howeird | Pros at Cons (Reply)

Costco, picked up the box of scanned slides and the two DVDs they were scanned to. Had just enough time to copy them to the PC before heading back to Consonance. There are so many of the solid musician types there this year, made me miss

lemmozine. Seanan is elsewhere, which I think raises the level of musicality a bit, and lowers the chaos factor. The latter may or may not be a good thing. Brooke is also elsewhere, and I miss her music & energy & creativity. And am sad that tragedy struck her in a way which makes it impossible for me to sing my favorite song of hers which I am capable of singing. There are a couple I like better but my mouth doesn't know what to do with the lyrics.

I got there in time for the 2x10s, the first person on stage sang boring bardic balladish balderdash. Steve Savitsky came down from his transplanted home near Seattle and sang his old tune about how his house is always open to all on one night of the week, except maybe now it isn't. And he sang a song he wrote about/for Naomi, which was very touching and I would have asked him for a recording to send to my cousin who has MS except for the bit about how Naomi's SO stands beside her, because cousin's husband bailed when she got the diagnosis. Brett Glass, whom I had not seen in so long I still don't recognize him, sang a cute Time Lord song accompanied by his laptop orchestra. Jane Mainlander, who is often the most entertaining person at the con, bored me with a couple of songs about Sherlock Holmes spin-offs. One was a tribute to Joan in Elementary which I thought fell short. Needed a more upbeat tune. Nick pleaded con crud and instead of singing told the story of the Pied Piper. His voice sounded fine, and while he is a wonderful storyteller, it didn't work for me. I needed a trick ending, or something.

International guest Rika Körte, who impressed me singing harmony last night, did an entire set above her range, and the sound people made it worse by over-modulating. Nothing in her set was memorable. A good chunk of it was in German.

Interfilk guests Robin Holly and Jonathan Turner were mostly entertaining. Jonathan did most of the singing, he has a bad habit of swallowing the words at the end of a line, especially punchlines. He did a funny one about how he won't sing Bob Dylan.

Home, pulled some weeds using the claw thing I'd bought a while ago for that purpose, but many of the weeds were too deeply rooted to get them all.

Did some more processing on the photos, renamed them, and started the upload to Flickr. Left the machine on as I returned to the con.

Clare Cook was a first-timer with a 30-minute set, mostly Clancy Brothers, and she thinks Irish Rovers originated the song The Merry Minuet. She updated it in a way which was charming and awkward and not entirely necessary. I liked her alternative ending:
What nature doesn't do to us
Will be done by our fellow man.. woman..person of indeterminate gender

And that brought us to the GoH concert, Margaret & Kristoph. Mark Osier sang their intro, to the tune of Let It Go from Frozen. Brought down the house when he changed the chorus to "They're our GOH" (pronounced "go")

As usual, M&K gave a consummate musical performance with only a tiny bit of filk content, and they brought up several people to help, with Brett Glass playing bass on a few numbers, one tune he had Brett, Paul Kwin, Maya & Jeff, Jim Partridge, Paul Kwinn and Beckett Gladney (on harmonica) to sing about things lost in the dryer, and lost beer.

They got a standing O, did an encore, and then things broke up for open filk. I went across the street looking for food (it was almost 10 and most places were closing) and found a restaurant called Chef Wang's Indian Chinese. Staffed by Indians, I was the only non-Indian in there. I ordered the Manchurian lamb but I think they gave me beef. It was very spicy. My sinuses and tear ducts have been completely irrigated. The corn & crab soup used fake crab. I can check this place off my list.

Home, put the final touches on the Flickr set, caught up on FB and fed the cat. And had some ice cream as an antidote to dinner.

The brown sign says Bang Baw School. The reason I took the photo was the little red sign above the school name which says "sending welcome" which is what they use when the royal family is going to be passing by.

The fleet at Laem Ngop in the sea near Cambodia. They are used for fishing and delivering packages and people to Goh Chang (Elephant Island) and other nearby isles.

A tourist from Germany who came over on the same boat to Goh Chang with another girl. This was two days after the Berlin Wall fell, and I told them about it on the boat but they thought I was playing a cruel joke on them. It was several more days before a newspaper arrived with photos on the front page, and we were friends again.