Disorderly Content

As soon as I heard the folks who put on the OzScape convention were doing another one, I started counting my American miles and my vacation days and plotting another trip to Australia. I've seen way too many articles about how hard it is to get a free flight these days, so despite my own incredible success over the years I was more than a little anxious. Especially as there's no way in the world I'm doing fourteen hours in cattle class.

So I finally called American to see what their friends at Qantas could do for me. The con isn't 'til next June, so I was hopeful I could score a Business Class seat, or First Class if I absolutely had to. (Yeah, I know; you're suffering for me.) And I was in luck. For the first time in a long time, I was able to get a flight on my first choice of dates. That was the good news. The bad was that it was too soon to book a return flight, since they don't schedule more than 330 days ahead. I'd have to call back in a week to try to finish things off.

So a week later I called in, only to find that Qantas hadn't released seats yet for that long ahead date. The best they could do was a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles by way of Auckland. So they put that in as a tentative plan and told me to call back the next day. And so I did, only to find out that there still weren't any seats available for late next June.

But that's where I started to think "opportunity". What if I wanted to leave Sydney right after the con, I thought. Instead of a couple more weeks in Australia, I could spend them in New Zealand instead. So I asked if that was possible. And it was. And it is. So I have my flights, and now I get to figure out how to spend almost two weeks in New Zealand, quite possibly the most beautiful place on Earth.

Yeah, I know; sucks to be me.

This is why I love the web. Oliver Laric took 787 pieces of clip art and made them into a movie. Not much of a plot, but it sure is purty.

(Found on Drawn!)

Much as I know to distrust second hand stories, this one is too good not to share. A Scaper friend of a Scaper friend was at Comic-Con this weekend (yeah, I know; her and 175,000 other crazies). In the spirit of the thing, she was dressed as The First Lady of The Uncharted Territories, Our Beloved Raven Haired Goddess Aeryn Sun. Which went unremarked for quite some time, until some geek spotted her, yelled across the room, "Hey! You're Aeryn Sun!" and came over to talk about the show for the next half hour.

The name of that geek? Joss Whedon. And suddenly I have a new reason to respect the man.

At last (I almost wrote at least) that Comic-Con report I promised... was it only yesterday? Sheesh, I'm not nearly late enough!

Anyway, when I made my plans back in March (this is not something you decide at the last minute, at least if you want a flight and a place to stay) I didn't know how much time I could take off from my new job. So I decided to fly down Friday noonish and spend the weekend at the con. Which was sad, since my friend Kevin tells me I missed a totally kickass Animaniacs panel! True, Tress MacNeille wasn't there to represent Dot. But Sherri Stoner was. And as the voice of Slappy Squirrel and the body of The Little Mermaid (yes, you can look it up), she's aces in my book. Even if she did marry that wimpy Willy Oleson on Little House. But I digress.

My flight arrived on time, I took a taxi to my hotel, dropped off my bags and got on a shuttle to the convention center. Where the lines were insane! Fortunately, after a couple of minutes I realized I was in the wrong line. These were the poor souls who hadn't preregistered, whereas I, excellent planner that I am (sometimes), only had to walk up, have my sheet scanned and was on my way through the exhibit hall.

And oh, all the comics! And the toys! And too damn many people! Last year they had over 100,000; this year I heard it was more like 175k. And I believe it. But no matter; I avoided running into too many of them as I scanned all the tables, took pictures and generally enjoyed my day one. Despite the overtaxed cell service in the hall, I finally connected up with my Scapecast friends for the Henson panel (they were talking up the Dark Crystal sequel, which hasn't even started filming yet) and then for dinner. And, as the bible says (our version anyway): it was evening, and it was morning the next day.

I had only one plan for Saturday: to catch the Veronica Mars panel at 4:30 that afternoon. Well, there was one important aspect to that plan: I wanted to be close enough to take pictures. That meant getting to the hall around 1PM, sitting through all these other panels and moving up whenever one ended and less hardy souls went elsewhere. Amazingly enough this plan worked; I ended up on the center aisle in the second row, with a long lens (yes, thanks; it is impressive) and a powerful flash (no, that's not dirty, no matter how it sounds).

But before that I caught the tail end of the Simpsons panel, with some early clips of the movie (which looks really cool), then a fogies panel of Ray Bradbury, Ray Harryhausen and Forrest Ackerman (hey, I kid because I love), then panels for Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, then a collection of genre TV people discussion SF on the tube (mostly I took pictures of Jennifer Love Hewitt; why is it that guys sweat but girls just glow?), and finally the VM panel. Which was entertaining, although probably not worth all that waiting. Still, I will admit to a guycrush on executive producer Rob Thomas. This is somebody who absolutely loves what he does, and isn't afraid to show it.

After that I took it easy before going in search of dinner. And learned an important lesson: if you want to find a restaurant near the convention center and don't wait to wait forever, just find something upscale. There may be a lot of comic geeks, but they're mostly cheapies. Good thing I'm not. (Cheap, I mean. The geek thing's self-evident by now.)

On Sunday we had a breakfast planned for all the Scapers at the con. And then it was back to the convention center, where I did a little bit of careful spending (a couple of comics, a miniature replica of Obi-Wan's light saber -- hey, I said it was self-evident!), some picture-taking and finally decided I'd had enough. Back on the shuttle, back to the hotel to grab my bag, back to the airport in the faint (and unrealized) hope of catching an earlier flight.

So was it worth it? It was exhausting, it was hot, it was insane, and I can't wait to do it again. Yep, self-evident as all get out.

Misery may love company, but somehow the fact that most of the country is experiencing sweltering weather doesn't make my own suffering any less uncomfortable. But there's been a bit of mystery as well, as I wonder why I'm suffering quite so much. The problem is that my Macintosh keeps telling me it's not that bad: low 80s during the day and dropping into the 60s at night. So why the sweating? Am I coming down with malaria?

Finally this morning the answer came to me. Yes, the temperatures are quite pleasant in Mountain View, just as that little app on my Mac's menu bar claims. But you see, there's Mountain View where they take their readings, and then there's Mountain View were I happen to be. And a mile or two makes a big difference. I'm at the edge of Sunnyvale, where those same weather authorities tell me it's a good ten (actually, more like thirteen at the moment) degrees hotter. Damn Bay Area microclimates! But at least it's not malaria...

Comic-Con, that is. I just got back from a weekend in San Diego, or to be more accurate, the San Diego Convention Center, where I got to hang out with a hundred thousand or so of my closest friends. I'll try to write up a few of my experiences, but in the meantime you might enjoy a few select pictures of the event.

So I've been watching this World Series of Pop Culture thing on VH1, because I love trivia and because I used to be good at it. But I've been feeling even more old and out of it than usual, as category after category shows how little I know about what this generation (or is it these generations -- how many are there between me and them?) enjoys. Which is why I was shocked when a category came by where I knew the answer to every single question. That category? Cross-dressers. Yeah, I'm shocked. Granted, the questions were pretty easy. And I guess it's an advantage to be old enough to remember Bosom Buddies in its original run. (Buffy and Hildy, I knew you when.) But when a game was lost when a contestant couldn't name a single Abba song? I don't know who I was more embarrassed for. Him because he couldn't? Or me, because I had no trouble at all...

One thing about the Web is that it doesn't stand still. Remember in the early days of the Internet, when you weren't anybody until you had an email address? And then it was a website; without a website you just didn't matter. And then your own domain. Then it was blogs. And now it's podcasts, both audio and more recently video.

Which is where I draw the line. I'm okay with myself as a writer, but I couldn't imagine having my voice go out over the wire. (Or wireless for that matter.) As for video, well, I may not have the voice for radio but I certainly have the face for it. So I figured that would be that, just this far and no further. Words. Still pictures. But nothing more.

Yeah, well, I guess I was wrong. Again. Because somehow I've ended up as guest voice on somebody else's podcast. Which, I hasten to add, wasn't my idea at all. It was all an accident.

It all goes back to my Farscape fixation, as so many things do. And specifically to The Scapecast, a new podcast some fellow Scapers put together. It seemed not the best of ideas, a bunch of fans talking about their obsession. Cringeworthy, even. So I wasn't going to listen. Except that somebody talked me into it, and I was surprised that even the first couple of episodes were both well produced technically and interesting listening. And then there was a fan get-together in Berkeley, where one of the hosts of the podcast got us to record some bumpers for the show. And that led to my being asked to record a piece for an episode. But just just any piece; I had to try to recreate Brando's immortal Don Vito for a fan-created alien character. (No, I can't explain it any better than that.) And then I was asked to become a quasi-Mr. Hooper for a Sesame Street-inspired bit of lunacy. Followed by a long dissertation on the shippiest of shippy relationships, for which I was permitted to use my own natural tones. The rest, as they say, is history.

Okay, not really. But having contributed to the last three episodes, I'm beginning to appreciate what voice actors go through, to say nothing of all those ADR sessions the Farscape cast did. And I wonder what the Scapecasters'll hit me with next. Or whom...

Speaking of finding pleasure in the absence of pain, as I was mere moments ago, I was reminded of that lesson on a (literally and figuratively) flying visit to Seattle yesterday. I didn't get word of the trip until a few days before, and when I got to the seat assignment part of the process I was given my choice of two different sucky middle seats. Granted, it's not five hours cross-country, but even two hours squished between strangers isn't my idea of fun. So, being the dweller on bad tidings kind of person I am, I wasn't at all looking forward to the trip.

Anyway, I arrived at the airport and proceeded to the checkin kiosk. When it offered the chance to change my seat, I wasn't hoping for much. After all, there wasn't anything on offer when I booked. So imagine my surprise when I saw all kinds of seats: aisles, windows and of course way too many middles. And suddenly I was feeling cheerful about life again, even with the prospect of clogged ears. Which prospect turned into reality, making for some amusing customer meetings. But never mind about that. Nothing's perfect, after all.

Trust me on this. Last week I was one of them.

The details don't matter. And discussions of bodily fluids are uninteresting at best, even when they're your own. So just suffice it to say I was hating life for a few days. And managed to get enough better in time to take a couple of business trips on Friday and Monday, although not well enough to avoid getting my ears clogged in a fairly comical way every time the plane started its descent. Still, if we didn't get flat-on-our-back sick every once in a while, how would we know how good it feels afterward?

Not to sound smug or anything, but I'm enjoying my Camry Hybrid enormously. I especially like the Crusing Range display, which starts around 540 miles with a full tank and slowly creeps down as I drive. My first two fuelings came long before the tank was empty; in both cases I knew I had long trips ahead where it might not be convenient to stop, so I filled up long before the needle reached E. But on Tuesday I let it go to see what would happen. The yellow warning light came on after around 525 miles. And like most cars, the needle moved through the last quarter of a tank a lot faster than the first quarter. But when the Cruising Range dropped to zero, I started to get worried. And I happened to be on a stretch of El Camino Real that was remarkably free of gas stations, or at least stations without even more obscene prices than I was used to. So I kept going, wondering if I'd have a really embarrassing story to tell about having to call the Auto Club on Independence Day because I'd overestimated my Hybrid.

Anyway, a couple of miles later I found a station, ignored the somewhat higher price and filled up. And was rather surprised when the tank took fewer than thirteen gallons. Because I'd been told, and I just verified, that the car holds just over seventeen gallons. Meaning that I'd been nervous over finding a station before the car ran out of gas, which, the way I've been driving, would have happened in about 160 miles. I've heard of being conservative, but that's just ridiculous!

Case in point, the original and unaired pilot to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which I'd heard about but had never seen until TV Squad announced the existence of a copy on YouTube. It's not good. Not nearly as awful as the Buffy movie, but not good. Still, it's worth watching to see how young everyone is, as well as the poor actress who got to play Willow for a few minutes:

A couple of years ago a friend let me see a copy of the American pilot for Red Dwarf. By comparison, this is Shakespeare. Good Shakespeare.