wombat_socho

Yeah, it's a few weeks late, but April was hella busy and once we got into May I kept forgetting. Quit whining about the free ice cream, already.

I've already discussed the beginning and end, and the middle...well, the two major events for me were the "Politics in Modern Japan" panel with angeljuliet, which had a small but very active turnout, and the "Diet and Diabetes" panel with gohanvox, which also had a small turnout, but we did reach at least one fan with the message. Kyle and I are talking about doing the panel at AMA, which is going to involve a drive (and maybe an overnight stay) to Richmond, and we'll see how that goes. As for the rest of the convention, I spent a lot of time with jtrainor, which was good, and not so much with my other AD droogs, which was unavoidable, really.

( Philosophizing about Detour follows )
So, back on staff and registered for next year. Won't be attending Katsucon next year, so I should have more cash for Detour and Balticon.

And now it's starting to rain, so I think I'm going to head on home; the traffic should be all cleared up by now.

I've written off Katsucon for this year. As much as I would like to see bam2 and hang out more with onsenmark, I have to face facts and realize that the more I'm up and around, the longer it's going to take my incision/infection to stop bleeding and start healing. The same problem will probably get in the way of me going out to P's for chili tomorrow. As much as I love her chili and believe in its healing power, the drive out there is a major pain even without the current leg issues, and with them it would be a Bad Thing.

Basically, I can't go out for very long because I need to change this dressing every four hours to keep up with the drainage, otherwise it starts flooding the bandage and making a really gross mess out of my pants. So I'm going to stay in tomorrow, I think, except for a brief outing to Home Depot and Harris Teeter for light bulbs and some groceries. I have a fresh stack of paperbacks at my bedside and will be up every six hours to take antibiotics & update stuff from the desktop. That's about all the excitement I really need.

Carlos came over to help me shovel out the Toaster, and then we headed over to Los Toltecos for some quality Mexican with his SO Arlene. The service was slow, but the restaurant was really busy when we got there so I was willing to cut them slack on that account. Especially since the food was so good, to say nothing of the conversation.

Got home, started changing bandage on thigh when onsenmark called to update me on the Katsu plan. Looks like he'll be getting into DC around 0500; I suggested that he hop the Metro to Van Dorn and I'd get him across the river to National Harbor from there, possibly with breakfast in the middle someplace. I still dunno if I'm going to make more than a token appearance at Katsu, even though bam2 is going to be there along with Chris. While my leg isn't bleeding quite so much right now, I really ought to be horizontal as much as I can so the damn thing will finish healing sometime in the near future.

Never did get called for work today. Just as well in view of the leg...but I do need the $$$. Sigh.

Some guy P knows is supposed to be in town this weekend and she thinks I ought to meet him. We'll see what happens.

Finished reading the DAW edition of Jerry Pournelle's A Spaceship for the King. That would make a damn fine anime series, but where would they find the character designer who could match Kelly Freas' depiction of Iron Man MacKinnie?

My SunTrust online banking had been acting weird the last couple of days - for some reason, the balance in my checking account had been increasing, but I couldn't get at the detail to see why. Called in to their customer service, which flipped a switch/hit the right keys/waved a dead rodent and not only made the missing detail appear but also made my new savings account appear. Booyah! It looks like H&R Block expedited the payment for the January kickoff meeting, and the Commonwealth paid me about $70 for being partially employed. Which reminds me, I need to fire off some resumes and apply to the Feds so I can salvage something from the VEC for this miserable weather-afflicted week. God knows with the office being randomly closed due to the weather, I won't be getting much for this week's work from H&R Block.

Leg drainage continues apace, and the nurse from VA advice line says it's going the way it should be. Basically, as long as the pus remains laudable, the infection doesn't spread, and I don't suddenly spike a fever, it's all good. So I suppose in a way I should be grateful for the lack of work, since it gives me time to rest up and heal faster. It's my theory and I'm sticking to it, though tbqh I'd rather be working.

I suspect that even with all the blowing and drifting and additional snow today, I'll be back at work tomorrow; quite possibly Friday and Saturday as well, which will screw up any notions I may have had of dropping by Katsucon for even a day. onsenmark is understandably pissed at the effect the weather is having on his travel plans, and I have to wonder whether I'll be able to get him from the bus station downtown to National Harbor. Have to play it as it lays, I guess.

Ganked from rinnytintinny on Facebook.
It made me think for a minute about how much time I've spent at conventions and/or working on them.
( Would you like to know more? )
I don't tag people, but I am curious about my friends' experiences, especially oldermore experienced fans like badger2305, materia_indigo, chebutykin, qob...you know who you are, people.

Worked the Night Job for about eight hours today, including the time I took to retrieve onsenmark from the hotel so he could dump his stuff at the Burrow and return for the tail end of Katsucon. I'll also be working tomorrow night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night, so the paycheck at month's end should be pretty decent. Depending, of course, on how I hold up through the week.

Nothing else to say, really; this article on the Amish and how they adapt to technology (or adapt it to their uses) is interesting; also via Instapundit, the flowering of romance now that Iraq is (mostly) peaceful again. In other terror news, Terrorists Quit over Pay Dispute, leading Glenn to quip "Geez, everybody's suffering from the recession!" Lots of cool tech stuff here, and that's just the first six weeks of 2009.

Very hard time getting started this morning, and in fact I blew off the 1000 Web comics/print comics panel because my motivator chip was stuck in the off position, also because I was busy committing insurance fraud and losing Badgers full of spare parts and ammo.

I eventually did make it to the hotel in time for the Philosophy in Anime panel, which was actually at 1530. This was more of a discussion than a lecture panel, which was a Good Thing, because like most folks I'd rather be part of a discussion than get lectured at. Also seen and talked to were Rob Balder and Phil Foglio. This time, I managed to avoid reminding Phil about D'Arc Tangent. Win.

Unfortunately, after that there wasn't much of interest going on. Hanging out in the driveway and hallway watching the people go by is interesting for a while, but the frequency of good hall cosplay wasn't really high enough to keep me engaged, so around 1900 I headed out to Fairfax by way of the burrow, where I coordinated with P about dinner. This eventually happened at Moby's in Fairfax, where we got caught up on stuff. Things appear to be going quite well for her, which hopefully will be a continuing trend.

Don't know if I'll be going back to Katsucon next year. For one thing, it's going to be at National Harbor next year, and for another, it's just too goddamn huge. It was more crowded than Detour's last years at the Thunderbird, without the central courtyard or the low-rise construction to provide relief. Katsucon posted an attendance cap of 6500, which they hit pretty easily, but IMAO this was way too many people for the space. Maybe that'll be improved by the new facilities, but TBQH I'm not much interested in finding out.

Got a good night's sleep mainly by virtue of resetting the alarm to 0800, and am now awake trying to make sense of various senseless things that went down while I was being an otaku last night. Among these is Ringo & Cochrane's Honor of the Clan, which arrived yesterday and was read while laundry was processing. Review later, after I've read through it a couple more times.

Should have done EVE stuff last night and didn't, which might make getting my shit to Delve interesting. Meh, it's all insured, and even the blueprints can be replaced.

Plan calls for me to be showered, dressed, and at the hotel by 1000 for the comics panel. It could happen and probably will. deathquaker will probably not be joining us since she has family issues to deal with, but that's life; hopefully therevdrnye will not also be a no-show. For now, I must do coffee and other drugs. I suspect things will make a little more sense after I do this.

UPDATE: Plan has failed miserably mainly due to inertia and a surfeit of internet spaceships. Showering now. Will probably make it to the philosophy & anime panel.

Got off work around 1500, went home to take care of some business, and wound up getting to Katsucon around 1630, well in advance of the Utena panel that started at 1700. Good panel; a lot of intelligent discussion of color symbolism and male/female roles in the context of Utena. I think the panelists are making a mistake in addressing the series from a solely Western cultural context, since anime isn't the product of a solely Western culture, but hey, it's their panel and it was 90% interesting.

After the panel, onsenmark went upstairs to grab his smokes and then we headed over to Marino's for foodz, which we ate while discussing anime, Inferno, and the need for a convention that was more oriented toward mature discussion of anime and getting otaku better acquainted with traditional SF & fantasy. As opposed to the current crop of conventions, which are really aimed more at teenagers...not that there's anything wrong with that, but you ought to be able to have a space for the older fans to do workshops and SERIOUS BUSINESS panels. This convention idea can stand to gestate for a couple more years, though; I don't know enough local fans aside from my old friends (who are either broke-ass fans like me or busy with RL stuff) and I'm not ready to end my sabbatical from convention staffing yet.

I dropped Mark off at the hotel after dinner and headed home, because one of the panels I want to see tomorrow is scheduled for 1000 and there's no damn way I can get up early enough on Saturday, do laundry and get to the hotel in time. Therefore, laundry is being done tonight and I'll get a decent night's sleep before plunging back into the mix.