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[07 Feb 2010|10:42pm] |
Not impressed by the Superbowl commercials this year. The Denny's commercials were cute but made no sense to me, since you don't kill chickens to get to the eggs. Favorite commercial was the Intel one with the depressed robot. Impressive game by the Saints, although it did seem to show that the best way to shut down Manning is to make sure he's not on the field much.
Bedroom finally stopped smelling like paint, so I'll actually be able to sleep in my bed tonight instead of the sofa bed. My back is happy.
Supposed to go up to NYC this thursday to spend the weekend with my mom. We'll see what happens if it snows again midweek. I'm booked on the train, and usually if it is not a blizzard they run the trains, they just run hideously late.
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[06 Feb 2010|05:58pm] |
Been enjoying the snowpocalypse. Went outside to play in the approximately 2 feet of snow on the ground (which was a bit of a challenge given that I'm only 5 ft.) Snow was too dry to pack properly for a snowman :( Guess I should have tried that last night when the snow was wetter and more sleety. So I flopped over and made a snow angel, which I then seriously deformed trying to stand up again. Now home and toasty warm. The meeting of the Northern Virginia Dr Who Viewing Society which was to have occurred this afternoon after having been moved from last weekend due to the snow has now been moved to Feb. 20th.
Since the DC library was closed, I was unable to pick up the books I had on hold: The island at the center of the world : the epic story of Dutch Manhattan, the forgotten colony that shaped America by Russell Shorto and Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. Hopefully I'll be able to pick them up on Monday.
Wednesday night I went to an alumnae dinner of sorts, celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies (what Radcliffe College turned into after it was 100% absorbed by Harvard). The lecture portion of the evening was very interesting with the 2 lecturers, Susan Suleiman and Susan Terrio both focusing on minorities in France, Jews in WWII France (focusing on child survivors) in Suleiman's case (specifically Irene Nemirovsky and her daughters) and French citizens of North African ancestry in Terrio's case (I'm going to have to track down her book, Judging Mohammed. Terrio, an anthropologist by training, was focusing on the juvenile justice system in France, a task made difficault by the fact that in the spirit of Egalite, France is de jure "colorblind" in the sense that statistics are not kept on people's race in pretty much any context. She was focusing on 2d and 3rd generation french born citizens of north african ancestry, who while they thought of themselves as French, were often not seen that way by French institutions, which saw them as foreign and nonintegrated.
Thursday afternoon I went to lecture at the Heritage Foundation sponsored by the Federalist Society on the Citizens United case and its impact on campaigns and campaign advertising. Federalist Society panels of this sort are generally well-balanced (even if the DC chapter isn't, imho) and this was no exception. The 4 speakers had a number of interesting points to make, including one who pointed out that close to half the states and DC had never had the sort of restrictions on corporations (both for profit and NFPs) and unions that federal elections had had up until now and that if you really believe that the states are the "laboratories of democracy" (to quote Brandeis and I hope I got the phrase right) then there might not be as much of a change as people were worried about. Another speaker also pointed out that corporations and unions already spend quite a bit on "issue ads" they just did not contain the magic words endorsing particular candidates. Another speaker argued that the FEC regulations that restricted the RNC and DNC and related organization the same as other corporations and unions was pretty stupid. One speaker looked to the example of Massachusetts, where all advertising slots were sold out even with the restrictions and noted that in future elections the nature of who was buying advertising could change quite a bit since candidates have to be offered the lowest unit costs when they buy time, but corporations could be sold the same time slots at 2000% of that and worried that in future elections candidate advertising would actually be squeezed out, since stations want to make money and would be more likely to sell time to entities that could pay the higher rate. One speaker worried about transparency and envisioned corporations funneling money into NFPs which would then buy ads where it wouldn't be clear that it was the corporate entity making the statement. Another point that was made was that while there was some concern about foreign money, since a number of U.S. based corporations are subsidiaries of foreign corporations (and foreign money has always been bright line banned) those same foreign corporations were often owned by U.S. based hedge funds (yet another confused mess we can thank Wall Street for). It was also suggested that any reduction in the ability of the FEC and the DOJ to civilly regulate campaign finance might result in more enforcement of a criminal nature, e.g. "honest services fraud" prosecutions. It was a fascinating 1 1/2 hour panel discussion, followed by an unadvertised lunch of sandwiches and cookies.
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[01 Feb 2010|10:49pm] |
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Had a pretty good weekend. Friday night I hosted Fifth Friday for WSFA. 10 people showed up (about 1/4 of the membership) and the party went to around 1am, so I'll call it a success. Saturday afternoon I was supposed to be hosting the Northern Virginia Dr Who Viewing Society, but since the snow prediction went from 1 inch to up to 6 inches, it got postponed until next Saturday. Sunday my college alumni association had a "ladies tea" event in the late afternoon at a member's home in Penn Quarter, an easy trip on the red line for me. I took the leftover homemade fudge and cinnamon nut bars as my contribution. I was the only person there from the 80s as far as I could tell, but I had a very nice chat with a number of women from the classes of 65-77. My fudge was popular.
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| R.I.P. Robert B. Parker |
[19 Jan 2010|08:13pm] |
...and Spenser and Hawk et al.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/ap_en_tv/us_obit_robert_parker
Over the years I've enjoyed all three detective series - Spenser; Sunny Randall; and Jesse Stone. I liked the way Parker tied them together without making the links too forced. I liked the humor of the books (even when I wasn't sure it was intentional. Like in The Widening Gyre [I think I have the right title] where Spenser's in London and every time he goes back to his hotel room someone new is there to kill him and gets whacked instead). I liked the fact that you knew what you were going to get with a Parker novel, even if it meant the characters never entirely matured. The detective characters had a very specific sense of honor from the Chandler hardboiled school of detective writing that didn't always put them on the right side of the law, but was about making things right (or at least as right as possible under the circumstances) and always backing up your friends (who you were pretty careful about chosing). His books were like a properly broken in pair of old jeans.
I really hope that the books the obit refers to as "being in the pipeline" are completed manuscripts and just in need of copyediting. Because Parker had a very distinctive voice, and I'd hate for someone to come along and "fill in" an outline or co-write the books because I think that's likely to be a pale imitation of the original.
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| December 2009 reading |
[01 Jan 2010|11:22am] |
188. Flytrap No. 9
189. Robots Have No Tails by Henry Kuttner
190. On Spec Summer 1994
191. Talebones #34
192. Talebones #39
193. Liar by Justine Larbalestier
194. Necessary as Blood by Deborah Crombie
195. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
196. The Secret Feminist Cabal by Helen Merrick
197. Talebones #38
198. Starmen of Llyrdis by Leigh Brackett
199. Why I Hate Saturn by Kyle Baker (reread)
200. Uncharted Territory by Connie Willis
201. Under Contract by Liza Cody
202. The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharon McCrumb
203. Strange Roads by Peter S. Beagle
204. The Rainbow People by Laurence Yep
205. Saints and Strangers by Angela Carter
206. Seeds of Change ed. by John Joseph Adams
Why I Hate Saturn held up better than I expected. Its ethos is somewhat late 1980's, but the story is still fun. Piranha Press was DC's first abortive attempt at what they later did more successfully as Vertigo. Somewhere is a closet at my mom's place is a complete run of Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children. At some point I'm going to have did them out for a reread. Very much enjoyed the stories in Seeds of Change. IIRC at least 4 of them were nominated for the WSFA Small Press Awards and I believe two of them were finalists. Saints and Strangers was interesting. The stories were focused more on America/American themes, which is a little unusual for Carter, but the stories were still unmistakably Angela Carter stories. However, if I were going to recommend a collection of her stories (other than Burn Your Boats which collects nearly all of them) I would recommend The Bloody chamber and Fireworks over Saints and Strangers. Liar and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms were both fantastic. I'm still trying to figure out what really happened in Liar.
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[25 Dec 2009|08:10pm] |
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Didn't go out to the movies because I was feeling a little under the weather, but fortunately, I have a nice assortment from Netflix, plus my own dvds. Also, the Discovery Channel is celebrating Christmas with a Mythbusters marathon. I did order chinese food from Charlie Chiang's. Perhaps mindful of being in a fairly Jewish part of DC, they had a big sign up yesterday saying "Open for Christmas" So I had the traditional Jewish Christmas. Also, having green tea ice cream while drinking a pot of gunpowder green tea makes a nice dessert.
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[25 Dec 2009|06:28pm] |
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So the American Bar Association sent its members holiday cards this year. And in the card were four gift coupons good for a free half year membership in the ABA. So if you've been thinking about joining the ABA but haven't wanted to go to the expense, let me know and I'll send you the coupon.
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[19 Dec 2009|01:19pm] |
Last week I went out to San Francisco with my mom to visit my brother and his family for the first half of Hanukah. (which was an awesome present from my mom). We've never gone out to SF that late in the year. The latest we've gone out in the past has been Veterans Day weekend. It's the rainy season out there now. It wasn't as cold as the weather predicted, so I was a little overdressed (could have worn sweater vests instead of sweaters). Because of the fog in SF, there were delays, so the time difference didn't really help. Our plane was supposed to leave at 10:45am but did not take off until 12:30pm and there was about half an hour of circling once we got out there. there was also a lot of traffic. So we didn't get to out hotel until after 5pm, and after consultation with my brother decided not to go out to their house that evening, since we would get there around 6, just in time for my nephew to have dinner and go to bed, and we figured our presence would just make it impossible to put him down for the night. So we spoke to him on the phone and wished him a Happy Hanukah and promised to see him the next day.
I had bought him a couple puzzles as presents, and one of them unfortunately turned out to be a bit of a bad idea. My nephew is 4 1/2, and the Kung-fu Panda 100 piece 3-D puzzle said for ages 5-8 on the box. I didn't think it would be a problem because I'd seen him quickly put together 250 piece puzzles with no problem. As it turned out, it took my nephew and 3 adults to put the puzzle together. The 3-D pieces looked different depending on the angle from which you looked at them from. So ultimately I ended up standing over the puzzle looking down directing my mom and my nephew. Also, the pieces were not all that well cut, which made it hard to put the pieces together. On the plus side, it was great to see them and open presents (my sister-in-law knitted me a great pair of socks) and even in the month and a half since I last saw him, my nephew's gotten more articulate and his sentence structure is more complex. The flight back to NYC made great time and we got in 45 minutes early, and the next day I had a very pleasant train ride back down to DC.
I think I may have sprained my eyeball. I was doing a lot of reading Tuesday because I was working on 4 reviews for SFRevu and Gumshoe Review. Also, I had a lot of e-mail to catch up on, as I don't take a computer with my to SF. Also, I had insomnia and ended up staying up until 3am surfing the internet and playing Jungle Jewelz on Facebook. The next day my right eye was sore, teary and red. There did not seem to be a lash or anything in my eye, so I spent most of the day applying hot compresses and hoping I hadn't developed pinkeye or something. I couldn't really read or use the computer because it was difficult to fit my glasses over the washcloth and I can't see without them. My eye was fine the next day. The reason I'm wondering if I sprained the right eye it that my right and left eyes are no longer even close to the same prescription. My left eye is twice as astigmatic and also more nearsighted. At my last eye exam, I had a bit of a focus problem with the left eye, which the doctor corrected with prisms. Because I am very dominantly right handed (and footed), I'm wondering if I spent most a Tuesday using just my right eye instead of both together and that's what caused the problem.
I've got two more presents to mail out. One late Hanukah present to my aunt and one will be late Christmas gift for a friend from law school living in London.
I got a bunch of really nice presents. Lots of books. U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton; Locked In by Marcia Muller; Hardball by Sarah Paretsky; What the Dog Saw and other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell; and Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. My cousin Ann sent everyone in the family a copy of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue as a joke gift. she sent along instructions for the Palin drinking game, which involves opening the book to random pages and if it says "America," "patriot" or "you betcha" take a drink. My mother also sent me a box of Texas ruby red grapefruit and a couple mattress pads (I realize the latter seems like an odd present, but the two I have are coming apart, so I had actually requested some new ones as a gift). Also, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wmslawhorn and makotohanabi got me my own Dominion game. Which is totally awesome.
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[19 Dec 2009|12:45pm] |
So far, about a foot of snow has accumulated in the District. I estimate there is 4-6 inches of snow on my balcony. So I can indulge the urge to make a snow angel without leaving my apartment, more or less.
It's gotten windier. The snow seems to be blowing sideways now, unlike the previous pattern where it seemed to be coming down at a 45 degree angle and blowing back up at an equal and opposite angle. It's very hypnotic. I can't see more than a block away. Everything's white. Fortunately, I'm fully loaded on food, beverages and toilet paper. Although I will probably go out in the snow later, just because. It's been ages since I've been out in serious amounts of snow.
Went to the Washington Science Fiction Association meeting yesterday. We actually made quorum. People left earlier than usual after the meeting, since it had already started snowing quite a bit. M.Y. drove me home on the Beltway. Oddly, for DC, people were actually sane. DC is way too close to the Mason-Dixon line for the level of panic that snow causes. And they often respond by attempting to drive quickly and erratically. Last night people were driving slowly (around 25-35), leaving reasonable distances between cars and being polite about letting people switch lanes. The only freakout I saw was a guy on the offramp at exit 33 who was hunched over the steering wheel, with hazards on, driving 2 mph while straddling the lane line. We passed him on the left using what was probably the shoulder. At that point, Connecticut Ave. actually seemed in better shape than the beltway. My street was not in great shape, and my building had not bothered to put down any salt, so you couldn't really see the driveway. M.Y. decided to continue home to VA by going through the District rather than getting back on the Beltway. I think it was the right decision. About 1/2 and hour after getting home I got a call from G.S. making sure M.Y. and I had gotten home okay, which was nice.
I'll probably pend the rest of the day cleaning and catcing up on my reviews for SFRevu and Gumshoe Review.
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| November reading |
[09 Dec 2009|10:10pm] |
170. Viewpoints Critical by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
171. Cenotaxis by Sean Williams
172. Naked by David Sedaris
173. Escape from Hell! by Hal Duncan
174. Apex Digest Best of 2005 Vol. I
175. Apex Digest Best of 2005 Vol. II
176. The Fabulist, Winter 2009 Vol. 1 No. 1
177. Other Cities by Benjamin Rosenbaum
178. Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #9
179. Monster by A. Lee Martinez
180. Down in the Fog Shrouded City by Alex Irvine
181. Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 13
182. Electric Velocipede No. 1
183. Electric Velocipede No. 7
184. Sybil's Garage No. 3
185. Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany
186. Rampant by Diana Peterfreund
187. Flytrap #7
So November was something of a chapbook/semipro zine month in terms of reading. Monster by A. Lee Martinez was a fun book. I totally could see a movie adaptation being done by either Kevin Smith (esp. since it's set in NJ) or Spike Jonze. I really liked Rampant by diana Peterfreund. Because you can't go wrong with carnivorous man-eating killer unicorns.
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[27 Nov 2009|12:29pm] |
Back from Orange County, NY. Had a great Thanksgiving with my mom's family. My cousin J. did a great Thanksgiving feast with turkey with the traditional family stuffy recipe, a sweet potato, apple and cranberry casserole, fresh homemade cranberry sauce, little mini pumpkin muffins made from pumpkins she grew, and since my other cousin J. and his son are vegans, they brought a tofurkey and J's wife N. made a really good rice and lentil dish. I tried the tofurkey. Won't be doing that again. It was like eating a tough somewhat stale rye bread.
Had a great time playing with my cousin's two standard poodles, Katie and Mason, and labradoodle, Riley. Riley is a big clumsy goofball. Katie and Mason are much more dignified. There were also 4 barn cats: Mr. Grey, Max, Fat Maggie (who has not yet started bulking up for the winter) and Lexie. Lexie was the friendliest. We also got to interact with the two horses, Val and Del, and the two ponies, Eclipse and Chip (who is a recent acquisition and needs to go on a diet). Both Val and Chip came over to the fence to wuffle at me and let me pet them, and Val tried to eat my sweater vest.
At one point while we were waiting for the turkey to finish coking, a huge flock on crows started landing in the trees and all over my cousin's front lawn (there had to be at least 3 dozen on the lawn) and cawing and making a lot of noise. So after asking permission, other cousin J. shouted "release the hounds" and let the dogs out. That quickly took care of the problem.
My cousin's son B. has had yet another growth spurt and his voice has changed. I think he's about 5' 8" now, and he's starting to get quite broadshouldered now. Given that he's only 13, I'm guessing that he's not through growing.
The drive back to the hotel was a bit creepy because none of the roads were lighted and it was really foggy.
This morning everyone took advantage of the really good breakfast buffet at the Courtyard Marriott in Middletown and then my uncle and aunt drove my mom and me home. There was no traffic and it only took about an hour and forty minutes.
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| Back from Philcon |
[22 Nov 2009|07:06pm] |
Had some success at the Capclave table this morning. Sold six memberships. Yay.
Went to the "Recommended Reading" panel, which was very entertaining. The only downside being that the audience barely outnumbered the panelists. The "Explaining Why It's Good" panel was interesting, but diverged radically from the topic, or at least it diverged from the topic as I understood it from the description.
Next year's GOH at Philcon is supposed to be Peter S. Beagle, so I will probably be going. Plus, as chair for the 2011 Capclave, I do feel obligated to go and try to sell memberships. Given my fondness for Beagle's books, I will make more of an effort to have other people do shifts at the table, assuming WSFAns will actually be there, as the number still attending appears to have dropped by quite a bit.
Drive back from Cherry Hill was uneventful, and the metro red line train arrived quickly despite the single tracking between Grosvener and Medical Center.
The apartment did not blow up or spring a leak or anything while I was gone, which is good. Of course, it also did not clean itself.
Must do laundry and then begin packing for NYC for Thanksgiving.
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| More Philcon |
[21 Nov 2009|11:44pm] |
Spent most of today sitting at the Capclave table. One benefit of having an adorable dodo puppet and a cute plush dodo is that people will come over for a closer look and then they tend to be polite and listen to your spiel now that you've sucked them in with cuteness. Gave out around 50 flyers/registration forms.
Was relieved by samthereaderman mid-afternoon and went to the L.A. Banks reading which was more of a fun interactive talk with a short reading portion at the end. And that's not meant in a negative way. It was a very enjoyable hour. Later after I packed up the Capclave table I went to the "Who is Your Favorite Forgotten Author" panel, which was quite interesting. John Maberry talked about how the movie adaptations of Richard Matheson's work, even though they weren't very good, had caused an author who had been all but forgotten to become popular again, since quite a few moviegoers decided to go back to the original source material after seeing the movie.
Spent around 2 1/2 hours at parties this evening. I-Con, the Chicago in 2012 Bid and the Raleigh NASFiC all had open parties. The NASFiC had fried chicken, BBQ pork, cole slaw, sweet tea and pecan pie. It was delicious and saved me having to buy dinner. Ravencon had alcohol and was therefore a closed party. I had one of Mike Pederson's specialty drinks, which always have quite a kick, so I will probably be going to bed soon. I spent the bulk of my time at the NASFiC party and the Ravencon party, esp. since I ended up engaging in a nearly hour-long conversation with some folks from Delaware at Mike's party.
Tomorrow I want to go to the "Recommended Reading" panel in the morning and the "Explaining Why It's Good" panel in the afternoon (I'm hoping to pick up some tips that will improve my reviews for SFRevu) and I'll spend the rest of my time at the Capclave table.
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| Philcon |
[20 Nov 2009|11:49pm] |
I'm here at Philcon, in my hotel room taking advantage of the free wifi. samthereaderman very nicely gave me a ride up.
Checking into the room went very smoothly. Picking up my badge at registration went very smoothly. Nothing else did. The hotel may or may not have had Philcon's set up period doublebooked with another function. End result, nothing was really set up at 5pm except the dealers room (and by nothing was set up, I mean function space didn't have chairs and stuff). Also, the program books and the pocket program had not yet arrived, which meant that the information desk people were working overtime sitting at the table with a laptop looking up panel locations for people who knew in advance what panels they wanted to go to.
Have thus far not bought anything in the dealers' room. I suspect that tomorrow I will succumb and buy the Hanukah themed t-shirt with the yarmulka wearing dragon playing with a dreidel while lighting the menorah by breathing fire on it.
Went to a very good copyright lecture by Cory Doctorow at the PSFS meeting.
Hopefully tomorrow the art show will be fully set up. Will probably attend the midnight reading of the Eye of Argon.
Tomorrow I will be spending most of the day sitting at my half of a fan table attempting to sell Capclave memberships and the Harry Turtledove book Reincarnations while the majority of congoers walk by ignoring me. At least I'll be in good company with the Chicago in 2012 bid, the Raleigh NASFiC and the Reno Worldcon.
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| October reading |
[15 Nov 2009|03:59pm] |
158. Turning the Tables by Rita Rudner
159. Love, Love, and Love by Sandra Bernhard
160. Damage Control by J.A. Jance
161. Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
162. She Came by the Book by Mary Wings
163. Mean Streets by Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, and Thomas E. Sniegoski
164. The Grass-Cutting Sword by Catherynne Valente
165. Death of a Witch by M.C. Beaton
166. Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp
167. Reincarnations by Harry Turtledove
168. Sea Glass by Maria V. Snyder
169. Slay and Rescue by John Moore
I'm a big fan of Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books, which are getting progressively darker, so I enjoyed Turn Coat and Butcher's entry in the Mean Streets anthology. However, my favorite entry in Mean Streets was Kat Richardson's "The Third Death of the Little Clay Dog," which I liked enough that i will probably go out and read the rest of the Greywalker series (just what I need, another series to follow).
The Grass-Cutting Sword was, like much of Catherynne Valente's ouevre, deeply weird. Slay and Rescue was another light-hearted comic take on fairy tales by John Moore. I think at this point I have read all of his novels to date, which is too bad, as he's always good for a laugh.
Reincarnations was the collection of Turtledove short stories published by the WSFA Press in conjunction with turtledove being the GoH at this year's SF convention, Capclave (http://www.capclave.org). I had not read many of his short stories before and this collection of one original story plus a number of never before reprinted stories gives a nice overview of his work. You can buy a copy here: http://www.wsfapressbooks.org
Given all the last minute stuff that needed to get done for Capclave, among other things, I did not have a lot of time for reading in October.
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| WFC |
[14 Nov 2009|10:59pm] |
And once again I'm posting a con report well after the con. I got sick. So sue me. (And no, I didn't pick up con crud or swine flu, both of which seem to have been circulating at the con, judging by various people's post con reports. I managed to pick up a cold on the flight out to California. Stupid recycled air.)
One of the things I like about World Fantasy is the readings. Highlights for me were readings by Kij Johnson and N. K. Jemisin (liked her reading enough to snag an ARC of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms to review for SFRevu). I went to several other readings, some of people I was unfamiliar with, and others of authors I have passing familiarity with, like Jay Lake.
I thought the Google Books settlement panel was quite good. The only downside was the ex Google employee in the audience who kept interrupting to insist that the panelists were all mischaracterizing Google which was entering into the project with absolutely no profit motive whatsoever. Yeah, let's all call shenanigans on that one. Even if Google's original intention was simply to create the electronic equivalent of the Library at Alexandria, even a cursory look at the filings and various writings on what Google was actually proposing, make it very clear that Google wants to make money off the project while paying authors as little as possible.
The Vandermeer on Vandermeer GOH talk where Ann and Jeff Vandermeer interviewed each other was a lot of fun. The Garth Nix GOH talk was quite good as well. The art show was smaller than I expected, but quite good. There was a Lela Dowling watercolor I was tempted to bid on, but it quickly went out of my price range.
I did not end up buying many books in the dealers room, in part because a couple of books I was interested in were OOP and out of my price range and also a bit in part due to the fact that the person in charge of getting the freebies for the goodie bag did a truly spectacular job in getting lots of very good free books. So one of the few things I ended up buying was a really beautiful moss agate necklace. And yay to the concomm for working out an arrangement with USPS where on Saturday and Sunday a mini P.O. was opened at the con for people to either send books home priority mail flat rate or in plain boxes via media mail. I opted for priority mail flat rate and the freebies took up 3 of the second smallest size boxes.
One thing WFC does really well are its receptions. The food is always excellent. So I went to the art show reception and the meet and greet/autographing orgy reception. At the mass autographing session, I somehow managed to miss Lisa Goldstein, which was annoying as she does not seem to attend conventions regularly and I really wanted to get my copy of The Red Magician signed. On the plus side, Anna Tambour had come to the con all the way from Australia, so I was able to get my copy of Spotted Lily signed, and I was able to get Jane Lindskold to sign her story in Future Washington and John Shirley to sign his entry in Newer York.
Saturday night there was an absolutely fabulous party in the form of a Victorian tea to celebrate the book launch of Soulless by Gail Carriger. I did not manage to hit all the parties Saturday night as my cold was really starting to bother me and the rather nice exotic theme drink of mostly various forms of alcohol I had at the tea pretty much finished the job and made me exhausted so I ended up calling it an early night at around 10:30pm.
Sunday I did not attend the remainder of programming at the con. Instead I loaded up on decongestants and took Caltrain from San Jose to San Francisco and then caught the N Judah Muni Metro to Cole and Carl and spent the afternoon with my brother and his family. My sister-in-law's family were up for the weekend as well. We all went to the Park chalet restaurant at Ocean Beach for lunch, then put Heidi's grandparents in a cab to the airport and then the rest of us spent a couple hours at the beach building sand forts and then went back to the house and helped my nephew put together some jigsaw puzzles and watched some dvds (a Kung-fu Panda cartoon and the America Rocks section of the Schoolhouse Rock dvd). Then we got my nephew ready for bed and read him some bedtime stories. I ended up taking a cab to the airport rather than taking the metro and BART because while it cost more, the cab ride would only take 20 minutes but going via public transportation would take at least 1 1/2 hours. I opted for spending more money since it meant I could spent more time with my relatives. I was on the same redeye flight as samthereaderman.
By the time I got home, my cold was in full bloom and was totally kicking my ass (not really being able to sleep on the flight home didn't help), so I ended up more or less taking to my bed for two days. I gave up using tissues and went through a whole roll of toilet paper blowing my nose. And when I wasn't completely congested, I was coughing up a lung. On the plus side, the total lack of appetite meant I ended up losing three pounds and after two really miserable days I felt much, much better. And since I'd sent my books priority mail, they arrived just as I was up and about and feeling better.
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[25 Oct 2009|07:26pm] |
Had a pleasant weekend. Saturday I hosted this month's meeting of the Northern Virginia Dr Who Viewing Society. We had fun playing with my Dr Who related toys (adipose plushy, talking cyberman with cybermat and wind-up dalek), ate junk food, and watched Castrovalva on dvd plus the extras. Not sure exactly what "Swap Shop" was, but the set design was hideous and rainbow colored.
Today I spent a lazy morning reading the paper and watching multiple episodes of "Mythbusters." Then in the afternoon I went to the Arlington Central Library semi-annual book sale. It was half price day. There seemed to be fewer books that in the past, but I was able to get 13 books for $14, which is pretty good deal.
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