Maybe I’ll be able to tell you in person how much I like your site and blog!

Robert Forward managed to write about a involving a couple and TWO of the gentlemen’s older selves (I forget the title).

The older the gentleman got, the more he looked forward (har!) to the encounter, so maybe HolyJuan is on to something with the “older/fatter future spouse” bit.

I guess if I met my future time traveling self I’d be able to take my ex up on her suggestion that I go do a NSFW activity with myself.

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Heinlein did it first. David Gerrold did it second.

See, I’m speaking as a San Diegan (albeit one stuck in NYC right now). Within the next two weeks, the San Diego Convention Center will be *entirely* swamped by geeks, dorks, and nerds of various flavors. Yes, it’s nominally a comics convention, and comics do take center stage, but there’s room for everyone, and there’s a number of scifi (often mixed with fantasy, admittedly, but I like ‘em both, so works for me) author panels as well as knowledgable booksellers. And of course there’s overlap between sci-fi and comics, too! Schlock Mercenary comes immediately to mind, and Howard Taylor’s been there every year I have. So, yeah, smaller cons may not last when the big ones have much more bang for your time spent (given bigger budgets and the ability to draw in headliners), but the convention itself is alive and well.

I think it’s a little unfair to note the demise of two overly ambitious supermegacatastrophe’s as the trend for all sci fi cons. I do agree he has a point about the internet taking away some of the advantages of the con. Having internet availability to online order any random gimmick reduces the dealer room draw, and internet chat and bulletin boards do provide fan interaction/debate. I think a bigger problem is the aging of the fan base and aging of the people running and attending. The younger crowds are more in to anime/manga.

1. Have a secret question

The funny part is, I came up with one back when I was 9 years old.

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gDx7iW2Nug6x/610x.jpg

The top whitish blue dot is the lander, the black dot the heat shield, and the whitish mark at the bottom is the parachute. Pretty cool!

Thank you so much for sharing that HiRISE photo. The last one you posted where you could actually see the thing dangling from its chute as it descended through the Martian atmosphere really caught my imagination and has been my desktop at work. I love explaining to my co-workers what the white fuzz in a field of blotty black is…and yes they DO think I’m a geek.

Best,

Charles

Be my guest to rebut. Start, if you will, with the obvious drop of viewership NASA experienced with Apollo news during the program. You should know that by Apollo 13, the video feed from the spacecraft went nowhere until someone could die. Present the Congressional reasoning for killing funding. Continue, if you will, with the layman’s keen understanding and enthusiasm today of CICOPS and HIRISE, as news of Britney outsells the entire aerospace reference section at Barnes & Noble.

Gee, go look at the flight hardware. It got salvaged for tourist viewing; a bunch of it is at KSC today in the Saturn V exhibit, which people find less interesting than pretending Mickey Mouse is real. Count those numbers. They’re a damned shame.

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Dragoncon set records last year for attendance – the Fire Marshal intervened several times. We’ll see this Labor Day. All 25 hotels Travelocity reports as “downtown” are also listed as sold out for that weekend but one: the Ritz, at $389 a night. That’s when I checked two weeks ago. There’s a ballgame in town, too.

Phil, while you have only been in Colorada for a short time, what do you know about MileHigh Con?
Going to be at Denvention 3?

As for Kapitan K, I think what Darth Mojo laments predates the recent very rapid rise in gas prices.

George

brb – someone at the door

If I were one of Fred Saberhagen’s berserkers, I couldn’t have come up with a better scheme to pin humanity down than reward the mediocre, as we have. If we can wait some more, until chemical reserves are squandered, we don’t have to worry about going anywhere at all.

Are you going to tell be people that it’s misled (MY-zild) and not misled (MISS-led)?