Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So right now I'm sitting in my living room, kind of exhausted, looking at a green chair that used to sit in my Grandmother's living room. This weekend was eventful, and I'm tired.
Crysta and I went down to Milwaukee so we could spend father's day with my parents (along with some other family members). We went to the Brewer's game on Sunday, and like any game of baseball, it was a good time. I've never been a huge sports person, but I love watching a good live baseball game.
Honestly it was an amazing day.
Before I left town on Saturday though, I swung by the local No Kings protest here in Eau Claire, and then spent a chunk of time at the local Pride celebration. I tend to be a bit of a shut in these days, so with all the awful stuff in the news it was nice to remind myself that there are good people in the world willing to stand up for what's right and for each other.
My grandmother passed away not that long ago, and one thing I had my parent set aside for me was a chair. I realize that it looks a bit more gold in the photo, but trust me when I say it's green in real life. This morning I loaded it into my pickup and drove it across the state and got it into my living room. I loved this chair as a kid, and importantly... it swivels. And when I was growing up adults would always yell at me not to spin the chair. Well guess what, it's my chair now.
And no one can stop me from spinning.
I dunno -- it was just a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. We also went out to dinner after the baseball game yesterday, but I think I'll give my full opinion on that later this week in a different blog post. Because we went to a restaurant none of us had been to before, and uh... I have thoughts.
That was vague. I'm being vague. You're just going to have to be okay with that.
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Story of my life. “Wait, what am I doing here? When did I become staff?”
Yeah, that happened to me too XD
Mine is more something i signed up for years and years ago and they’ve never removed me from the list… I got birthday cards from McDonalds for something like 20 years.
As someone who a) just got a smartphone, b) knows tons of people without smartphones, and c) uses paper schedules anyway, I want to punch Roy.
I hated the thought of cons not printing out programs… until I finally got myself a smartphone. Now I get all weirded out any time I’m at a con that DOESN’T use Guidebook or some other online thing.
One of the things that cheeses me off about RI Comiccon is that while they PROVIDE a program book, it doesn’t have a schedule of events in it. You have to go to the lobby and copy down whatever it is you want to see that they’ve put up on a whiteboard!
Isn’t that the same con that had to have fire marshals step in because they oversold the event?
Paragons of effective management, really.
Yep, that’s them. I went to lunch early enough that I got back into the con before the hammer came down. A friend I met the next day told me HE’D been locked out because they were over crowded. It’s a thing. I remember Phil Foglio did a strip about a NY Star Trek con where Ticketron oversold the con and something like 14,000 people showed up. Last year they had to make refunds for the people who paid extra for the “Batman” section of the con. Yvonne Craig cancelled months before the event and Julie Newmar (who I’D been looking forward to seeing) had her flight cancelled because some one shot up LAX! Adam West and Burt Ward did the best they could, but they were bored and it showed.
I keep every program book from every con I have attended. Not having one at Otakon just felt weird… I wanted something physical I could bring back to show the staff here, but they were pretty much electronic-only (I heard later there WERE program books, but there were very few printed.)
Oh, we’ve had this debate many a time, but it comes down to this:
Everyone wants one. But most folks leave their pocket program guide in their hotel and asks for another one. We go through 500 extra every convention.
We made Conbooks an optional grab and cut printing of them by 20-30%, but people want the printed program guide, even if it’s online.
Live with it – you print up a batch of schedules (one or two sheets generally does the trick), put them out for people to take as needed, and put up a big one as a poster behind the information desk for when you run out. Yes it’s a good idea to have an on-line schedule – be sure you can update it on the fly. But don’t dare Murphy by depending on it solely. The number of things that can go wrong is scary…