GBS - I

My shiny new laptop machine arrived this morning

The Good:
Pretty.
It works. Everything works - first time. Even the wireless internet connection.
Fast.

The Bad:
Not actually bad but it does feel a little on the flimsy side.

The Strange:
There was a test DVD left in the optical drive. A very battered one with "test DVD" hand written on it. I'm betting some QA worker is pissed off right now.

GBS - II

Conscription

The Good:
There was a really excellent convivial buzz around this con. As good as any I have been to. Plenty of interesting folk to talk to (including the guests) and plenty of suitable places to do so. Since the personal contact aspects are the most important to me, this alone makes the con worth attending.

The book launch for Russell's Beyond the Wall of Time.

The spillover from the writers workshops into the con worked well for the feeling of the con. It was good to have so many local writers attending.

The SJVs. People I nominated won stuff. Congratulations to everybody.

The Au Contraire team did some great promotional work. I am looking forward to what they have to offer next year.

I did a bit of worldcon sales work and got a lot of good response. It helped a lot that Donna provided some cool giveaways.

The Bad:
Ill. That cold didn't go away and while I was able to suppress it somewhat, it did affect my enjoyment. Early nights shouldn't really be a necessity but that was what I was forced to do.

Y'know there is a tradition of organisational chaos at cons, but there wasn't really a need to embrace it quite so completely this time. That extended to the programming - some good items but it was pretty thin overall.

No con bids for 2011. Do you want to run the NZ Natcon in 2011 (please)? Bids close on Nov 30 so you have plenty of time to get organised.

The Strange:
The SFFANZ AGM - but that probably goes without saying.

My travel arrangements back all worked perfectly. You may think I should include that on the "good" but experience suggests otherwise. Even QANTAS managed to get the flight to run on time and that is really strange.

I only bought 3 books. Whats up with that.