exhaustedI was in the foyer near Registration when it opened. This was the place to be for a while, as most of the people I needed to see or who wanted to see me were coming through here. I handed off the leftover Montreal bid material (ex-Westercon), including their front-of-table banner, to them. I gave John Mansfield a leftover roll of Calgary Westercon stickers to use for the sticker books, if he likes. I delivered
frankwu's package to danjite. Registered as a program participant, getting my ribbon and related materials. Managed to get committee ribbons for me at the other head table officers, and a staff ribbon for Lisa as my aide and as Official Business Meeting Videographer.At 3 PM, I conducted a panel on "Introduction to the Business Meeting." I do hope that the Japanese attending the panel understood what I was saying.
After the panel,
ashi met up with me to collect my two amateur Doctor Who videos, which he's showing at a party on Saturday night, so we headed up to the room, where Lisa had been resting, the subject of my Intro to WSFS panel not being especially new or interesting to her.As I mentioned, there was confusion over where to hold the Mark Protection Committee Meeting. The details are are too annoying for everyone to discuss in depth. In any event, I told the MPC members to show up in the space between rooms 301/302 at 5 PM. Only seven could make it, leaving us one short of the MPC's eight-person quorum. The eighth person was MPC Treasurer Scott Dennis, so we recessed the meeting and walked over to his Sales to Members table and reconvened the meeting. Still, with nowhere to sit, and most of us with other things to do, it was a short meeting. Most of our business is done through the committee mailing list anyway.
Formal action actually taken by the MPC included continuing and renaming the committee set up last year to improve the Hugo Awards' profile. That committee, now designated the Hugo Awards Marketing Committee, was responsible for the new Hugo Awards Web Site and you can expect more stuff from this committee in the coming year.
Lisa and I changed into our WSFS uniforms to attend the Opening Ceremonies, which were not until 7 PM. Possibly due to the relatively late hour, the hall was completely full -- SRO in the 1,002-seat theatre. I couldn't help but feel mildly smug when the scheduled 7:00 PM start came and went, with the event eventually starting 18 minutes late. Having to translate everything, of course, made for a somewhat slow and ponderous event, so it took more than an hour. It did get off to a bang, however, with a custom animation sequence commissioned specifically for Nippon 2007. Giant robots, monsters, flying creatures surround the Pacifico Yokohama Convention complex, and the cute flying anime girl tries to fight them off, but is caught by the mecha, who gestures menacingly at her, only to actually produce his Nippon 2007 membership credentials. This was fun. The next element was I think supposed to be a montage of Worldcon program books, but was spoiled by technical difficulties. Then The Mayor of Yokohama was carried on stage in an elaborate rickshaw and gave a speech welcoming us to his city. Chairman Hiroke Inoue introduced the Guests of Honor, each of whom gave short speeches. Finally, Inoue-san produced the Gavel of WSFS -- translated here as "The Hammer of WSFS," which gives it an implication I've not thought of previously -- and officially rang the convention to order and ended the ceremony.
After the ceremony, I went backstage and caught up to Inoue-san and collected The Hammer of WSFS, which I will be using to preside over the Business Meeting. Lisa and I then went over to the Exhibit hall and briefly looked around, but we needed to get to dinner, and that meant changing out of our uniforms -- I'm not eating anything while wearing all white.
Unfortunately for us, World Porters ground floor with the food court and grocery store closed at 9 PM, so we went to the top floor restaurants and ate dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet. This was not at all good for me, provable by the 205 blood sugar I had an hour later. Bad Kevin. Less food, more exercise.
I took some pictures from Exhibits and Opening Ceremonies, but I'm way too tired to do anything with them.
I fear that those of you expecting more details from me are bound to be disappointed. I need a full night's sleep in order to be effective chairing the Business Meeting tomorrow morning.
Edit, Friday 0900: Added one of the things (giving Todd the videotapes) I'd left out of the original report.