Last weekend I, and some of my very close friends, went down to Atlanta to attend DragonCon. My primary reason for going, beyond the fun of that crazy an environment, was to see Abney Park (one of my favorite bands) play live.

On Friday night we went to the Abney Park concert, which was a blast.

My friend, Jason, had never heard them before but immediately became a fan… or developed a crush, I’m not sure which. To be honest, how could one not develop a crush on someone named Finn.

Anyhow, the band members were extremely good sports, being as tired as they were; and I got to see them again the next morning playing acoustically. If Robert ever reads this, I’m totally a proponent of buying an acoustic album should you choose to record one.

Beyond the Abney Park performances there were plenty of random activities and “panels” to attend. I visited the art displays and such; got into a “way deep” conversation with an oil painter after calling him out on one of his pieces (it was a photoshopped print on canvas). He insisted that he “could have done it by hand”; to which my brain said, “but you didn’t and you should have been honest about it instead of charging 1500 dollars for the piece.” However, to give him credit, his real paintings were reasonably well shaded (he talked to Jean and I for almost an hour about shading techniques). There were also several goofy outfits, some good ones, some bad ones, a goth band, and much more.

I was a bit disappointed by the non-reality of the “Robot Making” panel, which turned out to be a “How to paint your own radio controlled R2D2” panel instead. The models looked cool, but they didn’t do anything, and I don’t think that counts as a robot.

Through it all, though, I got to hang out with friends and have great time, one I hope to duplicate same time next year.