Jimeoin was great. He's one of those guys who's just funny, almost regardless of the topic. On the rare occasion that a joke flops, he has so many ways to recover the mood. A pro. Those who took up my offer to go along were all women and it struck me that all those who said they would have liked to come but couldn't were also female ( Read more... )

I have some free tickets to The Comics Lounge and it seems to me that Jimeoin would be the best act to see this week. Anyone interesting in coming along tomorrow (that's Monday) night, let me know.

Last weekend, I drove over to Adelaide with kbpenguin to see The Angels performing with the Adelaide Art Orchestra. She wasn't feeling well and spent the whole drive lying in the back seat. (Yes, given my car, that does make for some creative packing.) It was a lovely Friday for a drive, and I'd packed some cassettes for when there wasn't anything good on ( Read more... )

After a few delays getting to the airport, we were on our way in business class over to Perth. (We booked it through Alaska Airlines on points -- 40k per person, rather than 72k in QF's own crappy scheme.) Good meals and plenty of drinks (good practice for a con) and Sherlock Holmes on the video. When we both told the FA that we liked the juice, ( Read more... )

The weekend before last was Continuum 6. The hotel gave us a good room and we had fun, caught up with friends, watched panels, visited Chinatown for yummy Chinese food. Hotel staff were really pleasant and helpful, apart from check-in being ludicrously slow ( Read more... )

Despite committee promises to "post news as soon as we have it" regarding hotel rates, the rates have been online, unannounced, for so long that you can find them using google. To save you a step, The Lido Group is the official booking channel ( Read more... )

A number of people asked me about Worldcon accommodation when I was in Perth recently. In case others are interested: To my knowledge, the party hotel still hasn't been finalised. The hotel rates haven't been published and bookings aren't open even for the committee yet. All those things will have to happen before we get public bookings, so don't ( Read more... )

There was a time when the car to buy if you wanted to feel safe, regardless of your driving ability or attention span, was a Volvo. We all experienced the reality behind the stereotype, the Volvo drivers merging without looking, dawdling in the fast lane, turning without indicating, etc, etc. The Volvo drivers appear to have moved on. The Toyota ( Read more... )

Just back from my Xmas/New Year trip. As I mentioned before, cruises to Mexico have been cheap. Well, they got even cheaper (!), so we did another one. Flew down to San Diego, stayed a night (for free, earned at the Adelaide natcon hotel) at the Holiday Inn across the road from the cruise terminal, and set out for 10 days on Radiance of the Seas. ( Read more... )

Last night at the MSFC, I ran across some of the usual suspects, such as mortonhall and jocko55. _fustian was also there, following on from his success at the C6 trivia night apparently. This meant that I finally met wildilocks, who I've heard so much about over the years. I ensured I had plenty of cheesecake, because plenty of calcium is good for avoiding muscle cramps ( Read more... )