The final panels are in progress now and I have retreated upstairs to get some work done. Overall the con has gone rather better than I expected. Much of fandom still doesn’t understand marketing, or indeed the need for it, so a SMOFcon supposedly focused on that topic had lots of potential for disaster. There have been some bad panels. I was really looking forward to the one on how to tell whether your marketing was successful or not, but when three of the four panelists had begun by saying that they intended to talk about how to tell whether the convention had been successful it was clear that the panel was totally hijacked and I walked out. Other sessions, however, were a lot better. And there were a lot of conrunners there who were clearly not the traditional deeply conservative fannish Worldcon types. There is hope for SF conventions yet, I think.

Besides, the food was good. You may recall some time back I did some scouting around Logan and said I was eager to try Dine Boston. Well Kevin and I went last night, along with Jim and Sandra. The food was fabulous. We are probably going back tonight.

Two things to report from yesterday (aside from the Fannish Inquisition stuff that I posted last night).

Firstly this year’s SMOFcon is the first to have a reading by a professional writer. Joe and Gay Haldeman were here to give one of their “how to socialize neo-pros” talks. For those of you who don’t know, Joe and Gay were fans long before Joe made it big as a writer, so they have a much better understanding of fannish attitudes that many young writers today whose first convention often only happens after they have been published. Anyway, in order to get things going, Joe did a dramatic reading of the panel description from the program book, and very amusing it was too.

Also, a lot more cheese came out last night. There was quite a variety. Some of it was stuff in plastic wrappers that you could find in just about any chain grocery store across the US, but Kevin and I were by no means the only ones to have brought good stuff. Humboldt Fog is the clear winner for the type of cheese brought by most people (3, compared to no more than 1 for anything else). From our selection I thought that the Inverness and Pierce Pt stood up well, but they are both quite subtle flavors and therefore not so memorable amidst a large range of choices. Kevin and I were agreed that the Point Reyes Original Blue (from California) was the clear winner of the night. Interestingly it came in two varieties: ordinary and “raw”). This suggests to me that the “raw” was made from unpasteurized milk. The web site is unhelpful, saying that the ordinary cheese is made from “raw milk” and not mentioning any varieties. I guess I need to find whoever brought the cheese and ask.

So far so good. There was a very interesting panel on Hugo categories that I need to write more about over on SFAW when I’m more awake. We went to Legal Seafoods for dinner, which is always a good thing. And the evening reception/mixer went well. Kevin amazed everyone with how well he can sing. More about this on his LiveJournal. While he was doing that, I did some cheese tasting. Vince Docherty has something of an unfair advantage, coming from The Netherlands, a country whose cheese-making ability is on a par with that of Somerset, but even so his aged Gouda with cloves was pretty spectacular. It is certainly the best so far, though the Humboldt Fog (I think brought by Ian Stockdale – it wasn’t ours) also went down very well.

One of the things they are doing in the Con Suite this SMOFcon is cheese tasting. Everyone who attends has been encouraged to bring samples of their local cheeses. This was certainly a challenge that Kevin and I could not resist, so yesterday I took myself off to San Francisco and Cowgirl Creamery. This is what I bought:

• St. George
• Mt Tam
• Red Hawk
• Mezzo Secco
• Pierce Pt
• Inverness
• Humboldt Fog
• Carmody
• Cumin Gouda

All of these are artisan cheeses made in California. Kevin and I are familiar with the St. George, Cumin Gouda and, of course, Humboldt Fog, all of which we can recommend. On the basis of some samples are the store yesterday I’m sure that the Pierce Pt and Inverness will be popular. But they are all good. Hopefully some of the people who are here will blog about the cheeses. I’ll certainly mention any that other people brought that I tried and liked.

On my way through Logan yesterday I took the opportunity to check out dining options in terminals C and E. Both provide interesting options for SMOFcon attendees who don’t want to have to leave the airport.

Dine Boston in Terminal E looks very interesting. You can see the menu here. I’m rather tempted by the Bombolotti alla Vodka. (here’s hoping they use good Finnish vodka.)

The archetypal Boston dining experience, however, is Legal Sea Foods. You can see the menu for their Terminal C restaurant here. And if you really can’t bear to leave the con for long, they do take-outs.