Should be trying to sleep

[howeird]

But wanted to journal a little. Plenty of time to sleep on the train tomorrow. Train leaves at 9:45, somehow I thought it was 9. Bonus.

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Stuff I left out yesterday:
The Interfilk Guest concert - I said I bailed because it was not my kind of music, but was reminded that it was Mrs. E's being horribly off-key with her piercing operatic soprano voice. She no longer has the range she used to, but thinks she does and pushes too hard.

I forgot all about two-fers. Two-fers is a filk tradition where people who don't want to give a full concert or just want to try something new will get up in front of the mike and perform for 10 minutes or 2 songs, whichever comes first. The idea is to keep it simple, get up on stage, sing, get off and let the next person on. It doesn't work when the sound check takes longer than the performance. Sound folks here need to keep it simple, and not make like this is the symphony.

There were some good performances, but the only ones I remember were the way too complicated mini-concert featuring Betsy Tinney's daughter. We are talking about a talented girl with a fine voice who is working to overcome her inherent shyness. Reminds me of Seanan McGuire at that age, but with a prettier voice. But really, you don't need a full orchestra backup, just get up and sing. And Arianna, who looks kinda dumpy and dorky but sings beautifully and with showmanship and wit. lemmozine, I am sad to say, got bit by technical details.

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Today started slowly, I went to the restaurant for the breakfast buffet at about 10:20 am. Here's what I told FB:
Seatac Hilton buffet: sausage patty is a Totems puck. Scrambled eggs one big lump. Oatmeal looks like the senior class of Highline HS threw up into that bowl last prom night. Orange juice is all pulp. I left out the part of waiting for 5 minutes for someone to show up to seat me.

There was zero maintenance on the buffet, they just set it up and leave it. And for $21.50, that's abysmal.

Over to the con, listened to the songwriting contest entries. Was not impressed with the first two, was impressed with the last one but didn't applaud because this is the guy whose infant is in the third row, making baby noises. While I was photographing the second contestant, he whispered something in my ear but I didn't hear it. It was either that he wanted copies or he didn't want to be photographed. either way I put my camera away, did not want him on my SD card.

Then came the band scramble, the first group did something long and I think classic filk, some adaptation of a song to a sci-fi theme. I couldn't hear the words very well (way too much percussion and bass and not enough treble voice). They probably were good. Next up waslemmozine's group, which consisted of a person with a box made from what looked like a wholesale juice carton, a trannie on bouzouki, himself on a tiny uke-like object and lead vocal, and an old guy who looked like the Marlboro man's father on bass. It took a while for me to make out the words, but once I did it was a funny song about "Thing" from The Adams Family from the hand's POV. Final group was Cecelia Eng, and two young omen whom I think are related to the sound guy, who did a highly entertaining version of Frank Hayes' Please Don't Set The Cat on Fire. Frank was at the con, I'm not sure if he was in the room at the time.

Next, a walk to Denny's with lemmozine for a late lunch and non-sequiters. We have both led interesting lives with much travel. Our waitress was Thai, and was amused to speak with me in her native language. Actually, I think she was born here, but her Thai was fluent.

Back to the hotel, I think this is when we went to the con suite, which had no sweets. Chatted with Frank Hayes and Kathy Mar.

Somewhere in there I went to the tea lady in the dealer's room, and wanted to buy a certain blend for my sister, but tea lady was down to the last already-promised batch, so I bought several $1 samplers instead. Also picked up the auction item's I'd won, a CD by bluesmancd's band, and two jars, one with rose jam and the other with walnut butter.

Caught the start or the farewell jam, chatted way in the back of the hall with Carole, but the Estys made it into  gospel sing-along, so i left early. Decided to be early to my dinner date in case sis was early driving around from Poulsbo.

I was early, they were on time. Had a very good dinner (way too much to finish) and a great chat. They gave me a ride back to the hotel (2 blocks) at about 9.

Plans for tomorrow:
6 am wakeup call
walk to light rail by 8
Amtrak by 9
Train at 9:45, 24-hour trip, but they have been an hour late to San Jose all week.