra, Sidra pipes in with "Actually, Im
a virgin too." (And in case you were wondering, no, I wouldnt
have lied. I have a nasty little conscience that I just can't seem to
get rid of.) They look at her with disbelief, and after stating the
same, marked us both and let us in (thereby depriving me of
even the small petty victory of ratting Sidra out (yes, Im
shallow.)) Thus with bright red Vs emblazoned on our
foreheads we entered. We went and got seats near the front
and waited. They had Weird Al and Dr. Demento going on the
speakers. Shortly before it started they acted out the Dr.
Demento Ti Kwon Leap skit. (You really need to listen to it; its
hilarious.) Ok, so they finally get things started. The guy in
charge starts by talking about The Rules. Unfortunately, at this
time, I cant recall many, and wouldn't share them anyway, if
you want to know, go to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror.
Next they De-Virginized us, and the show began. About 3/4ths
through the beginning of the intro, someone tripped over the
power cord, and it went black. They had to restart it. With no
further technical problems, the show began. The main thing
about a live showing, is that there is a whole list of smart-aleck
little comments to say in regards to the dialogue in the movie. I
being the little nerdy innocent 15 year old that I am, was also
totally caught off guard by the abundance of four letter words in
use. A lot of it is really lewd and crass. And for the most part,
pretty darn funny. Im sure I lost purity points by going. If you
wanna know what goes on, youll have to go yourself, I wont
spoil it. So after an interesting 2 hours, the show ended, and it
was 2 am. I walked Sidra back to her dorm, and then went
back to mine, and crashed, after a terribly long 18½ hour day.
Saturday, March 24
Paul
Of course we arrived late at the con. Went to Con Ops to get our badges. Con Ops can't find them. Checked by radio with Registration. Registration said badges had been sent to Con Ops. Con Ops personnel look around - no badges. Registration says, "Send them over here we'll make some more." Walk 20 miles through a maze of corridors to find Registration. Sidra (who is working the con) almost has the replacement badges ready by the time we get there. By now, I'm starting to limp a little as my bad knee starts talking about stairs, ramps, and 20-mile hikes. Then its on to the Dealers Room. Where is the Dealers Room, you ask? Next door to Con Ops, of course.
Made a brief tour of the Dealers Room, looking for "real books." Several booths here look promising. Other booths hawk comic books, videos, gaming supplies and games, posters, jewelry, figurines, and edged weapons. Some of the latter are not even sharp. How can you have an edged weapon which has no edge? Still, this is a good-sized room for a small con. A lot of diversity here.
Then on to the Art Room. Many pictures of half-naked bimbos and fanciful creatures to which wings have been added for no apparent reason (Sheryl bought three later). Also, Lord of the Rings (LotR) stuff seems popular this year with the up-coming movie. The Charity Auction next door has some interesting stuff, too. Then back to the Dealers Room for another brief tour before lunch. Sheryl gets lost in the Dealers Room, so I take the opportunity to take some Con pictures. Find fellow in Monkish garb with some kind of small animal perched in the thrown-back hood. You don't mind being on the Internet, do you? Promo the CT site. A fellow at one of the gaming tables is explaining the rules of some chess variant to a potential customer. Take pictures of some of the booths and customers.
After hooking back up with Sheryl, take Sidra and Zack to lunch at Tom's Barbeque. Then back to the Con. Sidra changes into her Grell Night Girl outfit. In the Dealers Room, the fellow at the gaming booth is still explaining away to the same customer. If its that hard to understand, I don't wanna know about it! As we're making the tour of the room, I'm a considerable ways behind Sid, Sheryl and Zack. Speculations abound about just how Sidra manages to keep that outfit on without falling out. I'm so proud!
Visit one of the smaller booths that sells "real books." Find an Ace Double by an unfamiliar author with what looks like an excellent example of 50s/60s action-style Stud Fiction for only $3! At another booth, they have one of the books I'm looking for - but left it in Austin. Still, they have a good selection. I get business cards so I can get in touch later. Unfortunately, everything I'm interested in, I already have.
Time to check out the videos. Ask for RAH's "The Puppet Masters." Some jerk borrowed mine and never gave it back. They don't have it here either. Probably rare as hen's teeth by now. Sheryl buys a copy of a Marvel-comic-based movie that was so bad it was never released. There are other gems here, too, but we don't buy many of them. Sheryl's saving up for the art auction. I'm saving my money for the big booth in the corner that has "real books."
At last I arrive at the big booth in the corner, where they take me to the cleaners. The collection they brought with them is almost as big as the collection in my den. But, then, they do own a book store. I nose around a bit, finding a copy of the book the other guy left in Austin. Several other things strike my fancy, some rare, some just on my "didn't have time to look for it yet" list. Funny thing, no yellow-spined DAW Goulart books. Wonder why? Still they get into my wallet deeper than anyone else here. Also get a business card with the intention of dropping them off a wish list.
At last the time arrives for the Charity Art Auction. This year the proceeds go to an abused children's facility in College Station. Manage to take more pictures of costumed attendees in the hall outside. Sheryl manages to snag the "Black Panther" art she wanted. The regular Art Auction begins shortly thereafter. At the regular Art Auction, we find that we should have gone for the quick sale on the stuff we wanted, for the bidding is ferocious! Still, we walk away with the three cat prints by Ellisa Mitchell.
After one last tour through the Dealers Room, we drop Sidra off near Registration, ("Its really not that far, I swear!") and head home.
Saturday Night
Sidra
After Mom and Dad left I went back up to Registration. My boss at
Registration had been working on low sleep and she wanted to go and
take a nap for a few hours. So she calls over the walkie talkie like thing
(we call them bricks), for an extra random worker to sit there with me until
she gets back. Said random other worker and myself sit at registration
and sell two t-shirts. Its been a really busy day at registration, but its
getting late and all the people have bought tickets that are going to for
the day. Finally my Registration boss relives me and the other random
worker from sitting at Registration and twiddling our thumbs.
I make a mad rush over to the other end of the building for the
Masquerade. Ive missed the first 15 minutes; thus, Ive missed the
Cepheid chair dressed in a suit, snorting pixie sticks and calling himself
George Bush Jr. *snaps fingers, rolls eyes, says unenthusiastically*
DARN. When I walk in the room, there are four girls up on stage
dressed in Renaissance costumes singing a bawdy song. Myhr, one of
our guests who wears a cat suit, is up on stage as master of ceremony.
Myhr is greatly amusing and incredibly entertaining.
Highlights from the costume contest included: Hourne the Hunter:
mythological character, god of fertility, and garbed in several animal
horns, by far the horniest guy at the con by his own proclamation, Dr.
Who, a guy who got dubbed by the judges "Myhrs apprentice", the
winner of the costume contest, who I dearly wish I could remember the
name to, and lastly, the gay superhero with this gay side kick robot.
While the judges when out and debated who was gonna win, the MCs
conducted the Miss AggieCon Pageant. Miss AggieCon has been won
in previous years by a 7 foot tall transsexual feline and an iguana, to
name a few. What on earth made me think that I could stand up to stiff
competition and come anywhere close to winning Miss AggieCon?
Easy, the Grell Night Girl costume skews everything. *big grin* Still, I
got the third most amount of applause, which is a very respectable
showing at AggieCon. The pageant came down between the gay robot
(who by wearing the Night Girl costume I allegedly turned straight) and
a little girl. When asked why she wanted to be Miss AggieCon, the little
girl answered adorably, " My daddy picks me up from school and brings
me to AggieCon." When asked why she liked her daddy taking her to
AggieCon she responded " AggieCon is cool." Needless to say, all of
us went "AWWWW" and the robot conceded to her. Now, any bets as
to where the daddy who brought her to AggieCon is while his daughter
is becoming Miss AggieCon? You got it, gaming. Fortunately her
mommy was there too and was there to document the special occasion.
Both parents are graduated Cepheids. Her mommy, in fact, had been
doing a super duper job of running the Con Suite for AggieCon.
After the costume contest, I had a splitting headache and my tape from
my Night Girl costume was beginning to get more than just a little
uncomfortable. I had Zack walk me back to my dorm, and I then crashed
out.
Sunday, March 25
Sidra
I awoke at 8:30 in the morning, and poked around on the internet to get a better feel for questions I should ask Brian Stelfreeze if I were to be lucky enough to get an interview with him. After I had the questions down for the interview, I began to work on the drawings for my engineering project that I was supposed to have done before my
engineering group met at 1. About 9:30 am, I checked my equipment for the
interview, and discovered I needed to get mini-tapes and batteries for the tape recorder. The school supply place on campus is closed on Sundays. So I ICQ'ed Zack, who has a car, and we high-tailed it over to Wal-Mart to procure said needed items.
We get back to campus and I realize I've left my AggieCon Badge at my dorm. I figure whoever is door nazi-ing should recognize me and know I've worked my butt off at registration for the last two days of AggieCon. Sure enough they do, and I make a beeline for the table that Brian Stelfreeze should be sitting at. When I arrive at the table, I find he's not there yet. *Grumble* I have a timetable here. My engineering group is meeting at 1 and I am nowhere near completing all my drawings. I decide that until Brian arrives I'll cruise the dealers room and see what I can find. I decided to pick up the BBC miniseries of Neverwhere on VHS and to get a card game called Chrononauts. Neverwhere is an okay interpretation. The guy playing the main character looks kind of like Paul McCartney, which is totally opposite of how I pictured him. The Marquis
DeCarabas was a complete casting shock looks-wise, but by far steals every single scene he is in. Some of the acting is really weak, but DeCarabas is just perfectly on the money. Chrononauts I had played with some of my friends from Cepheid at a New Year's Eve party this year. It's a really interesting game where you play time travelers who are trying to get to their time line, by altering our current time line or collecting artifacts through the ages. It's a wicked little strategy game. I nosed around in the graphic novel boxes. I
didn't really find anything that interested me. By this time I had lapped the dealers room, and saw Brian Stelfreeze talking with one of my friends in Cepheid, Beth aka Rack.
I walked up to Brian Stelfreeze, and started to ask him for an interview and got as far as "Mr. Stelfreeze" when Rack interrupts me with, "Mr. Stelfreeze?!?! This is Brian. He's cool." I then proceeded to explain that I
wanted to ask him for an interview for the Collector Times. Brian agreed and then we went out into the hall, where it was less noisy. You can see the interview in the Comics section. Brian is a very humorous guy. I really enjoyed interviewing him. After we finished the interview, we talked about comicbooks and about me running around and trying to interview people at San Diego this summer. After a while Brian's Cepheid magnetism started working and there were about three or four of us sitting around listening to him. I then decided it would be okay if I ducked out to go do engineering stuff. Probably the most interesting thing said to me all con was said as I was leaving to go do engineering drawings, "When I saw you in costume yesterday, the last thing I would have thought would be engineering student" I had worn my Grell Night Girl costume the day before.
I did make one last run into the dealers room to pick up more buttons from the really cool button people. The guy behind the booth and I exchanged stories about going to cons in costume. It was fun, but I had to literally run off to meet my engineering group. As for whether or not I finished my drawing before I met up with them...the answer would be unfortunately not. It was okay, though. I managed to finish them before the meeting with them the next day.
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