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Ottawa Comiccon 2014 - Day 1

I took the bus, which is something I almost never do in this city because I have trouble getting home. I followed others where I could and ran into a couple of people I know from the Steampunk Ottawa outings. The buses were packed and traffic was congested. I was surrounded by very tall men who immensely enjoyed my Steampunk Catwoman costume:

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It was very warm on the bus in leather and a corset. We were let out on the road near the centre and had to climb down a hill. I took my time as I didn't want to chance re-spraining my ankle as I need it for roller derby. I picked up my pass, which I ordered a week or so ago. I made it to the panel on Firefly. The panel was okay. I had to pee and the content wasn't what I was expecting, so I didn't stay in it.

The lineup for the bathroom was long. There were only three stalls. Occasionally women came declaring they were only washing their hands or fixing their boob area outside of the general public view as they were worried about getting beat up by those waiting in line. Yes, it was that long. The toilet paper ran out and we had to use the paper towels. There was a woman that used about 5 paper towels to dry her hands instead of using the air dryer and potentially left someone without wiping options...

I next attended a panel on the 501st Legion who make screen authentic costumes from Star Wars. It was mainly for ladies. It was interesting, but not really my thing. I love Star Wars, but I'm an outside of the box thinker and I love the freedom and low expense that is Steampunk. I'm not saying Steampunk is cheap, but you're in total control of how much you spend on your costume as you're the only judge that matters. If I did do the 501st Legion thing though, I would totally pick obscure characters with comfortable costumes. I thought this panel was well done.

The next panel I attended was "Comic Book Chemistry - Super Heroes vs Science". This panel was awesome. The speaker was humorous and knowledgeable. He had the audience engaged. He had more slides than he could present in the time allotted though and I wish his slideshow was available for download. I learned some neat things like what cloud seeding is.

Several people complimented me on my costume. This was shortly after looking around to see a bunch of costumes that were amazing, so I felt cool and that made my day. People enjoyed the Steampunk aspect.

I went to the FILK concert where I heard songs like Tie After Tie by Debs and Errol, and Everybody Hates Elves by Kari Maaren. I enjoyed it and you can learn more about the artists at Geek Bands. I found the music was a nice ending to the day.

I tried to go to the Masquerade, but the security guy told me the doors were locked from the inside and he had no way to open them or even call any security people that should be on the inside. Either that was badly planned or he was full of crap, imo.

Overall, I had a good Con. I bought very little (a bracelet from a favourite vendor and a Sci-Fi book by an Ottawa author) as I have an all-weekend event next weekend as well. I'm excited for tomorrow's panels as they are more relevant to my writing career. I wonder if I could get a portion of the Con ticket back in taxes given that I'm learning things about writing...

Ciao
R~

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