Arduinna

More Saturday reportage, although some of this will be short as I seem to have fallen down on taking notes for the afternoon.

First up:

( What's My Motivation? )

Next up:

( A Matter of Perspective, vidshow/panel combination )

Next up:

( Fancy Credits! )

After the panels came the usual dinner break, which lately has just been the "get ready for Club Vivid" break. The buffet is substantial enough to serve as dinner, so we generally head down and eat and socialize for a bit, then head back to the room to change and glam up for the dance.

The hotel was running a little behind all weekend on setup that involved food of any kind, which is unusual, so the buffet didn't start until 6:30 or so. No biggie, except how I just expect everything Vividcon-related to start on time, so it made me blink a bit.

Which has just reminded me of something I wanted to say: the concom, as usual, was calm and cheerful throughout the con, handling things as they came up, despite coping with even more stress than usual in the face of a hotel staff that was late with all food-related things, right down to water service in the function rooms, and more horribly, a DVD duplicating place that had delayed the delivery of the DVDs till the last possible second. On Friday, no one on staff even knew if the DVDs would arrive by Saturday (!!). If they hadn't, the concom would have had to somehow get hold of the DVDs after the con, and ship out every set individually at huge unexpected cost, not to mention facing the disappointment of more than a hundred people who expected to be able to pick them up on Sunday in person.

Not a trace of that stress showed publicly; to the uninformed eye, everything was running smooth as silk all weekend. So big kudos to the concom for their professionalism throughout. <3

So the buffet was good, as usual, and Mandy and her cohort were back at the bars wearing beaded necklaces and ready to serve up whatever we wanted (seriously, I love how much the bartenders seem to have a good time with us. We're kind of a motley crew, and we are unbelievably loud at Club Vivid, but everyone has a blast and it's great that the bartenders are part of that. It never feels like they're outsiders watching us and silently mocking, which could totally happen with some people. These folks put on their beads and seem to have a great time watching us all have a great time. <3 )

After we ate, we went back to the room to dress up a bit and add some nice bright hair coloring, then headed back down to check out everyone's outfits and start in on the booze. (I brought hair chalk to try this year, too, but you have to put hair spray in first, which I'm not keen on, and forgot to pick up at Dominick's anyway. Oh well, maybe next time.)

During the very first CV, one person came in very tight, very shiny silver pants that impressed everyone. Times have changed; this year, we had a shiny silver bikini-thing that also impressed everyone quite a bit. There was also the usual array, from comfy street clothes to cosplay to cocktail dresses to clubwear; bare feet and sneakers and stilettos and thigh-high laced boots; and glitter and glowsticks EVERYWHERE. I love all of that so much; I can't think of anything else I do all year where someone in a tight-laced pleather corset and killer boots can hang out with someone in loose cotton pajamas and slippers in public, and both of them be appropriately dressed and equally comfortable. ♥

So pre-CV is always fun, with everyone wandering around talking and drinking and eating and admiring each other, then there's a rush for the dance floor as the Joxer Dance starts up, and we're off!

... and then there's a three-hour haze of dancing and drinking and vids. *g* Ian outdoes himself every year on the playlist, and this year was no exception.

But one fabulous addition this year was a tv over on one of the side table in the middle, showing all the vids in addition to the big screens at either end. It made it easier to actually watch the vids, if there was something you particularly wanted to see.

Also awesome this year for anyone who was premiering vids at CV: absolutedestiny had put up a list in the con suite with time codes for each premiering vid, so you could keep track of when yours was going to air without having to count vids off the main playlist.

( A handful of vids that jumped out at me through the haze of awesome )

Midnight sneaks up on you very fast when you're working endless 10+ hour days because your boss is on vacation. Also when your friends call you up at 11:30 while you're flailing over what to post. *hangs up*

I would be less tired from the long workdays if I hadn't stayed up late last night watching Suspect, a 1980s movie with Cher, Dennis Quaid, and Liam Neeson that I've always loved. It's dated in some ways, but holds up in a lot of others, and I always get caught up in it.

Also, I'm sort of amused that half of the outfits Cher wears in that would be almost completely unremarkable today.

I'm pretty sure that last night I intended to do an actual reaction post about the movie, but I'm drawing a blank from overtired, woe.

---

Ack, I just saw that the streaming vidshows from VVC are only up for about 10 more days, at which point they'll start vanishing bit by bit. Nooooooooo *clings*

Clearly it's time to buckle down to the con reporting a bit more intently.

Okay, I'm going to be brave here and actually start posting bits of the con report I've been poking at. Usually when I do this it means I stop adding more, because posted=finished in my brain. And I am nowhere near finished. But I'm hoping the post-every-day thing will keep me going (although I doubt I'll be posting bits of con report every day. I write these things slooooowly.)

Relatedly, I had a few days early on when I was determined to do a review on ALL THE VIDS, because yay streaming omg, but then I realized that, er, it would never actually be finished, because that is way too much. So a regular con report with occasional vid commentary it is.

So!

( Thursday, travel day )

Friday

I'm not even a breakfast person, but I make it to the hotel's breakfast every day; it's a really nice way to start the day, and feels almost like low-key social programming, since much of the con makes it down at some point, and people join various tables as other people clear out, and wander around chatting with each other. (And most folks have their badges on already, because so many of us suck at facial recognition and have to do the face-badge-face thing all weekend, heh.)

Breakfast closes early on Friday, though, so I headed down before showering to try out the new breakfast menu. No waffles. :( There was so much dismay at the lack of waffles. (Spoiler: there were Weekend Waffles on Saturday and Sunday, to great relief.) But the fresh fruit was a really nice addition, and the eggs were better than I remember (possibly helped by the display of things to put on your eggs, like cheese or salsa). Then I headed back up to take a shower, secure in the knowledge that the con starts at 10.

... Except on Friday, when it starts at 9:45. *facepalm* So I totally missed the opening remarks and first raffle. But I made it in time for the first show, which is always some kind of History of Vidding, with nothing set against it. The past few years have all been 10-year anniversaries of one kind or another for VVC, so the History shows have been very inward-focused, including this year.

( History of Challenge )

Next up, hopefully, the other Friday morning vidshows.

(... I have no tags for vid reviews or con reports here. Huh, I must always have done them in flummery before. I'll post there linking back to the tag here or something when I'm done.)