Those last couple blog entries were entirely too glum. It’s time to lighten things up a bit.

Chattanooga is only a six hour drive from Louisville. That puts it well within my sphere of weekend road trips. It’s been altogether too long since I went to a good, old fashioned non-commerical SF con. The dealer’s room at GenCon is like walking into Nerdhalla, but there’s a special something about the casual party cons.

Erin and I pulled in to Chattanooga around 6 p.m. The hotel check-in was completely smooth. While there were some comic moments waiting in the pre-reg line, I actually enjoyed the heck out of the company. The hotel was smart enough to have a waitress working the line. Some guys we’d just met bought us both drinks. When they got thier badges, we ended up talking to a woman in a corset and tutu, then Erin found a bellydancer/fellow GuildWars player while I compared notes on past cons with other people in line. Everyone was incredibly friendly. I’ve never been to Chattacon, but the atmosphere felt like coming home.

The Con Suite was amazing. I’m used to sodas, cheap beer, and maybe some nachos or Chex mix. In addition to the advertised buffet of Little Debbie Snack Cakes, they had 4 types of beer on tap, the usual assortment of fountain sodas, and an ever changing buffet of hot food in crockpots. Their food was honestly better than the overpriced hotel buffet. I’m seriously impressed. Con volunteers worked their butts off so random drunks wearing Starfleet uniforms and Pirate costumes could curb their hangovers with a bowl of beef and vegetable stew, red beans and rice, chilli, rice-a-roni with a generous amount of chicken, turkey and dressing, mashed yams, PB&J, and several porktastic things I didn’t try. That’s just what was availble when I dropped in. I know there was more.

Instead of hotel room, the Con Suite took over half an old skating rink. There was seating for around 100. Normally, I don’t spend more than 20 minutes in the Con Suite all weekend, but the space, food, and beer made it a great place to meet people. When I wandered in for lunch, on Saturday I steered myself to the table of people laughing the loudest. Three hours later, we were trading phone numbers so we wouldn’t loose each other at the room parties. Awesome.

Across the skating rink, Chattacon had drum circles instead of filking. This is a fannish trend I heartily support.

The daytime programming was good. For instance, I learned a lot at the Podcasting panel. However, their evening programming really shined. If your hotel has an actual theater in it, you might as well use it. Friday night, three different bellydancing acts preceeded the Molly Maguires in concert. That was pretty neat, as I’ve enjoyed them on The Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. I believe there was another band, then the Syrens of the South held a Burlesque and Vaudville Revue.

The masquerade was a lot smaller than I expected - only 11 entries. In fact, there were fewer hall costumes than I expect at a con. If you wanted to dress up, that was fine, but the overwhelming majority stuck with jeans and t-shirts. I suspect this was mostly due to the cold January weather and long walks between buildings at the sprawling hotel.

In my frenzy of packing, I forgot my own pirate costume (as well as Batgirl and my Ottomon getup). Nevertheless, Erin and I took the opportunity to show off in a slightly different way. While everyone else was tarting it up in corsets for Saturday night, we put on our evening gowns. From that point on, the room parties were a delight. In fact, they were so good I never made it to the dance. I don’t think I made it to bed until 5 a.m. Sunday morning.

So that’s the tiny sliver of fun I saw. I’d rate Chattacon a nerdtastic good time.