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PhilCon was a lot of fun. Larry and I hosted two parties, which were actually attended. Hooray! Friday evening was a welcome party, when quite a few people dropped by in clumps of varying sizes. Saturday was advertised as a storyreading (as well as "come see the only Indigo iMac on the 7th floor," said iMac having been donated by Will Quale of Strange Horizons, also a Philadelphia local). Larry read a story from Nemeton, and there were also several poems and storytelling by a couple of the Patient Creatures. Plus the expected chatting about markets, Fun Rejection Letters, the Rumor Mill and the Bad Things that happened at Disclave. There's relatively direct causality in the case of the Saturday party and a Foxfire submission I got and accepted on Monday. (And do check out the cover preview: I think Dave did a truly kickass job.) In the strange coincidences category, our hotel room at the Adam's Mark was the same one we stayed in on our wedding night.
Between party recovery, Kinko's (otherwise known as the Flaming Pit of Despair, never again to be patronized) and general running around, I only ended up getting to one panel, It Came from the Slush Pile, which was entertaining (if not necessarily useful or informative). It did provide a quote Larry and I have been tossing back and forth, especially in light of the recent Titanic ad campaign: "Oh dear. Does the Captain not know of my large and impenetrable bottom?" (Said quote having come from a story told from the iceberg's point of view.) We picked up an art print, and got Political Commentary from the Masquerade, which featured an entry consisting of a pregnant chad, and a dippled chad, and...kudos to the Chad Family on their costume-making speed. After talking to a Random Craftsman, Larry has now acquired a new hobby: making chainmail.
I was almost completely useless and asleep for much of the day Tuesday, due to annoying under-the-weatherness (it has to happen once a season, so hopefully now it's out of the way). I am currently fighting with the PC, which at this point is entirely a frankencomputer. It broke a few weeks ago, and Larry tore out and replaced many bits. On Monday, he added a 20 gig hard drive (yay!) but Pagemaker still tells me I have insufficient disk space to do some things (boo! and huh?) so all is not completely happy fun ball. Playing shall occur over the next couple of days. I see the PC sort of like Cancer Man on The X-Files. (Yeah, I know he's officially "The Cigarette-Smoking Man," but I always thought "Cancer Man" sounded much cooler, and he's dead anyway. Or is he? I can't bring myself to care about the arc episodes.) It does evil things, but it's also capable of brilliant deviousness and unmatched patience, and it's a little misunderstood. If I just keep banging away at it, convince it that what I want is in the best interest of the nation, and maybe find the equivalent of nicotine with which to bribe it, then it will do what I want. (Or at least pretend to do what I want, and maybe give one of the cats to the aliens. Or the bees. Whatever was up with that.) At any rate, it's better than HAL, if only because it doesn't have access to pod bay doors.
Megan
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