hazelchaz | ...I see skies of blue, clouds of white. Bright blessed days, dark sacred nights...

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

On Saturday, missmea dressed as "Captain Jack Harkness," so she could flirt with anything that moved. (I don't know if she ended up flirting with the Dalek.)

Catherine the Great had given me a welcome-gift when we checked in: bottle of red wine, fruit and cheese plate. It wasn't my convention, so I wasn't prepared for a round of gift-exchanging, but I did give her a tangerine for each day.

Saturday afternoon I had a meeting scheduled with ala_mokita, Joyce and nitroace. Christian stopped by Tito's Tacos and brought us lunch. And he brought Lynn purple toe socks. (left) We adjourned to my room, to have a quiet conversation.

I had asked the hotel for "low floor, near elevator" and they gave me exactly that: room 100. You can't get lower, and you can't get closer to the elevator. In fact Christian didn't think the room existed at all -- and from the pool side the door says 101, not 100. Extra confusing. It's right next to the Con Suite, though, which means sometimes we saw karl_lembke taking the ice chest out for a walk... (right)

While we were talking there, everyone else who was staying with me decided to stop by, so it wasn't as quiet as we'd hoped. We switched to Cathy's room around the corner, came to a few decisions for immediate action and some possible conclusions for later, and wrapped up our conversation so that Cathy could go about her business. Her area of responsibility at Gallifrey One includes overseeing the Masquerade, so Saturday's a big day for her.

Then Christian and I wandered down to the Strategicon: Orccon gaming convention down at the Radisson (where the Westercon in 2002 had been held). We ran into a handful of folk in faire garb: apparently they're running a mini LARP at the Ren Faire. I picked up a flyer, Maria might be interested in participating. (left)

We ambled down the hall, and found the computer/video game room. Decades ago it was strictly a room for computer games, so it's still called the "Computer Room" even though most of the room is occupied by modern video game consoles. (right)

We weren't surprised to see a few familiar faces -- we knew Whisky was working in the game room, for example. He was our main point of contact. Christian and I were packing our ribbons, so we handed out a few silly ribbons and talked a little about the idea of having "Tournament Winner" ribbons or the equivalent, for their gamers. (left)

While we were hanging out there, munching on Pixy Stix and Disney Animal Crackers and some soda pop, Christian recognized a handful of people who he'd known from Orccon and other gaming conventions two decades ago. And some other people I knew, who we've seen at animelosangeles such as Nick Smith turned up. (right)

Christian wanted to look at the function space in the Sheraton Gateway because it might be an interesting place to have a convention some time. Not loscon, not Animé Los Angeles, but... something. Smofcon?

I told him about my fantasy of shaking up the world of romance conventions -- have a romance con that's more fannish than the usual romance conventions. Romantic Times Booklovers Convention registration is $490, Romance Writers of America National Conference is $425 if you pre-register. Surely there's room in the world for a simple convention that celebrates romantic fiction that doesn't have a three-figure membership fee?

When we got to the Sheraton we discovered that an Overeaters Anonymous convention was underway. (I have no idea whether the oversized lobby furniture informed their decision to have OA there...)

We talked a little with some of the organizers -- mostly talking about convention running in general, hotels we have known, that kind of thing. A little about how much room service business the hotel does in the evening after the OA convention banquet lets out...

On the way back, we learned that the gang was getting ready to have dinner. Christian and I met them at the hotel, we got the cars out of the parking lot and drove/walked to dinner and we all drove back, or home in Christian's case.

Meanwhile, at the hotel, people were lining up for the Masquerade. The line was long, things were delayed, rovers we know were working crowd control. (right)

(There was big news with Valentina, apparently. But then she decided not to make a big deal of it. However, we don't usually see Valentina wear baggy clothes, so her secret may end up showing before too long.)

summoner_lenne9 was put into the Dalek so that she could go up and down the masquerade line. Keeping the fans from getting too restless is part of Operations' job, after all. (left)

When I was in the main program room waiting for the Masquerade to start, Joyce Hooper pointed out that there was a little kittycat perched on top of the Tardis. (right)

I can only assume it was one of Brannigan's babies. Merv Staton had this great "Brannigan" (from Gridlock) costume, and some of the kittens in his basket would move a little from time to time. Very clever. (left)

The Masquerade was the biggest yet for Gallifrey, with twenty-odd entries. Some quite good, some quite elaborate. aimeekitty's group did a "Whosical" number with sparkly costumes, for example. (right)

I didn't stay for the whole thing -- sitting still in a darkened room usually results in my nodding off -- but I saw bits of it from the video overflow room (the "Heckle Room"). The fact that the stage didn't have live microphones, and many people didn't have pre-recordered audio, was quite apparent in how little was picked up by the video shoot. The video quality, apart from the audio problems that they brought upon themselves, was much better than what we had at Animé Los Angeles -- I feel a lot more confident that we'll have good video next year.

I also sat through some of the Halftime entertainment, which was some moldy old videos from Gallifrey a decade-plus ago. DOn't get me wrong, it was nice seeing Steffnee again, and a pre-adolescent Patrick Beckstead, and of course we lost Michael Mason and Gary Louie several years back. But those videos weren't very funny to anyone outside the "in crowd" ten years ago -- they really should have been edited down to just a few highlights before airing them at the 20th Gallifrey. What were they thinking?

After the Masquerade Halftime and the Awards, Toby Hadoke did his one-man show Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf. Paul Cornell (left) and Toby had both complimented me earlier on the work I'd done on the postcards. Toby quipped that he finally got an "and" credit. "... and TOBY HADOKE performing his play MOTHS ATE MY DOCTOR WHO SCARF" was how I'd ended the list of guests on the postcards.

I'd been trying to reach fangrrl_squees all weekend. She looked fried Friday night, and frantic Saturday evening. She was helping with the Masquerade, and making things happen -- she'll be running the Masquerade next year. By the time the Masquerade was over for the night and she'd had some time to decompress, she was back to her chipper self. (right)

One wacky thing that happened Saturday night was a group of fans running around and into/out of the Pass-Through Tardis, to film a Benny Hill Show-style video. Look for it to turn up on Youtube...

That evening, Maria was wearing a slinky red dress as "Lucy Saxon." Complete with subtle black eye makeup -- some people didn't notice, some people saw it and immediately were ready to beat up whoever she'd already put in the hospital. No, no, it goes with the character. It's rare for the character to smile, but you'll notice she's holding a surprise for her husband. When Maria walked by late that night, I heard Dan Sandifer mention that red was now his favorite color... (right)