Despite a complete lack of exertion on my part (due mainly to being so busy I forgot to send in the programming survey), I will indeed be at the Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition. My lone panel is on publishing at 1pm on Sunday the 28th, though I may get slotted in elsewhere.
If you’re going to be there, give me a shout!
Note: Due to extenuating circumstances, I will not be able to make Balticon after all this year. The offer is withdrawn, all of you who were kind enough to order a session have received refunds. Hopefully next year!
I’ve now missed two straight Balticons, much to the chagrin of many of you who start asking me about it this time of year. This year, I’m on the cusp. I’ve been invited on programming, and am very excited about going, but…
Continue reading ‘Your Photos Will Send Me To Balticon’
I hate bad news–I actually hate giving it more than I hate receiving it. Unfortunately, in this case, I’ve received some bad news that means I have to give some bad news.
Continue reading ‘When Plans Change…’
Continuing from the previous post…
By mid-day Friday I had my bearings a lot better. We managed to locate some decent casino food–if your only experience with casinos is looking at the advertisements on billboards and the decadent meals there pictured, trust me, this is not as easy as it sounds–and set about hitting panels and trolling the dealer rooms in search of fun and enlightenment.
Continue reading ‘WorldCon report, part 2′
Well, I’ve just returned from my first Worldcon–this one was in Reno, called “Renovation” by its pun-hungry organizers (and who can blame them, really?).
What a different experience from other cons, on many levels.
Continue reading ‘WorldCon Report, part 1′
Well, I suppose I’ve put it off long enough. The summer since Balticon has been packed to the gills with activity. Lots of writing, lots of strategizing. 
I don’t think I’ve read as much in one summer in at least a decade, and I’ve written 150k words and still going—might even hit 350-400k for the year by year’s end, if I budget my time right.
But I can’t put it of any longer—needs must, and I have to move on from Balticon to the next grand adventure, so I endeavor to finish this story.
Saturday began with an argument. The clock wanted to convince me that it was almost time for my first panel. I told it that it was full of shit and really needed to get a life. It countered by telling me I now had one minute less than I used to, so I’d better get my ass moving.
Continue reading ‘The Balticon Adventure pt 5: Pontification, Panels, and Parties’
The Saga Of The Hat
At this point in the narrative, I’m forced to chose between one of two roads. I could go along the chronology, skipping the boring and blackmail-worthy parts along the way, or I could chose a theme and tell its story…or I could jump back and forth between each as my fancy strikes me.
Guess which one I’ve picked?
It wasn’t until my appearance on Litopia last December that I began to realize the Power of the Hat ™. First, there was the encounter I recounted last time with Kim the Comic Book Goddess (who insists she’d have recognized me without the hat, but I have my doubts). Then there was the fact that Scott Roche and Sidfawu accosted me based solely upon the Power of the Hat, and we wound up sitting in the bar for several hours on Friday night talking Down From Ten, writing, and what passes for politics in my demented corner of the universe.
But before all that boring stuff, you’ll want to hear The Good Parts.
Continue reading ‘The Balticon Adventure pt 4′
Scuba Gear
I normally travel with carry-on baggage only, but it’s not because by the end of a plane ride there’s nothing that gives me greater relief from coach seat-cramp syndrome and DVT than sitting down in another small seat in a moving vehicle. Nor is it that the prospect of walking around an unfamiliar building filled with carousels from deSade’s worst dreams fills me with nauseating dread.
Continue reading ‘The Balticon Adventure pt 3′
Air Trek
I’ve often suspected that “JetBlue” is so named because of the color your legs turn in coach. Turns out that, like so many other things in the universe, I was completely wrong. They had more leg room than I’ve experienced on any flight in years – so much that I didn’t even get bruises on my knees from the seat in front. All this for the cheapest available tickets? Luxury, I say!
They also had personal televisions mounted in the back of each seat, ostensibly piping in Sat TV for our viewing pleasure. It was a special kind of SatTV, though, one designed to be suitable for children. Attempting to watch the G-rated cut of Fight Club was probably the most surreal experience of the entire weekend (which, in any weekend that contains people like Tee Morris, is saying a lot).
Continue reading ‘The Balticon Adventure pt 2′
Some highlights and lowlights of 2008
This year, particularly the second half, has seen a lot of people turn very pessimistic about, well, everything. Yeah, the economy’s slowing down. Yeah, people like me are scrambling just to make ends meet – when money goes slow everywhere, it hits the arts hard. And yeah, some things just sucked. But you know what? Today’s “awful” is a hell of a lot better than “great” was when my grandparents were growing up. Despite environmental problems, terrorists, crooked investment bankers, and crookeder politicians (yes, in all parties), I’m living in a time when “five-percent unemployment” is really bad. When I was a kid in the early 80s, that would have been music to everyone’s ears. Ditto for crime, poverty, war casualty, plague death, and violence figures almost everywhere on Earth (though some of us are a lot luckier than others, through no merit of our own).
So, yeah, 2008 might have been a scary year. But as I look back at the global “Big Picture” there aren’t a lot of things that are truly scary in the long run – not like there were twenty, fifty, or eighty years ago – not to mention longer ago than that.
On a personal level, it’s been a mixed year, but as I was drawing up this list I can’t help but be staggered by how far the scales tip towards the wonderful. Click on the link to read my self-indulgent recap.
Continue reading ‘The Year that Almost Wouldn’t Die’
