OmegaCon Pictures and Comments, Day Three

I didn't take nearly as many pictures on Sunday as I did on the first two days. Like most conventions, things calm down after the traditional Saturday blowout. I did manage to snag a picture of these two nice young (28ish?) ladies, Emily and Sarah. We got to talking in the hotel bar on Friday night, and come to find out they were both English lit majors--Ph.D.s and teachers no less--so we got to chatting about literature, SF, what have you. They're striving to write in the fantasy field. We also talked a bit about why Gen Y doesn't give a flip about exploring/settling space. Their explanations did not give me much hope. Apparently any hint of "colonialism" is considered racist, supremacist, etc., even if there are no natives on the Moon or Mars. The current generation of college students is also getting fed a lot of propaganda about how humanity is destroying this planet, and that extending human civilization out to other worlds would be polluting those worlds as well. I don't think they necessarily believed that, but that's what their students are thinking. Ye flippin' gods. Anyhow, I got a couple of business cards, so maybe I can ping them later for more on the Gen Y thing. There's got to be a way to reach those kids...













Apologies--another lousy picture. This was one of a troupe of bagpipers we had playing at random intervals during the con. I seem to recall that her last name was Ryan. We got to talking briefly about Irish heritage during the Saturday evening fog. Nice lady, but I have to be in the right mood for bagpipes, and I think the right mood for bagpipes would be a funeral, in which I was the corpse.

I asked this gentleman if he would mind having his medical condition documented for posterity. He agreed. I recommended that he steer clear of eating spaghetti.













Books a Million had a pretty good-sized booth in the Dealers' Room. They were selling lightsabers ($100 if you had their discount card) and miniature R2D2s. This little guy stood maybe 12 inches tall, but he made all the right beeps and whistles.













I saw this Jabba the Hutt on the local Star Wars fan club table. Near as I can figure, Jabba is wearing a grass skirt so he can attend his hula classes later. Otherwise, I'm drawing a blank.












That's all for pictures. The rest will be covered in a follow-up posting on lessons learned.