Volume 30, Number 4 - April 16, 1995 - Sunday Morning
There's No Emergency Like No Emergency
Yes, we did call that ambulance. What happened next we simply watched
in wonder.
At 2:40am Sunday, Minicon Life Support staff requested a non-emergency
transport to a hospital. They had a fan suffering an unusually severe
case of convention dysfunction: dehydration, too much junk food, and
sleep deprivation.
It soon became clear that there was Another in need of help. The
ambulance did manage to make it to the hotel door before spluttering
to a halt. The paramedics called their base for mechanical support and
headed inside to find their patient.
A tow truck arrived promptly (where are they when I call?), and hooked
up the ambulance. Some bystanding fans suggested that he might not
want to rush off, but he Had His Orders.
The crowd grew with the arrival of a couple of Bloomington police
officers, who had rushed to the scene because of the original
ambulance request. They attempted to dissuade the tow truck driver
from his trajectory, but he started yelling. Then the reinforcements
arrived -- another cruiser bearing a sergeant who chewed out the tow
truck driver.
Meanwhile, the dysfunctional fan had been examined by the paramedics
and refused the offered trip (which was just as well, since their
vehicle was also dysfunctional).
The paramedics returned to the side of their ailing chariot, climbed
into the cab of the tow truck that had so impatiently awaited them,
and disappeared into the depths of night.
A sense of anticlimax was experienced by all observers.
Fanarama
Green Room Gets Confused
We regret the one hour closure of the Green Room from 10 to 11pm
Saturday night. We had a staffing difficulty, but reopened ASAP. We
apologize for any inconvenience. Rumors that the Green Room was trying
to beat the Bridge's 45-minute closed-time record are unfounded.
Is It Live or Is It Internet?
"I just wanted to be a person, doing stuff in real life, and now
I'm a picture on the web." -- Sharon Kahn, speaking of the Minicon
30 World Wide Web home page on the Internet. Email reports have come
in from such far-flung places as Seattle and Chicago that some folks
are enjoying our convention remotely.
Spontaneous Combustion
Saturday night witnessed several impromptu mass events. A rave
appeared in an unclaimed programming room; an extended game of Twister
in the Grand Ballroom foyer entertained participants and bystanders,
and drumming poolside had been going for 31.5 hours as of this
writi...No! This just received: "The drums have stopped. The Zulus are
about to attack."
Editor's Choice Awards: Minicon 30
by Sharon Kahn
- Most Surrealistic Room:
- Elvis Room in the Dark Star.
It wasn't just the decorations, it
was the fact that the cheerfully demented coffee servers always
knew what I wanted, even when I didn't. A couple of bars of
"Love Me Tender" got me the Las Vegas Special and a handful of
whipped cream.
- Guerrilla Signage:
-
- Best: The Penguins
- Runner-up: The Operation
- Honorable Mention: Brown Frog
Best Guerrilla Copy-Editing:
The corrections on Future Minicon flyers
Best TechnoDecoration:
The 50 miles of Electric Snakeage at the U.S.S. Behr'Ak
Most interesting venial sin:
Deceit
The most utterly-useless-yet-indispensable item in the
Huckster Room:
Beanbag ferret
Best non-Minicon programming event:
The Tango Lesson
Best Drum Jam:
The Minicon Village Square
Planning Your Sunday Afternoon
Don't forget to check pages 24-25 of your pocket guide for more
Minicon 30 programming. And make someone happy -- volunteer!
FanGoH Hospitality
Bhigg House (Rooms 1604-1606) is having an At Home on Sunday from 1 to
4 P.M. An "At Home" is like an Open House, but subtly different.
Death Scenes Yet to Come (Minicon Closing Ceremonies)
Will the Executive Vice President (whose duties consist solely of the
annual execution) wipe out both Ed Eastman (who abdicated the
presidency part way through his term), and himself, Steven
Brust, MnStf acting president? And who will step into the vacuum thus
created?
Sunday Funnies
by Jeff Schalles
Minicon 30 Masquerade Winners
Workmanship Awards
Performance Awards
Grapevine
Back rubs for Baltimore '98 took a new and exciting twist Saturday
night. The BeltSander massage unit was well used, and all had a
stimulating experience. One well-seasoned fan exclaimed she "hadn't
felt anything like it since she didn't know when." The BeltSander,
holder of "Best Party Sat. Night World Con '92/Orlando," has lent its
support for the 1998 World Con bid of Baltimore, MD, USA. Back
rubs for Baltimore t-shirts sold like hotcakes.
At the CD Release Party, Boiled in Lead seemed to be supplemented by a
number of musicians from Cats Laughing.
This is Steven Brust.
This is Steven Brust on drums.
Any questions?
Overheard: "Although I have lost handcuff keys at inopportune
times..." Peter Hentges on his 28th birthday party in the Mpls in
'73: "It's not the years, it's the mileage."
By Steve (helped by a magnetic poetry kit):
why go madly drooling
always near sleep
for the power was a bitter vision of blue.
Evidence that Trek fans have other interests: after showing the
premiere of the new DS9 episode, Through the Looking Glass,
the USS Nokomis room party showed hours of Animaniacs.
The petition everyone should seek out and sign whether it was
originally intended as a hoax or not: The Petition to Have Federally
Mandated Spiral Dances Taught in All Schools. And the people who put
them up should mail them in.
Letters to the Editor
Elevator SNAFU
The express elevator should be stopping going down every 3 to 4 trips
to pick up the stranded people in the 4th-7th levels. That's
where it takes 25 to 45 minutes to get an elevator to stop coming or
going. A shameful number of these people are mobility-limited or
conveyors of children in strollers or carriers. The express should
stop on one by preference and then feed them onto the escalator to go
up for those needing to go to second floor.
The middle and right elevator should have the on-car operator try to
have people off-load on the first floor. If necessary, off-load only
on second and then go to first for pickup.
This reporter earned his volunteer t-shirt by running elevators at
Winnipeg's World Con '94. That part of their volunteer program was
well run.
-- C. W. TAYLOR, Esq. Badge 3399
Badge Names Redux
A heart-felt "Second!" to Patrick's suggestion that badges with the
person's first name only are Not A Good Idea (to say the least). Such
usage implies, "I do not wish any associations or relationships formed
during this weekend to continue through the rest of the year," and
that is, as Patrick indicates, not a concept that has ever had a place
in fandom. Hey, if I write a ConReport, what good is it to credit a
witty remark or brilliant observation to "David" or "Karen"...much
less "Sneaky Weasel"? We're surrounded by essentially anonymous people
in our mundane lives; in fandom we (often) want to know people as
People, and for that, first names & badge names, alone, are not
adequate.
-- Don Fitch
A Note of Sincere Gratitude
To MnStf and other fans of Minnesota:
Thanks for all the love and support you've given me, especially in
this past year. Lee's death this winter taught me how very precious
friends are. In his last days so many people came through that Lee had
almost non-stop visitors, and so many that we often had to raid the
rest of the hospital ward to get enough chairs for everyone. If the
setting hadn't been so unusual, it would have almost qualified as
some sort of a MnStf party.
In the past four months I've rarely had the opportunity to feel
lonely, knowing that if I ever needed someone to talk to, day or
night, there was always someone I could call on. I don't know how I
could have made it without you. Thank you all.
-- Giovanna Fregni
Minicon30 attendance is 3450, breaking all previous Minicon records.
The Bozo Bus Tribune
Editor-in-Chief: Sharon Kahn
This issue's Editor: Nancy Wirsig McClure
Publisher: Jeff Schalles
Published at Minicon 30
(c) 1995 by the Minnesota Science Fiction Society.
Any opinions expressed herein are those
of the contributors, not necessarily anyone else.
Last modified: Sun Apr 16 23:35:30 1995
