Category: Real Life

First of all, apologies for anyone trying to reach the site recently. Hoster is having problems that are beyond its immediate control, and has otherwise been a cool place to be running from.

Second, I should have realized that once I finally got in the con, I’d be too busy to post things. :)

Anyway, Friday was interesting. First convention LARP I dealt with since ShoreCon 94 (and there were reasons behind why I’ve waited so long – another story…). Quite good actually. It’s called ‘Grim Tales’ if anyone’s interested in trying this at later Double Exposure conventions.

Saturday was basically one 8-hour event I walked into, but an absloutely amazing and insane one. It was a Babylon 5 minis battle, recreating the big one at Corianis. Pictures of the battle (and possibly me, as I took 3rd place), will probably end up in a magazine called ‘Signs and Portents’ since it was the largest staged battle at 150 mins representing over 1500 ships.

The only downside to doing 8-hour Arena battles is that I had a sore back and two very hurt feet. I spent the next hour down in the hot tub soaking my feet and the next day and a half sleeping off the pain (I went home early Sunday).

My feet still hurt today, but that’s probably since I spent the next two days walking New York on vacation. More on that later as well.

Anyway, onward and sleepward.

–TSK

I am currently sitting at the Hilton East Brunswick, awaiting the beginning of Dexcon’s opening ceremonies.

Though I’ve been here many times now (and at several different hotels over the years), this year is slightly different. I’ve donated prizes both to their opening ceremonies and to their prize pool (the latter will arrive on Friday morning). It’s also the first time in awhile that I could not get all the days off, so right after this I have to run off to work. Ah well…

It should be an interesting weekend, as I’ve decided to bring my HP notebook over here and actually use it, much like I did at State of Play last October.

Of course, there’s also that thing about work again. As I was leaving for here, there was a problem that may need my presence later on in the night. *sigh* Typical.

Wish me luck; I’ll send an update of sorts probably on Friday, as I will not make it back here on Thursday.

–TSK

EDIT – For the last (and most expensive) item I had donated, I was asked to come up to do the draw. Of course, it took three pulls before someone hit, since you have to be in the room when the number is called. Given this week, I was not entirely surprised. *rolling eyes*

For those who’ve not heard about this neat app, Bad Behavior is an anti-spambot plugin for WordPress and other PHP-based content systems. I’ve had it on this site for some time now and has worked well; The sister (Uru-IC) site also had it from its first day online. Its quite amazing, never had any issues with it, even from work (which I’m briefly doing this from right now).

Well, this week the 2.0 version made it out to release. I’ve already upgraded (which was relatively painless), and still going OK. This release is currently working seamlessly for WordPress 1.5 and above, and instructions for MediaWiki are also available. Other systems are to be supported as the author has time; It was pushed out a bit early in response to increasing spambot traffic.

I’d suggest anyone using WordPress to at least take a peek at it. Other PHP content systems (his list of known ports as well as notes to do your own porting here) could also be used; In fact I’m considering adding this to the little ‘sandbox’ subdomain I setup for testing things.

Info on the release here.

–TSK

Lost a well-respected – even if pun-filled – financial host this week.

Louis Rukeyser – 1933-2006

–TSK