Penguicon: Day 3
Posted April 25th, 2006 by Howard TaylerThe day began with the disassembly of the Chaos Machine. I got a few pictures, and then began organizing the bins to quickly recieve parts. A few volunteers showed up, and the half-dozen of us had the machine completely disassembled and in its bins within about 90 minutes.
It always surprises me how fast it goes.
Packing it back into its boxes went fairly quickly, too. Steve Jackson recently created partitioned boxes, with labels and everything, so that once you’ve got things in their bins, it’s a simple matter to get them shipped. I was done with the Chaos and all checked out of my room by about 12:15pm.
I then headed to the Writers Workshop, where a couple of other artists and I were supposed to draw based on what was being read. It was an interesting exercise, but I was too tired to fully appreciate it. I believe the artists’ time could have been better used in a more straightforward “draw what we tell you to” session. Have the authors describe a character, and let one of the artists render it. With four artists and 12 authors there would have been no problem getting a drawing for everybody.
Of course, that assumes the artists WANTED a drawing. If what they wanted was a READING then I’m sure the panel worked fine.
At around 2:00pm a truly hardcore Schlocker showed up from Ohio. Trent checked into the convention after almost everything was gone just so he could pre-order a sketch edition. I took care of that, and I also gave him a Schlock sketch, and hooked him up with the gaming guys… I hope he had a good time.
The nice lady running Operations told me that on Saturday a Schlocker named Tim had come through, again, just for a sketch edition. He had gotten married on Friday, and was headed out on his honeymoon on Sunday. I checked my notes… yup, I got his order placed. But I feel a little guilty. Are there Schlock Mercenary Widows out there? Is this the beginning of a home-wrecking trend?
(Answer: No. Buy a book, and read it with your family.)
I was told that Michael Z. Williamson and Eric Raymond wanted to meet with me in the dealers room. I wandered in and got distracted… my friend Rob Balder was there hawking his (excellent) wares, so I chatted with him for a moment. Unbeknownst to me, a crowd was gathering behind me at Mike’s instigation. Suddenly I was surrounded by high-fidelity, low-quality gregorian chant.
Ahh-Ahh-Ahh-Ahh-Ommm-eee-nooooos
HUMMMMMMMMMMM
You got me, Mike. Nailed me, even. Thank you for that.
At some point early Sunday afternoon the Con Suite folks decided they had to dispose of the last of the Liquid Nitrogen, which was being used to make ice-cream. One bowlful was thrown into the hot-tub. The resulting nitrogen fog was so impressive they decided to throw the next bowlful (these are big bowls, holding at least 4 liters of LN) into the pool proper.
I got that on video. Maybe the Penguicon folks will share it with you, but that’s their call, not mine.
That’s pretty much it for the convention. Just before 4:00pm I hitched a ride to the airport and flew home exhausted. But happy, too. Exhausted and happy.
Explore posts in the same categories: Conventions
April 25th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Howard, if we’d had more time, I’d have had everyone in brown robes, white rope belts, and toting plasgun replicas with audio circuits playing an ommmminous hummmm while we chanted.
BWUAHAHAHAhahahahahahaa
April 25th, 2006 at 9:59 am
You have the LN2 in the pool on video? Who did you give it to? I want to put it on our Penguicon website.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:00 am
It certainly was enjoyable seeing the expression on your face.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Crud! I left too early!
April 25th, 2006 at 11:29 am
Whoa! Howard showed it to me, but I thought that video was just of dry ice — I was perplexed by how it SHOOMed the pool.
But liquid nitrogen? You Pengueeks play HARD.
April 25th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Matt — I emailed you the URL.
Everybody else… check out Penguicon.org for updates.
–Howard
April 25th, 2006 at 11:58 am
BTW, some pics up at Flickr and YouTube.
Nothing to write home about, but I love the one with Howard sharpening the knife.
April 25th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Liquid nitrogen ice cream is mmm-mmm good.
April 25th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
I need to see that video! And FYI, there is an audio recording of “tea parties in SF” located here:
http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/wordpress/images/teaparty.wav
April 25th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
You forgot to mention that you were wearing your Schlock T-shirt with the ominous hum on Sunday, too…
April 25th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
I take it no one warned you about what Mike refers to as his sense of humor? *grin* Or his noteable ability to find people willing to play along ;)
April 26th, 2006 at 7:23 am
oh, man. I was already wishing I’d been there to see (and maybe play with) the Chaos machine. But I woulda loved to see the Ominous hummmmmm-age.
That’s.. that’s just priceless.
April 26th, 2006 at 8:30 am
The video is now online.
http://www.penguicon.org/penguicon4report
http://www.penguicon.org/audio/LN2pool.avi/download
April 26th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Agreed. Why do these cons not occur closer to the East Coast?!?
(Also, were there any recordings of the Gregorian Ominous Hummmmm?)
April 26th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Are there going to be any cons in Chicago anytime soon? I’m active duty military, just back stateside, so not tracking that well yet. Question 2 Are there any Howard is going to attend? (Pre-ordered 2 books, but managed to miss the sketch ones due to PCS move, #$%! lack of computers) Plotting to get a sketch :)
April 26th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Not only was the look on your face priceless while we did the ominous hummmmmmmm, it took several minutes for that priceless look to go away.
I’ll have you know that not only does Mike have an odd sense of humor, he was telling me about his plans and trying to recruit me since you announced you were going to Penguicon.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:47 am
mightyix: It’s not fair. I was so tired I could barely stand up. Of COURSE that facial expression got plastered for longer than it should have… my brain couldn’t come up with anything else to plaster there.
BTW, I’m sorry I never made it up for the IBC. I kept meaning to, and then I kept looking at the stairs and remembering how tired I was that evening.
April 26th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Weren’t you worried when that girl jumped into the pool? I would have been. It had to be like 90% nitrogen down there, even taking displacement into account.
Oh well, plenty of other people to play the hero than the guy with a camera in his hands. ;)
April 26th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
One liter of liquid nitrogen generates 0.7 cubic meters of pure nitrogen gas.
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/safety/lnitcry.htm
So I don’t think she was in any danger of suffocating…
April 26th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Two things:
1) We had LN fog all over the con suite earlier, and to no ill effect. I also laid down next to the hot-tub while LN fog was flooding out of it. I was completely immersed in the fog and noticed no breathing issues.
2) I think much of the fog is actually water vapor condensing thanks to the low temperature of the LN vapor. If nitrogen gas was visible then I suspect the air we breathe would be pretty cloudy all the time. But I’m just speculating. I don’t know a whole lot about the physical properties of LN, beyond what I observed.
April 26th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Earth Air is mostly nitrogen, not oxygen. A little (or a noticeable amount more than a little) isn’t going to hurt.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Howard:
1) Of course you noticed no breathing issues. Oxygen-depleted air doesn’t feel any different – your breathing is regulated by CO2, not O2. Of course, eventually you’d faint. Still, as long as the volume of LN2 is less than 1/5000 of the volume of the room you should be okay.
2) Yes, the visible fog from LN2 is water fog.
Toad:
The problem isn’t too much nitrogen – it’s too little oxygen.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Sam’s comment describes my concern. I once worked for a fire suppression systems company that boght and sold nitrogen in the course of their business. The part of the safety lecture that stuck with me was that “if you walk into a room in which nitrogen has displaced all the oxygen, you won’t feel like you’re suffocating. You’ll just pass out, and never wake up again.”
April 27th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Kelsey, you asked about the Chicago area? There’s WindyCon, there’s ACen (Anime). How far away from Chicago are you willing to go? There are more conventions within a 4-hour drive. The St. Louis area has a few, and there’s always GenCon Indianapolis (Gaming).
April 27th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Kelsey: http://www.duckon.org
I’ll be a guest there, US Army permitting. If not, my wife will have the merchandise and my lackeys will be there. It’s a decent convention.
Also InConJunction down here in Indianapolis in July.