Barbecue and dealers and sushi, oh my

I suppose I should consider it a sign of age or failure that one of the good things about this con is that I'm sleeping at least eight hours a night, but I don't see it that way.  I normally sleep so little that I'm quite happy whenever I get to catch up on my rest.

I should also consider it a failure that I'm working multiple hours each day when I had planned to be offline, but again, I don't see it that way.  I'm working way less than usual, and I'm choosing to do the work, so I'm mostly okay with it.

For lunch today, I headed to a local barbecue institution, Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q.  I enjoyed everything I tried, but honesty compels me to report that the brisket wasn't even in the vicinity of Texas brisket, and the pulled pork simply wasn't up to North Carolina standards.  The food was tasty, but it didn't meet those benchmarks.

The most fun dish I sampled was the Frito pie, which they served the traditional way:  in the Frito bag.

Click an image to see a larger version.

The chili was a little too heavy with tomatoes and a bit too sweet for my taste, but it was still quite good.

After lunch and some work, I wandered through the first of the multiple floors of dealers' rooms.  The sheer variety of merchandise on offer is stunning.  Books are definitely a minority, but you can find them, as well as comics, clothing, anime, posters, weapons--you name it, and if it's related to science fiction or fantasy, it's here.

Dinner was a delicious mix of sushi and an amazing piece of Kobe ribeye steak at Tomo.

Every single bite I tasted was at least very good, and many were better than that.  I recommend this one and wish I could make it back for their omakase menu; alas, I cannot.

The people watching tonight predictably was the best yet.  The Hyatt's lobby was hopping.

The Marriott's was, as always, even busier and more full of amazing costumes of more types than I could count.

The energy and enthusiasm of the fans here is so much greater than what I experience at more traditional SF cons that the cons I normally attend look almost dead by comparison.  I do not worry about the future of our genre, but I do fear for the end of the cons I grew up loving.