Adventures of an Urban Jungleboy

Party Haiku from Saturday at Westercon

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:03:51 GMT

©July 5, 2008, Kevin Roche

Ev'rything I need
to know about hosting I
learned from Auntie Mame.

The rest is a lie:
pretentious martinis have
no place at parties.

Sittin' at McCarran, using the Wayback Machine...

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:10:13 GMT

aka the Internet Archive to download inflight entertainment from the archive of the Moving Image...

Currently have a bit more than half of a Tales of Tomorrow episode on the harddrive.

Have Phantom From Space, The Amazing Transparent Man, and Planet Outlaws cued up too.

Our flight home from Westercon boards in about half an hour... think I'm going to switch to the lower data rate versoins, since I'll be watching on the iPod anyway.

Andy beat me to it... Visual proof of our new Politically Inconvenient Status

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:30:44 GMT

Visit bovil's LJ to see our beyootiful legal Marriage Certificate

As promised... Video from kevin_standlee

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:23:45 GMT

Underneath the cut...

(If the embed doesn't work, view the video directly on Google Video.

Mission Accomplished!

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:00:58 GMT

bovil and I were legally wed in front of 48 people at the BASFA meeting tonight. There was much cheering.

Almost, but not quite as fast as the 11 second ceremony in SpaceBalls.

kevin_standlee thinks he has video to post. I'll keep y'all posted.

The BASFA rumor of the week had something to do with "married gay boys kissing"

I love my friends.

Ten Hours and a bit (and counting)...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:03:50 GMT

A minor request --

Those of you who are making a special trip to witness the legal pronunciation this evening, it's going to be short* and sweet, probably right at the beginning of things, perhaps in place of a particular motion to which the Treasurer always Objects.

It is *not* supposed to overwhelm or completely displace the other regularly scheduled insanity that is the weekly meeting. We did the big hoopla back in 2005. So just keep that in mind for the sake of the other attendees and the restaurant, 'k?

And an answer for folks who object that marriage is only for a man and a woman because it's point is to foster procreation:

Um, no. SEX is for procreation.

Marriage is for promoting family ties and stability, both between the immediate parties to the marriage and their extended families. Always has been, according to my understanding of the history of marriage compacts. I understand how some folks might get that confused these days, since many churches teach that sex is shameful except in the context of marriage. But that's their problem.

Remember:
Sex is for procreation.
Marriage is for family.

*Short Short. As in similar to the ceremony from 1:59 to 2:10 in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxsEE5tTkcQ

Remember that pamphlet I mentioned...

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:39:16 GMT

I found it, alas, though, not in softcopy.

Your Future Together

Single copies are available free to the public, you'll note.

Special llive appearance tonight! One Night Only!

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:13:08 GMT

Got your attention, huh? :-)

Tonight is the "Meet and Greet" kickoff party for the annual Alameda County Leather Corps title contest weekend.

They've asked me to be part of the entertainment lineup, so if you find bar Leather events entertaining and want to hear me belt out a lounge number (or two, or three, or ???; I don't know the exact lineup yet), head on down to The World Famous Turf Club in Hayward tonight!

22519 Main Street
Hayward, CA 94541
510-881-9877

BBQ from 6-7:30, show from 7:30 to 10PM.

The Contest itself is being held the next evening at the Hill and Valley Club in Hayward; details are on the ACLC site. bovil and I have another engagement on Saturday, so I'm really pleased I can help them out tonight.

Addendum: tonight's performance will also feature the debut of the new Shiny Pants I bought this month (from the same folks who sold me my Original Shiny Pants)

Mission accomplished...

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:51:00 GMT

We now have our marriage license safely stowed away until the magic words are said on Monday.

We remembered change for the meters, so parking was not a problem, and there were only 3 couples in line when we got there (with 3 windows) so we were all finished and out before 11am.

One amusing note is the health pamphlet they are required to give to all couples (which they started doing when they stopped requiring blood tests for marriage licenses).

Over half the pamphlet is dedicated to pregnancy health issues.

I'm not complaining; healthy babies and moms are important. I'm just amused.

The clerk mentioned that she *loved* the fact that her signature was on all the licenses she'd done; she'd been waiting a long time to be able to issue such licenses.

Getting ready to head to the Clerk Recorder's office

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:37:51 GMT

The marriage license application form is filled out and printed.

We had to do a last-minute set of calls to our parents this morning because the application requires our parents' full birth names and state of birth.

I'm waiting for Andy to wrap up the call with his dad so we can get out the door; I don't want to get stuck in the pre-lunch rush at the county clerk's office.

Cross your fingers that we can find parking.

PS. This is just to get the license. Magic words to be said over us next week

Natal Anniversary Felicitations to my Evil Twin Brother from her Evil Twin Sister

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:31:52 GMT

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, karisu_sama!

Ordering Costume-Con 26 Videos

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:44:39 GMT

The Official Video DVDs of the Costume-Con 26 Stage Competitions are now available for order!

There are two DVDs available:

CC26-SIFI - Contains the Science Fiction Masquerade Event.
CC26-HIST - Contains the Historical Masquerade and the Dimensions In Design Event.

Each DVD is $14.00 Dollars (includes shipping). Order requests should be sent to

Eric Cannon,
6446 Abbeydale Court
Orlando, Florida, 32818.
Checks should be made payable to "Eric Cannon".

If you prefer, you may contact him at RRVORLANDO (at) MSN.COM, if you would prefer to pay via PAYPAL.

Natal Anniversary Felicitations!

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:32:40 GMT

Happy Birthday to jaylake!

I'm so very glad you're getting to celebrate it!

Hurrah!

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:21:53 GMT

The California State Supreme Court has voted not to stay their same-sex marriage decision until the November election.

That means marriage licenses can be issued beginning June 17!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/04/BA8V1137HS.DTL&tsp=1

Unfortunately, I've also discovered that they don't quite know what to do about registered domestic partners who decide to marry each other.

ETAThanks to jkusters who pointed me to this FAQ:

http://www.equalityforall.com/courtcasefaqs#anchor13

Now, we had a big ol' ceremony with our families in 2005, so we're just planning a quickie civil ceremony (maybe right before a BASFA meeting) to license things as a marriage.

My Preliminary Baycon Schedule

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:12:41 GMT

5/23/2008 14:30 Hall Costumes - How To

5/23/2008 17:30 Masquerade 101

5/24/2008 13:00 EZ Costuming Kids

5/25/2008 14:30 Wardrobe Malfunctions

It's going to make prepping the final LoEG party tight, but we're going for fewer decorations (since we don't know the hotel) plus the posters.
The EZ Costuming for Kids is a hands-on-make-silly-things class.

Anybody need a starship pulse cannon?

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:09:46 GMT

Or the next best thing.

My friend smashwolf has put a couple of Really Big digital projectors (one 10,000 lumens, one 6,000 lumens) up for sale on eBay.

One of them is the one used for the famous "Dive-in movies" projected on the side of the DoubleTree San Jose Hotel above the swimming pool at BayCons past.

Check 'em out. They're in great working order, and it's a really good price.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=200221983927&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=010

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=200221986167&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=010

Hip Hip Hooray! We're back on the air!

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:50:38 GMT

www.cc26.info is alive and well again.

http://pix.cc26.info, the CC26 Media Repository, is also now properly linked and ready for hazelchaz, johno, didjiman, and their brilliant cast of many to start building the official photo/media collection. Further announcements about that will be forthcoming.

cc26.info is down temporarily...

Sat, 03 May 2008 20:11:47 GMT

The Costume-Con 26 site is offline temporarily.

We're trying to create a photo storage site on a different server than our main website and the instructions we were given by the other server's host managed to hide our site from the internet.

The changes have been backed out, but it will take a while to reappear, at which point we'll start posting some show results.

Kevin, Evil Mastermind

Post Costume-Con 26: Alive. At home. We did it!

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:57:16 GMT

I'm very proud of all the people who worked so very hard to make my vision for CC26 a reality.

876* people came to play, and I think most of them left happy. That makes us the second largest Costume-Con in its 26-year history.

We weren't perfect, we made some mistakes, but I think we also learned from them. All the planning in the world will not eliminate the need for a giant dollop of "wing-it" at an event like this, and I appreciate the attendees' patience and forbearance when those glitches turned up.

The hotel liked us. A lot. They also took copious notes yesterday when we passed on folks' complaints.

I'll write a longer post later when I have a working brain. The daily 'zine and competition participants and awards will be posted soon; I have the data right here but don't want to risk mangling it in a post right now.

Thanks for coming out to play with us.

Kevin

*Pending final audit. The members have gone home, but we still have to do our final accounting and pay the bills.

Two GIANT HAPPY BIRTHDAYS

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:09:48 GMT

to

lobolance

and

didjiman

Fifteen more minutes of fame for me and Racetrack memory

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:38:03 GMT

Last August the BBC visited and shot lots of video in my lab.

They've chosen to use a chunk of it to go along with today's press release!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7341031.stm

Note that while the video caption mentions me, the article is about the two papers by my group published in Science magazine today. They cut out all the parts where I talk about Dr. Parkin (the brilliant head of our team) and the rest of the group, and focussed on the shiny machinery.

In the news...

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:42:31 GMT

Our group has two papers being published in Science Magazine tomorrow, so today is press release day...

Including this video:

The animated section in the middle, demonstrating how racetrack works is my work, and that part of the script, too.

Countdown to DOOM Costume-Con 26

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:40:35 GMT

Four Weeks
or
28 Days
or
672 Hours
or
40320 Minutes
or
2419200 Seconds

(Before you quibble, remember, for me, my on-site work starts on Thursday)

Hippo Birdie Two Ewes

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:21:14 GMT

to galtine1

Many happy returns, o not-wife!

Productive weekend...

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:04:07 GMT

I worked a lot on the Costume-Con 26 online scheduling tools this weekend, and the result is now available online.

Select "Program and Exhibits" from the top menu and you'll find "Prelimnary Program Schedule" offered near the top of the left menu.

If you want to refer someone there, you can use this link: http://www.cc26.info/show_prelim_schedule.php which actually redirects to the correct page.*

The schedule is still subject to massive changes, of course, but the online view is generated directly from the latest input to the program db, so it's always fresh.

Kevin

*(Geekery: the redirect gets around the issues the secure server has with drilling down directly into the secure part of the site)