So there are finally pics from the Worldcon in LA posted. I went through all of them and unfortunately they didn’t bother to edit out the duplicates so it was quite tedious. There are a few pics of my costumes but nothing great. In this one, I’m looking a little faded, but the effect on my eyes is fun.

Con Highlights:
• Saw many old friends and made a few new ones.
• Had a lovely time with my sweety, helix90.
• Did a bit of dancing, drinking and general carousing.
• Attended the first Masquerade I’ve sat through in at least a decade. It was on time and very well run. They actually put a picture of the contestant, their title and info on the screen as they left the stage. Very impressive.
• Got a print of “Shiver Me Timbers” by Tom Kidd, the cover of On Stranger Tides, my favorite book by Tim Powers.
• Got a new black waist cincher and wore it with my pirate outfit.
• The Purple Spider Queen was a big hit on Thursday, mostly with a huge contingent of squealing tweens. One told me I was the most dressed up person there, besides herself of course. My long purple wig was the envy of many.
• Violet, the Space Cadet was successful. Couldn’t walk two steps without being stopped by photographers. She got interviewed by a reporter who kept asking strange questions like were her insides purple as well. Damn alien autopsy people! Again accosted by the admiring tween contingent, who were very complimentary. Had my picture taken on the Star Trek Bridge replica with wax crew members. I paid for a CD with three shots. The next day, they asked me to pose while dressed as Kelly and gave me the CD for free to go with my other one. (I swear Kelly could have robbed a bank and they would have just watched with amusement. “Look, she’s green!”)

Kelly Specific Highlights:

• I got my picture taken with one of my idols, Rockne S. O’Bannon!
• I got to talk to, bond with and get my picture taken with Suzie Plakson, one of my favorite character actresses! She’s been four different characters on Trek shows. She’s also nuts about purple. (burgunder, I told her about The Purple Store and she’s very excited.)
• I chatted with and got my picture taken with Marina Sirtis. She mentioned that she’ll be in Seattle for this in a couple weeks. I went to her talk, one of only two panels I managed to attend. She is a riot to listen to. She’s completely irreverent and opinionated. I loved it.
• I got my picture taken with Richard Herd, a nice but conniving old character actor.
• I got a hall costume award from the director of the Masquerade! And then got chewed out for not being in the Masquerade. They also want helix90 to come to San Diego Comic Con and help them run things next year. I guess it would give him something to do.
• I got my picture taken in the DeLorean from Back to the Future for free! (They were charging five bucks, but when they saw me as Kelly they said costumes got you in free.)
• I was allowed into the Mars rover exhibit to get extra good Gremlin shots.
• I got hugged by several little girls who seem to forming my fan club. Heehee.
• I ran into a journalist for Yahoo doing research about counter cultures. He was so excited about the costume and my ideas. When I told him about my Flickr group , I thought he was going to kiss me.

Lowlights
• Anaheim was very hot. We only had to brave the heat between the hotel and convention center, but that was enough for me.
• J. Michael Straczynski had to cancel.
• The dance was teensy. The Merchants of Deva have a bigger dance in terms of people. Pathetic. On Friday night we had to hunt for it. We didn’t find any signs or location listed in any convention info. I had to use my memory of pior LA Worldcons to track it down. By Saturday, this had been rectified with a few signs, but it didn’t help. The music on Saturday was way too random and randomly bad. We gave up.
• The main convention food area had minimal seating. It caused us skip it and go for expensive hotel food too often.
• There were not nearly enough people in costume. Woefully inadequate costuming. It was a WORLDCON ferchrissakes! Make an effort! Dragoncon is whipping your butt!
• The Masquerade was painful. Out of 34 entries only about five didn’t make me regret the decision to attend. Despite being well run, there was very little to recommend the event. I don’t regret not entering, because of the enormous time required to do so, but honestly with just a little presentation, I would probably have placed. Few had both costumes and presentation. It was a WORLDCON ferchrissakes! Make an effort! Dragoncon is whipping your butt!
• helix90 was in the Masquerade photo pit and has very negative things to say about that experience.
• The hotel bars didn’t have chicken fingers. What do they expect me to live on?! It’s a con! I need my chicken fingers. %&^$#!!!!
• Our return flight got delayed by three and a half hours.
• Very annoying children sat behind us for the whole very delayed flight.

Baycon Gallery, all photos by helix90
Con report later...