First, thanks to Captain America, Minion Amber, Minion Anna, and Minion Nicole for working the show on Saturday at GeekGirlCon; I think, on the whole, it worked as a dramatic piece, but it’s hard to tell from stage. If you were there, I hope you’ll give some feedback, as it was the first time we’d tried that!

Thanks to GeekGirlCon for letting us do our little production, as well. ^_^ I spent most of Saturday on the show, and then wandering about a bit; Sunday I spent almost entirely in the gaming pit. GGC’s gaming pit needs a Looking For Group signup, but is really nice. I also bought a game.

Kyoshi and Water Tribe

Secondly, I’m probably going to be radio-quiet for a while, as I have to go in for emergency eye surgery tomorrow. This is unrelated to anything at the convention; I’ll write up a longer post about that, next.

And to think they told me a micro-anti-gravitron emitter simply couldn’t be made. Have to do something about the power chain colour, tho’. Should be nice and green.

Who has the hammer now, Captain?

GeekGirlCon! 2pm! Tomorrow! Time is a bit approximate because it’s a ninja gig, but we will be there an there will be adventures.

We had a good full-cast rehearsal last night. The Henches performed well. We tweaked the script a bit more, in details, adding some fun. Five-person cast! Props! Captain America’s shield is super-shiny. The sashes I made for the Hench crew look good.

If you missed them before:

This is going to be fun. Saturday, 2pm. Watch the twitter feed for location. 😀

Henches get sashes! As is required by Guild law, of course. Well, uniforms. Sashes count.

These are of course for the GeekGirlCon ninja show, 2pm(ish) Saturday, GeekGirlCon. Not sure where they’re putting us yet, but look for it – it’ll be a show. 😀

I’m a sucker for shiny fabrics, so a new costume is in the works for the 2pm-ish Saturday ninja show at GeekGirlCon.

So this weekend at GeekGirlCon I’m doing a 5-song mini-concert, as a ninja show, at the con. And I really, really need a couple of people who want to play Henchies, get into a fight with a superhero, and lose. It’s part of the show.

I have one, but I need at least two more. It is acting, but there’s no lines to learn, and it’s comedic – you don’t actually have to know how to fight. You’re supposed to lose, after all. XD

While we have permission to do this, this isn’t an official event, so I can’t get you passes or anything. I bought my own membership a while ago.

Please, please, please contact me if you want to play this part. We’re going to rehearse once, this week, and then just show up and do it.

If you are, and you would be willing to take on a short and fairly simple acting role (as a henchie) as part of an unofficial/ninja concert, contact me as soon as you see this!

There’s an Avengers meme where people do pop culture and news magazine covers set in the Avengers world. It’s cool and stuff, but I don’t read those magazines.

I read this, though:

July-August 2010

They’ve changed style since then, but I wanted it after Iron Man 2, or more specifically, right after Tony Stark’s testimony to Congress, so I used their old style.

Fonts aren’t quite right. But they’re the closest I have. I mucked with the kerning to get closer.

So, right, where was I? Oh right, VCON!

Same Con Same Badge Same Picture

Saturday morning, I popped up early for more kaiju programming – this time on monster anatomy and alternate worlds. But being a bit sleepier than I’d expected, I arrived a bit late – still, the pieces I saw were fun. Then the songwriting workshop, which I mentioned previously, rehearsal for the show, a very late lunch/early dinner and some hanging out, then off to set up for the show!

The Supervillain Origin Story set seemed to go over well; my goal is to get you on the supervillain’s side here, and while it’s still missing one part of the story, I think it’s starting to jell. A lot of people were nodding where I want them to during the Rant Segment, which is definitively a good sign.

There may be an unofficial/ninja performance of this at GeekGirlCon, by the way. Just sayin’.

Then I did a second mini-set, this one all piratey! And I have to say, it is so nice to be doing “Last Saskatchewan Pirate” where people both know and do the callbacks. I encouraged them starting the song, and when hitting that first chorus and having the crowd shout back the response lines? That felt nice. You guys were great.

For encore I did an a cappella – because I don’t have chords yet – of “You Can’t Get a Good Kamikaze in Vancouver.” I know I have at least some video and some audio, so we’ll look at how that goes – and thank you so much, VCON Tech Crew, for setting up my camera for me. That was awesome of you.

Then! Con suite and room parties and hangouts and all the rest. The only downside of the con suite this year was that they ran out of cider crazy early, and I ended up indulging in the dubious pleasure of a fake highball made of Canadian Club and Diet Pepsi, emphasis on dubious and fake.

Needless to say, a kamikaze was out of the question. XD

Sunday! Up at a leisurely pace to hit the art show, finally, where I bought this:

Art Lamp

Once again, the art show? Lots of 3D, an awfully good standard of work, most of it more F&SF-y than the lamp above (including most of the other lamps by the same artist). Honestly, it’s the best art show I see at a convention.

“What is Filk?”, my noon panel, saw only slightly more audience than panelists actually kind of stay on topic and get reasonably educational. Then a quick bite and a run down to my personal VCON highlight every year: the Turkey Readings.

Now, you have to understand what this is: it’s “straight” readings of terrible fiction, acted out by members of the audience, with other members of the audience bidding to stop or continue the action. ALL BIDS MUST BE PAID; it’s a fundraiser for the Canadian Unity Fan Fund, which pays to fly fans across the continent to opposite-side conventions.

And that’s all nice, but the best part is the terrible, terrible acting (I’m becoming a regular!) and the terrible, terrible pain. Perry Rhodan books are on the literate end of the scale here, people. It is not a pretty sight.

But it is hilarious.

Anyway, then! Closing ceremonies and the dead dog party. VCON knows how to throw a proper dead dog, I have to tell you. I started to fade around 2am but then people got out instruments in one room and a few of us did some serious jamming until 3:30 when I finally called it a convention. (They really liked my treatment of SJ Tucker’s “Come to the Labyrinth.” Quite different to hers, her fans who’ve heard me do it call it the Led Zeppelin version, even acoustic. Fair cop.) They also sell pre-reg for next year, and I got that sorted out.

After that, it was all sleeping late and Vancouver errands and a really excellent lunch with friends (Hi Geri! Hi Kate! Hi Angela! Hi Lara!) and acquisition of bagels and cider. The pleasant trip home was marred only by another terrible interaction with American customs – I think the last trip where I had to travel by car being unexpectedly pleasant, I had been lulled into a false sense of security; this was a bracing reminder that no, they are just awful – that at least had the benefit of being relatively brief.

Next year’s VCON will also be Canvention! Given that this VCON was of unusual size by itself – my badge had a four-digit number and I’ve never seen that before – next year should be quite the event. They’re changing hotels (again…) for it, which is a shame, because as I told one of the VCON concom at the dead dog: this hotel’s layout is confusing. I like it! Because despite it being confusing the social flow worked really well.

And that counts for a lot.

Next up: GeekGirlCon! And a ninja show! But you didn’t hear that from me – you’ll hear it from me next week. 😀

I’ve been getting back up to speed in sewing – ramping up for some costume changes, Solarbird the Lightbringer needs a new outfit – and made a Pacific Rim Pan-Pacific Defence Corps purse/bag yesterday afternoon.

First test wearing

Patch detail. Silver highlights added to match better with silver in ribbon.

Ribbon detail

This is the third I’ve made in this style – I made a green one yesterday, and a red one a few weeks ago. This one took about four hours; the previous, a good solid seven hours; the first one, I don’t know, but it was several hours across a few days. I still want to make a blue one, using the Dresden Codak “Cyborg Pride” patch I have from the Kickstarter. But I’m lacking a zipper and a strap.

I think I’m getting back into the swing of this.