Dirac Angestun Gesept

Sunday morning. Out the door and off to the bus stop, where despite Sunday service frequencies I had to wait only a few minutes, and arrived at the Sheraton in time for the 1000 panel “Heinlein: Let’s Take a Fresh Look”.

This was a fairly detailed (for a panel; not as detailed as a book, of course) analysis of RAH and his works, going beyond “juveniles good, late stuff bad” and discussing RAH as compared to Isaac Asimov (both in person and in print), the uncut reissues (and that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress got its wonderful dialect when his editor told him to cut the word count and he cut all the articles), comparisons and connections to both Kipling and Twain, and much more that I really can’t do justice to in a blog entry, even though I did take notes.

Next, the 1100 timeslot. I debated between “Layout & Design” and the Infodumps panel, picking the latter on the tiebreaker of “it’s closer”. Of the three panelists, only one (Greer Gilman) was there at the start; another (Kelly Link) showed up not too much later, and Juliet McKenna was brought out of the audience to complete the somewhat ad-hoc panel.

Discussion ranged from the use of infodumps in Atlanta Nights (as particularly bad examples) to various techniques for disguising infodumps (cutting them up and sprinkling the bits through the book) to fun & games (playing with the reliability/viewpoint of the “source” of the infodump in the world of the book) to examples as diverse as Dorothy Sayers and the movie Terminator.

1200, and time for “Pratchett’s Women” (with a short detour to the registration desk to buy next year’s Boskone membership, since it was on the way). This was fun, since the panelists went through all or nearly all of PTerry’s female characters, from Susan Sto Helit to Nanny Ogg to Lady Sybil Ramkin to Angua. Each of them was discussed in some detail, and contrasted with other characters. Choice quotes: “If Susan is angry, everything’s okay” (Kat Macdonald); Granny is “the moral core” (Chip Hitchcock, subbing for Esther Friesner).

I went to the 1300 “What’s in a Name?” but left when it seemed to be going toward more “how to pick names for your characters” writing discussion; not being a writer, I decided that getting food was probably a better use of my time. A visit to Urban Pain for some chicken chili took care of that part of the 5-2-1 rule, and I then made quick visits to the con suite (dessert: jelly beans) and the huckster’s room (to buy Making Book) before heading off to the 1400 “Sunday Funny Sunday” panel.

This year’s was “Crossovers: Mixing Worlds for Fun (and Not Much Profit)”. It was less enjoyable for me than last year’s was, because many of the crossovers suggested were TV shows that I don’t watch. (The description implied more books and/or comics, though I suppose those are harder to come up with funny ideas quickly.) That said, I still had fun, though I’m glad I didn’t wind up on the panel this year after all. (I wish I could claim that not volunteering to be on program was a way to avoid winding up on a panel with Orson Scott Card, but in actuality it was just me flaking out and forgetting about it. Besides, I haven’t had the energy to do it justice.)

After that, I headed off to the Gripe Session at 1500, not because I had any particular gripes to air, but to see what other people had to say. I did say that I liked being able to pre-register for next year at either the registration table or the NESFA Press table; that gave flexibility to use whichever was less busy. There being relatively few gripes (one major one being the return of “my coat went missing from the coat rack”, unfortunately), the panel ended early and I prepared to do some shopping and head home.

As I was about to leave, however, I ran into Michael and Nomi Burstein, who were talking to two friends of theirs. Introductions were made, and a foray to the Sheraton’s bar for chatting and libations was proposed. Having no pressing engagements, I happily joined the expedition, which lasted for about two hours (and one hot chocolate) and was most enjoyable.

Then, off to do some shopping, after which the plan was to take the bus to MIT, get food, and see The Incredibles. In actuality, it was too cold to wait for the bus and I was sick and tired of walking across the bridge, so I just hopped on the T and headed home.

Thoughts:

• The snow held off until Monday. Whew.
• With Arisia late this year, I wound up doing 3 cons in four weeks (Arisia, Vericon, “bye week”, Boskone). Fun, but tiring.
• I’m really glad Vericon is on this side of the river.
• I apparently still haven’t gotten the hang of this whole not-eating-alone thing.
• The #1 bus only runs from Harvard to Dudley; the return trips are illusory, at least whenever I want to ride it.
• I miss Marche Movenpick. Qdoba’s pretty good, though.
• I’m looking forward to Minicon (and next year’s Arisia and Boskone, but they’re a little farther out).

In an apparent attempt by the universe to atone for my transit problems on Friday, when I arrived at the bus stop there was already a bus visible and approaching the stop, but not so close as to require me to run for it.

This allowed me a bit of extra sleep while still getting me to the Sheraton in plenty of time for the 1100 panel (”The Red Sox Won — Are We Living in an Alternate History?”). As has already been observed, this wound up being more about sports than about alternate histories. It was still fun, though, as my arrival in Boston coincided with the 1986 season and its infamous World Series, so I got an early education in the Red Sox ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I then met a group of friends in the Pru food court and had lunch. Afterwards I swung back into the Sheraton, took time to chat with folks working the registration area (which was still fairly quiet) and then headed to the “Year in Biology and Medicine” panel at 1300.

This was a very interesting panel. There’s far too much to go into detail, but it ranged from H. floresiensis through the small mammalian dino eaters to avians. Lots and lots of avians, because Shariann Lewitt likes them. (”Mammals are boring. Avians are weird.”) That was fine with me, because it was all very interesting stuff about bird brains and feathered dinosaurs and avian speciation. Do this panel again next year, as long as Lewitt is on it.

I headed over to the gaming room to see what was going on, and wound up taking over a seat in the Munchkin tournament from someone who wasn’t enjoying the game. With some good luck, I managed to work it up to a win by having the highest level when time was called at 1500.

This left me time to get to “Satire: SF as Social Commentary”. I don’t have any notes from this except for “To the Irish, conversation is a martial art” (Michael F. Flynn).

I was a bit burned out on panel attending at that point, and nothing looked sufficiently intriguing to get me to go anyway, so it was back to the gaming room for some Chez Geek and a very enjoyable five-player game of Puerto Rico. (After someone built the Wharf and said “Wharf, son of Mogh” I responded “Today is a good day to ship!”)

When that ended, I was hungry. Unfortunately, I failed my “find someone to go to dinner with” skill roll, so I just headed to the food court for a burrito. I then spent some time at “Saturday Night Dead”, though I left before the awards ceremony began.

Why did I leave? This was part of my compromise position on the Orson Scott Card boycott. I don’t attend cons for the Guest of Honor as a general rule, so I don’t let the choice of one make a decision either for or against attending. However, I was unwilling to accept him as a part of my con experience, so I explicitly did not attend any panel or other event that he was scheduled on, even if it was one that would otherwise interest me.

I realize that this stance may get me disliked by both sides, but that’s life.

Instead, I headed back to gaming and played some Munchkin Fu. Ironically enough, given that I was playing to avoid OSC, I was hit with one of the sex-change cards during the game…which allowed me to use the No-No Kimono.

That finished up in time for me to head to the Atlanta Nights reading, finding James Macdonald on the way there (his badge sticker list of events had the reading taking place in Kent, but the pocket program had it in Republic B) and therefore making it to the reading literally only steps behind the first reader. The reading was as hysterically funny as I expected it to be, and was definitely worth the time.

After that finished at about 2359, I headed up to the party floor to see what might still be going on. Arisia and the Chicago Worldcon bid were both still open, so I checked both out and bought my membership for next year’s Arisia (which I probably would have picked up on Sunday of that con, but snow way).

Once again I wound up walking across the bridge, and the bus never even passed me. The transit karma adjustment wheel had clearly turned back to the “no bus for you!” side.

Despite wanting to leave work a bit early, I wound up getting out around 1700 anyway. I headed for the T, where I wound up waiting on the platform at Kendall for a while for a train. The train arrived, we all got on, the doors closed, it left, went into the tunnel a bit, and stopped.

At this point the guy standing next to me, who was very reminiscent of some of the more intoxicated customers you see on Airline, started talking to me. It was a multi-sensory experience, since I also got the full olfactory effect.

Thankfully, the train began to move again, and we rode across the river to Charles/MGH, where the platform was fairly full, and I figured that we’d wind up even more packed-in than we already were.

I was wrong; the train went out of service instead.

At that point I decided that it would possibly be faster, and certainly less frustrating, to walk to Gov’t Center and catch the Green Line directly, rather than trying to deal with the Red Line just to get to Park St.

I did so, and quickly boarded an E line train, which brought me to the Prudential stop and let me walk to the Sheraton in climate-controlled comfort.

Registration had been open for some time by then, so there was no line. I picked up my badge and had time to chat with several folks I knew who all happened to be in the area, including Scott Dennis (working the T-shirt sales table), Adina Adler (pre-registration), and Leslie Turek (drums). (No, not really drums; program books and give-aways. But “drums” was funnier.)

I then went to get a quick dinner at Urban Pain, which meant that I missed the 1800 panel I’d wanted to go to (”At Play in the Fields of Someone Else’s Universe”) but also meant I didn’t fall over from lack of food before the night was over.

At 1900, I went to “Science Versus Fiction?” which, by its description, was about whether negative portrayals of science led to good fiction, and positive ones to bad fiction. (I hear a chorus of “What about Jurassic Park?” coming.) I’d debated between this and James Macdonald’s “What’s In Your Go-bag?”, but the latter had been a Making Light thread and therefore seemed less likely to be “new and interesting” to me.

I didn’t take too many notes, but the general consensus seemed to be “No correlation. Counter-examples: Timescape is good, Crichton’s stuff isn’t”. There was some discussion about the difference between science and engineering (research vs. action); the latter is more likely to get a negative portrayal, because there’s something Being Done. Another comment: “propaganda makes bad writing in either direction”. I didn’t note who said this, though; may have been a comment from the audience.

After that, for 2000 it was off to The Blog Panel (”Weblogs — Addiction or Force for Social Change?”). It seemed to have a lighter turnout than last year’s, but some of that may have been an illusion caused by being in a much larger room. This was fun, with lots of good discussion, though (for obvious reasons, given the latter part of the title) political blogging got a fair amount of discussion, and the more personal “why blog” type discussion was less evident. Chad Orzel gave Fafblog a well-deserved shout-out.

With nothing I was particularly interested in on the schedule for 2100, I headed to the gaming room, leaving at about 0111 and walking home (the bus passed me after I’d already crossed the bridge and was about to go inside to make the cross-MIT trek the warm way). Not my day for transit, I guess. Arrive home without incident, and it’s off to bed so that I can have some energy for Saturday.

I’m still digging out after not reading email, LiveJournal, or USENET for the entire weekend, which is why I haven’t posted any con reports or liveblogging.

I’ll start posting my Boskone reports soon. Maybe not tonight, but soon. I did take a fair amount of notes on some of the panels, so expect more voluminous reports than Vericon got.

I have just passed the point of having 10,000 tracks in my iTunes library.

In honor of Napster’s “Do The Math” FUD, I bought my 10,000th track from the iTunes Music Store.

In honor of my series of blog posts on cover songs, it was not only a cover, but a Beatles cover.

Finally, in honor of both the Grammy awards and those still suffering the effects of December’s tsunami, it was the tsunami relief benefit version of Across The Universe.

Then I imported my latest CD, Here Come the ABCs by They Might Be Giants.

Dinner at Mary Chung’s with a good-sized (but not too large) group, celebrating a birthday, is a great way to spend part of an evening. You get to try a fair number of different dishes, congratulate the celebrant, and generally have a good time.

Less enjoyable news of the week was finding out that in the Kevin Bacon “trace your connections” game, that someone only two connections away from me was not only killed, but blown up in a rather extreme way. (One of Rafik Hariri’s sons was a classmate of mine at BU, and was in my group for the MG 422 group projects.)

I have the slow-but-cheap data connection working using my phone, the laptop, and the USB cable (no BlueTooth, it’s an old phone). 14.4kbps may suck, but when it uses your standard voice minutes and you have unlimited nights and weekends, it makes a useful emergency backup when traveling in situations where the airport or hotel charges insane amounts of money for faster access. It’s good enough for quick Web hits or ssh-ing in to fix something.

Boskone is rapidly approaching. I’m looking forward to it.

Lots of stuff has been happening at work. None of it is really worth writing about. Any readers likely to care already know everything.

I had a minor computer problem, which has been fixed. Apparently CD burners aren’t supposed to emit smoke, but if they do, it’s best when they do it while under warranty.

My new game at Friday’s gaming session this week was Klunker. Gaming was fun, even if a bunch of the folks who showed up got caught in a long game of Avalon Hill’s Civilization & Advanced Civilization.

I twisted my ankle somehow, and it really hurts. My wrists haven’t been all that happy either.

I broke my Movable Type installation by upgrading perl, then fixed it.

I have plane tickets and hotel reservations, and I’ve sent off my registration.

I’m going to Minicon! (This’ll be my first non-commuting con in nearly a decade.)

So there’s a massive water main break not far away from here, and a chunk of Kendall Square is flooded.

They had to evacuate some buildings adjacent to the break, including the Marriott hotel, because basements were getting flooded and the buildings might therefore lose power.

Traffic was (maybe still is) totally messed up, but that didn’t affect us, since we could just walk around the affected area.

Unfortunately, the water main break also means that large portions of Cambridge have low or no water pressure.

Including my office, H’s office, and our house.

Bah.

I sure hope they get this fixed soon.

EDIT: Our water pressure seems to have improved, and is now back to normal or close to it.

So, Boskone is coming up in a couple weeks, and I’ll be there.

Who else is going? Who wants to get together for food (lunch, dinner, whatever)? Who wants to go to the Mapparium (even though MITAC doesn’t seem to sell discount tickets any longer)?

PS: LSC is showing The Incredibles at MIT on Friday and Sunday that weekend.