Walk Softly and Carry a Big Schtick

Michael and Theresa Contos found these tiki coolers, and he used colorful model paints to decorate them festively. Michael remembered us from AniZona earlier this year. (right)

( People were ready to start partying again Saturday afternoon... )

( Saturday evening, down on the lawn, the Devil-ettes were dancing on stage... )

Saturday night was the last night to party. A number of rooms were open for "after parties" meaning after the music and burlesque show is over for the night. So they opened at 10:00 pm or so. (In sci-fi or anime convention terms, think "after the masquerade.")

( At the Smuggler's Cove party I met Rebecca Cate and Martin Cate... )

( Tangaroa-Ru had a party, on the ground floor, that I'd wanted to check out, and I'm glad I did -- she was serving up Mai Tai Jell-O... )

( ''It's okay, I'm a mermaid'' (and other elevator snapshots)... )

On Sunday, I took a look at the newly-built ballrooms at the Crowne Plaza. They haven't finished getting the access ramp ready, so if you're on wheels you'll need to go around to the other side. They also haven't added any new tiki decorations. (left)

Dixie Von Trixie was in the indoor dealers room with the "Wear it Again Sam" booth. (right)

King Kukulele was on the phone, and had swapped shirts with Otto. Kukulele is the convention's toastmaster. "Otto Von Stroheim" is the chair of the whole convention. (left)

Otto had Kukulele's shirt, because he wanted to look sharp for an interview. I didn't catch the name of the photographer or the interviewer. (right)

And shortly after that I ran out of battery juice. Rather than fish a fresh set of out my luggage, we opted to head for home.

Next: preview of our Guests of Honor and a picnic in the park.

Photos now online:
AniZona 4: Late Thursday night (10-Apr-2009)
AniZona 4: Friday (10-Apr-2009)
AniZona 4 part 8: Saturday Morning (11-Apr-2009)
AniZona 4: Sunday (12-Apr-2009)
A stop at the PODS Warehouse (13-Apr-2009)
The picture of aesthier as "Morrigan" with the animelosangeles tattoo is from Saturday.

Part 1 of my AniZona report. The Friday night dance at AniZona was cut short at midnight, apparently because the DJ got tired or bored or something. Reportedly the fans weren't dancing that much anyway. Which reminds me of a card I need to write out and mail:

I'll look up his address and get that sent off real soon now.

I've been writing a lot of notecards lately, in fact -- I've written over 200 in the past month or two, thank-you notes for everyone who worked at our convention this year. When I have time, I write until my hand gets tired, then stuff the envelopes and stamp them; repeat. So some of them have Arizona postmarks if I worked on them last weekend.

We had a fan table at AniZona, which was nice. ladymaxstarr rode out with me (left), and we took turns driving. A lifesaver, truly; if I had to choose between having a helper for the drive, and having one at the table, I'd take the drive to make sure I get where I'm going safely.

And the attendees at the convention seemed to have a good time. Which is not surprising: when people go to a convention expecting to have fun, they usually do.

If I remember the numbers treasurer Stephanie Bannon (right) told me, 70% of the members pre-registered in the last month before the convention. (They maxed out their cap the week before, so there were no at-door membership sales.)

What did I think of the convention? I saw lots of people having a fun time. ( There were some details that were lacking, such as the signs... )

It was an odd convention experience for me. AniZona's as old as Animé Los Angeles, so for it to end on such a conflicted note -- the regular attendees having a great time, but clear signs of early burnout on the part of the staff -- is hard for me to internalize.

I'll have more thoughts on the convention in my next post, along with some ponderings on the Arizona convention scene.

Tonight we hit the road for Xanadu Las Vegas. ala_mokita is on the road already, to set up a movie illustrators exhibit. (As I write this, he's about 60 miles from Vegas, while I haven't left Orange County yet.) Lynn, Melissa and I plan to wait until the traffic dies down a bit after rush hour and then we'll hit the road ourselves.

Gallifrey One report part 1: Friday Afternoon. (See also part 2, part 3, and part 4.)

I don't usually attend Gallifrey. I'd given fairegoddess and summoner_lenne9 memberships, and then a combination of factors including missmea wanting to go led to library_lynn and I deciding to book a room and attend. And, incidentally, making sure that our family and friends had a place to stay.

( I'm just barely a Gallifrey One staffer: I served as the Postcard Maven for three years... )

( I also volunteered to print some jumbo posters on Bertha. )

Friday morning, Lynn and I left a little late, and stopped at Trader Joe's in Cerritos for some snacks to keep in the hotel room. She bought these big chocolate chip chocolate mini-bundt cakes for "breakfast food," and some rolls and fruit and so forth. We didn't get to the hotel until just before 1:00 pm. (In the rain.) But that's the beauty of not having any at-convention responsibilities -- it doesn't matter when we show up.

As one might imagine, Sarah was the first person we ran into. She came down off the mountain, just as a big winter storm came to town. (left)

We had promised her that, rather than try to get back up on Sunday (which might not work if the Grapevine was closed due to the snow expected), she could stay over at our house and we'd make sure that she got home at the end of it all.

Melissa and Maria would be arriving on their own at some point. Lindsay wasn't going to be joining us after all, so we'd only have five in our room instead of six.

We weren't really sure what we'd be doing to pass the time Friday afternoon, but half an hour after we arrived we found out: ( We'd watch Stephen Roberts bring a Dalek to life... )

While sitting around at one of the fan tables, putting tape on the posters, a few people found me, such as jvowles of Otakon who waggled his Sonic Screwdriver at me. (left)

It may come as no surprise that I'd handled the ribbons for a few fans at the convention. One such fan was "Horizon Chaser," who handed out a ribbon to anyone who knew who Horizon Chaser is. Here you can see one of those yellow ribbons ("I know WHO he is") being handed out. (right)

( When the time came for me to help Steve with a tricky hinge, I handed my spare camera to Lynn so she could shoot some of the action-packed excitement... )

But my weekend wasn't going to revolve around the Dalek. I had a few things I wanted to do. I wanted to see if we could get the various guests and program participants on the postcard mailing list. I'd sent in an article to be printed in the program book about the postcard mailing list and the art contest, and I wanted to have flyers about the postcard project in the green room for when the guests checked in.

The problem with this scheme was that I really needed to have the flyers ready before the guests started showing up -- getting to the convention an hour or two after the panels started meant I'd missed a chance to build up a lot of momentum, and I hadn't talked to Suze and made sure she was fully on board with the project. I put a few signs up in the Green Room, which was one room used for Program Ops and Green Room Hospitality and even Staff Lounge, and I hoped for the best.

I had a few other errands to deal with. I had (almost) all of the leftover Gallifrey postcards, and I wanted to park them on a freebie table in the Pass-Through Lounge.

I also had a very large number of AniZona postcards to dispose of. Lucky for me, I ran into Ninja Kitty of Doom, who has some important job with AniZona and took them off my hands. Hooray! (left)

Next: The Dalek moves!

Yes, I'm in Indiana this week. Saturday I'll be at the Cosplay Potluck Picnic in Bakersfield, though. Look for me there...