happyThis delightful costume brightened up the convention everywhere she went, and I'm happy she let me take her picture.
I spent much of the day in a costume of my own, albeit a far lower-maintenance one.
Here I am as "Colonel Chinstrap, of the Imperial Airship Corps" with more than a passing nod to Jack Train's character from It's That Man Again. The Colonel has become one of our new stock characters in Match Game SF, with some help from The Goon Show and Chinstrap's old comrade-in-arms, Major Dennis Bloodnok.
In the afternoon, Lisa and I repaired to the Zinfandel Room for the Worldcon Fannish Inquisition, where representatives of the three 2015 Worldcon bids gave presentations and participated in a joint Q&A session, followed by the Kansas City in 2016 Worldcon bid. Lisa shot the videos, which I uploaded to YouTube and posted to the Westercon web site. I moderated the sessions, doing so with a stronger hand than I usually apply to most panels. Having attended so many of these sessions, I've grown tired of the way so many people seem to think that they are chances to show how witty and clever they are or to score points off of other fans. I want them to be fairly serious consideration of the various sites' features and faults, said so up front, and made it stick. (I admit to not being perfect about this myself; it's an aspiration, that's all.)
After dinner, Lisa went to the parties and I wandered down to the Site Selection desk just before closing time, after which I helped count ballots. The nominally official results will be announced at the Saturday Business Meeting, but they aren't secret and they aren't a surprise: San Diego, the only bid on the ballot, won handily. No write-in bid got more than two votes, with five for None of the Above.
Before I went up to the 12th floor and the parties, I went by the Fanzine Lounge, where Chris Garcia was dancing to the music coming from the concerts on the main stage, Friday being Music Night at Westercon 66. As I mentioned yesterday, the Fanzine Lounge's window looks right over the stage, and is highly visible from the main floor. Under the influence of Chris, the Fanzine Lounges have come to be a cool place to hang out, and I went away with a big smile on my face.
Then it was up to the 12th floor and a tour of the parties, ending with me catching up with Lisa. There wasn't anything hugely noteworthy — the usual conversation, smoffing, eating, and drinking — but we had a good time before heading to our room after midnight.
Saturday morning at 11:15 is the Business Meeting. Lisa will be recording and I'm presiding. Alas, all this futzing over computers has kept me awake until 2 AM. I might have to take a nap on Saturday afternoon, given that we have Match Game SF late night after the Masquerade on Saturday.
Westercon seems to be going quite well, and the number of people is matched pretty well to the size of the hotel. There are times when things are a little cramped, and the head of Programming had to be harsh in some of her decisions on account of the total function room space is limited, so you can't have twenty different program tracks, but I think that's a good thing. Most of the people I've seen appear to be enjoying themselves, as am I. With the convention at the half-way point, I'm feeling pretty good about it.