Big Geordie Geek

This was supposed to have been posted ages ago, but alas the day we got home from WorldCon we all came down with Covid and still suffering!

Well the day started with a trip to the Glasgow Dental Hospital for an emergency appointment, and I have walked away with an anti-biotics, which can’t be filled in England, so a trip to a pharmacist before we cross the border.

Me and Lindsay then got into the SEC where we had a snack and chilled out for a bit, and I headed off to the panel on Baldurs Gate 3.

That was a naming panel with its senior writer and games director, and a few of the voice actors in the audience too.

Great panel and a lot of fun

After that, it was next door to a panel on Safety Tools for Tabletop Roleplaying Games which was a very helpful panel and a lot of useful tips were obtained.

My final panel was the 25th Anniversary of Star Wars: Epsiode 1 – The Phantom Menace.

I really like the movie, it the panel pretty much all agreed they weren’t fans of it!

Then I moved into the Armadillo for the closing ceremony and the handover of the gavel to Seattle 2025.

And that’s me done for a WorldCon for the next 5 years, as a disabled man pretty much completely dependent on benefits a WorldCon not in the British isles is just out of reach.

Myself, Lindsay and Megan are all however planning on attending EasterCon next year, I have just spent a bit of time on AirBnB pricing somewhere up, sadly the Hilton is way out of our budget!

I finally got to sleep about 2:30am, once I was asleep it was fine but in general as soon as I go upstairs at night in the house the toothache hits.

Gonna try taking my painkillers a bit earlier today, but in general I cannot wait to get home to my own beds.

We started the day with a lorne sausage and egg stottie and then realised that Lindsay’s legs had swollen a huge amount over two day.

So she and Megan decided to rest up and be online attendees today, so me and Paul headed off in his car so he could charge it, but ran into a slight issue.

The owner of the house was holding a wedding and right where we needed to drive through, in order to leave, was where they were taking photographs.

So we had to wait a bit of a while, but eventually got underway and successfully made it to the SEC and got Paul’s car on charge, though that was a chew on cause of Paul’s impatience.

My first panel of the day was in the Crowne Plaza and was Tabletop Games: Then and Now, which as you will all know is right up my street, and that was looking at the revival of board games in the past couple of decades.

The panel was fun, but was kinda dominated by one of the panellists who focused almost exclusively on RPGs and less on board games.

Still a great panel, but one of the panellists just couldn’t get a word in edgewise and I actually really wanted to hear from him.

But it is what it is, some people naturally are very good at being able to talk very dominantly, not necessarily a bad thing.

After that I headed over to the SEC for DIY Audiobook Production to get some ideas for the podcast and some bits and bobs we want to do with it!

Was pretty good, but could have used with a bit more focus on actual DIY recording, there seemed to have been an assumption of using professional studios to a degree.

I really wanted to ask a question, but they left only 4 minutes for questions so only a couple were able to be asked and they spent a lot of time answering them, so my question never got asked.

The question would have been, for the DIY audio book producer, how will machine learning technologies like background noise removal impact them either positively or negatively.

But yeah very little on DIY stuff and a big focus on celebrity narrators and really professional level stuff.

Overall, have to say, my least favourite panel so far, felt like they hadn’t read the panel description and just spoke about their work with people like Wil Wheaton and Stephen King.

Then it was back off to the Crowne Plaza off to Governments in SFF, a topic I am always interested in.

Fairly interesting, especially as it looked at why so many SFF stories look to monarchy and empire as the types of governments they talk about.

I had wanted to get into the Personal Branding workshop, but failed to get selected for that.

I know the panels have been an actual lottery, but myself, Lindsay and Megan have put our names forward for at least one every day and not been successful in getting into any of them.

I know it’s supposed to make it more fair than someone simply turning up early to sign up, but when you get knocked back in for every single one it’s fairly frustrating, almost like why am I even bothering.

After a brief wanted round the Hucksters room, I then attended You Never Walk Alone: The Best Animal Companions in SFF which was a good and interesting panel, but there was a lot of rambling and in general stories about the participants animals, which is never a bad thing!

The final panel of the day I attended was on the 30th Anniversary of Stargate and that was the most fun panel of the day!

I asked a question about the lesser known members of the franchise, Infinite and Origins, which none of the panel were at all really familiar with!

After that kinda had to give up the toothache was too much so I retired to Hall 4 and had some gyros for my tea.

We attended the parties for Japans Halcon, which was pretty fun and the Dublin 2029 party, which both me and Lindsay have a soft spot for, as we both really loved Dublin 2019!

After that myself Lindsay and Megan returned to the AirBnB where I built a Lieutenant for the Dark Angels, and then retired to bed

The toothache seems to be getting worse, so no idea how I am gonna manage the next couple of days

Oh last night my sleep was dreadful, like properly terrible!

So dragged myself out of bed and had a lorne sausage stottie, cooked by Paul, but burnt but tasty.

Then myself and Paul got dropped off for a 10am panel, I went to The Second Difficult Album, a panel about podcasts and how to take them that little bit further.

Very concentrated on the fannish community, but some lessons I can apply to Edge of Empire!

I then ended up in the quiet space for 90 minutes whilst I had a little nap

Followed by a panel on mixed successes in RPGs

I struggled with this one, simply because the room was very hot and poorly ventilated and air conditioned.

And whilst I have had zero issues following people wearing masks, one of the participants had a mask that made her particularly hard to follow sadly

After that I wanted into an Ashoka panel, but that sadly was full so I grabbed lunch, I though we had made a packed lunch, but alas we didn’t so I had some Jammy Dodgers and a Calypo!

Following a wander round the hucksters room, I headed off to my next panel which was Creative Content Creators, in an attempt to pick up some hints and tips for the podcast and battle reports stuff!

It was pretty good, with a lot of suggestions that I admit we have heard before, mostly in consistency, and just jump in and do what you actually want to do.

So yeah might get that other podcast I really want to do done

Then I had to rush down to try and catch The Dark Room, a show I have been wanting to see for years, but never have managed to get tickets for whilst at the UK Games Expo

And I got in with a bit of time to spare and had a really really good time, it was as funny as everyone said it was and was over the moon to be able to finally attend this well loved show, that has been on my radar for over a decade!

And finally for the day I wanted to attend the Tubes and Grams, Blogs and Toks: Reviewing Across the Internet panel

So I stayed back with Paul whilst Lindsay and Megan went back and made tea.

It was a good panel, and as an occasional reviewer, pretty helpful.

We then headed home cause myself, Megan and Lindsay were all absolutely exhausted and needed to try and catch an early night.

Our tea was sloppy joes on garlic bread and that was

And I built an Impulsor for the Dark Angels to maintain the #HobbyStreak

And finally headed to bed, where I played a bit of Death Stranding before heading off to sleep

Day one of WorldCon was

Started off with a breakfast of a couple of bagels, then we headed off the SEC, where the BEV charging point refused to work.

We got registered ok, and then hung about for a bit before heading to our first panels.

I tried to get into a panel on indie TTRPGs but it was full, so had a nap in the quiet room.

Then I hit a panel on Cosy Games.

I am not really a cosy gamer, but it sounded fun, and my hope that Lindsay and Megan would find some games to play other than Animal Cross and Dreamlight Valley, actually may have worked.

After that I grabbed a quick snack (a chicken and stuffing sandehich from McCoys), then headed to my next panel, Writing for Video Games.

I have no plans to write a video game, but we do write for Heresy events and Company of Legends, so hoping I could pick up some tips and hints to improve that

After that I went to a panel called Big Bytey Bugs! When Is the Next Computer Apocalypse Due? which was really interesting and considered the issues facing the world, given our dependency on IT and IT infrastructure, especially in the wake of the CrowdStrike failure recently

And I asked my first question of the day which was about the recent attempt to insert malicious code into xz and our current dependence on just a handful of companies for various parts of the internet.

The it was a panel for the 25th Anniversary of The Mummy, which Megan has been chomping at the bit to go to, it’s one of their favourite films.

Was quite fun, lots of the jokes being talked about and a general agreement that Tom Cruises should never have existed!

My last panel of the day was Worldbuilding in Gaming which was something I am very interested in, particularly for our Horus Heresy events, and perhaps that novel I dream of one day writing, not probably never will!

Was fairly interesting but not sure how much I can apply to what I want to do

After that we headed off to Nando’s for tea, myself and Megan shared a full platter

Then we headed home all exhausted, I built some Incursors for my Dark Angels and then hit the hay.

But it took me hours to sleep due to a toothache from the pulpititus

Also I did grab a small haul here

Loving my time here and hopefully day 2 will be just as good!