The Good:
– Seeing our San Francisco friends is always a pleasure and always motivating. We WILL move closer as soon as we can. :-)
– Cute girls in costumes.
– Running around with the Barbarian Horde.
– Meeting the best Ohura EVAR! Hey, Courtney!!
– Getting my B5 poster finished! Boxleitner, Scoggins and Furst FTW!
– The best Miss Klingon Pageant in YEARS!
– Seeing the Shatner/Nimoy panel – even if it was remotely. They need to do this for ALL the MAIN panels next year – face it, the venues are TOO SMALL.
– And the best GOOD of all! I present Pussy in the Wild:
The Bad:
– Only getting into 2 panels due to overcrowding.
– Missing Adam Savage completely.
– Getting only a glimpse of Mary McDonnell.
– Never seeing Shatner, Nimoy OR Stewart in person at all. Where did they keep them?
– Sore feet and the ever present chafing. Gah!
– Nick didn’t feel well for most of the con.
The Ugly:
– SEC fans being the Philistines that they are. Stormy got hit with an EGG (wtf?) and there were numerous reports of horrible behaviour by Va Tech fans. Those buttfuckers should stay home with their wife/aunt/cousin. Clearly they don’t know how to act.
– D*Con once again stuns with complete inability to plan for or alleviate long lines – esp at registration. 2 hrs 45 mins of my life wasted in line for a fucking badge. I wish that old lady in charge of the registration would die already so someone with some sense could get technology in there. Just damn.
– Having my art from Ted stolen from the 22nd floor lobby. I hope whoever took it dies in a fire. Fucking asshole.
– Once again getting flamed for posting on the DCon LJ about the stolen art because I DARED to imply that someone from the con would steal. I said STOLEN art and that I’d PROSECUTE if I find the art on eBay. Which I WILL. Stolen means that someone did not turn it in to Lost/Found. If it wasn’t turned in, it was stolen. Pretty simple. DragonCon can suck it and so can the LJ clique that feels EVERYONE needs a good flame – especially when they are upset and posting about a missing item. I hope they are treated just as shitty if they ever lose something or have a theft. I detest the Dragoncon LJ and have no idea why I ever thought that posting there would be a good idea. They suck and did I mention they can all die in a fire?
– Realising that the Con crowd is just as rude and snarky as the SEC crowd – but not brave enough to do it in person. The nerds are more of the passive aggressive type that would rather flame you in a forum. They only help when it suits them.
One of the things I’ve noticed about outsider groups is that the more strict and stringent the culture that it is spawned from, the stronger the lack of social skills of the outsiders. The South, as a whole, is very conservative and strict. Those who don’t fit in have never been integrated socially. They don’t understand social rules and either eschew them entirely or simply miss the points. There’s a rare few that can flit from normals to freaks, but they’re recognized as rare and exotic.
Cultures that are less conservative (New York, the Bay Area, Seattle, etc.) have a much wider acceptance arc, socially. So, those who are weird are not necessarily completely cut out of the loop when learning social graces. The arc for socially acceptable freaks is much wider there, as well, from people who don’t fit in at all (no social graces) to those who wear their normal camo well and flit happily.
It’s just simple reality that those who are thrown out of social circles from day one will not learn the necessary social arts. Conservative societies hurt people on all levels by eschewing innovation and acceptance of differences.
Sucks, but there it is.
Yah! What Janel said!
Janel did hit it on the nose. and who preaches all the hate and intolerance of anything outside thier closed realm?? fucking bible thumpers. and I want to be a christian why??
Nice shot.
Also, Dave, now that I have a second… I wish it was just xtians that preach intolerance, unfortunately xenophobia is inherent in human psychology. We can work past it, sure, but it’s generally a part of the make-up.
Additionally, anyone who thinks geek culture* is socially superior to “normal” culture need only look closer. The hate is there, the cliquishness is there, the ostracizing. What geek/freak culture has that “normal” culture tends to not is a wider arc of socially acceptable behavior.
What I’m railing against is the fact that placing people outside of being acceptable, culturally, leads to said person not learning the social etiquette. It additionally retards emotional growth. This can be mitigated somewhat by large outsider groups existing. Outsiders join the group, learn the social lessons one generally learns from school age to young adult (23/25 years) age, and being streamlined into the overall existing outsider group. When the outsider group in question is too disparate to form communities and have a healthy set of emotional rules and etiquette, these lessons are much harder to learn. For this example we’ll call these outsiders “feral.”
The feral outsider has no awareness that rules exist for a reason. Stealing, hurting, cheating, hygiene and other general social rules cannot be adopted without an understanding of cause and effect consequences. Last chance awareness might come from observation by the feral outsider (things like reading or watching dramas), but without exceptional intuitive understanding, the very fact that negative social consequences are felt by the feral outsider whether or not they follow the general social rules often causes all or most social rules and morays to be placed in the same null or meaningless category. I.e. “why should I bother bathing and keeping myself clean and sweet smelling when I will always be ignored by my peers and those I find sexually/romantically appealing,” and other observable gross misconduct that exists in outsider culture (though is by no means present with all outsiders).
*replace “geek culture” with any outsider culture, such as GBLT, non-mainstream religion, poverty, exceptional wealth, etc.
I saw someone on the dcon livejournal in the lost and found posting saying they found some artwork.. but I think it was on sunday.
I see what you are saying Janel. and yes it is ingrained in the human psyche to exclude what one would consider a social/political/racial etc outsider. hell it happens instinctually in the animal kingdom. I am more of a live and let live person. do your thing, leave me alone, if I want to be part of it or learn more I’ll talk otherwise whatever. Tolerance is the name of the game not social integration
That’s horrible you guys went through that shit! And a fucking EGG???
For the second year in a row, I’ve given D*C the finger and just stayed away; I’m not sure I’ll ever go back. Fuck’m,Fuck’m Fuck’m…
Decatur Book Fest is a rocking good time now I hear.