Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

What happens in Vegas allegedly stays in Vegas, but I fail to see how that's at all entertaining to anybody. Anyway, kittenpants got back to good ol' Flyover Country about 2 a.m. on Saturday, and are all back in our own beds (and offices) now.

I managed to survive the Vegas experience without any anxiety attacks, claustrophobia, need to retreat to a corner and hold my head and rock, or anything like that. I also managed to do this without staying drunk for the duration of my visit (which is how I functioned last time I went to Vegas). I consider this to be a victory. Brain re-wiring is going along well.

Overall, the trip was alternately amazing and awful. Highlights in each category are below the cut, if you're interested.( Read more... )

Also this weekend, I:
- Went to Friday Night Supper Club at Tropical Palms, which had excellent food and wretchedly terrible service. The company was good, though.
- Got in a decent-sized shipment of new jewelry-making stuff, which only increases my need to do a show soon.
- Did the co-created ritual thing at Gaia Community. These are rituals built by the people in attendance, and are often awful. In this one, we did a living tarot spread, which was nifty, and on the whole, it was not such a bad ritual.
- Spent a lot of time playing the Neverwinter Nights expansions. I finished the original game shortly after buying it the first time, but hadn't played these yet. One day I am hoping to transition to the playing of relatively newer video games, but I spend so little time gaming that I've got two or three really old ones to finish before I can do that.
- Went with triadruid and saffronhare to clean up Crestview Park for Wild Hare's community service day. We picked up a lot of trash, which was expected, and got a weird benediction including Kurt Vonnegut quotes and the phrase "you guys are the white blood cells of the planet" from a random homeless guy in the park, which was not so much expected. We took this as a good omen.
- Took agrnmn's computer apart to put in some cannibalized parts, only to relearn that parts cannibalized from Dells and other prebuilt systems do not necessarily fit into standard machines. Bastards.
- Got technology envy. agrnmn is getting a new laptop. I want one. Or at least I want an upgrade to my desktop. (I actually don't know what I would do with a laptop if I had one. I'm just being magpie-like.)

I finished The Iron Council last night. I will be sending China Miéville my therapy bills.

triadruid and I spent the ride in discussing a peculiar mark on the fictional body of one of the characters in our upcoming D&D game, what it might mean, and whether or not it might "do" anything. Now, I am the sort of DM that, if you go into a town and there is a bar, I can tell you what the drink specials are, how the bartender got into the business, and whether or not there's a back room, and if so, who meets there. But I think this is a new level of anal-retention, even for me.

Proposed: It would be better if there were two Gods of any given world, and nothing could get implemented unless they both agreed on it.
GOD1: THOU SHALT NOT [INSERT ACTIVITY HERE].
GOD2: ERRR... IF THEY DON'T DO THAT, THERE WILL BE NO [INSERT FAVORABLE RESULT HERE].
GOD1: OH. RIGHT. STRIKE THAT LAST.
The platypus project would have never gotten greenlighted. I'm just saying.

Also, the other day (other week? I am lost in time lately), I wrote a chunk of a filk to The Nails' 88 Lines About 44 Women. I'm particularly fond of filling in other lyrics on this one, since it is basically a list, and could be filled with anything. Sometimes it's 88 Lines About 44 Deities, or 88 Lines About 44 Drivers, or whatnot. This time it was 88 Lines About 44 Fangirls. I got a couple of approving comments, and a WTF?, which I expected, but I also got a sternly-worded note to the effect that, when you came right down to it, "Dr. Who" was not acceptable, and the thing always had to be "Doctor Who", spelled out, in any situation. Canon conflicts with AP style, apparently, and the Internet is a funny place.

I neglected to mention, in my wretchedness last night, that just as we were getting out of the car from coming home last night, there was a stag meandering down the middle of the street. We went to the front of the house to look at him. He stopped to look at us. I'm trying to get over my deer issues, you know. "You stay on your side of the street, buddy," I warned him. He looked at me, as if to say the same thing, and then wandered off. You may not know this, but deer hate me. Not only have I been involved in a number of deer v. car interactions, but also, I have been personally attacked by deer in the past. In fact, most hoofed mammals seem to have a problem with me. Horses will wander from the other side of the paddock to bite me. Goats will... well, drink my beer, but I'm pretty sure goats will drink anybody's beer, so I suppose that doesn't count. I don't know why I'm the target of hoofed-mammal hate, but there it is.

Also, since Winter Bazaar is practically upon us, I spent some quality time making jewelry last night. I finished all of Diva's commissions, which is good. (I like to have commissions, because they guarantee I'll get paid for the piece, but I also dislike them, because I'm never sure that what I make will live up to people's expectations. I'm neurotic like that.) Then, I had the Song of Amergin in my brain (for which I blame the deer), so I made three or four pieces that were based on that. I'm trying to work out whether I should label them with the lines they're about when I take them for sale. On the one hand, I'm pretty sure people are more likely to buy a piece that has a title, but on the other, how pretentious!

It's a rich and varied pageant out there, folks. I know this because I consistently find myself sitting down to write an entry and trying to choose one or two out of the eleventy-billion things that I've been involved in or thinking about lately, so that there can be a nice, tight focused entry that is reasonably true, entertaining, and perhaps even point-inclusive. It's a standard I try for, but don't always (often?) meet.

Sometimes, the best I can do is a list of highlight moments. Today is one of those days.
( How I spent my <s>summer vacation</s> weekend: )

Today, as I was driving to lunch, I encountered a traffic snarl on 69 Highway, just south of College Blvd. Now, this in and of itself is not alarming. There has lately been a lot of construction in that area, so slowdowns are not unknown. And yet, this was different.

As I inched my way southward, I thought, "There must have been an accident." And when I got there, I saw that this was true, in a way. I soon saw the grisly scene -- a box of teddybears had fallen, perhaps from the back of a truck that was stopped on the roadside. Dozens of teddy bears littered the road, some whole, with glassy eyes staring at the heavens balefully, some in parts, bleeding polyfill all over the pavement.

Some motorists had stopped, and were attempting to help a befuddled policeman clear the plushie carnage. I just drove on by, laughing and laughing.

1. Does anybody know how to write a visual basic subroutine that will, say, look at a column of entries in Microsoft Excel, pull the contents of the last cell and plug it in somewhere else if the column has a new entry in it every day? Cause my life would be a lot easier if I could do that.

2. Do triadruid and I look like we're related? The very very nervous librarian fellow working in the Mid-Continent Public Library yesterday evening asked if we were brother and sister.

That concludes stupid question time. Thank you, good night, and gods bless.

Made a return trip to the weirdest sushi bar in the metro today, as I was feeling that my wasabi content was getting a bit low. Was inexplicably served a couple of pieces of eel, even though I did not order any. Mmmm...sushi error in my favor. Life is good.

When leaving said sushi bar, there were a gaggle of attractively nerdy guys making comments about the Decepticon sticker on the back window of my little black Civic. It was not until I began to back out that I saw the Autobot sticker on the back of their oversized cherry-red SUV. There could have been a rumble in the parking lot between the evil small-car owners and the gas guzzlers for Truth Justice and the American Way, but I guess I missed my opportunity. Oh well. They were cute, anyway.

Despite sleeping in a bit this morning, and all of the other activities that occurred, I nearly made it to work on time. Nearly.

What prevented me? A brace of policemen, causing massive traffic backup and snarliness by running a speed trap on I-435. Because people always speed on the clogged highway during morning rush hour. (Note for those unfamiliar with Kansas City traffic patterns: If you can get up to the speed limit on 435 between 7 and 9 a.m., and maintain that speed for more than a mile, this is accounted a major victory against fate, circumstance, and the universe in general.) No doubt, similarly valorous souls were also stationed in the Downtown Loop, and lo, even unto the Grandview Triangle.

Feh.

I have this theory that a woman can tell approximately how old she looks based on the random personal questions asked to her by her hairstylist. (This may also apply to men, but I'm not certain.) When you are very young, you get something like "Are there any boys at school you like?". This moves to "Are you dating anybody?" later (late teens, maybe), which is followed by "Are you seeing anybody?" (early twenties). This yields to "Are you married?" (late twenties) and then to "How many kids do you have?" (thirties). I presume that the pattern continues up until in your fifties they're asking about your grandkids, and in your sixties, whether you've buried your husband. All of this is pretty rude, by my standards, but there it is.

So I've been solidly in the "Are you married?" class for some time, and was starting to move into "How many kids?", which was getting kind of alarming. However, last night, I went in to get my hair cut and got "Are you seeing anybody?". My initial conclusion was that I look younger with less hair. After some thought, however, I began to wonder if the implication was less "You're not old enough to be married" and more "You're probably a lesbian, so asking about marriage would be rude."

So I'm apparently either looking younger or gayer these days. I'm okay with either.

On a completely unrelated note, the cover on the light above my head appears to bear some impact markings, as if someone had sat at my desk and fired a BB gun up into the light. This seems really unlikely. But that's what it looks like.