A VTSFFC Party, Day One
It turns out that a 5-hour drive in a Mini Cooper is a lot more comfortable than you’d think. In the front seat, anyway.
Dwight introduced me to a bunch of very good music. I’m going to have to look up some more material by the Dresden Dolls and the Supreme Beings of Leisure. The company was excellent and the scenery compelling (and the leaves haven’t even turned yet!)
We arrived in Blacksburg, picked up shrewlet, and wandered into Invisifest around 4, into a panel that tltrent was hosting. I was knocked over by my welcome; my VTSFFC family is one excellent bunch of folk, who really know how to make a guy feel like he’s where he belongs. I caught up with rattrap, nius, rainbowsaber, mephox, anterus, southernsinger, rubinpdf, Cathy, Ben, Jamie, and many other people. Around six, we had to shut down the panel, but we dragged most of the crowd to Macado’s, where Pat and I geeked out over Whovian matters while we waited for our food.
There was a brief attempt at handing Technicon 25 over to me, which I discuss a little more over in my lifestyle filter (if you want to be added to that and haven’t been, leave a comment here to that effect). Suffice it to say that their idea would have made for a quite memorable TCon, and that I turned down the kind offer. Rapidly. Possibly in nanoseconds 🙂
We went back to the ‘Fest for Keith’s White Plectrum concert, which was a small, laughter-filled performance. Keith paid me high compliments by telling the story of how “Red Pill” was written. For those who asked, the throwaway line which inspired “When They Shut Down The Fusion Plant (We’ll Pack Our Bags And Glow)” is found in Music From the Heart of Space, a Starfleet: Batron Eleven fanfic which includes elements of Doctor Who, Robotech: Macross, and Megazone 23. Despite that mashup, I’m still rather proud of the tale, which will always live on in some small manner thanks to Jerry’s twisted creative mind.
We had to leave shortly afterwards. I wish I’d had the energy to stay all night and party, but I have a wedding to attend tomorrow!
Employment opportunity
If I know you, and you are interested in moving to Hampton Roads for a permanent position installing and troubleshooting Macs, Windows machines, and/or Linux boxen for NASA, NOW is the time to e-mail me your resume.
Demonstrable computer skills would be a good idea – either college education or practical experience. Polyplatformers who can handle two or all three OSes are especially encouraged.
“I need that in ‘captain-dummy’ talk.”
My Whedonite friends may be amused to know that last night, Mirandala received a valuable engineering schematic from the gnome K. Lee Smallfry.
It’s going to cost quite a few gold to build the “Zapthrottle Mote Extractor”, but I hear it’ll be worth the investment.
Have fun storming the castle
One of the blogs I read is full of people who, for the last week or so, have been making cheesy Inigo Montoya jokes.
After Cthulhu Montoya “The stars are right again; prepare to die!” came this jewel:
The Princess Bride of Frankenstein: “My name isz Viktor Montoya. You killed my fazzer. But now I bring him back to LIFE!“
Rrrrrrradar!
This is one of the niftiest uses of Second Life I have yet seen.
Using (time-delayed) FAA data, a company has constructed an (almost) real-time model of the airspace over LAX airport.
That’s just keen. I’d love to see a BattleTech game played in a similar manner.
There’s a voice in my head that drives my heel
I got Guitar Hero 80s last week. First-ever five-star ratings – on “Radar Love” and “Turning Japanese”, naturally. This has an excellent song list as far as I’m concerned!
The weather down here lately has been incredible. Clear blue skies, sharp edges on all the polygons – err, objects nearby, and temperatures in the high 60s to mid 70s. On the other hand, It’s really dark when I get out of bed now, and the sunset is happening sooner and sooner. I don’t like this at all, no sir.
Still trying to figure out if I’ve got the money to do all the traveling I’d like to do in October. The pirate wedding was a reminder of how much I miss old friends.
I wish I was doing more interesting stuff to talk about. If I can do the traveling, that’ll help a bit 🙂
Wacky Chinese game companies
The Chinese online role-playing game “King of the World” has banned male users for playing as female characters. Female users must verify their gender with webcams in order to continue playing their avatars.
The general response so far is:
1) This is stupid. Role-playing game, hello? Must I also be tall and skinny to play and elf?
2) This is even more stupid. What about androgynous-looking males – do they get a pass? What about people with the brains to get a female friend in front of the webcam for the verification? What about people with no webcam?
3) This is kinda creepy. Women are not barred from playing male characters – so in other words, this is solely to ensure that female avatars have female players. The only people to whom this could matter are people whose masturbatory fantasies or upcoming stalking plans depend on the object being the desired gender.
My WoW characters are split about 50-50, but it does happen that the most active ones are female. This is more coincidence than planning. OTOH, I don’t eroticize my World of Warcraft, either. No random messager’s getting cyb0rz3x off of me!
No point in being grownup if you can’t sometimes be childish
Monday night Starr was working on her laptop, so I wanted to put something on the TV that she didn’t have to watch. I ended up putting on the 20th anniversary DVD of “The Five Doctors“. Starr got sucked into it anyway, and at the end stated firmly that there was something about style and feel of the Who of the 80’s that she rather appreciated.
I don’t want to just sit and bash the new show – it’s not my position at all. I am quite the fan of the Ninth Doctor, and the recently-aired (here) episode “Blink” is one of the franchise’s finest. But I get what she’s saying, and I’ve been trying to pin down what it is that I miss. Is it a certain innocence about the older show? The rampant charisma of Tom Baker? The shinier, more futuristic TARDIS interior of the period? Or should I chalk the whole feeling up to nostalgia on my part? I’m not sure.
For those who abstain from BitTorrenting, I greatly look forward to opinions on the end-of-season three-parter. After that, I look foward to series four next year. At least I’ll be caught up this time!
There’s a cold that’s been going around. For the past three days, I’ve been ill. Tonight… I’m VERY ill.
