There may be no place quieter than a con on a Saturday morning.

Still, I’m up. And this is the Penguicon Update: Day 1.

The con itself is good size…it’s pretty much taken over the Troy Hilton, which is not a small hotel. Like all Sci-Fi/Tech conventions, the glasses to non-glasses ratio is pretty high, and most of the other usual stereotypes about the population of geekdom also apply. I’ve seen all ages here, it does not skew young or old, and so far, there are no furries.

Cmdln and I arrived around 2:30pm on Friday to find Rick Stringer of the Variant Frequencies podcast waiting for us. We checked in, and after seeing the line of folks waiting for registration to open, decided to hit Charlie’s Crab for lunch. Although we all met at Dragon*Con last year, we were able to get to know one another a bit better over lunch. It was good to take the voices that you hear in your headphones and learn about their family, day job, why they do what they do…you know…the important stuff. It’s not a surprise, but we got along famously.

After about an hour, we headed back to find that registration was still closed. Our clever plan of waiting out the line hadn’t worked out, so we queued up and studied the massive schedule that had been taped to the wall.

The schedule wall is worth a little detail. Rather than print a single large sheet with the various track and times listings, they created a grid of 8 x 11 sheets of paper, printed landscape, and laid it out like a massive spreadsheet. This allows them to change the locations, times, etc of the sessions quickly without having to rely on crossing things out in heavy black marker. This was actually fairly novel, though, as several of folks in line with us observed, very hackable. So far, no one has altered the schedule on their own.

After getting our badges¹, we hung out in the room for a bit, then headed out to dinner.

Dinner was P.F. Chang’s with Chris Lester of Metamor City fame, and Michael Ireland of the Scotchcast and . Drinks were had, conversation was excellent, and a good time was had by all.

The first panel we were on, the Podcasting Panel, was your basic introduction. How to start, how long to make them, how much to spend on gear when starting out. I have a great time with it. I’m always inspired to see people willing to step out and put their work out for the public. Even more interesting, I met a grad student who is doing his thesis about the business of podcasting, and who uses Podiobooks.com as one of the success stories. That was extremely flattering, and we may be talking to him to learn more about what he’s observed.

Our second panel was Computer Geeks and Science Fiction, a freeform discussion about the use of computers as a device in science fiction. The panel was myself, Rick, Cmdln, and Eric S. Raymond, who buried us with his encyclopedic knowledge of SF. It was a great discussion, and I learned a lot more than I taught, which is never a bad thing.

Afterwards, we took in a showing A Shoggoth On The Roof, a puppet show² which used H.P. Lovecraft to parody Fidder on the Roof. Or is that the other way around? It was pretty funny, and the puppeteers were definitely skilled.

That was the wrap up on the night.

Today, more panels, and perhaps some time to write and check out the dealer room. Looking forward to meeting some of the organizers as well. Might check in to attending the Barfleet or Linux User Group party tonight. We shall see.

And now, I am off to the Coffee Ritual. Have a good day, everyone. Catch you tomorrow.

Recommend on Mahalo

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1. The badges were a little disappointing: Small pieces of paper, not preprinted clearly, stuck in cellophane name-badges holders. Was hoping for something laminated goodness to put on my wall o’ badges. Aw, well. First world problem.[back]
2. Based on the filk version put on on CD years ago[back]

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