Last time I stayed at YHA hostel, this bloody alarm (I assume) went off about 9.45 pm. Three really loud blasts, a recorded voice, three loud blasts, a recorded voice, repeated for over half an hour. Followed by a couple of hours of cars coming & going, and shouting at the Mercury building across the room. Plus the usual traffic (it's close to one of the busiest streets in the city) and the traffic light (just why are people crossing the bloody road so often at 10.30 pm on Monday night) and the post office clock one block over that strikes every 15 mins.
So, I said, next time I'm staying elsewhere, but then I looked at the prices and the reviews for the other places, and thought, I know this place is pretty good, and it's a good location (one block from buses, waterfront & near to mall) so I stayed there again. There was no noticeable outside noise this time (I usually go block out the clock/traffic) but the girl in the bunk across from me had something that was receiving email or voice mail and went off approximately every 2 hours, as in about 2 am, about 4 am, about 6 am. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I woke (ha) up feeling rather awful and looking worse :( Then I had to lug the overnight bag and the backpack and the bag of books and the heavy coat and the umbrella back to the bus stop. And the handle broke on the bag of books.
:(
The weather though, was absolutely lovely. For the three days when it didn't rain, I don't think we could have had better weather in June. Even not for June, it was lovely.
I got back to the casino in time for the 10.30 am panel though, 'Bad Science in SF' with Finchy, Zara, Alison Barton & Sheila Finch. It was rather fun. I'm not sure if it was this panel or the sorcery one where one of the panelists pointed out that they can handle big things being different to what is accepted at reality (e.g. the existence of magic) but small things being wrong can be really irritating. Whichever panel it was, I think it applied to this one too. Spaceships making noises in space upsets people but FTL is accepted. Probably better examples but you know what I mean.
Then it was into the other room for "Horror & Humour, when (and why) they work so well together" with Richard Harland, Anne Bishop & Robert Hood. This managed to deal mainly with movies, and movies I hadn't seen but it was still interesting. Humour & gross/violent type horror can work well together. The question of whether psychological horror and humour can work together was brought up but dismissed quickly as not possible, which is a pity, because it would been good to see that explored more.
Then it was lunch time. Nicole asked me if I wanted to come with them, so I did! Once I got a book signed by Richard H. I'd decided if someone tried to sell me something, I'd break my one book limit. Richard did on the Sunday so...
We walked down to Sandy Bay for lunch, at the little Thai restaurant. Now who went? Dave who'snameIcan'tremember, Nicole, Zara, Richard, Sally I think, someone else down the far end & Alison. Funny how it's easier to remember the people I was "looking at". The egg noodles & beef were lovely but they took a long time to bring them out, it was close on 2 by the time most of us had food, and two of the group had to be on a panel at 2.
I didn't have to be on one until 3 though. And this was, "Last battles, holy wars and dules to the death: why fantasy needs fight scenes", with Cary & Dirk (an all local panel). Last panel of the con, opposite an open forum with con guests. I didn't think there'd be many in the audience, and there was something like 2 when we started, but we ended up with quite a decent audience. We did the sitting in front rather than behind the table thing too, but te chairs were put in a circle, making it even more "audience inclusive".
I didn't really think it was a particularly deep topic, but it turned out to be otherwise. Although a lot of the focus was on the "final battle" type of thing, despite the objections of one audience member who kept pointing out that the topic listed was broader than that. I seem to recall that the final conclusion was that "high fantasy", by definition, has a final battle, or at least a big good vs bad battle at it's climax. One time when discussing definitions of a term was actually interesting. Does it? We couldn't come up with an counter examples and the big good vs evil theme is usually at the heart of high fantasy. Everyone was then challenged to write a high fantasy novel without the big, climatic battle.
And then to the closing ceremony, with the two surviving guests, and lots of people getting up on the stage to promote their upcoming cons -- Continuum in Melbourne, Conjure (next year's Natcon) in Brisbane, Conflux in Canberra and Convergence (2007 Natcon) in Melbourne. There's also Swancon but no reps for that. That's a rather healthy convention calendar.
Then, one more lugging around of my luggage, but just out to Dirk's car this time and then home! Well, mum's place actually. Seeing we would have got back to Launceston too late for me to get a bus home and mum had to bring Jaz home anyway.
And so ended a very much fun con (or to quote quite a lot of people by now, the little con that could and did).
