tigertoy

It's OVFF time! If any of the three people who read this care, I will have EFRC calendars available as usual; if you tell me now you want one, I'll make a point of finding you at the con.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, hearing lots of music, as many hugs as possible, and painful choices for the Pegasus awards!

I watched Gremlins at movie night at a friend's last night. (I imagine I'm the only person anywhere who hasn't seen it yet, but this is hardly a spoiler.) I laughed my ass off at the Robbie the Robot cameo. Nobody else got it.

A shout-out and thank you to bedlamhouse and Brenda for hosting their annual April housefilk. It was a wonderful evening with friends and there was some darn fine music.

WTF? I wrote this last night, but it didn't post, and I only noticed now.

I have returned from Capricon, where in spite of my initial feelings when I looked at the schedule, I was never without enjoyable ways to occupy my time.

Friday we arrived a little late and missed the beginning of billroper's Cafe set, but I got to hear several good songs. I realized while I was hearing those that 4:00 on Friday was a badly over scheduled chunk of time. I wanted to see beamjockey's presentation on Pluto, because pretty much all I know from the New Horizons mission is what made it onto the radio, which doesn't include actually seeing the pictures. After that ended, I walked through the dealer's room, where I found a few paperbacks I wanted to buy, and noticed that there were quite a few tables of authors hawking their apparently self-published books, which I think is a good trend in general, although between my slow reading speed and my limited budget, I generally keep my book habit satisfied with mass market paperbacks. I also got a quick run through the art show. At least there still is an art show. And there was some nice art in it. Hopefully the people who have money found some they liked. Then we went to dinner at Spear's which is just across the parking lot from the hotel, but that was quite far enough to go through the gale. Spear's is a gourmet $15 hamburger place, though they have a few things that aren't served on a bun. The food is good and the portions are reasonable; it's a bit expensive but everything is in Chicago. Friday open filk went pretty well, despite the fact that we never got the lights turned all the way on.

Saturday, after I got up and had a combined breakfast/lunch in the room, I went down to the game room for a bit. I sat at an empty table, stood my Splendor box up, and read my book, and just about the time I decided to go head to the cafe, a couple of people joined me for a game. It was a good game, but it ran longer than I expected and by the time it was done it was halfway through Sassafras' set in the cafe. So I decided to play the game that one of my Splendor players was there demoing, which has gone through a successful kickstarter and is apparently now in production. In a marketing failure, in spite of the fact that after playing a couple of games and geeking about game design, I walked away not actually remembering the name of the game. I think it's Legends of somethingorother. It seemed like a fairly well designed little game, there are several different strategies/ways to get points and they can all be valid. The theme is thin. The card art is decent. If I see it in the game store and I recognize it I might get it. Then I got to the last half of Mike Nixon's set in the cafe, which I have to confess I wasn't really paying attention to, and then Three Fifths' set, which was the high point of the weekend. Three Fifths are just getting better all the time, and they had sweetmusic_27 with them, doing her magic stuff which she claims she hasn't rehearsed, but she was sounding as wonderful as the others. Then we decided we didn't want to brave the elements so we went to dinner at Saranello's with filkart and ithiriel. Saranello's is a serious restaurant that people with expensive cars who aren't staying at the hotel frequent, and by those standards its prices aren't that high. (Pastas are about $15, fancier entrees like $25.) The food is quite good, and it's really convenient to be in the hotel. Note to self: next year, get Saturday's dinner organized on Friday and get a reservation. This might even allow closing down the cafe, getting dinner, and then getting to Space Time Theater, which we missed. After dinner, I dropped by the game room, and got another game of Splendor, which was a pretty good game. I was the last player, and I managed to sneak in with 15 points, with both of the other players ready to go to 18 if they had one more turn. Then open filk, where I was very tired but managed to enjoy the music for 3 hours or so before giving in to fatigue, where of course once I staggered into bed, I couldn't get to sleep for hours.

Sunday, we got our stuff to the car and went to Toast and Jam, which was pretty nice, and then we headed out into the growing storm, since tcgtrf had skipped out on his reading due to the weather forecast. There was a little snow on the roads, but it wasn't really a problem, except that birder2's windshield washer was not working, which made seeing the road a little iffy.

So, my Thanksgiving festivities are over a little early this year.

Thursday, I was at Holly's Thanksgiving Dinner for Wayward Souls. I believe there were 29 at dinner. Dinner was good, and there was some gaming. We stopped by again Friday briefly for Peter's Risotto, and some more conversation and hugs, until we headed out around 3:30.

Google's directions failed to make it fully clear where we were supposed to turn, so we spent more time driving in Normal than we should have, but we found the hotel and checked in. The Marriott in Normal is a pretty nice hotel with facilities for much larger gatherings than ours, but there's nothing else going on in town this weekend. (Ironically, we're in normal because there's usually football in Champaign on Thanksgiving, and by the time all the football had officially cleared out and the hotels in Champaign were calling back and saying please come stay with us,we already had a signed 2-year contract in Normal.) Eventually, we found ourselves in a very nice hotel in a pretty nice downtown with a fair number of nice people. There's a fairly nice (at least by my American standards) Irish pub called Molly Miley's, where a somewhat awkwardly large group of us went to dinner. I had shepherd's pie which was wonderful, and a an order of wings which were OK. Since I'd had the Risotto just a few hours before, I didn't try to tackle the Irish stew in a bread bowl or the boxty, but they looed good, and several people had fish and chips which they pronounced good. (Not being all that much of a fish and chips guy, I tried something else.) Back to the hotel, had a mug of cider, gamed a bit, and started filking. Not very many filkers but enough to have a good circle, and a good time was had. I had trouble sleeping the night before, so I wasn't pushing to stay up ultra late Friday, but still didn't get as much rest as I had in mind. Got up a bit past noon, caught some of Gene Wolfe's talk, played some more games, missing the beginning of the Never-Ending Filk Panel because I was deeply absorbed in Dominion. And about then I started having some digestive trouble. Went to the banquet, where I ate somewhat cautiously, but started feeling worse. The high point of the banquet was Michael Kube-McDowell returning to public life. He told us the story of how he'd been sent down a hole of depression and anxiety by his father's death 15 years ago, and was beginning to find his way out now. I decided that I needed to get some anti-diarrhea medicine and some gatorade (since I was craving it, which generally means I need it). Fortuitously there's a CVS across the street from the hotel, where I had to pay an annoying amount for the Gatorade -- it was on sale for only twice what I'd pay in the grocery store, but it turned out the sale price was only good if you had a customer card, so I had to pay closer to 3 times what it should have cost. And I made the fascinating discovery that if you wash down a dose of Immodium with Gatorade, you end up with an astonishingly foul taste in your mouth. But after a few minutes I felt well enough to head down to Bill Rintz' fan guest of honor concert, accompanied by Bill Furry. In case anyone is reading this who doesn't know who Bill Rintz is -- he was a fantastic old-time fiddler who had a major stroke a long time back. With a lot of hard work, he's managed to get back eoungh of his fiddle playing to be worth hearing, and this weekend with Bill, be was singing quite decently. We were glad to have him back. After that we had another good filk circle, but it broke up a bit after 2.

It turned out that birder2 wanted to be back in town for the Messiah sing along at 4, so we left by 2 and I missed the dead dog. Next year I'll just drive my own car.

Do come to Chambanacon next year. I'm the Fan Guest of Honor.

Just a quick shout out to bedlamhouse and ladyat for hosting their annual spring housefilk. We had a nice sized circle and I got to sing a bunch of songs and hear many more. poltr1 joined us and showed off some electronic gadgets as well as his saxophones. quadrivium had her piano and played a few fine things, and added some magic to a few others. harperjen was there. min0taur was there briefly and gave us a couple of songs. Most of the others were locals who aren't AFAIK on LJ and whose names I mostly can't remember, but the music was fine. And the snacks were good, and Wesley served up a fine paella.

Music is a wonderful thing, and a good circle makes it even better. I hope I find some opportunity for more before October.

I am safely home from OVFF. The trip was smooth. I had a good time, though there was noticeably less sleeping involved than I would like. This despite spending a fair bit of time in bed. I got to have dinner with my cousin Saturday night. I sang some songs without embarrassing myself terribly, heard lots of great music, and saw a lot of friends. I got to catch up a little with some of them. I never did play any games -- too much other stuff going on.

Congratulations to all the Pegasus winners. And commiseration with all my fellow voters, who had to choose among so many worthy choices, especially in the Best Song of Passage category. Wow, those are all good songs. And double wow, the performance of Scarlet Town at the concert -- high point of the whole weekend musically, maybe the whole year. I don't know if there's a recording of that on line, but if there is you should listen to it.

Thanks to everyone who gave me hugs and support, and to everyone who bought calendars, and to the OVFF concom and volunteers for running the show again.

The worst part of the trip was getting a call Saturday night from my mom's pet sitter (after she'd failed to get through to my mom). Maggie seems to have taken a turn for the worse and can't stand up now. She's at the vet now and I'm waiting for another call.

Rather than sit at home and feel sorry for myself for New Years, I decided to drive up to Milwaukee for the party at Lytheria. If I'd known what the weather was going to do, I might have stayed home. The drive up was only somewhat bad; it started snowing lightly north of Kankakee. The biggest problem was the salty goop on the road constantly being sprayed on my windshield. Fortunately, the windshield washer was working. There was enough gunk on the roads to merit slowing down in a few places, and a lot of people on the road who slowed down more than necessary. I never had any close calls, but the drive was perhaps half an hour longer than expected and more stressful. I was pretty frazzled by the time I got to filkart and ithiriel's place. filkart got off work a little early and we went to a Thai place that has just opened near them, Pattaya. The Tom Kha was outstanding, I think the best I've ever had. A cute appetizer called Money Bags, won-ton skin type things tied up into little bags around some minced meat and vegetables, the filled part was quite tasty, the decorative part a bit meh, but certainly a decent appetizer. For an entree I had a red curry with a very nice sauce, especially thick and creamy and a nice level of spice. The dinner did quite a lot to perk me up and feel that the universe wasn't a complete mistake. ithiriel then bailed out on us, since she'd been busy rushing around all holiday season and really needed a break; filkart and I picked up Jim and went on to Lytheria, where we had a very nice little filk, and I got to see the last half of Despicable Me 2 which was more entertaining than I had expected. We made it home despite the combined efforts of nature (it snowed lightly the whole evening) and the other drivers. I was very tired, but still had trouble falling asleep. Got up in the morning to discover that it had snowed another couple of inches overnight. We went to lunch at Athens, a slightly Greek but mostly "family restaurant" place not too far away that is open on New Year's. Had a decent lunch, and then I hit the road, since I wanted to have as much daylight as I could and hopefully get home before the white stuff started here. Unfortunately, it was snowing enough to make travel quite slow and tedious. Fortunately rather little terror involved; I didn't lose traction or see anyone lose it near me. But between conditions actually requiring slow travel (I never exceeded the speed limit the whole trip and only got close to it in a few rare relatively clear bits) and other drivers going even slower than necessary, iit took a full 6 hours to make the trip.

To celebrate my birthday, I went to Iowa.  A couple of days with tzup and nbowa.  Hope you guys get over the cold.  Hope I don't come down with it too.  Then Wednesday, a house concert with Cheshire Moon opening for s00j, fantastic music, the cheap motel worked out OK.  Coming home today, I started feeling really hungry just as I passed the self-styled World's Largest Truck Stop.  The truck stop buffet was OK; $8.95 was a bit steep for a pretty basic buffet, but the food was decent truck stop buffet fare.  Why is gas so much cheaper in Iowa?  Decided on a whim that I would stop by Peoria for a drive by hug with someone who was at the meet at Nbowa's on Monday.  Being able to look up an address in an unfamiliar town on my smart phone is awesome.

I also got introduced to Words with Friends (Scrabble with the trademark filed off as an app on the phone) Monday night -- time will tell if I got the cold, but this is probably the more damaging infection :-) if anyone cares to play, let me know (I don't care to post my contact details in a public post).  I also downloaded the Boggle clone, but haven't actually played it yet.  I made a point of getting back to town during daylight so I could visit the dogs, only to run into rain around Bloomington.  I still visited the dogs, though it was damper than it might have been.

I had several places I wanted to be to celebrate the new year, but I decided I would go to spend time with old friends rather than new, so I went to Milwaukee.

The trip up had some minor bits of stress.  I got going almost on time, but not fully mentally functional, as I would discover as I drove past Rantoul on I-57, only realizing at that moment that I was on the wrong road -- I was supposed to have stayed on I-74 to get to I-39, because I was going to VOTK.  Shortly after that, I realized that when I'd put my snacks in the cooler I'd forgotten to put the sandwich I had made (that I didn't eat on Thursday when I didn't go to EFRC because I felt too crappy with my sinus infection and cold), so I was mentally hitting myself with a hammer.  I had just installed my shiny new IPASS tollway transponder, and I drove through the automatic lane at the toll plaza at the Wisconsin border -- and the transponder didn't visibly do anything.  Wait, the papers they sent with it said it's supposed to have blinking lights.  Shit, I said, I guess it didn't work, now I have to deal with a missed toll when I get back.  But I managed to decide that since I couldn't do anything about it then, I wouldn't worry about it.  Made it to VOTK, an hour later than I meant to.  Although it was slightly above freezing, it was very windy and felt miserably cold.  I took a few pictures of Jasmine, and renewed my membership and got a calendar.  Then on to Milwaukee, where I got to filkart and ithiriel's house, and got hit by the tired bus; I got into the living room and collapsed in a chair.  After a bit of vegging and some cheese and crackers I was able to move; we grabbed a bite to eat at Culver's and then drove to Lytheria.  I found myself feeling more like a spectator than usual.  Filk didn't happen until after the toast at midnight, and it was only me, filkart, wyld_dandelyon, and beige_alert; we ran out of steam by about 2.  The filk was nice but less than I expected.  Got home and fell into bed.

Today, after I got up at noon, we determined that Champion Chicken, the restaurant that is a cornerstone of my friendship with Art, was closed for the holiday, so we went to Athens, where they had a prime rib buffet, a little pricey at $15 for a fairly short buffet, but the food was decent and we all had too much.  Then Art and I went for a short trip to the museum, so I could see butterflies in January.  ithiriel stayed home and made us biryani, which seemed unnecessarily generous.  And then I came home, because I needed to get home before the tired found me again.

Here at home, the furnace is still limping along, but it's still keeping the house warm.  The furnace guy told me he'd call me on Friday to set up an appointment, but he didn't, so I have to try to call him and hopefully fit that in real soon.  I did manage to get logged in on the IPASS site (after more swearing than should have been needed), and my account had been charged for the toll on Saturday.  So I guess the thing works after all.