UPCON aftermath

As mentioned ever so briefly in my user profile, I tend to help with organising UPCON each year. This year's convention took place last weekend (7 and 8 May). Running around for the con also explains why I haven't updated my blog as frequently as usual.

Gluttony, lack of
The strangest part about being at a gaming convention was not to have an urge to suddenly consume large quantities of food. I expected at least one of the seven deadly sins this weekend, gluttony, and possibly wrath. As part of being chairperson of the Great Geek Collective (GGC) I was in and out of the kitchen to deposit money, check if the anime maids were still in one piece and occasionally hiding from the rest of the people at the convention.

The irony? I've been known to eat for comfort. I had access to all kinds of food. I only drank three cans of fizzy cool drink over the course of the weekend and, this is very weird (also read the original meaning) for me, had no urges to eat chocolate of any kind. Apparently the hot cocoa and 70% dark chocolate that I'm allowed to imbibe have lain my milk chocolate addiction to rest. For now.

Anime maids (from the University of Pretoria's Society of Anime and Manga) and Gork in the background

Borg Queen costume
The logo for the GGC was designed by Sin Bin as was my outfit for UPCON. 

Logo as designed by Sin Bin

Unfortunately I didn't get round to building suitably awesome headgear to go with the outfit and the efforts to do so on Saturday morning were a flop. Note to self: buy cyber extensions when I see them next, much less effort. Good friends saved the day by carefully inserting fuses into my hair which later fell out all over the show. It was part of my evil plan, of course. Pick them up and be assimilated!

Neville saving the day

Project 36: Le Cutie of Borg
I should have anticipated a slight problem with my outfit. Since leaving my former employer I've dropped a whopping 5 kg. And last week's visit to the dietician showed that I've lost the amount of fat equivalent to  five blocks of butter (so far). I'm also no longer at risk for developing Type II Diabetes. Hooray!

The small problem was, well, that I was smaller than anticipated. The first set of measurements were sent through while I was still a contractor. My fitting was two or three weeks before the event and everything was a perfect fit. If Sin Bin had not cleverly bought along safety pins the pants would have fallen off. Even so, after the official costume competition I opted to put on my skirt again instead of the awesome pants since  that to which I ended up pinning the pants was also looser and threatening to go down with the ship. Thanks, but no thanks.

Photo by Duane Havenga

P.S. I love those gloves. They were warm as anything, but really added to the effect. And they rocked when the temperature dropped.

Master's
UPCON took up a lot of time as did sleeping. Chapter due by end of the month. No further extracurricular activities for me for the rest of the month. Another side effect of UPCON was getting bronchitis, so antibiotics-inspired writing, here we go!