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This weekend has had a high proportion of fail.
1. I had to get up early on Saturday to take my mother to Principality of the Mists' Spring Investiture.
1a. The traffic from the Art & Wine festival in downtown Mountain View (which was the reason my mother had asked me to take her: fear of no parking, which was borne out) was v. annoying. It took me quite a while to get back out of said downtown.
2. The sushi![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
enotsola and I had for lunch that day was pretty crap, especially considering its cost. It was very artistically presented and we got a free tempura sample as a kind of mini-appetizer, but half of it tasted strange, including plain stuff like the cucumbers. Not "off", like it was bad fish -- actually the sashimi was the best of it because it was just fish and nothing else -- but overall we just were like "this tastes weird" and didn't enjoy it. One of the rolls we had was huge in diameter and impossible to eat without disassembling. It just fell apart when we tried to pick up the slices.
3. We went to Super-Con, and upon arriving at about 2:30 found out that the 4:00 MST3K presentation (the first thing we were interested in, hence the arrival time) had been moved to 12:00, with no mention of this on the website. Honestly in this day and age you should be able to Twitter updates to the schedule, if nothing else. (We'd checked it just before leaving, so noonish.)
3a. To add insult to injury, the MST3K continuation session on Sunday morning had been entirely cancelled, so there was no reason for us to have bought 2-day passes in the first place. Fortunately that was only a collective $10 difference so it wasn't that much to be pissed off about.
3b. The beers we had at Gordon Biersch to console ourselves were nothing to write home about, and cost $5.25 apiece, and the waitress didn't even ask if we wanted anything else, just brought us our bill at random. Well, we had wanted second beers, since it was about 90 outside and the air conditioning inside was only barely adequate, presumably to encourage us to do just what we thought we'd do and -- hey -- buy another beer; but if you're going to be that way about it, screw you. (Also, you only get like a 9% tip, and that's only because you were friendly. :P )
4. Today we went out to a Fresh Choice and there were such huge amounts of people that they actually had a couple of people on walkie-talkies handling the seating. (Of course, this included several groups of screaming children.) I'd picked that particular location because it was on the way to the mall we were heading towards to spend a gift card; if I'd picked a different one it wouldn't have happened.
5. Said gift card turned out to be nearly impossible to spend. We got a $100 Nordstrom gift card from a co-worker as a wedding present. Nice thought, but $100 doesn't go far at Nordstrom, and I decided I could not in good conscience buy a $78 bra, even if it was on free money. We ended up buyingenotsola 2 pairs of very ordinary black shorts for $99.59, after a stressful multiple-circuits wander through everything from juniors to women's fragrances.
6. We went to Starbucks late this afternoon for an iced coffee, and there was one huge group of people taking up most of the outside space, and another huge group of people taking up all the inside, including a whole bunch more screaming children. It was like someone had decided to have their goddamn family reunion at Starbucks. This is not a location that is generally highly populated, mind you, especially not at 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon.
7. To cap it off, this evening in the shower, I managed to cut my right nipple while shaving. No, I wasn't shaving my chest; it was just a stray arm movement. True to the form of "very sharp blade" cuts, I didn't actually notice until I saw something red dripping from my upper body while bending over to shave the other leg. And then, of course, it started to sting. :P
But there was one small highlight, and that was that we did achieve our primary objective in going to Super-Con in the first place: Getting to see Joel, Trace, Frank, and Josh (J. Elvis) and also Wil Wheaton. Tipping slightly in the "fail" side of things was that the MST dudes seemed really wiped, and not terribly enthusiastic about being there, but I suppose there are few things that can compare to Joel Hodgson saying "Hi, I'm Joel" and shaking yours and your husband's hands. ^_^
We had been walking up the aisle past them, intending to come back on the next round as the pattern would have dictated, but I failed my saving throw vs. Joel, and was glad I had done so when I heard him open his mouth and speak. I was like "whoa, man, people change in 5-6 years" when I saw him in "Soultaker", but in person, my fangirling was intact. lol. I guess he must be in his late 40s now (!), but I guess I still fall for a good voice the same as ever. Trace was cool too. ^_^ I made a bad joke and stuck foot in mouth re: Josh, so I won't repeat it here.
I now understand how people get all tongue-tied and stupid re: people they fan about, because now it's happened to me. (The only other time was when I was at a Star Trek convention 16 (!) years ago, and saw John de Lancie. I got a signed picture but didn't attempt to speak to him.) But yeah, as I said, they seemed really pretty tired, and though they were chatting well with a nearby guy who had built a Tom Servo replica, we seemed to have got them at the end of their wits. Shortly after we crossed the way to talk to Wil Wheaton, they decided to take a random break and not come back til 4. So we were lucky we showed up when we did. Got 'em all to sign my Amazing Colossal Episode Guide.
As for Wil: he turned out to be a really regular dude, with a lot more inherent energy. Aside from the fact that he's somewhere between Internet Famous and Really Famous, he's otherwise pretty much like the rest of all of us geeks, at least in his "con personality". He has spent points in "Schmooze", or something. He has the gift of conversing shallowly and inanely with random congoers without seeming insincere, because hey, we came (possibly/partly) to see him, so he should help us have a good time, was my sense. Whenenotsola asked him to sign his book "To Gord", he launched into "Oh, do I detect you're a Canadian?" (major points to Wil for not making the "wtf kind of name is that" face, that we often get at places like Starbucks) and generally was very good at small talk.
1. I had to get up early on Saturday to take my mother to Principality of the Mists' Spring Investiture.
1a. The traffic from the Art & Wine festival in downtown Mountain View (which was the reason my mother had asked me to take her: fear of no parking, which was borne out) was v. annoying. It took me quite a while to get back out of said downtown.
2. The sushi
enotsola and I had for lunch that day was pretty crap, especially considering its cost. It was very artistically presented and we got a free tempura sample as a kind of mini-appetizer, but half of it tasted strange, including plain stuff like the cucumbers. Not "off", like it was bad fish -- actually the sashimi was the best of it because it was just fish and nothing else -- but overall we just were like "this tastes weird" and didn't enjoy it. One of the rolls we had was huge in diameter and impossible to eat without disassembling. It just fell apart when we tried to pick up the slices.3. We went to Super-Con, and upon arriving at about 2:30 found out that the 4:00 MST3K presentation (the first thing we were interested in, hence the arrival time) had been moved to 12:00, with no mention of this on the website. Honestly in this day and age you should be able to Twitter updates to the schedule, if nothing else. (We'd checked it just before leaving, so noonish.)
3a. To add insult to injury, the MST3K continuation session on Sunday morning had been entirely cancelled, so there was no reason for us to have bought 2-day passes in the first place. Fortunately that was only a collective $10 difference so it wasn't that much to be pissed off about.
3b. The beers we had at Gordon Biersch to console ourselves were nothing to write home about, and cost $5.25 apiece, and the waitress didn't even ask if we wanted anything else, just brought us our bill at random. Well, we had wanted second beers, since it was about 90 outside and the air conditioning inside was only barely adequate, presumably to encourage us to do just what we thought we'd do and -- hey -- buy another beer; but if you're going to be that way about it, screw you. (Also, you only get like a 9% tip, and that's only because you were friendly. :P )
4. Today we went out to a Fresh Choice and there were such huge amounts of people that they actually had a couple of people on walkie-talkies handling the seating. (Of course, this included several groups of screaming children.) I'd picked that particular location because it was on the way to the mall we were heading towards to spend a gift card; if I'd picked a different one it wouldn't have happened.
5. Said gift card turned out to be nearly impossible to spend. We got a $100 Nordstrom gift card from a co-worker as a wedding present. Nice thought, but $100 doesn't go far at Nordstrom, and I decided I could not in good conscience buy a $78 bra, even if it was on free money. We ended up buying
enotsola 2 pairs of very ordinary black shorts for $99.59, after a stressful multiple-circuits wander through everything from juniors to women's fragrances. 6. We went to Starbucks late this afternoon for an iced coffee, and there was one huge group of people taking up most of the outside space, and another huge group of people taking up all the inside, including a whole bunch more screaming children. It was like someone had decided to have their goddamn family reunion at Starbucks. This is not a location that is generally highly populated, mind you, especially not at 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon.
7. To cap it off, this evening in the shower, I managed to cut my right nipple while shaving. No, I wasn't shaving my chest; it was just a stray arm movement. True to the form of "very sharp blade" cuts, I didn't actually notice until I saw something red dripping from my upper body while bending over to shave the other leg. And then, of course, it started to sting. :P
But there was one small highlight, and that was that we did achieve our primary objective in going to Super-Con in the first place: Getting to see Joel, Trace, Frank, and Josh (J. Elvis) and also Wil Wheaton. Tipping slightly in the "fail" side of things was that the MST dudes seemed really wiped, and not terribly enthusiastic about being there, but I suppose there are few things that can compare to Joel Hodgson saying "Hi, I'm Joel" and shaking yours and your husband's hands. ^_^
We had been walking up the aisle past them, intending to come back on the next round as the pattern would have dictated, but I failed my saving throw vs. Joel, and was glad I had done so when I heard him open his mouth and speak. I was like "whoa, man, people change in 5-6 years" when I saw him in "Soultaker", but in person, my fangirling was intact. lol. I guess he must be in his late 40s now (!), but I guess I still fall for a good voice the same as ever. Trace was cool too. ^_^ I made a bad joke and stuck foot in mouth re: Josh, so I won't repeat it here.
I now understand how people get all tongue-tied and stupid re: people they fan about, because now it's happened to me. (The only other time was when I was at a Star Trek convention 16 (!) years ago, and saw John de Lancie. I got a signed picture but didn't attempt to speak to him.) But yeah, as I said, they seemed really pretty tired, and though they were chatting well with a nearby guy who had built a Tom Servo replica, we seemed to have got them at the end of their wits. Shortly after we crossed the way to talk to Wil Wheaton, they decided to take a random break and not come back til 4. So we were lucky we showed up when we did. Got 'em all to sign my Amazing Colossal Episode Guide.
As for Wil: he turned out to be a really regular dude, with a lot more inherent energy. Aside from the fact that he's somewhere between Internet Famous and Really Famous, he's otherwise pretty much like the rest of all of us geeks, at least in his "con personality". He has spent points in "Schmooze", or something. He has the gift of conversing shallowly and inanely with random congoers without seeming insincere, because hey, we came (possibly/partly) to see him, so he should help us have a good time, was my sense. When
enotsola asked him to sign his book "To Gord", he launched into "Oh, do I detect you're a Canadian?" (major points to Wil for not making the "wtf kind of name is that" face, that we often get at places like Starbucks) and generally was very good at small talk.
no subject
Date: May. 19th, 2008 07:13 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: May. 19th, 2008 07:22 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: May. 20th, 2008 05:55 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: May. 20th, 2008 06:14 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: May. 19th, 2008 07:54 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: May. 19th, 2008 09:36 pm (UTC)From:Anyway, that is pretty wild that you met him.
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Date: May. 19th, 2008 09:52 pm (UTC)From: