back before i had kids, i once went to a con-- gen con i believe, though i'm not totally sure on that (that memory lifespan problem cropping up again). i do remember i wasn't so impressed with it, especially for the price. granted, at the time it was for gamers, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot else there. this was 20 years ago, so things may have changed. i can't tell, the gen con site wasn't all that user friendly for me. at any rate, we played a one game (linnorm and i went), browsed a few vendors, and went home after paying a pretty hefty at-the-door fee for one day. seeing as it was gen con (which i am now pretty sure it was), none of this should have been that much of a surprise, but the whole experience put me off cons for a long time. as far as i could tell, they were expensive and not really worth the price. since those days, most cons have gotten pricier, and my interest in going has remained fairly the same: why bother?
as i became more serious about my writing, i actually began to want to go to afewconsandworkshopsagain, but they've never been affordable . . . and they usually end up not being local which puts anything even remotely affordable well out of range. but they did look much better than my previous con experience -- there were people there i wanted to meet, activities i wanted to do, and things i wanted to see. but i pretty much resigned myself to reading about cons second hand (and being completely jealous that others were going and i wasn't).
fortunately for me, while most of the cons seemed to be getting better, they rarely had anything that made me regret not going for long. and i still had the gen con experience in my head, though the journal posts of attendees was slowly picking away at that particular image of cons in general. occasionally there'd be the mention of a guest or workshop that sounded really interesting, but i knew i wasn't willing to pay $50 or more just for that one thing. so, i'd really want to go only for a short time -- usually after the fact. heh
yesterday, one of the other dii members and i were talking about her being down here again soon (she had swung through briefly at one point -- we were supposed to meet but it never happened) for dragon*con. while we discussed plans to meet for dinner, i went and perused the site.
bad idea. bad, bad idea. why? because now i really wanted to go. i knew we couldn't afford it. but all those neat names! the neat tracks! the neat stuff!
and then saxy asked me what i was doing and i told him. i told him some names. i told him another dii member was going. and he said, "then go!" and i still hemmed and hawed because of the money. $70 is a lot of money. that's half a utility bill. that's most of our weekly grocery shopping. yea, we have a big check coming on friday, but half is taken up by utilities, and the other half will be eaten up with other stuff picked up this week and food. if anything's left, it's got to go to rent. i considered canceling something else we had just put an order in for, but . . . well, that wasn't for me. and so i was ready to be all depressed about not going.
but saxy insisted we'd make up the money and i should go. he wants to go too, but knows we definitely can't pay for 2 people, and was still telling me i should go. i mean, he was practically insistent i go! (i can, after all, get autographs for him! lol)
i finally gave him and bought my membership for the whole 4 days.
i'm going to dragon*con! woooooooo!
late update: linnorm tells me it couldn't have been gen con and gave me two other options -- orccon or strategicon. the second one doesn't sound at all familiar, so, perhaps it was orccon. who knows.
word of the moment: creativity
imaginative ability: the ability to use the imagination to develop new and original ideas or things, especially in an artistic context
