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Spring Steel City Con
13 April 2015 02:29 pmSteel City Con's pricing schedule is $20 a day and $40 for the weekend. So, if you are not going for all three days, it's not worth your while to get the weekend pass. Not sure if that's really going to encourage weekend pass holders. It certainly didn't encourage me. I just got the one-day pass on Saturday.
The concession stand at the Monroeville Convention Center also has some strange pricing. A fountain drink is $3. If you want to be able to refill it, it's an additional $3. Again, unless you are going to refill multiple times, it's not worth your while paying extra. I'm not sure it's worth $3 in the first place but that's how convention pricing works. The thing is, there is absolutely no difference between the regular $3 drink and the $6 refillable drink. Not a bigger cup. No identifier. Nothing at all. The only difference is whether the person who upsold you the refillable drink will see you at the soda dispenser multiple times.
I only paid for one but went back unseen several times to refill. Yea. I was a bad man.
The con overall was unremarkable, much like previous Steel City Cons. On incident of note, however. A pair of gentlemen wanted my picture and pictures of me with them. I'm used to that. One of them commented that when I spoke he was expecting a southern accent. It's the beard, I suppose.
I responded that I was too much a Union boy to affect a Southern accent. I admitted that, accent wise, the best I can muster is a West Virginia redneck and that I can almost imitate Martin Sheen imitating a Virginia accent as Robert E. Lee in "Gettysburg."
With that, another person came up to defend his state by saying that the rednecks were referring to striking miners who wore identifying read bandannas around their necks. He also pointed out that he had a bachelors degree as if my commenting that I could affect an accent was somehow insulting the intelligence of all West Virginians.
Now, I try to recognize prejudice and privilege in myself because, most of the time anyway, I don't want to be a dick. At least not inadvertently. With that, I reexamined what I had said, looking for signs that I had demeaned residents of West Virginia. Did I do that?
Sorry, pal, but your feigned repression doesn't fly. I was only talking about the accent. An accent, by the way, that was a significant part of my experience growing up just north of Pennsyltucky.
The concession stand at the Monroeville Convention Center also has some strange pricing. A fountain drink is $3. If you want to be able to refill it, it's an additional $3. Again, unless you are going to refill multiple times, it's not worth your while paying extra. I'm not sure it's worth $3 in the first place but that's how convention pricing works. The thing is, there is absolutely no difference between the regular $3 drink and the $6 refillable drink. Not a bigger cup. No identifier. Nothing at all. The only difference is whether the person who upsold you the refillable drink will see you at the soda dispenser multiple times.
I only paid for one but went back unseen several times to refill. Yea. I was a bad man.
The con overall was unremarkable, much like previous Steel City Cons. On incident of note, however. A pair of gentlemen wanted my picture and pictures of me with them. I'm used to that. One of them commented that when I spoke he was expecting a southern accent. It's the beard, I suppose.
I responded that I was too much a Union boy to affect a Southern accent. I admitted that, accent wise, the best I can muster is a West Virginia redneck and that I can almost imitate Martin Sheen imitating a Virginia accent as Robert E. Lee in "Gettysburg."
With that, another person came up to defend his state by saying that the rednecks were referring to striking miners who wore identifying read bandannas around their necks. He also pointed out that he had a bachelors degree as if my commenting that I could affect an accent was somehow insulting the intelligence of all West Virginians.
Now, I try to recognize prejudice and privilege in myself because, most of the time anyway, I don't want to be a dick. At least not inadvertently. With that, I reexamined what I had said, looking for signs that I had demeaned residents of West Virginia. Did I do that?
Sorry, pal, but your feigned repression doesn't fly. I was only talking about the accent. An accent, by the way, that was a significant part of my experience growing up just north of Pennsyltucky.
