The bestest thing was seeing all kinds of friends, some of whom I had never seen before, or had only seen for a couple of nanoseconds a year ago. And I think I fell in love about a dozen times. This year's BayCon had more attractive women than any of the previous ones. By quite a large number. A disproportionately large number of them were with
Where to begin?
People
A long-time friend,
Someone I had never met in person but hope I will meet again is
And then there's
People I missed who were there:
Filk
I was really looking forward to some good filk this year. For the most part I didn't get it. The concerts started well Friday night with
I'm real pissed at most of the performers I heard, like Tony, who were there to give a filk concert, but decided to do non-filk instead. Wasted my time. I missed all of Saturday since I was up at the masquerade photo shoot. Sunday, Paul & Taunya did two non-filks, so I left for dinner. Missed the rest of the concerts because I'd had it with the fru-fru songs. Open filk was lame. Or I should say open filk before midnight was lame, since I left each night at around midnight for home. There were rarely more than a handful of people, and the two times I poked my head in to listen, people were singing non-filk. In one case it was a fellow singing Turn Around, the tune which was the Kodak theme for so many years. Malvina Reynolds wrote that, and it's not even close to filk-ish. However, she also wrote another famous song which could pass for filk - it goes like this:
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
and so on...
But he didn't sing that one. Boo. Hiss.
Programming
First a gripe. This year's guests were poor choices for a major con. Nobody of national stature. Writer GOH Jay Lake has nothing major to his credit. He's only been selling since 2002, and only short stories. Look for him on Amazon.com and you get bupkiss. Nada. Zilch. Nothing. Yes, he's a clever guy with a great sense of humor, but he's just not at the level BayCon should be hiring as their main draw. Chase Masterson as a special guest is also a lame choice. She played a tiny role towards the end of Deep Space 9, had minor soap opera roles, and is a barely adequate lounge singer. Artist GOH Frank Wu is a local boy whose art isn't on a par with the big names. I understand he makes his living as a patent agent, not as an artist.
Next year they will do better:
Writer Guest of Honor: Larry Niven
Science Guest of Honor: Jerry Pournelle
Artist Guest of Honor: Jim Burns
This BayCon had a lot of interesting panels. I went to a lot. I hopped around a lot too. One thing BayCon never gets right is the scheduling. Year after year they insist on putting on panels in the same very narrow interest area at the same time, often in opposite ends of the venue. For instance:
- Open filk started at 8 p.m. every night. So did the concerts. At least they were around the corner from each other.
- Saturday 11:30 am:
- Historical swordfight
- Shields & masks
- Sheet metal work
- Historical swordfight
- Also 11:30:
- Anthology editing
- British SF writers
- Poetry contest
- $5, a dead fish and a Time machine (authors try to make up a story using just those props)
- Anthology editing
- Saturday 1 p.m.:
- Humans to Mars
- Cassini slideshow (next door to each other)
- Humans to Mars
And so on....
Stuff I Went To
My faves were $5, a Dead Fish and a Time Machine and A Shot Rang Out, both featuring the irrepressible Martin Young, and both being of the "here's a hint, now make us a story" genre. Toastmaster Chris Garcia in the audience also helped.
I was majorly impressed with the armor building panel.

The Cassini slide show was a flop. The techies couldn't figure out how to display a PowerPoint presentation. The images were out of focus and difficult to look at, and none of the videos played. This technology is so easy, there's no excuse for this kind of screw-up. Bridget Landry of JPL did a heroic job of presenting this talk despite the tech nastiness.
I went to the "No More Trek?" panel mostly to see and photograph the lovely Chase Masterson, who has parleyed a minor role during the final hours of DS9 into a major BayCon Guest of Honor gig two years in a row. It was a good panel, and I got the pix I wanted.
Trailer park was mediocre this year, and the techie running the booth was lame. How hard is it to find the "play" button, for gosh sake? Argggh. The only competent techie I saw all con was the fellow who ran the board for the concerts, whom I also know is a musician of merit in, I think, Avalon Rising or maybe Four Shillings Short. Or both. I am so tempted to volunteer to run an A/V section for them next year. It was jam packed, and I sat between two sexy women. Sarah was on my left, with her boyfriend. I don't know the name of the gal on my right, but she was hella cute - see my photos of the masquerade and find the female photog in the leather cap with the wavy chestnut hair (there are two photos of her).
I rarely go to the closing ceremonies, but this year's was a blast. Very funny, light-hearted and entertaining.
Food
They done good. Doubletree Inn had been notorious for poor service, horrible choices and poor planning. This year they had two junk food stations instead of just one (at opposite ends of the con), with not only greasy pizza, nachos and hot dogs but also turkey on whole wheat and ham & cheese sandwiches. And four types of cookies. The café featured blue plate specials after 5 pm just for the con, pot roast and other healthy stuff. And the buffet was actually edible this year. Service was quick (sometimes too quick - my second dinner the waiter brought me the pot roast and salad at the same time). They handled a party of one and parties of dozens well.
They Owe Me $$
I took a look at the list of members, and see that I'm in there twice. I was sure I'd bought a membership at the end of last year's con, but I didn't see an entry for it on my Quicken, and they did not post the members this year, at least I didn't see the list on their web site. I put a note in with my check this year asking them not to cash it if I'd already paid, but they cashed it.
I'll give them the option of refunding the $20 after-con fee, and applying the rest to next year.
Final note - I still owe someone a latte. She knows who she is. We'll have to figure out a date/time when I can come out to your neck of the woods.