graculus

So, what to say? Well, I guess catching up with what I've been up to over the last two weeks or so would be good...

Spent a couple of days in London with

cycnus39, where she dragged me around the British Museum and I dragged her to restaurants. Sadly, my few pics of the phallic windchime didn't come out too well, but hers are much better, so for those who're interested you can see a bunch of pics starting here. But oh, the fecking miserable weather!

Hence, I was utterly unprepared for getting off the plane in Chicago and discovering it was sunny. I'd been promised hot weather for MediaWest, which my brain was struggling to cope with due to the confluence of the words 'hot' and 'Michigan' and my previous experiences of shivering in said locale. Also, both O'Hare airport and United Airlines are evil incarnate - first the damned electronic checking in machine doesn't like me and so I miss my flight to Lansing and then they start cancelling flights all over the place because of bad weather. I don't usually mind airports but then I don't usually spend 9 hours in one wondering whether I'm ever going to get to the con. :(

E.T.A. - I also forgot that they lost my luggage on the way from Chicago to Lansing. This despite the customer service guy who was insisting that my luggage would get on the next available plane even if I didn't. He lies, like a cheap rug! Anyway, I had kind people offering me clothing, including some still-in-the-packet underwear, but I was actually more concerned about the fact that the door decoration was packed in there. Still, Friday evening my luggage appeared and I was much relieved (as doubtless so was everyone else, though as far as I know I still never smelled as much as one of the security guys did all weekend!).

However, once I did actually get there I had a great time thanks to the following lj people, who helped immensely with that, as always:

obelix (still compulsively folding stuff, I bet),

katyabaturinsky,

kitt (who didn't lie about Michigan weather!),

przed,

sithdragn,

bluster (just when did you get home?),

ndannais,

khek,

penfold_x,

jensenrick,

tenaya,

thefannishwaldo and other people I've probably forgotten about, as well as a multitude of non-lj people. Spent what will hopefully be a profitable hour or so pimping lj to two of those, fannish groundhogs who make

katyabaturinsky look consistently communicative... ;)

Also there were panels. Well, I know there were at least two panels, since I was running them. And there was definitely a Man from UNCLE panel going on since they moved one of my panels so it clashed, thus making it impossible for me to heckle

przed as I'd intended! Bah! Oh, and there was a Pirates of the Caribbean panel, which over-ran and I ended up pretty much asking people to bugger off so we could run our panel, which favour a bunch of the Wild Wild West folks also managed by not quite getting to the door before bunching up and talking fifteen to the dozen. ;)

It's kind of odd to go to somewhere like MediaWest and discover that you're running panels which are mostly comprised of people you actually know. I'd expected it with the Wild Wild West panel, since it's a teeny tiny fandom, but for the less popular pairing one it was much more of a surprise. Perhaps I'm just lucky that way?

Meamwhile, my haul from this year's trip, in case anyone is interested:

Gentlemen Never Tell 9 - yes, the mainstream zine for the crazy 10-person slash fandom (Wild Wild West, the tv show not the movie...) is up to 9 volumes!

Sin and Salvation 1 - the crazy 10-person fandom strikes again! Hopefully this will be the start of a similarly-lengthy series and I promise to try and get something done for vol. 2 this autumn.

Pretense 8 - how chuffed was I that my novella, 'Momentum', got the final story slot in this zine? Hopefully people will like it and think it deserves that place...

Boston Legal season 1 dvds - yay!

Numb3rs season 1 dvds - double yay! And for once what seems like decent extras, including commentary on a bunch of eps...

Man from UNCLE dvds from

katyabaturinsky, which all play on my dvd player! *smooches* :)

The latest in

przed's great vid dvds, even if one of the tracks from a Professionals vid is Now. Stuck. In. My. Brain. Aaaargh!

E.T.A. Oops! Forgot the door decoration pic! I came across one elsewhere, so this'll do for now until I find out whether my own pics came out: http://sithdragn.livejournal.com/344459.html and scroll down till you find the appropriate fandom! ;) The little labels on the spinny thing say things like 'on the balcony', 'at the spa', 'on vacation together', 'dressed as flamingos', 'on the balcony, dressed as flamingos'. All in all, as the Boston Legal slash vid to 'Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other' that aired at the convention showed, it's way too easy!

PS - thanks to

xochiquetzl for posting s2 pics to

danielpix while I was away, including the one I knew would check whether anyone was really watching the community! ;)

E.T.A. - Oh, and apparently I got two stories ('Journeys End', which I expected might be it, and 'Enkiddu' where I really thought I was the only one on the entire planet who actually liked it) nominated for the SG fanfiction thingummyjig, which came as something of a surprise. Hopefully the whole thing is not as batshit insane as previous years, but I wouldn't bet on it - I got burned by it, so I gave up nominating way back. It's looking much more complex than previous years and I'm not sure how the nominations thing works - as can be seen by the number of edits to this post, I don't think I'll be tackling it any time in the next few days. ;)