Bilbo didn't have to deal with this shit.

As you may or may not know. I live underground. The house is buried on three sides and the roof. This is not due to any severe paranoia about he guberment or aliens (I do sometimes wear a tin foil hat, but only as a fashion statement). This design has many advantages. For instance, when we lost power this winter, the house went down to a cool but very survivable 50 degrees. The down side is that I have a lawn for a roof and dirt on three sides of my house.

Last fall we found a leak along the back wall of the house. It wasn't gushing, but it was serious. I spent two weeks gutting my closet, scraping, acid cleaning and waterproofing the surface. But this is only a temporary fix.

When we bought the house I knew that the worst thing that could happen was to get a leak in the back wall, and what do you know, we got one. Do YOU know who to call to fix an Earth home? I didn't think so. I can't call a traditional roofer, and even an excavator is going in somewhat blind.

Today the guy who did some initial repairs to our underground secret escape passage came by to give us the good news. He can fix the wall. All he'll have to do is scrape off 1/3 of the roof, dig down 16 feet, plaster the entire wall and fill it in again. Oh, is that all? Keen. He gave us a price that involved more zeros than I feel comfortable writing here. Oh man. We feared this might happen. So we came up with a plan "B". This will involve scraping a good foot off the entire roof and laying down a rubber roofing sheet like ones used for large buildings like factories. The idea is to form a solid moisture barrier and then angle it to drain away from the house. We'll also need to add about 16 inches to the front face of the house and fill it with stone to prevent erosion and help with draining. The cost, about half of plan "A". Maybe.

Given a choice, there are other things I would prefer to spend the money on. For Christs sake there is an frelling X-wing fighter for sale just one post down! Go look at it! I think about this repair and start second guessing myself. Last year had a freakish about of rain. My repair hasn't leaked yet. But what if we damage some as-yet unseen (but critical) part of the house? My head starts to hurt. I sit down and have a soda. Ah, that's better. Ooo, cookies...

I love my house. But it keeps hitting me with questions I don't have answers to. The original design was sound. But 20+ years of Ohio weather has washed some of the top soil away and created ruts and channels and water seems to be draining incorrectly. With luck, this fix will keep the house nice and dry for another 20 years. I'm told the life expectancy of some shingled roofs is 10-20 years.

The bright spot in my day was actually finishing one project completely. We've been putting in new stone walkways and that left us with a bunch of old, fairly crappy sandstone. I pulled it up, hauled it over to a tree, chiseled down the pieces, built a wall around the base of the tree, cleared the old crap out from around the tree, hacked out 20 pounds of weed roots with an axe and put in new soil. It took three days, but you know what? I did it. I did the damn thing myself start to finish (well, Rossana did help with the roots, she likes rending). It feels so good to see something get done and actually look better that it was before. How proud am I? Check out these before and after pics.




It almost looks like I know what I'm doing.

Oh sweet Jesus...

When I was about 7 or 8 years old I went to see Star Wars and it quite frankly, blew me away. Until then there had NEVER been ANY SciFi film with such amazing visuals. When I got home I found a big box of some kind and made my own x-wing fighter. I used a bent coathanger for the controls and the pegs from my lite brite.

Now the circle is complete. A full size x-wing is for sale on ebay. I know in my heart that the ownership of things cannut buy true happiness. I know that such a purchase is a foolheardy and impractical thing. I have no where to put an x-wing...

That said. GIMMIEGIMMIEGIMMIEGIMMIEGIMMIEGIMMIEGIMMIEGIMMIEGIMMIE!!

Buy this for me and I will have a baby, so that I can name it after you.

Too f*cking funny

The personals section in the 'London Review of Books' magazine is far more clever and witty than anything I have ever seen here in the US. An example:

Massive-breasted heiress, 38, seeks witty Nobel-awarded intellectual beef-cake gardener-chef-poet with stonking pecs. Like me, you are dynamic, hilarious, serious, ironic, passionate, practical, affectionate, kind, funny, have most of your own legs, and are startled to find yourself still cruising the aisles of the Lurve Bazaar. Unlike me, you don’t exist. Am I right? If so, will consider any M who can make conversation, sense, a living, friends, four cooked meals, hot love and me laugh. Box no. 07/01

Take a look for yourself. It's a hoot AND a hollar.

Klingon Korset Kon

Or should I say "Khaaaaaaaaaan!"

No, I shouldn't.

Two weeks ago a fellow huckster at Vulkon told me about the Dover Peace Conference. This local event is dedicated mostly to Klingons and things er...Kling...ish. It had all the features of being a complete waste of time.

-Fan Run
-No guests
-Trek Theme (Trek is withering on the vine)
-Low attendance

But it did have one attractive feature, it was cheap, AND they let us in only a few days before the con. So it was with a sense of apprehension that I loaded the van at an ungodly hour of the morning Saturday and drove to a Holiday Inn south of Akron.

When we arrived, the dealers room was locked and the sign-in table for the con was empty. Several bleary eyed people told us that this was likely due to the very heavy drinking that had taken place last night. Apparently, the Klingons had held a viewing/performance of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'.

I would honestly have paid money to see that.

The dealers room was soon opened and we set up. Then we waited. And waited. There were only about four other merchants in the room. More bleary eyed Klingons began stumbling through the room. We started generating interest. But we always generate interest. We were told that Klingons don't spend a lot of money, it takes away from booze money. But every fan group does have at least 1 whale. A customer who will spend whatever it takes to get something they want. We just had to find the whale.

The whale showed up at around noon. He was not dressed as a Klingon. But he did buy $500 worth of stuff without batting an eye. The gentleman buys a new outfit for his wife every year for Dragon Con. Bless you sir. But he was a guppy compared to the next fellow who came down with his two lady friends. After a flurry of try ons he purchases three complete outfits. Me very happy, do little dance.

After this we have along talk with a very tall woman who is very enamored with the spiked leather corset Rossana is wearing. In fact, Rossana looks stunning. She is easily one of the smallest women at the con and wears a corset well. The woman orders the corset. By 5pm the dealers room is shut down so we can have a break during the banquet. It was scheduled to re-open at 8 and to close at Midnight but we were exhausted. Three sales doesn't sound like a lot but for every sale there are a dozen try ons and lots of social chatter. In the end, I was very happy with the day. The event organizer was very happy with us and the women were very happy with their corsets. All way right with the world and we drove home.

The Klingons turned out to be a very nice crowd and I will likely do the event next year. If you know someone who has a head lobster fetish, you might want to let them know about this little shindig. They'll thank you for it, or give you a head but. Which is pretty much the same thing.

From cool to suck in 2.3 seconds

Things seemed to be going so well. Spring had arrived, I personally dressed Claudia Christian in a corset and I was making some money. Then, someone turned the knob on the dial of my life from 'groovy' to 'suck' to 'waaaaay suck'. Let me 'splain.

When you see me at a con, or a Ren Faire, doing my thing. That's the easy part. Even when its 37 frickin degrees and the wind is attempting to transport both me and my tent to the land of fucking Oz, THAT is still the easy part. The hard part is all the shit that has to get done to get me there, set up and ready to rock. I spend far too many hours searching the internets and various publications to find venues for my business to sell at. Once I find a show that I've never done before, I need to check its website, determine if it looks promising, check its date, see what media guests (if any) are attending. How much is the fee? How far away is it? I spend a crapload of time doing this stuff so that I don't waste time and money doing a show like the Four Winds Ren Fair in Tyler Texas (The Gold fucking standard for suck-ass shows and my greatest mistake).

Luckily, once you've done a show and its turns out well, you know to keep it in mind for next year. Such was the case with Marcon. I've attended for years and last year we did good sales. I was keen to do it again this year. The trouble is, you need to keep track not only of the show dates, but the various dates you need to have paperwork and payments submitted by. I dutifully submitted my application and vendor fee back in February but was getting antsy that I'd heard nothing back. Now I know why. It appears that I submitted my application 2 weeks too late. They would have told me this but they also seem to have LOST MY APPLICATION AND CHECK.

Now I have a pretty big hole in my schedule. It's likely too late to get into another convention at this late a date. I'm scrambling to find something. I've pickled up a Klingon event near Akron this weekend but its a crap shoot. I have no one to blame but myself and that is a pretty shitty feeling.

In a last ditch Hail Mary I am contacting other merchants at Marcon to see if any of them will sell me one of their tables. I have a lead. It might cost me a corset (as an incentive/bribe) but its worth a shot. Keep your fingers crossed.

Perks of the Job

Sometimes my job is not the glamorous, action-adventure film I make it out to be. Sometimes I am stuck in Muskogee Oklahoma for a month slowly going mad. Or desperately erecting a tent in the rain at 6am to replace the one destroyed by a storm.

But sometime it IS the glamorous, action-adventure film I make it out to be. Sometimes it DOES NOT SUCK to be me. Case in point:

Last weekend was Vulkon, a rather small Sci-Fi convention held in a non-descript Holiday Inn in independence Ohio, This was an autograph show. The event owners bring in 2 or 3 big names. Fans pay a good chunk of cash to get in a long line, buy a photo from the Con and get it signed by the star. You get no time to talk with them and cannot have them sign your own item.

My lovely wife and I are working the dealers room. Most vendors are not doing well. Attendance is down. No one seems to be buying. Could it have anything to do with the fact that there isn't one goddamn hand made item for sale? Everything is officially licensed Paramount or Star Wars bubble-plastic crapulence. Much of it is being discounted so the dealers can make table fee.

We on the other hand are doing ok. After all, we sell very hot corsets. At the end of the day we begin getting ready to close up and head home when a voice says from behind me "I'm in trouble, and I was told you guys could help me out."

I turned and found myself looking into the beautiful eyes of Ms. Claudia Christian. For those of you who are unfamiliar, she is the actress who played Commander Ivonova in the very cool series Babylon 5. In case you can't remember what she looks like, here is a refresher:



Of course, she didn't wear such an outfit on the show, it is meant only to make you hate me more than you may already. (BTW, you can buy this image and several others here)

As a former butler I am trained to be unflappable so I maintained most of my cool when I replied "Certainly, how may we be of assistance?"

Apparently she had thought she was flying out that night, but her contract called for her to attend a banquet at the hotel and she had 'nothing to wear'. We quickly sprang into action and provided a lovely corset and shirt to replace the rather plain shirt and hoodie she was wearing. This required her to remove these items which was done with the assistance of my wife as I discretely turned my back. (The dealers room was almost empty by this time). As I finished tying her up I suggested she pull down on the shirt we had provided to better show off her figure but she was already ahead of me. "I've been to enough ren-faires to know what to do" she said.


Claudia goes to Ren-fairs! Glee!


She was very funny and quite personable during her fitting and we sent her off to the banquet in good spirits. Did I get a photo of this amazing event? Oh course not! I am an idiot and did not have my camera. I pound my head against the table.

'So you have no proof that this actually happened. Is that what you're saying Steve?'
Oh you cowardly non-believers! The next morning I took my camera, but alas, she was gone. The corset and shirt were left on our table with the following note:




Apparently her flight left fairly early. I have minions working to locate any pictures taken of her in the outfit. If I locate any I will post them here. Several women did in fact show up on Sunday saying Claudia gave them our card including an very pretty young woman from New Zealand named Mary Oyaya who plays one of the Jedi in the Star Wars movies. (you can see the her and the guests in attendance here) She should be ordering a corset in the next week or so.

Fire!

Vulkon sci-fi convention in Cleveland.
Sunday. We've been open less than an hour when the fire alarm goes off.
We grab only the essentials; the credit card machine and ourselves. It
appears to be a false alarm though. Too bad, our stock is insured.

'The Final Cut' = Worth Watching

Last night I watched 'The Final Cut' a film that went through the theaters like a greasy taco on buck-a-beer night at the El Sombrero. This is too bad because its actually a pretty cool film.




The set up is simple. In an a quasi-alternate reality parents can implant an organic device in their unborn child called the EYE implant (Everything You Experience) which records everything they see, hear and say for their entire life. Upon their death, a 'cutter' takes the implant, downloads all its information and edits it down to an hour or so highlight film called a 'rememory' to be shown at the funeral.

Robin Williams plays Alan Hakman, a cutter who specializes in carefully editing the lives of pervs, abusers and other wealthy but wacked individuals into something tasteful for their next of kin. In this role he is privy to lots of dirty laundry. As such he is very remote and uneasy around people. An anti EYE implant group seeks to get the raw EYE footage of a powerful member of the company that makes the EYE and will go to great langths to get it. Williams is also haunted by a childhood memory about a death he may have caused.

Willams does a good job though the understated role could have beenplayed by a number of good actors. The look of the film is also very understated. No chrome, no CGI, or explosions which is a relief. If Bruckhimer had directed this, it would have been a messy pile of shit with Ben Afflek, gunfights and a 'tasteful' sex scene with Hollywoods latest piece of ass. In fact, its best feature is that 'Final Cut' generates post-film converstions about how society would view such an invention. How would you behave if you knew everything you did would someday be watched by someone you don't know?

Rise up! Fight the power!

I was raised a Unitarian. Our battle cry; "Whatever makes you happy". This meant that I only had to attend a few religious services a year at the West Shore Unitarian Church and the ones I did attend, were pretty laid back. But times have changed. We live in a post 9/11 world now, which means that all our actions have to be based on fear and anger. I found this manifesto from a group called Unitarian Jihad. Read on a ndprepare yourselves.

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary.

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression!

People of the United States, why is everyone yelling at you??? Whatever happened to ... you know, everything? Why is the news dominated by nutballs saying that the Ten Commandments have to be tattooed inside the eyelids of every American, or that Allah has told them to kill Americans in order to rid the world of Satan, or that Yahweh has instructed them to go live wherever they feel like, or that Shiva thinks bombing mosques is a great idea? Sister Immaculate Dagger of Peace notes for the record that we mean no disrespect to Jews, Muslims, Christians or Hindus. Referred back to the committee of the whole for further discussion.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes.

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.

We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he's pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee.

People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.

More cool watch goodness

These clever monkeys just keep coming up with more and more cool watches. When I am God Emperor of this miserable mud ball of a planet I will have an entire government department dedicated to providing me with cool gadgets like this.



Does it tell time? Who the hell cares? You can go check it out for yourself here.

Movies that are cool

Sin City rocks, but you already knew that. It's a great adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel. It's authentic in so many details. It's a delight to watch. Many comics just can't translate into film. I thought Spider-Man wouldn't and I was wrong. I think The Fantastic Four will suck and I will be right this time. But the blood-splattered and artistically violent Sin City is a different animal and I am very pleased with the results. I'm keen to see what the DVD extras will be for this. I was also impressed with Mickey Rourke, who showed that he can, in fact, act. There was a new and real character there instead of the slimy pedophile type he's been doing for the past few years.

While in Biloxi at CoastCon we were set up next to some guys selling cheap bootleg DVD's. He played a loop from a Japanese film called Cashern which I've hear a lot about. This clip was an absolutely amazing fight sequence, and I eneded up getting it based on that endlessly looped fight. Sadly, this fight is one of the only cool parts of the this overly-long film. The visuals are great but its really drags at times. Some editing could tighten it up. It may be released in the US and its worth a rent (or download off the internets if you're of the Piratical persuasion).

A also bought Appleseed, which was pretty damn good. This combination of Anime and realistic 3d has some stunning action sequences in it. I mean it. They blow the Matrix away. But the confusing story is again hampered by weak translation from Japanses. An english dub with some better dialog could make this a total winner. Go check it out for the eye candy. There are mechs shooting big guns and that's good enough for me goddammit.

Akira Bike Mod...Very Cool

Like many of you, I saw the Anime film 'Akira' a number of years ago. It was visually stunning, if a bit uneven in the plot department (something I seem to notice happens a lot in Anime. As soon as you hear someone use the word 'Gaia', just accept that there will be alot of allegory, and pseudo-mystical blah blah for the next hour and a half).

Anyway, in the film a character named Keneda rides a very sweet bike. There have been several attempts to replicate this bike, but its not easy since the drive train needs to bend around the driver and you need a very custom frame. But thanks to some very clever people over in the land of the rising sun (aka Japan) you can now buy a kit that will transform a Honda scooter into a Akira-style bike.

You can get a completely finished bike for only $10,700, a kit for $5,800.

Link to Gizmodo article
Link to Japanese site

When will the smiting stop?

We departed the NC ren last weekend just as the first drops of rain
began to fall. When we arrived home, there was a message on the
answering machine "please come over and fix your tent". Hmmm, well that
wasn't going to happen. On friday we arrived back on site to find our
tent flipped upside down with the above sign taped to it. Thanks for the
help guys.

The tent was is fair condition so we re-set it up and went to bed. At
4am the rains came. I sat up thinking 'I have to check the tent' but it
was warm in the tent and freezing outside. At 5am I couldn't take it and
threw on pants and shoes and padded over to the site. the winds were far
worse on site, and I arrived to find the tent completely destroyed.
Unsalvadgeable. I woke rossana and she confirmed the fact. The rain was
still sporatic. We couldn't do the day wothout some kind of shelter.
There was nothing to do but get to Wal-mart and get a replacement. But
when we arrived we discovered that they didn't carry them. Fuck. But
where there is a wal-mart there are Sams clubs. We got the address and
spent the next hour trying to get to it. The town of Raleigh is built
like a big wheel, with an outer belt, and a series of spokes. These are
designed to quickly and efficiently take you away from wherever the hell
it is you need to go. I swear, this town was design to confound foreign
invaders through badly labeled and misguiding roads.

We eventuaaly found the Sams club, only to learn that they wouldn't open
for 30 minutes. The clock was ticking. The show opens at 10am. We
pounded on the door, flashed our membership cards, and fell on the mercy
of the manager. He took pity on us and we bought an EZ up. This is the
standerd tent for craft shows. Its well made, but not very medieval. We
threw it in the van and drove back to the site. The sky had been
lightening, but when we got back on site the rain was falling again. We
set up the tent and went for breakfast.

The weather changed wildly throughout the day, from sunny, to slate grey
skies, to rain, to wind. At times, we had to have customers help us hold
down the tent. How we managed to do sales was beyond me. By the end of
the day it was raining and there was a tornado watch in effect. We
called it quits. Rossana and I were wet and chilled to the bone. The
rain stopped, we dropped the tent, packed all the stock in the van and
went to change. Now we find that our camping tent has partially blown
down. We re-set it as best we can and abandon it. Fuck this event, I'm
getting a room. We check in and take hour long showers to thaw out.
turned on the tv to learn that the Pope died. Not a great day all the
way around.