Further Assimilations

The RoVaCon 15 Starfleet Vice video, as threatened promised...



So, I'll explain a little of what's going on. I'm in the wheelchair because I'd been in a life-threatening car accident only weeks ago, but I was too stubborn to miss the con. Heather and Valerie are dressed in costumes from the anime Dirty Pair. Mike Allen represented KODRA, a ruthless Klingon-Orion terrorist organistion out to rule the Alpha Quadrant; while Markus... well, he had a lab coat, so we worked that in. And of course, Tom, Mike, and Beth were solely there to support our blatant swipe of Monty Python material.

I don't remember the name of the dude working the camera... but he really liked the anime costumes.

Speaking of cons, tonight Starr and I were doing just that (speaking of them, that is). Thomas Atkinson friended me back on Facebook today, and when I told Starr that I had an old costume skit of his on VHS, she begged me to dig it up.

That tape, dating from RoVaCon 15 back in 1990, also contains one of the most elaborate Starfleet Vice skits we ever did. The performers for this installment included myself as officer Stubble, Heather McLaughlin and Valerie Brugh as "Dirty Pair" Kei and Yuri, time_shark as a KODRA Dreadlok, markush as Doctor Whizbang, Tom Monaghan as officer Paisley, Mike Layne as officer Harold, and Beth Lipes as officer Ruth. The camera operator for the con spent most of the skit focusing on the skimpy anime costumes Heather and Valerie wore.

Many of the jokes are esoteric, but some of them are still fairly funny outside of the late-80s Starfleet context. This little performance would be a good candidate for my first test of the new video-to-computer setup, right? I think we all want to see this posted.

Starr says I'm much better looking now than I was when I was nineteen. Any doubts as to why I'm in love with her?

Well, I intended to do the Saturday write-up last night, but by the time I got to bed, I was far too brain-dead to even try it. Not much better now, honestly, but I'll still give it a go.

Health-wise, this year ran much smoother than the last. Woke up feeling all right, got a filling breakfast, and headed right on in to the con. Took about an hour to check out all the function rooms and say hi to the lovely people I encountered, then the 11:00 Costuming For Anthropomorphics panel started, so I donned my lynx ears and headed in. Kender detailed some fascinating info about building animal tails that I think Starr will be pretty interested in.

My noon panel actually started at 1:00pm, though schedule confusion meant that I wasn't aware of that, nor were some of the attendees. We found out around 12:30, so we took a 30 minute break and restarted the panel! I answered some good questions, and didn't make an idiot of myself in front of the Windows expert with whom I was teamed. Did a little bit to promote peace between the OS factions, too.

At this point in the day, I entered my 'on stage' mindset, and between costuming and presenting, I spent most of the day in that mindset. I enjoy the feeling: it's exhilarating, but it takes the energy out of me. I didn't really manage to come out of it until early the next morning, and felt heavily drained for most of Sunday. Wouldn't have had it any other way, though.

The PC/Mac panel ended at two, and I took the opportunity to change into my hall costume. The con had no designated costume change areas, so I ended up doing so in the men's bathroom; this process was nothing but awkward and uncomfortable. I would find a better method for my later changes, but undismayed, I did the rounds again and showed off the outfit a bit. To my happy surprise, I won a previously undisclosed Hall Costuming contest, receiving an appropriate reward; and one of the button-makers gifted me with a button reading "Gaseous Dihydrogen Oxide Non-Conformist". (Steam-punk.)

Soon enough, I joined impink, southernsinger, and jameshroberts for the "Whose Con Is It Anyway?" improvisation hosted by kittykatya. I'm not sure it was my best performance, but our group grabbed enough good laughs from the audience to make it feel like a success. I changed back into street clothes, and from there, a bunch of us including Dwight, jsciv, and candidevoltaire headed to Macado's for what was meant to be a quick dinner. Unfortunately, our group gave the kitchen more work than they could handle, and over an hour passed before our food arrived. I had to wolf down half my sandwich on an immediate drive back to the con, where I'd promised to be available for 7:00pm Costume Call judging.

I'd brought another outfit to wear as a judge, but when the organizer discovered that I'd be costuming again, he insisted that I join the Costume Call itself. I found an empty classroom in which to change, hoping all the while that no one of delicate sensibilities would barge in, and reported to the organizer. I think my choice of costume broke judge hippydippydncr's mental processes; it certainly provided some laughs during and after the presentation.

Sadly, I allowed myself to get far too caught up in good conversation and joking, and had to rush back to the hotel through fog even thicker than that morning's to arrive at my evening lifestyle panels barely in time. No one had a key to the conference room, but I convinced the desk clerk that I belonged to Technicon and got us in. Of course, that report will be behind the lifestyle filter; suffice it to say that I'm not thrilled with the overall result, but I think our audience left generally satisfied. We wrapped up around 1:45, but I got into a late conversation with nius, zannyvix, and "Bad Andy"; including a bedtime call to Starr, I didn't get to sleep before 3:30. But I'd managed at least two mediocre meals, and never felt sick or faint, so physically the day went well. I relished the feeling of finally being 'off stage', and fell asleep happy.

I'm in my hotel room in Blacksburg. The plan was to check in, and do a little shopping for a few things, but impink and kittykatya were in the hotel lobby, and we stopped to chat... looked up and half the con was there. The "Meet and Greet" started hours before the official panel time, but it's cool, I got to see friends I haven't seen since last Technicon, and others I haven't seen in many years. I'm having a good time!

I has another Guest badge. I'm kinda enjoying my slowly-building collection of those.

Okay. Brain shutting down on it's own. I feel better than I did this time last year, so fingers crossed that I don't collapse tomorrow. Night!

• 10:42 News is that the house contract is almost done and we can overnight it to the sellers in the next couple of days. Please let this all work. #
• 13:14 For the Interstella 5555 fans, a great Daily Costume pic of the Crescendolls: dailycostume.com/archive/greenabsence/ #

Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter

Now that I'm digging the Daft Punk, everyone's been saying over and over that I needed to get the Alive 2007 album. Picked it up this weekend, finally listened to it with the speakers turned up on my morning commute. That's some fine commuting music, that is.

It looks like Starr won't be making it to Technicon Last; she can't get out of working that weekend. Her shifts are crazy - it's a regular thing for her to have five days off in a row, but somehow her scheduled weekend shifts always fall on convention dates. It annoys us both. She has more than enough PTO to cover it if she took off, but that requires a great deal of shift-trading, and for some reason few of her co-workers want to work extra weekend shifts. Can't imagine why.

I may have a very memorable con costume this year.

I like Twitter because it provides useful writing exercise in expressing onself succinctly. I shouldn't fret, though, if I miss a few dozen because I'm away from a 'Net connection. Most of the stuff I'll want to know shows up in LiveJournal, and LJ's much easier to keep up with. (Blogging of any kind forces me to keep in mind two good practices: try to avoid that cursed passive voice, and don't write a novel where a couple of paragraphs will get my point across better.)

I've been sick for the last two days - sinus congestion, stabbing stomach pain, sore throat, fever... same old same old midwinter bug. Reluctantly, I took Tuesday off, which I think cut a couple days' duration off this bug; it's fading away as I sit here, leaving me with a scratchy throat and headache. I should be fine for the weekend; good thing too, as I had to do a bit of finagling to make MarsCon.

On the other hand, it means I'm woefully behind on my prep. I managed to get some studying in for the panels in which I'm involved, but my costuming took the hit, and I don't know if I'll have anything ready for the weekend. Since I'll be leaving directly from work tomorrow, I have to get packed and otherwise ready tonight. Good thing I managed some laundry.

Sometime Friday afternoon, I will have to find time to take a nap if I want to do late night stuff. This is unaviodalbe, as my internal clock these days is currently set to a 5:30am - 10:30pm waking shift, and cons don't run on that time. Considering that my Saturday panels hover around 10pm and midnight, I'll probably need to do the same that day as well.

I need to do some restructuring of my life schedule anyway. One reason for my dryness of prose output in 2008 was that I had not made much time to sit, off by myself, and actually write something - the most I've gotten done in that regard is hiding in people's offices scribbling on the Newton while monitoring their OS X Leopard installs. (Up to three hours of glorious undisturbed concentration!) It's easy to journal in 5-minute increments at work, but I have not yet mastered the art of focusing on plot and character in those tiny chunks.

On the other hand, I'm slightly pleased with my attitude towards the problem. I'm doing better these days with creating plans of attack for my roadblocks instead of just whining about them and using them for excuses. I'm decades overdue on developing this skill.

It's been a heck of a week, and I haven't had much opportunity to post. Let's see if I can catch up a bit.

As of Wednesday evening, Starr and I began sleeping at the new house. This was slightly impeded by the fact that our bed hadn't been moved yet, and Starr's parents had returned for some of their stuff, so we had to share a twin bed in a guest bedroom. Note: no matter how cuddly the other person is, tucking two people into a twin bed gets old quickly.

I'm now getting up at 5:30 every morning to get out of the house by 6:30. My efficiency's improved, as it was taking me up to 90 minutes to get showered, dressed, and moving, but it means I have exactly enough coherence to drive safely and not a bit more. The commute's indeed an hour; thank goodness for podcasts.

Each day last week, I stopped by the apartment on the way home to grab some more stuff. Slowly, all the vital necessities of life have been put in place at the house, such as transforming Macross toys and Lensman paperbacks. By this weekend, I expect to have the silly stuff moved like cooking gear and clean underwear. (Okay, I *am* kidding about the underwear; that was high-priority.)

Starr's parents left on Friday - or was it Thursday? - but returned once more on Saturday for more stuff, and so we could take her little sister to Nekocon. We only stayed for a few hours Saturday afternoon and evening; I had no idea that the con was so HUGE. 3,000 people were claimed in one press release, and it sure looked like it. I could not believe the number and variety of hall costumes! (Of course, I forgot a camera.) Starr dressed as a loligoth, while her sister wore an InuYasha costume. Many pictures of them were taken, but I have seen none posted; me, I was grumpy that morning, and didn't wear a costume. By the end of the evening I regretted the decision, but oh well.

Tuesday, I had the day off, and I headed back over to the apartment to collect more stuff. Our downstairs neighbors are both military, and were also home; when they found out what I was up to, they instantly volunteered their two pickups, and pitched in on the packing. Thanks to them, we're about 70% done with the move, and should be able to finish this weekend; I had reason to appreciate our veterans even more that day! They were awesome folks.

We're switching the house from Verizon to Cox for our internet and phone, and were surprised to learn the the cable junction box is across the street. Shortly after we learned this, we learned that the underground line to our house is bad, and they'll have to bore a new conduit for us this week. The cable, phone, and Internet at the apartment was disabled on Wednesday, so communications have been impaired. Right now my cell phone and work Internet are my main connections to the world.

Midori has been introduced to Tigger and Precious, two cats we're inheriting from Starr's parents. They seem to be more amused than anything else by her hissing and posturing, and she seems to be slowly understanding the uselessness of making all the fuss. With any luck, they'll civilize her a bit.

This Saturday, I hope to have everything out of the apartment that isn't tucked in my office. Sunday, I'll pack all the little figures and toys and books and such I have on display in my office, and move that over, and at that point the actual move should be about done. We can then spend a week or so cleaning up the place nice before we hand over the keys.

Then... maybe... perhaps... a rest. I don't think that's an unreasonable reward!

On my morning drive I listened to a podcast this morning interviewing James Randi, noted stage magician and skeptic. He raved about Dragon*Con, calling it a gathering of 37,000 people where everyone is weird, smart, and surprisingly nice. Randi expressed amazement at the way that everyone "fits in" at Dragon*Con, even a cranky 80-year old magician, and that he'd be attending future Dragon*Cons whenever possible.

Fandom sure doesn't have all the answers, but when we get it right, fandom rocks, doesn't it?

I hope to go next year. I wanna meet some Mythbusters.

Today in Paris, at their WorldWide Invitational event, Blizzard Entertainment announced their upcoming game Diablo III.

That is all. (That's plenty!)