Worldcon Report, build 0.01

[akirlu]

If I had any lingering doubts that I am still utterly immune to hangover, last night and this morning have laid them to rest. Nonetheless, helping to drink up the leftover alcohol of the fanzine lounge and the TAFF party is not to be recommended. Especially not when being thus dutiful until four in the morning. Especially especially not when mixing scotch, beer, vodka, and froofy girl drinks rather indiscriminately through the course of things (though not in the same glass). Because, ya know, it isn't helpful to a collected and leisurely departure for the traveler to be awakened from a sound sleep by the phone call from the airport van driver wondering where the hell the traveller is. Last night was a fine and pleasant carouse, however, and a rollicking wake for the Worldcon.

On the other hand, the lack of sleep has left me rather utterly without brain, so although last night's dead dogging gives me a jumping off point to distill my thoughts on the whole Harlan Ellison tit-grope moment at the Hugos, it will have to wait. First I will need to collect and reassemble sufficiently many neurons to get a few synapses going.

But I will share today's not-quite-pertinent-to-the-groping insight about the Kremlinology of Harlan: Harlan would be well served if he could just learn to give distinct behavioral cues as to whether he's really upset, and means it, or he's just fucking with you, or he's really upset and means it, and he's fucking with you. Indeed, he would be really well served by simply dropping the third option entirely.

Comments

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I think you might be optimistic concerning that 4am bedtime. I didn't get to bed until 5am (if I was reading the clock right anyway), and I left before you did. Either that or you and I were in different time continua, which is not at all unusual at a Worldcon. I certainly experienced time and a word differently once jamesb started pouring vodka on us.

On that other issue, I'm beginning to think that the ceiling of the fan lounge was some kind of spectral projection out of The Shining by which the hotel was trying to warn us of grievous catastrophes to come. It first formed right before the Hugo ceremonies started. Mere coincidence? I suppose you'd say the same of the face on Mars.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

While not at all discounting the different time continua theory, you're probably right that I was being optimistic on the bedtime. I didn't actually check the time so much as fall in a boneless arc in what I hoped was the general direction of the mattress. I think I went off to bed not long after you, but both time and space were demonstrating rather elastic qualities by then, so it's difficult to be sure about much of anything. Other than that jamesb is a Bad Man, but I think that was already established.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I should have headed down yesterday to visit the dead-enders.

On the Harlan note, Does your dentist know about that?".

I think (and have thought for some time) he needed a good shaking.

TK

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

Hey, nice to meet you (however briefly) at Worldcon. I've been enjoying your comments over in Patrick's LJ the last two days, and finally remembered to see if I knew your real name or not!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Nice to meet you too, though all too briefly indeed. I keep forgetting that not everyone will recognize that akirlu is just Ulrika backwards -- to me it's just obvious that it's me. Maybe I should change my handle to something more obvious? Except that I've got used to it now.

Meanwhile, then drifting into the nature of Journals

[ekovar.livejournal.com]

It was good seeing you, also however briefly. I think it was in an elevator where I did the classic "I know this person but why? Unless they're someone who just looks somewhat like someone else. Oh, good, they're sensibly wearing a badge where it's easy to check. Oh! I'm so glad to see this person!" that goes on in less than a split second.

And it was wonderful, immediately taking me back to Buccy when I was feeling completely lost in the hoards and then saw this familiar name in whatever outlying hotel we'd wound up at. And, wow, they even recognized my name and were glad to see me too! Little did you know what you helped start.

But it was those two brain cells nudging each other, and knowing your name from RASFF, that made it easy. Had I only known you from a journal and by handle I'd have been lost.

But I can't manage to know people by handles. If someone could eventually spend a full day next to me coaching me on how to keep up with blogs I'd be very, very grateful. I've lost track of a lot of people and missed a lot of conversations because I haven't figured out the trick.

Disappearing again into the blog-fog,

Elspeth