LosCon 2009

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<H2><FONT COLOR="GREEN">LosCon 36 Review 2009</FONT></H2>
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<B>The 2009 LosCon 36</B> was held over the Thanksgiving weekend at the LAX Marriott (11/27 – 11/29).  LosCon is a Science Fiction convention that has over 1,000 attendees. Chris & I met friends and I made a few new ones. It is all part of my nefarious plot to be friendlier & talk more. 
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Like all good conventions, though small, it has an Art show, Dealers room, Film, Anime, Gaming room, Panels and a Masquerade Saturday evening. There were 6 exhibitors with books. The crafty vendors had jewelry or clothing. I visited all of them at least once, some a lot more. We chatted for a lonnng time, because that is what you do at this type of convention. I bought older out of print books from http://www.massogliabooks.com/ and http://www.williamwubooks.com/
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I tried on two Gorgeous black coats. They were around $300 with really high quality workmanship. Sadly I would need the coat altered since a certain part of my anatomy would not let the coat fall smoothly. No reason to pay that kind of money for a lumpy backside. 
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<B>Badge Ribbons<B>. One of the fun and silly things to do at a convention is collect ribbons. When a convention is smaller it is possible to make unique badges, but a much more convenient way is to distribute ribbons. Some attendees had dozens of ribbons that reached all the way to the floor! I ended up with five. 
Do You Know Dawno?, Lab Rat, Shot by a Bear, William Wu Books.com and Bad Influence. I really enjoyed the ribbon collecting, probably because I was not working the convention and had the time to absorb the fun of doing the little thing that won the ribbon.
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I went to 3 Panels. The first was, <B>Steampunk, Clockpunk & Noirpunk</B>. This was Chris' idea and I was fine with it. Several people discussed the genre and subgenres. A panelist,  Ms. Neidengard, was wearing a cool Victorian Wonder Woman costume. I sadly had no camera. 
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The second was, <B>There Is A Small  House In My Library</B>. Jefferson Swycaffer and Marty Massoglia were a few of the people on this panel. One women in the audience asked if there was a 12 step program to stop collecting? Nope we are all doomed! Bookworms went crazy. Everyone in the room generally disliked electronic books. They all realized the benefit of the machine for travel, but not in their everyday lives. Discussions broke out about what was the maximum amount of books a person could read at a time, special bookcases and how to sort. Most people were using Authors, but some sorted by Publisher or Subject groupings.  Mr Swycaffer says he has a few Shrines. All books, movies, comics & toys related to a character are sorted together. Ambitious! 
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The third was, <B>Creating Props, Accessories & SFX For Your Costume</B>. She discussed boning inside corsets. Wonderflex for  inside and outside a costume, and ELW lights. Electro Luminescent Wire works great in costumes because it uses a small battery pack and the colors can be changed.  Ms. Neidengard was moderating this panel also. This time she was wearing a Girl Genius costume, that I did get a photo of. 
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<b>Room Parties</b>
After the Masquerade we went up to the 17th floor for the Room Parties. Every year at Comic-Con I try to block off a group of rooms as a buffer for my party. The LAX Marriot seems to understand the concept, where the stupid Hyatt does not. The ENTIRE 17th floor had rooms open. About half the floor was open on Friday night and the bulk of the rooms had full blown parties going on Saturday. A little music, some talking and a lot of food. Most rooms had a theme and a sticker proclaiming your attendance. Hundreds of people were wandering the halls for hours. It was very fun. SO FUN, that I refused to post photos and to put into print some of the stuff that I saw. What happens at Con should stay at Con. It is all about chatting and fun at this Con. It was kind of refreshing.
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I will post all pictures that I can, nudge nudge wink wink, on Photobucket. Go take a peek.
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<b>Swag</b>
LosCon Swag consisted mostly of the paper variety: A nice heavy paper Brisingr the Dragon bag to carry my stuff in. The Souvenir book, Costume Designer magazine, various Bookmarks from vendors, novels and for other conventions. 
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My only two complaints are: There was not an Exhibitor listing in the souvenir book. I have no way of knowing the name of the coat vendor since I did not get her business card on site. Which leads to the second complaint. The website had a major issue and then total crash right before the show. This made it very hard to get basic information about the show. Weeks later the new site is up for #37 but the old #36 site is still not fixed. 
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The website is <A HREF="http://www.loscon37.org/">http://www.loscon37.org/</A>
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I really did enjoy the show and will probably attend again, but this depends on my 2010 Thanksgiving plans.
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