Date: 2008-08-08 01:17 Subject: Terminus, Day Two, part two Security: Public Tags: terminus

Just got back from the piratical karaoke bachelorette party I was invited to along with about 20 other folks from the convention. Wow, people in Chicago can NOT sing. But we had fun, the drinks were pretty good, and the kitchen gave us free guacamole which was actually really good.

Didn't really need to eat much of it, since we went more or less right after the Welcoming Feast, in which all 1500 attendees of convention ate together in one room. The acoustics of the microphone and the voice of the woman doing most of the announcing did not go well together and we could not really understand a word she said. But we had fun bonding with our housemates in Brubru House. Our Head of House is one half of Draco and the Malfoys, which is fun. :-)

Much fun costuming throughout the day, though I think littleblackbow has my favorite, in which she (is an artist) dresses as Gilderoy Lockhart and autographs pictures of himself (which she drew and then photocopies). Brilliant.

A fun moment at the banquet, when one of the caterers working our table was enthusing about enjoying the HP movies and was talking about the hotel... at one point he mentioned the dungeon. Someone at the table said, "Oh, dungeon why wasn't I told about this?" And the waiter snapped back without missing a beat, "Oh you can't go down there because you're only a third year."

Saw Tamora Pierce briefly today while we were at registration. She's giving a keynote talk which was a separate ticket so I am not going to it. But she is awesome and fun and I've heard her speak at a lot of other convention.

And I bought a wand finally! No... TWO wands! What is funny about this is that in the RPG where I play Draco, about a year ago he had to replace his wand. He went to Ollivanders (this is an HBP compliant game so there isn't the animosity of DH to deal with there), and he ended up with two wands and unable to decide between them. He ended up buying both.

When I couldn't decide between the two, in this case, the wandmaker (http://www.whirlwood.com/) made me a deal on both of them, and I am so happy.

One is a walnut wand with a comfortable knob at the end. I prefer to keep my wand in my sleeve for ease of access and a quick draw. The knob sits perfectly in my palm, hidden from view. It's this one:



And the other I picked out was from his "antique" wands collection with a silver metal handle and a white body, quite short and totally unique, unlike any wand I've seen. I could even wear it in my hair if I wanted to... I'll have to photograph is as it is one of a kind.

I am very happy. (And such a geek... I know.)

We're getting up early (yawn) tomorrow for programming and it's 1:30am now so I'll stop here. More tomorrow!