Not as much to report as usual, because I was running the tables solo Friday and Saturday and therefore didn't actually see much of the con. As I noted to various people, we're accustomed to schedule creep -- but this month has been schedule plummet.

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

At the dead-dog I got into a conversation with a young guy who'd been wandering around all weekend wearing a "Press" badge. Turns out he's a journalism student who's taking a year's sabbatical to travel around the country attending as many cons as he can, and plans to make a documentary about fannish culture. faxpaladin and I chatted with him for a while, and I ended up singing my "Sardine Can" filk for him, and he asked me for the lyrics -- egoboo! He's just getting started on the project; I'll be looking forward to hearing about the results when he's done.

We got some good media coverage too, on the 29-95 radio station blog. The reporter was totally unfamiliar with the fannish community, but she came in and talked to people with the idea of getting to know them rather than looking for a freakshow, and left with a positive impression. I wish we could find more media people like her.

Starting tomorrow, I am going to be mostly away from the computer for the next 3 weeks, as Russ and I go from the West Coast to the East Coast with 3 cons and a whirlwind trip thru some of the National Parks along the way. Catch you on the flipside!

Every now and then the police arrest somebody suspected of some terrible, violent crime, and as a piece of public relations they'll announce all of the horrible books, movies and/or CDs they found in the suspect's house, as if to prove that the suspect is obviously guilty and horrible and monstrous.

So here is my challenge to you. You can either do this from memory or take a moment to look through your book and music collections, and then answer this question:

Name ten books, CDs and/or movies that you own that the police would cite as evidence against you at their press conference.

1) The Qu'ran
2) The Satanic Verses
3) lots and lots of old D&D manuals
4) I think there's a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook somewhere...
5) Omaha the Cat Dancer and other furry porn
6) various Middle Eastern CDs, some of them labeled in Arabic
7) All 7 seasons of BTVS
(I'm going to cheat here a bit and list some other items which would surely be mentioned)
8) My not-quite-an-altar, with all the Bastet statues and a Goddess picture and a fancy knife and beeswax candles
9) The fairly extensive collection of bladed weapons, everything from a replica of Sting to a flint-bladed knife to a 5' halberd
10) The stock of anti-government bumper stickers, which we clearly must have been selling to other terrorists

---

This is an actual circular that has been distributed by a church; I've seen links to it, although most of the ones you can find online now are parodies of the original. But it works just as well as a meme, and makes a similar point to the one above. Go through the list below and bold all of the "symptoms of Goth" that apply to you (or, perhaps, applied when you were a teen). If you have more than five bolded at the end...

( you are so going to hell. ;-) )

Whee, I got 17! When do I get committed?

Given the emphasis on involuntary commitment in that circular, it's a bloody good thing no one ever gave one to my parents when I was in high school. They already thought there was Something Seriously Wrong With Me; given that kind of backing, I'd have been in the loony ward for the rest of my life. I wonder how many kids have been committed for being, basically, normal teenagers?

From the Carnaval Diabolique series, which I was surprised to see still up; it was originally slated to come down last September. From their website (partial description):
The singer turns to face the audience, and your senses reel. On the left side, the features are sharp, but feminine. You can see the curve of her breast, the soft fullness of her hips, the arch of her fine brow. On the right, it is the body of an Adonis, muscular and commanding. You see that a thick seam runs down the center of the body, stitched roughly.

Though the vision is disconcerting, the warmth and passion in the singer’s voice swells inside your heart, and you are spellbound. Enraptured, you realize that though the gender is opposed on either side, one soul binds the whole.

Dark, moody, and bittersweet: black currant, patchouli, tobacco, cinnamon leaf, caramel, muguet, and red sandalwood.

First impression: Oh-oh, this is going to go burnt-sugar, isn't it?

Drydown: Well, not quite; it skirts around the thin edge of that note without ever quite sliding over. I think this must be the caramel, and it's pretty much overpowering everything else.

Long-term: After an hour or so the patchouli and red sandalwood come up, and the combination isn't a happy one; I smell like a slightly-overdone caramel candy in a NewAge store. I can catch just a hint of tobacco if I sniff closely. The cinnamon and black currant never put in an appearance at all, and I don't know what muguet is. After 7 hours, all I can smell is the incense-y, NewAgey resins.

Bottom line: It doesn't quite make me want to wash it off, but it's definitely not a success. Swap pile for this one.

"Twilight" as it SHOULD have been.

Man, that is an awesome editing job, telling an equally-awesome story. And you can get the shirt, too.

Another older imp. From their website (poem skipped):
A funereal bouquet laid on cemetery grass: longiflorum lilies, white rose, chrysanthemum, and carnation.

As I expected from the description, this is entirely floral. It's a gentle, inoffensive floral; the lilies and carnation are dominant, making it sweet and slightly spicy with just a bit of green underscent. In fact, it's a nice enough floral that it really deserves a home with someone who's more likely to wear it than I am. To the swap pile it goes.

If you are arguing against a public option in health-care reform -- especially if you're doing so on the basis of how much it would cost -- this is how you come across. Whether you mean it that way or not doesn't matter, this is what you sound like. Given that women, children, and minorities are disproportionately represented in the segment of Americans who have either no health coverage or grossly-inadequate coverage, you also dish yourself up a side of racism and misogyny.

Stop waiting for the perfect plan, because there will NEVER be a perfect plan. By whining about perceived flaws in any proposed system (many of which are only differences from The Way Things Are Now, not actual flaws) you present yourself as (1) aligned with Big Insurance and Big Pharma, and (2) perfectly ready to throw people you know under the bus in order to save yourself a few dollars or a little inconvenience. Maybe you don't care about that... but those who know you will remember.

John Scalzi sums it up admirably:
To every man who has managed to contribute to the propagation of the species and/or has voluntarily agreed in a legally binding sense to keep a genetically unrelated child from being consumed by wolves or leprechauns or whatever: Good on you. Have a day. (emphasis mine)

That said, I'd like to take special note of a few fathers I've seen in action...

Russ, whose relationship with his daughter is something I rather envy. He's been her primary caregiver all her life, often at the cost of his own dreams and/or to the detriment of his business. In a pinch, he's still the first person she turns to in times of trouble. He put a lot of effort into raising, not a child, but a functional adult, and now we're seeing how successful that effort has been; she's strong and independent and in charge of her own life, but she and Russ still enjoy doing things together.

warinbear, whose care for 3 children (one of them not biologically his) has dragged him thru a deep and nasty legal morass and child-custody battle. He could have walked away, as so many men seem to do -- but that's just not in his nature. He has my continuing support and GoodThoughts for getting the situation straightened out; those children could not be in better care than he will give them.

filkerdave, who has too often had to be a father at long distance, but is doing an outstanding job of staying connected with his children and being part of their lives nonetheless. He should be the image on the motivational poster for fathers who have to travel for their work.

My friend Stuart H., who has raised a fine son in a very non-traditional marriage -- two professionals living in different cities, neither of whom could easily relocate, but close enough that visiting back and forth on the weekends was feasible. That sort of thing takes hard work of a special and different kind to be successful, and again, the proof of how successful it's been is in the outcome; D is a strong, independent adult in his own right now, and he not only looks like his dad but has much the same warped sense of humor. :-)

I know there are a lot of other men in my circle of friends who are walking the walk too, and I salute each and every one of them.

The city of Bozeman, MT has rescinded a long-standing requirement that all applicants for city employment submit their usernames and passwords for "any and all current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."

There's no question that this is an absolutely indefensible -- and quite possibly illegal -- requirement. What boggles me about the situation is that apparently the city was able to get away with it for several years before anybody made enough noise for it to hit the media. Just think about the security-compromising aspects...

Someone who has your Yahoo or Google password can not only go in and monitor all your activity, they can CHANGE your password and lock you out! They can access all your personal account information, such as credit-card numbers. They can read your e-mail. If you're like a lot of people and use the same password for everything, now they can get to your bank accounts and other financial information too. Can you say "target-rich environment for identity theft"? I knew you could. And don't tell me that the password information "will be kept confidential". All it takes is one dishonest person with access to those files and that stuff will be all over the Internet before the cat can lick her ear.

I don't know if there will be any kind of legal action about this. But I hope there is, and that one absolute condition of any settlement is that the city destroy all records of any password information they might have collected.

Another one from the fairy-tale group. From their website, a curiously incomplete tale:
There was once upon a time a woman who had an only daughter. When the child was about seven years old she used to pass every day, on her way to school, an orchard where there was a wild plum tree, with delicious ripe plums hanging from the branches. Each morning the child would pick one, and put it into her pocket to eat at school. For this reason she was called Prunella. Now, the orchard belonged to a witch. One day the witch noticed the child gathering a plum, as she passed along the road. Prunella did it quite innocently, not knowing that she was doing wrong in taking the fruit that hung close to the roadside. But the witch was furious, and next day hid herself behind the hedge, and when Prunella came past, and put out her hand to pluck the fruit, she jumped out and seized her by the arm.

"Ah! you little thief!" she exclaimed. "I have caught you at last. Now you will have to pay for your misdeeds."

Ripe purple plums, wildflowers, and cream.

This one is all fruit, from beginning to end -- no flowers, no cream -- and that suits me just fine. Staying power is surprisingly good for such a relatively light scent; after close to 10 hours, I can still catch a faint whiff on my wrists. This is moving straight into the regular warm-weather rotation.

A roundup of some interesting things that have gone past recently:

Everything I Know I Learned from Dungeons and Dragons.
It's not just a game, it's a teaching tool! But don't tell your kids that it's good for them...

A Christian talks about why he doesn't want to live in a "Christian nation".
He hits both ends of the argument -- debunks the faux-history "returning America to its Christian roots" bullshit and talks about current theocracies not being such hot places to live. It's an intelligent, articulate piece, just the sort of thing which will be treated with deep suspicion by those who most need to hear it.

ZING!
Matt Bors on the Iranian election and aftermath.

The Parable of the Shower
Snarky religious humor FTW!

Lunch and Other Obscenities
NewTrek fanfic, backstory on Uhura and Gaila, PG-13 (bawdiness), and an absolutely awesome illustration of getting along with people whose cultural taboos are mind-bogglingly different from your own. If you liked Janet Kagan's HellSpark, you'll enjoy this.

Another older freebie. From their website (skipping the long inspirational poem):
Soft, lush myrtle and dry, sweet melilot with wild rose, pomegranate juice and peach blossom against a background of deep aquatic notes and a twirl of melancholy autumn breezes.

I like this better than I thought I was going to. The fruits are dominant, and the rose never makes an appearance at all. I don't get much in the way of aquatics either, so it ends up being a soft, sweet fruity/floral all the way from fresh-on to the end. Staying power seems about average, pretty well gone after 8 hours and a couple of errands out in the heat. Bottom line: not going to be a favorite, but it'll be nice as a light summery scent. As heavy on the amber as my collection tends to be, this is a Good Thing.

Very busy weekend!

Saturday morning I got up early enough to drop by the Ritual Breakfast and hand out ApolloCon flyers. We might actually get some people from this group showing up for once, since one of their own is our Fan GoH; I hope they have a good enough time that they'll want to come back. It was John Moore's birthday, and he was feeling a little gloomy about Getting Old -- I went thru all that when I hit 30 and got it out of the way early -- so I need to find him a cute card between now and ApolloCon.

When I got back from that, Russ did the repairs on my car to make it pass inspection -- nothing major, just that the brakes had gotten mushy because the adjusters were old and worn. Then we killed 2 birds with 1 stone by using the trip to vote (runoff election for City Council) as our test run on the repairs, after which I took the car over to be re-inspected and get the new sticker.

After that, I did a flyer-distribution run up to the north and northwest parts of the city -- the Woodlands, Old Town Spring, FM1960 and 290/Beltway areas. It was FRIGGIN' HOT, and I had to do a fair amount of walking, and the Montana's A/C doesn't fully counterbalance the heat load in a car that size, so by the time I got home I was pretty well wiped out. I had just about long enough to get cooled off and freshened up before it was time to leave for the concert. My friend D was going with us, and we rode in her car because mine is currently in cargo mode (only 2 seats).

The concert was fabulous! ( Long and slightly technical review under the cut, )

Today was less hectic but also fairly busy. I dropped by to see kgkofmel and pick up more ApolloCon posters on the way over to Bagels, and after Bagels I made another flyer-distribution run, this time around the Upper Kirby and Shepherd/59 areas. I'll be doing at least one more run tomorrow or Tuesday.

Blair's new vehicle appears to be performing well. She was off in Nacogdoches with it all weekend, and we didn't get a single car-related phone call. Russ thinks this car is going to be more dependable than her old one was, which will be a great relief to everyone.

Russ had a scare this afternoon; he couldn't find the software disc to re-install one of his graphics programs, which is the one he was going to need to print the ApolloCon shirts! After an exhaustive search, it turned up on a shelf where it had no business being in the first place. Probably got put there during the post-Ike chaos, and because it hadn't been needed since then, we didn't realize it was missing.

The Intergem show is next weekend. Saturday is booked up, but I wouldn't be averse to going out there on Sunday if anyone would like to go -- although I could just as easily skip this one, because there's nothing I desperately need right now that I can only get there.

We've been thinking about buying a scooter for a while now. Russ can do short-range errands on the bike, but I'm not up to that level yet; and frankly, I'd like something to drive that's not as big and clunky as the Montana. I don't want to have to get a motorcycle endorsement on my license, so that limits us to 50cc models that can't be ridden on the freeway -- but if I need to take the freeway, I'll want to be in a car anyhow, so that's not an issue. We've been looking at various models, doing research to figure out which brands we're willing to consider, but hadn't found anything that really stood out.

Last night that changed. We dropped into a scooter store we hadn't noticed before; it's on Westheimer near Montrose, across the street from Hollywood Video and Copy.com. They had this. It's a delivery scooter, with a cargo box that's actually of a useful size! It would easily hold a stack of pizzas and a 12-pack of soda; it would hold a week's worth of grocery shopping, including a 20-pound bag of cat litter; it would hold my average shopping run at Intergem or on Harwin with room to spare; it would hold any of the stuff we normally buy at Target. It would even hold a small order of T-shirt blanks in a pinch, though I'd probably have to remove them from the box and stuff them in loose.

It also costs about twice as much as I was hoping to spend, but I think the carrying capacity makes up for that. Not to mention the durability -- since it's designed for commercial use, it's engineered to be sturdy and dependable. And I would certainly decorate it, and ride it in the Art Car Parade! It'll be a while before we can save up enough to actually buy one, but I think the decision has been made.

Getting back to the most recent order. From their website:
After these things, surveying the entrances of the north, above the mountains, I perceived seven mountains replete with pure nard, odoriferous trees, cinnamon and papyrus. From there I passed on above the summits of those mountains to some distance eastwards, and went over the Erythraean sea. And when I was advanced far beyond it, I passed along above the angel Zateel, and arrived at the garden of righteousness.

In this garden I beheld, among other trees, some which were numerous and large, and which flourished there. Their fragrance was agreeable and powerful, and their appearance both varied and elegant. The tree of knowledge also was there, of which if any one eats, he becomes endowed with great wisdom. It was like a species of the tamarind tree, bearing fruit which resembled grapes extremely fine; and its fragrance extended to a considerable distance.

I exclaimed, How beautiful is this tree, and how delightful is its appearance!

Then holy Raphael, an angel who was with me, answered and said, This is the tree of knowledge, of which your ancient father and your aged mother ate, who were before you; and who, obtaining knowledge, their eyes being opened, and knowing themselves to be naked, were expelled from the garden.
(I have no idea what this quotation is from, but I rather like it, purple prose or not.)

Whiffs of cinnamon bark, almond, and spikenard surround a perfect fruit, whose scent is akin to a tamarind, with the grace of a fine grape, as warm and rich as a fresh fig, glistening red like pomegranate seeds, and as crisp as an apple.

In the imp and fresh on: Eewww, boozy cough syrup! It's got the same sharp, burning alcohol scent as bakery vanilla extract, over something sickly-sweet.

After half an hour or so, the alcohol note fades and the fruitiness comes out a bit; I think I can identify at least fig and apple. I'm betting that the cough-syrup note is the tamarind, although I suppose it might be the spikenard -- I have no idea what that smells like.

After two hours, the throw is virtually gone; after six, so is most of the scent -- but I can still pick up that unpleasant cough-syrup smell.

Bottom line: Definitely a swap.

A Canadian with actual experience of the system speaks up.

Push back against insurance-industry talking points. Of special note: the Canadian system IS NOT "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE". Doctors in Canada don't work for the government, and the Canadian government does not decide who can and cannot have access to health care... unlike a significant portion of the US system.

The talking point we should be pushing is that under a single-payer system, you (yes, YOU) will be paying less money for better health care, AND you get to select whatever doctor you want -- no policy is going to tell you that the doctor you've been seeing for 17 years "isn't in the system," because they're all in the system.

Another older imp, from the Shakespeare-inspired collection. From their website:
Wistful and vulnerable: lotus, water blossom ivy, stargazer lily and white rose.

For something that's entirely made up of floral notes, this is really surprising. In the imp and fresh on, it's as much fruity as floral; the initial fruitiness does fade in about half an hour, but it remains a light sweet summery mix that doesn't change much after that. I'm especially surprised, but grateful, that the rose never makes a serious appearance. No estimate of staying power, because I was out running around in the heat for a couple of hours and touched it up afterwards. Bottom line: this is going to be a very nice scent for warmer weather, especially when I want something that I'll notice but which will be relatively inconspicuous to other people.

I just checked my back entries. The water/sewer construction on our street was done nearly a month ago. Since then, we've had barely a sprinkle of rain. The whole street still has a coating of dug-up dirt on it, which passing vehicles and the wind kick up as dust, which then settles on all the cars parked in the driveways. This is even more irksome because one of the small-but-annoying problems on my car is a cracked washer-reservoir bottle that won't hold water. I've been having to scrub down the windshield by hand every time I gas up, and the rest of the car... well, I got a "WASH ME" decoration last week for the first time ever. I've hosed it down in the driveway once or twice, but it doesn't help much.

Russ says that June is frequently a dry month here, and that July should be better. But although the folks up in Dallas have my sympathy, right now I think I'd be willing to trade the risk of a power outage for just one good normal summer-afternoon thunderstorm, to wash the dirt off the street.

So Facebook is now going to let us select usernames... not that I haven't noticed a lot of people finding creative ways to do that anyhow. I'm rather of two minds about this; on the one hand, I'd like to snag my "stardreamer" ID before anyone else does, but on the other, I don't use Facebook the same way I use other online venues. One thing I can't tell from their FAQ page is whether FB will give us the option of putting a separate name in the profile, the way LJ does. Thoughts on this issue from other FB users would be welcome.

Oh, and for those who find all the quizzes and memes on FB annoying, here's an encouraging thought: I've noticed that the frequency of such things on LJ (at least on my friendslist!) has dropped dramatically in the last year or so. I think there's a certain amount of "novelty factor" to their appeal which wears off eventually, and at the moment that novelty factor has transferred to FB. So it may be that after a while, you won't see so many of them on FB either. That would be a nice change; some days I still feel like I'm playing Whack-a-Mole with the damn apps, and I could swear that some I've already hidden are popping back up again.

This has to have been a freebie, some time back -- I just don't order scents without at least some idea of the components. From their website:
True, perfect golden light, refined into an incomparably glorious scent.

In the imp and fresh on, this is very woody. On drydown, I can smell cedar, but not as strongly as in yesterday's Aelopile; and I think there's amber underneath. Long-term, the amber definitely comes out more, and I think there's just a bit of vanilla as well; the overall progression is woody to sharp to sweetish. Staying power is good; after 9 hours, it's still quite present on my wrists, and I didn't use much. "Golden" isn't a bad description, but it's darker than I would have expected -- late-summer, late-afternoon sunlight shading down into dusk.

I checked out the forum descriptions, and pretty much everyone was saying amber and cedar, with a scattering of other notes -- patchouli, incense, pine, vanilla, herbs, other woods -- that probably depend on individual body chemistry.

This is definitely in the same scent family with Aelopile and Golden Priapus, and possibly Fascinum and Dee as well. If I didn't really like the amber/wood combination, it would be superfluous in my collection; but I do, so this is worth keeping and using up.

I just got a phish e-mail purporting to be from Blizzard Entertainment, telling me that my WOW account was being investigated on suspicion of being sold or traded and asking me to "verify my identity". As usual, I checked the mouseover on the link just for amusement's sake... and got a surprise. This phisher has more brains than average, because the fake site they've set up has a URL close enough to an authentic one that it might actually fool some people.

The dead giveaway, of course, is that I don't have a WOW account. But I know several people on my friendslist do, so be warned.

This is an imp I've had for quite a while -- long enough, in fact, that the sub-category of Muses has been discontinued. From their website:
The Proclaimer is the Muse of Historic and Heroic Poetry. Clio holds a scroll or set of tablets in her hands, and is surrounded by a veritable wall of books. She is credited with introducing the Phoenician alphabet to the Greeks. As a consequence of her teasing, barbed sense of humor, she was cursed by Aphrodite: she fell in love with a mortal, Pierus, the King of Macedonia. Clio bore two sons, one by Bacchus and one by Pierus: Hymenaeus, the God of Marriage Ceremonies and Wedding Feasts, and the doomed Hyacinth. She is the patron of historians, epic poets, biographers and all those who wish for fame, renown, and celebrity status. Her scent is the warm, dry parchment of scrolls, lavender for critical thought and analysis, the solidity of heavy woods, ornery patchouli and glib benzoin, and superstar-splashed orange and amber.

In the imp and fresh on, this is quite unpleasant -- the top note is a dirty-green smell that made me think of aging cucumbers. After 20 minutes or so, whatever is doing that (I suspect the orange/lavender combination) fades and the amber and woods come up. Then it's quite nice, but it doesn't seem to have a lot of staying power; after 5 hours it was nearly gone, which is very unusual for woody scents and patchouli on me. Between the nasty opening, the short scent life, and the fact that the pleasant part isn't very different from several things I already have, this is definitely a swap.