Brain Flotsam V2.007

I'm back from the adventure that was WorldCon, ready to read the great entries in the Snarry Games that I missed, and catch up with the BLU and Merlin Big Bang entries.  w00t!
I should also go grocery shopping.
My travel season has come to an end, except for short weekend drives to local events. No more flying for a while, not until Christmas in all likelihood.
It's been a fun summer, though, full of great people, exciting places, and gorgeous fun.

Now I really do need to concentrate on unpacking my apartment into something more livable. And finishing this wedding quilt that's been sitting on the shelf all summer.

Also, Jim Kirk is a total manwhore. (It made sense in Montreal.)

-- Jaye and I are going to hell.
-- Jaye fell asleep in the panel on Consciousness.  (I fell asleep in the Putting the World in WorldCon panel)
-- I feel like I walked several miles along the corridors at the party hotel.
-- the Polish restaurant in Old Montreal is awesome, as I remembered it, and I really must get back there for dinner.
-- We are still in search of decent coffee, but the place in the Palais serves "cafe mocha" ghetto-style, which is hot chocolate with regular coffee poured into it. OMG, it is So Damn Good.
-- became a pre-supporting member of the Texas 2013 bid. Yay.
-- found Jake randomly by the elevators at the party hotel.
-- random guy in the panel about Genocide in Literature spent 5 minutes of panel time summarizing the most recent Star Trek movie.
-- Charles Stross predicts human drivers will be illegal in 30 years...
-- Paul Krugman to Charles Stross: So where do you get your ideas?
-- Opening Ceremonies included a really good contortionist. Those folks always make me cringe a little, though, when they fold their spine backwards just below their diaphragm. Eep.
-- Neil Gaiman seemed shorter than I am when I ran into him (almost literally in a narrow doorway). That is so weird. Also, he did not offer Jake a blow job. (But hey, it's only Thursday.)
-- Margarita ok. Aquavit excellent. La Fin du Monde local microbrew AWESOME.
-- Now Jaye and I are going to bed.

I'm off to Montreal for WorldCon, be back next week. 
I'll try to get net access, but for the most part I'll be off the grid.

This is actually not so much a report as a Yay! Photos! post, with occasional commentary. That link goes to my Flickr set, which will in turn sometimes sync up to the Azkatraz Flickr Pool.
Here's my Mug Shot:

( Further adventures under the cut )

I've forgotten the LJ usernames of half the people I met already, but if anybody wants to pop in and remind me, feel free!

Well, I managed, by staying until after 7pm yesterday, to finish the deadline stuff for work today, so that I have a few loose ends to tie up before leaving for Azkatraz, but mostly things are done.

I'm flying out tonight, so perhaps I'll see some of you guys at the hotel?
If you don't have my phone number and might want it, drop me a line at zephrene AT gmail, and I'll pop it over to you.  Otherwise, I expect I'll see quite a few of you at HBP tomorrow, and at various volunteering gigs Friday.  :)

I'll be back, and hopefully more productive, in a week, but only until the time rolls around to leave for this year's WorldCon in Montreal.  (eeee, exciting!)

See you in San Francisco!

I have this unfinished WIP that was really close to my heart - and still is, in its way, and I'm wondering now whether or not to finish it.  It's a one-shot featuring Harry and  Luna, in my Far Away as Moonshine ''verse, which I love to pieces despite the extreme rarepair-ness of it.  :P

I also have a bunch of prompts to fulfill for my now-defunct but still inspiring table on Luna.
Haven't been feeling the writing bug lately, but now that my ApolloCon stress is mostly done for the year, and I'm gearing up for Azkatraz, HP is back on the brain. (And I just can't do fic for Merlin yet. It took me years to work up to it in HP, maybe someday.)

To write, or not to write? Maybe I'll just keep drawing...

And oh crap, officially less than two weeks to the Con and I need to frame my art for the Gallery and Auction!
And print postcards... And test my DVD cable... And move all the pr0n off the  laptop that's traveling with me.  Yeep.

I'm planning to put four of my Tarot cards in a frame for display at the Azkatraz Dungeon of Art, but I'm having trouble deciding which ones.
At first, I was going to use the Aces, because I love them, but then I thought perhaps some of the book characters would be better, and more fitting to the con theme (Hanged Man, for instance?).
So now I can't decide.

Anybody have any ideas?  Here's a link to the cards I've done:
http://zephre.insanejournal.com/tag/art:+hp+tarot

If I don't do the Aces, I thought perhaps The Lovers, Death, The Hanged Man, and Temperance?

Or perhaps somebody else has a card they really think is excellent that I'm not remembering...

Please do comment if you know the work.

Catching this journal up...

( mid-trip report, April 30 )

and a Readers' Studio report:
( it's a wow sort of weekend, May 2 )

The finish of the Readers' Studio was great, and then yesterday I got to see Michelle and Andy and Milo and Vic and Ali for dinner, then E and I played the first half of a cutthroat game of Super Deluxe Double Scrabble, which has twice the tiles and a bigger board featuring QUADRUPLE letter and word scores. w00t!

Ok, so I noted that I haven't updated here with anything of substance in over two weeks, which we all know is the internet equivalent of ten million years.
I'm still living in what I like to call cardboard chic, a house full of piles and boxes and no real organization.
True to prediction, though, I am spending a lot less time at home. Dinner and/or coffee with friends, meetings, meet-ups, a con, family events, and evening classes have all conspired to keep me far from home.
And I'm going out of town for a week starting next Tuesday. I'll be in the New York metro area, attending the Tarot Reader's Studio as well as hanging out with my beloved friends in the vicinity (and some coming in to town from afar, including Australia! Wow!).
That said, I expect to be spending more time at home in May. I have quilts to make and paintings to paint, for one thing. Plus a lot of tarot cards and still some fan exchanges to finish.  Plus the three Big Bangs I decided to sign up for. Mmm, fun. I also have books to unpack and an apartment to arrange. I also plan to acquire an actual TV. No, really! I'm going to set it up and watch it and everything. Probably.

That plus the whole Summer of Cons (ApolloCon, Azkatraz, Anticipation - I sense a theme here.)  should keep me busy.

A Joyous Imbolc to all - may good things grow from here.

I fail at weekend productivity, mostly.  Although with the assistance of Fabric-Stash Enabler Mom, I did acquire some smokin' awesome additions to my stash (and the things I actually needed for my current project) during a trek through Houston's southeastern neighborhood fabric stores.  We should learn that in most cases, we will find fun novelty fabrics at the chains, but for quality color/value cottons, going directly to The Painted Pony would save some time and money.  ;)
The only thing we didn't find was the Hoffman Challenge fabric. It's on some of the online retailers, but not yet in stores around here. We'll wait a bit and check back.

We also went to the uber-awesome catfish joint and scored a party platter overflowing with hushpuppies. WIN.

I did not actually get the fabric washed, although that's probably good as now it has bonus cat hair to wash off, too. Apparently my quilting table is Zephyr's new favorite nap spot.

Suffered through the Sunday blahs and Sunday night insomnia, which really made for a grand morning today.  Ugh.  Did manage to get my iTunes playlists transferred to Sofia at last, and got rid of most of the repetitive entries in the Library. Also acquired hotel accomodations for both ApolloCon and WorldCon. w00t!

Did some art, including laying in colors for the commission portrait for llnm. Finally. It'll take several more color layers to get it done, and I'm not sure that I'm happy with the chosen palette, but the nice thing about digital is that I have a great amount of control over individual colors. Did not do any writing.  Did a lot of reading, both of the fanfic and regular variety. I finished Skulduggery Pleasant (hey! It has a sequel!) and have gotten firmly addicted to The Stepsister Scheme.

Lalala. I think that was it. I got the feeling there was some kind of nation-wide sports event going on, but it never really got onto my radar. I will probably catch up on the cool movie trailers over the course of the next few days.

I just made my flight reservations for Azkatraz!
w00t!
I'll be arriving Wed night, hurrah!

Well, I'm at the close of my last day of work this year, and it's time to prepare for an art weekend. (And a cleaning weekend, and a purging weekend, and a haircut weekend, etc.) 
I have some deadline stuff that I must get done before I cut out for Philly after Christmas, so I have to buckle down now. I was getting some done as well as reading/commenting at fests and writing/drawing Advent Drabbles earlier, but then I got a cold and then I had some unexpected (but very useful) meetings and now I just can't keep up.  I'm tired of feeling like I'm running late. So, I must now actually stop reading/drawbling and start producing the real stuff.  I'll hopefully be able to do some reading and commenting later next week, or in the New Year.

This comes, of course, right as I also really need to be working on original creations, both written and artistic.  Although there is the Azkatraz Art Show to consider, I suppose. I may investigate printing ideas for my tarot cards for that.

I'll probably write the beginning set of Dark Season Greeting Cards before Solstice hits, and then start mailing them shortly after Christmas.
I'll have to ponder what to do for Longest Night this year. I have many many candles, and actually several wands, although a few of those should be restricted to costuming use only. One thing I would really like to achieve during this time of cleaning and re-arranging is finding a place to put up a semi-permanent altar. I would feel so much better if my ritual stuff weren't tucked into odd corners or still packed in bins.

Where are people talking / planning for Azkatraz?  Am I missing a crucial post on their LJ comms full of comments, or an especially active area on the bbs?
Or is it just too early to see anything?

Is anybody else arriving Thursday or earlier for the movie, who wants to hang out?
:D   I should take some touristy photos of SF just to prove I was there and that I left the hotel.  (Good grief, leaving the con hotel - what a concept.)

The lovely woman who made the hat I wore at Portus has a new web site up:

http://www.kerryrix.etsy.com

She's got some good stuff, if you want to take a gander!

Two cosplayers at the Wrock Concert Thursday Night kindly agreed to sit for Ven and me to draw.
These are my first two live-model portraits with prismacolor pencils, which I acquired shortly before the trip.

Ok, I don't actually remember tons of details but I'll try to do a Portus recap at some point. Basically it was awesome with a few moments of blah that I quickly got over. Note to self: never travel without digestive biscuits or something. The breakfast offerings at most places are terrible on my stomach.

So, here are some photos:

Zephre the Cat helps in cape production at home, four days before Portus.


Snarry Meetup - I've labeled the faces I remember with notes on Flickr. Feel free to add your own notes if you know who's who!


OMG it's me with Voldemort EEEEEE! (And this Voldemort is also a member of Ministry of Magic, bigger SQUEEEEE!)


My Dark Mark tattoo, my Portus badge with various accoutrements. The badge holder actually acquired more button pins ("I learned about Justice from Umbridge", "I learned about Compassion from Snape" and a Slytherin Prefect) before the end.


"Hermione" by Fox Estacado, in the Art Auction.

My whole Portus 2008 set, crappy snapshots and all, is right over here.

So far I have been taken as the Dark Lord six times, McGonagall once, and Bathilda Bagshot once.
"Nagini" has killed four Snapes and I've been AK'd by one for giving his cohort bunny ears during a photo.
Fun times.

I danced with Snape at the Wrock Concert tonight (The Mudbloods, w00t!) !!!!

!!!!!! He gave me a rose! !!!!!!

That is all for now.

I actually went out and bought this green nightmare fantasia pseudo-medievalish pre-packaged costume for the Masquerade at Portus. It may need some emergency re-tooling, but at least it was relatively cheap and I didn't have to sew that stretch velveteen. Eek. We hates the stretch fabrics, we does. (Although the Magical Mystery Sewing Machine may make that hate disappear, we'll have to try it sometime and see. It sewed a button on my dad's shirt like magic, yo! A button. Fwee!)

Anyhow.
You know what else is annoying? Going to a masquerade wearing glasses. Most masks are right out.

Otherwise, I think I'll be wearing street clothes under my (home-made!) cloak for most of it, and carrying a tote bag of art supplies.

And wearing a bright green snake plushie. Maybe if I drape myself in black some Death Eater cosplayers will mistake me for the Dark Lord and do my bidding. Muahahahaha. Mostly, I expect I will be finding art-related activities or squeeing in mad fangirl glee over Wizard Rockers. (Ministry of Magic is playing! Eeeeee!)

I'll be at the hotel Thursday morning. See some of you lot there.

The only two decent photos from ApolloCon:
Demonic Robot Toasters in the ConSuite:

The one on the left is a Cylon with a moving LED light and sound effects that say "frakkin' toaster".
The one on the right is a Demonic toaster and I forget what its sound effects were.


My new hat for Portus.