A really long-ass post (with pictures)

I hit Richmond friday evening and didn't get back until a few hours ago. The above photo shows one of the many hardships I endured at my stay in Casa de Catastrophe. Why this animal isn't bald by now is mystery best left to those more qualified to investigate it. Everything my sister owns is covered in cat hair. Everything I brought back home is covered in cat hair. I've probably got it in my lungs.

The reason I was in Richmond in the first place was to go to Ravencon and meet up with Sherri and Jay. So my sister and I went yesterday around four. Neither I nor my sister go to cons, so we basically wandered around like lost dogs and just generally got in everyone's way. I brought my camera, but was too embarrassed to actually take photos of the people dressed up like Storm Troopers and whatever the hell else they were supposed to be. (You can tell I really keep my finger on the pulse of modern science fiction and fantasy, huh?)



I did get a picture of the scheduled events taking place, most of which we didn't see. Actually, I don't think we saw any of them. We're just not hep to this convention stuff. In a world of nerds we're just a couple of dorks.

When weren't getting in the way, or bothering Sherri and Jay at their big table in the dealer room, we sat on a couch at the far end of a hallway away from the con action and talked about stuff that had nothing to do with the con.



In the above photo you can actually see the convention at the far end of the hallway. Well, actually you can't see anything because it's too dark, but that stuff on the foreground table was free. We both loaded up on free stuff, because it's like, you know, free stuff.

We did actually meet an author, which is appropriate since the con was devoted to science fiction and fantasy authors. C.J. Henderson, who I must admit I'd never heard of (but I'd also never heard of the big famous guy on the schedule that won all the awards), had a table set up in the hallway and was seriously working at selling his books. He could probably sell water to fish. I bought a book and my sister bought two.

While I regret not taking pictures of people in costumes, I mostly regret not buying any of the dice from the dice-guy. I like dice. I have regular six sided ones, but none of the multi-sided Dungeons & Dragons types. He had loads of many types of dice and even though I looked several times, I didn't buy any (dumbass that I am). Not that I want them to play Dungeons & Dragons or any other RPG. Nope. I'm fascinated by the random number thing. Yes, seriously. I actually own a copy of the Rand Corporation's A Million Random Digit and 100,000 Normal Deviates in book form even though I could've downloaded it free. (You think maybe I was at the wrong convention?)

All in all it was interesting and fun evening. I even got tanked up on free Mexican food and later unexpectedly got to say hi to Jammies on the phone. My usual Saturday would've passed with me in front of the computer slowly irradiating myself.