Further Assimilations

Swung by the grocery store today to pick up dinner. I was wearing my Technicon 17 (2001) t-shirt, and the cashier kept staring at it. I think kittenchan's catgirl in Grecian robes confused the heck out of him.

I just don't wear the number of t-shirts I used to. At Staples, I had to wear corporate red, but at B&D, Thrifty Nickel, Decipher, and BCT, I could wear what I wanted as long as it was neat, clean, inoffensive, and gender-appropriate. I owned a LOT of t-shirts. But at NASA, polo shirts are the order of the day, so my t-shirt wear has been cut by five-sevenths, and much of my collection has felt the bite of the ongoing 'stuff' purge.

Kinda sucks, because I kept seeing t-shirts I like at cons - such as an excellent Jennie Breeden shirt at MarsCon - and having to tell myself, "When will you be wearing this, and how much room do you really have in the dresser?" Sigh. I have a rule that I can buy something new for every two objects of similar kind or size I purge. Maybe I need to do another t-shirt purge soon to make room. Wish I could justify doing another run of TeeFive shirts (and find the art for the back).

EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that I was wearing the TCon 18 shirt. Either I fail at reading Roman numerals upside down, or the +1 to Confusion is working better than I thought.

Hmm. I learned something from my last post that I wasn't expecting to learn, which is of course more fun that way.

It seems that most of the people I know would put themselves somewhere between "Way of Life" and "A Nice Hobby" on the fandom scale, so apparently we do need another node for the 21st century.

Or do we? I think perhaps I should have stressed more that FIAWOL does not necessarily mean "shallow, pasty, anti-social nerd with nothing to look forward to in life but the next Stargate: Atlantis episode." I answered FIAWOL for myself because fandom touches almost every part of my life, even when I'm not specifically geeking out. Just to name two examples, I got my first job in Hampton Roads because of miniatures gaming; and my significant others have all been fans, and we've had some good times because of it.

When you've got a closet of costumes, a vast library of genre media, at least three devices on which you play video games, have extensive convention staff (or even chair!) experience, and can put Chris Pike and Jon Archer in either chronological or created order... you might just be a Way-Of-Lifer. (I'm not referring to anyone specifically. If you thought I was referring to you... then that perhaps should tell you something.)

But really, you know, that's okay. As long as the bills get paid, the bosses stay satisfied, friends and S.O.s get the attention they deserve, and we get out into the sunlight on occasion, FIAWOL is an entertaining way to spend the days.

EDIT: jdunson suggests that the "F" in each refers to an outdated type of fandom prevalent in the 60s and 80s, and that the fan culture most of us currently inhabit is a different beast completely. (I paraphrase heavily.) Interesting concept, and I believe I can see his point. Thoughts?

Saturday I woke at 8:30, thought to myself "no way, not on a night where I have to stay up 'till 2" and went back to sleep. I woke again at 10:30, went to sit up and was assaulted by nausea and headache. Not, "Oh, I feel like crap, oh well," but "oh God I think I may need to run for the bathroom RIGHT NOW." In the hopes that more rest would help, I rolled over until noon. Couldn't put it off any longer at that point, and made it to McBryde in time for kittykatya and impink's Fragile Gravity (http://unseenllc.com/) panel. That was fun, especially when Barb had to change a DVD and Chris was forced to improvise for several minutes. I look forward to Book 3!

Well, you know you're at a real con when two good events are going on at the same time, and much as I wanted to see the General Webcomics Panel, the Spin Doctor had a date at Filking 1025. (Tech uses 4-digit course numbers.) I contributed a couple lines to the weekend's official filk, which we actually finished nice and early! What a concept! An impromptu rendition of "The Dragon and The Lady" followed (NSFW), with joking comments about the fact that the local fandom children are being raised on this stuff. To quote a song that Keith often covers, we'll have a generation of well-rounded outcats.

I dropped by rattrap and drich's "First Ones" panel - they are the only attendees who've attended every Technicon. I'd prepared a button that read "Technicon Fourth One" (the best I could do). Lots of old memories flew around that panel; hard to believe the con's 25 years old. I'm fairly sure that's a Virginia fandom record, unless you count RoVaCon / Rising Star as one entity. Still, though, the pain, nausea, and light-headedness continued to build. Barb and others started telling me to Go Lie Down. I talked to Starr a bit - she was having appliance issues at the house right before she had to attend a wedding - and finally gave in and went back to the hotel.

Good news of the evening? While I was semi-comatose, colleenk gave birth to a little boy. Gratz to her and yubbie! (Unsurprisingly, this made the con accountant unavailable for the rest of the event.)

I really regret missing the Costume Call and southernsinger's performance. Every few years at Technicon, I seem to come down with something on Saturday; perhaps I need to start over-medicating the week before, or something. I wasn't the only one, either: shrewlet had a rough day, and there were bleary eyes elsewhere at the con. However, with modern technology, it's likely that the evening entertainment was all taped, and I'm hoping that someone posted pictures somewhere.

Fortunately, I woke up in possession of a far stabler head and stomach before my evening panels, and headed down to the Microtel conference room. Those panels... are a filtered entry.*grin*

I have driven to Orlando. I have driven to upstate New York. In neither of those cases was I responsible for the steering wheel the whole time, if at all; so, yes, a five-hour drive can absolutely wear me out!

Since NASA Langley is practically sitting on I-64, I packed the car on Wednesday night and headed right to Blacksburg from work Thursday. 64 and I-81 aren't too unpleasant on a Thursday evening; my CD player may be broken, but the iPod plays through it nicely except for the pauses when it tries to eject nonexistent CDs.

Unfortunately, my transmission started throwing fits around Afton Mountain (who could blame it?) slipping and locking into third gear three times on the trip down. Pulling over for 10 minutes each time seemed to reset things, but that's no way to run a railroad.

I made it safely to the Microtel, where I was informed that the wireless access was a bit spotty on my floor :( Nevertheless, in an effort to adjust my sleep rhythms for the weekend, I stayed up for a couple hours unsuccessfully farming Primals in Zangarmarsh, only getting kicked off the server three times.

Friday I headed down to see my Mom (one of the main reasons for my Thursday travel), which was lovely. We traded Xmas presents and had good conversation over a mildly disappointing lunch. Interestingly, I'm still on a hot-rodded Mac G4 tower, and she's got the latest and greatest iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, which she took great glee in showing me.

Went to the lube place, got the transmission flushed, and had them look at my rear tires, which were making unhappy growly noises. Yep, they needed replacing. Technicon was getting expensive already...

Five-hour drive to Technicon - not from home, mind you, that would have been six - from NASA Langley. (This is why the car was packed last night.) I might have shaved off half an hour were it not for some kind of road work happening on I-81 between Roanoke and Blacksburg. But it's no big deal. I am super special-plus tired though.

The Microtel is well named. This may be the smallest hotel room in which I've stayed, though it's nice and clean. Glad I'm not trying to run any con events in the room. The good news is that the clerk said that wireless was "spotty" on the third floor, yet I seem to be getting a fairly good signal. So that's nice.

I am here today because I promised I would show up, and because you, my fandom friends, are awesome people whom I miss. I don't drive five hours for just anything :)

Good morning, all.

My apologies for leaving everyone in suspense about Starr. I've pretty much had no Internet access since my last post. (It wasn't down, I have just had higher-priority matters to handle. Given how high-priority I usually make the Internet, that's saying something. But anyway.)

Starr is back from the hospital and is doing quite well - well enough to wear me out this weekend staying up late and getting up early. She'll probably be back at work tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest - I think she's pretty excited about it. Her doctors say that her condition has probably been present since she was little and masked by other issues, so her treatment might actually leave her healthier than ever. Part of the priority issues from the last week was me being a bit of a jerk - I've not been handling events too well the last fortnight, and I needed a bit of a talking-to - but I think I have it under control now. Saturday night we were having a good time together, and she looked happier than she has in a long time. (The hew haircut's darn nice too!)

I'm preparing for Technicon - as I've said, I refuse to do seat-of-the-pants this year - but just last night got a new schedule change, and am trying to adjust for that. (I actually agree with the reasoning behind it - I'm just laughing at Murphy.) There will be a post with further discussion of the TCon panels under my Lifestyle filter. I'm kinda hoping to get a little gaming in this year with jsciv - last year I was so busy, I barely laid eyes on the man. It'll be awesome getting to see everyone who can attend.

This morning I found a hotel cardkey from a 2007 con in my stuff. I'd feel guilty, except I know they churn these keys out by the millions, and since the whole thing is computer-controlled, they've already invalidated the darn thing. So now it's a memento.

What got me thinking, though, is the memory of when hotels actually handed out metal keys, usually on large plastic keychains with the room number embossed on them. Yes, those were simpler times.

[Poll #1128647]

Oh, when I say "enter hotel rooms," I mean one that you or a roommate have paid for. Room parties, rooms that you're only responsible for as an event organizer, etc. don't count.

(Yes, I know. "Auhorized" is a Space Rogues in-joke.)

• 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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• 09:17 Memo to me... you will need clean laundry for MarsCon, including any costumes you plan to wear. #
• 10:03 No "Star Trek Online" MMORPG from Perpetual Entertainment. I wish I could say I was surprised. #
• 11:47 Half the office here eagerly awaits the Stevenote and the list of Apple toys we'll be drooling over in 2008. #

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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.

Gnome on Broomstick Mirandala riding the "Magic Broom" available during the 2007 Hallow's End celebration