Blog on the Lillypad
Friday, November 28, 2003
 | Live From the Convention Floor! |
Day #1: Well, the final part of my trip was through driving rain--bad enough to send me hydroplaning on a bridge in Louisville KY, but it was a "short spin". I arrived on my second day of driving (Thanksgiving Day) at about 2:00 EST, which was 1:00 Chicago time. I'd been in the lobby for five minutes when I spotted Tom Beck, organizer of the "Prydonians of Princeton," a New Jersey Doctor Who fan club. He introduced me to Karen, an accountant from Philly who runs the autograph sessions at the Panopiticon Convention in England. We had Thanksgiving dinner together.
Tom used to be so hardcore in his fandom that he didn't even make friends outside of SF fandom, but two years ago a diagnosis of diabetes was a wake up call to him. He's lost a lot of weight, has rekindled his Jewish faith, and is now building a relationship with a woman that he hopes will lead to marriage. He and I have had many good discussion comparing the Jewish and Christian faiths. And yesterday was no different. We started to talk about a person's duty to his or her neighbor, but we were interrupted when more people came.
| After finishing there, I made a quick run up to the room for the back stretcher, as my back was hurting a lot. After thirty minutes of hanging down, I returned to the elevators and entered a car to join Anneke Wills, except I didn't know it was Anneke Wills. I'm a Third Doctor fan, and Anneke played a companion (Polly) to the First Doctor and the Second Doctor. We smiled at each other and said hello. She cordially asked me if I was with the hockey tournament (ie, one of the moms), and I cheerfully said no, I was part of the Doctor Who convention. I saw the slight look of surprise in her eyes and just figured that since I wasn't wearing the typical regalia (Doctor Who T-shirt, buttons, scarf, multi-color overcoat etc.), I had not seemed like one of the fans. We said goodbye and I went out to hunt up friends. The next day, I saw Anneke again at breakfast and apologized, but she laughed it off, took my hand, and said it was fine. |  |
A woman I've not met before, Adina, showed up from California. She was tired but hungry and didn't want to spend $20 on dinner at the hotel café, so I told her I'd ride with her to find a Denny's or something. The easy camaraderie of the convention is one of the things I like best about it. Adina is a gentle, softspoken, amazing person. She navigated us around the northwest sectors of the Chicago metro area in her rented Ford Explorer with finesse. She's lived in England, visited Australia, and been all over the US. Plus she cared for a father who died of leukemia and a mother who died of Alzheimers, but she told me none of it was as bad as it sounds. Her mother had lucid moments and they had a great relationship, and she came away glad that she spent a few years personally caring for her. At 38 she is now able to pick up her education again. She's studying Middle Eastern studies at Stanford University ("Just to get the degree," she tells me. "I'll never use it.") So we talked about the Koran and the Sufist poets. I've read the first two books of the Koran, and her brief overview helped me.
 | Back at the hotel, the bar was filling up. I joined a large group and had a good time comparing opinions on various Doctor Who stories. Two different fellows bought me beers, which was very nice of them. I had, of course, Bass Ale. And no ill effects except I was tired when I walked into the room and the beers made me a lot more tired. My vote for stupidest Doctor Who story goes to a two-part bit of nonsense called "The Sontaran Experiment," which is nothing other than a story of a monstrous creature torturing humans until the Doctor saves them, except he's too late on all of them except for his own companion, Sarah Jane. He does manage to save her, thus ensuring that the series could continue and would not be ended by a horrible alien creature from one of the most predictable stories I have ever seen. |
| However, "Sontaron Experiment" is not gloriously stupid enough, according to the others. The favorite pick for stupidest story in the opinion of most of the others is a four parter called "Time Lash". I must admit, a story that produces such gems of dialogue as "No, no, not the mind probe!" is pretty bad. But I think the reason most fans hate "Time Lash" even more than the other occasional duds in the series is because some clever person figured out that the title, "Time Lash" is actually an anagram for "Lame Shit". |  |
I'd been up at 3:30 and went to bed at ten. Now it's Friday morning, and I am getting ready to go downstairs for breakfast and meet up with others. My back is hurting me, but I have my inversion table here, and I've already been on it twice this morning. More later!
