November 9, 2012: And Now: SJ At Windycon!

I'm in the middle of a very conventiony 10 days. Convolution was a blast (full report later). Along with Monica, I got in some San Francisco sightseeing, and I'm now off to Windycon in Chicago. Technically, just "Chicagoland," I suppose; it's at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, IL. At any rate, I'm the Gaming GoH, and I'm going to be there and gaming. Come see me!

Some fun facts about Windycon:

• Windycon has been around for a while: this is its 39th year!

• The theme this year is ZOMBIES. So of course I'm bringing Zombie Dice. There, that was my plug.

• The author GoH is Seanan McGuire, who, under the nom de plume of Mira Grant, wrote the Hugo-nominated novel Feed and its sequels. All of which are in my luggage so I can get them signed. If you enjoy reading about the inevitable zombie apocalypse, you want to get these books. Just be warned: some bad things happen, even by the standards of zombie apocalypses.

• Also attending will be Tom Smith, author of a whole lot of my favorite filk, some of which he will be performing. He also composed the Ogre theme, which originally appeared with several of our Kickstarter videos, and is now part of the free Ogre War Room app. There, that was my other plug.

• There's going to be a playtest-and-critique event for unpublished games. See unpub.net for more information (but don't ask me anything, because I knew nothing about it until I did a Twitter search for #windycon a few minutes ago). But it sounds like a Good Thing, and I'll be checking it out, and if you make it to the con (please do!), you should check it out too. Look for "UnPub" or "ProtoZone."

• Technically, this is not a fact, but a NOfun fact: Pete Abrams, creator of Sluggy Freelance, was scheduled to be at Windycon, but his home is in an area that was hit hard by Sandy, and he has proved that he has his priorities straight by staying home to look after his family. So: See you another time, guy.

-- Steve Jackson