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"In the beginning, there was the Word." So it is with me; I have always been an avid reader, preferring SF, historical fiction, military & naval history, and biographies to other genres, though I did go through a stretch where I was reading a lot of mainstream fiction. Gave up on it because most of it was depressing and/or tales of awful people doing awful things or living awful lives. (See Bright Lights, Big City or The First Deadly Sin.) I still do a lot of reading and have the Kindle and physical libraries to prove it.
Reading SF eventually (inevitably?) drew me into science fiction fandom. I attended conventions in the Baltimore/DC area and elsewhere from 1974 (Discon II, the Worldcon in DC) until 1983 when I got married and moved to Minnesota. There I became more active in traditional fanac: I pubbed a perszine, joined and dropped out and rejoined Stipple-APA, became involved in media fandom thanks to Space: Above & Beyond and the 59th Ready Reserve Squadron, went to a few Minicons, more Convergences and Diversicons and Arcanas, volunteered and served on staff for some of those, and eventually became heavily involved with anime fandom at Anime Iowa, so much so that I was one of the founders and chairmen of Anime Detour, which I remained on staff with until I left Minnesota for Virginia in 2007. I returned to Anime Detour (and continued to volunteer there) after moving to Virginia and Las Vegas, but eventually the staff there did my son dirty, and I severed all connections with them. I'll be going to Anime Fusion in Minnesota this year for my son's 40th birthday, but purely as a spectator. I dropped out of Stipple-APA after descending into abject poverty in Virginia, but after moving to Las Vegas in 2015 I became involved with the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F), sporadically contributed to N'APA, and eventually became treasurer along with wearing a few other fezzes. I am currently the chairman of Son of Silvercon, a small relaxicon in Las Vegas that aspires to become a mid-sized regional convention.
Fandom led me into historical boardgaming/wargaming, which was a big thing in the 1970s and 1980s before TSR bought SPI at bankruptcy and gutted the hobby. I was a D&D dungeonmaster and a Traveller referee; I was also interested in several other RPG (Twilight:2000, Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green) but never actually played them. Wargames are still around, but it's a lot harder to find opponents, and games, like everything else, have become a lot more expensive thanks to inflation and the fact that it's a niche hobby now. Mostly I play video games like Civilization and Hearts of Iron IV, which have some of the flavor of the old monstergames. I used to be involved with EVE-Online as part of Goonfleet, and was there when we broke Band of Brothers, lost Delve and fled to a new home, reorganized under Commissar Mittens and grew to be a great power in the game again, but I don't remember clearly when I stopped playing. Probably in 2018, when I got horribly sick and was homeless for a couple of months. Everyone I used to know in GF is out of the game now, and I don't feel any strong urge to go back. Aside from the aforementioned strategic video games, I also play Fate/Grand Order and Azur Lane on my phone, the former more than the latter because Azur Lane's story is confusing and silly by turns. Played Cookie Run for a while but it wound up being more grindy than cute, and Girls Frontline just didn't hold my interest. I should probably get out and play more Ingress because the walking would be good for me.
I came very late to baseball. As a kid, I was a fan of the Washington Senators, who moved to Texas in 1972 and took my interest in baseball with it. My now ex-wife was a Twins fan, though, and between her interest and Rotisserie baseball, I got back into it. For a few years I scored games at home for STATS, Inc. and published a newsletter on the independent minor leagues (which caused some road trips to towns like Aberdeen, Austin, Duluth, Fargo, and Madison) but that fell victim to Anime Detour, which pretty much ate my life from 2003-2007. I played fantasy baseball on Yahoo for a few years but dropped out of that; I was also involved in a Pursue the Pennant league until it fell apart in 1992. Nowadays, I casually follow the Nationals, Twins, and Red Sox, and am managing the Senators in a Dynasty League Baseball league run by fellow blogger Pete (Da Tech Guy), but Major League Baseball's current commissioner has alienated me with his woke stupidity, and I'm not much interested in seeing the A's when they move from Oakland to Las Vegas in a couple of years.
I don't watch a lot of TV or movies. Used to watch a lot when I was married, but that went by the wayside in favor of watching anime, and these days I watch very little because Hollywood isn't making a lot of stuff that interests me, and I find video games more rewarding. Someday I'll probably finish watching Fallout, because it's on Amazon Prime and the first five episodes, which I saw while visiting Stacy McCain this spring, seemed pretty decent. People tell me I should watch The Expanse, and maybe one of these days I will. Webcomics fall under this heading; I was really really interested in Girl Genius, Megatokyo, Erfworld, and a couple of other webcomics, but I fell out of the habit of following them (probably around the same time I stopped playing EVE-Online, for some of the same reasons) and I can't think of any webcomics I follow at all, with the exception of Terminal Lance, Clinic of Horrors, and occasional postings by Merryweather Media.
Not sure where this really fits in, but thanks to my Dad's final assignment with the JCS, I acquired an interest in nuclear weapons and power, which has led me to a seat on the board of the Nevada Security Site Advisory Board, a group of citizens who provide oversight to the Department of Energy's ongoing cleanup and monitoring work at the former Nevada Test Site. I don't get paid for it, but they do reimburse me for my travel expenses, which is nice, and the work is interesting, with a lot of callbacks to some weird history. For example, they're currently demolishing & cleaning up Test Cell C, which is where testing of NERVA rockets and Project Pluto went on during the early 1960s. Coincidentally, there's some discussion of nuclear rockets again in connection with Elon Musk's ambition of going to Mars.
I suppose I could also describe this as a report on the state of my fandoms, and it will probably wind up on the Substack in somewhat altered form...
Thankless Jobs For Fans: Programming
Aug. 4th, 2018 03:45 amI read with some interest and not a little schadenfreude about the kerfluffle over programming at Worldcon this year. I'm not going into the details, but suffice it to say quite a number of people are being hoist on their own politically correct petards, and now the poor bastards doing programming have to jump through their asses to redo panels with less than a month before the convention. Welp.
( Would you like to know more? )
That having been said, I don't envy them their task. Next to running consuite, programming is probably one of the most thankless jobs on con staff, mainly because as George Brett once said when asked who should be voting for the players in the All-Star Game said "I don't know, because I don't know who the game is for." And so it is with programming. I have worked on programming for two very large conventions, and who programming is for is a question that doesn't seem to get asked very often. There is an assumption that panels and other events are there to entertain the membership, but there are also panels that are purely informational (Balticon and Convergence both have science tracks, for example) and panels where the filthy pros talk about their latest work, general trends in the field, or whatever. I don't know about Balticon, never having been on staff or been a volunteer there, but both Anime Detour and Convergence depend heavily on input from the membership to suggest (and staff) panels*. Apparently this wasn't done at Worldcon, because quite a few of the obscure Hugo nominees -which is to say, virtually all of them - felt snubbed by not having enough panels, and there was much anger that people who had suggested panels found that they'd been passed over for those panels in favor of people the head of programming thought would be a better fit for said panels. It was at that point the fewmets hit the fan, much screeching ensued, and the aforementioned overhauling of panels commenced.
That process is just part of the headache, sports fans. You have to figure out -sometimes based on previous years' numbers, sometimes not - which of the limited number of rooms a panel is going into (this is sometimes made easier by reserving certain rooms for particular programming tracks) and when during the weekend the panel is happening, which will affect attendance - needless to say, panels that don't/aren't expected to draw well are going to wind up on Friday and Sunday afternoons before most people show up. I myself have had panels drop in attendance by an order of magnitude when they were moved from Saturday during cosplay to Sunday just before closing ceremonies. You have to coordinate with Guest Relations and the guests themselves to keep from burning out those guests by asking them to do too much in not enough time, and this can be its own can of worms if attending professionals are not designated guests of the convention and just happen to be attending.
So it's a lot of work, and if you do everything right, nobody notices because the panels & other programming go off without a hitch and without any complaints. When stuff goes sideways, as it almost always does, suddenly everything is your fauilt. Like I said, it's a thankless job.
*Usually if you suggest a panel, you're expected to find people to be on it with you. Obviously this is going to work differently at Anime Detour, where the vast majority of panels are for and by fans, than it will at Convergence or Diversicon, where a lot of local authors show up and usually want to sit in on a couple of panels.
( Would you like to know more? )
That having been said, I don't envy them their task. Next to running consuite, programming is probably one of the most thankless jobs on con staff, mainly because as George Brett once said when asked who should be voting for the players in the All-Star Game said "I don't know, because I don't know who the game is for." And so it is with programming. I have worked on programming for two very large conventions, and who programming is for is a question that doesn't seem to get asked very often. There is an assumption that panels and other events are there to entertain the membership, but there are also panels that are purely informational (Balticon and Convergence both have science tracks, for example) and panels where the filthy pros talk about their latest work, general trends in the field, or whatever. I don't know about Balticon, never having been on staff or been a volunteer there, but both Anime Detour and Convergence depend heavily on input from the membership to suggest (and staff) panels*. Apparently this wasn't done at Worldcon, because quite a few of the obscure Hugo nominees -which is to say, virtually all of them - felt snubbed by not having enough panels, and there was much anger that people who had suggested panels found that they'd been passed over for those panels in favor of people the head of programming thought would be a better fit for said panels. It was at that point the fewmets hit the fan, much screeching ensued, and the aforementioned overhauling of panels commenced.
That process is just part of the headache, sports fans. You have to figure out -sometimes based on previous years' numbers, sometimes not - which of the limited number of rooms a panel is going into (this is sometimes made easier by reserving certain rooms for particular programming tracks) and when during the weekend the panel is happening, which will affect attendance - needless to say, panels that don't/aren't expected to draw well are going to wind up on Friday and Sunday afternoons before most people show up. I myself have had panels drop in attendance by an order of magnitude when they were moved from Saturday during cosplay to Sunday just before closing ceremonies. You have to coordinate with Guest Relations and the guests themselves to keep from burning out those guests by asking them to do too much in not enough time, and this can be its own can of worms if attending professionals are not designated guests of the convention and just happen to be attending.
So it's a lot of work, and if you do everything right, nobody notices because the panels & other programming go off without a hitch and without any complaints. When stuff goes sideways, as it almost always does, suddenly everything is your fauilt. Like I said, it's a thankless job.
*Usually if you suggest a panel, you're expected to find people to be on it with you. Obviously this is going to work differently at Anime Detour, where the vast majority of panels are for and by fans, than it will at Convergence or Diversicon, where a lot of local authors show up and usually want to sit in on a couple of panels.
Why can't you just spit it out?
Jul. 9th, 2014 09:11 pm![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
revolutionaryjo and others linked to this Daily Dot article on Facebook, and it got me to thinking about some stuff I hadn't bothered thinking about for a while - mainly because aside from Detour, I'm not on staff with any conventions* and while there are folks at Detour who respect my opinions, the fact of the matter is that what I want for Detour is not terribly relevant. It's in other folks' hands now and they seem to be doing just fine without my advice. Still, I have some thoughts about fandom in general and its evolution, and kicking Aja Romano's parochial little piece around seems like a productive way to spur the thinking.( Would you like to know more? )
Cosplay Is Not Consent
Apr. 17th, 2013 10:17 amThe problem of unsocialized assholes forcing their attentions (physically and otherwise) on cosplayers and costumers is not a new one, but for a social conservative like myself it's a pretty frustrating one. There are a lot of things interacting here, starting with the breakdown of traditional roles and behavior -whatever happened to the very basic instruction in politeness, "Keep your hands to yourself!"?- continuing with the increasing sexualization of the culture at large, adding an unhealthy helping of what Lea Hernandez memorably termed "the Manstream", as well as the influence of the Master Race and their not always safe for work portrayals of girls and women. Stir all this together and dump it into the overheated space created by a convention, which almost by definition is the American version of Carnival, and you get the problem we're dealing with today.
Whether people like it or not, clothes are a signaling device as much as they are protection from the elements and a place to put things. As an example, you'll be treated very differently if you show up for a job interview in jeans and a T-shirt as opposed to a suit, or at least a jacket and tie. Women in halter tops and hot pants will be treated differently than those wearing blouses, jackets and knee-length skirts. Sober colors like black and dark blue connote seriousness; pastels not so much and Day-Glo neon colors not at all. All this used to be common knowledge, and people used to learn how to dress for success as part of the process of growing up. Not any more. It's become so common to see things on Casual Friday that would have gotten you summarily canned fifty years ago that HR departments have resorted to creating new dress codes to make sure people don't come in to work looking like they just got in from an all-nighter at the local strip joint.
And so it is at conventions, where most people wear normal clothes but some people dress up in costumes or do cosplay.* Most people know enough not to run up and hug random strangers who are wearing T-shirts and jeans, but apparently for some people the sight of a fellow fan wearing their favorite character's costume completely destroys their common sense and gives them the notion that it's okay to tackle the unsuspecting cosplayer. This kind of stupidity needs to be corrected, not least because it falls under the wide heading of "things that are not okay outside the convention, or in it either." In fact, outside the convention, this sort of behavior is commonly referred to as assault, a misdemeanor in the criminal code,** and will get you a fine at the very least. Grabbing somebody of the opposite sex makes it even worse.
Which brings us around to the cute young ladies in the sexy costumes that often cover everything but conceal nothing. Under the Old (and presumably Bad) Rules, nice young ladies didn't wear clothes like that, but women of "easy virtue" often did. This has changed, and under the New (and presumably Good) Rules, women can wear any damn thing they want, and anyone daring to criticize clothing/costumes as excessively racy gets shouted down as a fun-hating repressive Puritan who's pissing in the ice cream. Now, I like young ladies showing off their sexiness as much as the next red-blooded American guy, but I would like to point out that since the Old Rules are no longer (officially) in effect, they've still had considerable impact on the culture at large. Which brings us back to the topic of signaling: what message is being sent by the cosplayers, and how is it being understood by the onlookers? I would like to further stipulate that figuring out what women want is hard enough when you're not drunk and/or sleep-deprived, and trying to do it when you *are* tired and drunk is cursed near impossible.
I'm also at a loss as to how convention staffs are supposed to deal with catcalls, wolf whistles and rude comments made to cosplayers. No, people shouldn't be mistaking a sexy costume as an invitation to bump uglies and talk smack - but trying to be the speech police is going to make the difficult job of Security damn near impossible.
The preceding should not be used to justify bad behavior, because that's not what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to provide some context and make people think. I'm saying maybe things have gone a little far when cosplayers have to be told by staff that they're violating the local ordinances on how much sideboob is allowable. I'm saying maybe we shouldn't have teenage girls providing other congoers with easy beaver shots (Link NSFW).*** I'm saying it's going to be damn hard to change the mindset of thousands of people who have become used to thinking of a convention as a place and time where just about anything goes as long as nobody gets physically hurt, and we shouldn't let ourselves be fooled that a catchy slogan and cool art are going to do the job by themselves. This is going to involve changing a subculture that is no longer really separate from the mainstream (or, unfortunately, the Manstream) and that simply can't be done quickly unless you want to use force. Good luck with that.
*Costuming seems more common at SF/media conventions where most people aren't trying to act as the characters their costumes portray; cosplay, on the other hand, has people trying to stay in character.
**I Am Not A Lawyer, but a brief internet search of state criminal codes bears me out.
***Put on some damn underwear, FFS.
Whether people like it or not, clothes are a signaling device as much as they are protection from the elements and a place to put things. As an example, you'll be treated very differently if you show up for a job interview in jeans and a T-shirt as opposed to a suit, or at least a jacket and tie. Women in halter tops and hot pants will be treated differently than those wearing blouses, jackets and knee-length skirts. Sober colors like black and dark blue connote seriousness; pastels not so much and Day-Glo neon colors not at all. All this used to be common knowledge, and people used to learn how to dress for success as part of the process of growing up. Not any more. It's become so common to see things on Casual Friday that would have gotten you summarily canned fifty years ago that HR departments have resorted to creating new dress codes to make sure people don't come in to work looking like they just got in from an all-nighter at the local strip joint.
And so it is at conventions, where most people wear normal clothes but some people dress up in costumes or do cosplay.* Most people know enough not to run up and hug random strangers who are wearing T-shirts and jeans, but apparently for some people the sight of a fellow fan wearing their favorite character's costume completely destroys their common sense and gives them the notion that it's okay to tackle the unsuspecting cosplayer. This kind of stupidity needs to be corrected, not least because it falls under the wide heading of "things that are not okay outside the convention, or in it either." In fact, outside the convention, this sort of behavior is commonly referred to as assault, a misdemeanor in the criminal code,** and will get you a fine at the very least. Grabbing somebody of the opposite sex makes it even worse.
Which brings us around to the cute young ladies in the sexy costumes that often cover everything but conceal nothing. Under the Old (and presumably Bad) Rules, nice young ladies didn't wear clothes like that, but women of "easy virtue" often did. This has changed, and under the New (and presumably Good) Rules, women can wear any damn thing they want, and anyone daring to criticize clothing/costumes as excessively racy gets shouted down as a fun-hating repressive Puritan who's pissing in the ice cream. Now, I like young ladies showing off their sexiness as much as the next red-blooded American guy, but I would like to point out that since the Old Rules are no longer (officially) in effect, they've still had considerable impact on the culture at large. Which brings us back to the topic of signaling: what message is being sent by the cosplayers, and how is it being understood by the onlookers? I would like to further stipulate that figuring out what women want is hard enough when you're not drunk and/or sleep-deprived, and trying to do it when you *are* tired and drunk is cursed near impossible.
I'm also at a loss as to how convention staffs are supposed to deal with catcalls, wolf whistles and rude comments made to cosplayers. No, people shouldn't be mistaking a sexy costume as an invitation to bump uglies and talk smack - but trying to be the speech police is going to make the difficult job of Security damn near impossible.
The preceding should not be used to justify bad behavior, because that's not what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to provide some context and make people think. I'm saying maybe things have gone a little far when cosplayers have to be told by staff that they're violating the local ordinances on how much sideboob is allowable. I'm saying maybe we shouldn't have teenage girls providing other congoers with easy beaver shots (Link NSFW).*** I'm saying it's going to be damn hard to change the mindset of thousands of people who have become used to thinking of a convention as a place and time where just about anything goes as long as nobody gets physically hurt, and we shouldn't let ourselves be fooled that a catchy slogan and cool art are going to do the job by themselves. This is going to involve changing a subculture that is no longer really separate from the mainstream (or, unfortunately, the Manstream) and that simply can't be done quickly unless you want to use force. Good luck with that.
*Costuming seems more common at SF/media conventions where most people aren't trying to act as the characters their costumes portray; cosplay, on the other hand, has people trying to stay in character.
**I Am Not A Lawyer, but a brief internet search of state criminal codes bears me out.
***Put on some damn underwear, FFS.
From A Distance
Jul. 11th, 2012 08:38 pmA very good friend of mine made me an offer I almost couldn't refuse with regard to Convergence this year, but the cash flow situation made it impossible for me to accept that offer, and so I find myself reading various LJ posts and Facebook entries to get a feel for a convention I probably won't be going back to ever.
( Would you like to know more? Sure you would. )
( Would you like to know more? Sure you would. )
One less convention I'll be visiting
Jul. 24th, 2011 08:52 pmhaikujaguar, who recently wrapped up the most excellent "Spots The Space Marine" web serial here on LJ, recently made a trip to Readercon and posted about it here. I'm glad she did well there, but I completely sympathize with her decision not to go back for a while - if ever. The knee-jerk political and anti-religious attitudes on display there aren't unique to Readercon by any stretch of the imagination, and to say it sticks in my craw is a massive understatement. The inability of these people to see that they're engaged in a massive case of projection is truly astounding, and says volumes about how compassionate and sensitive they really are. As I put it some years ago at one of the last Convergence cons I went to before moving down here, "Look, I'm not here to discuss politics. I'm here to discuss SF & fantasy. You want to talk to me about politics, do it somewhere else because I'm not going to do it here." Still, the ugly fact is that most SF fans seem to assume that you, too, are politically liberal and atheist, and that political conservatives/religious people are suitable figures for derision. Which we don't appreciate, surprisingly enough.
Related: I don't pimp Liberty SF nearly enough and should probably put it in my blogroll here at the LJ.
One less convention I'll be visiting
Jul. 24th, 2011 08:52 pmhaikujaguar, who recently wrapped up the most excellent "Spots The Space Marine" web serial here on LJ, recently made a trip to Readercon and posted about it here. I'm glad she did well there, but I completely sympathize with her decision not to go back for a while - if ever. The knee-jerk political and anti-religious attitudes on display there aren't unique to Readercon by any stretch of the imagination, and to say it sticks in my craw is a massive understatement. The inability of these people to see that they're engaged in a massive case of projection is truly astounding, and says volumes about how compassionate and sensitive they really are. As I put it some years ago at one of the last Convergence cons I went to before moving down here, "Look, I'm not here to discuss politics. I'm here to discuss SF & fantasy. You want to talk to me about politics, do it somewhere else because I'm not going to do it here." Still, the ugly fact is that most SF fans seem to assume that you, too, are politically liberal and atheist, and that political conservatives/religious people are suitable figures for derision. Which we don't appreciate, surprisingly enough.
Related: I don't pimp Liberty SF nearly enough and should probably put it in my blogroll here at the LJ.
The Bleat.:
This is actually very profound, at least to me. I am, perhaps, overly concerned with the past. I certainly spend enough time thinking and writing about it, perhaps out of fear that sometime in the future I won't actually be able to remember it, and I'll have to rely on these written accounts of what happened when, how I felt about it, and what the ambient music was.
I'm also concerned with the past because I feel - no, fuck that, I KNOW - that people in general don't pay a lot of attention to the past and tend to forget what happened 10, 20, 30+ years ago. It all dissolves into a white-noise blue screen for people, and they don't remember even the things which are important to them personally and the subculture they belong to. That's why I keep banging on about the HRMP War, its causes and its effects - because people don't/won't remember why the subculture they live in is the way it is, and why it's prone to dumb shit like that. Somebody has to remember this stuff and remind the forgetful.
Which leads to the question of how you – I mean, you – define your passage through time. I’m not sure I can answer the question; it’s a combination of personal plots, locations, and cultural markers. As I’ve said before, I feel bad for kids now who grow up in an era when all culture is potentially current culture, when it’s all the permanent now, with no demarcations between styles and eras. You have to be able to read the past to know what led to the next thing, and why we’re where we are. This is the vaguest paragraph I have ever written.
This is actually very profound, at least to me. I am, perhaps, overly concerned with the past. I certainly spend enough time thinking and writing about it, perhaps out of fear that sometime in the future I won't actually be able to remember it, and I'll have to rely on these written accounts of what happened when, how I felt about it, and what the ambient music was.
I'm also concerned with the past because I feel - no, fuck that, I KNOW - that people in general don't pay a lot of attention to the past and tend to forget what happened 10, 20, 30+ years ago. It all dissolves into a white-noise blue screen for people, and they don't remember even the things which are important to them personally and the subculture they belong to. That's why I keep banging on about the HRMP War, its causes and its effects - because people don't/won't remember why the subculture they live in is the way it is, and why it's prone to dumb shit like that. Somebody has to remember this stuff and remind the forgetful.
The Bleat.:
This is actually very profound, at least to me. I am, perhaps, overly concerned with the past. I certainly spend enough time thinking and writing about it, perhaps out of fear that sometime in the future I won't actually be able to remember it, and I'll have to rely on these written accounts of what happened when, how I felt about it, and what the ambient music was.
I'm also concerned with the past because I feel - no, fuck that, I KNOW - that people in general don't pay a lot of attention to the past and tend to forget what happened 10, 20, 30+ years ago. It all dissolves into a white-noise blue screen for people, and they don't remember even the things which are important to them personally and the subculture they belong to. That's why I keep banging on about the HRMP War, its causes and its effects - because people don't/won't remember why the subculture they live in is the way it is, and why it's prone to dumb shit like that. Somebody has to remember this stuff and remind the forgetful.
Which leads to the question of how you – I mean, you – define your passage through time. I’m not sure I can answer the question; it’s a combination of personal plots, locations, and cultural markers. As I’ve said before, I feel bad for kids now who grow up in an era when all culture is potentially current culture, when it’s all the permanent now, with no demarcations between styles and eras. You have to be able to read the past to know what led to the next thing, and why we’re where we are. This is the vaguest paragraph I have ever written.
This is actually very profound, at least to me. I am, perhaps, overly concerned with the past. I certainly spend enough time thinking and writing about it, perhaps out of fear that sometime in the future I won't actually be able to remember it, and I'll have to rely on these written accounts of what happened when, how I felt about it, and what the ambient music was.
I'm also concerned with the past because I feel - no, fuck that, I KNOW - that people in general don't pay a lot of attention to the past and tend to forget what happened 10, 20, 30+ years ago. It all dissolves into a white-noise blue screen for people, and they don't remember even the things which are important to them personally and the subculture they belong to. That's why I keep banging on about the HRMP War, its causes and its effects - because people don't/won't remember why the subculture they live in is the way it is, and why it's prone to dumb shit like that. Somebody has to remember this stuff and remind the forgetful.
It's happening again...I can feel it
Jul. 9th, 2010 01:43 pmIronically enough, I'm writing this on a Friday afternoon before the monthly PRSFS meeting.
P returned from the Great American Desert, where Convergence is held every Independence Day weekend, and had much news, most of it amusing in a "ha-ha, funny!" way and some of it amusing in a bitter, cynical "LOOK HOW STUPID YOU ARE" way.
( LOLWUT? )
P returned from the Great American Desert, where Convergence is held every Independence Day weekend, and had much news, most of it amusing in a "ha-ha, funny!" way and some of it amusing in a bitter, cynical "LOOK HOW STUPID YOU ARE" way.
( LOLWUT? )
It's happening again...I can feel it
Jul. 9th, 2010 01:43 pmIronically enough, I'm writing this on a Friday afternoon before the monthly PRSFS meeting.
P returned from the Great American Desert, where Convergence is held every Independence Day weekend, and had much news, most of it amusing in a "ha-ha, funny!" way and some of it amusing in a bitter, cynical "LOOK HOW STUPID YOU ARE" way.
( LOLWUT? )
P returned from the Great American Desert, where Convergence is held every Independence Day weekend, and had much news, most of it amusing in a "ha-ha, funny!" way and some of it amusing in a bitter, cynical "LOOK HOW STUPID YOU ARE" way.
( LOLWUT? )
Makes me wanna point and laugh
Jun. 29th, 2010 10:57 pmI'm hauling out the MacArthur icon for this because I'm putting on my ex-Chairman hat for this post.
( Sensitive, caring fans will probably not want to read this. )
( Sensitive, caring fans will probably not want to read this. )
Makes me wanna point and laugh
Jun. 29th, 2010 10:57 pmI'm hauling out the MacArthur icon for this because I'm putting on my ex-Chairman hat for this post.
( Sensitive, caring fans will probably not want to read this. )
( Sensitive, caring fans will probably not want to read this. )
Gathering of the clans, er, chieftains
Jul. 10th, 2009 12:00 ammichaellee has been pimping this website aggressively of late, and I have some gut reactions. I'm posting them here because, well, I'm not really part of Twin Cities fandom any more. My future in fandom, such as it is, will be defined by whatever I do here in the Baltimore/Washington are. So I don't think it's my place to shit up League of Wonders with my comments.( So what? )
Gathering of the clans, er, chieftains
Jul. 10th, 2009 12:00 ammichaellee has been pimping this website aggressively of late, and I have some gut reactions. I'm posting them here because, well, I'm not really part of Twin Cities fandom any more. My future in fandom, such as it is, will be defined by whatever I do here in the Baltimore/Washington are. So I don't think it's my place to shit up League of Wonders with my comments.( So what? )
Wound up doing my good deed for the decade by hauling a pizza out to P's place for various reasons she can explain if she wants to, but it was worth it to get caught up on all the Detour gossip/drama** as well as getting her take on this year's Convergence (now with 400% more SEX, LOL) which included pole dancing, go-go dancers at the Oddcon party, and a kissing booth for some worthy cause that featured increasingly scantily-clad young ladies as the weekend progressed. Judging from the photographs posted so far by PV, among others, Allen Carpentier's criticism of femmefans* no longer applies, at least not at Convergence where, apparently, attracting da yoots of Minnesota is not a problem. :)
Nothing much of any consequence accomplished today otherwise; hope to change that tomorrow.
*"Half-pretty women half-dressed to show it." Inferno, chapter 1 IIRC
**Relax,stuckintraffik, it's all good. ;)
Nothing much of any consequence accomplished today otherwise; hope to change that tomorrow.
*"Half-pretty women half-dressed to show it." Inferno, chapter 1 IIRC
**Relax,
stuckintraffik, it's all good. ;)Wound up doing my good deed for the decade by hauling a pizza out to P's place for various reasons she can explain if she wants to, but it was worth it to get caught up on all the Detour gossip/drama** as well as getting her take on this year's Convergence (now with 400% more SEX, LOL) which included pole dancing, go-go dancers at the Oddcon party, and a kissing booth for some worthy cause that featured increasingly scantily-clad young ladies as the weekend progressed. Judging from the photographs posted so far by verrant, among others, Allen Carpentier's criticism of femmefans* no longer applies, at least not at Convergence where, apparently, attracting da yoots of Minnesota is not a problem. :)
Nothing much of any consequence accomplished today otherwise; hope to change that tomorrow.
*"Half-pretty women half-dressed to show it." Inferno, chapter 1 IIRC
**Relax,stuckintraffik, it's all good. ;)
verrant, among others, Allen Carpentier's criticism of femmefans* no longer applies, at least not at Convergence where, apparently, attracting da yoots of Minnesota is not a problem. :)Nothing much of any consequence accomplished today otherwise; hope to change that tomorrow.
*"Half-pretty women half-dressed to show it." Inferno, chapter 1 IIRC
**Relax,
stuckintraffik, it's all good. ;)Okay, I admit it.
Jul. 2nd, 2009 09:12 pmRight now, I kinda wish I was at Convergence. OTOH, low on cash and short on clean clothes is no way to attend a convention.
Okay, I admit it.
Jul. 2nd, 2009 09:12 pmRight now, I kinda wish I was at Convergence. OTOH, low on cash and short on clean clothes is no way to attend a convention.
Replenishing the blood supply
Jun. 14th, 2009 03:00 pmI think it's a cliche that people join fandom looking for community. Traditionally, this has certainly been the case, and to some extent continues to be the case for some people, but now that SF and fantasy have become part of the mainstream I don't think it's quite as common as it used to be. The result of this is that fandom is less of a ghetto than it used to be, and some of the social aspects have weakened as a result.
( Would you like to know more? )
( Would you like to know more? )
