Early 80s ("Sign of the Times"): new wave, sharp lines, black-and-white, hats, think Boy George and Thompson Twins



Mid-80s ("The Clapping Song"): mod, tropical, scarves, patters, think Fun Boy Three and Bananarama



Late 80s ("Iko Iko"): spandex, workout, funky shoes, bright colors, hip-hop-style clothes and dancing, think MC Hammer



And there you are. After randomly watching the first video, I just had to get that out of my head.

is a irradiated, boiled humanoid covered in simulated snot and blood.

I felt ill just *typing* that sentence!

[In case the video doesn't show, the link is http://youtu.be/y0JHLGkiEEU]

So after yesterday's proclaimed re-dedication to making time for writing, I'm at a little bit of an impasse today.

Work has been a bunch of fire drills recently, and today I was still trying to make sure I knew what fires were left and what was being done to douse them (along with lending a hand myself).

Thus it's 1030 at night and I'm still doing work. At home, at least, but remote connected to work and pushing away.

I did do some very nice thinking about stories on the way to/from work today, and decided that my first two tasks are a quick cleanup of "A Mind Of Their Own" (flash fiction) and a rework of "Silver, Seven Ways" (short story). [If you can guess the plot of "Silver, Seven Ways" from the title, I will be impressed.]

But in order to keep the creative writing juice tap open, I present the SciFiCountry Challenge! Here's how it works: take a country song, change title and lyric to make it sci fi, post title and a lyric here.

My contribution (also tweeted and Facebook'd) is:
_Phobos Prison Blues_
with the altered lyric: "But I spaced a man on Venus / Just to watch him die."

Join in! Have fun!

Drove up to Reno on Friday after work, getting there about 7pm. Checked in, cleaned up, then went to the suite for the VP party along with the drinks I brought.

VP party was excellent! It was great to see all the Elevensies friends and the cool VPers from other classes, and to meet plenty of new VP people. I broke all my rules about drinking at parties: too much, too late, too many different things, and not enough food. But I had a blast, finally stumbling out of the party about 230 am and then running into Mark Teppo (my VPXI roomie) as he was coming back from the Atlantic parties.

Saturday (once I made it out of bed) was panels, on either writing, space exploration, or movies. I also did much saying hello to people as I ran into them. Dinner was buffet with VP in the crazy restaurant in the Peppermill that was RainforestCafe/TikiRoom without any animals.

Hugo awards were a lot of fun! Jay Lake and Ken Scholes did a wonderful job as hosts, and the emotional and personal acceptance speeches from many of the award winners made for a touching time.

After the Hugos, the VP gang had our own "Hugo Watchers" party which devolved into talking about writing, getting very silly, and eventually laughing our heads off.

Sunday was breakfast with the gang, a couple panels, then a goodbye to Reno and Worldcon and a drive back home.

Summary: Awesome. I have let the scifi-nerd-writer side of me languish for quite a while. Going to Worldcon was about putting my toes back into that water and seeing if there was still something there for me. There is. All the things that have happened over the last 1.5-2.5 years, to pull me away from writing and cons, haven't dimmed my enjoyment of the art and the people. What's left for me is to figure out how to somehow fit writing into my now incredibly busy life. But I want to write again, and I also have the tribe that will be holding me accountable!

So over the next week I'll take stock, see what's up with all the stories, update the old submissions and writing spreadsheet, and do some basic attempts at writing and editing again. Then it's time to move forward! At a much slower space, but still. Forward.

Portlanders --

Here's your chance to come see some Australian Rules Football!!

The Stumptown Throwdown tournament is happening on Saturday, June 25, from (roughly) 10-5 at Northgate Park on North Fessendon Street.

Tournament details are available at the website of the Portland Steelheads, the local Aussie Rules Football team: http://www.portlandfooty.com/.

Aussie Rules Football is a crazy, fast-paced, high-scoring, sport that mixes all the best elements of all the best sports. It's also a heck of a lot of fun!

I will be present, playing as a member of the Golden Gate Roos. So you can come see me run around like a maniac, and learn about one of reasons I don't post on LJ or write much (at all).

If you do come by, come say hi!

So I'm listening to an album which was the "soundtrack" for a story I wrote a while back, a story I classify as one of the "Big Six Or So", stories that I really enjoyed writing and that I think have some sort of "meaning" for me.

(For the curious, the album is _Back in Black_ by Amy Winehouse.)

Now I'm completely back in the world of the story, thinking about the characters, about the action of the story, about the good and bad points, about any feedback I got at critique sessions, about how much fun the story was.

It's all in there, hanging around, waiting for the moment to be made. And those moments will come.

In the meantime, back to work and to the music and the images.

• 10:21 @gregvaneekhout Kleenex box is rockin it, too! #
• 10:22 now that the coffee bar is closed at fitness center near work, the process of getting a tea is troublesome (traffic, spills, etc) #fb #

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• 17:20 watching the oscars in HD. Will the celebrities look different in high def? #fb #

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Excellent. Found on Boing Boing on a mellow Saturday.

• 09:24 It's a good thing it's not colder, or we'd have a snowpocalypse out there in SacTown - big rain coming down! #fb #
• 14:35 massive sushi buffet lunch, and I am FULL of fish, vegetables and rice. I ate like a sumo wrestler. #fb #

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