Category: Food and Wine

A bright, shiny new Worldcon

The con started today with a somewhat unusual opening ceremony — the first episode of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, in tribute to the late Frankie Thomas, followed by the usual silliness. Jeff missed it, since he and his friend were at Disneyland, where I think he might have had enough Disney for this trip. I say might have, rather than had, because at a party this evening, he showed interest when he heard that some other teens were going to Disney tomorrow — but only some interest.

We deviated from our Downtown Disney meal plan; breakfast was at Captain Kidd’s again; lunch was at California Pizza Place, which is a small pizza restaurant in a strip mall of small restaurants at the corner of Katella and Harbor, and was everything one would expect of a restaurant at that location (cheap, non-toxic, and fast); dinner was at the Grand China Restaurant on Chapman, which was an OK but not at all distinguished Chinese restaurant a mile or so away from here. The con restaurant guide is long on listings but short on judgements, so we’re on our own.

We spent a while in the huckster room/exhibit area after lunch, meeting friends, visiting the bid tables, and wandering. At one point, I found myself explaining the change in the Worldcon bid leadtime from two years to three and then back to two — if I’m not careful, I may find myself at the Business Meeting one of these days. But that wasn’t a danger today; instead, we went to “James T. Kirk: Threat or Menace”, which was enjoyable but deviated from the topic (and a good thing it did).
Here’s tonight’s party report:

Google party: lots of schwag, but the shiny Google pins were gone before we got there. They’d clearly raided the local Trader Joe’s, going for the dark chocolate as well as other goodies. They claimed to be interviewing, but everyone was welcome — and all attendees get free searches on Google.

Hollister in 2008: This was the bid party to hit, if for no other reason than my name on the wall of fame. Lots of Casa de Fruta goodies, not enough space for all the people.

KC in 2009: If you were hungry, this was the place — smoked meat and KC BBQ sauces, plus other goodies (Trader Joe’s struck again, too).

Denver in 2008: A nice selection of Colorado beers (after a very enjoyable High Tea during the afternoon), plenty of other goodies (including a chocolate fountain and ice cream floats), and the right date for Worldcon 2008. Recommended.

Chicago in 2008: Hot dogs, hotel info, and a letter from Da Mayor.

Columbus in 2008: Sam Adams, a sheet cake, good conversation, and a letter from the mayor.

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I remember when it was shiny and new

LA Con IV starts Wednesday ; we drove down today so that we could play a little bit at Disneyland…err, the Anaheim Resort Area. The drive down was uneventful and quick — well, until we got to Magic Mountain; then the signs said “big traffic jam I5 at Lankershim”, so we switched to 101, where traffic bogged down until we rejoined I5 south of downtown. I don’t know if we actually saved any time or not, but I felt as though I were taking control of the situation, so I guess it was a good thing to do.

At any rate, we arrived at the Anaheim Hilton about 4:30, which was pretty good time for us (as usual, we stopped at Harris Ranch for lunch, which always takes a while) and got checked in. We’d stayed here before in 1984 for LA Con II — that was very soon after the hotel had opened, and they weren’t quite ready for a large convention; I remember, with no fondness, opening our room only to find that there were other people already in residence! That wasn’t a problem this time — both rooms were just fine.

But we are already waiting for elevators…and this is days before the con actually opens. I’d better go find the stairs!

After checking in, we went to Disney Universe; Jeff and his friend have three-day tickets, so they went into the Magic Kingdom. Diane and I decided one day of the parks would be enough, so we wandered to Downtown Disney for dinner (we’d also hoped to cache, but all of the caches here are multi-caches, and I hadn’t downloaded all the coordinates). We had a pleasant dinner at Catal Uva Bar and Cafe; they offered 25% off on bottles, including half-bottles, so we split a half of La Creme Pinot Noir, which was quite tasty, as was the food (though I probably should have gotten something more substantial than a compressed salad).

Then we wandered a bit and returned; the boys just came back from their exciting evening, and now Jeff wants to steal the computer so he can blog. I am a bad influence….