What a fun day walking around Denver and helping reg set up for Worldcon.

Mary and I went to the Denver Firefighters Museum today. that was cool. We tried to do the US Mint tour but they are booked solid until September.

The best news is that the Denvention 3 program books arrived at the Convention Center today. and they were even printed like they should have been.

Tomorrow Mary and I are meeting with entp2007 and his wife and driving down to ride the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. later that day I am going to the Rockies game with renegade500 and spielmadchen (who we also had dinner with tonight)

Wednesday is the Texas Party, so stop by and say Hi.

must go to bed now. people waiting on computers behind me and I have an early day tomorrow.

location: Worldcon mood: tired music: crappy hotel muzac tags: denver, trains, worldcon

Okay,

I LOVE Conestoga. It is one of my favorite cons to attend.

I LOVE Selina Rosen, she is a great person and has published lots of great writers that I am friends with.

When Conestoga asked me to be Fan GOH this year I told them I wanted Selina to do the bio.

She got everything right except ONE BIG ONE that she got wrong and I don't want to cause confusion and have people think that I am taking credit for something I did not do.

I am currently on the board of directors of ALAMO, the group that ran the 1997 Worldcon in San Antonio, TX.

I WAS NOT on the board in 1997 and was only a volunteer at Lone Star Con 2.

But I did run the sound for the flik stage just outside the dealers room.
I apologise for any confusion that this has created.

YIPPIE!!!!

the Denvention 3 Program book is at the printers!!! I just finished a wonderful weekend as Fan Guest at Conestoga 12 in Tulsa.

Now I have a whole week off before I leave for Denvention 3, the 66th annual World Science Fiction Convention.

I cannot thank the staff and committee of Conestoga enough. It was a true honor to be asked to be their Fan Guest of Honor. Conestoga is on of my favorite cons to attend each year, and being asked just as I celebrate my 20th anniversary in Fandom made it all the better.

The FenCon room parties went pretty well too. Too bad I pretty much missed them both with doing my Fenly Duty as the Fan GOH and with my part in the Penguin Playhouse Theatre production on Saturday night followed by getting the second draft of the Denvention program book out to the proof readers.

Apparently my 3-year-old son Iain (who took my profile pick with his fisher price camera) was playing "rocket ship" with a mechanical pencil and almost stabbed my wife in the eye. would have done if she didn't have glasses on. OUCH. she is fine now and it was an accident.

hmmm, no wonder I am tired. I had a nice relaxing weekend away at a con I love to go to, but I was working on the Denvention program book during alot of my down time. (I felt like a real editor, sending notes and forwarding emails between panels) and I had a rowdy and excited toddler with me as well.

Time to go back to work. I leave for Denvention on Sunday. I am hoping to find someone who wants to carpool to the Pikes Peak Cog Railway on Monday or Tuesday before the con.

catch you later

location: Home mood: relieved tags: conestoga, trains, worldcon

Okay,

First off, I was not at FedCon USA this weekend, but after the events of Saturday morning i was really tempted to drive by to see if there was anything that could be done.

In case you have not heard yet, Saturday Morning June 14 2008 the Media/autograph SF con FedCon USA shut down operations only a few hours into a weekend long event. Apparently there were lots of problems along the way with announced guests that claim to have never been asked, and then guests being announced before contracts were signed. The fourms are still up at www.fedconusa.com if you want to go check them out for your self.

I feel sorry for all the people that came from around the country to attend the show. I also feel for Dallas Fandom that has had some high profile disasters in the past few year and I think this can make all of the good and stable fan run conventions and other media shows in town suffer.

With the fall of UnComonCon in the early ots and now the FedCon USA disaster I think Dallas Fandom may have a black eye it doesn't deserve.

Part of the problem is that Dallas has so many great and affordable media shows and fan run cons that when a big outside organization comes to town (FedCon USA, Creation) they have a lot of the locals saying "why do I want to go there and pay more than $100 to get in when I can go to SciFi Expo for $20.00." And some of the SciFi Expo/Dallas Comic Con events in Dallas are Free admission. Yes, you still have to pay for autographs, but you only pay for the ones that you want and the prices are kept low by the organizers of the event. And if you only want to go to the Q&A sessions or brows the dealers room, then you save even more.

If you are after the full convention experience then Dallas has two great Fan Run, not for profit literary focused general interest fan convents. ConDFW in February and FenCon in September/October.

Yes, feNcon, not feDcon.

And now we get to my biggest worry about this weekends disaster. (Oh the Humanity!)

Full disclosure here. I am part of the group that runs FenCon and I was chair for the convention in 2006 and 2007.

So cast your memories back to the wild and heady summer days of 2007, when we first heard of FedCon USA when they announced they would be doing a show in Dallas. the same town that we had been running FenCon in for 4 years already.

FedCon is a long established Star Trek and other media SF Con in Germany. They have been having it for 16 years already, even longer than we had been doing FenCon, And since FenCon had not gotten a Trade Mark or Service Mark on the name we decided that we would politely let them know we existed and just try to play well with others as they say at my kids day school. Live and let live.

In the last several months there had been some issues with FecCon USA and guests saying they announced before contracts details were worked out and several were canceled. Eventually the German group pulled out of FedCon USA but allowed them to use the FedCon name for this year only.

That made the FenCon people feel a bit better about the long term name issues between the two events.

We did have some confusion along the way about people thinking that we were involved.

Then Saturday June 14 happened.

I had a couple people (who were also NOT at FedCon USA) email me and pretty much ask me what the heck I was doing down there in Texas.

Part of the over all confusion is that they guy who is running FedCon is also named...you guessed it...Tim. at least it wasn't Tim Muller. That would have really fun.

So all day yesterday FenCon has been in Damage Control mode.

One guy on the con news web site http://con-news.com/?p=578 even accused us of using the FedCon Disaster as a way to get cheep publicity which is exactly NOT what we are trying to do. Fandom is a small community and Fans talk, and it is easy to confuse FenCon and FedCon. try saying them both out loud in a conversational way. kind of hard to tell the difference. Now try it over the phone. I think we have a valid concern about making sure people know that we are not them.

So, for a good time (as an SFF Con in Dallas) go to www.fencon.org.

While I am at it. support your local con, where ever that may be. and if you are looking for some great cons to attend in the Southwest, I HIGHLY recommend ApolloCon in Houston in 2 weeks www.apollocon.org and in one month head to Tulsa for Conestoga http://www.sftulsa.org/conestoga/ I do have to admit that Conestoga is scraping the bottom of the barrel for the 2008 Fan Guest.

maybe I will get back to watching and commenting on classic who in a few days.

Until next time

location: home mood: stressed tags: conventions, fedcon usa, fencon, science fiction

This weekend is the Video Assocaition of Dallas's "24 Hour Video Race" and once again I will be part of Barry Whitewaters "Brand-O" team in the gurella catagory (teams of 3 to 5 members)

The premise is simple and briliant. get about 100 teams of crazy people armed with video cameras, have them all meet at midnight and give them 4 'elements' and then send em off to make a 5 minute movie. The elements are a location, a line of dialog, a prop and a theme.

I have no idea what this year will be like, but I think it will be a bit less stessful than last year since we won't have Fox 4 following us around all day.





I don't know if our movie from last year is still on the Fox 4 or not so here it is now.




We have entered the race the past 4 years and we finished all four years, advancing on to the finals in 2004 and 2006. Lets hope we make it back again this year.

I will try to post updates as we go.

Oh, and if you live in DFW and can act, let me know.

location: home mood: anxious tags: 24 hour video race, movies

My sister and I have noticed an alarming trend in Dallas Stars Playoff Hockey.

Bad weather in Fort Worth invariably means a Dallas Stars Playoff win. This goes back years. And the Stars don't even have to be playing in Dallas for it to work.

Tonight the Stars played the Detroit Red Wings in game 4 of the Western Confrence Finals. The Stars were trailing 3 games to zero and it was Do-or-Die Time. And for the first time in the series, some breaks and bounces actually went the Stars' way.

In the second period, Detroit scores a goal that is called back for some reason. Officially, the call in the building was "Interference", but on the post game shows on the way home they were saying that Turco was never touched. Yes Detroit Fans, it was a bad call and you did get screwed. But it makes up for some of the lame calls in game one when Dallas got screwed. How about that Interference non-call (same two players) that led to the thrid goal in game one?

Finally, with 30 seconds left in the second period, the Stars scored a goal. Yeah. Our first lead in the entire series.

Less than a minute into the third period, the Red Wings score. Darn. Our only lead lasts less than 90 seconds. Tie game again.

But about that time it starts raining West of Fort Worth. 5 minutes later, Mike Modano scores on the power play. Brendon Morrow scores late in the third to give Dallas a 3-1 lead. Then, despite having two Stars in the penalty box during the final minute of the game and Detroit goal tender Chris Osgood sitting on the bench (a 6 on 3 situation), Dallas holds on to win!

Dallas fans got to leave the American Airlines Center happy and the Red Wings fans had to put their brooms back in the closet.

I don't think Dallas will be the third team in the history of the NHL to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series, but all the San Jose Sharks fans were telling us last month that it happens every 33 years (1942, 1975, so why not 2008). And hey, wasn't it the Detroit Red Wings that were the first team to blow a 3-0 lead and loose a series?

It started raining as I was putting my "Red Wings Suck" sign into my car. It was pouring as I pulled into my driveway. And as I am watching CSI: New York from my PVR, they are telling me about the tornado watch in Fort Worth, Texas.

Maybe it will rain on Saturday afternoon, too.

A guy can hope...

location: Home mood: amused tags: hockey, weather

UPDATE: (I had to change my page theme. there was too much Red in it)

This freaking sucks.

Yes, that Stars have come out a bit flat, but what the fuck is going on with the Stupid Zebras in the Detroit/Dallas game tonight.

This is the worst called game I have witnessed since I saw Kerry Fraizer gave Brendon Morrow a two-minute diving penalty for taking a high stick to the face and starting to bleed.

It is 4 nothing and Detroit now and I admit that the last goal was a thing of beauty. but the first three were all on bullshit callas by the refs, The first goal was set up by the most bizar 'roughing' call after the play. I mean NOTHING happend and if you were going to call roughing it should have been offsetting minors at most.

Goal two was another nice deflection on the powerplay. but from a week ass hooking call where the player wasn't hooked.

Goal three was the worst of the night (so far)...

YES STARS JUST SCORED!!! YOU GONNA CALL THAT BACK FUCKERS!!!!!!!

oops. back now. where were we. goal three for detroit. yeah. So again. week ass call that should not have been made. even the VERSUS play by play (which might as well be Detroits play by play) is saying that these calls are bad. so.

Redwings have the puck at the blue line and it CROSSES the line. Off sides and stop the play, right? nope. no call. Play continues. Random wings player is backing into Turco (Stars goaltender) and making contact, pushing him into his own net while Detroit shoots and scores. Turco is imedeatly yelling at the ref that he was interfeared with but no call. Again the Versus guys are saying that it was interfearence and it should be Dallas on the powerplay and trailing 2-0

Keep in mind, I am a Stars homer. and Detroit is playing a good game. Detroit is out playing Dallas tonight. Dallas is turning the puck over too much.

Detroit is a tough team to beat. It is imposable when we have to out play the Red Wings AND the Detroit Zebras as well.

Alright Stars. Lets get Four in the third.

location: Home mood: frustrated tags: hockey, sports. stupid zebras

Well this is funny. maybe I will get an iphone in august!


I would like to thank my freind Alan for the superphone. I finally decided to start using it and just got the web/email plan activated.

yippie.

Alan, when I die in a hidious car wreck because I am messing around with the phone, you will have to explain to Iain where his daddy has gone.

as always
your friend and mine

Tim

location: home tags: iphone, youtube

This really sucks

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7304004.stm

Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

Sir Arthur C Clarke was famous for his science fiction writing
Legendary British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.
He came to fame when his story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was made into a film by director Stanley Kubrick in 1968.

Once called "the first dweller in the electronic cottage", his vision captured the popular imagination.

Sir Arthur, who was born in Minehead, Somerset, and was a radar specialist for the RAF in World War II, become a full-time writer in the 1940s.




If it were not for Arthur C. Clarke I would probably not be running Science Fiction cons now. As a kid I would always skip to the back of the reading books they issued in school, and would read the SF and mystery stories that they put in the books but never actually would teach them.

I did a book report on 2001 when I was in high school and that is when I learned what Science Fiction really was. Star Trek and Star Wars were fun, but this was exciting.

I have loved his work ever since. I will miss him

sigh

location: home mood: sad music: blue danube waltz tags: arthur c. clarke, cons, sf

Here is a short film that I co-wrote and shot with my friends Barry, Ed, Shawn, Mike, and Cliff.

It was a practice film to get us ready for the 2006 24 hour video race sponcered by the Video Association of Dallas http://www.dallasvideo.org/





of all the things we learnd that day, the most important was to remember to clean the camera lense frequently.

location: home music: Cliff's grovy guitar sound tags: 24 hour video race, doggy style, flimmaking, paris hilton

 

mood: silly music: loudon wainwright III