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cathyr19355 at 11:11pm on 22/02/2005
cathyr19355 at 11:11pm on 22/02/2005Since Red Hat was paying for Eric to fly to Boston to tell them exactly what's wrong with Fedora, and was throwing in two days at the Boston Copley Place Marriott to boot, that gave us an excuse to attend Boskone. All I needed to do was buy myself a round-trip air ticket.
Boskone is one of two science fiction conventions in the Boston area every winter (the other one is Arisia). It used to be a huge convention, over 4,000 people--but that was over 20 years ago.
When last I attended Boskone, a little less than 20 years ago, the con had been plagued with enough incidents of mischief and vandalism that the con comm was actively trying to make the con smaller. I don't know what positive changes they implemented for that purpose, but they managed to persuade me to stay away by adopting an official policy "discouraging" hall costumes. That, coupled with the distance and the decrease in my leisure time, meant that I hadn't been to a Boskone since they shrunk the con down. Until last weekend.
I should have stayed away. At least then I could have remembered it as it once was.
Boskone is now a nice little con of about 1000 people. This year, it was in the Sheraton Boston, which connects to the Hynes Convention Center, the Prudential Center (an upscale city mall), the Copley Place Marriott, and a few other buildings by a series of walkways so you don't have to venture outside in 20 degree (Fahrenheit) weather. Unfortunately, the setting (especially the presence of a nearby mall) was one of the few good points about the weekend.
I don't mind small conventions. Really I don't. ConFusion, in Detroit in January, typically is no bigger than Boskone 42 was. But there are lots of things to *do* at ConFusion, while there was precious little to do at Boskone. There was one programming track--a good one, but only one. There were the usual filkers. There was, so far as I was able to tell, no Masquerade. There was a gaming room, where Eric and I spent lots of time, even though the number of people actually gaming was small (we spent Saturday night playing two games of Settlers of Catan, one of which I actually won). There was no movie room, and I finally found the anime room Saturday night, too late to actually watch anything. Con suite, and most other function space, closed at 1 A.M.
There were all of four room parties throughout the entire con. All of them were on Saturday night. There was a kind of official party, a miniature carnival-type event of the same type as the Runway at last year's Worldcon (see my LiveJournal entry of Sept. 1, 2004 or so), with twin themes of Zombies and Mardi Gras. Ahem. Not my cup of tea. (Though I did let Esther Friesner, who was doing a kind of fortuneteller/"Cheeblemancy" shtick, persuade me to donate $7 to an anti-cancer charity. My door prize for successfully plucking a piece of paper out of a box with chopsticks was the chopsticks and a little yellow stuffed animal thing she swore was a hamster and that looked an awful lot like Pikachu. He is now keeping Tux, Dust Puppy, and Tigger company on the shelf above my desk at home.)
It was a very relaxing weekend (I spent quite a bit of it in bed, catching up on my rest), and the con was pleasant enough, but I was happy when Eric and I finally made it home Sunday night. Especially since Monday for me was a paid holiday.
Boskone is one of two science fiction conventions in the Boston area every winter (the other one is Arisia). It used to be a huge convention, over 4,000 people--but that was over 20 years ago.
When last I attended Boskone, a little less than 20 years ago, the con had been plagued with enough incidents of mischief and vandalism that the con comm was actively trying to make the con smaller. I don't know what positive changes they implemented for that purpose, but they managed to persuade me to stay away by adopting an official policy "discouraging" hall costumes. That, coupled with the distance and the decrease in my leisure time, meant that I hadn't been to a Boskone since they shrunk the con down. Until last weekend.
I should have stayed away. At least then I could have remembered it as it once was.
Boskone is now a nice little con of about 1000 people. This year, it was in the Sheraton Boston, which connects to the Hynes Convention Center, the Prudential Center (an upscale city mall), the Copley Place Marriott, and a few other buildings by a series of walkways so you don't have to venture outside in 20 degree (Fahrenheit) weather. Unfortunately, the setting (especially the presence of a nearby mall) was one of the few good points about the weekend.
I don't mind small conventions. Really I don't. ConFusion, in Detroit in January, typically is no bigger than Boskone 42 was. But there are lots of things to *do* at ConFusion, while there was precious little to do at Boskone. There was one programming track--a good one, but only one. There were the usual filkers. There was, so far as I was able to tell, no Masquerade. There was a gaming room, where Eric and I spent lots of time, even though the number of people actually gaming was small (we spent Saturday night playing two games of Settlers of Catan, one of which I actually won). There was no movie room, and I finally found the anime room Saturday night, too late to actually watch anything. Con suite, and most other function space, closed at 1 A.M.
There were all of four room parties throughout the entire con. All of them were on Saturday night. There was a kind of official party, a miniature carnival-type event of the same type as the Runway at last year's Worldcon (see my LiveJournal entry of Sept. 1, 2004 or so), with twin themes of Zombies and Mardi Gras. Ahem. Not my cup of tea. (Though I did let Esther Friesner, who was doing a kind of fortuneteller/"Cheeblemancy" shtick, persuade me to donate $7 to an anti-cancer charity. My door prize for successfully plucking a piece of paper out of a box with chopsticks was the chopsticks and a little yellow stuffed animal thing she swore was a hamster and that looked an awful lot like Pikachu. He is now keeping Tux, Dust Puppy, and Tigger company on the shelf above my desk at home.)
It was a very relaxing weekend (I spent quite a bit of it in bed, catching up on my rest), and the con was pleasant enough, but I was happy when Eric and I finally made it home Sunday night. Especially since Monday for me was a paid holiday.
regretful
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