Home of the Autographed Cat – Page 20 – Gwnewch y pethau bychain

Between 2005 and 2009, I didn’t play a lot of music in public. It wasn’t a decision I made to withdraw from the stage. It started because of struggles with depression that caused me to withdraw from a lot of social spheres, and then after I came out the other side of that particular emotional valley, I just…didn’t. No one was asking me if I wanted to, and I wasn’t volunteering, and the longer it went on, the more it just became…normal. This wasn’t just not doing concert sets or one shots; many have noted that I absented myself from open filk, preferring instead to spend my con time socialising or lurking around the edges.

The last couple of years, I’ve been making an effort to get back to playing public, because…I enjoy it. So I’ve made an effort at cons to make itto at least a little bit of open filk, if only to justify having brought my guitar. And when mrgoodwraith asked me at OVFF a couple of yearsago if I’d like to come play a short set at Confluence in 2011, I eagerly agreed. Unfortunately, just before I was to book my flight, kitanzi unexpectedly lost her job, and I couldn’t justify the expense. Randy understood, and extended an invitation to come up in 2012 instead.

Jackie sits back, collects his thoughts for the moment…

By autographedcat

On September 6, 2012

In Blog

“You know that feeling you get when you’re leaning back in a chair, and you lean back a little too far, and you start to tip over but then at the last minute you catch yourself?

I’m like that all the time.”
–Stephen Wright

It’s been an eventful summer. Not that you’d know that from following this journal, but it has. So I’ve got a few posts to make about recent events and future plans. If you’re still reading, you can expect them over the next few days.

2012 Pegasus Awards Final Ballot

By autographedcat

On August 30, 2012

In Blog

Hey, what’s that? Why, it’s the final ballot for the 2012 Pegasus Awards! Congratulations to all the nominees!

http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/2012finalballot.html

Slip Off The Edge And Never Worry About The Fall

By autographedcat

On August 7, 2012

In Blog

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Here are my questions: Will you thrust your foot across that imaginary line, or will you back away from it, scouting around for an escape route? Will you risk causing a commotion in order to scratch the itch in your ambition? Or will you shuffle on back to your comfort zone and caress your perfect daydreams? Personally, Cancerian, I’m hoping you will elect to do what’s a bit unsettling. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you should. If you make a bold move, make sure you’re not angling to please or impress me — or anyone else, for that matter. Do it as a way to express your respect for yourself — or don’t do it.

(from Rob Brezney’s Free Will Astrology)

Nominate! Nominate! Vote for the music!

By autographedcat

On June 5, 2012

In Blog

It’s the time again, Mr. and Mrs Filker and all the ships in C….time once again to send in your nominating ballot for the Pegasus awards!

And you can tell everybody, these are the songs
We should give out awards to, sometime in the fall
I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind, that we put it online
We all thought it best it be easy to find…

The brainstorming is done, and that means the nominating ballot is available for you to fill out!

The results of the brainstorming poll are here:

http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/opinions.html

And the actual nominating ballot is here:

http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/2012nomballot.html

If you aren’t sure what the Pegasus awards are or who they’re for, or whether or not you should nominate for them, well, i had a lot to say on the subject, but then Vixy went and said it all better than I was going to, so I’ll just link to her piece here as well:

The Pegasus Award, what it is, and what it isn’t

Let’s make this happen!

I told you everything I knew in a manic rushing line…

By autographedcat

On April 27, 2012

In Blog

Many years ago, fleetfootmike and I set up FilkNet and its IRC channel as a service to the filk community. It became a place where filkers from all over the world could gather, a virtual space to call our own. Over the years, it was vibrant and warm and a great place to be home on the Internet when we couldn’t be in a filkcircle at a convention.

Of late, it’s a bit of a ghost town.

Maybe life got busy and you just fell out of the habit of checking in, or maybe you just don’t have time. Maybe something happened (either in or out of the #filkhaven space) that made you decide to stay away. Maybe you were completely unaware of the existence of it, or don’t even know what IRC is.

When I started to write this, it was as an administrator of a service, wanting to find out where the users had gone, but honestly, it’s more personal than that. I miss my friends and I want to see them in our big crazy chatroom again. Or for the first time.

Comments to this entry are screened. If you’d like to say something private about your feelings about the #filkhaven channel, you can leave them here. Or, as always, you can email me at autographedcat@gmail.com.

But if you’ve no particular reason to be away, come on in. I’d love to see you.

The Things You Lean On Are The Things That Don’t Last

By autographedcat

On April 24, 2012

In Blog

They say that any box you haven’t opened in 5 years probably contains nothing you really desperately need. There is wisdom in this, and I have, at the top of my back closet, three boxes, labelled "Rob’s Desk", which were packed when we moved into this apartment in 2007, and have been sitting up on the top shelf untouched ever since.

Because of the above axiom, it was tempting to just take the boxes down, and toss them in the dumpster. But I knew there WAS one valuable thing up there, which was the boxes themselves. So tonight, pulled each one down and went through them, sorting the (very few) keepable things from the trash. Most of it was the usual assortment of old bills and papers that should have been discarded years ago and instead wound up in an increasing strata of desk drawer until it was transferred, unsorted and unexamined, into a box on moving day. But there were some things unearthed that, while of varying levels of value, were at least amusingly interesting and an insight into my packrat nature. They included:

A Consonance 2007 program book and song book
D&D character sheets for a campaign that ended when the Suttons moved to Indiana
Cheques with our old address, obsolete since 2007
Family photo from reunion in 2004
Two envelopes of Kitanzi’s pay stubs, some dating back to when she lived in New Hampshire
A Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 video card (with 64MB of vRAM!)
A strand of Mardi Gras beads
Christmas card/Family photo from J., dated 2000, featuring one more wife and one fewer son than he has currently
A compact tool kit
A variety of CDs, both labeled and unlabled
A menu from a restaurant that closed some years ago
A laptop-sized ram chip with 256MB of PC133 ram
A Radio Shack branded widgit that looks like an S-Video to RCA adapter
2 USB to PS/2 adapters.
A Microsoft Windows Services for Unix 3.5 CD
A map of Paragon City from the original 2004 release of City of Heroes
Program books from Gafilks 3, 5, 7 and 8.

I seriously need to do something about my packrat tendencies. *examines state of current desk* And, like, soon…

I’m a winner, I’m a sinner, do you want my autograph?

By autographedcat

On April 19, 2012

In Blog

This morning, on my way to work, I stopped by Subway to pick up something to eat. Deciding that I was feeling more breakfasty than lunchy, I asked for a ham, egg, and cheese on flatbread.

The guy behind the counter looked perplexed. "We don’t serve that after 11am, sorry."

"Aww, that’s too bad," I said, genuinely disappointed but willing to go along with this news for the sake of getting food and leaving. Subway isn’t a deli, it’s a fast food joint, and I have no illusions about that.

"You could still get a bacon, egg and cheese," he added helpfully.

"So…..that’s still available after 11, but the ham isn’t?"

"Right. Would you like that instead?"

"Suuuuure." Clerk goes about assembling my sandwich, and asking what sort of cheese I want (pepperjack, of course). Then, as he carefully layers the small triangles of dairy spice on my sandwich, I added "…and I’d like you to, for an extra charge, add ham to that." and pointed at the ham.

"You want ham as well?" he confirmed, with a mixture of wariness and appreciation, as if I was enticing him to do something terribly naughty and he was realising that he was going to enjoy it.

I walked out with a nicely toasted bacon, egg, and cheese AND HAM sandwich on flatbread. More importantly, I have once again subverted the system and shaped reality to my will.

"We have done the impossible, and that has made us mighty."
–Captain Malcolm Reynolds

Protected: Don’t Push Me Cause I’m Close To The Edge

By autographedcat

On April 12, 2012

In Blog

I was struck by lightning walking down the street

By autographedcat

On April 4, 2012

In Blog

This morning, I was roused from a pleasing dream by an work-related phone call at 6am. After taking care of the problem, I decided to just stay up, since this is the day the cleaners come and I wanted to get out of the house before they arrived so I wouldn’t be underfoot (or, indeed, under-dressed.)

So I got dressed and out the door by 8, with a few hours to kill before I had to be at work. (Since I currently live on the east coast, but cover the west coast support hours, my schedule is slightly off-set from everyone else. This has ups and downs, but that’s another post…)

I sauntered down to the local barber shop for my bi-monthly shearing, then walked across the parking lot to the Original Pancake House, where I had three original pancakes, bacon, eggs, and grits. (A hearty and calorically expensive meal, but a very tasty one, I must say, and since it’ll likely count for both lunch and dinner, it shouldn’t set me back.) I then popped down to the North Point area for some idle shopping. Went into Target first, because it was open and nothing much else was, and browsed around the clothing section and the media/electronics area, and I grabbed a copy of <i>The Hunger Games</i>, which I still have not read or seen. (I may wait to read it until AFTER I see the movie. Or I may not. I haven’t decided.)

Once it was 10am, I wandered over to Ken Stanton Music to inquire about the guitar strings I ordered, and noodle around in the acoustic room for a while. Bought a nifty little electronic tuner, because while the one on my phone is perfectly functional, i don’t always want to have to haul it out when I just need to do a quick check.

I stopped by the Big & Tall store to look for vests. I’ve decided that my summer look this year (yes, that’s a thing, shut up) is going to be a shirt and tie with a vest, rather than a jacket, because it really does get very warm for a jacket all the time in Georgia, no matter how good they look. Alas, they were no longer carrying the cool casual vests they used to, which made me sad. It’s actually very hard to shop for these on the Internet, because they get lost in the noise of all the very expensive 3pc suit vests or the outdoorsy fleece type things. What I’m looking for essentially *is* a suit vest, only, y’know, cheaper. 🙂

My final stop before heading into work was CVS. I needed to drop off a refill request to pick up later, and while I was there I picked up some caffeine laden beverages, because I got four hours of sleep last night and it might be required. I had the most amusing conversation with the girl at the checkout:

"Picking up some energy to get through the day, huh?"
"Yeah. Got woken up at 6am, so I might need it."
"I was out until 3am, went to bed at 7am, got up and 8 and was at work at 9."
"Wow, that’s pretty hardcore. I hope you were at least having fun."
"Not really."
"Well., that’s too bad. I hope you have fun tonight, then!"
"Nah. I’ll probably go out partying again."

I thought about this for a moment, and said philosophically, "If you’re going out partying and not having fun, you’re doing it wrong." She looked perplexed and said "What?" "If you’re going out partying and not having fun, you’re doing it wrong. You should find a better party." "I *like* that!" she said happily, having seen the light on the road to Damascus, or at the very least, the road to the disco, and thus I fulfil my mission of bringing profundity to the sleep-deprived.

And now I’m at work. Time for some thrilling heroics.