Tom Smith

A very fine InCon indeed. I thought my concert had a rough start but finished well, and the masquerade was a lot of fun, and the panels were pretty cool, and everybody was very nice as usual, and yeah. I do apologize for not making either of the open filks -- I have been off-and-on sick the past several days, and not getting anywhere near enough sleep, and I simply couldn't do 'em. I'll make it up next time, I promise.

Many hugs and thanks to Ellen, Kat, Lynette, Emily, and a whole bunch of people whose names I always forget but they rocked, such as the gent I've known for years and can't remember his name (we were even talking about that phenomenon) who got me Subway last night. Thanks to tollers -- we will do barbecue in Indy sometime, dammit (can you believe it? The barbecue place was closed on July 4th). Hugs to Robin Wood and Mike Z. Williamson and sazettel. Hugs to Kathy Mar and Juanita Coulson and min0taur & Sally and tigertoy and Larry and Sally and Shandy Smith and Doug and Christy and Grant and ladystarblade and and and. And, most of all, many thanks and much love to per_solo and his lady Crystal. Chris, you made it all happen.

And so we say goodbye to the Sheraton -- next year it's at the Marriott.

This coming weekend -- LibertyCon in Chattanooga.

How's your week looking?

( Cut for Palin-bashing.... )

Here in the U.S., it's Independence Day. DEFINITELY not to be confused with Independence Day. The celebrations usually involve burning meat, sucking down "cold ones", and blowing stuff up. And getting great discount prices on refrigerators.

What are your plans for the day? Mine involve a concert at 11:00 a.m., a Dr. Horrible panel at 2:00, hanging out with folks at the con, a quiet dinner, and then MC'ing a masquerade, followed by a little open filk (if I make it that long).

I'm Toastmaster. Should be a lot of fun as usual, with a bunch of great guests (including Michael Z. Williamson, Robin Wood, and our own sazettel). I've running a pun-off tonight, a 1-1/2 hour concert tomorrow at 11:00 a.m., a Dr. Horrible panel in the afternoon, I'm MC'ing the masquerade, and there's a panel on Geek Musicals Sunday afternoon.

Who's gonna be there? And, if you're not, how's your weekend shaping up?

Not safe for work. Or anyone, really. And this is the inaugural post for a new tag: "Oh, Japan".

Thanks, I think, to huskiebear.

Back in the heyday of Mystery Science Theater 3000, there was a thriving Usenet community of people riffing on articles, fanfic, spam, and the like. Their home was Michael K. Neylon's Web Site #9, which unfortunately went away quite awhile ago. Well, all praise to Keith Palmer, who has diligently gone through Google Groups and brought those old goodies to light with The MSTing Mine. (Many thanks to Anne for finding this one -- I've been looking for an archive of Web Site #9 for years.)

If you don't know MST3K, or you do but you want some resources, here's your hookup:

• the Wikipedia page
• the official MST3K.com page
• Satellite News, the official fan club
• an MST3K Wiki
• mst3k.booyaka.com, another reference guide
• Rifftrax (Mike, Kevin, and Bill)
• Cinematic Titanic (Joel, Trace, Frank, Mary Jo, Josh)

Gimme a riff -- any riff you like. Context optional. In fact, it's more fun that way -- we'll try to guess what MST3K episode your riff is from. Here's one to get you started: "What am I? I'm a moose!" "Grandpa, that's Aunt Tessie's urn!" "PFBBFFPPBPFFT!"

Sadness. Actor Karl Malden has passed away at the age of 97. While he was probably best known as Lt. Mike Stone on the TV series The Streets of San Francisco (with a young Michael Douglas as his partner for four seasons), and for a whole lot of commercials for American Express Travelers Checks ("Don't leave home without them"), he also appeared in minor, unimportant, little films such as On The Waterfront, Patton, and A Streetcar Named Desire (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor). Farewell, sir.

docwebster has been posting a lot of great "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" clips lately. But this morning I found this bit from Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood, hosting the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Canada. It's about eleven minutes, but... wow. Just... wow.

Sometimes we in filk fandom forget how lucky we truly are.

Here's a pretty sad article, the very short form of which is that the writer loves live music but hates:

• everybody standing
• waiting for the show to start
• stragglers getting in front of you
• beer, for making you go to the bathroom. Stupid beer!

The moral of the story is basically, "Don't go to music clubs". The article even ends, "If there weren't any music played at concerts, I'd probably never go."

See, this is why, even if I do ever have a Real Music Career, I'm never ever giving up filk. We have time when we're scheduled, and everybody's there. We have chairs, and leg room. If we come in late, we hang around the fringes, at least until between songs, and don't block the view. We bring our own beverages, and hardly ever drink too many during the show. Best of all, the rapport between the performer and the audience is almost as important as the music. Oh, and you can hear the music. We even think that's kinda the point.

What performers do you like seeing live? I love getting to shows with Christine Lavin, Uncle Bonsai, Barenaked Ladies, and Leon Redbone. Paul and Storm impressed the hell out of me in March. My fellow FuMPers lukeski, partiallyclips, devospice, and wormquartet all do pretty well, but it's amazing how much better we do in tandem. (And pixelene works into that mix surprisingly smoothly.) And I will not at all gratuitously throw in the entirety of OVFF, especially anything involving quadrivium, bedlamhouse, tarkrai, Michael "Moonwolf" Longcor, musicmutt, Ookla the Mok, vixyish and tfabris, Wild Mercy, and fuggit everybody else. And y'dang youngsters oughta sit down with Juanita Coulson now and again, if you haven't for awhile. She knows how the hell to work a song.

tarkrai (by way of markbernstein) aims us to the results of the Pegasus Award Brainstorming Poll, and the Nominating Ballot (deadline midnight PDT on July 31).

I thank everyone who put my name in for consideration in the various and sundry categories, and I admit to being bemused that "Telly Taley Heart" isn't in there for "A Little Bit Country".

The wonderful Merav Hoffman (who I'm pretty sure is ladymondegreen on LJ) sent me audio and video of the concert you guys did for me back at ConTata. Sadly, the video doesn't want to work -- keeps crashing my computer, in fact. And the audio is vewy vewy quiet. But that's easily taken care of. And so I've been listening to it.

As if I didn't already have more than enough reason to love you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

There's gotta be some East Coast con in the next year that doesn't conflict with my schedule, so I can come out there and rock you guys. Anybody? Beuller?

Okay, the past several days have just been weird. There's an AP report that TV pitchman Billy Mays has been found dead. He was fifty years old.

Everybody just be careful out there, okay?

In case you hadn't heard about it, there's a beef recall here in the U.S.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

There is an awful lot of foofrah going on right now regarding gay rights, and the best and most comprehensive documentation of it can be found at AmericaBlog. And Frank Rich has a good column in the NY Times this morning about Stonewall and its legacy, and how President Obama is fumbling the ball.

This is not rocket science. This is, in fact, one of the easiest and straightforward subjects I can imagine. People are physically attracted to who are they physically attracted to. If no one is hurt by it (and, yes, underage persons and close blood relations would be hurt just by it happening, for the same reasons they would be hurt in a heterosexual relationship), whose business is it? How can it possibly affect you, except perhaps by inspiring a wistful sigh and a murmur of, "L'amour"? (Unless of course, it inspires, "GET A ROOM!")

The reason GLBT want marriage rights is because there are so many. The biggies are estate rights, tax laws, benefits coverage, the right to be involved in medical decisions, things like that. There are a host of others. More, marriage is deemed a societal good. And it is viewed as the ultimate romantic bond. But, as far as I know, married people are not required to fulfill any particular requirements apart from blood tests and some residency restrictions.

We're talking about basic discrimination: people unable to have certain rights, because of something that doesn't affect other people except to make them nervous.

It used to be (yeah, I know -- still is) the color of their skin. It used to be (yeah, I know -- still is) their gender. Now (yeah, I know -- always has been), it's who they love.

Of all the rancid, dastardly, lame-ass justifications of hatred, that is possibly the ugliest and most offensive of all.

If you have a problem with gay rights and gay marriage at this point... get over yourself. This isn't about you. And, honestly, it never was.

ETA: Edited a few times to add thoughs and details.

( SO not safe for work.... )

( Reprinted in its entirety from the e-mail.... )

Hardcore Nerdity informs us that there will be limited theatrical showings of the director's cut of Watchmen, in anticipation of its July 21st video release. The Blu-ray edition will also include basically a simulcast on July 25 from San Diego Comic Con, including a Q&A with director Zack Snyder.

I'm debating whether to finally jump on the bandwagon and get the Blu-ray edition first. It's got a few more features (although neither the Tales of the Black Freighter nor the Digital Motion Comic, so you know they'll be in another Watchmen Complete gift set at some point), and everything is definitely moving in the Blu-ray direction. In any case, no matter which format, if you watch movies at all with your computer, you should likely get the Director's Cut, because it's also got a digital copy of the theatrical version -- that is, you'll get both. (Getting the Blu-ray version with Nite Owl's ship is entirely up to you. You might want to save a little dosh, though, because Coraline is also released on 7/21, in DVD and Blu-ray.)

Who's planning to get any of 'em? And what else looks good on home video this summer?

They're being a little creative about this one, so this once I'll translate: "Harry Potter Medley, Part 1 of 5, in 30 Seconds (and Re-Enacted by Bunnies)".

I am not going to Think Galactic in Chicago this weekend. Money is just too tight, it's a small con in an expensive hotel in Downtown Chicago which makes finding alternatives problematic, and all they could offer me was a table to sell from. Perhaps next year, if we set things up further in advance. The con seems like a very good idea, and I hope it goes well, and if you happen to be out that way you might give it a look.

And so I will spend the day in the sliding puzzle that the middle bedroom has become. I have just a few more things to procure from The Old Place, and I need room for 'em. Good chance of going to see Anne tomorrow, and watching The Room with Rifftrax.

What's your weekend looking like?

Wow. Getting multiple reports (not yet confirmed) that Michael Jackson has died of a heart attack.

ETA: It does seem to be confirmed. Wow. This will take a little while to wrap my head around, but the long and short is, what a life the guy had. And I sincerely don't know how good a life it was.

We'll talk about his music later. But not now. For now, we mourn his loss. He had a profound impact on pop music, and a lesser impact on pop culture, and for all the weird things that he did or that happened around him, for all that he took to bodyhacking as a lifestyle, he had immense talent, and for all his faults he seemed himself quite sincere. I hope you have found some measure of rest, Michael. Condolences to your family and friends.

Sadness. Actress Farrah Fawcett has passed away at the age of 62. Her bathing-suit pin-up poster adorned millions of walls in the 1970s (including mine), and she sold a ridiculous quantity of hair-care products, and for a long time she was basically thought of as a bimbo. But she turned out to be a pretty darn good actress, and one-half of one of the more enduring love stories in Hollywood (with Ryan O'Neal, starting in 1982). Our condolences to her family and friends.

I'm not feeling physically wonderful today. And I'm tired, and worried about money, and hoping that the summer gigs go well, and I've gotta straighten up this place, and it's hot and a little humid and I'm cranky.

Doesn't matter.

As long as things like this can make me smile, I know I'll be all right:

markbernstein and I have done this one a couple of times. We should do it more often. :) And all praise to Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly, and for that matter to Garrison Keillor.

We haven't had a joke thread for awhile, so please indulge yourselves. Don't make 'em too crass -- the vid above has about the right limit.

Steven Grant's column at Comic Book Resources, that is. He has a guess-the-theme-of-the-comic-covers contest, which markbernstein won last week, and Mark graciously used the prize -- promote the web page of your choice -- to hype me. Thanks, Mark and Steven!

Anything you want to promote? Web pages, eBay auctions, upcoming appearances, special occasions, whatever -- go for it.

ETA: Some slight general confusion. Please provide a link in comments to whatever you want to promote. Thanks.

Okay, not really. It was just a box, and I was very familiar with everything inside it. But I found a very nice box.

The one with a whole bunch of The Special CDs in it. Like The Eric Bogle Songbook and the 10th Anniversary Edition of Less Than Art and the cast album for the Kline/Smith/Ronstadt Penzance. That kinda stuff.

And most -- not all, but most -- of the Special Edition DVD sets.

The Babylon 5 season sets are still somewhere in a slightly mislabeled box. But I have back Neverwhere and Underdog: The Ultimate Collection and Firefly and West Side Story and that bad-ass 3-disk edition of The Wizard of Oz and the Stratford G&S set (Penzance, Mikado, Iolanthe) and the original Star Wars trilogy set that I mentioned in a previous thread and my extended editions of The Lord of the Rings.

Not to mention a few games I was looking for.

Happy.

I hope your day's going as well...?

Well, we knew this part of the year would come at last. 86°, 60% humidity. Let's give a warm (and I do mean warm) round of applause for Spring, for an award-winning performance, lasting pretty much right up to the time that Summer started the blast.

How are you beating the heat? I'm running a fan in the office, another in the kitchen, and one in the bedroom at night. I also turn the AC on, no more for a couple of hours at a time. Frequently, I reach for a cold washcloth. And I drink lots and lots of water. I may go out and get some seedless grapes to freeze.

Got my DVD today.

A couple of years ago, I got the Star Wars Original Trilogy (Special Edition). (Sucker's still in a box somewhere, along with the other Special Editions, e.g., West Side Story, Lord of the Rings, all the season sets of Babylon 5. Good box. I want to frickin' find it.) I decided on that Friday evening to put on Ep 4, A New Hope, i.e., the original movie. Watch a few minutes, a few scenes out of that.

Ended up watching all three, one after the other, like crack-laced popcorn. Fell in love with Star Wars all over again.

I just finished the end of Act I of Chess In Concert, with Josh Groban absolutely nailing "Anthem" and getting a well-deserved standing ovation. The crowd went bugfuck. So did I. I've been laughing and tearing up and falling in love with Chess all over again, and I'm not even to the second act yet.

Idina Menzel is every bit as lovely and every bit the actress that I expected, and, while her voice does not quite fit my image of Florence -- a little too piercing, a touch too brittle -- she does the job nicely. Groban and Adam Pascal, on the other hand, are revelations. And the rest of the cast is pretty damn fine too. And the use of lighting and video and dance and occasional costuming and props (it is "in concert" rather than a full production, after all) is clever and engaging throughout.

Sorry, just had to gush a bit. You can either discuss your favorite musicals, your favorite public-domain games, or a public-domain game you'd like to see turned into a musical.

Yes, I'm fishing.

How completely out of touch with The Way Things Are Now In America are Republican politicians?

Here's former Congressman (R-VA) Tom Davis's response to a sixtyish woman who couldn't get health care because she has diabetes:

If you can find a job with a major employer, they’re not going to be able to reject you under those cases. I don’t think you’ll find, probably be able to find some health insurance but if its with a small business or you’re going out on your own, it’s difficult at this point. There may be a government plan or private plans that are mandated coming out of this that are maybe able to help you. But diabetes, particularly adult onset, is controllable. If you watch your weight, if you exercise, watch what you eat and, you know, continue I guess in this case to take your medication. I don’t know any reason why you shouldn’t be able to find something out there, but you want to look for an employer that has a health care plan. Good luck.

Everything that I want to say about it has been said more eloquently than I ever could by the irreplaceable digby, except:

Fuck you, former Congressman Tom Davis. Just Fuck. You.

Sadness. No details yet, but entertainer Ed McMahon has passed away at the age of 86. He's most famous for being Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show, Jerry Lewis's co-host on the Muscular Dystrophy Labor Day Telethon, hosting Star Search, and for being a TV pitchman (beer, dog food, Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes, that sort of thing). But he was also an incredibly nice guy, and he could do a great W. C. Fields.

Anyone else having trouble loading TheFuMP.com today? I get the page, but not the graphics. I presume the CSS file is missing or somethin'. Shame, really, because there's a new studio version of me and lukeski doing "Cthulhu Fthagn".

ETA: The page is just fine. I had something set wrong in stupid effing Firefox. All better. The direct FuMP page is here.

ETA2: Ya gotta go to Luke's LJ and see the nifty art he did for it. :)

At least two dead. Everybody in the DC area, PLEASE give us a heads-up here, mmkay?

Here are a couple of tricks for you to try when you're bored: the baseball bat ninja move, and the rodeo flip.

My athletic days are, mostly, behind me. I say this because when I was in high school I used to go for the trampolines, both the mini (running launch into a full flip) and the larger one (all kindsa stuff). It'd be nice, but I'd have to lose a lot of weight. Used to be a pretty good hand with a baseball, too. Not batting, though -- one of my first Barney McCloskey League at-bats, I got hit a pitch, and that spooked me for the rest of my lone season. Give me softball, please.

What are your favorite athletic achievements? Recent or dim past.

Really, it's just a big fat guy sitting in the middle of the screen.

Singing "Storm Dancing".

Thanks to blackpaladin.

( A lot happened yesterday.... )

To everybody on my FList who either is, has, or had a father. Which I'm pretty sure is everybody, unless there's some cloning, immaculate conception, or Frankenscience going on I don't know about. And especially a great day to Terry, Dana, John, Tom U., Mark, and Tom, my Dad.

So. Doin' anything special for Dad? Steak, pizza, five uninterrupted hours with the TV, getting the kids off the lawn, what?

No, not the browser. The now-defunct spelling rule. Dunno what I love more -- the idea of no longer teaching one of the few spelling rules people remember, or the fact that the original news story had a spelling error.

It's been awhile since we covered this one: what spelling or grammatical mistakes annoy or amuse you the most? Feel free to include both errors you make and the ones you see a lot and Just Drive You Bonkers. I'm astounded at how many people still confuse "its" and "it's". Also "lose" and "loose".

This calls for a little Lovin' Spoonful.

What are you planning, between now and, say, July 4th, to make it more summery for y'self? I'm going to spend some time out on my lovely porch, playing guitar. Maybe have my sister or violinsontv or sazettel over with various kids to splash in the inflatable pool.

And there is every possibility of some meat being grilled.

Doesn't look good. Damn. Truly, one of the iconic newsmen of all time. I hope you either get well soon or pass easily, noble sir, and thank you for all you've done.

Thanks, I think, to hughcasey.

Sign Sen. Bernie Sanders' petition.

Remember way back when I said that I had reservations about Joe Biden, because he could talk the talk but often didn't walk the walk?

We had such hopes for the Obama administration.

Still torturing people, and defending the previous administration's torture.

Still handing out taxpayer money to Big Business, which then shits on the taxpayers.

And still not getting it on gay rights.

Today, Obama is signing something meaningless and symbolic to stem the furor of reaction to last week's ridiculous and offensive defense of the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA). (Not to mention the lack of action on Don't Ask Don't Tell [DADT] and the Employee Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA].) More than a few people noticed the irony of that defense being made on the 42nd anniversary of Loving v. Virginia.

Obama prides himself on being a reasonable man. So let me see if I can spell it out for him in reasonable terms.

Separate but equal.

A gay person is not asking for special treatment. Gay people want the same treatment as everyone else, is all -- to not be discriminated against, or denied benefits, or fired, because of who they are.

Thing is, where you see the word "gay" in the previous paragraph, you can easily substitute "lesbian" or "black" or "Latino" or "old" or "handicapped".

Or "any".

Someone, perhaps several someones, in the Obama administration apparently still believes the country is terrified of Teh Icky Gay, when most polls show support for gay rights strong and growing.

But even if the country did still freak out at Teh Icky Gay, there's a little something that has been very often lost the past several years: the entire concept of rights.

Rights are intended to protect people. Especially they are intended to protect people against "the tyranny of the majority", i.e., a larger part of the population that would deny rights to some unfairly.

And all you really have to remember about how that can work are those three little words.

Separate but equal.

If Obama and his administration don't get that, I don't know what the hell they will get.

Graduating student blows a kiss to his family, school administrator doesn't give him his diploma.

How socially repressed do you have to be to think this is an appropriate response? What does this administrator think she was doing, besides demonstrating in public how fucking petty and stupid she is?

Gaaaaaaah.

( When I was a boy, I had chest hair.... )

I saw this one awhile back, but Anne reminded me.

FSM save us all, on Thursday RiffTrax releases their riff on The Room. If you have not experienced this fantastic, brain-rotting horror show -- one of the few films that makes Battlefield Earth seem coherent by comparison, a movie that makes you long for the depth and introspection of Manos: The Hands of Fate -- Mike Nelson's blog covers it in some depth, with lots of links to both specific "classic" scenes and other people's video reimaginings.

If you could make your own really bad movie, what would it be? Don't be all self-pitying and say, "My own life" -- we wuv you, and we can find goodness and drama in full measure in your life and make a pretty good flick out of it. No no no, let's hear about your magnum o'pus, a cinematic idea whose time will never come at all. I think mine is Cherry Cordial: How A Hershey's Limited Edition Kiss Became Unlimited To An Extent.

Lots and lots of fun. I admit that I was concerned about how packed the filk track was -- I thought people wouldn't be able to get a bathroom break or anything; it just seemed like a whole lot o' stuff. Well, it was a whole lot o' stuff, and it was great. Wish I'd seen more of it, but I got to hang out with so many lovely folks I don't often see and I thought my set went pretty well and the Whose Line? on Friday was fun and Toyboat kicked ass all weekend and so did Seanan and Vixy and Tony and I finally met the lovely S.J. Tucker and there was Riverfolk and Graham and Randy and Brooke and I could go on and on and on.

This week: Music. Cleaning. Catching up on sleep. Saturday, back to the scene of the crime: Christine Lavin is at The Ark.

You?

Steve Jackson Games' e23 online warehouse now has the electronic edition of the Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and Role-Playing Game (powered by GURPS 4.0).

Any other cool new gaming stuff we should know about?

To see if I can cross-post from Dreamwidth. If so, this will help keep up on both. (I'll have to get a paid account to crosspost both on this and InsaneJournal.)

I was going to go off on Facebook's interface again, but it seems pointless. FB's not going to do anything to improve; they apparently think they're just spiffy dandy peachy keen. I don't know if it's me being too old, too stupid, or -- that most ancient of tech-support problems -- me being not the guy who designed the interface. Fuggit. Everyone's Going To Facebook, and, lemming-like, I follow the crowd over the cliff.

What are your favorite social networks? Anything, immense or obscure. Mine is LJ (dang it, I should start cross-posting to InsaneJournal), with a great fondness for Atrios's blog Eschaton. Daily Kos has a thriving community, although I only brush the edges of it. I get on the Dementia Chat once or twice a week. I don't socialize much on MySpace, but I'm certainly there. And I should do more with LinkedIn.

If you're planning to attend Construct-A-Con in Ann Arbor the weekend of Aug. 21-23, I'm planning a concert. Except I'm not really planning it. You are.

One of the best filk conventions that isn't actually a filk convention. And all-stars from online! cadhla, vixyish and tfabris, hsifyppah, musicmutt and dammit I can never remember Becca's LJ handle, same with Amy McNally, I don't even know if Kathy Mar or Tom Jeffers are on LJ, the second thing to go is the memory, ericcoleman and toyboatband, catalana, mrgoodwraith, and a whole bunch of other musicians, including possibly me. ;) And billroper and daisy_knotwise and shsilver and janmagic and huskiebear and tollers and jrittenhouse and and and and and....

So who else is gonna be there? :)