By Saturday, Daniel and I were tired. So we decided to ditch the con for most of the day. We slept in late - until after noon - and then got up and took the subway up to the "Queen St. West" area of town, which was described by the guidebook as the "artists quarter." I dunno how many artists were running around, but the area was filled with just about equal parts funky clothing stores (only one was actually called So Hip It Hurts, but you could tell that the others were thinking it) and pubs/cafes, all patronized by colorful looking people. We had a tasty and astonishingly inexpensive meal at one of the aforementioned cafes, talked over the novel Daniel's been working on, wandered around window-shopping. We finished up with coffee and then took the subway back to the hotel. It was good to get out of the convention whirlwind for a while.

When we got back, Daniel headed off to a couple of panels that he wanted to see. I stayed at the hotel and did a little reading and tapped out a few notes on my folding keyboard here.

Daniel and I skipped out on the Hugo's, instead making an expedition to a fine restaurant Daniel had picked out on the basis of internet reviews: North 44 )* (Er, that's "North forty-four degrees" - that asterisk should be a degree sign. I don't know why the parenthesis was there, but that's the way they spelled it. Link plays irritating music. Sorry.) Oh my. We started with seared yellowfin tuna and shrimp dumplings as appetizers. Daniel doesn't even like shrimp, and he loved those dumplings. Then I had halibut wrapped in banana leaf and baked with coconut and coriander. Yum. Daniel had duck. We finished off with a dessert tasting plate which had a near perfect chocolate cake and a tasty berry crostata. Highly recommended.

After dinner, we went to the Ace party. It was fun - I actually mustered up sufficient extroversion to actually chat with some people. Charlie Stross told me about what he's writing after the Accelerando stories. (He described it as "Jeeves and Wooster meet the Singularity." Can I pre-order the collected edition now?) Chatted with Jay Lake, and Ursula Pflug, and heard Patrick Neilsen Hayden enthuse about John Scalzi's forthcoming novel, and was introduced to John Scalzi by Mary Anne and Jed. I've clearly not perfected my shmooze technique, though, because I still sometimes find myself hovering on the edge of a group containing one or more persons I'd like to meet, trying to figure out if there is a polite way to inject myself into the conversation, and sometimes having the group break up and all the members slip away before I could nab them. (La la la, I wasn't really trying to talk to Robert Reed anyway, la la la.)

Later, I went back down to the bar, and stayed there chatting with various folks and drinking coca cola and some really excellent sparkling mead made by someone named Len (Lenn? Don't know how to spell it). Around 2 a.m., they started flicking the lights on and off, and we left.

I do wonder what the hotel bar staff makes of this mob of people who keep invading the bar every night, rearranging the furniture so they can sit in large parties, and staying until the wee hours. I just hope we drink enough to make up for any annoyances. (I don't think I'm pulling my weight there. Total drinks consumption so far in the bar: 1 single malt scotch, 1 coke.)

And that was Saturday.