My Archives: February 2006
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
There will be a memorial for Octavia Butler at 7:30 pm this Thursday evening, at the Science Fiction Museum (details). The museum is at 325 5th Avenue North (Seattle Center, part of the EMP building).
My first encounter with her was reading Dawn, the first volume in her Xenogenesis series. Wow! I was blown away! I was surprised and pleased when she moved to Seattle -- we didn't see her often, but she attended Vanguard (our monthly fannish social gathering) most months.
(tags: OctaviaButler, ScienceFiction, Memorial)
Posted by Anita @ 05:52 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]
Author Jo Walton (her books), bluejo on LiveJournal, found herself sitting in a Chinese restaurant with no idea how she go there. Was she dreaming, or was it real? "When I'm dreaming and I suspect it's a dream, I try running through the events of the day so far, because if it's a dream, I'll go back to earlier events, thus proving it's a dream. This has served me very well on the couple of real occasions I've thought something might be a dream, and also in dreams. This time it didn't work. There were no events leading to me being there -- if I was there, which I wasn't at all sure about. I'd never been there before. I could tell where it was because I could see the corner out of the window, Ste Catherine and St Matthieu. Down by Guy."
It turned out that it was really happening, but she couldn't remember how she got there because she'd slipped on the ice and hit her head. After much pressure from her readers, she did go to the doc and get her head checked out, and she's fine with residual headache.
(tags: JoWalton, Bluejo, concussion)
Posted by Anita @ 04:39 AM PST [Link] [1 Comment]
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
I put a countdown at the top of my index page, just because I can: Potlatch is almost here! This is my favorite convention, just about my favorite event of the year. Lots of great folks coming. Bill Humphries created an LJ community for the con.
Jack is working hard on a special project for hospitality, while I've been shopping and prepping for days, also for hospitality.
Suzle, our hotel liason, told us that the hotel is sold out, but there is room for overflow folks at a hotel a few blocks away where you get the same low rate. If you live in the Seattle area you could come just during the days, but we do do some fun socializing at night.
(tags: Potlatch, Potlatch15, SciFi, ScienceFiction, Convention)
Posted by Anita @ 04:49 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]
Monday, February 20, 2006
Former East Side Weblog Meetup member John has been in China since last summer. While walking around the small village where he is living now, he and his wife noticed a group of folks dancing in the street, doing social dances and circle dances, an unusual sight in that village. They joined in a few times. Now they've been issued ID tags! "I have to admit, I have sort of coveted those I.D.'s. I don't know why, since the nametags in China have sort of creeped me out. It seems everybody who works behind a counter here has a tag and it seems that every tag is simply a number. (Of course, I do admit that if there's Chinese characters on a tag, I couldn't tell if it was someone's name or a biohazard warning.) The dancer I.D. is similar, with a number and the ever present red star stamp. There is a space for our name and a poor quality picture of some people dancing, though, so maybe that makes up for it. Or maybe it's just the thought as being accepted. Or maybe it's just scoring a unique souvenir. Whatever the reason, we were quite pleased to be tagged. I just hope that this doesn't mean that we have to attend club business meetings...."
Posted by Anita @ 03:33 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]
Saturday, February 18, 2006
I followed Jack's example and took the 2-question enneagram test that's going around. I think my results as Romantic did fit with my INFJ Myers-Briggs personality type. Details follow. [more]
Posted by Anita @ 08:59 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]
Friday, February 17, 2006
Wednesday night's weblog meetup wasn't the biggest we ever had, but the folks who were there seemed to have a good time and hung out talking well past nine o'clock. We'd left grandson R----- with my sister M----, so both Jack and I were free to chat, converse, geek out, and so on.
- Ken Brush got the job he'd been interviewing for last month. Now he'll be spending part of each week in Seattle and part in Portland, at least until the end of the school year. We urged him to make sure he was in the Seattle office on days when his wife handled tough moving tasks. "Good luck, honey!"
- Don Smith of the Seattle PI returned for more bloggy atmosphere.
- Clark Humphrey
- Bre Pettis and I were both at Northern Voice last weekend. He's got a notion about a Seattle Art Network. (his meetup photos)
- Daniel Talsky has been to previous meetups, but it's been a while. Bre Pettis let him know that he could make tiny videos with his digital camera.
- Jeff of Beans for Breakfast (also not posting at Using Books Weblog) worked on a blog post while at the meetup, but I don't think it got posted!
- Karen Anderson says she got her questions about tagging answered.
- Fannie Samudra is thinking about blogging but I don't believe she has started yet. When she asked me what my favorite blogs were, I didn't know quite what to say!
- Dan The Deliverator - Wannabee
- Jack of Antigravitas
- and me!
(tags: seattlemeetup, Weblogs, Blogs, WeblogMeetup, Seattle)
Posted by Anita @ 03:55 AM PST [Link] [2 comments]
Thursday, February 16, 2006
I love this thoughtful list of science fiction movies that were never made (ware popups) and probably never will be made now. (Question: is the article called "The Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed" or "The 10 Best Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed"?) "The most excited I've ever been to see a movie ever in my life was the moment I saw the first Alien 3 'teaser' trailer in 1991 (teasers are shot well before the movie itself is finished filming). It's the one that promised the aliens were coming to freaking Earth. [...] There was a movie that perfectly captured the Douglas Adams experience, the combination of bitter sarcasm and sharp imagination, the droll British wit and whale-exploding slapstick that infused his novels. And that movie was Shaun of the Dead." Via Adam Vandenberg.
Posted by Anita @ 04:31 PM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Many of the movies that TCM is showing in their Oscar run-up I've seen many times, but this one was new to me: The Devil and Miss Jones (TCM writeup), with great character actor Charles Coburn giving second billing to Jean Arthur. The world's richest man (whose appearance is unaccountably unknown) decides to go undercover in a department store he's forgotten he owned, to root out employee activism. The humor was great -- fish out of water, physical comedy, and more -- with the ending the weakest point: a slapped-on happy-ever-after wedding. See it!
Posted by Anita @ 04:07 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
On St Valentine's day, it's time to revive the shadow puppet play that includes most February holidays: Lincoln Sees His Shadow and Falls in Love. This is certainly one of my favorite Cacophony events from when the Seattle Cacophony Society was active! Pictures in 1998 and 1999. I've pointed to it on past Valentines days, too.
Posted by Anita @ 01:36 AM PST [Link]
Monday, February 13, 2006
Makiko, author of I Was Just Really Very Hungry, tells the tale of her visit to a restaurant in Switzerland where you dine in total darkness.
At 6:30 sharp, another very cheerful lady who introduced herself as Karin (she was to be our waitress) emerged from the dark portal to the far left of the lobby and called out eight names, ours amongst them. We were to be the first to enter the restaurant that evening. She instructed us to line up in a conga row, with herself at the head and our hands on the shoulders of the person in front. This way, she told us, she could lead us safely into the restaurant proper. My heart was beating a little faster - this was exciting, sort of like going onto a rollercoaster in the dark. Our group was already giggling rather nervously.(tags: veryhungry, BlindCow, blindekuh)
Posted by Anita @ 03:40 AM PST [Link]
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Early Friday morning I'm off to Vancouver BC for Northern Voice 2006, the second weblog conference of that name. I got a ride with Nancy White and we are leaving in the wee small hours so as not to be late for Moose Camp, as the first day of the con is called. I'll post as I can!
(tags: NorthernVoice, MooseCamp, NancyWhite)
Posted by Anita @ 06:37 PM PST [Link]
Next Wednesday, February 15, it's the Seattle Weblog Meetup! Start time is 7 pm. Our location is the deli area at Ralph's Grocery & Deli, 2035 4th Ave (map), in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, diagonally across from the Cinerama. Free WiFi, food and drink available (you can buy anything in the store and consume it in the deli area, so that includes wine and beer if you want). Local and visiting webloggers talk about blog topics and lots else. I hope to see you there! Parking can be tight in the neighborhood but I usually find a space on Sixth or pay to park in the Warwick Hotel garage across the street for five bucks.
Posted by Anita @ 03:40 AM PST [Link]
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
We had fun at last night's East Side Weblog Meetup! Grandson R---- and I were the first to arrive at Crossroads (Jack came later from his work). Dan the Deliverator-wannabee was next, then Tommy Williams. Kathy Schuler was new to the meetup. She is in the business of filtering aggregated weblogs, so we had a lot of conversation about that. She's hiring! But my list of attendees didn't get saved before my laptop was shut down, so I don't have her personal weblog URL yet. Ram had poked his head into the meetup last month, but this time he was able to sit down and spend some time with us. D'oh! I lost his URL also, but Tommy and Ram chimed in and put me straight.
Posted by Anita @ 04:13 AM PST [Link]
Saturday, February 4, 2006
Right now my knitting is all about one-skein roll-brim hats made from Noro Kureyon. But when I'm tired of that, maybe I'll do a tote bag made from recycled grocery sacks! Need to start collecting plastic bags in various colors. Hoarding alert!
(tags: recycling, knitting, kureyon, carryall)
Posted by Anita @ 04:18 AM PST [Link]
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Next Tuesday, February 7 at 7 pm, it's the East Side Weblog Meetup! We meet at Crossroads Mall Food Court, 15600 NE 8TH Street, Bellevue (NE 8th and 156th Ave NE -- map and directions), between the stage and the library -- look for our sign! Weblog folks who live and/or work on the East side meet to talk about blog topics and whatever else strikes our fancy. Free WiFi courtesy the King County Library branch. See you there!
(tags: blog, blogs, meetup, EastSide, SeattleMeetup)