Summary Owlcon 2006

Nick Drinkwater

Hi Folks,

I saw the excellent AARs from Tom and David and the results update from Walter and Ken and this prompted me into a brief summary of my impressions of the w/e. This was my first real con and I came away 1- 2 after two last turn cc defeats to Doyle and Tom followed by a right royal dicing of Clint Howell in my last scenario - it was an excellent time and thanks to everyone for making it a great occasion despite the slightly lower numbers.

I'd really like to thank Walter especially for organising the whole event and also for offering (with Chris Buehler) to play ASLSK on the saturday - maybe there will be two new converts through this. As Tom remarked, adjudications cannot be easy and this was a tough one for Walter, but it sounds like common-sense prevailed. Many thanks Walter for doing all the grunt work on the whole weekend - he too also became ground beef to Zeb's mincer so I'm glad he was able to get a game or two in. Like Tom, I wasn't put off by the venue, though a table or two extra for the saturday for next year would be good. Being part of the main hall was reassuring to be reminded regularly that there are still people out there lower on the "sad, desperate, lonely and fanatic" scale than us ASLers! We may look slightly odd towing around our beautifully packed toolboxes and wheeled holdalls, but compared to your average warhammer-head, we are the straight and normal ones. Honestly.

The best thing for me was to meet more of the Houston ASL crowd which was cool, to get to play against all my gracious opponents but particularly to get to play against Tom who is excellent (looking forward to more of that), to share a bench with Mike Reed (yes that Mike Reed) in the House of Pies (cool C.B. Hash!) and catch up on the progress of ASL Korea (and it does sound awesome, and no we're not telling - you just had to be there!) and to finally meet Mr 4-0 himself, Zeb Doyle who crushed the best that Houston had to offer and take the plaudits back to Austin with him. Obviously my cunning plan of losing the first two games worked, and so I'm still 0-0 against Zeb! YESS! A success at last. Would definitely like to have my ass handed to me by the master in the future but also prepare to learn at the feet of the great and mighty...

So on to the AARs...well I'll post them in separate emails so they can be added to the AAR archive.

Already warming the dice up for next February!

Cheers,

Nick Drinkwater