Fairly early yesterday afternoon, my friend Pádraig posted on FB to say that after a sudden turn for the worse, Iain Banks had died early yesterday morning. I didn’t repost until I saw it confirmed elsewhere, because although there was really no chance Pádraig was wrong, I was still holding out a tiny thread of hope. Honestly, I have no business being so saddened by his death. I met him at a small convention in Belfast over the course of a weekend, and was completely charmed by him. I still,…
So my Walker Papers editor, Matrice, is in Ireland this week. With some crazy last minute planning, we managed to meet up for lunch today in Kilkenny, which is about halfway between where she was and where I am. I hopped on the train and had a lovely ride down, and got off the train grinning like a five year old full of anticipation. Matrice was waiting for me, and we had a little walk through Kilkenny town centre and found our way to the vicinity of the castle there.…
I admit I’m taking a certain amount of glee from watching the horror of the Red Wedding unfold across my Facebook page (mostly Facebook; in other places the geek quotient is higher and more people knew what was coming). Bahahaha. :) Oh, I forgot to mention the ridiculously cool birthday present I got. One of my friends is a performance artist, and was wracking his brain to come up with a gift for me, and suddenly thought, “I could do an in-home 5 minute performance!” And he did, much to…
One of the people I ran into at the Star Trek party the other night was there with her sister. They were both in costume, and one of them, Susan, mentioned that RTE had interviewed them because RTE was all OOH YEAH SISTERS SO YOU’RE A FAMILY OF TREKKIES RIGHT and stuff. Next morning, another friend of mine, Carol, said, “Hey, my sisters are the first story on RTE’s coverage of the Star Trek party!” WHUT I had no idea they were related. The moment it was revealed, however, it…
Last night I went to see Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo+Juliet, because I’d never seen it and they’re doing a Luhrmann month at one of the cinemas to lead up to Gatsby. (Picoreview: It was pretty good. Bits felt like a dry run for Moulin Rouge, but it was pretty good.) Upon arriving at the Lighthouse Cinema I discovered there was a Star Trek party scheduled for a midnight premiere. Upon *leaving* R+J, I ran into friends…who had a spare ticket. I did not go. Somewhat grumpily and bitterly and regretfully, I…