Sigh

Can it really be over? Somewhere I must have missed a day. Surely someone stole Friday. Really? WorldCon is -gasp- done? Well, that was fast.

Let me try and catch you up on everything I was too tired for....

I have no pic to prove it, but the true highlight of the con for me was getting in a nice long chat with Kathryn. Go over and check out the cool Mill Hill she's working on. I also got a hug from Dani... via Kathryn -- Dani was visiting while I was watching Coraline. Thanks for the hug Dani!

I took my traditional picture of The Banner:

and of the "welcome sign" (usually this is a marquis outside, but the Palias does not do marquis so we got multiple tv screens instead)--

For those of you who might have experienced hideous confernece registration lines at your own conventions, allow me to show you how a well-handled reg area looks:

Good show, guys!

The Opening Ceremonies included a Cirque-training acrobat:


I went to reading by Nancy Kress:

(For the record neither Nancy nor any of the other folks are demons, it's just I'm not dealing with red-eye yet.)
and Walter Jon Williams

Jo Walton:

(who I think is my "find of the convention" -- I'd never read her before or gone to a reading, but after this reading I went trotting right off to pick up her book Farthing. She didn't read from it, but what she did read thoroughly captured me. Can't wait til that book comes out!)
and James Morrow:

Connie Willis:

who read from a new historians novel... back to the Blitz-- oh goodie!
Cory Doctorow:


I also went to a reading and a number of panels including S.M.Stirling and Charles Stross, but somehow those pictures are avoiding me right now. And I went to a reading By George R.R. Martin too. When asked by an audience member what he likes doing for fun, Martin replied: "Uhh, drinking and chasing women, but years ago I caught one."

There were the panels including the likes of:
Michelle (Sagara) West, Robert Silverberg, and Nick DiChario

Sean McMullen:

Nobel Prize economist, Paul Krugman:

Publisher Guest of Honor, Tom Doherty and fellow Tor editor, Beth Meacham:


I went to talks by Editor Guest of Honor, David G. Hartwell

and checked out his tie exhibit:

These two "cubes" are only 30-40% of his tie collection.

Missy and I fawned over the Hugo for this year-- it's absolutely beautiful!!!

Check out the cool base:


There were more Neil panels including this one where he was semi-camoflagued for a bit:

I'd like to share some Neil wisdom from his interview on "Finding Fandom"--
"The scifi book fairy always looked after me."
"People here know shit. People here know cool shit, and they know cool shit I don't know."

A panel of "elders" who didn't really discuss being a long-time sf author

That's Joe Haldeman, Elisabeth Vonarburg. Robert Charles Wilson, Connie Willis, and Pat Cadigan. [I did especially like Pat Cadigan on this panel who as she arrived huffed: "What's this?! You got me out of bed to tell me I'm old? Get off my lawn!!!"

I spent an evening with a significant number of fellow fen on the 7th floor balcony of the Palais watching the South African entry in the Montreal international fireworks contest:

The South African show is to be commended --

My favorites were the yellow and purple ones:

But then again I liked the close ups of these that make me think of galaxies far, far away:


I tried to experience the "alleged" flame show that the Palais fountain was supposed to provide hourly after 9pm. Here's what over an hour of waiting got me:





Yup, cool night-time fountain shots and smoke. No flames. I think that it's a trick by Canadians on tourists .... that picture of it I saw with its fire was probably just Photoshopped.
I did enjoy the beauty of the windows some more though:


I checked out the art inside the Palias too --
There's the pink forest:

and this really, really cool hanging piece:



The final pic of the con is, well, truly the final pic of the con. I made it back to my hotel today, turned the corner on my floor for my room and spotted this littel guy in the hall.

Ya gotta smile, right?

More, tomorrow, err later today on the continuing adventures in Montreal and, if we're both lucky, updates on my Con stitching.

Bonne nuit!

Wanna be jealous?

I just got back to the hotel from a screening of Coraline with Neil Gaiman. hee heee

Sorry, je suis fatigue. [The longer I'm here trying to be as native-friendly and polite as I can, the less Russian is popping up.] Tomorrow, maybe I'll be awake enough to chat more.

Consider the damn bottle moved!

That's my WorldCon quote of the day from Neil Gaiman. Trust me, it was really, really funny.

Let's see, con-wise today the successes for me were:
1. Ningen-Senkan Sensuikan (aka human battleship)-- think of a cross between battleship and wizard's chess with blindfolds and lots of laughter
The weapons of the battleships--

The "battleships" is process:

2. "Ask Neil (Gaiman) a Question" which was a really nice panel, but then again with Neil along anything's fun, right?

3. Conversation: Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008) and Charles Stross

Ok/fine:
1. "Evolution of Storytelling Values in Graphic Novels" mostly because I don't really get them. It was relatively interesting sans French advertising (if you were there, you know, if you weren't it doesn't really matter).
2. "That was the Noughties" -- discussion of hte best books of the first decade of the 21st century
3. Opening ceremonies

Waste of time:
1. "Handicapping the Hugos"

Wanna see how cool the conference center is again? Here's it from the outside on the front--


And the pretty fountain in its square--





Other quotes of the day:
Neil Gaiman -- "Terry [Pratchett] could say to me: 'I'll tell you that if you do this to that paragraph you'll make it 17% funnier.'"

Neil Gaiman on what he and Terry were thinking when Good Omens was getting ready for release: "We thought we'd have to hunt up Salman Rushdie and see if we could borrow his back bedroom. .... But what we got was nominations for religious fiction awards."

Neil Gaiman when asked what else he'd like to create: "I'd like to create a haunted house" -- can you just imagine the haunted house he'd create???

Charles Stross-- "It's well known that the first use of any successful technology is pornography."

Charles Stross -- "Back before the internet we had a special term for people who would buy one copy of a book and allow all their friends to read it. We called them 'librarians.'"

Paul Krugman -- "In the U.S. today there are fewer farmers than there are people playing World of Warcraft."

Here we go

WorldCon starts in a few hours and I'm ready..... I think.

Here's how I got here.
There was frantic packing

I'm still wondering why I packed mascara. I don't wear it day-to-day so who am I kidding thinking I'm wearing it around the convention? And if I do put it on I'm most likely to do the ole "bunny rub" on my eyes and end up looking like a failed Goth.
I did have some help packing:

That's Missy (I think she used to be a he and his name was Matthew). She was a gift from my grand nephew and he has her twin. Missy made the trip with me, and she's very excited about her first SF convention.

Leg one was the "jaunt" to Chicago. Since I slept through the vast majority of it, I'd have to say it went quite well. And O'Hare has this cool tunnel sculpture--



I feel quite lame that I didn't take a picture of the ironing board, but I can share my hotel door with you --

Now this is significant in and of itself, but allow me to quote from the hotel's in room directory when it is explainging how the hotel is designed on Feng Sui principles: "Doors symbolize the human voice. Doors that are broken... suggest you will be ignored." I guess that explains why when I called the front desk the first time about the ironing board no one answered, when I went down to the front desk about it what I got was a second iron to go with the broken ironing board.... and my chocolate stolen. lol

Also, if you book your trip at the last minute, here's the view from my room:

Love the laundry!


But just next door here's where I'm heading in a couple minutes:

The other side of the building is considerably more attractive, but I don't have an overall exterior view of that yet. Wanna see it from the inside?




Well folks, I'm going to get wandering. Must see what I can see! Talk to you later.......

Ok, I made it

I'm in Montreal. I need to go pick up my woo hoo WorldCon reg pack, but in brief:

1. Flights lovely (slept through the vast majority of them).
2. Hotel basically sucks -- Should every hotel room door open into an fully extended ironing board that's stuck in the open position? Seriously, is that a feature? And when you call for its removal should you give up after a half hour, arrange for the removal with the front desk, and yet come back to the same broken ironing board, a new iron, and a missing bag of chocolates? Honestly? I guess it might be God's way of saying I didn't need that chocolate after all.
3. Learning experience: When you book at the last minute you get what you get.
4. Corollary to learning experience: There's a reason I usually book Hilton/Hyatt/Sheraton.
5. Bed: Scratchy and stiff, but I was too tired to care, and the thumping of the air conditioner wasn't so loud that it kept me awake.

More on the "joys" of the hotel later. Must go register and experience the city now!

Talk to you all later.

Not dead!

Not dead. thought about it-- seemed kinda drastic for a reaction to corporate headquarters move. {more on that later}

I have been:
not stitching much
working a lot
not getting paid a lot
moping
to Legoland
to Sea World
to the San Diego Zoo
cleaning-- kinda
obsessed with my re-installed family tree software
trying not to throttle people (successful thusfar)
missing all of you!!!!!!!!

I am:
LEAVING FOR WORLDCON ...... TOMORROW!!!!!! OMG!!!!!! Bought the tickets Friday--- what was I thinking???????? ACK! So, so, so utterly not ready. Nonetheless, Montreal, here I come. Oh, and Montreal, please forgive me-- I can't help that I randomly speak a mix of French and Russian. It just happens. Sorry in advance. If you want to be peevish, try and remind yourself that you are currently suffering from your lowest numbers of American tourist in history.

More from the hotel in Montreal... provided I work out the wireless.

hugs and kisses and the promise of stories to come!