I dressed funny today. Like that’s new.
Happy Halloween / Samhain to everyone!
I wore my Enterprise jumpsuit for candy distirbution tonight. Nobody recognized it. Given that people even mis-recognized it at a DragonCon where Connor Trinneer was guesting, I have to wonder if it should be packed away and only brought out for hardcore fannish events.
On the other hand, I got involved in a very cool audio production of a part of the Headless Horseman legend. You totally need to check out the journal entry I’ve linked to, and listen to the file.
Here, have a holiday-themed WoW screenshot.
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Gnome on Broomstick Mirandala riding the “Magic Broom” available during the 2007 Hallow’s End celebration |
The Halloween workplace
Haven’t seen anyone dressed up for the holiday here at NASA. I guess it’s not too surprising, we are conducting serious business here frumph frumph frumph. But I have my bunny ears nearby in case of emergency.
The places I’ve worked have had varying policies about employee Halloween costumes. I think I wore a costume at B&D Comic Shop, but it was so long ago, I can’t clearly remember. The “Thrifty Nickel” encouraged dressing up, though many years, no one bothered but me; I usually wore a Starfleet uniform or my Jedi outfit. One of the last years I was there, one of our more conservative salespeople unaccountably chose “Tinkerbell” to make her sales calls in, which led to a panicky alteration of the costume when she discovered how much leg even the tame Disney version would show.
I can’t recall any costuming at Decipher, which was a bit of a surprise – you’d think a bunch of game geeks would garb up. My last Halloween at BCT was a smash, though. I dressed up in drag, and was convincing enough from behind that one of my bosses mistook me for another co-worker.
Anyone here dressing up for work?
A VTSFFC Party, Day Two
I slept quite late Sunday morning; I’d not had enough rest in the last week, and a five-hour drive is still draining even when it’s pleasant.
shrewlet fixed a big breakfast for us. I was starving, I honestly ate too much. I spent a few minutes checking e-mail and trying to log onto WoW – I’m trying to earn enough quest tickets to win a prize in-game – but I couldn’t get a good connection. It wasn’t long before I had to give up and get dressed for yubbie and colleenk‘s wedding.
Wile dressing, I amused myself by considering the far greater number of times I’ve worn a Starfleet uniform than a suit, but it’s not as if I’d forgotten how to put it on. Dwight and I left the Arthur digs early, for we had stops to make – I picked up a cute card for the happy couple – and we arrived pretty much on time.
Listing the LJ and fan folk who were there would be quite tedious, so I shan’t try. The wedding was wonderful. Colleen was gorgeous and Ron looked great. I saw people there I hadn’t laid eyes on in years!
That sad part was that I couldn’t stay for the reception – we had a 5-hour drive back (6, really) and Dwight had to be home in time for an early work day. So I didn’t get to pass on my congratulations in person. But the pictures prove I was there!
Home now… I had a great time, and wish I could have spent more time at that end of the state. The Roanoke and New River valleys need to be brought at least 2/3 closer to Hampton Roads (or vice versa).
Trick or Treat!
I was working on a journal post this morning, but my USB 2 expansion card freaked in the middle of that, ruining an iPod update and crashing the computer. So no post.
That’s kinda the tone for the whole month of October. Good things certainly happened, but it’s been pretty rough. My workload’s been amazing – I netted almost 120 hours in one 2-week period. As well, a carefully-arranged Halloween costume failed to materialize; then sickness killed a carefully-planned Halloween party trip.
On the other hand, I was too lazy to put together an interesting outfit for a later party, and wound up just attending in my Enterprise uniform… winning First Place (Men’s), to my surprise!
I’m really bummed about missing Rising Star this year. It sounds like they’re gonna have some fun! But we’ve dropped $700 on car repairs this month, and holiday gift-giving’s on the way, so we have to watch the budget like a hawk. (Here’s hoping I don’t have to replace that PCI card.)
Questionable Content – one of my favorite webcomics, and worth reading through from the beginning – is selling a t-shirt which proclaims, “She Blinded Me With Library Science!” which keeps bringing to mind a certain Yeager crew member.
I did in fact begin NaNoWriMo this week. I have no expectation of finishing in time – the demands on my time are manifest right now – but I’m starting it anyway. This is the closest my head has been in years to having a complete plot and interesting characters lined up, and I’m not giving up now. I may even get around to reposting my WARS stories to elfie, just for my own inspiration.
Taverncast – a WoW podcast – did a Halloween episode called “War of the Murlocs” this year. Despite the fact that I listened to it during the day at work, am closely familiar with the old Orson Welles broadcast, and caught many of the in-jokes, they still managed to creep me out a tiny bit. Maybe it’s my overactive imagination: judge for yourself at war-of-the-murlocs.mp3 if you like. I’ll be having fish for dinner tonight as my own strike back against the slimy rampagers.
Bringing new meaning to the term “press gang”
Friday at work, we had “Dress Like a Pirate Day” in an attempt to do “Talk Like a Pirate Day” one better.
The whole gallery of pictures is behind the link. It was a lot of fun… we certainly flummoxed the shop owner for a few moments.
My co-workers were amazed to learn that I can throw together a passable pirate outfit from my closets with 30-minutes notice. Thank you SF and fantasy fandom 🙂
(Oh, and I did finally find some Harlock desktops to throw onto the screens of the two stations I use.)
Arr.
Tomorrow is Dress Like A Pirate Day at work, in late celebration of the new Disney movie.
I was intending to let my computer be part of the theme, until I found out what an incredible scarcity of Captain Harlock wallpaper / desktops exists on the web.
Bleh.
And he looks *dang* good for 68, too
Halloween’s a holiday dedicated to things that aren’t what they seem, so it’s a bit appropriate that George Takei is choosing it to come publically out of the closet.
http://www.frontierspublishing.com/features/feature_second.html
Good for him! I can’t help thinking that some of the people involved with RoVaCon way back when would have been less excited about inviting him had they known… but that’s far in the past now.
I haven’t decided yet what to wear to Mandy & Krys’ party tomorrow night. I do wish VTSFFC Halloween wasn’t 5 hours away. I also wish Rain didn’t work Saturdays and Sundays, making a 2- or 3am Rocky Horror evening this weekend a bit impractical.
In good news, Rain welcomed me home last night to a spotless living room lit by candles, served me an excellent dinner, and snuggled down with me for a romantic evening of TiVo’d MythBusters. (Hey, mad science is too romantic.) It was a good way to wrap up the day.
Written while waiting for hot water
Busy life these days… I haven’t been taking time to slow down and write lately. I’m hoping to do more of that this weekend.
Went to Rising Star last weekend, and had lots of fun. I showed off the new Utilikilt on Saturday, and it went over quite well, though I have to think more carefully about the process of sitting down while I wear it. raininva and I scored over 20 PS2 games for around $100 or so at the auction – of course, lord knows when I’ll play any of them. With WoW on the computer, I have to poke myself to make time for my new copy of We (Heart) Katamari.
I missed meiran, ranchonmars, and madwriter… maybe I’ll see some of you at Marscon, and if not, there’s always T-Con.
We listened to the audiobook of “So You Want to Be A Wizard” on the way up and back. The narrator does good work with the voices, I’d recommend it. We bought it from iTunes, and while I understand this is not Apple’s idea, the process of getting the audiobook onto an MP3 CD for my car player was unpleasant. I hate the freaking music industry.
Three movies I want to see soon… Serenity, Mirrormask, and Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I haven’t been to see a movie in a while – no idea if I’ll make it to any of these.
I’ve been offered a ride to VTSFFC Halloween, and heard about another H’ween party in Richmond I’d like to go to, but either way, Rain can’t go because of her work schedule. This bites in great measure. OTOH, Trans-Siberian Orchestra is coming to Newport News in November, and that I might be able to see! There’s something about “Xmas Eve / Sarajevo” that makes me tingle when I hear it for the first time every season… it’s so angry and beautiful at the same time. Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend” is the same way.
Tried “Second Life” last night. Lousy framerate and poor responsiveness were my first impressions… and this is on a Mac that does WoW quite tolerably. We’ll see if I go back.
More on my mind, but I gotta go to work.
Dragon*Con 2005 report, pt. 4
Sunday, 9/4
Sunday I decided to finally drag out the only costume I’d packed, my Enterprise uniform. On a whim, I headed to the Dealers’ Room where a booth was selling animal ears, and found a pair of ‘cat ears’ which perfectly matched my head hair. The combination had unexpected results; all day, people decided I was dressed as John Candy from Spaceballs, and I was in too good a mood to correct anyone. I must have been asked to pose 7 or 8 times, so my vanity was well stoked. Costuming felt good. I will be bringing more outfits next time.
I suppose it’s possible that more people saw Spaceballs than ever saw an episode of Enterprise.
Headed to one of Connor Trineer’s panels in hopes of a picture with him, but the line outside the ballroom in question stretched practically into the next hotel. A shame, as he was always my favorite part of Enterprise. I wandered instead into a MSTing of The Empire Strikes Back, which to my great surprise, was hilarious. I’d always assumed you couldn’t MST an actually good film. Another panel with the actors who portray the Weasley twins in the Harry Potter flicks had been cancelled, so I wandered about the con for a while, making most of my actual purchases.
It was either today or the day before that I picked up my favorite bit of loot: a brand-new copy of Fourth Edition Shadowrun, personalized to me by Mike Mulvihill (inventor of Shadowrun) and Jordan Weisman (inventor of FASA and WizKids). My wife rocks, BTW.
The masquerade was broadcast on the hotel TV network, so we opted to watch from the comfort of our room. Some of the costumes were incredible – the three Warhammer 40K Space Marines, painted not realistically but as if painstakingly detailed by a giant with a telephone-pole sized paintbrush, were completely stunning – but believe it or not, Technicon and Rising Star’s masquerades run smoother and more professionally. Honestly! Perhaps at Dragon*Con’s level, it’s just too much to easily handle, but we local con staffs have nothing to be embarrassed about.
EDIT: Oh, and speaking of such, they had one filker, a relatively famous one on the con circuit, cover the kids’ costume judging; and another one cover the main judging. Keith, we have to get you to Dragon*Con. The first guy had fair material, but no singing voice to speak of. The second guy might be useful in extracting information from suspected terrorists. White Plectrum may not be as well known, but honestly – not as a fanboy at all – it’s a better act.
Masquerade over, and the hotels start truly rocking for the last evening of the con. The noise several floors up is quite distinct, and according to people’s photo journals, some of the best hall costumes of the weekend came out. Sadly, your hero is old and tired. I didn’t leave the room after we turned off the TV, and conked out before midnight.
