of BIOS Upgrades, RAID Array crashes and Wondercon

Friday at work I had signed up online to go to WonderCon when I saw that (a) Kevin Smith was speaking and (b) _oy_ and scendan and probably seamoose and iamradar would be there too. I printed my tickets at work (one for Sat one for Sun).

I'm entering this on my "old" PC, the one I thought I has retired last week. I was going to do it on my laptop, but the laptop has decided to intermittently ignore the h, i and 9 keys on the keyboard. Makes sense if you look at there those keys are located - probably share the same ribbon cable line. It has been Hell Week for my computers.
( Computer Hell: Enter Here )

Saturday morning I started the Windows XP install again, after building a 4-drive RAID 5 array. Formatting this array in XP was going to take several hours (we're talking 1600 GB of disk space here), so once I had theat going I drove to CalTrain and went to SF. I got to the convention center at 10:30, but the line to get in to register was two blocks long, and hardly moving. And these idiots did not have a separate line for pre-registration. I needed cash, anyway, so I headed for what on any other day would be the nearest B of A ATM - Montgomery Street. It's about a mile from the convention center.
( Walking for Dollars )

Back to the con at about 11:30, Now the line was only one block long, and moving quickly. I'm inside at noon, and the nice man at the door is asking who had registered online. I show my printed ticket, and he waves me past the millions of walk-ins, to a line which only has three other people in it. They really could have done this better!!!! It took maybe 3 minutes to get my badge. The upshot of the delay is I missed the costuming panel, where I was hoping to connect with my LJ friends.

Since my two PCs are now mating over the network, I won't risk copying the WonderCon photos from the camera right now. Besides, I'm several photos behind already for previous posts. But I'll have them here Real Soon Now.

A quick glimpse of what I saw at the con:

• Fox Films' preview of their remake of The Omen.
  • It opens June 6. Do the math - 6/6/6/. Total rip-off of the original. If you liked the original, you'll love this. Otherwise stay away.
• Mission Impossible III preview
  • Still not as good as the TV series, but I got a free hat
• Kevin Smith
  • hilarious and entertaining as always. Maybe even moreso. Loved his "Sell-Out" warm-up jacket with "Total Whore" embroidered as his name tag.
• Pixar 20th anniversary promo
  • too short. Preview if their upcoming movie "Cars"
  • it's going to be their first box office loser. You read it here first. I walked out on this.
• Sacto & SF Browncoats Meetup
  • Almost nobody there. Boring Joss Whedon interview playing
• Memory Lane with Noel Neill
  • The original TV Lois Lane - I always love seeing her, she is a warm, charming, witty woman who is still attractive at age 85
• Masquerade
  • Much smaller than it should have been. Only 27 entries. There were more people in good costumes in the audience than there were onstage!
  • I hated the MC's screaching voice
  • The half-time entertainment was horrible - amateur, boring
  • All my LJ friends won!
  • _oy_ and scendan were in the group which won best performance
  • seamoose and imaradar and probably a couple of other LJers I know of were in a group which won something, I forgot what they called it.

I wanted to stay for the Star Wars fan films, but that would have meant not getting home till 1:30 am, so I ducked out right after thepost-masquerade photo shoot.

It's noon, I've done what I needed to do at home, it's going to take another 3 hours for the files to transfer to the new PC, so I think I'll head for Wondercon. Maybe I'll catch the Trailer Park.