As most of you who follow me may know, John Mansfield, chair of the 1994 Winnipeg Worldcon and an important figure in Canadian fandom, passed away a few days ago after a long period of decline. His funeral service in Winnipeg was today, and was live streamed and recorded so that people (including me) who could not come to Winnipeg could attend ( Read more... )

Because of my doctor's appointment (about which I will write separately), I did not get back to the Pemmi-Con table at CC39 until around 12:30 PM, where Spike was set up as the last parts of the convention wound down. Indeed, as I understand it, Registration was closed on Monday and there was a sign telling anyone who was interested to enjoy ( Read more... )

I continue to wake up ahead of my alarm, but that was still several hours after my normal rising time. After a negative COVID test cleared me to be able to face the day and after refilling the makeshift icebox in the room's second sink, I got showered and got breakfast from the nearest Starbucks (that's about 850 m today because the close one isn't ( Read more... )

This morning was a special event: Adam Savage made a special appearance at Costume-Con, with a one-hour Q&A session at 9 AM followed by photos with members. Adam rarely makes appearances like this, and did so as a special favor for us. I volunteered to help hand out masks to people who had arrived at the big event without one. I was pleased to only ( Read more... )

I walked down to the nearest Starbucks this morning to get breakfast, and learned that is closed weekends. I'm glad to learn that today so that I can make plans for tomorrow. It's a huge hardship; the next-closest one, which is open on weekends, is only about 350 meters farther away ( Read more... )

The forecast "inside slider" snowstorm coming down out of the north (rather than from the west) moved more slowly than originally forecast, so it did not start snowing here until about 8 AM. If you haven't read my entry from yesterday, go back an look at the pictures of the mostly-melted snow in the East Lot, then have a look at the photos of today ( Read more... )

Yesterday, the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon announced on their Facebook page and their Twitter feed that they were changing their dates to Wednesday, October 18, 2023 through Sunday, October 22, 2023 and the convention venue to the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum in Jingrong Lake, Pidu District. The new headquarters hotels are the Sheraton Chengdu Pidu and ( Read more... )

I was released from YouTube jail today and have submitted the documentation necessary to (I hope) not get put back into restriction for uploading too much material at once. I was thus able to finish uploading the videos I shot at SMOFCon 38 in Montreal and they are now all up on the SMOFCon 38 YouTube channel. They are arranged into the three ( Read more... )

I spent most of today editing and uploading the videos I shot a week ago at SMOFCon: The bidding session and voting for the 2023 SMOFCon, bidder presentations for the 2024 NASFiC bids and those future Worldcon bids who attended (including virtually), and presentations from the 2023 NASFiC, 2023 Worldcon, and 2024 Worldcon. As I finished each one, I ( Read more... )

I had an initial problem doing the recording of the SMOFCon bidding session, as I couldn't get an image on the camera and told them to start without me. Part-way through the presentation for the bid for Providence, Rhode Island, I finally discovered that I didn't have the cable that connects the camera to the recording unit screwed tightly enough, ( Read more... )