LostCarPark's Journal

For all fans of Dublin based Science Fiction, there will be a Christmas party taking place in The White Horse Inn (now officially McGraths) on Burgh Quay, Dublin 2 (close to Tara Street DART station).

Please bring a nice present (max value €5) and a naff one (some piece of horrible sci-fi tat, the naffer the better) to exchange with a random stranger.

We'll have some food and maybe a party game or two to get us into the Xmas spirit. Feel free to bring along some extra treats.

There's a Facebook event at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=204439708784

Hope to see you there.

Wow, that was a great weekend. Where did it go, though, it seems like only hours ago I was stepping off a plane in Heathrow.

I really enjoyed the convention from start to finish. It seemed a little hard to keep track of what was going on at times, as there was so much going on at any given time, and it was spread over such a wide geographic area. I think I took part in more programming than any convention I've been on in a long time, but people kept telling me about great things I was missing in another part of the hotel. I also kept bumping into people and exclaiming, "Oh! Have you been here all weekend?"

Some of the great programme items I can remember were... something about telescopes in Hawaii, which was fascinating as the speaker worked at one, so really made it feel like being there... something about Doctor Who that seemed to make a lot of sense at the time, even the Buffy references... something about webcomics, which mentioned some of my favourites, plus a whole lot more I'd like to check out if I can remember what they were... writing and producing a fanzine in an hour, to which my main contribution was the cover (I managed to get a printout before heading for the plane home, which kept me chuckling manically, and getting some odd looks from my fellow passengers)... something about fannish awards (which I have to admit I found myself agreeing with both sides in to the argument as to whether they serve a purpose)... Neil Gaiman's GoH talk, which I just popped into for a minute, but ended up staying for an hour and a half)...something about H. P. Lovecraft, which I think sort of made sense... a panel where various people had two minutes to rant about various topics with hilarious results... a discussion about Accelerando which I somehow made it to at 10:00am despite having gone to bed at 5:30... a talk about the planets aimed at younger convention-goers and one about the mathematical theories of knots that I flitted between despite them having been at opposite ends of the convention... something about privacy and surveillance that completely failed to surprise me, but still managed to shock me... and a couple of discos I just had to dance at and (of course) room parties.

I won't go into all the things I would have liked to have gone to but didn't quite get around to, or the things that didn't sound particularly appealing, but when people described them afterwards I was really sorry I missed. I can't blame the committee, as the programme seemed very well worked out, and there did seem to be a genuine effort to avoid putting similar items on at the same time. However, I just have a wide disparity of interests, so it was inevitable that I wouldn't be able to get to everything I wanted to. I have no regrets and really enjoyed every item, and also the times I wasn't at programme items but was sitting around chatting with interesting people.

I have my own theories about the geography of the hotel, and why all the heat seemed to being sucked out so furiously, which can hopefully be found in the Monday evening issue of the newsletter. I don't know for sure, as I had to run for a plane before it was finished.

Now I'm really looking forward to P-Con next weekend...