Opening ceremony is one of the most memorable parts of an ArmadilloCon. The toastmaster tries to embarrass the Guests of Honor by poking fun at them on stage. This year's toastmaster was a Canadian urban fantasy writer Charles de Lint. In his speech he made a big deal of the fact that the writer Guest of Honor, Charles Stross, is a "computer ( Read more... )

I finally got to meet Charles Stross in person at the pre-ArmadilloCon pizza lunch organized by Lawrence. It took place at Mangia, as it does every year. Mangia is crowded at lunchtime. Its acoustics are the kind that would be more appropriate for an opera theater. It was so noisy that people had to routinely lean forward and bent their ears in the ( Read more... )

Had to look up these words while reading Charles Stross' novella ( Read more... )

On Sunday, Steve and I continued a "going out binge", i.e. enjoyed opportunities to get out of the house while we have someone (his mother) to watch the baby. So we went to see "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy". 5 minutes into the movie the credits rolled, the dolphins sang "so long and thanks for all the fish" and left the planet Earth, and ( Read more... )

Reading as I do several books in parallel, I recently finished Charles Stross' "Singularity Sky". It is a pretty interesting book. What's most intriguing about Charles Stross writing, and what earned him a status as one of the hottest new SF writers, is his treatment of Singularity. As been said numerous times by numerous people, including here, it ( Read more... )

We have made some sporadic attempts to take Erika out in public. Steve doesn't feel nervous about it, but to me it's like taking the proverbial elephant into a china shop. I'm not sure how efficiently I could handle her public cries. It's one thing to try to soothe a crying baby at home, and quite another when being subject to strangers' angry ( Read more... )