Pennsic @ MindSay 
So soon it's over. But while it's there, Pennsic is another world - kind of a medieval summer camp for - I was going to say adults, but entire families go there, and there are more children's activities every year. It's an alternate universe that springs up like puffball mushrooms in the night, swells for two weeks to 10,000 or more happy souls, and then POOF - but it returns next year!
I might have plans, some ideas of what I'd like to see and do, and I usually end up doing something else as well. There are battles (the main excuse for the Pennsic Wars) to watch if one is so inclined, food, entertainment, unusual shopping - where else can you buy a Plague Rat?
Or a duct tape rose?
On the second Wednesday, the merchants stay open late for an event called Midnight Madness that features special sales, entertainment, and, er, madness. Corey promised to wear a hot pink tunic if I wore... this:
THEY dressed me up like this!!
And classes. Yes, education at a medieval summer camp. This year I learned How to Make Fire Like a Reasonably Intelligent Saxon: so the flint-and-steel firemaking course was called. And everybody succeeds! It's as much fun to watch as to do. Now I need a set of those tools for my own demo kit... I also saw an excellent demonstration of how to make a small but very efficient gas forge and save $400+ in the process. Gotta build one!
And the smith who was doing the demo later had an "open forge" night ("Want to swing a hammer?"). I had an idea for a bottle opener, so he handed me a steel bar and we started scribling ideas on a picnic table. The design incorporated elements from one of his pieces and part of my personal emblem. Then he gave me some general instructions (I hadn't seen his opener) for how to shape the metal and I started heating and bashing. The result was fairly awesome:
But most important are the people. I know perhaps 20 people there (other than my extended family) out of TEN THOUSAND and it's so great to see them again. They are like a family away from... time... We link up on period activities and the like, but mostly we connect because we enjoy being together. I bond with the kids in the fabric store and their friends, various people associated with the store, some of the merchant folk, blacksmiths, fellow campers. It's good to be with such warm, affectionate people.
And when you first come in the gate, someone in the Troll Booth almost always says, "Welcome Home!"
Hot stuff... cu soon.
vanessa mae toccata in fuge in d minor ....STRANGE, why can I PASTE, now? Strange....okay, let me get back to my train of thought...
I'm listening Vanessa Mae's Toccata in fuge in d minor done with an electric guitar. It's an amazing piece of work.
I'm home...in between Pennsic. I'm planning to go back in a few days. My plan is to spend a few days there to drink and sociallize. Vlad's MySpace party was Monday night; I missed that one.
We have our own Pennsic Virgin...three, actually. I know one is enjoying the hell out of Pennsic...being youthfull, he partakes upon the mature beverages, and does it maturely. I was worried about him trying to impress people by showing off; but, he drank moderatly (NO! Before anyone goes there! He drank long before hooking up with our group! His parents does POT....according to him. Also, according to him, his parents lets him drink! His friends dirnks...so, we are NOT corrupting anyone! We don't force anyone to do anything! We don't engage in bullshit peer pressure! Infact, I prefer others to not drink so that I can have that keg of Woodchuck to myself!!!) ^-^ (yeah, I can't stand the taste of beer. I like a nice desert wine, mead, woodchuck, mix drinks. I'll drink water before I drink beer!)
From there, I must leave for home on Wen...in order to prepare for Otakon. So far, the van will be John, Shaun, Justin, Diane and I... Otakon, 22,000 attendees and his one is REAL work.
On the future... we have a possible Ball Jointed Doll convention in the SoCal area. www.denofangels.com Also, a gothic/lolita convention/event/social in Chicago. Both events are in the pre-production phase... these people are looking into it, nothing is set. I hope this works out for them. I would like to attend these events.
I'm still on a hunt for a 4x5 view camera...the kind people might see in old movies and pictures. View cam have those cloth bellow and the cloth hood in the back. These things are ackward to move around but they offer great resolution!
a 35mm size negative offers about 27mp...million pixel or mega pixel. The most common professional DSLR offers 6mp to 8mp. As you can see, 4in x 5in film offers so much more detail.
On another tangent, my friend is stalking ebay for a used 15in powerbook. She's looking into the 400, 500, 550, or 667mhz models due to their 'low' cost (about 500-600.00). People could get a Dell or HP for 799.00 but... why would I want to mess with ad-ware, ad-virus, popup and crap on a -current windows- machine (Who knows if Longhorn will kill all these negatives). ...and, yes. I am using Firefox on this notebook to type this...and I run Search/Destroy, Ad-aware, ZoneAlarm and AVG...but why should I when I don't have to... doesn't this go back to 'good design'? Can anyone imagine mal-ware or ad-virus hijacking your car's radio or placing stupid ads in your car as you drive? There would be all sorts of federal hearing and jail time thrown out!
I've been 'following' (not closely) the stupid crap-head in the Nikon vs Canon camp. I'm a photographer... and my view (like the majority of the photographers) is that well designed camera is suppose to get out of the way of use taking a picture. http://kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm (Wow! I can PASTE...maybe complaining does help?!). I don't see the point to any of this "my lens is longer than your lens" arguement.
I know there will always be some attachement that goes on...this is only human; but, people should be interested in the result than the hardware. This is NOT the 1700s where quality of equipment can vary greatly. Today, with modern science and manufacturing proccess, and companies reverse engineering...and...SCINCE, EVERY company out there can match the result of EVERY OTHER company. Carol Zeiss and Nikon was never given exclusive rights to make glass by god! =P
Moving on, I favor Nikon because I'd invested in Nikon lenses and Nikon lens mount haven't changed for the past 50yrs. I can pick up many lens from pawn shops which will fit my camera (this occured at Anime Weekend Atlanta one year when my lens broke)
Also, Nikon's entire line (the SLR) are (was) built tougher than any other camera. Minolta and Canon started to use polycarbonate plastic housing (which Nikon followed) in their low and medium level bodies. Due to my life style (evidence by how much duct tape, atheltic cloth tape [which works better] and rubber bands around my N6006 or "F601" for outside of North American market), I need a tougher camera body. I was so taken with the Nikon F3, F4, F5 and the current F6, that i'm trying to save up money to get an old F4 and F5 in my collection. There is nothing like having a brick that you can use to hit people with when you're defending yourself.
I'm looking for a copy of Sir Issac Newton's Principia. Even if the math is beyound me, I must read what Newton saw when he locked himself away for those 18mo of his life.
These are the Fab Four: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. Everyone of these help to give birth to the mechanical universe. After that...Einstein-ian physics took it's place in history and I have NO dellusion...well, yea, I do!!! ^-^ ....of reading Einstein's theory. I'll be drown in a sea of math and forumlas which I won't be able to make out. Then...there is Hawken, who unified Newtonian physics and Einsteinian physics.
......Also, one person (actually, more) is missing... Carol Segan. With his PBS program, Cosmos, made astro physics and astronomy HIP. Was Segan greater than the Fab Four, Einstein or Hawken? No. Were the Fab Four, Einstein or Hawken greater than Segan? No. They were all great in their own way. Segan made science hip and trendy...gotten an 'entire' generation of PBS viewers to think about science.
Thinking about this... if that's the criteria for being 'great', what about Gene Roddenberry? Several generations of NASA dreamers owe their life, their career and their passion to some whimsical show called Star Trek. Moreover, many of today's researchers and university professors were inspired by this very same 60s tv show about a future utopia and a cow-boy captain's adventure to right all the wrongs and ills of the universe.
Thinking about right and wrong...and the significances and fragility of the individual... the movie Rollerball comes to mind... NOT that lame recent Rollerball movie staring the great Jean Reno (La Femme Nakita, The Professional), but the one made in the 70s. I was introduced to that film a few years before the recent Rollerball movie came out. In the earlier version, the question was asked: can the individual become more important than the system?
In a 'corrupted' (corrupt is relitive...some behavior or practices are accepted in differnt [fictional] society) dis-topic future, a lone star (Johnathan) is the symbol who reflects our (the audience) values. In his world, he is the Rollerball star and is trying do what he does best....play rollerball. The corperations are threatened by his stardom and wants him dead. In the end, can one person be more than the system?
Is the NBA bigger than Micheal Jordan? Is Lance Armstrong bigger than Tour de France? They depended on each other, i think, to get to where they are....but, after the Tour, Lance is bigger than some bike ride.
The original Rollerball is a more complex movie than the recent Rollerball.