Belated post about the Hugo announcements, I am on the list for Fan Artist again this year – which is lovely. The other finalists are Sara Felix, Richard Man, Terri Ash, Geneva Bowers, and Yummei. Some new, some previous winners, some old friends and some folks I’ll hopefully meet for the first time in LA! This is the first year I haven’t submitted any folding fans to the packet, which I guess might be a surprise, but none of my 2025 fans were what I consider fan art. My personal criteria for what constitutes fan art in the Hugo sense …
Category: Updates
General updates without particular focus
In the ear
One of the nice things about working from home is that I can listen to stuff all day; music, audiobooks, podcasts. I’m not consistent in my habits, usually the end and beginning of the year are when I’m best at remembering to put my headphones on – all the roundups and recommendations, plus the usual new year “do all the things” energy, but I do get through quite a bit of audio, especially the podcasts. There are some I always keep up with, This Had Oscar Buzz, Off Menu, and the Taskmaster Podcast in particular. Octothorpe, of course, though I …
Obligatory New Year’s Post
2023, so far so good. We ended the old year with friends, drinks, food, boardgames, and a movie, then started the new year with much the same. Appropriately the movie for the closing year was a rewatch, Logan Lucky in lieu of a Benoit Blanc joint, then for the new year we watched Don’t Worry Darling, which we all really liked. Three days into January I’m decluttering, which is the extent of my resolutions and sorely needed. Otherwise the 2023 goals boil down to “do the same things only moreso” excepting where they are “much less of that, actually”.
Social(s)
I’m on wandering.shop, enjoying it well enough now that there are actual people on it – I had created an account a while back but only poked my nose in now and then as it was pretty quiet. It has a lot of potential, though I guess unsurprisingly it has the reverse issues of Twitter in a lot of ways. If the birdsite is a huge for-profit corporation, with all the problems and opportunities that entails, mastodon is a bunch of small volunteer-run groups. Which is great in theory, but someone compared their experience with dealing with HOAs and…. that’s …
Out and about
Moving up to Newcastle has meant a lot more going out and doing things. Partly because we’re no longer in the process of finding a house and moving across the country, of course, but really mostly because there is so much to see and do here. Plus we’ve instituted a local First Thursday. Recent highlights; Halloween! We’d been wanting to have one for ages, and used it as an excuse to paint the living room. We had a couple dozen people over, there were drinks and costumes, and a truly excessive take out order. The next day we went to …
The Great British Queue
It’s the weekend before the Queen’s funeral, so we get a bank holiday, but everything is closed. Just getting back in the groove of things after a few weeks of non-stop. Orlando, which was very hot and humid. Short version: Galaxy’s Edge was great, the rest of Hollywood Studios seemed neat but it was too hot for me to appreciate. We had some great cajun food, even better Mexican, and lots of IHOP breakfasts. We saw the amazing Tiffany collection at the Morse Museum, followed by some tasy bbq. Went to Kennedy Space Center, which was buzzing with Artemis excitement, …
Jubilee Weekend
Nearly three months at the new place and enjoying the long weekend. The garden is good, the house is fit for visitors and we’ve had a few, which still feels novel. We’ve done well so far at exploring the toon, though mainly in terms of food and drink – there’s just so much of it. We’ve gone as far out as South Shields and Tynemouth, plus a jaunt to Alnwick. I’ve volunteereed for Chicon, and have a few other bits of fanac looming. Motivation is low still, but highter than it has been, so that’s something. My office space is …
Year of the Tiger
Well, that’s a lot to live up to, and speaking as a Rabbit, a little intimidating. But with a big move underway and hopefully lots of good changes to go with it, it feels promising all the same. Current distractions from the wait of finalizing the house purchase are Lovecraft Investigations, from BBC Sounds, and the Zenith, the new VR MMO. The former is spooky but weirdly relaxing to fall asleep to. In the past I’d avoided narrative audio at bedtime because paying attention kept me awake, but I guess that was more of a problem with comedies. Turns out …
Seasons end
It’s been a cold January, mostly spent tidying up from of the holiday season chaos at work (it’s always slow but messy over December) and looking forward to the imminent move to Newcastle. It might be the new year, but it feels like the extension of 2021, with our personal new year starting next month. All is preparation for the next thing, some of it a bit stressful, like how to move the cats, and some of it exciting like what is our first take-out at the new place going to be! In the meantime I snagged some sheepskin slippers …
Goodbye 2021
Just a few hours left to the year. Low key plans again of course, delivery sushi and then Alison Scott’s around-the-world NYE Zoom, which was good fun last year. We have some sake left, and sparkling wine from Valencia We got impatient waiting for Reyes so we opened the cat presents today, they really liked their new bed (made from sheepskin offcuts) and Alice seemed to enjoy her soft brush. Quentin is still uncertain about the wrasslin’ glove, but he takes longer to get comfortable with new things. I’m optimistic for 2022, generally as well as specifically for us with …