things are looking up in the south.
Our hotel room, among its many lack of amenities, did not have a clock, so when I woke up this morning I checked my watch. 7:00. Cool. Darin got up too and we started reading: he read Robin Hobb's Assassin Apprentice, I read Titus Andronicus. (The first person who can tell me why I decided to read this play instead of, say, one of Shakespeare's good plays--and believe you me, Titus Andronicus is pretty gosh darn bad, with completely unmotivated behavior galore--will get a credit in these pages.)
An hour later, after I finished the play and Darin was wrapping up his book, he asked me what time it was now. I checked my watch. 7:25.
Uh oh.
Darin turned on the TV, because he had set the clock on the TV. It was 11:30, not 7:25--my watch battery was slowing down. So we had to rush to get dressed, pack our bags, check out, and get to the convention center to meet up with Nevin.
We put our bags in the Bag Room and headed off to watch Coming Attractions, 90 minutes of previews of upcoming movies, primarily science-fiction and fantasy. This one guy takes this Coming Attractions roadshow to all the conventions, like the San Diego Comic Con and Worldcon. I wonder if he came up with this idea and somehow has managed to make a career out of it.
We saw previews for Virus (awful), Apt Pupil (looks great), Rush Hour (with Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan--might be good), some Jim Henson production kids shows (one thumb up, one down), and some material from The Matrix (a film for next year starring Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne and made by the guys who brought us Bound). The Coming Attractions guy said the promo team for Urban Legend wanted to hand out pop rocks and soda as a promotional gimmick, but the legal eagles at Sony Pictures wouldn't let them...because of the chance of something happening. (Sigh.)
Nevin found us in the Main hall midway midway through the trailers. After it was over, we headed back to Nate's and Leon's for lunch--I think I've had it with Nate's and Leon's and need never return there, not that wild horses could drag me back to Baltimore anyhow. Darin had (what else?) the crab cake. After lunch we bid adieu to Nevin until such time as Nevin had a car and could get us the hell out of this city.
Darin said, "I want more crab."
So we went back to Phillips' and Darin had another crab cake sandwich. I fully expect to wake up one morning soon and find a giant crab cake sandwich in bed with me.
We wandered around the Harbor a little (only to discover that if we had planned things better, we could have gone to see Everest at the IMAX theatre). We ended up getting some ice cold drinks, after which Darin called Nevin again, discovered Nevin had a car, and was down at the convention center.
Nevin came, picked us up, and drove us to our hotel, where we got our stuff and immediately fled Baltimore. Really, it was the most precious moment so far during the vacation.
We drove to Laurel, Maryland, where we met up with Peter, a high school chum of Darin's and Nevin's who's a mathematician. (Darin evidently only knows smart people--although he made an exception in our case.) Peter is a guy who posts the funniest summaries of DS9, Voyager, and B5 to the small "Star Trek" list (really: an SFTV list) we're all on.
One of the sights Peter wanted us to see during our drive to his house was a sign on the freeway that read, "NSA Next Right--EMPLOYEES ONLY." The secret super agency with its high-tech technology strikes again. (I was NOT able to get a picture of this sign! Please, someone, anyone--GET ME THIS PICTURE.)
We met up with Peter and went out for some Chinese food. Then we piled in the car and headed down to Washington D.C. to find our hotel.
We found it--the Mayflower on Connecticut. Oh, but we were happy to find this as our hotel. The bellman was a little weirded out that 4 of us were checking into a room with one king-size bed, but we gave him a big tip and he went away.
Then Nevin insisted a game of Rage. I'd never played Rage before--or played a bidding game that involved "rounds" and "tricks" (despite 7 Thanksgivings with the Extended Adler Clan playing Hearts). I played and lost horribly. I think Peter won, but I was so far behind (way into the negative points) that I just didn't care.
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Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com