Umbral Echoes Blog

So after the fiasco of the previous night, you'd think I would stay in and sleep it off, right? Fucking wrong. 4 hours of sleep, then up, shower, and down to the registration area, and shortly thereafter to a Changeling the Lost game run by The Wrecking Crew. I feel the need to put in a few notes here.

First, I was on the design team for the CtL corebook. However, I had never actually played the game or even managed to read all the way through the book, as ironic as that is. So I was interested to see what the final product ended up being like.

Second, The Wrecking Crew is awesome. They run tabletop games for White Wolf products at all sorts of conventions. Back in the day they used to help White Wolf with the setup and breakdown of their booths at said conventions, too. They are not only rabid fans, but they are very good at what they do. So I was doubly excited to play in this game.

Third, I was still vaguely nauseas, hadn't eaten since 3pm the previous day, and hadn't even had any water that morning. But I am not a little bitch, and I was determined to get my game on. So instead of doing the intelligent thing and saying, "Hey guys, give me 5 minutes to go get a bottle of water," I toughed through it. HTFU.

–Begin geeky game reminiscing–

The game had pregens, I was the last to the table but I found a great character: an Autumn Court librarian. Autumn Court changelings are the creepy ones. The girl running the game left the specifics to us, so I described him as a spindly man in his late 40s with straight, almost dead-looking black hair that was about chin-length, who had the musty smell of old books. He had sunken eyes, wore a moth-ridden tweed jacket, ivory button-down shirt, and brown corduroy pants. Also, from time to time a spider or two would skitter out from the hair hanging at his neck, scamper across his neck or face, and disappear on the other side.

His mein (how he looks to other changelings) was much the same, except instead of eyes he had black pits that seemed to suck in the light, features even more gaunt to the point of looking skeletal, and elongated teeth that were all sharp canines.

The basic plot was that the group of us "came to" on a dock with a wooden crate in front of us, and a person, with no memories of the previous 24 hours. The person was contractually bound not to tell us anything. My character snooped and sniffed around, and figured that there was most likely a dead body in there. Around that time, a car drove up and we were shot at. My character, not being a fighter, hid and used his powers to freak out the gunmen — or at least one of them.

We gain control of the situation, find out who hired them, then go up the chain to find out who hired that person to hire them, find out who that person was working for. It was basically a big court plot to make it look like the Autumn Court queen was abducting/killing the other three courts' queens, the plot lead by someone who hoped to take her place, and was working with the True Fae (bad, bad news) to do so. We blew up the would-be queen, I did some research on the fae and found her weakness (she is known as the Weeping Willow, and can't attack anyone that's crying), and the local changelings banded together to smack her down.

Behind the scenes, apparently we were hired by the current Autumn queen to investigate the disappearances.  I'd thought maybe we were the ones that had caused them, since we did "wake up" in front of a box with a dead body in it that I was pretty sure was one of the other queens, after all.

–End geeky game reminiscing–

After that, Lauren, Charles Bailey, and I went to grab brunch. I wanted some gumbo (it's New Orleans after all, and I love me some cajun food), so on the advice of friends we went to Gumbo Shop. Yes, it's a gumbo place called Gumbo Shop. It was pretty good, except that they put a crab claw in mine and there were little bits of it in the gumbo itself that I had to spit out from time to time. I found them, of course, by crunching down on them with my teeth, which was none too pleasant.

Then we went to a gelato place right around the corner, and it was divine. Lauren and I got some horchata gelato. They had some single malt Glenlivet gelato that I really wanted, but thought might be a bad idea after the previous night's debacle.

We helped Charles find a geocaching thing, then I caught the tail end of an artist panel and we went out to eat again.

What? I have a tapeworm to feed, you know. Or a hollow leg to fill. Or both.

We really wanted to check out The Green Goddess, since it seems to have great Yelp reviews and some of our friends raved about it. By "we wanted to go" I mostly mean that I did, and Lauren grumbled about it. Turns out, it was too packed anyway — it is but a tiny place, not capable of handling even the runoff of the crowds that the convention brought. So we ended up at House of Blues, where I had some shrimp and catfish creole. Though we had to wait a long time to get our food, it was very tasty, and the waitress was awesomely nice as well. I will definitely go back there whenever I'm next in the area.

Damnit, even writing about this is making me hungry. Maybe if I lived in New Orleans I'd actually gain a few pounds.

That night there was a… well, cocktail party is the best way I can think to describe it, at the Blue Room downstairs. CCP was giving the fans a chance to talk to some of the game developers, and have some nice snacks and free booze while they were at it.

This seemed to translate to "OMGfreebooze!!!!" and instead of talking to the developers, everyone seemed to go straight for the two bars, resulting in about a 45 minute wait to get drinks. I chatted some with Rich Thomas, Bill Bridges, and others before deciding to move along to bed.

Thus ended day 2. Not terribly exciting, but it involved good food, and the next day was the birthday party, so I knew adventure awaited. And indeed it did, but more on that in the next installment.

I decided to spend my 30th birthday with the White Wolf/CCP crew at The Grand Masquerade in New Orleans this year. And man was it a blast.  I had planned to do this in one post, but realized that would be a gargantuan post, so I'll do this piecemeal. So…

Day 1: Wednesday

Lauren and I drove down, got stuck behind a wreck on I-10 for over an hour, and checked in to The Roosevelt around 11. The early day was busy with work and I didn't think to eat, so the only meal I had was an Arby's meal around 3pm. This will be important in a little bit.

The hotel was… well, "fucking amazing" doesn't cover it. Opulent, gorgeous, refined, luxurious, and then some. I booked a suite, and I'm damn glad I did — not because the normal rooms are bad (they're also amazing), but the suites are that fucking sweet. Yeah, I just said that. A picture of the foyer is above, and the main bedroom is below.After having been cooped up in the car for so long, I was ready to explore. Lauren, having had to get up at 3am that morning, understandably wanted some sleep.  So, off I went to Bourbon Street alone.

Are you starting to see where that "only ate once that day" might come into play?

So I wander down Bourbon St. and find that it's pretty much exactly as I'd expected: every single establishment is either a bar, a bar with food (for some reason, they seem to think that margaritas and pizza go together as well as peanut butter and chocolate), or a strip club. None seemed to stand out until I saw a place that purported to have the most beers on Bourbon St. So I sat down and had myself an Arrogant Bastard (shut up, just shut up — it's a tasty beer!)… which ended up being $10.50. Leave it to me to find the only expensive alcohol on Bourbon St.

As I was finishing my tres-expensive beer, I got texts from some of the White Wolf crew telling me to join them at karaoke. I had a hard time figuring it out, since most of them were too drunk to correctly relay the name, but eventually figured it out to be the Cat's Meow. So I head that way, already tipsy from my one pint of high-grav beer.

I arrive to what I expect: lots of drunken White Wolf people, having pretty much taken over the place. Craig recommends the Hurricanes, I go get one. It is a $7.50 bucket of rum. Sweet, sweet rum. I take one sip and know this is dangerous. I go do the social butterfly thing, and after talking to Chris McDonough and giving him some completely heterosexual man-hugs, I look over to find my drink… stolen. For the first time in my life, I had my drink stolen. I felt robbed, I felt raped, I felt… okay well seriously I was only slightly annoyed.

"What the fuck?! Son of a…. well fuck it, they're only $7.50."

I should have taken the drink being stolen as a sign to stop. But I was only halfway through it, and I'm not a quitter. So I manned up and got another Huge Bucket of Rum^TM.  Remember how I said I'd only eaten once?  Yeah.

I don't remember a lot after that, other than stumbling home, buying Lauren a hot dog and having a bite of it myself, and then a few hours worshiping the porcelain goddess. At one point I was seriously wondering if I had alcohol poisoning. But I made it through, and around 5am went into restful slumber. Or to put it another way, I passed the fuck out.

Thus ended Day 1 of my grand adventure in New Orleans.

I will start this out by saying that DragonCon was my first convention ever. I went on a lark at the last minute in 2003 thanks to a friend, and had an absolute blast. I met tons of new and completely awesome people (I'm still good friends with my roommates from the first year), saw lots of cool panels, took hundreds of pictures, and got almost no sleep because I was too excited to waste my time sleeping.

Since then, the convention has gotten different for me, and in general. I hardly take any pictures. Yes, it's full of awesome costumes. They'll be there next year too. And the year after. I go to fewer panels. As time goes on, DragonCon is more about hanging out with friends and partying than it is seeing celebs or sitting in on panels. Many of those friends, I only get to see once a year at DragonCon, in fact. So generally I plan one or two panel-type things to do per day, max, and otherwise just fly by the seat of my pants.

Caveat: A lot of this might seem very doom and gloom. My intent here is to prepare you for the worst. Things aren't necessarily this bad, but if you go in prepared for what could happen, you will have a much better con experience.

What you came here for

Okay, enough with the reminiscing. DragonCon, if done improperly, is a torturous thing. Some bits of advice actually come from the pitfalls the poor E experienced in that linked blog post. So here are some tips to get you through the convention:

• Parking: Don't park downtown. For the love of Cthulu, just don't do it. If you're lucky, it will only be absurdly expensive. If you're not lucky, you'll get your car booted. Most of the little lots that seem like they're cheap will "reset" at 6am, so you have to pay again around 6-7am or have your car booted (which will cost you about $75). They are especially bad about doing this on Saturday morning, when the parade is. I speak from experience (see picture to the right). So where do you park? The convention hotels are all right by the Peachtree MARTA rail station, so I highly advise that you park at a MARTA station with long-term parking, and take the train down. Some MARTA stations will charge $5 per day, and some are free. For those of you who have never taken public transportation before: don't panic. It's very easy, and safe, and after you've done it you'll laugh at yourself for being so nervous about it.
• Hotels: Book at one of the convention hotels, in October or November. Whenever they open up, book a room at one of the convention hotels (preferably Marriott, Hyatt, or Hilton). It's well worth it to have your room right there, without having to take a cab or train back. They are expensive though; with taxes, plan on paying around $200 per night.
• Hotel check-in: Do it early, request a low floor. Elevator wait times are absurd. Really, really absurd. At 1am, you seriously might have to wait 30+ minutes to get on an elevator. So if you can get a floor low enough that you can just use the stairs, do it. Also, by "early" I mean, get there around 11am on Thursday. Have a job or something else that prevents you from coming until Friday? Pray that some non-convention-goer left a room on Friday. Otherwise, you're fucked.
• Elevators: Go down to go up (and vice-versa). It's sad that people do this, because it actually slows down the elevators overall. But because so many other people do it, you sort of have to, in order to get anywhere. So no matter which direction you're going, push both buttons, and hop on the first elevator with a spot regardless of which way it's going.
• Badge lines: Bring a book. This year, on-site registration (the people who didn't get one ahead of time) had very short lines, like 30 minutes or less. For those who wanted to save money and pre-registered? 5-6 hour waits. No exaggeration. However, I'm betting that because of that serious dichotomy, more people will pay on-site next year. So either way, plan on staying a while. I suggest getting in line Thursday or Friday morning, about an hour before the lines actually open up. That way you'll only have around 2 hours total waiting, and it won't be in the blistering hot Atlanta sun.
  Edit: Next year they're supposed to be using a barcode scanning system that will speed things up. Cross your fingers and hope that it works; if so, waits should be more like 1-2 hours max.
  • Alternatively, you can do what I did and get an eternal badge. This is if you know you're going to be coming to at least 10 more Dragon*Cons, otherwise it's not worth it. But if you are, you pay 10x the going rate for on-site registration (this last year that meant $1,000), and you get a forever pass. Now, you still have to get a badge each year, you just don't have to pay for it and you get in a special eternals-only line, which has almost no wait.
• Celebrity panels: Watch them on Dragon*Con TV. Seriously. It's either that, or get in line 3 hours before the panel begins. If you only get there an hour early, you won't get in. This also applies to otherwise popular panels, like the Buffy Horror Picture Show, and pretty much anything to do with Firefly. Lines literally wrap around the hotels for these panels. If someone is being organized about it, they'll count and say, "Everyone past here won't get in." That level of organization and thought is a very rare occurrence though.
  Edit: This isn't necessarily true in all cases (mainly for popular celebs/shows, though sometimes even then you'll get lucky), but it's best to plan ahead. If you get there 3 hours early and no one is in line, go do something else for 30-45 minutes then come back.
• Room parties: find where they are, and go to them. DigiTribe usually has an awesome open roomparty all weekend long. They don't charge for booze, but they gladly accept donations, so please toss 'em a few bucks so that they don't run out on Friday night. There are other cool room parties, but sometimes you just have to know someone throwing one, to know where they are.
• Drinking: Know your limits, stick to one type of drink. Trust me, it is Bad News^TM to start off with beer, move to vodka crans, then finish the night off with a Jaeger bomb. Other normal drinking rules apply: know your limits, eat well beforehand, and if you're female don't leave your drink unattended (I've never heard of someone getting slipped something in their drink at DCon, but better safe than sorry). Also, stock up on Saturday. Beer and liquor cannot be sold at bars on Sunday in Georgia (only at bars). Yeah, fuck the Bible Belt and our teetotalling governor. Also, don't buy drinks at Pulse in the Marriott. They're stupid expensive, like $16 for a Grey Goose martini expensive. Rum buckets are the way to go, generally available at the bar on the smoker's deck of the Hyatt. $12 for about 6-8 shots of rum in a tasty mixed drink. Cross the street from Marriott to Hyatt, go up the stairs, and the smoker's deck is the area right before all the glass doors.
• Eating: bring snacks, don't expect to get a seat in the food court. The places in the food court are actually pretty decent at getting people their food quickly. And they are amazingly nice for having to deal with such a horde of people. But there is simply not enough seating for everyone. So be prepared to go back to your hotel room to eat, or to camp out on the floor somewhere. Also, bring snacks. Not only can they help you wait until after the lunch/dinner rush, they come in quite handy at 3am when you're plastered and really need something other than booze to put in your stomach. There's only one good 24-hour food place near the convention, the Metro Café Diner.
• Buying stuff: avoid impulse buys (generally). What I do is take a picture of things I want on Friday (along with the price tag and booth it's at), then on Saturday or Sunday if I still want them, I'll buy. However, if there's only one or two of what you want left, this rule doesn't necessarily apply. This year, I lost out on getting a sweet leather mask because I waited too long.
• Walking around: be careful where you walk. This actually consists of a few parts:
  • Do not, under any circumstances, just stop where you are. Step off to the side, then stop. If you can't find a place outside of traffic in the immediate vicinity, then keep walking until you do. Otherwise the fifty people behind you will keep moving forward while you're trying to stop, and you are the loser in that equation. This applies everywhere with crowds, including the dealer rooms.
  • Don't rush into empty pockets in crowds. If you're in a really crowded area and you see a big empty pocket? Look again; there's someone trying to set up a picture there. They've probably been trying to do so for the past few minutes because dumbasses keep getting in their way. Do not be one of those dumbasses.
  • When you get to the bottom of escalators, keep moving. If there are people not moving in front of you when you get to the bottom, yell at them. If they don't respond immediately, push them the fuck out of the way. Screw politeness; this is safety. People get hurt because of stop-ups at the bottom of the escalator. If you stop, even if it's because someone in front of you is stopped, expect to be pushed. Really, the people behind you have absolutely no choice in the matter — that escalator sure as hell isn't stopping, after all. (Note: usually there will be hotel security staff making sure that people keep moving. Do not be angry at them; they keep things sane.)
    
• Waiting in lines: be sociable. You'll be surprised at the awesome people you will meet while waiting in line. Plus, it helps pass the time.

I think that about covers my advice. What do you think; is there anything I left out?

Edits/additions based on feedback

• Bathe. Do this, every day. If you need to, bathe once in the morning and once in the afternoon or evening. Remember the rule of thumb: if you can smell yourself at all, other people smell it ten times worse. And if you really hate the funk on others, carry a small bottle of Febreeze and spritz people who stink around you. Be nice about it, and they'll probably even thank you, since most geeks don't seem to be aware of the statement in bold above. The same goes for bad breath — carry some gum with you and offer it to people with halitosis when having a conversation. If you talk to enough people, this will happen.
• Beggars: ignore them. Whenever you go even a half-block from the hotel, beggars will ask you for money. They all have a story ("I just need a buck or two to pay for a bus ride back to my family in <city>"). These stories are not true. Do not give them money. Do not tell them "no." The only defense is to pretend like they don't exist. Seriously, even if they get in your personal space, just ignore them. Have a conversation with your friend as if the beggar were incorporeal and invisible. This is the only way to get them to go away. If you tell them, "Sorry I don't have cash," or anything else, they will pester you even more, because you have acknowledged their existence.
• Health: beware the con crud. You've got tens of thousands of people packed into a small area. So carry water with you, don't share drinks or food, wash your hands before eating, and bring some vitamin C along. And if you don't like secondhand smoke, avoid all smoking areas at all costs, especially the smoker's deck at the Hyatt (just outside the Hyatt series of glass doors on the way to the Marriott). Also, if you're drunk, beware the stairs down from there to the street — they will test your equilibrium.
• Costumes and clothing: think it through. First off, they don't call it Hotlanta for nothin'. You're going to be walking around in the heat, so keep this in mind when you're planning your costume. And if you're doing body paint, use sealers so it doesn't run everywhere when you start sweating. Also, you're going to be doing a lot of walking. Ladies (and guys), this means wear comfortable shoes. At the very least, have a backup plan for when those sexy 4-inch stilettos get unbearable. If you're making a complex costume, remember that at some point, you're going to need to use the restroom. Make sure your costume can accommodate that.
• Be nice, and have thick skin. This weekend is fun, but also stressful for a lot of people. A lot of the people here are introverts, and don't do well in large crowds. So try to be nice to them. Also treat the convention staff and hotel staff well. They have to put up with a lot of shit. Don't add to it. They might even be short with you; if so, be nice — you'll be surprised how far you can go with that (apparently this doesn't work on the dicktards who boot cars in the parking lots though).