Worldcon over... so back to the holiday...

[sbisson]

So that's the Worldcon (but not this holiday over). We've had the Masquerade and the Hugo ceremony, the last few panels and the final tour of the dealers' room...

Woz and the folk from the Howmbrew Computer Club were wonderful, and gave us a whole new set of insights into the early days of the industry. Other highlights were autopope and China Mielville avoiding losing tempers with an intransigent Eric Raymond (remember, socialism is not stalinism), Vernor Vinge's updated Singularity presentation and the following panel with Walter Jon Williams, James Patrick Kelly and autopope.

Oh, and Glasgow won 2005...

The Masquerade was good, but really needed the addition of SMS and Eira. These folk take their costuming incredibly seriously...

tamaranth would have been amused by the appearance of Sam Gamgee and Sauron at the Hugo ceremony, accepting for LoTR. By the screams there were an awful lot of pervy hobbit fanciers in the audience. As arranged in advance with Mr Gaiman, marypcb left her screaming for his win for Best Novel.

Unfortunately despite feorag's Bodice of Extreme Cleavage, autopope failed to win his Hugo category. Then again he was up against Ted Chiang... Still, we took them to Fry's to commiserate and to see how the folk round here do superfluous technology.

My main vice has been the dealers' room. Lots of small presses had stalls, so I have been stocking up on short story collections. So far I've picked up Robert Reed's, James Patrick Kelly's, John M Ford's, Walter Jon Williams, and I am sure more still in the bookbags and the piles on the bedroom floor...

We're switching domiciles today, so blogging may get even more disjointed than over the last few days, as our host (ocean_song) has just moved, and doesn't have DSL yet...

Many thanks to rowanf and Russell for putting us up for the last few days!

Comments

[jaq.livejournal.com]

I'd like to hear more about superfluous technology.

socialism

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

> Other highlights were autopope and China Mieville avoiding losing tempers with
> an intransigent Eric Raymond (remember, socialism is not stalinism)

any more details on that? Eric v. China is something I wish I'd seen >;)

Re: socialism

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

I understand that it has been recorded and will be transcribed. And I'm sure autopope will put it up on his blog when it's live... Eric really doesn't seem to listen tgo anything outside his US anarcho-capitalist viewpoint, but the audience found China a very articulate speaker, and certainly the europeans around us found him difficult to disagree with...

Re: socialism

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I believe the lovely dalmeny has precis'd ...

Re: socialism

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

thanks :)

read and enjoyed... Still wish I could have been there though.

[rowanf.livejournal.com]

Many thanks to rowanf and Russell for putting us up for the last few days!

It has been lovely seeing you for an extended period of time! You are most welcome anytime. :-)

[miramon.livejournal.com]

We did the superfluous technology bit as well (naturally, you expected anything else?) at two different branches of Fry's. Giulia's been going on at me for 5 years about the Egyptian decor branch so I got to see that.

Did autopope ever manage to track down the cheap Zaurus from Goodguys?

Re:

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Yes he did, and so did I - got a last minute bargain on the way to the airport yesterday - picked up an ex-display with no battery for $149... seeing as I can get a battery here easily enough...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

And a battery was £30 from Expansys... so I think this is working out a bit of a bargain...

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

we did the Mayan and Egyptian and Western themed ones; my contention is that it's just Tottenham Ct Rd roofed over