Archive for August, 2015

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My first Dragon Con was back in back in 2006. That makes me, according to some, a veteran attendee, but I still think you may as well keep calling yourself a newbie until well past your 15th Dragon Con.

The reasoning for that is simple- A veteran in many other endeavors is sometimes defined as someone who has been there and back enough times to have done and seen it (almost) all. Given the size of the convention, as well as the growth rate of the convention over the last six years, it’s impossible to really come close to doing that in six, seven, or even ten Dragon Cons.

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DCBannerDragon Con is a major event that takes over downtown Atlanta, Georgia every Labor Day Weekend. Whether you’re an experienced Dragon Con attendee or a total newbie to Dragon Con, some of these podcasts are great for finding out what’s going on, what everyone expects to happen at this year’s festivities, and getting survival tips for the long con weekend. Some I’ve linked to here before, some I’ve never linked to before.

Most of these are available on iTunes, all can be streamed directly from the links provided below. Dive in, scan over what’s listed below, find something that looks interesting, and check out what’s happening this year at Dragon Con.

Plus, hey, they’re just damned fun podcasts. Some of them are that way all year round as well, so you might want to check ’em out on iTunes or at whatever streaming platform carries them for some of their material not related to the big event. The White Rocket Podcast, as one example, just did a series of podcasts looking at all the films of 007 and a two-parter on some classic sword and sorcery in the theater that were just total blasts.

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AppDragon Con‘s 2014 app is now the 2015 app. The app now builds it’s new version on the old, so if you haven’t gotten rid of last year’s app or changed phones, make sure to go in and update the app. I had to do the initial major update manually in my Android’s apps settigs, but after that it started doing the automatic updates just like it did before.

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RAH Bela Blood DriveOkay, so you want to see the sights, hear the sounds, and do whatever is doable at Dragon Con. You’ve looked over the schedule and you’ve checked off just the things you want to see or do that you absolutely can’t live without while spending four days in Atlanta, Georgia at everyone’s favorite fan convention. You’ve looked at the schedule you’ve blocked out, double checked it and triple checked it, held it up to the light and looked at it sideways, and squinted in a kind of funny manner at it. It’s about then that you realize that you’ve blocked out a schedule of about 138 hours of programming for Saturday alone, and the other three days you’ve blocked out aren’t looking any closer to just 16-20 hours of stuff to see and do than Saturday’s schedule.

Congratulations, you’ve discovered the one thing about Dragon Con that will drive you buggy if you let it. There’s just no way that you can see and do anything close to everything you want to see and do at Dragon Con. It’s just not possible. But that is a good thing.

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[Upfront disclaimer – I have been volunteering at Dragon Con since 2014]

I’m assuming that most of the people reading this have at least a couple of Dragon Cons under their belts, but hopefully, a few of you out there who are going for the first time, whether that first time is in 2015 or beyond, find this article and find it useful. We’re going to look at a few of the most basic things that most people I know say they wish they knew when they made their first trek to Dragon Con. Hopefully, it might be useful advice for making your first Dragon Con a little bit easier and a little bit more enjoyable. Additionally, I’ll be providing a few resource links at the bottom of the article that will help you prepare and maybe even get a better handle on what you’re getting into. Also, hopefully, other people will chip in with good advice in the comments below.

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Killer

Imagine if you will the following scene.

It’s nighttime along the coast, and a tiny house sits lonely and isolated on the cliff overlooking the sea. The thick fog rolls in slowly, engulfing the house in a cloud made pale blue by the moon’s light. Walking slowly up the steps to the house is a ghastly shell of a man, grey, tattered, and quite clearly dead. He was a pirate in life, and now he seeks revenge on the living for a crime old and long forgotten by all but him and the targets of his supernatural vengeance.

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