Phenomenon 2009 Quick Summary
An unusually abbreviated con report:

Went to Canberra for Phenomenon 2009. Con seemed well-organised. Plenty of restaurants, shops and accommodation nearby. Canteen at the con was limited to junk food, but looked reasonably priced, and the large numbers of nearby food places and a supermarket made this a minor issue, at best.

Played 8 games. The stand-out was "Poppa", a game of sibling rivalry in the mob. Much fun. Several others were 80-90% of the way to being solid games, but possessed significant flaws of one kind or another, particularly in their endings (too many "find the magic bullet" scenarios), and in their characters (I played in one game where, after delivering some exposition at the start, my character possessed no useful function for the rest of the three hours. In "outcome oriented" games, as most of these were, that's a major flaw.

Despite this, I had a good time, and will be attending Pheno again next year (hopefully with a full team, instead of a partial one).