Flaming Chords

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It's also got every tag I have -- this is because my current LJ style doesn't include a tag index. (At least half of my participation on LJ is on my Treo. I chose this style because it loads quickly and it's still readable on a small screen.)

I'd tell you more about myself, but that's what my profile -- and the rest of my journal -- are for.

Generally, I try to organize my Con-related posts, so that I'm not spamming you guys with shitloads of "OMFG I had so much fun" posts. Sadly, this year I really can't, so I'm wrapping it all up here. Yes, I'm leaving a lot out. It can't be helped.


I had a couple of chats with a couple of friends I know online, but I only end up seeing once a year. In addition to just having a lot of fun chatting, I got some interesting new insights into [Igor]'s habit of stealing small parts from my shop, before we caught him and told him never to come back. (Try to imagine a grown-up and homeless Linus, from the comic strip Peanuts, stealing from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Now picture him as a long-unemployed electronic engineer.) In addition to this, they discovered a terrific pizza joint, and took me there for lunch. Tony & Alba's. I recommend them highly, and these friends liked them enough that they ate there three times over the weekend. Damned good stuff!

For those of you unfamiliar, Regency Dancing is a lot like square dancing, except it looks a lot more elegant, and the music is much better. I'd never done it before because I have this fear of looking silly and/or incompetent, but I decided that this was a stupid thing to fear, so I did a running tackle on it. It turns out that the fear was needless: it's easy to learn, and a lot of fun. And yes, unless you've been at it for a while, you will look silly, but so will a bunch of people around you, so lighten the hell up.

There was a panel on coping with Drama Llamas, which I attended mostly to pick up pointers just in case I ran into [Brad] and [Janet] again. Of course, I never saw them. Please note that I'm not saying that they weren't in attendance -- only that I never saw them. For all I know, they weren't there. Or just as likely, they avoided me. Or just as likely, they were having so much fun they forgot about me completely, and fate just decided that we didn't need to run into each other. I find I'm hoping for that third option. We've had more than enough of each other already -- why reopen old wounds?

Saw some neat stuff in the Art Show. Todd Lockwood was the Artist Guest of Honor, and his work definitely lived up to the title. Still, I got to check out a bunch of other artists. Some of them were amazing. And of couse, some of them were so bad they made me wonder why I put down my color pencils, because I could do ten times better in my sleep. And then I remember that I put down my color pencils some time after I started getting good on guitar. Go many arts, so little time...

I'm not generally fond of pornography (all that web design work killed whatever appreciation for it I might have had), but I do enjoy watching artists put one toenail over the line between Art-with-a-capital-A and pornography. My favorite examples of this were Sarah Clemens' "Patron Saints of Pornography" (NSFW) series, combining well-done nudity with sly, gutter-level humor (though the quadruple-dragon-nipple-piercing was a little too hardcore for my tastes). Well, those, and a couple of Sandra Santara's centerfolds. Her vision of Odin (NSFW) also dances on that Art/Porn line -- he's certainly arty. He's also discreetly, but unmistakably erect. And hot. (What? I'm straight, I'm not blind!)

I also tried to donate blood. (Every year, there's a blood-van in front of the hotel.) To save both my time, and the time of the warm-hearted vampires with the needles, I asked for a list of disqualifications, and found that it hasn't changed -- I'm still, more or less, permanently on the "please don't donate... ever" list. (I've shot up once. I also have male partners. Either of these alone is a permanent disqualification, no matter how careful I am about it.)

Lest we forget... every Monday morning at BayCon, there's a panel celebrating the lives of the people who've died since the previous BayCon. This panel is hosted by an old friend of mine, and a nice guy to whom I used to sell comics on a regular basis. This year was a bad year: Arthur Clarke, Utah Phillips, Robert Asprin, Steve Gerber (Howard the Duck), and Rory Root, among many others. My con experience is as much wall-to-wall fun as I can cram into it, with the exception of this panel. I can't say I have fun at it, per se, but I feel better for having attended it.


Sadly, there are things I didn't get to do. There always are. I missed Rocky Horror because I was low on sleep, and I missed Eye of Argon because I was on the party floor and forgot about it entirely.

There are also people I didn't get to see. Again, sadly, there always are. This year, they include a couple of friends whom I'd apparently successfully cajoled into showing up, but I never get a chance to say hi. There's also a friend I kept an eye out for, and I didn't remember until after the con that she was in Con Ops. There are others, but if you're reading this, you know who you are.


After the Con, I always feel a hint of sadness as I have to return to the real world. This makes me especially grateful for the blast I'd been having the last few days, and I always swear that next year, I'll have at least as much fun. (And next year, I simply won't bother with the elevators. I was on the sixth floor, and half the time I went to and from my hotel room, it was faster to use the damned stairs.)

Anyway, this concludes my batch of posts for BayCon 2008. I now return you to our regular programming.

Dear asshole number one:

Yes, I know. You're homeless. That may get you sympathy, but it doesn't exempt you from certain rules, like, say, "don't try to grab strange women's asses." That woman was making it very clear, from how she was trying to ignore you, that she didn't want you touching her. Do you have any fucking clue just how creepy you were being?

Yes, I do have a loud voice when I care to use it. It worked, didn't it? You gave me your complete attention, the woman walked away without having to deal with you any further, and I got to embarrass you in front of an audience. Everybody who matters wins.

Yes, she's gone, and I'm still chewing you out. Deal.

Yes, I'm an asshole. "Fuck you," and all that. Here I am, discussing your manners, the failures of your parents to instill basic decency, and your general state of being equal to a garden slug, all in some occasionally colorful language, and the best you can do is calling me "asshole" and saying "fuck you" under your breath? Have some balls, man! You're such a big man when it comes to women, surely you can insult me to my face!

Yes, I'm being harsh on you. In all fairness, though, you were being a grabby creepy jerk, and after some of the shit I've written here, I had no choice but to call you on it. I verbally attacked you because men need to call each other on this kind of bullshit more often. I'm enjoying it because I'm being an asshole. Call it anger issues.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

PS: Yes, I know you're black, and I'm white. That does not mean I'm a racist. I singled you out because you were being a creepy grabby jerk, and because I felt like being a loud abusive jerk and you'd made yourself an acceptable target. Your skin color had nothing to do with it, and you lose for even suggesting it. Jackass.

---

Dear asshole number two:

Hi, [Igor]. Guess what?



And do you know what I'm going to do with it? There are three other shops in which I've seen you, and I'm on first-name terms with the staff in all of them. I'm giving them your picture, and explaining to them the terms under which you were thrown out of my store.

Yeah, I'm being an asshole. Call it anger issues. In all fairness, though, you'd been stealing from us for quite some time before we finally caught you.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

My assistant manager just caught [Igor] stealing, and thus empowered us all to throw [Igor] the hell out if he ever darkens our door again.

"This is my gloating face. I normally reserve it for greeting televangelists when they first arrive in Hell."

Yes, I'm delighted. The reason is the simple fact that "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" is a dirty, dirty lie. The Lord High Muckety-mucks will demand that people in stores put up with all kinds of shit from customers, if they think there's a ghost of a chance they'll spend money. There are very few acceptable excuses to throw a customer out and tell them never to come back.

And this stupid bastard gave us one!



I've been singing the above all day, uncontrollably, and swinging my ass on that last syllable, each time! (I'd be listing that as my "Current Music," except that LJ won't let me put IMG tags in that box!)

Parenting wank in real life

Something I saw on the news at work, lately: potty training for young kids. Very young kids, as in six months or so. Some talking head was interviewing parents who had successfully and painlessly trained their kids very young, and the parents talked about receiving death threats for "abusing their children."

What the fuck?

You can't merely decide to bottle-feed or breastfeed -- by making that choice, you're apparently choosing a side in a war. The same thing applies to circumcision -- whether you decide to have your child snipped or not, you can bet that there are people who will swear up and down that you're a bad parent for making that decision. And now, potty training? I thought that this kind of bullshit was confined to the darker corners of LJ, like boob_nazis. But apparently, it happens in real life, too.

What's wrong with people? I might be inclined to guess that parenthood makes you stupid, but my experience doesn't back this up -- sure, I know stupid parents, but none of them were exactly rocket scientists before they had kids. I also know some very smart parents, and as much as I respect them, I refuse to believe that they were Stephen Fucking Hawking, and then decided to sink down to "merely very smart" because kids are just that bloody important.


The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc

This movie has Milla Jovovich in the lead role. She has positively arresting eyes, but I couldn't help thinking that she hasn't had a proper meal in years. Aside from this, the movie was comically bad.

Still, it got one thing right. I don't know whether it's due to Jovovich overplaying her role, or whether the director did it deliberately and Jovovich is a much better actress than I thought, but either way; this movie captured perfectly what it's like when someone claims to hear directly from God.

In every other movie I've seen with Joan of Arc, she's depicted as a lucid, charismatic, and determined individual. In this movie, Joan is positively terrifying. She hears voices that no one else hears, and she believes in them absolutely -- she is right, and everyone else around her simply "has" to be convinced. Meanwhile, people around her aren't quite sure she's all there, and some of her fellow soldiers are dead certain she's stark raving mad.


A couple of interesting customers

[Vahid] came in lately. I've described his odor before, as follows:

Try to picture cooking a ton of broccoli-cheddar casserole. Then, about a week after it starts growing mold, feed it -- and nothing else -- to a large cow. Then, after a month of this, assuming that the cow hasn't died as a result of this diet, slaughter it, and then shove rotten eggs into all of its orifices and let it lie dead in the hot sun for a few days. Yeah, [Vahid] smells a little like that. My eyes burn around him. The air smells bad around him. The air TASTES bad around him. He makes me want to apologize to every smelly gamer I've ever met at a convention for all the bad thoughts I've thought about them.

The last time he was in, the assistant manager told him to clean up before coming into the store again. Well, this time he smelled "merely" offensive. It feels strange to use the word "merely" in reference to his odor, but considering that his stench was "oppressive" the last time he came in, "offensive" is a big leap forward.

I also had a mom bring in two teenaged kids. Very funny people, all of them. Not to mention a little vulgar: the daughter said "fuck this," and the son said "fuckin' awesome," and the mom said "fuckin' A," and after a few rounds of this, I couldn't resist anymore.

"Stop! It's my turn to say 'fuck.' Okay, I've said it. As you were."

Which had all three of them almost rolling on the floor with laughter. "I fuckin' knew I liked you for a reason!"

I generally try to avoid swearing on the clock, and the few times I do it, I tend to choose the moment carefully. But damn, that was fun!