I thought you guys might like this site:http://paddybrown.co.uk/?p=179

It’s a webcomic version of the Irish epic saga, the Táin Bó Cuailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley) and is very awesome.

But, I digress. I promise to update this more regularly, and the sustainable studentsville idea has sadly fallen by the wayside in the face of the aforementioned laziness. Stay tuned, kids!

We did more of the setting up thing today. More guillotining of little bits of paper and card, running around with brightly coloured tape to indicate where to go for various Fun Activities, and hefting the Awesome Thing of Awesome around.

Activity came pretty much in fits and starts, which was somewhat confusing. I kept feeling like a fifth wheel, or like I was slacking off where stuff needed doing. This may continue. Also I pestered people to make sure they’d eaten, while completely forgetting to eat.

Can I say again how awesome that hotel is? The staff in the shop are lovely, giving me boxes to put things into, chatting away and trying to work out what the hell we’re doing this weekend, and nodding along while I plugged Games Nights in Cassidys at them. They even warned us that our painstakingly wiggly colourful tapes may disappear when the carpets are cleaned tomorrow. They clean the convention site during the con? Wow! But yeah. Lovely hotel, lovely staff, sandwiches in the shop for under a fiver, and the attached offie sells Captain Morgans. Noodles is a happy camper. Oh yeah. Most gamers call me Noodles or Noodle.

Con opens at 10 tomorrow. I’ll be on site from 8.45 in theory. Can’t wait! Now I just hope that t-shirt fits….

A week ago, Kiltman asked me for my t-shirt size. In the world of conventions, this is the equivalent of deciding to which flank the brand should be applied. It basically means “You’re ours for the weekend!”. This is often accompanied by evil or maniacal laughter, the twirling of moustaches and opera capes, and so on.

It is now Thursday. Gaelcon begins on Saturday and officially, I start staffing my ass off tomorrow. Unofficially, I started last Saturday, hanging out at the Con Director’s house and helping to make the dreaded convention passes. I decided on Monday to blog my experiences at this Gaelcon. I’m not sure why – it seemed like a good idea at the time. Here’s what I wrote on the bus on Monday:

I am now on the no. 7 bus to the D4 Hotel Ballsbridge, where the con will be taking place. Kiltman is walking some of us staffers around the site, showing us where everything will (hopefully!) go and the threat of more production work afterwards has been made. This trip is pretty important, because if anyone has trouble finding the con, there will be less fun for all. And we do this for fun. I Googled the route before leaving Maynooth and it looks pretty idiot proof.

Man, this bus is packed! There are even people standing upstairs, which is just insane and bloody dangerous.  Time to pay attention and look for this hotel.

(some time later)

It literally takes fifteen minutes to get from O’Connell Street to the gates of the hotel. Awesome! And the 7 stops right outside the place. Gaelcon have been plugging the accessibility of the site with good reason.

I then bimbled inside and ran into  Con Director and Production Lady. They directed me towards Kiltman, and I met some of the cast of Doctor Horrible. The fun began again. Here’s what I wrote on the bus home, several hours later.

Having seen most of the nooks and crannies of the venue, I’m really impressed. Gaelcon this year takes place in its own little warren – a gamer colony with its own bar(s), deli, shop, pizzeria and offlicence. For those with murderous tendencies towards their lungs, there is even a smoking area directly off one of the rooms. If you’re availing of the Gaelcon rate at the hotel, you could quite easily only leave to go pubbing. Venue is both big and clever. I’m really looking forward to running around it to facilitate your gaming pleasure.

While a tech rehearsal of Doctor Horrible was taking place, a small crew were finishing off the last of the con passes, and doing the eleventy billion game tickets. It’s easy to forget just how much donkey work goes into a con – even when you’ve done it before! Thankfully Production Lady is huge on organisation and forward planning, and she’s doing a really brilliant job.

So far the only problem I’ve had with the venue is that one room smelled like milk. But that’ s nothing that can’t be fixed by opening the windows and Febrezeing the hell out of it. Besides, it’s a games convention. After an hour, nobody is going to notice.

Staffing is often described as being a stressful, thankless job. For me, as may be the case with other repeat offenders, there’s a huge thrill in walking into a bare hall, seeing the floor plan and the stack of tables leaning against the wall, and geting to make the fun stuff happen.  Seeing the hall that you’ve spent hours setting up fill with people, noise and excitement is really awesome, and goes a long way towards making up for the sheer insanity that you put yourself through in pursuit of other people’s enjoyment. That bare hall is literally alive with possibilities, and I really love seeing what happens next. The next entry will most likely be post-con, and very incoherent. I apologise in advance.

So the donkey work starts tomorrow. I’ll be packing a bag tonight, and as soon as college wraps up running for a bus into town. Hopefully the t-shirt will fit – but if not I’ll improvise with it.  See you at the con!

Confession: I have an addiction to new stationery. I love the thrill of writing the first line on a crisp new notebook or writing pad, experimenting with different pens to see which I like best. I like using good quality paper and pens, so far fountain pens and archival paper are my favourites. But that’s a luxury that on my budget I cannot afford, and it’s not exactly sustainable. So back to the drawing board.

Where’s the best place to buy notebooks made from recycled, low-impact paper? Most newsagents have one or two brands, hell even Tesco have them. Any of the sites I checked on Google provided recycled paper (some notebooks even boasting that their covers used to be car tyres!) but there’s a catch. These bad boys are expensive! You’re looking at around a fiver for these notebooks. It’s worth it though. Have one less pint this week and buy one, and then recycle it again when you’re done!

When it comes to printing stuff off in college, be sensible about it. Print double-sided if the printer allows it – ask someone in the computer centre to help if you don’t know how. If you’re printing off slides, put 6 to 9 slides per sheet. And print as little as possible. If you can read notes off a screen, and your lecturer puts their notes on Moodle or a similar resource, use it! Wow. This is a really dull entry. I’ll try to write up something more interesting for the next one.

So watch this space! Coming soon – paper use!

I’ve made some small progress in the fibre department. I’ve learned to crochet and to spin on a drop spindle which really has earned its name! A friend over in the UK made it for me, from sketches of a medieval spindle found in Dublin. Spins like a demon, is slightly unevenly weighted, and the whorl falls off a lot. But I love it. Spinning is very relaxing, and I love being able to see my progress as the yarn gets more and more even. Experienced spinners say that you never can relearn to create bumpy, uneven yarn once you learn to spin evenly, but I’m still at the newbie stage where that’s a good thing.

So, there’s a recession on, apparently. Some of my friends are losing their jobs, one or two others are getting jobs I applied for and wanted, and more power to them. The upshot of this segue is that I have no job this summer, for the first time in about seven years. Wow. Said like that, it makes me feel old. But hey.

So today’s shiny purple distraction is  Summer Plans. What’s a gal to do if she doesn’t have a job for the summer? Make plans, and carry them through. And most of mine have to do with Teh Shiny(copyright, GaietyGirl).

I have the Sustainable Studentsville project to research, a timeline of entries to come up with for it, and hopefully some nice shiny media to jazz them up with. And to prove this stuff works, yes, I will be practicing what I preach.

On the fibrous front, there’s a hell of a  lot to be done this summer. I have a few recycling projects, knitting, spinning, and weaving on the cards, and a bit of dyeing if I can get the dyestuffs and mordants.  I also have my first ever paying commissions, some gloves and a belt sash for costuming. I like costume-making, it is a hugely fun thing to do, and I’ve wanted to make and sell costume pieces for years.

I’m under orders to learn how to garden too, which makes sense if one wants to grow dye plants and such like.

Oh. There’s also  events, LARP, seeing friends, other randomosity…

Leave me a comment, let me know what your summer plans are.