No, I . . .

Duh?

'Scuse me, I have to go pound out a ding in my Weltanschauung.

[smooches jmf]

[exeunt, giggling]

Kind of amazing how big these Internet cafes really are. 'Course, if somebody spills their double mocha latte with bourbon, it's going to take out two dozen keyboards and an unspecified quantity of Bluetooth-enabled body jewelry.

Yup, there we go. Looks just like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in here.

and Hello again to Patrick. We ran parties Friday and Satrurday night, plus table at the exhibits section of the hall because Kansas City is bidding (again) for 2009. I was happy to see him, but I think I encountered him while i was checking on the room (empties, filling food plates, etc.). I don't remember, it's a bit of a blur right now. I took notes but they're on the laptop.

Long trip, we brought too much stuff, then bought more (a couple of things that cost less tha souvenirs stayed there). Then again we were in the UK/Ireland for two and a half weeks.

Margene and I want to go back and either live just outside Dublin or in the Midlands in England. sigh.

Long trip, would be sleepy (we arrived in KC at 11:58) BUT we got really whacked down on the runway and my adrenaline is going to take a bit to reduce enough for me to sleep.

(And by the way, I'm still bummed that I lost my copy of "The Scholars of Night". Actually, my father-in-law did when I lent him the book. But the effect is the same.)

John Milo Ford, the name is. As in Milo Chevrolet.

Serge, I feel for you most sincerely; but no matter how sorrowful you are, you're not getting my copy of The Scholars of Night.

Pickled Dragon Hoax
Early in 2004 there was much excitement in the media over the "discovery" in England of what appeared to be a baby dragon or dragon foetus preserved in formaldehyde in an ancient glass jar. The discovery was made by David Hart. He claimed that the strange object had been saved by his grandfather, a museum curator, and had then gathered dust in the garage for twenty years.
After much media attention and further spinning of yarns, the pickled dragon was revealed to be a hoax. The "creature" was actually a model created by Colin Shulver of Crawley Creatures. It was made from Silicon with latex wings and nylon claws and teeth.

The stunt was masterminded by Allistair Mitchell. Why? Publicity. Mitchell was having trouble getting a publisher interested in his dragon-related fantasy novel. He thought that the publicity might get him a publishing contract.

He was right. His novel is to be published under the penname P.R.Moredun

I always check there first for anything O.O.P.

Serge, it's John M. Ford, known as Mike. No one addresses him as John.

It's one of those skiffy things -- Stan Robinson, Quinn Yarbro, Chip Delany, Scott Card, Jim Kelly, etc.

Congratulations, Mike! That's certainly a well-deserved nomination.

He owned a restaurant called Mike's Cafe, which will be the name of The Much Spoken Of Website, if and when we ever get it up and running. (As distinct from down and running, which applies to subways, sewers, and worm races.)

("How many of the readership of Making Light who were at Intersection came by the Scandinavian room parties?", he asked, tangentially.)

If it affords me the opportunity to use the name Milo, perhaps I will talk about Patrick's nephew rather more...though since I never met or even heard of this nephew before, that could prove difficult.

I wonder if Milo has read The Phantom Tollbooth?

However, your statement:

Will he kill and dismember us and burn our bodies and make drums of our skin if we call him Milo? I love that name! I have ever since I read The Phantom Tollbooth.

could give anybody who has not read the book a mistaken impression of the plot.

(I accidentally typed The Phantom Toolbooth. Now that sounds interesting. Or maybe it should be The Phantom Toolboth.)

I guess I'm older or more cynical or something. I immediately think of Milo Minderbinder.

--Mrs. Michael Dell, who does not get free Dell computers

Wait, something didn't parse right there.

(I just looked up the official NATO alphabet, they use "uniform".)

We were split on whether this was a pro or a con. Yes, there would be some awkwardnesses - but not that much more than with four, and, well, there was a certain cachet to the idea of the House of Davids. Unfortunately the effluxion of time has effaced what finally happened from my memory.

In my youth, I was in an organization that became infested with "Bobs" -- we had to resolve the ambiguity by assigning modifiers on the basis of seniority. "Bob One", "Bob Two",..., etc.

I got to be Big Michelle not only because I was almost half a foot taller than the other Michelle, but because I was taller than almost everyone else in the lab.

I miss being taller than everybody else.

The name in question being Kadiatu Mansaray (We lost one Kadiatu Mansaray and got another Kadiatu "Not-Mansaray" instead. I used to wonder if we were the only place West of Sierra Leone where that happened.

It wasn't as much fun when we ended up with Sherry, Sherrie and Sheri.

I've always been very glad to be a Lenora. I have yet to encounter another one in person, much less work with another of matching name.

There was just enough overlap between my work and Stephan's to result in a lot of very confusing phone calls. ("You're not the guy who works on scheduled MPEG capture?" "Yes, I am, but I'm not the guy who works on scheduled MPEG capture who was in your office in Einhoven last week. I think I'd remember that.")

There was a girl in my school named "Mary Michael Justice," which has got to be the best catholic-girl name ever.

The last time I had to give a serial number over the phone, I said "C as in Charlie, M as in Mary, V as in......VROOOOOM!"

The thing of it is, I still can't think of what to use for V. Van? Vowel? Veritas? ["Veritas as in Harvard..."] Vishnu? Violin would work, I suppose, but isn't satisfying.

Several years later, I joined a local fannish organization (the Stilyagi Air Corps) which contained a Cathy and a Kathy. Sometimes they were designated "Cathy-with-a-C" and "Kathy-with-a-K," but more often "Cathy-who-is-short" and "Kathy-who-is-tall." Another Cathy arrived later and was duly designated "Cathy-who-is-of-moderate-height."

Caroline: NATO uses "Victor"; if you find that aesthetically unsatisfying, I have no particular alternative recommendation.

At this job, I work with another Patrick on a project whose acronym, thankfully, is something completely different.

--Mary Aileen

In the NATO phonetic alphabet, V is Victor.

In the older, Hitler's War Allied phonetic alphabet also used Victor, which may tell you just how hard it is to come up with a good word. (If recollection serves, the Royal Navy at one time used Vinegar, which isn't bad, but it's still an extra syllable compared to Victor.)

Samples: k as in knot, q as in quay, w as in why.

And as for key syllables and such things, a friend once told me he knew NOTHING about music, and that if I was going to show him anything I should start on that basis. So I pointed him at the C on my keyboard, played the notes of the scale starting there, and said "You probably know a sequence of nonsense syllables that go with these."

Well, he knew more than that. But he decided to play along, and he played the C and said "Ig." Then played the D and said "Wap." In all, he said "Ig - Wap - Pith - Ku - Lupp - Na - Ing."

I was so delighted by this that I wrote a whole filk putting those syllables to the Sound of Music treatment. Most of the stresses are in the wrong places and it's just awful. I'm very proud of it.

I always wanted to be named Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate.

When I worked for a Chinese company a few years ago, my CFO, who I mainly reported to, was a woman named Weiping Zhang (aka Madame Zhang, which Avram always thought sounded like a supervillain) while one employee at a subsidiary company on our payroll was a man named Weiping Zhang. I never met Mr. Zhang, so I wasn't confused, but it amused me.

The jargon is the fundamental particle of incomprehensibility. When a jargon and an antijargon collide, they annihilate each other, resulting in the emission of a pair of high-energy grammar rays.

And I did once know a man named Ralph, son of another man named Ralph. They tried the Big Ralph/Little Ralph trick, till Little Ralph (inevitably) grew taller than his dad. Then they went to Father Ralph/Son Ralph.

That worked until Son Ralph had a vocation to the Catholic priesthood.

I once worked at a place where there were four men named John, in one work area. We used last names to tell them apart: John Keil, Jon Arbulich, John Sellers, John Cooper.

***

Re: Big/Little, I had a great aunt called Little Flo although she and just-plain-Flo overlapped by only a few years. It's odd that she wasn't called by her middle name instead, as was often the case in my family if given names would create confusion.

For instance, my grandmother was always called Edith, although her full name was Mary Edith and her brother Al (sometimes Albie but he hated that) was John Albert. Little Flo was their eldest sibling.

There was also a Big Harold and a Little Harold (in fact, Big Harold was married to Little Flo, Little Harold was their son) thus perpetuating the abberant Big/Little thing. To add to the confusion, just-plain-Harold was the youngest sibling of my grandmother's (and Little Flo's), so Big/Little did often help in knowing which chunk of the family was being addressed or discussed.

I continue to answer to almost every variant of Rebecca, with the exceptions of Reba and anyything in reference to Sunnybrook Farm. This makes it awkward when I'm not the only Beca in the room. I remain thankful that it's not as common as, say, Kim. Which is a very nice name, but there's five of them in the fairly small office I work at.

"The grammar ray is a great weapon. It can mess up people spelling for years, don't put it on to [sic] high though, or else it will make them almost brain dead. Trust me on that, I had personal problem with that."

lgmss
Super Speedster
Posts: 813
Location: In a plane.
Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 5:30 pm

As you've observed, on another thread, a good idea is OFTEN thought of by many people. When it's steam engine time...

In the academic/scientific world, it matters who published first. In Science Fiction, it's who published BEST!

Something to do with the similar sudden death of my partner, possibly. There's a tender spot, still. I've likened these sudden ambushes of grief to tiger attacks.