Mixed emotions

I feel marginally better this morning than I did yesterday, although a lot of that is probably the DayQuil doing what it can with the crud. Still achy and tired; my sinuses are still congested as well. I'm beginning to think this isn't going to go away until after Arcana, and maybe not even then if they haven't dealt with the mold in Bandana Square.

Decided to get out and go to the Diversicon 12 post-mortem, about which more in another post. phoenixalpha was bored and unhappy with the proceedings, and we left after an hour to do grocery shopping before going home and collapsing. Recovered somewhat after dinner and decided to watch Passion fo the Christ despite its obvious unsuitability as a bedtime movie; review follows in another post.

I expect today to be interminable, boring and several hours longer than it needs to be, but that's life.

Mixed emotions

I feel marginally better this morning than I did yesterday, although a lot of that is probably the DayQuil doing what it can with the crud. Still achy and tired; my sinuses are still congested as well. I'm beginning to think this isn't going to go away until after Arcana, and maybe not even then if they haven't dealt with the mold in Bandana Square.

Decided to get out and go to the Diversicon 12 post-mortem, about which more in another post. phoenixalpha was bored and unhappy with the proceedings, and we left after an hour to do grocery shopping before going home and collapsing. Recovered somewhat after dinner and decided to watch Passion fo the Christ despite its obvious unsuitability as a bedtime movie; review follows in another post.

I expect today to be interminable, boring and several hours longer than it needs to be, but that's life.

D12 official post-mortem

phoenixalpha and I arrived late despite the quick service at Jimmy John's (you can't really eat their sandwiches while driving unless you're really really good with your knees, and I'm not) which was okay since the meeting started late anyway. No Mike, no Ron, no Penny, and of course, no Don. He'd responded to Eric's jeremiad about the unwanted/unsanctioned post-mortem at Friday's on the Sunday of the convention by resigning, which means we now have to find somebody else to do signs and provide a couple of coolers for the con suite. I would say "find a programming head" as well, but since Eric wound up doing a lot of that work this year anyway...meh. Some talk about slow sales in the dealer's room being due to the economy; being averse to arguing politics, I remained silent, though I thought it had more to do with the lack of new blood to buy books & art that the regulars had seen before. The auction did well ($800+) which would seem to belie the economic argument, but I was too sick and tired to want to argue about it. Everybody agreed that the function space was too spread out for the number of people we had, and the hotel aggravated this by spreading the rooms out all over the place. The dispersion contributed to the lack of energy noted by many in attendance. We may be in a different hotel next year, but this remains to be seen.

The T-shirts sold very well and there are 26 people signed up for D13. No discussion of the enormous expense of importing Somtow from Thailand. Some talk about glitches in various programming events, eliminating 9 AM panels, and how the (mostly) self-service consuite worked (pretty well). There was consensus that D13 should have an "Anime 101" panel for the benefit of fans who weren't familiar with anime, since anime programming for the last three years had been oriented mostly toward people who already were anime fans.

Committee voted nearly unanimously to confirm Eric as Sole Rightful Autocrat, with Art abstaining since he hadn't had the chance to read through the proposals thoroughly, after which phoenixalpha and I split pleading illness. Elapsed time: a little less than one hour.

D12 official post-mortem

phoenixalpha and I arrived late despite the quick service at Jimmy John's (you can't really eat their sandwiches while driving unless you're really really good with your knees, and I'm not) which was okay since the meeting started late anyway. No Mike, no Ron, no Penny, and of course, no Don. He'd responded to Eric's jeremiad about the unwanted/unsanctioned post-mortem at Friday's on the Sunday of the convention by resigning, which means we now have to find somebody else to do signs and provide a couple of coolers for the con suite. I would say "find a programming head" as well, but since Eric wound up doing a lot of that work this year anyway...meh. Some talk about slow sales in the dealer's room being due to the economy; being averse to arguing politics, I remained silent, though I thought it had more to do with the lack of new blood to buy books & art that the regulars had seen before. The auction did well ($800+) which would seem to belie the economic argument, but I was too sick and tired to want to argue about it. Everybody agreed that the function space was too spread out for the number of people we had, and the hotel aggravated this by spreading the rooms out all over the place. The dispersion contributed to the lack of energy noted by many in attendance. We may be in a different hotel next year, but this remains to be seen.

The T-shirts sold very well and there are 26 people signed up for D13. No discussion of the enormous expense of importing Somtow from Thailand. Some talk about glitches in various programming events, eliminating 9 AM panels, and how the (mostly) self-service consuite worked (pretty well). There was consensus that D13 should have an "Anime 101" panel for the benefit of fans who weren't familiar with anime, since anime programming for the last three years had been oriented mostly toward people who already were anime fans.

Committee voted nearly unanimously to confirm Eric as Sole Rightful Autocrat, with Art abstaining since he hadn't had the chance to read through the proposals thoroughly, after which phoenixalpha and I split pleading illness. Elapsed time: a little less than one hour.

Inevitably...

Once it was common for Big City humorists to poke fun at all the hayseeds and small-town Babbitts in what would eventually be called "flyover country" by the Jet Set.

The worm has turned. James Lileks dishes up a full, steaming platter of sneers and mockery for that icon of the Beautiful People, the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

Get some, James. ^____^


Update Link has been fixed so that it points to the correct Bleat, not that I think anyone actually read this post to start with...

Inevitably...

Once it was common for Big City humorists to poke fun at all the hayseeds and small-town Babbitts in what would eventually be called "flyover country" by the Jet Set.

The worm has turned. James Lileks dishes up a full, steaming platter of sneers and mockery for that icon of the Beautiful People, the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

Get some, James. ^____^


Update Link has been fixed so that it points to the correct Bleat, not that I think anyone actually read this post to start with...

"It is as it was."

It would be very easy to allow this post to veer off into an extended rant about various critics and dirtbags in the press who wrote hit pieces on The Passion of the Christ even before they'd seen it, but I'm going to avoid that. It would also be easy to rant about people who sneered at Pope John Paul II's comment on the movie, but I'm going to avoid that too.

The movie is bigger than that.
( Read more... )

"It is as it was."

It would be very easy to allow this post to veer off into an extended rant about various critics and dirtbags in the press who wrote hit pieces on The Passion of the Christ even before they'd seen it, but I'm going to avoid that. It would also be easy to rant about people who sneered at Pope John Paul II's comment on the movie, but I'm going to avoid that too.

The movie is bigger than that.
( Read more... )

Goodbye to you, Qwest.

You've failed me for the last time, you Coal Age telecom thugs!

Talked briefly with the folks at Time Warner Cable/Roadrunner, who informed me that I could pick up the necessary gear to get online with them at their Richfield store until 7 PM any time this week, so I guess it's a good thing that I drove to the P&R this morning. Think I'll take a half-hour for lunch and leave early to facilitate this.

The six-month introductory rate is a $15 savings over what Qwest was charging me for the DSL line and "basic internet" (=penalty for using somebody besides Qwest as my ISP) and router rental, and the full $44 rate is no worse than what Qwest charges for slower service. I would have preferred to stick with DSL (I am old enough that there seems something wrong about getting Internet access through the cable jack) but AT&T can't provide it for some reason and I don't want to wait for McLeod.

Update: The Richfield office couldn't open an account for me, so I wound up going home and calling the TWC customer care people to get that done. So tonight instead of going out to Motley Tuesday and talking to Earl as I'd planned to do originally, I'll be wrestling with the cable hookup.

Goodbye to you, Qwest.

You've failed me for the last time, you Coal Age telecom thugs!

Talked briefly with the folks at Time Warner Cable/Roadrunner, who informed me that I could pick up the necessary gear to get online with them at their Richfield store until 7 PM any time this week, so I guess it's a good thing that I drove to the P&R this morning. Think I'll take a half-hour for lunch and leave early to facilitate this.

The six-month introductory rate is a $15 savings over what Qwest was charging me for the DSL line and "basic internet" (=penalty for using somebody besides Qwest as my ISP) and router rental, and the full $44 rate is no worse than what Qwest charges for slower service. I would have preferred to stick with DSL (I am old enough that there seems something wrong about getting Internet access through the cable jack) but AT&T can't provide it for some reason and I don't want to wait for McLeod.

Update: The Richfield office couldn't open an account for me, so I wound up going home and calling the TWC customer care people to get that done. So tonight instead of going out to Motley Tuesday and talking to Earl as I'd planned to do originally, I'll be wrestling with the cable hookup.