Balticon 2010 Felsic Balticon! Alrighty, I've spent the last four days designing my Diplodocus webpage and I really don't feel like lingering on more con reports now that all three of my websites are up-to-date and running. It's bad enough I have three new costumes I should document one of these days. And yet I don't feel like falling behind so soon after catching up, and this year's Balticon really shouldn't be overlooked. I will, however, stick mainly to the essential, which is my Felsic Current book release. My $300 expense to have flyers dropped in the registration bags was all but a waste: the few people who attended the launch event on Friday did so fairly independently of the flyer. So this was a good lesson to learn. In future years when my name is somewhat bankable, something like this might be worth it, but not right now. All advertising aside, the event itself was very fun and productive, but I really must hire an official helper in the future to insure an efficient break down afterwards. I had helpers at the beginning but since none of them were tied to it in any official fashion I couldn't count on them still being around by the end. I got gently berated for my delayed clean-up time. Still, the effort put into building the map and crafting a quiz game was most appreciated by the attendees. I'm very glad I salvaged that map. Later in the weekend, when I started getting some feedback from particularly well-read and knowledgeable people I experienced the biggest doubt I ever felt since the start of the whole project. What had I done, investing so much, putting my entire livelihood and future on the line on a whim? But all that was alleviated when I met with my target audience on Sunday at my reading session. Toasty and her crew came with a few others and gladly participated in my interactive reading session. They were responsible for at least a third of my total sales over the weekend. I was also accosted by others who sought advice on their own self-publishing endeavours. It's been slow ever since, with only a single Amazon sale, but I just have to remember the girls' reaction and how 'clicky' this was for them. My costumes were also very appreciated and provided conversation-starters that most authors can only dream about. Saturday was a LOOONG day to be wearing that Londo wig the whole time, worrying about it collapsing. It certainly did need a few check-ups every now and then. But the overall costume was easy to wear. Actually all three of my new costumes were easy on me. Thendy's leaf hung on, only a minor problem with belt loops proved to be a problem for Satir, and Londo's belt magnets weren't quite strong enough but still an easygoing costume weekend overall. I'm also very glad I took the time (lots of time!) to switch my peacekeeping uniform inside-out and wear it in all its permutations. The masquerade went very well. My audience got all my terrible 70s TV references and this was probably my craziest skit ever. My original plan with princess Leia would've been nice, but who knows, maybe in the future. There were also lots of very nice skits like usual, and from one of them stems my proudest pun of the weekend. My friend with the great duct tape corset and bubblewrap skirt said she'd been told all the worst packing-related jokes all day. Well, I managed to give her one she hadn't heard: 'Excuse me, how much for shipping and handling?' Most importantly for my mental state, I got to do lots of gaming. I finally tried this 'Dominion' game people have been talking about and sadly only my very first game truly charmed me. Okay it helps that I won it handily but I found both other games highly frustrating. The presence of Curse cards ruin this game, I feel. I suppose I must simply get better at deck-building and start imposing Curses of my own on others. I also got lots of Race of the Galaxy against human opponents out of my system, which was heartening after so many games against the computer. My experience against the clever computer paid off, too. I got to play another game of Dungeon Lords but not to very great effect. It really reinforced my feelings on my least favourite element of the game: the scoring. It proved that playing the game well and actually scoring high aren't necessarily compatible. And finally, I crowned everything with a very, very nice game of Agricola. I have NEVER seen anyone score THIRTEEN points in improvement cards alone, like I did in that game. And I also learned a new very simplistic yet fun game called 'Fresco.' It was fun enough that I'd play it again to cool off after something overly complex like Power Grid or Agricola. I also got through a great game of Princes of Florence, but broke my winning streak. Played a work too early. I already have a host of potential cosplay plans for next year's Balticon and Costume-con. I'll have to pick and choose. I look forward to potentially work with Rio and Joey. But the greatest thing to look forward to is potentially becoming a big enough author by next year to warrant an invitation as guest (and not just because I'm hosting some of my own events like this year). - J-F Bibeau