Weekend on Mars
Started off the weekend with a fever on Friday, caused probably by having to run around in the cold cold rain on Thursday. But I medicated the heck out of myself, and was well enough to travel with Starr to Williamsburg on Friday for MarsCon.
Most conventions are, for me, opportunities to socialize with friends I don’t often get to see. southernsinger, kittykatya, impink, geckoman, and stori_lundi were all there, as well as folks I get to see a little more often such as ptownhiker, fixitup, and torn757. Got to spend some quality time with Jesse and Dwight too!
Convention loot: a Devil’s Panties graphic novel (Jennie Breeden remembered me from Dragon*Con), character sketches from an artist in the dealer’s room, a Carcassonne expansion and an book of Paranoia XP modules, two White Plectrum CDs and a Coyote Run CD, some erotica from Helen Madden‘s table, and a couple of buttons. After spending the weekend avoiding the purchase of T-shirts, Starr and I were handed free ones by a local game store – now I have to get rid of more old ones to make space!
Next year, the con is supposed to move to a bigger location, and it really needs the space. MarsCon completely overflowed its host hotel, which is a shame, as I think it’s a nice place to hold the weekend. I got to hear some other VA con politics I didn’t want to hear about, but that’s the down side of having friends who are so heavily involved in things.
Speaking of being involved, this was the first time I can recall having my con badge paid for as a “Guest” presenter. I have to say I found it very cool, though somehow I had always imagined it would be for my Great American Science Fiction Novel. Still, the panels (which I talk a bit more about in the Lifestyle filter) were great fun, and I can’t wait to do them again next year.
We’d really intended to stay longer on Sunday, but despite finally getting the MarsCon Charity Chair Massage I’d been wanting to try for years, we had a bad case of burnout. Excitement, dancing, endorphins, and little sleep all hit at once, and Starr and I headed home around 1:30 to veg for the rest of the day. Still haven’t quite come down though. How long ’till T-Con?
Oh, by the way, for people who didn’t go see Cloverfield, or restrained themselves from visiting YouTube this weekend, here’s the new Trek movie trailer. Total geekgasm.
Tweets for Today
- 18:36 Got home from MarsCon. Very buzzed-happy… and very sleepy. We’re going to play some WoW to wind down. #
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Martian Con Machines
I had every intention of heading over to the MarsCon Badge Assembly Party last night, but the world caught up with me and I ended up insensate on the couch for most of the evening, with both knees screaming of inflammation. It was something like a milder version of the saying “A sucking chest wound is life’s way of telling you to slow down a bit.”
If I don’t take it a bit easy this week, there will be little point in going at all; MarsCon is not the sort of SF convention where one wants to hit their energy limits at 9:30pm. I’m still kind of annoyed with myself for conking out at 1:30 at New Year’s.
Happily, I found geckoman and big_danny_t at the concert on Sunday, and learned that Gecko is chairing next year. He has some great plans for the con – I hope that even a few of them work out.
In unrelated trivia, I heard this morning about a funeral parlour which is making plans to warm the building with the waste heat produced by the crematorium. I was immediately reminded of the Fremen of Dune, who are driven to such severe water-conservation necessities that they extract the water from their dead to return to the public supply. I can’t seem to decide whether the parlour’s plan is logical or nauseating. (I suppose neither reaction is exclusive.)
In the Key of Ow
My morning routine changed today. I think I like the new version:
1) Wake up, slowly, a few minutes before the alarm. Don’t go back to sleep. Body will thank you for not cramming adrenaline into it so early.
2) Do morning e-mail and webcomic troll as usual to activate brain.
3) Once brain is functional enough, make and eat breakfast. Do not wait until you’re running out the door to shove breakfast down throat.
4) Shower, dress, and leave for work.
This works far better than previous routines. Let’s see if I can keep it up.
Last night, I went to see the Dresden Dolls at the Norva. They’re an extremely offbeat duo, but I was hooked on my first listening by their wild energy, odd humor, and musical skill. Amanda Palmer plays her keyboard like an insane person, hitting the keys with the flats of her fingers, rocking back and forth on her stool, tucking a knee under her chin, and yet delivering one of the most complex and precise performances I’ve ever heard. Translate that to drums, and you have Brian Viglione’s playing; on top of that, they seem to telepathically communicate during the show, improvising crazily and yet in sync. I had to go.
My body regrets that today. There’s little-to-no seating there, and my left knee can honestly barely support me today after 5.5 hours of standing. I am seriously considering bringing the forearm crutches to my next Norva show, to help hold me up. However, it was certainly worth it – they played my favorites, “Coin-Operated Boy” and “Girl Anachronism“, new material, and material they’re preparing for their next album. For a closer, they dragged audience members and the opening act to the stage to perform Led Zepplin’s “Immigrant Song” and then cleared everyone off for their cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”. You cannot understand how awesome that was without having been there 🙂
The oddest part: in my head, people are rated “real” by the amount with which I personally get to interact with them. For example. Bill Shatner is not especially real to me – I’ve only seen him on TV and movie screens. Leonard Nimoy is slightly more so, since I’ve been in the same room with him, but separated by a stage and a couple dozen yards. George Takei I’ve spoken to briefly, but Spice Williams and I have had a lengthy conversation.
Well, Amanda unexpectedly came down from the stage in the middle of one of her songs, and continued singing as she walked around the balcony and through the fans on the floor, passing within a yard of me several times. Suddenly, her ‘real’ quotient in my head jumped dramatically, and I was quite surprised. (I was proud of my fellow Virginians, who did not mob or crowd her, but let her move freely around and respected her performance. One lady, sadly, took the chance to grope her quite unsubtly, which rattled Amanda enough that she expressed her distress on her return to the keyboard. But it didn’t dampen the evening.)
I’m pleased with the way the week’s started. I even bumped into a White Plectrum fan on the way to the concert. (“I recognize the jacket – did you work with the filk singer? I love his stuff, I can’t believe you live around here!”) Now I am sending down more blessed ibuprofen to quiet this stupid knee.
Shift Change
I enjoy staying up late. I’d read in bed until (gasp!) 8:30 or 9 as a little kid, with nothing more than a red night light (one reason I think my night vision got pretty good, and why I have to wear sunglasses a lot during the days). As a teenager and young adult, my preferred sleep schedule was 2am – 10am, with the occasional 4am – noon if I got into something really worthy of my tunnel-focused attention.
These days, though, I’m up between 5:45 and 6 every morning, and just being able to drive to work without major injury means I’d better be in bed by 11. 10 would be better; 9:30’s been known to happen. It made this year’s New Year’s Eve a little duller than I’d planned, let me tell you.
Well, my quasi-conscious train of thought upon leaving REM sleep this morning went as follows:
Voice 1: Dude, why on earth did we put the clock where we can’t easily see it without moving? It’s gotta be about 5:40, the alarm’s gonna hit any minute.
Voice 2: No, no, this is our semi-regular 3:30 Brief Moment of Pseudo-Lucidity. Just roll over and go back to sleep.
Voice 1: Yeah, you’re probably right. But let’s wiggle over and get Line-of-Sight on the clock just to be sure.
Voice 2: Uh-oh. 6:30? We didn’t set the alarm, did we?
Voice 1: Dude, and you were the one who wanted to go back to sleep.
Funny thing is, since I awoke naturally, I felt much better this morning. And I still managed to get to work on time.
To-Do Listing
This was supposed to be the week where I caught up on sleep and email and life. I think I’m about 83% caught up on email, but the rest of it all still needs some work!
Just had to write another program book blurb about me. I hate doing that, I never feel like I’m any good at selling myself. But I’m pleased with how it came out, so I’ll consider it additional experience in an unfamiliar writing style.
I found today the Federation Models (http://www.federationmodels.com/) website which has all the customization pieces I wanted to complete the Grin’elle Kriet-era U.S.S. Yeager model kit. This is really tickling the bits of my brain that want to dig out the Dremel Tool and styrene glue again.
Mental clutch not engaging
Uggggh…
Brain is not working this morning. I am slow and stupid. Caffeine not helping. I just pray I get through the morning without embarassing myself too much.
I don’t know what the problem is, I ate well yesterday and got 6 hours of sleep last night (okay, interrupted once or twice by the cat, but I thought I was used to that by now).
Failed to dodge a spoiler yesterday for “Revenge of the Sith”, and it’s disappointing. From all I hear, the movie’s going to be quite good, but I’m disappointed that they chose to include this one little detail.
Last week’s Enterprise, however, was all style, no substance, and yet it rocked. You don’t need things to make sense when you’re having this much fun. The last 6 minutes especially… oooh, nerdgasm. The 8-year-old fan in me was royally entertained. Can’t wait to see tonight’s; at least the show’s going out fighting.
Luna and Battle-Cat are dating
Quote of the day, from websnark.com: “We watch He-Man, Sailor Moon, and other magical girl shows for the stock footage and the monster smiting.”
Now I will have Shojo Universe Master He-Man running around in my head all day. “Greyskull Power Sword Transform!!”
Things I am thankful for today: The alarm clock did not wake me from the midst of a dream, so my head actually made it into second gear by the time I had to drive a car. My body kept trying to slip back into reverse, though. Also, it is sunny today and going to be 70 degrees. I need that right now.
Quick review of the Duran Duran concert from the 8th, before I let it slip any further: That was one excellent evening, and I can’t thank stephaniesmom enough for giving me her extra ticket. It was absolutely worth leaving Fairfax at midnight to drive home. They performed every 80’s song I liked, not just the hits, and some of it was interestingly remixed a bit for live performance. We even had pretty good seats! The only downside was that my ears were quickly overloaded by the concert speakers, as usual, so it was a lot easier for me to follow the lyrics of the familiar 80’s material than the newer stuff. And boy, was I tired by the time I got home!
Zoomy Monday
A weekend of fighting entropy – we washed the car, replaced the battery in the car, washed clothes, unpacked more stuff, mowed the lawn, built more RTA furniture in which to store stuff. It was a productive couple of days.
This is an odd morning. Despite the fact that I slept poorly and the volume on the clock radio alarm had gotten turned down, I woke up on time and as clear-headed as I ever do. Got out of the house on time without forgetting anything (thanks to some timely help, traffic was even light, and the MP3 CD chose a nice Jean-Michel Jarre / Apollo 440 tune for my drive to work. I’m feeling good this morning. That worries me 🙂
You have to try out this link. It’s work safe, you don’t need to turn up the volume and wait for anything to scream at you, none of the weird Internet jokes here. This is just a funky / cool effect.
Continuing my thoughts from yesterday…
An unscientific poll seems to indicate that, not only are geeks having more sex, it’s often pretty kinky. I guess that’s not a great surprise when you combine the sterotypical geek willingness to embrace new ideas and desire to avoid conformity. (Or sometimes beat conformity over the head with a baseball bat.)
Kinky is, of course, a relative term, but since the only part of sex necessary for the species’ survival is the act itself, I find it interesting that our brains are wired in such a way as to make all these variations so enticing. I gues that, in the long run, it encourages even more sex, which is what our DNA wants from us. I can just hear the Great Designers now…
“We’ve come up with this great advantage, better even than claws or wings. We call it ‘intelligence’, and with it, this species should be running the planet soon.”
“What’s the downside?”
“Well, now they’ll have things to do besides eating, sleeping, and making copies of themselves; it might slow the program down a bit.”
“All right… you can try this ‘intelligence’ thing… but make sure you tweak their circuitry so they’re still fixated on food, sleep, and sex. Otherwise we’ll never get this project done.”
