con report

Much to my surprise, I actually went to Toronto Trek yesterday.

I wanted to get to the Doctor Who audio panel. That was at 11am. I set my alarm (!) for around 8, but didn't actually make it out of bed until 9. I decided then that if I was going to do this thing, I'd better get going. So I did. Traffic was okay until I got past the interchange to the 427. Then it stopped. I got off a bit early and puttered around side streets till I got to Dixon road. That was easy enough.

I got in about 20 minutes late for the panel, but that wasn't so bad. There were a couple things I didn't know about. Most of them I could have found out if I'd checked the various news sources before I left. Also, though, it appears that Gary Russell (one of the producers of the Doctor Who audio plays) is being a bit of a dick about the Richard E. Grant thing. Much was made of this at the panel, but I figure we're better off waiting to see how things pan out. Like they said, Doctor Who fans are very good at making bad news out of good.

I puttered around a bit after that, checking out the dealer's room and so forth. The dealer's room was a bit of a disappointment, although I did find some things that were worthwhile (like the GoBots picture book, right, for a dollar). They didn't have much of any Doctor Who merchandise to speak of, which meant no CDs, which meant I didn't have to stand in line for an autograph. I sat in on the SPACE panel and a bit of the Buck Rogers thing with Buck, Wilma Deering and Twiki. That was more fun than it should have been.

I stuck around for Anthony Stewart Head, managing to get a much better seat. There didn't seem to be that many people at the con, at least compared to Anime North. Finding a seat or moving around was almost never a problem. Anyway, Mr Head was lots of fun. He even gave us a song. I ran into Xiola there, too. I thought I saw her at the back of the room, but wasn't sure until, as he was wrapping up with the last couple questions, she shouted out "What's your shoe size?" (10½, apparently). I wandered back and said hi.

There wasn't much to do at that point, so we went into the lobby and I went across to William's to get something to eat. That took way too long, but it was William's, so I wasn't expecting miracles. After trying to stay out of cosplay photos for a bit, Xiola went off to one of her panels, and I went to go see Garrett Wang do George Takei impressions. He was pretty good, actually. Garrett was dorky but fun. Apparently his mom was going to be there today.

There wasn't much to do after the second Doctor Who panel, so I went up to the salons and picked a random panel to sit in on. It turned out to be one of the author guests. Julie Czerneda, talking about her stuff. I've never read (or, for that matter, heard of) any of her work before, but I like listening to authors. She was fun and funny and it was nice on the whole. I watched an episode and a half of Crest of the Stars (even though, yes, I have the DVDs), sat in on an exceedingly nerdy panel talking about the virtues of Star Trek ship designs and went up to the 10 Forward lounge. 10 Forward was a couple of adjoining suites with free pop and chips, playing continuous Star Trek episodes. I watched about half of City on the Edge of Forever before wandering back downstairs for the Masquerade.

I met up with Xiola again after her bit in the Masque. I had a decent seat, but was sitting next to one of the loudest, craziest women in the room (and that's saying something). Xio's was really the only one I cared to see, so after her thing I caught up with her at the photo session. When she went back into the Green Room, I went and watched a bit of Narue no Sekai. I was drawn back by somebody in the Masquerade using the Doctor Who theme song. I didn't see it, but apparently there wasn't any point to it. After that, I hung out with the gang in the Green Room, watching on the video feed, and we made fun of people.

After that, I wandered off into a panel on the state of Canadian SF (summary: good, but doesn't get respect because of the lack of Incest on the Prairies, the mark of all good Canadian literature). Julie Czerneda was on that panel too. I might have to read some of her stuff now. I was waiting around for Xio's anime panel, but I guess they forgot about it. Nobody was there. I met up with her in the lobby, gave them a bit of a hard time, and then made my exit. I got home just before midnight, listening to The Dark Flame in the car on the way back.

I actually had a lot more fun than I was expecting. That's probably because I wasn't expecting much out of it at all. Who knew?

comments:

1 writes:

Who's Xiola?

Submitted 2003-07-13 21:29:14

flying squirrel writes:

A person referenced in "I might meet up with people there," on Friday. Telling the story got hard if I didn't give her a name.

Submitted 2003-07-14 03:50:11

Dan writes:

Hey, Squirrel!
I'm glad you had a good time. You should no fun things like that more often. : D

By the way, that Narue no Sekai looks very cute! Did you find it any good at all?

Submitted 2003-07-14 10:58:13

flying squirrel writes:

Unfortunately, it's hard to predict ahead of time whether going off and doing something like this on my own will result in me having fun or ending up miserable and depressed. Mark this one in the positive reinforcement category, though.

I only saw about 5 or 10 minutes of Narue no Sekai and it was a bit hard to pay attention with the masquerade going on next door. Cute and bizarre, yes. Probably not on my must-see list, though.

Submitted 2003-07-15 05:47:28

This post is archived. Comments are disabled. Feel free to send me email if you have something to say.

back to main