And burn a mouth that's weak on verbs

[austin_dern]

We didn't mean to rely on the con suite for lunch, and instead walked across the road to a Panera Bread for soup and sandwiches. This one surprised us by handing us those little pager-type buzzer things for when our orders were ready. I'd assumed they would buzz when they were ready for us to pick up our plates. Actually they were for the waiter to find us, and our speculations about how these work was kind of settled by seeing the pads on the table where we were supposed to set the gadgets down. Well, maybe that settled it; I'd assume it's some sort of RFID thing with the pads being very bulky so that people can't accidentally pocket them, although since the waiter caught us the moment we set the pads on the table it's possible he was just looking for the people who hadn't settled in yet.

We went from lunch to the Raccoon SIG, which is where we learned about the room 269 confusion. The events there were bumped to another room, one of the presentation rooms, although the need to be out of the way to allow for the next event there (the ice cream social) to be set up meant we had to be hidden away from the doors, which I think hurt turnout: wrong room, nobody obviously in the room, no drop-ins. That's a real shame, as we had a little ``cookie jar'' shaped as a trash bin, and filled with candy, which was knocked over to ceremonially celebrate raccooniness, or at least what everyone says is raccooniness.

The thing immediately after the Raccoon SIG was also one of the few events that bunny_hugger and I had to separate for. I'd registered as a sponsor for the con, while she hadn't, and the ice cream panel was for sponsors only. The room started out packed --- I had to hover around the edges of the room until some people had their fill --- and when I finally got to the table I was kind of fit between the two big conversation groups and needed my usual slow time to get up to speaking in either. It's much easier with bunny_hugger around.

Trivia: Reuters's centennary celebration week, 9 - 16 July 1951, cost the news agency £25,000. That year saw an overall pre-tax loss of £22,925. (Management argued the celebrations were good for the company's public standing.) Source: The Power Of News: The History of Reuters, Donald Read.

Currently Reading: Transparent Things, Vladimir Nabokov. It's rather curious: nothing much happens yet it's fascinating to read.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

The only year I registered as a sponsor was 2008, and I found the ice cream social really disappointing that time, at least. The ice cream was really bad (but I admit I'm picky about ice cream) and it didn't seem like they were actually stopping non-sponsors from having any, since they set it up in the con suite that time.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I didn't think the ice cream was bad, but I'm a pretty non-picky person about such things. I don't know how careful they were about stopping non-sponsors from coming in; I just didn't notice the badges at the time.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I just don't enjoy super-cheap ice cream very much. I'm not a huge food snob about most things, but this is one of my things, I guess. I don't demand premium, either, but the sorts of ice cream that, say, they served in my college's cafeteria just don't provide me enough enjoyment to make up for the guilt. >:)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this probably wasn't good enough for the guilt potential.