Where Dustbunnies Go To Die

I feel like I've spent all weekend sitting in front of the computer. I managed to get through 14 of the 21 outstanding items on my Anticipation "to do" list, and several of the items currently outstanding are dependent upon the answer to an email I sent this afternoon. (I think there may be one item that isn't.) I also got some Polaris stuff done, and tested the CUFF ballot website (there's a slight snag there, and I've asked dx4 to give my code a look as everything looks like it should work correctly), and sent out a couple of emails pertaining to Gaylaxicon. Overall, I've sent out 71 85 emails since yesterday afternoon, and processed roughly 120 that came in. I have a few Polaris things I want to attend to before going to bed. (Yes, I'm already thinking about bed. Having to get up at 6 in the morning does that to a person.)

The only thing I didn't get done this weekend was going for a haircut - I called the salon that my stylist moved to a couple of months ago, but apparently they're closed on Sundays. And Mondays. Since I'll be in Montreal next Saturday, and have the Polaris programming scheduling meeting the following Saturday, it's going to be another three weeks before I have a chance to get it done. (I thought about calling to see if ghostleegirl was working today, but decided instead to attack my overdue To Do lists. It is getting rather desperate, though.)

The last few days before the weekend were kind of tiring as well - but starting a new job is always a bit overwhelming for me (and probably for most people) until I get used to a new routine. I met so many new people on Thursday and Friday that I'm thinking it will take me months to remember any of their names (aside from cuteteenboy, whom I already knew, of course). I'm already quite busy there, though - no time to get used to things!

I've been saving up a few things to share, that I've seen in various places around the web.

First, I'm surprised that nobody has picked up the story that Gillian Anderson is being approached to be on Doctor Who. The producers apparently want her to appear as the Rani. That will be cool, if it comes to fruition.

Second, I forget who posted this link initially (though it looks like something ozreison may have linked to), but someone has knitted a Guitar Hero scarf, depicting a section of the song "Hotel California". The knitter is willing to do custom orders for US$45.

Third, in the latest instance of epic fail, some fanfic writer with delusions of grandeur named Lady Sybilla, claiming that copyright should not exist because all ideas come from the collective unconscious, is taking it upon herself to write a sequel to Twilight called Russet Noon. Peter David - described by this writer as "a comic-book author and Trekkie geek who refuses to retire and is still trying to be a hero after all these years" - has started a communal response. A group of people are writing a Twilight parody, in 500-word increments, to mock this writer's efforts. The parody's title is Potato Moon, and the first three parts have been posted on Peter David's blog, here. (Alternatively, you can get all of the posts except for part 3 together here.)

And now to check my email, deal with one outstanding Polaris item, and check my email again one last time before getting ready for bed...

If this is a weekend, I must have had meetings.

But first... I didn't make a bowling update on Friday night. This is because I'd actually gone and bowled off on Wednesday night, as Eric and I had made plans to have dinner (we made frozen pizzas - Delissio's Hawaiian pizza is actually pretty decent) and watch the BSG finale. I obviously needed a little more practice, as it took me about six frames to get going and so my first game stank. The others were decent though: 139, 178, 182.

Even so, I almost didn't get home in time. I left work around 6:40, stopped at Kitchen Stuff Plus to pick up a pizza pan and cutter, and then got home around 8:15.

Now, because I couldn't shower while I was wearing the heart monitor, and I had time before my ultrasound, I came back home after the cardiologist's to shower. Everything was fine when I left for the ultrasound around 9:45. But when I got home after work, the lock on my door had been rotated 180 degrees. I thought, "That's odd... shouldn't my key go in with the teeth facing down?" and tried to open the door... and couldn't. I got the lock back to its normal orientation, plus 45 degrees, but then it wouldn't turn any further. (It turns 90 degrees to open.) I tried for about ten minutes but couldn't get the door open. So I went downstairs and got my superintendent, who came up and got my door open by about 8:45. In so doing, he realized that the lock was completely shot and that I needed a new one. So for the first 15 minutes or so of my chat with Eric, my super was working on the door. (He must have thought it very odd, me sitting here talking at the computer. *grin*)

There have been signs up around the building warning tenants of some attempted burglaries, so I figure that someone tried to break into my apartment after I left for the ultrasound, but was stymied by the deadbolt. Good thing I use it...

The only problem now is that my door will now close all the way unless I turn the deadbolt before I lock the door, whereas before it would stop before closing all the way. So I'm going to have to be careful when I'm taking my garbage to the chute (or start carrying my keys on me at all times).

I shall forbear from talking about the BSG finale just now because I know some people on my friendslist haven't watched it yet... also because it's nearly 2 in the morning and it'll take me a while to write it all. :)

Anyway... as I said above, today was busy with meetings. The day started with a Constellation Awards committee meeting at noon. Things are coming along nicely there, though nominations are coming in slower this year. If you haven't nominated, what are you waiting for? (You can submit nominations here.)

Then I came home and printed a whole whack of emails and documents that have been sent to me over the last couple of weeks from hotels I contacted regarding Gaylaxicon. We received responses from six or seven hotels, and I wanted to go over the proposals with the people who showed up tonight at our dinner meeting.

That meeting went well - there were a few people whom I'd expected to see who didn't show up (one is sick, and another is his partner, so once I learned this, I wasn't surprised that they didn't make it), but there were seven of us present. We went over the hotel proposals and narrowed it down to two choices. Monday, I will be phoning both of them to arrange for tours.

We also discussed the dates we want - I had sent the hotels two possible weekends for the purpose of getting a quote, but we hadn't really decided on dates yet. We know that we don't want to be too close to either Dragon*Con or Con*Cept, but we do want to be in the late summer/early fall timeframe, before it gets too chilly up in Montreal. It was suggested that when we're negotiating with the hotel, we see if we might get a better deal by moving up to August. (One of the hotels called me this week and gave me a room rate over the phone. I commented that it was significantly more than I paid when I stayed there, and was basically told, "September is convention season, so we jack the rates up." Okay, not in those exact words, but still, that was the gist of it.) The other advantage to being in August is that we can promote the con during Montreal Pride.

And finally, we discussed our proposed guest list, coming up with the GoHs we want as well as some regular guests. If we can get everyone we want, I think it's going to be a good con. *fingers crossed*

I decided to take the subway the whole way home instead of waiting for the #32 bus at Eglinton West station, so I got home around 11:30ish and called Eric. Unfortunately, he has to be up early in the morning so we only got to talk for about an hour (I feel bad for keeping him up late waiting for me to get home). He went to a Dragon*Con meeting today - he's volunteering to work in Tech Ops. We won't get to spend as much time together at the con, but I think it's good that he's getting involved in the organizational side of fandom. It's done so much good for me, after all. I've made so many friends through fandom whom I would otherwise never have met, and my life is richer for it.

Tomorrow, I have nothing scheduled for the first time in about four or five weeks. So I figure I'm going to spend the day doing laundry. (Yes, it's going to take the entire day.) And maybe I'll do some sweeping and mopping as well. Hopefully I'll find the stylus for my Palm. I figure it went missing at 6:30 Thursday morning when I picked the Palm up off my bedside table to turn off the alarm. (It was a little too small for the slot that's meant to hold it, and so occasionally it would drop out.) This is the second one I've lost in the last few months - the original one somehow went missing between my kitchen and my living room. Considering that the only thing separating them is about two feet of my dining room, I have no idea how I managed to lose it in that little area. I know my apartment is cluttered, but that's just ridiculous. At least in this case, I can understand how it might have come loose, and how I wouldn't have noticed because, well, it was 6:30 in the morning. Since when am I awake and alert at 6:30 in the morning? *sheepish grin*

Friday night was better than recent nights, but still not up to average: 148, 159, 180. Lots of splits in the first two games.

I got home later than usual because for the first time in recent memory, both teams had all five bowlers present. One of our opponents, a guy named William, is a big SF fan and we spent much of the evening talking about Samuel R. Delany. I'm not sure why, as the only book of his I've read is Dhalgren. (I do own a copy of Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand, but haven't read it yet. My library is almost as full of unread books as my DVD collection is full of unwatched series.)

Saturday, I had a Constellation Awards meeting up in northern Scarborough. The meeting was for noon, so I set the alarm for 10:30 and got out the door by 11. I figured that would be enough time. Ha! It took me longer to get there than it takes me to get to work - I arrived at 12:45. Fortunately the meeting hadn't really gotten underway yet.

After the meeting, gurudata and I looked over the map of Montreal I have and talked a little about potential Gaylaxicon 2010 hotels. Since he's an ex-Montrealer, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get some insight. There are about four or five now that I have to look up online and see if they have the kind of function space we'll need. (I still like the Delta Centre-Ville, though that may be because it's the only hotel I've ever stayed in in Montreal besides the Days Inn where Con*Cept is held.)

I got home around 6 and rushed through dinner because I was supposed to be going to travellingone's place to show her how to use Polaris' programming software and to start entering panel ideas with her. I didn't get there until about 8. She immediately offered me wine (I don't often drink wine, but this was a very nice dry red - I think she said it was Spanish?). Her roommate was there as well, and Return Of The Sith was on the TV. It's the one Star Wars movie I actually never saw, so while we waited for dx4 to return our message about our still needing our userids and passwords, we watched it for a bit and snarked about the dialogue and Anakin's overall whininess. (I can see why people were so excited about the first appearance of Vader in the suit, though - that was quite powerful, though Hayden Christiansen doesn't have the same presence, even in the suit, that David Prowse had.)

We finished up around 2 (after entering 142 panels into the database), and I left to come home. I had just missed the last subway north, but she lives within walking distance of me (even though it was about -15 out), so I got home around 2:30, finished reading the paper, and then went to bed.

travellingone emailed the exported panel lists to our web team, so the initial panel list should be up within a few days. Anyone who's looking at it, remember that it's not a full list - we're still open to suggestions.

Today I got up around 1 with the intention of going out to get my Metropass and VIVA pass, then coming home and doing some cleaning and some laundry. The lines at the Metropass machine (only one of them was working) were slow, though - a woman came up to me and said, "You know, you can buy it at Dominion." I said, "I know, but I'm getting on the subway immediately." I think she just wanted me to leave to make the line shorter. Once I had my Metropass, I went up to Finch and got my VIVA pass, then came back home.

It was nearly 4 when I got back (!), and I remembered that I had promised a couple of our Polaris author guests that I would sign and send back their contracts this weekend. So I sat down at my desk and started downloading and printing them, then scanned them back in and emailed them back. Even though there were only a handful of contracts to deal with, it took me three hours because my computer was being insanely slow. I need to reboot it - it's probably because something was causing a memory leak. (Eric told me off tonight because it's been at least two weeks since the last time I rebooted it. *blush*)

Eric was going to be home earlier than usual tonight, around 8, so I rushed through dinner and washing up, then called cuteteenboy as I'd promised him I would call this weekend. However, we didn't really have time to talk, but I suggested that we have dinner together after next weekend's Gaylaxicon concom meeting. I also tried calling my father, but he didn't pick up.

Regarding my father... I think I may be in trouble. For some reason, despite having a newspaper six days a week, and having a daily bridge calendar on my desk at work, I can never remember the date. I honestly thought on Friday that it was the 20th rather than the 27th (which led to my going to the wrong lane when I got to the bowling alley). His birthday was on the 21st, which means that I forgot to call. Oops. (I even made three LJ posts last Saturday...)

This may also explain why I'm surprised whenever I get handed a paycheque at work. I can never remember whether I was paid the previous week or not. (Part of that may also be because my boss never remembers to give it to me on time, and I usually don't get it until the following Tuesday...)

So after calling my father, I called Eric, and we chatted for a while. During the conversation, we both bought our Anime North memberships as well as tickets for the Moonlight Ball and the Saturday brunch. He's really excited about some of the voice actors they have coming. Me, I recognize some of the titles, but that's about it. Tomorrow I'll have to make some phone calls and get us a hotel room (I know we won't be able to get a room at the Doubletree - it's far too late for that even though the con isn't until late May).

He had to go to bed early - the reason he was early tonight is because he's been asked to go in two hours early tomorrow - so I've spent the last couple of hours going through the old Inbox and wrestling it back down from 190-some-odd emails to about 130. Dealt with some Anticipation emails and some job alerts that were in there, and responded to this year's first CUFF nominee to let her know that I got her nomination.

And now I think I might go to bed a little earlier than usual because I'm not feeling all that great. I think I'm coming down with a cold - my mucous membranes are all dry and my back and arms are aching, though the latter might be because I've mostly been sitting at one computer or the other almost the whole time I've been home today. I have a pillow behind my back (because I'm sitting on the couch, using the laptop), but it's not helping.

The final day at Gaylaxicon was filled mostly with saying goodbye to friends for another year (or, for those who attend Worldcon or Dragon*Con, another 10 or 11 months), and collecting some email addresses to stay in touch. I did make it to the combined bitch panel/Closing Ceremonies, where I was asked to say something about the 2010 con. Since we don't have our dates or hotel chosen yet, I couldn't say much, but people seemed to be excited about the prospect of coming to Montreal. Especially when Chris B. reminded me to tell people about Montreal's five gay strip clubs. ;)

I took the Metro to the airport with Lee (that's Denver Lee, not defenestr8or), as our flights were leaving within a minute of each other. Got there around 4, and was checked in and through security in about half an hour. As I hadn't eaten yet, I decided to grab some food and found a place where I could get a turkey sandwich (it being Thanksgiving, after all). I called Eric around 5:15 while I was waiting to board my plane (I'd said I would call when I got home, but I couldn't wait :) ), but he was still at work. He called me back just as I was getting into my seat on the plane and we talked for about half an hour, until I had to turn my cellphone off for takeoff.

We landed around 7:15 (the trip took less time than my daily one-way commute, even when there isn't a bus strike - which ended on the weekend, BTW), and I was through Customs and had my suitcase by 7:35. The bus was arriving just as I got to the stop, so the trip home from the airport was relatively fast. I got home at 9 and called Eric back. It was around 1 when he finally said, "Have you eaten yet?" I hadn't since the turkey sandwich at the airport in Washington, so we said good night and I walked over to the Dominion (I know it's called Metro now, but it's been Dominion all my life) and picked up a couple of microwave dinners and a few things for later this week, as I had absolutely nothing in the fridge or the freezer except some frozen vegetables, one can of juice and some very stale bread, which would not have made a very good dinner. Came back home, ate, and went to bed around 2:30.

So now I'm back at work, and have no idea where I left off on Thursday. (Well, that's an exaggeration - since I'm writing a manual it's fairly obvious where I left off, but I have to remember how to use the portion of the content management system that I was documenting.) I got some good feedback from my boss on the stuff I had done so far, which is nice. I have to remember to leave in time to get home before the polls close tonight, too. Not that my vote will make much difference - my riding is about as safe as it gets for the Liberals, and very little will change at the national level. But I still think it's important, because if everyone said, "Oh, I don't need to vote, my MP always wins by a huge margin," then bad things could happen. And we don't want that.

As I posted earlier, I spent the morning at the Network Board meeting, where the Gaylactic Toronto Alliance were awarded the 2010 Gaylaxicon for Montreal. Following the meeting, I didn't do a whole lot of formal stuff - I mostly hung out and chatted with people, and wandered through the Art Show and the Dealers' Room (where I ran into Tim S. from the Polaris concom, behind a table full of Doctor Who figures and adult manga). A group of us went to lunch at a Thai place down the street. I'm not generally a big fan of Thai food because of my low spice tolerance, but I had a very good pineapple fried rice dish that had pork, raisins and carrots, and was served in a hollowed out half-pineapple. It was quite tasty.

After lunch, I came back and attended a panel called "Can We Have A Gay Villain Now?", where we discussed whether or not it's possible to write a gay villain without being accused of homophobia.

Following the panel, although there was another panel I wouldn't have minded attending ("You Don't Know Jack!", about Jack Harkness), I just ended up doing more socializing until the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards banquet at 6:30. The dinner itself was a buffet which included roast beef, turkey, pasta and planked salmon along with a variety of vegetables. It was pointed out, to some hilarity, that Elizabeth Bear had three novels on the shortlist this year, though she didn't end up winning the award. The winner was actually here, and seated at my table. I can't recall her name offhand (I'll look it up later), but the novel was actually her first. When she went up to receive the award, she was visibly shaking, and when she came back she was holding it in such a way that a small slip would have severed her jugular vein (the Spectrum Award trophies are rather pointy). I commented on it and she said, "Yes, but what a way to go!"

I spent most of the evening at a room party hosted by qvamp. I didn't overdo things, though, only having two drinks during the whole evening. When I was leaving I said to Chris B., "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." (Of course, Chris and troystar are the least likely people to misbehave... though there were others present who were, shall we say, not being very shy at all. Let's just say that there were significant acts of nudity being committed by other people in the room.) Chris' response: "Considering that you were the best-behaved person in the room all night, that's not helpful." (Or something to that effect.) What can I say, other than that I found myself actually not wanting to participate in the various acts of debauchery that were taking place around me, and was perfectly satisfied to converse with esprix, pinoyboytoy, lsanderson, Thomas A. and others. (All the time wishing Eric was here, admittedly... awwww. :) )

I didn't even participate in the impromptu fashion show that was taking place - qvamp was dressing various people up. troystar and Chris look pretty good in leather, actually. I would never have guessed. :)

I did pop up to the con suite for about half an hour as well, as the Minneapolis committee were hosting tonight. Not much was happening when I was in there, though, so I didn't stay long (and I think they were getting ready to close up around the time I arrived, anyway.)

I popped down to the lobby to see if anyone else was still around to say goodnight, but there were only a couple of people sitting in the lobby, so I said goodnight and came back up to my room.

There are some interesting-looking panels taking place tomorrow, plus the Gaylactic Network Open Forum, which I should probably try to attend. And the movie night, featuring "Blood And Fire", "Star Trek Odyssey", "Praxis" and "Dr. Horrible" is tomorrow as well.

Today's bit of weirdness: I was recognized by a TrekBBS lurker who has an account under the name of "Daniel", who knew me from the photo threads. (Do any of my TrekBBS friends know him? I don't remember ever seeing him post on the board...) And on the topic of TrekBBS, I messaged someone tonight who lives here to find out if he'd be interested in getting together for coffee... it would be a shame to come all this way and not get to meet someone I've been interacting with online for two years but whom I've never actually met.

Just a quick post before bed... I've had a fantastic day, catching up with some folks I haven't seen since last year, and some I haven't seen since, oh, a month ago at Dragon*Con. I know I'll leave out some people, but so far I've seen robgates, drewan, rvrjoe775, esprix and Quincy, troystar and Chris, wananga, andyhat, lsanderson, ashoemaker, cplpunishment, dracut, qvamp, robdamnit, and my fellow Torontonians Drew and Colin, who run the Gaylactic Jeopardy game. Plus a couple of dozen other people who either aren't on LJ or whom I'm not thinking of right now. (I'm a little surprised at who isn't here, too.)

About a dozen of us went for dinner this evening at a Persian place called Javan near the hotel. I'd never had Persian food before, but I had a fantastic dish - the name of which escapes me at the moment - which was a beef stew with pomegranate and walnuts served on a bed of basmati rice. Yum.

I then came back for the "Meet The Pros" event where the Guests of Honour were introduced and chatted with some more people, then attended round 1 of Gaylactic Jeopardy, a Trek panel, spent some time in the con suite and then kibitzed the first round of a game of Werewolf before deciding to call it a night. And, of course, I answered some questions about the 2010 bid for Montreal.

I'm not quite sure how it got to be 2 in the morning so quickly. Considering that I have to be alert in less than nine hours, and I got up at 7 this morning after getting three hours of sleep, I'm also not sure why I'm posting this today (except for the fact that I paid for a day's use of the wifi in the hotel, and dammit, I'm going to use it :) ).

Approximately 15 minutes ago, I filed the paperwork for a bid for the 2010 Gaylaxicon, to be run by the Gaylactic Toronto Alliance in Montreal (dates and hotel to be announced, should we be granted the con).

Why, yes, I am insane. Thank you for asking. :)

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

( Monday )

Overall, I had a blast. They were saying that this year's numbers were close to 300, though I have to admit, it didn't feel like there were that many people there - though they may have sequestered themselves away in the gaming room (which always seemed busy when I walked past). Alternatively, the feeling that the con was smaller might have been due to the way the hotel was laid out - the panel rooms, art show and video room were in one hall on the second floor (which was also the ground floor), the dealers' room in another, con suite in yet another, and the gaming and main programming rooms were on the first floor. So it could be that there were that many people there, but they were spread out.

If I tried to name everyone I saw there, I'd be here forever and I'd probably forget someone anyway. I do know that I didn't mention tyrillian, cartierobert, pinoyboytoy, dracut's husband Brent (I finally got to meet their son, too - he's nice, and we seem to have the same sense of humour - which you may not consider to be a good thing), rvrjoe775, rasiler. Not to mention dozens of other LJ-less people. You all made the weekend a lot of fun for me.

So... who's interested in working on a bid for Montreal in 2010? :)

I got home from this year's Gaylaxicon in Atlanta about five minutes ago. I had a great time; however, to steal from W.C. Fields: on the whole, I'd rather my luggage wasn't in Philadelphia.

I'll post a full report later (probably tomorrow some time), but the short version of the tale of the return trip: I left the con around 1:45 with robgates, his husband Peter, ashoemaker and cplpunishment. We weren't on the same flights (they were going to Washington, DC), but I thought that since we were all supposed to be taking off around the same time, it would be convenient for me to join them. I was supposed to have a stopover in Philadelphia for an hour or so, change planes, then continue on to Toronto. My 5:15 flight was delayed until 6:30, meaning that I would have roughly five minutes to get off the plane and make my connecting flight. US Air managed to find me a direct flight on Air Canada at 8:05, however, so I'd be arriving about the same time. I cleared customs in record time (I think my Customs agent was a science fiction fan :) ), only to find that they didn't take my suitcase off the Philadelphia flight, and I guess they didn't transfer it to the Toronto flight in Philly because either they didn't make the connection, or because I wasn't on the plane.

So the kind and efficient gentleman at Pearson took down all of my information and assured me that it would be on tomorrow morning's first flight out of Philadelphia, around 11 o'clock, and that it would be delivered to me. It'll probably have to be delivered to me at work, though, since I won't be home by the time it arrives. Mind you, I'm not the only one affected, as there were several other passengers who were put on other flights because they were going to miss their connections, so if I'm lucky, they may have other Toronto passengers' luggage to deliver and I might be able to be home by the time they get to mine.

Oh, and the other thing I want to post right now, before I go to bed: it sucks having severely chapped lips - to the point of cracking and bleeding - and not being able to kiss all one's friends goodbye at the end of the con. :( OTOH, it's kind of neat getting cruised twice in Atlanta's airport, once by a guy heading for Chicago and once by a US Air Force aircraft mechanic who'd just gotten home from Afghanistan. *grin*

I was checking my voicemail this morning when the battery in my cellphone finally gave up the ghost, so no photos today. :( I know evil_admiral got a couple which I will shamelessly swipe from him when he gets around to posting them, though.

As a result of the death of my battery, I had no idea where he was so I went to the Hugh Laurie panel (no, Hugh Laurie wasn't here :( ), which was about half pre-House (mostly Jeeves And Wooster and Blackadder), and half House.

I ran into evil_admiral after the panel in the hallway, however, so I accompanied him to the "Men Of Stargate" panel.

Now, it's not my intention to irritate or offend any of the Gaters reading this, but I have to say this: the one thing that gets under my skin about serious fans of Stargate is that many of them don't seem to analyze the show or talk about the plots at all. It seems to be all "Daniel Jackson is so dreamy... John Sheppard is so dreamy... Rodney MacKay is so snarky and dreamy... *drool*" and this panel was no exception. I mean, I like to look at hot guys too - what gay guy or straight woman doesn't? But when I read or watch SF, I like to be mentally challenged too. I think this is why I've never gotten involved in Stargate fandom, as much as I enjoy the show. Hearing the phrase "the pretty" used thirty times in an hour was a bit grating.

Anyway, after that panel, there wasn't much left to do, so the two of us wandered through the Dealers' Room, gawked at all of the merchandise neither of us could justify buying (though I was almost tempted to get a couple of t-shirts (the "Hell Kitty" one particularly amused me), and then he had to leave to go to his date with the guy he met last night at the party. (Grrr. Not that I'm bitter.) I ran into wananga, who invited me to join a group that were going for dinner. A few seconds later, I ran into Kirk, Mark and a couple of other guys who also invited me to join them for dinner, but I told them that I had already agreed to go to dinner with the first group, but that they were probably welcome to come along. However, they had already set their sights on the Peachtree Centre food court.

I met up with the dinner group at 5:30, though I had to run back to my hotel as I had neglected to bring a Lactaid pill over with me when I left this morning. I rejoined them around 6:30, and we left for a restaurant - however, it was closed, so we ended up eating at a swanky restaurant in the Mariott, where I had meatloaf with mushroom gravy, smashed potatoes (yes, that's what the menu really said), and veggies, and a Banana "Foster" split for dessert. Bananas Foster is made with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, banana liqueur, bananas, dark rum, and ice cream. It's a good thing I went back for that Lactaid.

After dinner we went to the hotel bar for drinks. While there, we saw a number of paramedics, police, security and a fireman or two come in with a gurney and wondered what had happened. We were able to piece together that someone had jumped out a second floor window and smashed through the glass walkway over the restaurant we had earlier been in. Yikes. Such drama.

After that little excitement, we went up to the Outworlders suite, where I hung around until about 12:30, when I decided to come back to my hotel, catch up on email and pack for my flight home. As I was leaving it occurred to us all that it will be a year before we next see each other, since Gaylaxicon won't be until October next year. *sniff*

About 20 minutes after I got down here to the business centre, I was interrupted by a black woman - at least, I think it was a woman, though it may have been a man in very good drag - and a man wanting to check something on Mapquest, so I let them. It turned out that this weekend was also Atlanta Black Gay Pride, and they were here from Brooklyn, NY for it (hence my uncertainty about the gender of one of the people I was talking to - thespian, you probably would have fallen instantly in love. ;) ) I guess they figured that even in Atlanta, it was safe to tell me why they were here, since I was wearing my "I'm not gay - that's just a nasty rumour spread by all the guys I've slept with" t-shirt, which they both said they found amusing. Which, it was pointed out to me tonight, was clearly made in Canada - because "rumour" is spelled with a "u". Yes, the Canadian jokes were still flying around today...

So that's it for Dragon*Con. Next con, I guess, will be Con*Cept in Montreal, where I've been asked to do an LGBT panel again. Hopefully this time there will be a pre-defined topic for us to discuss.

Checkout is at noon, but my flight isn't until 4:45, and I get to Pearson at 7, so I will probably get home to my apartment around 9ish. Since I still have to pack, though, I should probably cut this short here and go upstairs.

I do hope, if ADP called to set up an interview (though the headhunter knew I wasn't getting home until tomorrow night), firstly that my answering machine wasn't full like it was when I got home from Worldcon, and second, that they don't want to see me first thing Wednesday morning.