Steve and a group of his friends have gone to a Science Fiction convention called CONvergence for the last 4 years. Steve has always had great stories about the fun they have but I’ve never gone. Steve’s wife, Linzy, was going to go this weekend but just had back surgery so couldn’t go. Since they had already bought her ticket and couldn’t use it Steve invited me along. The con went all weekend but I just went Saturday.

For those of you not in the know (like me) there’s tons of stuff going on at conventions like this. There are panels where people talk about stuff related to SciFi or Fantasy or Comics or whatever. Movies, both live action and anime, were being shown all weekend. They had a huge costume contest which we didn’t go to because it is always so crowded. But as I understand it the costumes and groups of costumes are quite impressive. After the costume contest, which is called the Masquerade, they had a dance, aptly title the Masquerade Ball.

Every year groups sponsor themed party rooms which people pretty much walk in and out of all night. The top floor of the hotel (the Bloomington Sheraton on 100 and 494) had a bunch of rooms reserved for gaming of different sorts. And tons of people dress up in costumes and are just walking around like everyone else.

I got off of 100 and gave Steve a call letting him know that I’d soon be there. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes later I was finally walking into the lobby just as Steve dialed my number. The Sheraton has a big parking lot and every single spot was taken. I had to park across the street in a restaurant’s big, empty parking lot.

Anyway, soon after I got there we walked through the “Dealer Room” where people were selling toys and books and souvenirs. Lots of neat stuff, but not a lot of money in the pocket. Steve showed me around the other areas as a brief overview. The only place we really stopped was when a dude was explaining some stuff about the International Space Station to Steve. We then just sat around in the pool area people watching. There were some people sword fighting in a ring with padded swords, that was entertaining. I also swear there was a wedding going on, but I don’t know for sure. There was also a lady who fit very well into her Elasti-Girl (from The Incredibles) costume along with another thin girl who fit her pink spandex suit well as well, we don’t know what super hero she was, and we were too shy to ask. Steve and I talked to Dan and Kelli for a while and then went up to Gerard’s room and watched a few people play Crimson Skies on the X-Box. Luckily Kelli wanted to go and buy some alcohol, so Steve volunteered to go along as navigator (she’s from Iowa) and I tagged along just because.

Not long after we got back we all went to dinner, which was across the parking lot at TGI Fridays. I’m convinced that our server, Pookie, liked me. When she brought out my chicken tenders (what else would I have) I only had 4 instead of the full amount of 5. I asked her about that and she replied that she would bring out and extra one, no an extra two. Okay, maybe she was just trying to make a hungry customer happy, but a man can dream, can’t he?

After dinner we went back to the hotel and watched Team America. It was so politically incorrect that it was hilarious. I probably didn’t laugh as much as a couple other people in the room, but I let out a few good guffaws. From what I understand we were lucky that we were watching the theatrical version and not the unrated director’s cut. If you like South Park you’d likely enjoy this movie.

After the movie it was just about time to head to the party. We all filled up our giant mugs (I had a 32oz mug but there were a couple 64oz mugs in the group) with drinks. When Brenden is drinking mixed drinks, what is he going to have? Southern Comfort of course. But I decided to change it up a bit and try it with Pepsi instead of with Coke. I thought that since I like Pepsi better than Coke I would like that mix better. But for some reason it doesn’t taste nearly as good with Pepsi as with Coke–that will teach me to try new things! After filling up and Gerard dressing up as Duck Dodgers we headed back down to the con.

For whatever reason none of the panels or movies or whatever seemed to excite us and we basically spent our time walking around and drinking. We started at about 8 or 9pm and finally headed back up to the rooms at about 2:30am. Mainly we looked at people in their costumes. I took a bunch of pictures but most of them sucked. My camera is getting old and doesn’t take indoor pictures very well any more, even with a flash. Some of the costumes were pretty cool, and some were pretty scary. And many fairly scantily clad females.

We wandered into the party rooms to try out the crazy alcoholic drinks they were serving. Some, like Green Death, were pretty tasty, like Kool-Aid; others, like the Green Monster, tasted more strongly of the alcoholic component. Then there was one, which didn’t have a name. It was described as “baaaaaaad” compared to it’s companion which was just “good”. We of course had to try the “baaaaaad” and it turned out to just be “bad”. I could have drunk lots and lots of the test tube shots of Vodka-Lemonade and Sex on the Beach that this one room had, but I resisted. I didn’t give into peer pressure to drink too much or too quickly (which is the bigger concern) and I felt fine all night until I started getting tired. I just sipped my drink and followed people around taking in the sights. All in all it was a fun night. Way different than I would have thought, but definitely fun.

I really don’t have any good pictures. If you want to see a couple you’ll have to look at Steve’s pictures.