Attended Stellarcon over the weekend and it was a blast. Lord have mercy, I done got geekiness all over me, not that I wasn't reeking of it before. Under one roof we had Klingons, pirates, ewoks, nameless, shambling, unspeakable horrors. Most surreal con moment: the discussion of Joseph Cambell's heroic archetypes as they apply to Pokemon.
The geeking climax for me was the panel I led called SF vs. Fantasy Celebrity Deathmatch. I matched up ten SF characters randomly with ten fantasy characters. We ran them through a round of bouts, then had several rounds of elimination free-for-all. Gandolf versus Superman, Thor versus Hulk, Dr. Who verus Dracula, Jar Jar Binks versus Peter Pan, and so forth. Winners were decided based on arguments presented by the audience. As a judge, I found myself having to render split second judgements--could Superman's heat vision hurt Sauron? Would Pikachu's lightning slow down Shrek? Could anyone beat Cthulhu? (Yes, actually--Captain Jack Sparrow, from Pirates of the Carribean, being already dead and insane, was the perfect foil for the great old one.) It was late at night, so my memory's getting fuzzy--did Buffy the Vampire slayer really kill Jar Jar Binks? Or was that Peter Pan who did him in? All I know is, Jar Jar never really stood a chance. In the final round, the undefeated champions were Gandolf and Dr. Who--and, despite my loyalty to the Doctor, the consensus of the mob was that Gandolf would win. As a geek at heart, I decided the only fair way to settle the matter was with a roll of the dice--and Gandolf took home the trophy. I spent the next hour or so haunted by the final round, wondering what I could have done differently to bring the Doctor to the victory I feel sure he deserved...
Man alive, the things I get worked up about.
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