Boskone 51

Recently I started writing for Women Write About Comics where you can read my full Boskone recap or the Boskone blog for my post about the Flash Fiction Slam.

Since you're here, check out some fun photos from the weekend. 

Friday night panel: Bring back my favorite TV show

Friday night panel: Future Fashion

Friday night reading: E.C.Ambrose

Friday night: Art Show Reception

Friday night: Meet the guests

Saturday morning panel: Stay near the fire

Saturday Art Demo with Official Artist David Palumbo

Saturday panel: Gravity and the Hard SF Film

Saturday panel: Capes, canes and superhero comics

Saturday Special Interest Group: What makes writers tick?

Saturday Kaffeeklatsch with Charles Stross

Saturday Loteria with John Picacio

Saturday book launch party

Saturday NESFA Awards

Saturday: William Shakespeare's Star Wars

Sunday Flash Fiction Slam 

Sunday panel: Ezines, fanzines and blogs, oh my

Sunday: Teenager with pocket program

Me at Saturday's Helsinki bid party

Finally made it to Unity Games

I finally made it to Unity Games. This year's day long tabletop gaming jubilee, Unity Games XX, took place at the Danvers Doubletree Hotel in Danvers, Mass. A friend has been posting on Facebook for a couple years, but I would keep forgetting about it, possibly due to it's proximity to Arisia. I corralled my friend, Bobby, and off we went.

After Registration, my first stop was the Teaching area. For me, the Teaching area was smaller, quieter and had scheduled demo games. Perfect for the first timer.


I found a table filling up to play Medici, an auction-style game where you try to fill up your boat with the best goods and then sell them at market. Both the game mentor and the players encouraged me to stay. Our game mentor was well prepared with individual instruction sheets, did a great job explaining the rules and gave hints on different strategies we could employ.  The table was a mix of women and men, half and half actually, and we all had such different strategies and personalities. Very fun game with a very fun group.

We wandered back into the main hall, but still felt a wee bit overwhelmed, so both Bobby and I headed back to the Teaching area. A post-apocalyptic game that looked intriguing, sp I chatted with the game mentor. His teaching style didn't quite mesh with my learning style, but what sealed the deal, was when I realized he was speaking to my friend and not to me. Silly really as Bobby wanted to go try something completely different. 

Instead I jumped at the chance to play Pitch Car, a game where you flick cars around a track to race them, with an exuberant group that asked if I wanted in (after seeing my very excited reaction a half hour earlier.) They had set up one of the hardest track patterns ever, but well all had a blast, cheering each other on or agonizing in defeat. 

Finally, we were on our last little bit and decided it was time to tackle the main room. There's a handy area where you can stand if you're looking to play a game or if you have a specific game you want to play. A gentleman walked by with Concordia, which I had seen and wanted to try, so off we went, picking up a fourth player along the way. Concordia was long, so long in fact we had to cut it short at about 2 hours in.  It was a fun game once you learned the mechanics and I see myself trying a full game in the future. 

Unfortunately I had a late start due to some family matters. So instead of 12 hours of gaming, we got in about five; three games in five hours. Phew! To be honest, I was a little worried about how I could spend all day there, mainly would I have the stamina for such a thing. But my five hours proved to me that next year I'll be all in.

My Arisia Recap

For me, Arisia kicks of the start of a new year and a new con (ie convention) season. Every year, I hem and haw as it's so close to another of my favorite cons, Boskone, but I think I'm finally caving to the fact that I love it.

TARDIS Venn Diagram. Squee! 

See Arisia is like a mini-Dragoncon, a con by fans, for fans. The panels, events and parties are more about fans and professionals coming together as opposed to big name stars and press. There are all different kinds of representation of fandom - costumes and cosplay, LARPing, shadowcast performances, panels on comics, TV shows, science, science fiction, etc, video and table top gaming, drum circles, belly dancing; the list goes on and on.

The con also does an amazing job at being inclusion across fandom, including gender awareness (including a gender-free restroom), first time Arisia attendees (there were pretty ribbons!), and designated wheelchair spaces in most panel rooms.

So here's this year's recap. Warning it's a wee bit long.

Panels
Always trying to learn something and/or improve the world, I attended four panel this year: Science: Diversity Needed,  Comic Books and the Women that Love Them,  Hugo Awards: Evolution, Revolution or Death? and Marvel Cinematic (and TV) Universe. I won't bore folks with the recaps since I did live tweet from thee panels, but I'll throw in key takeaways.

Science: Diversity Needed - different perspectives can help solve problems by offering us different ways/tools to solve them. One-on-one mentoring can be key to encouraging individuals to stay the course.



Hugo Awards: Evolution, Revolution or Death? - although not as productive as I'd hoped it would be, there were still some takeaway gems. Become a Supporting Member of that year's Worldcon (usually around $40). All Supporting Members get a chance to vote. Encourage your friends, family, science fiction groups to read great books that also happen to be by diverse authors about diverse subjects.

Comic Books and the Women that Love Them - (I attended in part because one of our League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen members was on the panel. Woo hoo!) If you're new to reading comics, pick up what interests you. Don't worry about the issues or stories that came before, you'll figure that out along the way.


Marvel Cinematic (and TV) Universe - no world-changing takeaways here, but a quick touch point on the four series being created for Netflix.


Food trucks
Super yay! Having a low-cost meal option that was also delicious was a fantastic idea. A big thank you to the folks that coordinated it. I only got to try Roxy's Grilled Cheese after waiting in line through wet cold snow, but the Green Muenster was worth it. The line waits were super long and it was sad when you heard that options were sold out. Maybe other local trucks will be more likely to participate upon hearing this year's success. Fingers crossed.

Volunteering
Since I decided last minute to attend this year's Arisia, my volunteer options were not as well-planned out on my part. I offered to help with Clear Ether, the at-con twice-daily newsletter and the Green Room. So I wrote articles, followed deadlines, and watched to see if they would be published. It was fun and I hope to do it again next year. Due to my last-minuteness, my Green Room volunteering didn't pan out, but that was really my fault. Thanks, Green Room for being great.

Late night
Friday night I let loose and enjoyed the Drum circle. I haven't been to a drum circle in years and alas, did not bring a drum. It was still relatively early when I arrived around 10pm, and the dancers were all ages. I jumped in for a bit, feeling the energy channeling out and in. There were too many folks about to go full trance-mode, but the energy spirals were fine enough. At some point, the dancers rotated out and turned into an impromptu belly dance, complete with swirling jewel tones and sequins.

I also attended the shadowcast shows of Rocky Horror in the round and Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Two things that make a shadowcast awesome for me: being able to see the original movie and the moments when the audience in unison, shows their appreciation, ie call-and-response, singing, throwing rice, etc. The shadow cast actors are just icing on the cake, bringing to life the thing that we already, unanimously love.

For Rocky Horror, the show started really late. Super fun was mostly everyone in the audience pre- and during movie Time Warping. There's just something special about a group Time Warp. Since it was billed as in the round, I figured the cast would be prominent and it was, but the screen showing the movie was in an awkward location. Also, our audience had some slightly overzealous audience members that kept yelling call-and-responses the whole time, so the whole audience rarely had a chance to sync up. Sigh. It happens.

Doctor Horrible has a much better set-up: actors on center stage, big screen on left showing the actors and a big screen on the right showing the movie. The audience singing was amazing! Woot woot. And a couple clever call-and-responses added nicely.

Oh and Saturday night a friend and I splurged on a couple glasses of the Oban scotch in the Birch bar. Delicious.

Gaming
I love tabletop gaming, so naturally I popped in and out to see what was happening. The room was a good size and I was surprised by how many RPG games were going on throughout the weekend. The games available to borrow offered a good selection, so Saturday night, some friends and I met up for gaming around 9pm.

Sunday I got to demo a new game from Games by Playdate called Slash, where players try to create the One True Pairing (OTP) based on cards in their hand.  I was demoing and playing (I know, tsk tsk) but almost every round ended up in a story throw down as to why one pairing should be chosen over another. Tons of fun!

Thoughts: there wasn't an easy way to find others who wanted to play. I'm not sure of a solution, but maybe a waiting area (similar to Unity Games) where folks can visibly be seen as wanting to play? Or maybe the game area could have a social media outlet to post a new game starting that wants more players?

Costume/Cosplay

The inclement weather is not a fan to costumers who stay at the non-con hotel, so I only wore my Agent of SHIELD Melinda May costume this time. There were lots of great costumes to see, including a steampunk Scarlet Witch and Batman. As part of my newsletter reporting, I did hear that as of Sun at noon, they had given out over 100 hall contest ribbons.This year, I felt like there were fewer costumes, but maybe it was due to the floor plan. Not sure, but other friends remarked on this as well. 

Yet another TARDIS

Can one really have too many? Probably not. For those who don't know, my husband built a full-size TARDIS, in front of which we pledged our love.

Then it was smushed by the tree that fell on our house with the Snowicane of 2010. No worries. We'll rebuild one of these days. 

So it should be no surprise that I decided our kitchen needed its own Van Gogh-esque exploding TARDIS painting. I mean really, as a Whovian, how can you not have one? 

So armed with a day off, I created one. As an accent wall. 

The wall was already a pale yellow, so I reversed engineered it to take advantage. I free-handed the outlines onto the wall first using an image in the web as a reference. I did use wall paint by using those nifty wall paint samples you can buy. All told the project was about $20. 

I am not an artist. But I did this and so can you. Start eyeing your own walls and go create your own amazing.

Special thanks to my friend, Bobby, for reminding me that I originally had this idea back in the spring when I was painting the cabinets that beautiful blue. I had completely forgotten I wanted to do this. 

They're here!

Wednesday night, I came home late from day 1 of a two-day off-site work meeting.

I can home with my masterpiece from a fun bonding activity at Muse Paintbar

and this is what I found waiting for me

added bonus from my husband!

The last word

The Hippo's cover story this week was about the NH comics scene; local artists, local shops, cosplay and the like. While it was being researched, I was contacted as I organize the local women's comic discussion group, the League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen.

Thursday morning, I picked up a copy to check it out. It was great to see Double Midnight Comics sharing their thoughts, along with local featured artists, Jerry Fleming and League member, Emily Drouin.

And yes, not one but two shout-outs for the League monthly meeting. That's the second Thursday of the month for those of you who might be interested.

But the thing that tickled me most? A quote from me ends the story. Silly, I know, but as the mom of a teenager, getting the last word doesn't happen often.

So, be kind and let me revel in it for a teensy bit.

NH Game Jam

Back in May, I decided to make a brand-new game with 2 strangers in 36 hours. Crazy, you say? Just a tad. The inaugural NH Game Jam sounded like a good idea and if not, at least a lot of fun. Even WMUR stopped by for a visit.

I work in software but not a start-up. That means some late nights or early mornings, but I have yet needed to work an all-nighter. And for that, I am very grateful. But even someone who loves sleep can get a bit jealous over tales of Hackathons or a least a bit curious.


So I signed up. 

The first night we were informed of the theme, the number 13. The video game designers can prepared with teams, but the board game folks draw names from a hat to determine with who we would be spending our next 36 hours. That's when I met Tony and Charles and got to work.

Through the night and day and the next night, we crafted what we thought was a quick, fun monster mash-up game. There are several kinds of monsters such as Bogzilla, Giant Ants, Werewolves and Dragons. It was important to us that it be playable by all ages. 

In the end, we wished we had more time and possibly a little more sleep. None of the folks on my team had ever designed a game before and I have to say I'm proud at what we were able to pull off. Also, a sweet touch was that all three of us hand drew the cards for our play-test deck. 

Although it had it's quirks, I think the first NH Game Jam was great. There are a few logistical tweaks, such as a more formal time for everyone to play test each other's games, to work through, but that's just first time event detail work. 

As for me, I'm hoping another one's somewhere on the horizon, now that I've had a chance to catch up on my rest. 

Cosplaying Strong Women Characters

One of my ideas of fun is to challenge myself with costume-making ideas and see how well (or not-so-well) I can execute them. Thankfully, I'm surrounded by creative types, including my Makers in Manchester group. I live in a place that holds events to dress-up for, thanks to my local comic shop Double Midnight Comics. 

Recently for Free Comic Book Day, I dressed as Antonelle "Toni" Chu from an obscure-but-awesome comic called Chew. Toni is a smart, loyal, funny and amazing female character. And she wears normal clothes. No tiny bikinis or princess ballgowns. Just a NASA t-shirt and some capris. 

And quite honestly, it was refreshing. 

Oh don't you worry that this is some judge-y feminist, political, insert-your-activism-here piece. Un uh. No way. Move along, nothing here to see. I've done fitted costumes (love my Wonder Woman so much it's my Twitter pic) and beautiful gowns (see my beautiful Firefly wedding dress) but to be representing a kick-butt female who wears clothes? Somewhat priceless. 

Kinda of neat to live in a world where we can dress up like inspiring real women or those characters who inspire us.