Tail-chasing whee!
Starr had a rough night: discomfort, poor sleep, and more back-and-forth from her doctors on the probable cause. We had hopes that she’d be home by now, but that’s clearly not working out. Continued good thoughts, and maybe a phone call or three would help a whole lot right now.
Midori is still freaking, and I’ve been feeling a bit unwell the last few days myself (due to stress, no doubt). Last night I was supposed to send out some e-mail and phone calls to concerned family and friends, but I lost consciousness before I could wake the laptop.
In happy news, Collegiate BattleBots events will be airing on ESPN2 and ESPNU (http://www.battlebots.com/news_home.asp) this summer. This is great news, but the sad thing is that I don’t think I have either of those on my channel lineup. I may have to get someone to do some ‘time-shifting’ for me.
Also, I have confirmation of my TCon timeslots, and I have the theme for my panels ready. I kinda like this one, and I hope some people show up!
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!
Set to “liquefy”
Me being “funny” at Technicon 24’s “Whose Con Is It Anyway”, courtesy of nius.
Improv really is harder than it looks. Also, I really really really need to start getting some exercise 🙁
Monday morning musing
This morning, I stared into the shaving mirror while performing my daily skin irritation ritual, and remembered someone at Technicon referring to me as one of the con’s “elder statesmen”. I enjoyed the compliment… but it’s still a little weird trying to think of myself that way.
Didn’t get to stay in bed any later than 9:30 or so this weekend – too much to do! Happy weekend, though. We were celebrating Starr’s graduation from nursing school at the top of her class! I think that excellent things are ahead for her.
My Dad drove up to see me yesterday, and I’m planning to go see my Mom and my sister before long this summer. There’s been a bit of distance, because of how wrapped-up I’ve been in myself lately, and I’m really looking forward to re-connecting with them all this year.
The living-room TV’s flipped its power supply, and we’re down to watching Good Eats on a 12″ portable we had in the bedroom. I was looking at getting an AppleTV in a few weeks, but I suspect I’ll be putting that off a bit. One of the reasons I’m so far behind on my TV watching is that a lot of it’s on the computer, and I just don’t think of my desktop Mac as a media center – more of a creativity, communications, and gaming support device. TV programs are for relaxing in the living room – so, really, that makes me a perfect AppleTV customer. (Another reason I’m behind is that I usually have much better things to do than television. Even really good television. I’m almost to the point of cutting things I like from the DVR schedule that I know I just won’t get around to watching. People keep saying things like “you should start watching Heroes!” and I look at my backlog and think “yeah… next year maybe!”)
Dave S. will be running his Marvel Super Heroes game tonight. I haven’t been able to attend since March, and I can’t wait to catch up with everyone. For the last sessions, I’d had to finish at work and fly right over to arrive fashionably late; with my new schedule I can take it a little easier.
My outlook’s not too bad for a Monday morning.
Fold-up technology
New phone now. At first, the RAZR wasn’t performing any of the tricks I wanted it to, but I fiddled with it a bit, and now GMail works, and I’ve figured out a way to get my own ringtones onto it without buying ones from Sprint or purchasing a Bluetooth dongle for the Mac. (I might try to get the dongle anyway, since I can then do calendar synchronizing.)
I also found “One More Time“, the first cut off Daft Punk’s “Interstella 5555 (The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem)” on YouTube. I’m still deciding whether I like the music (think it’s a yes), but the video was throwing me some serious late 80’s flashback with its Leiji Matsumoto-y goodness. Gonna have to try to see the whole thing, now.
Speaking of anime, rattrap gave a good review to Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, which I had just recently heard about on the RDF Underground podcast. The podcasters agree with him that the character designs for the ladies are a bit mammary-focused, but I guess they were shooting for what they felt was an authentic modern anime look. Still, it’s supposed to hold up well, and I’ll be adding it to my collection when I can swing the cash, even if (like The Sentinels) it uses Alphas instead of Valkyries.
TCon 23 report
Some cool things about Technicon 23:
Giving rattrap his combined holiday present for the next several years.
Playing the WoW board game with jsciv, meiran, and candidevoltaire; then buying a copy.
A copy of The Heroic Trio from kittykatya.
Opening the wrong door and accidentally joining this year’s Vile Skit.
Being practically the only character in vileone‘s LARP that was exactly what he said he was: no more, no less.
Friday dinner seated between Dwight, raininva, and Christy.
Friday night panels that went Most Excellently. (Some details soon in a filtered post, heh heh.)
A Vile Script that forced me to wrestle with rainbowsaber. (Oh, shucks.)
Helping southernsinger perform “The Dragon & The Lady” for Holly Lisle.
Late Saturday dinner and great conversation with meiran.
Thanks to trenn, chown -R us:us yourbase.
Frequent backrubby morale- and energy-boosts from shrewlet.
Two boxes full of new reading material from the Auction.
Cool artwork from kittenchan and ranchonmars.
It’s my 20th Technicon.
—–
Some less-cool things about Technicon 23:
It’s my 20th Technicon.
Not enough time to be in Whose Con Is It?
Long drives from and to Norfolk.
Not enough quality time with many friends.
My lousy Simon Cowell imitation.
A body that gave out too early on Saturday night. (For once, stomach issues rather than exhaustion.)
Our air mattress developing a hole.
Not enough time for after-con dinner in Blacksburg. (But a good one with Bert & Meche in Salem.)
—–
I’d call TCon 23 a success, for my part. Well done, nius, and thanks for the good weekend!
