Party Update

It took longer to walk to the party than I thought. Although we took a direct route (not getting lost), it took over an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes. It's probably not ideal to walk into a party all sweaty. Oh, well.

The party was fine. The best part was talking to my friends who came: Robin, chikuru, raaga123, and sylverre.

They also had a good game for getting people to talk to strangers. Everyone got the name of an author on their backs and got to ask people no more than two yes/no questions each to help them figure it out. I am bad at these things, but I had someone easy, so it only took me the whole party to figure it out. See how quick you are, if you like:

[Flickguy, who was distributing the author names, said that I had gotten the one he had wanted.]
1. Was my writer's genre science fiction? Yes.
2. Was my writer a male? Yes.
3. Were any movies made from his works? Yes.
[It also came out that he lived during the current century.]
4. Did the total stranger I was talking to see any of the movies? Yes.
5. Did he like them? No.
6. Did any of the books have earthlings (as opposed to aliens)? Yes.
7. Did Chikuru own any books by him? Yes.
8. Would raaga123 recommend any books by him? Yes.
9. Would I like any movie made from his books? Several people I know agreed that they don't know.
10. Were the books mostly set in the future? Yes.
[I may be forgetting some of the questions.]
11. Was it that guy who wrote that trilogy? Yes.
12. Oh, what was it called? Isaac Asimov didn't write the Foundation trilogy, did he? Yes.

Somehow I managed to guess it after that last question.

I also found Brucacuda who's excerpt I had run across on the web and enjoyed. I actually walked up to him and told him this and we talked about people who use big words to sound smart and other people's reluctance to admit that they don't understand the big-word prose (until someone else--like him--does first). He also talked about buying a book for its cover because it had a picture of someone boobilicious on it, and on the inside of the dust jacket, it was supposed to have an x-rated picture, but when he got it, it was glued to the book! He ended up getting his money back. I did not tell him that with his cowboy hat on, he had a close resemblance to one of my characters.

Then Da Shlom walked up but then they started talking about network administration. Snooze. But Da Shlom loves his job and started telling anecdotes. Like he helps the police find people who are messing with his system, and one time he actually got to hear over the phone the words, "Step away from the keyboard."

Mostly I just stood around stuffing my face. My favorites were the many delicious cookies and baked ziti (which tastes like lasagna). I also got to report to several people the late arrival of the baked brie.

They had door prizes which people actually liked, which was refreshing.

I was prepared to read an excerpt, but it was crowded in the excerpt-reading room. I stood in the back and tried to listen to one person reading too quietly to hear. Then I tried to listen to another person who was taking a while to get to the interesting part, so I went back into the other room.

Then I talked to our local organizer, Lazym, before getting a ride home with Chikuru and raaga123.

I forgot my container, and Lazym collected it and listed it in a lost-and-found post, so I will be getting to talk to her again.