"I'm going to go back there someday"

I just found out that the one of a kind "Vixy & Tony Holiday Concert: Recorded Live at Wayward Coffeehouse" that went to the GAFilk interfilk auction was won by none other than chaoticgoodchic for the bargin price of $135.00

It includes such holiday favorites as: Chiron Beta Prime, The Christians and the Pagans, & Santa Baby

Plus many other great songs such as The Girl Whose Never Been, Emerald Green, & Mal's Song.

Incase anyone has noticed that I haven’t been posting much lately; let me tell you that having a life can really cut into your internet time.

( Over a week ago I went to Ohio Valley Filk Festival. )

Just got home from Ohio Valley Filk Festival

More Later

g'night

It started on Friday when The IT dept. had an event in Boston. We went on a Duck Tour of the city & the river, then a tour of Fenway Park. Because of the event I was able to get home early.

Then Friday night I went to Phonix Rising Games to pick up a new game I had pre-ordered Cutthroat Caverns, and then I took it to Friday Night Open Gaming at WPI. It is a hack & slash game using cards instead of dice. We got in one game of it (It took 2 hours including teaching the rules) I also got in a game of Settlers.

I got home about 1 am and slept till 5:30am, when I had to get up to do a couple of loads of laundry.

After laundry I headed to Medford to help xuth move. There were roughly a dozen people there who helped with the move at one point or another. Some I know, some I barely know, and some I have never met before (I’m not going to even try listing names).

Once there was a full load on the rental truck, we went over to his new address about 2 miles away in Cambridge. We ate lunch, and then started unloading. At about 3:30 I decided had reached my limit and went to the MASSFILC filk circle which was about 3 blocks away from Xath’s new address.

The filk circle started slow, but ended up one of the largest housefilks I had been to. I am sure part of the reason was this MASSFILC meeting was their election of officers. Joe Kesselman stepped down as president and victorthecook was elected by acclaim. Also announced at the meeting happyfunpaul is the Interfilk guest at Conchord 2008.

I brought 1 new song and 1 new poem to perform at the filk circle. I ended up doing both early before the crowd arrived. The poem did a bit better than the song. Later in the evening someone played a seasonal song, and I thought of the perfect follower, but I didn’t have it prepared; so I went online, looked up the words, plugged my headset into the PC and listened to the recording (I have all my filk CD’s backed up on my PC). I then performed the song and it was not bad. A couple of people even joined in. This brings me up 8 song/poems I feel comfortable performing in circle.

Sunday I crashed, I had hoped to make some progress on my paintings, but I had misplaced some of my tools (I spotted them this morning as I was leaving the house.)

In some ways I feel like this weekend was practice for Pythonacon next weekend.

I am starting to make plans for Ohio Valley Filk Festival

So who is going to it this year, and how are they getting there?

I have now been to my first Dragon*Con

I had a great time, although I’m not sure how much credit goes to the con.

I arrived on Thursday and met up with chaoticgoodchic at the main hotel (the Hyatt). We put our bags away in the room and went out to get some dinner. At the elevators we ran into Rob partiallyclips Balder^, and Jan (whose LJ I don’t know) who were also heading out to dinner and invited us to join them.

Dragon*Con officially started Friday. The music track had a lot of talent I had heard of but never had a chance to hear live such as: newlyweds, Carla Ulbrich and Joe Giacoio, The Brobdingnagian Bards, The Bedlam Bards, Throwing Toasters, & Emerald Rose. I also got to hear some more familiar talents: Tom Smith, Rob Balder, The Boogie Knights, Matt Leger and Roberta Rogow.

It was fun filking in front of an almost completely new group of people. It meant that practically none of them had heard me sing any of the 3 songs I typically do at circle. I also did 2 spoken word pieces over the weekend; a poem by my brother Mounting the Earth and another by a friend of his Physics for Slam Poets.

There were also some unexpected bonuses at the filk circle. One was Robert Asprin (yes, That Robert Asprin). He is quite entertaining in person, and rarely at a loss for words. voiceofkiki Debuted a new filk mixing Harry Potter with Broadway’s Hairspray. Another young lady gave us Renfair Women (to the tune of Gretchen Wilson’s Redneck Woman).

I also met several other people who (like me) don’t write filks, but enjoy singing & listening to them.

Outside of Filk, Saturday Morning was the costume parade, which is held outside on the street. Our room on the 6th floor had an excellent view of the parade from the balcony.

Saturday night was the Dawn (comicbook) look-alike contest, hosted by Voltair, CGC and I watch some of this. In my opinion it is a beauty pageant that is in danger of turning into a costume competition (go figure).

One of my regrets is that I only got to briefly meet ewin at the Saturday Morning Cartoons event. I can now say that I have met her in person. I was not able to get in much gaming (just a couple of hands of Fluxx) because it was located in a separate hotel, which happened to be undergoing renovations, which made getting to game rooms harder (luckily I have a high survival skill so I was able to find it.)

On Sunday we went to some of the CrookShanks show.

Considering the con as a whole, I had fun. I have been to a few filk cons, some small region cons, many Boskons and Arisias, and 2 Worldcons. I would say that at Dragon*Con the different event tracks tend to be quite isolated, and it is tougher to sample back and fourth between different tracks than at other cons (including Worldcon).

^Fanboy moment: For those who don’t already know Rob Balder, he is writer of the webcomics PartiallyClips & Erfworld, Get Nifty: The Sluggy Freelance Card Game, and the Pegasus Award Nominated filk song (for the second year in a row) Rich Fantasy Lives. He is also a fun person to hang out with.

I almost forgot to tell all my readers out there,

I'm going to my first Dragon*con in about a week.

So, anyone else going to be there?

Thank you, to all the great people who worked on 2Pi-Con (too many to mention individually) for making it a fun weekend!

Thank you, to all the people I flirted with, or who flirted with me (too many to mention individually) for making it a fun weekend!

Special thanks to: rchb76 for letting me use her spare membership, rafaela & slipjig for letting me hang out with them, allanorah for letting me play boy scout, and to desuvan for making saraphina_marie glow.

If you were at Pi-Con you already know about this…

The Pi-Con Guest of Awesome this year was Sara Harvey, author of A Year and A Day. She is a fun person, so I knew I would want to sit in the front row for the Flirting Panel (she was one of the panelists).

At one point the discussion turns to how flirting is more than just a means to an end (sex). It is a way of just enjoying other people’s company. Sarah says, “Now I love to flirt, but I am not at all available. I mean for all intents and purposes I’m married, I just don’t have the ring.”

As she says this she looks at her boyfriend Matt in the audience. He gives her The Look. She wasn’t expecting this reacting from him and says, “Oh Sweetie, it’s true, but it’s alright.”

At the end of the panel Matt walks up to the stage. He calls out “Everybody wait a minute.” He brings Sara off the stage, gets down on one knee, and pulls a little gray box out of his pocket.

( The Pic )

They will not be having their wedding at Pi-Con next year, but there will probably be some sort of reception/party.

How can a weekend go by so quick? In spite of being totally unprepared, I had a great time.

I met chaoticgoodchic at Dulles Airport, but I forgot to print out directions from the airport to the hotel. Then we got lost on the Metro so it took us 5 hours to get to the con. For some people that would have spoiled the weekend, but CGC is a real trooper.

I had planned on learning some new songs to do in the circle (because I think everyone has heard the 3 I know), but with all the time I spent on the painting, it didn’t happen. Luckily enough there was someone there for her first con, so I sang my 3 anyway.

I want to thank everyone for making it such a friendly Con. chaoticgoodchic was concerned that she wouldn’t have fun, not knowing many people from the northeast, but she found that she really liked the people and the casual atmosphere. Her 1-shot went very well. It was her first time soloing her own song on stage, and she did great (and not just in my opinion), but it took a lot out of her.

For me it is starting to get a bit silly that in order to hang out with New England Filkers, I travel to Maryland or Toronto. A clear sign that I need to get my life in order. Still it was great to see people. I’m not going to list everyone because I feel like I am on a first name basis with over half the people there.

However Special Thanks go to persis, Spencer, and safeara for transporting my paintings to Conterpoint. Also suecochran and thatcrazycajun for taking us to lunch Saturday.

Wild Mercy was fabulous, both collectively and individually. I ended up spending at least a little time each of them over the course of the con.

sweetmusic_27 was the pinch-hitter of the con. After people heard her play at the celtic circle on friday, everyone wanted to use her in their concert. (Gee, isn't there some kind of "Best Performer" Nomination going on currently?)

The wedding was lovely, I liked that instead of “Speak now or forever hold your Pease” the minister asked for the approval of the attending (to a rousing response of WE DO).

chaoticgoodchic and I left "early" monday morning, and headed to Dulles aparently before the difficult people arrived, we didn't have any problems.

While I was at Arisia in January There were 2 Live audio drama presentations, one by Post-Meridian Radio Players and the second by Second Shift. I enjoyed the show and looked forward to checking out the Second Shift podcasts.

A month and a half goes by, and gospog mentions he is looking for gaming oriented podcasts to listen to on the way to work. I remembered Second Shift and decided to check out their podcast. I am glad I did. The story itself is fairly traditional (3 college students from Boston, who end up being mysteriously summoned to the magical land of Lundi), but it still has some suprises.

The characters are believable and complex. The first season story arch is complete (13 episodes), although it has an end of season cliffhanger.

I can't wait till season two starts.

Cons are an amazing experience for me. I have many diverse interests & hobbies, and most of them seem to intersect at a con.

( Friday; random socializing )

After being in Chicago, IL 4 weekends ago; Columbus, OH 3 weekends ago; and Queens, NY halloween weekend; it was nice to stay home last weekend.

I did laundry
Picked up more bins of books from storage
Went grocery shopping
The local art suply store was having a sale on Canvas and Oil Paint.
All without leaving Worcester.

This coming weekend I am gaming in Providence, RI on Saturday; Hartford, CT on Sunday; and Marlboro, MA on monday.

Goals:
To see friends
Meet some people I know through LJ
Hear some great live music by people I have only heard of
Hear some great live music by people I have never heard of
Sing
To Be among the Fen

(  We arrived 6:35 Friday afternoon  )

I am home from the wilds of Ohio. I am quite worn out, but in a good way. I will be "unpacking my adjectives" soon. The short version, everyone was Fabulous.

My Vacation plans

Vacation time off from work, arranged
Ticket to Chicago, arranged
Place to stay in Chicago, arranged
Ride from Chicago to Columbus, arranged
Place to stay in Columbus, arranged
OVFF Pre-reg (including Banquet), mailed today
Stock Payout to fund trip, check arrived today, deposited in bank
Someone to watch cats while I'm away, arranged

Someone who can share a room at Ohio Valley Filk Festival (in Dublin, Ohio). I do not smoke, or drink, and when I'm at a con I don't really sleep that much. Primarily I need a place to keep my stuff, shower, and change clothes. If you know someone who has a room to share, or know someone who knows someone, please point me out to them (or vice versa).

Thank you

On friday I completed a SQL Server training course. I did learn some things, but at times it was very difficult to stay awake. The class was over at 4pm, but my ride would not be able to meet me till 7pm. ( The training center was next door to the Burlington Mall, ) I finished the book I was reading (A Year and a Day by Sara M. Harvey, good book, I highly recommend it) ( by 5pm )