Fernando's Adventure, Part 3

So, our intrepid duo has arrived at the hotel. While it is not nearly as nice as the Albuquerque Holiday Inn in that one could not eat one's soup right out of the ashtrays, if one wanna (it's okay, they're clean!), it was still quite the nice place. Fernando approached the Hispanic gent behind the counter and informed him that they had a room reservation here for the convention. Attaining this room had been a fluke of great luck, for when Fernando called to make the reservation arrangements some weeks prior, he was informed that this was the final room set aside for convention-goers. The normal ritual in which Fernando's identity was verified occurred and before long the pair came into temporary possession of two snazzy swipe keycards which had been synched to Room 158. This room lay on the absolute farthest end of the hotel, away from any other meaningful part of the hotel except for a room with an ice machine and overpriced vending snacks and drinks.

Then the unpacking! Fernando had whipped up a couple of bottles of his homemade ginger ale to take along on the trip, on the vanishingly rare chance that interpersonal contact would be established with fellow con-goers and something resembling what in normal person circles is called a “party” developed. Even if not, well, these drinks could be enjoyed in private, using some super-classy plastic wine cups that Ronaldo has dug up from somewhere. The ginger ale was placed upon the nice desk, backpacks and suitcases were brought in and tossed into the corner, and the first order of business was to check out the television selection. The hotel had HBO, and HBO has Game of Thrones. Huzzah!

Two problems, though: first, the remote control was absent and, second, the television switched on to The Weather Channel, which lay on channel 47 as compared to HBO's 4. “Pish to that,” says Fernando, who monkeys around on the television while Ronaldo scours every crevice of the room for the vanished remote. No remote, but it turns out that the nightstand's drawer, which contained Obligatory Gideons' Bible, kind of...imploded when the drawer was pulled out. I mean this literally. The drawer just spilled out onto the floor when it was opened. Meanwhile, Fernando places his finger on the up-channel button on the nice Samsung flatscreen and waits.

And waits and waits and waits. A five-second delay between channel switches gets to be very boring. Then, once Fernando hit the mid-70s, he became trapped in the Time Void. Every channel was an identical blank black screen, with no way of knowing where exactly he was and no sign that the channels were actually changing. Fernando might have gone back, but he didn't know what “back” entailed or how long he would be rooted on this spot, finger dumbly depressing the “>” button.

After about three minutes, Fernando returned to a place which actually could be called a place, only it was the corrupted version of the real world which was public access television. A different nightmare image assailed Fernando's senses every five seconds, creepypasta of the highest caliber. A grainy video of children on a tire swing. Bored-looking men and women sitting in a committee meeting. A yellow-text/blue-background static advertisement for a Little League fundraiser (Bring the whole family!). Church social, white on black. A low-budget children's puppet show. A fisherman gutting a perch. An infomercial for boots that can power an mp3 player using body heat. Another grainy video, this one of an elementary school play. Then more black, a seemingly endless spiraling abyss bereft of hope or warmth or love as Fernando left even the dubious comfort of that twisted reality behind him.

It took another two minutes for Fernando to come ashore on ABC, and then it turned out that the channel which claimed to be HBO was showing golf. If that does not sum up Fernando's life, he's not sure what else can.

This was not all which came to pass on that day. The first panel began at 1 PM, one which was of personal interest to Fernando and which dealt with the pricing on e-books, seeing as he has one of those sorts of things in the works (Oh, yeah, FYI to those interested: all that's really left is finishing and integrating the artwork. Gods willing, it'll be ready by the end of May). Arguments for and against the $.99 model were put forth, and the panelists argued, and much disdain was heaped upon “real” publishers who priced their e-books the same as their print books (or in some cases, in defiance of everything which is sensible, even higher). Fernando rates that panel an 8/10.

A lull in the action, seeing as all the upcoming panels were on silly things like LARPing or being a werewolf (the odds of it being for purposes of a White Wolf game or in real life is, honestly, 50/50 given the crowd), allowed for Fernando and Ronaldo to wander the hotel. Keep in mind that by this point Fernando had gone forty-some hours without sleep. Fernando and Ronaldo were wandering the second-story hallway when Fernando made a point of avoiding stepping on a carpet decoration, a beige whorl.

Ronaldo chuckled and asked, “What was that all about?”

Fernando said, “I didn't want to step on the mouse's tail.”

“W-what? That is not a mouse!”

“The...the carpet is...that's a mouse tail!”

“Dude, you seriously need to get some sleep.” But Fernando would not heed Ronaldo's words, and their adventures continued. They found a plate in a stairwell upon which rested a half-eaten seafood dinner. A couple of pieces of cooked shrimp lay among used napkins and silverware. This fact becomes important a short while later.

Come 3 PM the dealers' room finally opened, so the pair investigated it on the off chance that someone would have a near-mint, first-edition printing of Tomb of Horrors which had been signed by Gary Gygax up for sale for about ten dollars. Fernando and Ronaldo were among the first con-goers to enter and so they had their pick of the litters, not that there were many litters to be had. Chain-mail ties for $60, pocketwatches for $45, a ginormous bin of dice. One of the book dealers had just finished setting out his wares so these were perused, and the man struck up a conversation as Ronaldo idly browsed the man's copy of the 1E Fiend Folio. “You know, my favorite monsters from that book were the ones that looked like an undead but actually weren't.”

“I think you're talking about pseudoundead,” says Fernando. “Those were in MM2 I think.”

“Might've been. You guys see anything you like?” The gent was affable and he did have a copy of Deities and Demigods (sadly, not the printing which included the Cthulhu or Elric Mythoses [Mythosii? Mythosesses?]) which Fernando snagged for slightly less than most prices online, and the pair picked up one of the so-called “2.5E” Player's Option books, the one that had the Warhammer Fantasy-esque critical hit tables. The total came to $25, which was quite the reasonable steal. While Fernando was at another panel the following day, Ronaldo returned to that man and they shot the breeze for close to an hour. Fernando does not know many of the details, other than a woman advertising her services as a dominatrix propositioned Ronaldo in the middle of this conversation, and the two men just kind of stopped talking and looked at her in disbelief.

At this point a pair of panels which Fernando wished to attend came up, so he separated and went his own way. The first was on apocalyptic literature and the role eschatology plays in science-fiction and fantasy. Most attention was given to the earth-shattering kaboom sorts in preference over the more metaphorical “humanity is fucked” short stories and books like 1984, Brave New World, or “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” which Fernando prefers. An interesting highlight occurred when a gentleman in the audience took a cell phone call and was asked to leave by one of the panelists because his awareness of social norms proved lacking. Nerd-rage couldn't begin to describe it. Kudos to Panelist Guy for handling the situation with aplomb laced with incredibly dry sarcasm. Fernando has much to learn. That panel was a 9/10.

The following panel...ugh just ugh. Ostensibly it was to be on the role, treatment, and portrayal of women in nerdish fandom. What it ended up being was a giant clusterfuck.

Fernando considers himself something of a feminist. He's not perfect and all-too-often he says or does things that are inherently misogynistic because, well, he has never been and probably will never be a woman, so he has never experienced the world in the way that women do. He still tries.

The topic of “nerd girls” came up, and how most “mainstream” (read: non-nerd) men are intimidated or turned off by them or whatever, and how they are vile and despicable people for this decision. The whole affair had begun to sound a bit like a stereotypical groupthink session and Fernando needed to stop it. Fernando brought up the incident which made its rounds about a year before about the lady who went on a date with the world Magic: the Gathering champ and ended up dumping him precisely because he played Magic, and how pretty much the entirety of the nerd world piled onto this poor woman. Google it yourself if you want more specifics. Anyway, the point Fernando was trying to make was that it is unfair and elitist for nerds to decry non-nerds if nerdish things were a dealbreaker in a relationship, regardless of the sexes involved. Fernando thinks it's a silly criterion, but then again many MANY people think Fernando's unwillingness to date smokers is likewise insane. “Respect their decisions, even if you don't agree with them, is all,” said Fernando.

And oh boy. One enterprising gentleman in the audience missed the point entirely, and the world started imploding and the poor M:tG woman served as a scapegoat once again. The moderators did nothing about it, so Fernando stepped up and pointed out that this was precisely the sort of behavior that gives a misogynist taint to nerdish fandom. Then, because that's what he does best, Fernando stoked the fires and said something which he's still not sure if he regrets: “Even so-called 'favorable' portrayals of women in things which pander to geeks and nerds are biased and unfair. Look at how just about every female character in video games or artwork wears less and has a better body than a stripper. Look at things like The Big Bang Theory, where the females on that show are purposefully kept distinct and separate and ignorant of 'male' (hell yes Fernando used air-quotes here) areas.”

Quoth Pointless Guy: “It's a comedy show, it's not meant to be taken seriously.”

“I mean, but it is. It's a reflection of our society and culture. The humor is that these women don't get these things, as though they're somehow incapable of grasping physics or D&D or what have you, or have a harder time of it than your average male nerd.”

“Yeah, but it's not offensive. It's meant to be a joke.”

“And why is that?”

“I don't know. Because it's funny.”

“And why is that funny?”

“Because we evolved that way.”

Kali's tits, but did Fernando have a lot—A LOT—to unload in response to that. But sadly, this is when the moderators of the panel told Fernando that his argument was “unproductive” and “off-topic” and completely switched gears about how nerdery allows for “female empowerment,” whatever in fuck that was supposed to mean. This was never really elaborated on, and most of the rest of the panel was comprised of anecdotes (three women and a guy, and the guy had the foresight to stay quiet through pretty much everything) about how things were hunky-dory. FFS, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data.” One of them, by the way, a pre-law student (undergrad in physics) who said that she had become much more aware of systemic discrimination in society overall by dint of being a woman in law school, but that it was absent in her experiences with nerd culture.

3/10 for that panel because nobody had gained any insights by the end of it. Well, except the fact that the world believed Fernando was a dick who loved pointless argumentation (well, he is, but in this particular case he was trying to make a valid point).

At this juncture Alfonso joined the adventures, but that is a tale for another time.