ConFigures

Belated Penguicon 2010 Report

Since I finally uploaded the photos from Catherine Devlin’s RenPy talk at Penguicon 2010, I thought I’d write up the whole-con highlights as I remember them (prompted by my tweets at the time):

• Technical talks
  • Linux Localhost Troubleshooting (by LinuxJournal’s Kyle Rankin), well laid out and informative
  • Catherine Devlin, pyOraGeek, gives talks at cons about the Python programming language. This year at Penguicon she gave a RenPy talk, about programming in RenPy, but hey, this was Penguicon, so she dressed up in Ren[aissance] garb to add to the fun. Ren’Py (http://www.renpy.org/) is “an interpreter for creating and playing visual novels, written in Python”. I loved PengWin, the little Penguicon game she constructed and demo’d for us.
• Our plan for a great vegetarian lunch on Saturday at the Inn Season Cafe (only 10 mi away in Royal Oak, and wonderful) was foiled by a dramatic phone pole fall outside just as we were about to order. Wires arc’d, popped, flames arose and power went out! But we went back Sunday and had a great meal.
• Swing Dance instruction — my friends and I attended wearing spiffy formal dress for this, but forgot to get anyone to take a picture. We looked great, though! We’d had swing dance instruction before, but figured we’d show up to represent East Coast swing dancing.
• Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream making: The joy of liquid nitrogen is it’s simple to make small batches, which encourages experimentation. Also, being on duty meant I got lots of exercise: I walked up and down hotel stairs when elevators stressed out. Panels 1st floor, LN2 on 12th. I had fun tweeting each flavor (with the #pcon tag so attendees could find it), and got new followers thereby. Flavors in roughly reverse chronological order (with some commentary pulled from Twitter) included
  • vanilla LN2 ice cream, coconut lime mtn dew slushies, vegan coconut lime LN2 ice cream, Chocolate Habanero (not TOO hot – really!), Cinnamon.
  • While we were at brunch, Molli made LN2 flavors of choc choc, caffeinated chai, and blueberry yogurt.
  • LN2 ice cream flavrs while I was sleeping: Chocolate Oreo, Whipped Cream Funnel Cake (!!! Now I want some!), Apple Slushie.
  • LN2 vanilla parfait, then while I was on pool break, they had Choc Orange, Irish Soy (non-alcoholic), 70% Cacao. Good night!
  • RT @katrus: Coconut lime habenero liquid nitrogen ice cream. OH MY GODDDDDD
  • Coconut cherry LN2 vegan (no dairy), apple cinnamon sorbet, Coconut Cherry, coconut lime habanero
  • We found “Waldo” to give away LN2 @ 6 so we could swing dance. Thanks, Steve! Flavors: Vanilla Mtn Dew slush, choc w choc chip (that was Steve in a Where’s Waldo outfit)
  • Joe Brockmeier’s price for LN2: dance, penguin, dance! (or sing Queen anthem)
  • Raspberry chocolate, vanilla w’ Nestle crunch, choc Oreo. Ready NOW: 4-choc choc (4 choc sourcea)… Very vanilla, chai spiced tea (dairy ice cream), mandarin orange soy, more chocolate, cider sherbet, creme de menthe ice cream, coffee, Thai Iced Tea, Vanilla Raspberry, simple chocolate, vanilla ice cream with Oreo crumbles
  • RT @indridcold Sometimes it’s the little things: the schedule books at this year’s #pcon are very nice, very usable.