Foolscap

Saturday, after rising and feeding the kids cereal, we headed out for Foolscap, an annual convention of literate science fiction. The convention is meant to be small-- less than three hundred people-- and generally convivial. When we arrived, the writers track had just opened up and was proceeding apace, so I ran into the "Plotting" panel and came away with a number of good ideas. I also attended "Brainstorming" and "Vibrant Writing" (where we did a practice exercise that involved not knowing vocabulary, kinda interesting). In between, we tried to keep the girls occupied with board games, but they were much more interested in watching the sculptor doing a large-scale dragon's head in the corner-- a rather frightening and Hollywood kind of head, rather than the more traditional and Tolkeinesque head done last year. FallenPegasus showed up and attended part of the art track. I spent some much money in the dealer's room. ALl in all, it was a quiet and fruitful day.

Omaha revealed to me that she keeps forgetting where Kouryou-chan is in her skillset. One of Kouryou-chan's friends was there, and we got them involved in a game of Candyland. The friend is a few months older than Kouryou-chan, has brilliant and involved parents, yet while Kouryou-chan is already doing basic arithmetic like addition and subtraction, her friend has trouble with basic ideas like counting up to five.

Sunday, I drove Omaha over into one of the political thingys she'd been roped into over the passing days, then I took the girls out to the used bookstore to turn in two shopping bags full of books that I was probably never going to read nor refer to-- mostly geek, but some non-fiction and one book of travel writing. It took them forever to tally up the return-- about ten bucks-- and then I let the girls go and pick books of their own. I despair. Yamaarashi-chan found the one she wanted relatively quickly, something from Disney, but Kouryou-chan took forever, came close to damaging a book she didn't want, and when she did pick it was a scratch-and-sniff easy reader that's a year simpler than she's capable.

I went home and resumed the chores: laundry, lunch, and some geek work for Omaha. By the time she had gotten home, I had only just begun on the logs she'd requested for analysis. The girls were watching more Uninhabited Planet. Despite the beautiful afternoon, they spent their day indoors, playing with an amazing array of little plastic figurines.

The week is gonna be busy. I have to remember to take Friday off, because I need the time to go to Conifur or I'm gonna miss the entire convention. Thursday I'm going out, and Saturday I'm going hiking for the day. Whew.

Dangerous? Moi?

A hearty "fuck you" to Ron Sims, our Democratic gubernatorial candidate, who last night during a debate, in answer to the question "Would you appoint an atheist to office?" said, "Anyone who does not hold a belief in a higher authority is a very dangerous person."

Sad. Politically expedient, but sad.

OkCupid's politics

I am 80% socially permissive and 71% economically conservative. I am a Libertarian. Well, duh. I was alarmed to find myself on the border with the GW Bush supporters, but I guess that just reflects my ambiguity about both statist, staticist, feralist candidates.

Take the test at OkCupid Politics. And blame woggie for pointing us all there.

Blame David Letterman!

Sometimes, a story gets written as a response to something else, usually on a theme, an incident, an event. Sometimes it's just a wish to f*ck up a character's too-complacent life. And sometimes, it's just because a quote is too precious too let loose.

I know exactly where I'm going to use this line: Maybe you'd like it better back in your pants, your highness.

Minor projects, breaks, and Kouryou-chan

I've been catching up on a couple of minor projects. Finally installed a Wiki on my laptop in the hopes of trying to keep track of things. I don't think it'll work, but I can always hope. Despite the number of tools at my disposal, I always end up keeping all of my notes on pen and paper.

But I have been keeping up with some code. Along with the Wiki, I've started converting all of my planet/culture/solar system generators to python. They're really old and rather primitive C code, and it's high time that the "business logic" was in one place and the display code in another. What ten years of experience will do to a man. It does mean that I'm not writing much in the way of story this week. I guess my brain needs a break. Maybe it's because I've been reading drek-- Star Wars tie-ins and stuff like that. Sad how far Steve Perry has fallen.

Tonight, Kouryou-chan and I relaxed and watched some TV. I watched an episode of Someday's Dreamers. Goddess, I love that show. I like slow, thoughtful character stories. Naruto fans can bite my shiny ass. And then I turned on Iron Chef (The Noodle Battle!), which Kouryou-chan didn't watch, deciding to draw instead. "When I watch that show, it always makes me hungry," she said.

Omaha made a fabulous tomato soup with little star pasta in it, and we had grilled cheese sandwiches with it. Delicious. Kouryou-chan and I finished the evening with waffle ice-cream sandwiches.

I used to think there was nothing worse that Marimite seinen doujinshi. Then I found Stellvia futnari seinen doujinshi. But now, I've seen it all. Harry Potter seinen doujinshi. Ewww.