The Pros at Cons A Review of Convolution 2014: Halfway Home Part 6
Day 2 Continued: Firefly, Pew-Pew Guns, Game of Thrones, and George Lucas.
My final stop before heading out of the vendor’s room was right of the exit to the hall, where two ladies were selling various sci-fi themed toys and some official Convention swag at an otherwise unadorned table. (I’ve looked all over my notes for their info, but I never got it, which sucks.) They were amazing. They explained the whole history of Convolution to me, that it used to be just a meet-up for hard sci-fi writers in the bay area, and then it opened a little to include fantasy and other genre fiction, then it was just about writing all fiction and over the past couple of years they’ve wanted to open it up more to a wider audience and make it about all things pop culture, sci-fi, speculative fiction, science and engineering, fandom and Cosplay. They told me about a Firefly LARP and a hospitality room with free food upstairs for Con goers, and one of them played me an original Serenity Filk (that’s fan-folk, as in music that would be played in-universe of a given series) on her acoustic guitar. She lives in Colorado or Seattle or something so I not only regret not writing down all her info, but that I’ll probably never cross paths with her again. Oh, and they sold me weapons. Well, I mean I purchased a small pew-pew gun that lights up and makes fun sounds for my four year old son for $6 to be donated to the charity (Chabot Space & Science Center, of that year. They also had bigger pew-pew guns for $10 each, but I thought the smaller one was better for my purposes. For the first time that day I felt like I looked like I belonged there in my red leather jacket and my tiny plastic firearm tucked into my front pocket as conspicuously as I dared.
Finally, around 2pm I left the vendors room like a shot to find the hospitality suite and nosh some free cutlets. It was far better than anything I expected and I saw a lot of great cosplayers around the hotel too, including a fully detailed Zoe from Firefly that I complimented in passing. The suite was exactly that: just a room in the hotel with the door standing open and a full buffet table taking up most of it. I ate some of everything and there were maybe 2-3 other people in the room with me also quietly eating and resting their feet. Then I noticed there was a chocolate sheet cake on the table with the only Con employee there behind it, and I asked if I could have some. I thought it might be just for VIP’s or volunteers or something, but no, it was donated for everyone and I was told to please help myself, so I ate more of that than anything else because I like cake and it was there. “The cake was not a lie.” 
I was just about to leave when a new wave of people began to file into the room and I somehow got sucked into several conversations, which then morphed into me giving loud overtures about things like the necessity of Netflix streaming, Game of Thrones spoilers and the documentary film, “The People vs. George Lucas”. (image courtesy of the Game of Thrones t shirt category)
