Photos now online:
Shirt
and Tie (Feb-2009)
LASFS/Aftermeetings
part 325: Loscon 37 Vote (12-Feb-2009) et seq.
LASFS/Aftermeetings
part 332: Coral Cafe (12-Feb-2009) et seq.
The picture of Joyce Hooper and
nitroace hiding behind their
ballots is from the night at LASFS last week when we voted on who would
chair Loscon in 2011. (Answer: Scott Beckstead and Sherri Benoun; their
theme is "Urban Fantasy.")
Interlude: Catching up with the rest of December - Boxing Day to New
Year's Eve
My Christmas week was full of ramping-up to
animelosangeles.
And my camera curled up and died. Fortunately, I got a Canon Powershot S5
IS for Christmas. I also purchased a Nikon Coolpix P50 as
an emergency backup camera when I bought the backdrop stand for our Fan
Guest of Honor's dealer table. The Nikon's an easy point-and-shoot, and
it's
library_lynn's preferred camera at this point.
( With Saltine being full to the brim with program books, I had a logistical problem on my hands. And did I mention the beanbags and beer? )
Lesson learned: transportation for materials from Chairman's House
should be planned ahead of time. And probably should not hinge on
everything being transported in Saltine.
tenkuudragon was in charge of the
Decorating Committee for Animé Los Angeles.
I mentioned that we could use Bertha (right) to
print poster blow-ups of some of our Guests of Honor's work -- that is,
some of the cartoons from VG Cats! and photos from A Fan's
View. The trick, of course, is picking which ones to print, and
getting the high-resolution images.
We had all of the pictures picked out, but we didn't get the original
images until very late. So Sunday, Monday and Tuesday that week was full
of me printing late at night, after Evan had come over and done the
printing he needed. At the end of a few long nights of printing, I had a
lot of rolled-up posters to transport and hand off to the decorating crew.
Lesson learned: buy extra rolls of paper, and print posters earlier in
the month.
In fact, I've got four rolls of paper on hand right now, and I'm hoping
that the decorating crew can get an early start on picking photos to print
for next year. It'll be the convention's 5th anniversary (the sixth
convention, which is five years after the first one) and we can print
photos
from all five years of Animé Los Angeles. We just need to pick
which ones to print, and get the photographers' permission.
Party. What can I say about the party? I don't host that many New Year's
Eve parties. But of the ones I've been to so far, it was certainly one
of my favorites. We had some of the decorations that we bought for
loscon, and a sign that said "Happy New Year 2009." We had
peanut butter and jelly, and hot cider, and lots of other snacks, but more
importantly we had a whole bunch of people having a wonderful time. (right)
I was pleased that
missmea had decided to join us. Sure,
she's my s'daughter, but she has no shortage of invitations for
New Year's Eve. One of the things that swayed her was the prospect of
having a bed waiting for her on the property... Anyhow, she looked
fabulous, and she explained that she doesn't have many opportunities to
wear her fur. (left)
We had strawberries, and
beer and sparkling wine and soft drinks,
and Evan James (right) brought some pear cider,
but Christian said we didn't have
enough variety of alcoholic beverages.
He volunteered to toddle off to the local
liquor store. What he brought back was Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, which
was very nice in the hot cider; and some orange vodka.
Christian played bartender
for the evening, guarding the beer and whatnot from underage drinkers.
I learned that one of the new traditions going around is texting your
friends at midnight to wish them a happy new year. It turns out that many
people hadn't heard of the older tradition of kissing someone at
midnight, but there was a lot of enthusiasm for that idea. The trick, of
course, is lining up a willing participant. The game of "Spin the
Bottle" hinges on that sort of consensual participation, but it's a lot
more
clearcut -- if you're sitting in the circle, you've signed on for the
game. The dance of picking your partner, and negotiating via body
language, at a New Year's Eve party is a lot more ambiguous. I'm thinking
maybe New Year's Eve parties need to come with warning labels... But Lynn
had
gone to bed by this
point, and there wasn't anyone else I felt an urgent need to kiss that
night.
One of the more amusing incidents of the night was when two young ladies
were snogging on the couch. I don't have any pictures -- as I've said
before, "it's not that kind of website" -- but the funniest part of the
situation was seeing three or four grown men standing around watching
them, committing it to memory.
New Year's Eve parties are a little like Mardi Gras, or Las Vegas
year-round; things are a little looser, and nobody's taking careful notes
on who slips away with whom during the course of the evening. (And that's
all I'm going to say on that subject.) I enjoyed having the party, and I'm
thinking I'll do this again next year. Although it won't be New Year's
Eve, the night before the convention set-up Day Zero. (It'll be Twelfth
Night,
though.)
The party broke up about 1:00 am or so. After all, we all had things we
needed to do the next day, as the convention's "Day Zero" would commence
with Registration opening up in that room about noon, Con Suite load-in
would continue when we got that room, and we'd get the
first of the ballrooms at about 6 pm. We cleaned up the
room as best as we could, leaving some of it for the next day, and went to
bed.
Lesson learned: have a party next year, but bring more crockpots and
start
them earlier.
Next: Chaz's observations on Animé Los Angeles 5.