Well, it looks like we will be off for Convergence just as soon as dayzdark finishes eating, packing, and doing the dishes. So you can expect us around 3ish if you're waiting. Both of us will have our laptops with us, so you can reach us via email if needed, but phone is probably your best strategy if you need to get in touch. I'll see a lot of you there, and talk to the rest of you later. (c:

I trimmed my friends list a little today. Don't freak out - if you're reading this, you're here to stay. (c: I just cut off about 10 journals that are either older duplicates of journals where the person has moved to a new LJ home, or people who haven't posted or commented since 2005-ish. But if I removed you and you want to stay, just let me know and I'll add you back right away.

Last day of work for a while today. Convergence here we come!

A couple of announcements:

Not going to Convergence this weekend? freeimprov needs a house- and dogsitter. Money is involved. Go to his journal or email him if you are interested.

Going to Convergence this weekend? The Player Characters and the Feng Shui Ninjas need roadies on Friday afternoon and evening. We are bringing a ridiculous amount of gear in order to give you the best show possible, and we need help getting it in and out of the Harmonic Convergence room in a timely fashion. So we would greatly appreciate volunteers who are willing and able to cautiously carry large, heavy instruments and amps from cars to Shipside and then back again. All you need is the ability to lift and carry things, and a healthy sense of caution so you avoid damaging our gear.

What can I offer you in exchange for your assistance? Not money, unfortunately, but something almost as good. Every person who shows up to help us load in and/or load out will be granted one request for a demo at some time after con, no limitations, no exceptions. You tell me what you want to hear me write about or cover, and I record it and put it on my website. Have you ever wished I would cover your favorite song, or write one about your favorite book, TV show, anime, or movie? Compose and perform a Luke-Ski-style parody? Make an attempt at gangsta rap? Perhaps even write a song about how awesome you are (yes, ap_nateboi)? Now is your chance to tell me I have to do that and kick my ass if I try to back out. Note that I don't promise the song will be good, or that I'll ever perform it anywhere outside of the studio, but if nothing else you will have your very own demo of your very own request to hold close to your heart as a memento of your good deed.

If you can help us load in, meet in front of Shipside at 3:45 p.m. on Friday. If you can help us load out, hang around after my show (we'll need you sometime around 8 or 8:30; we promise to get you done in time for plenty of room partying). The more volunteers we have, the faster the process will go, but I don't foresee it taking longer than 20-30 minutes no matter what happens. Leave me a comment here if you're interested; you can make your request now or wait until after con, but remember that I won't honor them if you don't show up and haul!

Here's where you can find me at Convergence this weekend:

Thursday
dayzdark and I will be showing up sometime in the early to mid afternoon depending on when we get moving. At some point in here we will meet up with omnifarious and captinben who will be sharing our room with us. We will also be walking around hanging posters to advertise my show.
I'll probably hit up opening ceremonies at 7 unless I'm deeply engrossed in something else. "Something else" is likely to be making music with freeimprov and ogsnart.
At 9:30 I'm on the Songwriting and Filking panel with freeimprov, ogsnart, and...uhh...Mercedes Lackey. I wonder who everyone will be coming to hear.
After that I think the plan is to meet up with peloria and busk in the atrium area. Stop by, throw us some change, and make requests.
Once peloria leaves I'll probably go and close down some room parties, and try to play a little more at music circles before Friday.

Friday
The most important thing before 2 on Friday is for me to leave and eat food so I don't fall over before my show - dmnsqrl and kr1mz0n_ghoti do you have any interest in maybe hitting up Friday's with dayzdark and me at this time?
At 2 p.m. I need to meet up with freeimprov to start the load-in process. WE NEED ROADIES. A general call for this will go out soon, so watch your flists.
The Feng Shui Ninjas go on at 4:30 so I will be helping to load in at 4 or sometime before that, then watching their show.
The Player Characters perform at 7 p.m.! If you are reading this, then you should be there!
Afterwards, I'll help load out and then enjoy some room parties to celebrate a job well done. You can probably track me down by going wherever there is beer and/or a music circle, where I'll be hawking my CD to unsuspecting nerds. Also note that since this is my first Convergence, I'd love a willing sherpa to show me around to to the best spots; I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by what's in the program guide already.

Saturday
I plan to spend the morning sleeping off the obligatory post-show hangover.
"Renaissance of Buffy & Angel" sounds like a cool panel, but it's at 11 a.m., so I'm not making any promises about that.
However, I am on the Women & Gaming panel at 12:30 so you can catch me there and probably hear me alienate everyone in the room with my boundless hate.
Then I'll probably head over to the Battlestar Galactica panel at 2 p.m.
I enjoyed Adam Stemple at DemiCon, so I may go hear him perform at 4 p.m. Or I may attend one of several 3:30 panels or I may do nothing at all.
Depending on how hungry and wrecked I am at this point, masquerade may win out at 7, or food may win out at 7. dayzdark keeps talking about Chapati and we are pretty close at the Sheraton. Or I may have to start running crap back to my house. We'll see.
Room parties again by night. Grab me if you see me and we'll have a drink or three together.

Sunday
Moving my crap out of the room will probably occupy the better part of the morning.
I'll probably go see Luke Ski and Possible Oscar from 1-3:30.
Historically, I have never made it all the way to closing ceremonies at any con, so who knows what will happen here. Let's just say that if you are hoping to catch me while I'm mostly conscious, Sunday is probably not the day to do it. dayzdark and I will probably grab some dinner together on our way back home (additional guests are not out of the question necessarily) and then crash hardcore.

Can you tell that I'm excited about this just a little? Anyway, let me know your con plans, and if it looks like our paths will cross at any time...I hope to get at least a couple of moments here and there to hang out and talk with all of you, particularly those I don't see nearly as much as I'd like.

Possibly the best email that any human has ever received. This is from paulkedarkhanna:

it's 3:26 AM on a sat morning

just finished ep 1&2 of season 3 BSG.

Your show sucks donkey balls.

thought you should know

- paul

(For context, please realize that Paul began watching BSG less than a week ago.)

In other news, an important announcement: The Player Characters/Feng Shui Ninjas house concert is being moved to Brooklyn Center. If you are planning to attend, PLEASE call me or freeimprov for the new address. That is all.

Pienso que tengo que pasar más tiempo usando castellano en internet porque no quiero perder mis habilidades. Ya leo mucho y miro pelis cuando pueda (si tengo tiempo voy a mirar una esta noche...), y voy a hacer de voluntario como una vez por mes con traducción u otras cosas así, pero debo hacer más y debo comunicarme con otras personas para practicar. Así que estoy pensando escribir más en castellano aquí. ¿Hay alguien aquí a quien le gustaría leer postings en castellano, y que me hablaría? Probablemente escribiría sobre libros, pelis, noticias de España, y cosas así. Si no hay mucha interés aquí probablemente empezaré un blog castellano en LJ o en otro sitio en el que puedo ser más anónima. Respondadme si os interesa. (c:

(For those of you who don't understand that, is it going to bother you if occasional Spanish entries show up here? I will cut them to save your flists.)

So I have somehow ended up volunteering to run lighting and sound for a friend-of-a-friend's Fringe show. eustacio may even be joining me. It pays, and will be like a blast from the past doing what I once thought was my career but haven't pursued at all in 4 years.

First writing about gaming, now tech theatre. This is like the summer of doing things I swore I'd never do again. Maybe before it ends, I'll have to go buy myself a trumpet and start playing again, just to hit the trifecta.

You know, I'm just not going to give this poll any context at all, because that would ruin the fun.

Poll #1210865 Context is for the weak
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which is more white-trash-y?

If you want to see the Player Characters and the Feng Shui Ninjas once more before Convergence, here's your chance. Both bands will be playing a house concert at the home of freeimprov this Saturday. Contact him if you are interested in attending and he will give you the address; his email should be in his profile. Doors open at 6 p.m. A music circle/party will follow, if you are so inclined to participate. Admission is free, but freeimprov asks that you bring a dish to pass for potluck during and afterwards. Otherwise, make sure to catch us at 7 p.m. Friday at Convergence!

Apart from that, you may also want to know that I have another article up at Gamegrene, entitled Confessions of a D&D Newbie. I never did get around to angsting about D&D like I had planned here, so I turned it into convenient and less-whiny article form instead.

Also, I have done a bad thing and converted paulkedarkhanna to the cult of Battlestar Galactica watching. This is only a bad thing because it leads to me getting 3 a.m. text messages about how inept the Cylons are.

Show tonight! Acadia Cafe! Minneapolis! Electric! Full band! New material! $5! 9 p.m.! Be there!

With that out of the way, I thought I would bribe you with some new material (that yes, we will be performing tonight). The backstory is this: I was recently appalled to note that I had never written a song about Battlestar Galactica. (I know, shocking, isn't it?) So I decided that the best way to rectify this problem was to write three. This is part one of my little mini-song-cycle called "Apocalypse Blues". It'll go on my second record and eventually I hope to do the whole thing live stitched together with ( spoilers ) Anyway, for now we have this song, which is about ( spoiler, ) but if you haven't seen season 4 you probably wouldn't figure that out by listening to the song, so you're probably safe to listen to it even if you're behind. Plus, this song features both my new Telecaster and my new bass, so you wanna hear it just to get an idea of how awesome they both sound!

steady as she goes - new song, right click to download!
(voice, electric guitar, bass, keyboards, tambourine)

( lyrics )

Thanks, innocent_man: Here's the first Actual Play example of a Hunter: The Vigil game to be unlocked.

Looks Zeal-oriented, to put it in H:tR terms, but I'm willing to chalk that up as a function of the particular scene being detailed rather than the game as a whole. Still, I'll be extremely saddened if there's not at least some way to express the Mercy and Vision creed style of hunting in powers and abilities, since that was one of my favorite things about H:tR and really the thing that sold me on the game in the first place.

This may be the greatest worst gaming session story ever. Courtesy of rpg.net.

( Cut because it's long )

Top that in comments, if you dare. (c;

My workdays come in two modes lately: absolutely nothing to do, or so much to do that I don't even have time to breathe. The second kind has predominated lately, which is why you may not have seen very much of me. So I will leave you with just one thought:

A combination of wankery about the BSG finale and reading the Babylon 5 thread in SA's TV forum caused me to realize that 20 or 30 years from now, some young upstart TV producer will probably want to come along and do a "re-imagining" of Babylon 5, just like it was done with BSG. And when that happens, I'll be the one shaking my fist impotently and shouting about how "IF JMS DIDN'T WRITE IT IT'S NOT B5" and "ONLY ANDREAS KATSULAS CAN PLAY G'KAR" and "GARIBALDI'S NOT A WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1" and ultimately conclude with "OMFG B5INO". I really hope the Internet still exists then, because I'm looking forward to becoming a fandom curmudgeon.

P.S. - remember my show this weekend, Saturday, 9 p.m. at the Acadia. New material! New guitar! Great beer on tap! Be there.

On the downside, my cell phone's battery is back to not holding a charge and my iPod is broken AGAIN. TECHNOLOGY. This combined with one extremely tired dayzdark is leading to us not going to the dmnsqrl pig roast today, which sucks. But at least we will see those people at Convergence in a couple of weeks.

On the bright side, my new song sounded amazing in rehearsals today and you will hopefully all get to hear it either at the Acadia or Convergence. I may find time to demo it before then too...who knows.

SciFi streamed the last pre-hiatus, pre-2009 episode of Battlestar Galactica on their website this morning/afternoon. Never before have I wished so fervently to be unemployed. That also means that people on the Internet who aren't me have seen it already and are talking about it. Spoilers are like crack for me* and it is currently an act of supreme will for me not to just dive in and start inhaling, so I hope that all of you are very proud of my self-control.

Srsly though. This is the first time I've ever watched BSG as it aired (discovered it during the season 2 hiatus, didn't watch season 3 until after it had all finished airing due to scheduling and tankmancr's preferences), and it's killing me. I can deal with summer for every other show, but for some reason watching BSG week by week made me really overinvested. And what is this crap about "10 episodes on, then take a break for 6 months" that SciFi keeps doing? I am never doing this for any show ever again, and you are all permitted to kick my ass if I ever even consider it again.

* - I blame my desire for spoilers on a traumatic Babylon-5-related experience. I watched B5 in its original run, during which it wrecked my shit even more thoroughly than BSG is right now. For those of you who didn't share in my pain, PTEN had this, um, special way of waiting until the last minute every year to renew the show - and, while so doing, holding the last four episodes of the season in indefinite reserve until they made up their mind. What's worse, the fifth-to-last episode of season 4 of B5 is "Intersections In Real Time". Yeah. 15-year-old me was not a happy camper.

But wait, there's more! Whatever network syndicated B5 in the UK didn't follow this policy, so everyone over there had already seen the last four episodes. So half the fandom had seen these episodes already, either by being in the UK or by getting the tapes shipped over by someone who did (as this was in the days before BitTorrent). Because of this, some fan put up a spoiler page for the final four. I valiantly resisted the spoiler page until the final four aired, only to discover ( something I won't spoil for you if you haven't seen B5. ) This absolutely destroyed me and I remember wishing, "Man, if I had only been spoiled for that, I could have dealt with it earlier and not been cursing and throwing stuff." So now it's a constant fight not to spoil myself for the good stuff as well as the bad.