Exhausted.

[lance_sibley]

Please excuse the short sentences. Fatigue does not lend itself well to proper grammar or use of prepositions and articles. (So I may sound like Inspector Sidney Wang in "Murder By Death".)

Went to Turkeycon last night. Ate turkey and chatted with many people, including (but probably not limited to - as I said, I'm exhausted) quarkwiz and her husband Peter (thank you again for inviting me), andromakie, angrykat, twiddler, moon_custafer, green_trilobite, Lloyd & Yvonne Penney, Rob Sawyer & Carolyn Clink, and a number of other LJ-less friends. Good company and good conversation. Got home around 1:15 and foolishly stayed up until 3:30 despite having to get up at 8:30 this morning to make sure of being at an 11am meeting out near the airport. Woke up around 5 and had trouble getting back to sleep.

I did make it to the 11am programming department meeting, but the restaurant we had chosen was packed. So packed that when I tried to put us on the waiting list for a table, they outright refused to serve us. So we schlepped over to the hotel and set up in the meeting room, since it wasn't being used. The meeting was adjourned around 12:30, so I went across the street to Tim Horton's for more caffeine. (Caffeine good.)

The meeting supposedly ended early, but to me, in my sleep-deprived state, it didn't really feel like it. Went for dinner afterwards with aprilsnark, gurudata, kanecool, ennisdl and Stephen C., and then rode the subway home with aprilsnark's company most of the way. Amused her greatly when I related something that had happened last night:

It's been said (and ridiculously so) that I know everyone in fandom. This started during the runup to Torcon 3 when I was recording secretary to the Board, and the president of the board would turn to me and say, "Lance, you know everyone in fandom. Can you contact [person x] for us?" And I would always answer, "Ken, I don't know where you got that idea. I don't know everyone in fandom. That's ludicrous. But as it happens, I do know [person x], and would be happy to contact them." This must have happened half a dozen times or more, and now it's become a running gag.

So last night, we were chatting about Worldcons, and Rob Sawyer asked who had won the bid for 2008. When Lloyd responded that Denver had won, I said, "I'm hoping to make it, because I have a friend there I wouldn't mind seeing." Rob turned, smacked me lightly on the shoulder, and said, "Yes, you do." I looked at him in surprise, wondering where this comment had come from... it turned out mishalak was his Guest Liaison when he was Author GoH at MileHiCon recently, and apparently my name had come up in conversation.

This, of course, does not serve to dissipate the rumour that I know everyone in fandom... sigh.

(And as it happens, mishalak, it was you I had been referring to with my initial comment, not knowing that you and Rob had met.)

In other fannish-related news, I may find myself entering a Masquerade for the first time since Shore Leave in 1987. thirdworld's suggestion from last week of putting together a "PC Guy" costume had been percolating in my mind, and something assetic said at today's meeting gave me the idea for a sketch that I'd been looking for. However, I shall say no more. We'll see if it actually happens.

Comments

[assetic.livejournal.com]

Just full of ideas...

... what was that idea again? :p

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

If I post it, I'll give it away. :p

Begins with C. ;)

[sciffy-circo.livejournal.com]

And if Chicago had won in 2008, you'd know somebody in Chicago too...

Dang, still can't believe we lost... by 12 votes. Dangit!

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

I probably know more people in Chicago than I do in Denver, actually - certainly I know more people who worked on the bid.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I've heard rummors to the effect that not everyone connected with the bid voted. Do you know if that's true? I can confirm that some people now working for the 2008 Denver Worldcon to make it the best Worldcon possible actually voted for Chicago, despite living here.

[chanilye.livejournal.com]

You know, Ad Astra has a nice friendly masquerade to test the waters in before TT ;)

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

It does indeed. :)

I still need to find someone who'll do it with me, though.

[evil-admiral.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry Lance, but I just don't see you as the PC guy. Maybe it's because you always wear t-shirts instead of suits.... Eh, I am sure in any case you can pull it off!

Oh, and I looked at C# on Wikipedia... It does indeed look a lot simpler than C++, though I'm not particularly thrilled that it doesn't allow global variables.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry Lance, but I just don't see you as the PC guy. Maybe it's because you always wear t-shirts instead of suits....

That's probably a big reason. Very few people have ever seen me dressed up - I went to a TCON Board meeting wearing a dress shirt and tie because I'd had an acting gig that morning and hadn't had time to go home and change in between. But that's unusual.

Eh, I am sure in any case you can pull it off!

*resists temptation to turn the phrase "pull it off" into an innuendo*

:P

Oh, and I looked at C# on Wikipedia... It does indeed look a lot simpler than C++, though I'm not particularly thrilled that it doesn't allow global variables.

Which, C# or C++? I'd have to check my notes, but I'm pretty sure that C# does. You just have to declare them within the namespace, but outside of any functions.

I know that a big difference is that in C#, you don't have to do your own garbage collection.

[evil-admiral.livejournal.com]

I know that a big difference is that in C#, you don't have to do your own garbage collection.

Oh thank God. I hated going to compile a program and then having it blow up because I didn't place a semicolon or something when I programmed in C++.

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

If you're going to be PC you have to find someone to be Mac. :P

mac_hearts_pc! People will slash anything. And I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing. *grins*

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

If you're going to be PC you have to find someone to be Mac. :P

I've already asked someone, but I haven't heard back yet.

Mind you, if I can put together something based on what assetic said yesterday, physical resemblance to Mac wouldn't really be required. OTOH, the costume would take a bit of work...

mac_hearts_pc! People will slash anything. And I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing. *grins*

OMG, that's hysterical. I read down a ways and I see that John Hodgman is aware of their existence, too.

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

I read down a ways and I see that John Hodgman is aware of their existence, too.
Oh yes. I saw that.

I love it when people find out they're being slashed. It happens more often than you would think. ;)

[evil-admiral.livejournal.com]

I don't know what is scarier: the fact that community exists, the fact that I enthusiastically read through several of the stories, or that some of the stories even aroused me a bit. *shudders*

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

I'm no longer surprised by the slash fandom anymore.

Or really, the internet in general.

Rule #34 (LINK MOST CERTAINLY NSFW): If it exists, there is porn of it.

And sometimes - the exception, rather than the rule - that porn is hot. Oh yes.

PC/Mac = OTP ^_____^

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear Lord. I think I need to put a bullet in my head now after clicking on that link. ;)

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

I had to scroll back and look for this comment because I came across this (http://gaygamer.net/index.php?id=2306) today on my friendslist, and thought I'd share. ;)

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

I actually subscribe to the RSS feed for that site, so I've already seen it. ;P

... and dare I say, I've seen even worse?

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

ROFL!

I would say "only you, Brad," except that that's demonstrably false. ;)

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people in fandom are very well connected. Because, really, fandom isn't that huge a community.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

Especially since most of us are online. 20 years ago, unless you were involved in running Worldcons, I should think that the amount of interconnectedness that exists today would have been the exception rather than the rule.

I think that in my case, though, I'm slightly unusual insofar as Toronto fans go because I've been deeply involved in both Worldcon and local fandom. It seems to me that most people in these parts are active in one or the other, but not both. There are a few people who are, though (such as the Penneys).

I also think that my connections may be more extensive than most people's here because my local positions have involved a lot of contact with the members. Being in charge of several areas of programming, then co-head of the Programming department, then co-Chair of TT puts you in contact with a wide variety of fans. Not to mention that I've also attended Ad Astra and Anime North (though the latter was strictly to work at TT's and Gaylaxicon's tables). So I have my fingers in several different pies, as it were.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

On the other hand 20 years ago there were a lot more 'zines, apas, etc. Plus I have the impression that with fewer local events fans were more apt to travel to other cities and get contacts with fans there. I keep hearing stories about how they used to all carpool from Denver to Phoenix, no one I know does that today.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

That's true, too - I hadn't considered that. I remember back around 1987-88, I went with a group of local fans to Shore Leave in Baltimore two years in a row. (I haven't been since, but a large part of that is that TT is on or near the same weekend.) I was also part of a large contingent that went to the 1989 Worldcon in two buses, chartered from Ottawa. Those of us who do travel nowadays tend to do so individually most of the time, or in smaller groups.

I'm wondering, though - are there really fewer zines, apas, and so forth today, or are more people just publishing online, blogging and so forth in lieu of the older forms?

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Actually I mean that 'zines, APAs, and so on were that time's version of the internet. Sure things are much faster now and so on, but it causes similar contact between fans. We all get to know each other online and then meet up in meatspace.