The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Fun

  • Dragon*Con 2008 Recap

    It has become a tradition: I am entirely unable to post about Dragon*Con until at least a week afterward. For various reasons, after going home on Monday and sleeping, I remain entirely burned out with respect to the Con for at least a week. Hell, last year I never managed to post my recaps at all.

    I blame this on several things. One, so much stuff goes on that to try and boil it down to a short blog post is to malign the awesomeness of it all. If any one or two things had happened then my writing skills would suffice to describe them in glowing detail, but that is not the case for Dragon*Con. Two, I’m just so damn tired for the entire work week afterward; long nights with little sleep lend to a long week of trying to catch up on my rest. That way leads toward less blogging. Three, I like to be able to post with attendant images, but I’m still (see one and two) behind on getting my Dragon*Con Select images up. Hopefully I’ll have dented that severely by the end of the weekend. Four, I have other things to do, and this qualifies as something above and beyond.

    All that being said, this year’s Dragon*Con was a blast! I had reserved five rooms in the Hilton in downtown Atlanta where all the gaming was, as well as the Podcasting, EFF, and several other tracks were located. I ended up giving up one of those rooms to Cunning Minx and party and another to a friend from college and his family. The other three we stuffed with people who flew and/or drove into town for the weekend. It’s always good to see these people because the opportunities are few and far between.

    Scott Sigler's Pimps & Hos PartyDragon*Con runs from Friday at 1:00 to Monday at 5:00 and is crammed full with things to do. This year I did fewer panels and more hanging out with people. Unfortunately, I had such a good time on Friday night (starting at Scott Sigler’s Pimps and Hos party) that I spent the vast majority of Saturday in my hotel room sleeping it off. You’d think by my age that I would have learned not to do this sort of thing anymore. In fact, this hangover has been officially classified (by me) as the second worst ever. It might have been the worst ever from a physiological perspective, but the title goes to the hangover that caused me to miss a friend’s wedding. So, Saturday was a write-off.

    Sunday I got my copy of Zoe’s Tale signed by John Scalzi as well as hearing him read from his upcoming novel High Castle. Also on Sunday I attended the “Are you Ready for an Apocalyptic Crisis” panel which was great fun. The panelists are all locals and professional crisis and disaster managers (they weren’t making this shit up) so I’m going to have to look them up.

    Anne McCaffreyOther stuff happened, much fun was had. Jenn got one of the first fantasy novels she ever read signed by Anne McCaffrey. Chris won a costume prize with an awesome costume built by Kristin. I apparently was noticed by Eric Flint when I was standing at the back of the room taking pictures (I need to send him the link to that image). I took lots of pictures of myself because, well, why not?

    I’ve got enough good pictures from the Con that I should probably host a daily “What’s going on in this picture” entry (actually, that’s a good idea. I’ll have to get the people who were with me involved).

    IMG_2392Jenn, Mike and Jim made an excellent Dr. Horrible combination (amusingly, I heard third-hand that there was a run on welder’s goggles in the month leading up to Dragon*Con, blamed on both Steampunk aficionados and Dr. Horribles).

    Oh, so much went on. Next year, I really need to take notes because it all becomes a blur. Suffice to say that it was a blast, again, and I want even more people to come down next year. I realize the strain that travel places on people, but it’s a hell of a weekend.

  • PodCastle Reading

    I have it on good authority (the editor, Rachael, tells me so) that the story I read for PodCastle will be posted today. (edit: here’s the link)

    PodCastle is the Fantasy sibling/spinoff to EscapePod. The story I read is called “It Takes a Town” and no, it’s not about Hillary Clinton’s book. It’s about a small rural town taking the space program into their own hands. A bit of a scifi/fantasy edge novel, but I think you’ll agree that it comes down on the fantastic side after listening.

    Let me know what you think! Reading the story was a lot different from doing my Talking Traffic recordings. When I record my own writings, it’s easier to go with the flow and to re-write spontaneously. When reading someone else’s writing, you have to do every single word correctly, and that turned out to be more difficult that I imagined. There were parts of the story that took more than a few attempts to get right. Luckily, I know Steve Eley (who’s the editor of EscapePod and the founder of PodCastle and PseudoPod) who has a sweet microphone setup. Unluckily, he lives 40 minutes away, which doesn’t lend itself to second takes of the recording. A few areas of the story I could have done with re-recording, but overall, I’m satisfied. Next time will be better. And, according to my email, there will be a next time. With spanish!

  • Top Eleven Worst Supervillains

    An everyone knows, writing Top Ten lists is the besstest way to get blog traffic. This leads to really terrible top ten lists such as Top Ten Celebrity Chihuahuas and Top Ten Star Trek Kisses and Top Ten Top Ten Lists.

    I usually avoid these.

    This one, however, is an exception. It’s worth the read. The 11 Lamest Supervillains in History, Ever.

  • Cylon for President, with Terminal Case as Veep!

    I love election season.

    Not only do you get bumper stickers like “Republicans for Voldemort!” , but you get fake campaigns like Zod for President (who came so close to winning last time).

    Now we have the Saul Tigh/Laura Roslin ticket. Who doesn’t want to vote for a known alien, who’s species has been reliably described as “racist” and “anti-human” and “monomaniacal people exterminators”? And who wouldn’t want a running mate that is guaranteed to be dead within months of inauguration? It’s a perfect choice!

  • John Scalzi Short Stories

    For my friends, whom I discussed this with:

    John Scalzi story, involving time travel products.

    John Scalzi story, a short involving Harry Wilson in the Old Man’s War universe.

    John Scalzi story, released just yesterday. Screw Tempe!

  • Kitten War!

    No, these aren’t “war kittens”, they’re ever so much better.

    Kittenwar!

    Ah, brings me back to the good old days when Hot Or Not was new.

  • Dragon*Con 2008 (immediate) Recap

    We’re home. We’re alive. We’re tired. As usual, Dragon*Con was a blast, both seeing cool famous people (Battlestar Galactica stars, Firefly Stars, Famous Authors, Not-so-famous Authors, etc.) and hanging out with people we know and like.

    Even as I type, the ~500 images I took are downloading to my computer, so you can expect some flickr photos sometime tonight.

    It was fun, but my creative energies are very tired. No blogging for me until later.

  • Santa!

    For your consideration, I present to you today’s Distressing Childhood Memory.

    The SANTA Project.

    Truly a tough blow to the believers out there.

  • Fay

    People don’t pay attention to the weather outside their immediate vicinity unless it’s a catastrophic incident that makes national/international news. Thus we have Tropical Storm Fay, which isn’t bothering me personally at the moment but sure is causing headaches for my neighbors to the south (although I used to live in one of the flooded towns).

    What’s interesting about Fay, from a strictly academic standpoint, is the degree to which it has snubbed its nose at the best efforts of forecasters. SciGuy has the lowdown on the latest.

    If you don’t want to read about Fay, you can see the evolution of the AT-AT

  • Another Random Photo

    This is the last of the random images tonight, I promise.

    Trebuchet

    In October of 2005, my friend John held a pumpkin chunkin’ contest at his home in Valley Falls, NY. The rules were basic: Construct a device that could accurately lob a smallish pumpkin to a target. No explosives, compressed air, internal combustion, or other power source was allowed. Strictly a mechanically actuated device.

    My problem was that while John’s house was in NY, mine was (is) in GA. It would be difficult to carry a large device on an aircraft and expensive to ship one. My solution: dig out all those boy scout lashing skills and build a trebuchet on site the day of the contest. Thankfully, John’s house has a lot of forest for the taking.

    The device was a good first try. The hardest part was trying to fix the counterweight on the end of the throwing arm. I ran out of time to do a good job and ended up just hanging it from the end, which made the trebuchet rather inefficient. Nevertheless, it did fling pumpkins about 75% of the way to the target (at least when the release mechanism worked and the pumpkin wasn’t being hurled straight into the ground). Great fun!

    You can see over there on the left Chris’ much more conventional, much more accurate and much more powerful elastic-band-powered pumpkin slingshot. That thing had some throw!