Kylie Chan

I had a blast at GenCon, sharing thoughts and advice with writers who want to get published, and writers who are already published - it felt strange to sit up there with literary royalty like Sean Williams, Marianne de Pierres, Ian Irvine, and Matt Farrer.  Fortunately I didn't completely freeze and was able to add something constructive.

A few things I really enjoyed about GenCon was the loud display of memes that only the truly hard-core would understand.

- The whole Con got Rick Roll'd on the main screen on the last day. 

- There was a guy running around with the 'Moar Dots' T-shirt (on the back it said "OK Stop Dots")

- Matt Farrer spoke LolCat during one of the seminars  ("I can has...?")

- There were two girls in Inuyasha and Sesshomaru costumes carrying a sign saying "Will Yaoi for Pocky". 

This was my first real con as a real-type author-type person and it was extremely cool.  They've already said they hope I'll be back next year, and a couple of people approached us and told us that the seminars were very informative. 

4BC was another brush with 'being a celebrity' that was great fun.  They were all so NICE!  There were five of us in the studio in the paranormal show, and the electricity between the guys was fantastic.  Their relaxed professional attitude really helped me to not panic, and make a halfway decent account of myself.

After all of that I took myself down to the Gold Coast for a couple of days to chill and write.  I got a whole chapter written and some great ideas on where the story is going.

I have an apartment at the Gold Coast, part of the property settlement from the divorce.  It's quite valuable, but the management fees, body corporate rates, council rates, and the mortgage repayments on it (I received it from the settlement with a heavy loan hanging over it) mean that it's usually money coming out of my pocket to pay for keeping it.  It's rented in the letting pool as a holiday apartment, so it's managed by the resort company and they take a big chunk of the income as management fees before passing the rest on to me.  I'd rent it out full-time but I like having the option of having it there when I want to take a holiday there myself!

It's getting on a bit, though, and the furnishings were never first-class from the start - we bought it fully furnished and it's pounded by the steady flow of guests through it.  The management company have contacted me a couple of times and I've discussed refurbishing it with them, but I was waiting to get a quote until after I'd received the October royalty cheque.

The management company forced my hand, though, by sending me an email telling me that the bed in the main bedroom was 'past its time' and they'd 'taken it out'.  They'd effectively made the apartment unusable, killing all possibility I had for earning income from it.  They gave me a quote for a new bed - nearly a thousand dollars for a king size - saying that they could get it installed within three days.

I didn't have a choice - the bed was gone, the apartment was unusable, and I don't have time to go shopping around for a king bed that can be zipped apart into two singles, particularly one that could be delivered in three days.  Fume.

I contacted them on the phone and they wouldn't pinpoint exactly what was wrong with the bed, just that it was 'past its time'.  And that it was lucky that this happened now, the day after school holidays finished.  Yeah, lucky about that perfect timing.  And lucky that they could get a replacement in, in only three days.  Incredibly lucky.

Fume.

Yes, the furnishings did need replacing, and I was aware of it, but I really wanted to wait until October - I have far too many bills coming in right now to throw five thousand dollars at this!

On a lighter note, Himself and Myself went to see Zohan - another movie that's been heavily panned by the critics (see a pattern emerging here?)  One reviewer on imdb described this movie as 'like watching an orphanage burn'.  

Himself: "It wasn't quite THAT bad.'

Me:  "Yeah, maybe like watching an old people's home burn.  Or a petting zoo.  That's it, the movie was like watching a petting zoo burn."

Him:  <The usual 'my wife is insane' grin.>

The verdict? -3/10 on the shiny scale.  Yes that's a minus.  What I distinctly disliked, and my husband is doing his eye-rolling 'damn feminists' thing here, is the portrayal of all the women in the movie as sex objects, even the old ladies.  Yeah, go old people being sexually active, more power to you, but dressing the women up in a french maid costume and bondage queen costume just for the 'ew' factor - I can hear little puppies and kitties in the petting zoo dying here.  Mr Sandler has added a new word to the English language - something so crass and gross that  it makes others feel nauseous, purely to get an 'ew' out of them.  The 'Zohan'.  There is now a negative 'shiny' scale and that is the 'Zohan' scale.

After much agonizing and nervousness on my part, GenCon have finally contacted me with the schedule for my appearances at the con at the Brisbane Convention Centre.  Apparently rooms had to be moved around so they weren't aware of who went where until the last minute.

On Thursday I'll be on the 'Building a Better Bad Guy' panel at 2pm; then signing from 3 till 4pm.

On Friday I'll be doing Worldbuilding at 12 noon, then signing from 1 till 2, then on the Showcase at 6pm.

On Saturday I'll be on a writing seminar at 10am, then a Q and A at 1 pm followed by a signing from 2 till 3.

On Sunday I'll be on a panel entitled 'Mistakes Most Writers Make' (which I am an expert at) at 10am, followed by a signing at 11, then another panel at 2pm.

Monday I'll collapse in a small exhausted heap.  I just hope I don't suffer too much from foot-in-mouth disease, I'm very new at this 'appearing in public' business and I have really no idea what to expect!

Next Tuesday the 8th of July, I'll be appearing on the paranormal radio show with Ian Maurice on Brisbane's radio 4BC at 9pm.  That should be interesting - I've been invited as 'an expert on Chinese mythology'.  Huh, me?

Saw the Hulk - for a while there I thought it was going to take itself too seriously, with soldiers marching in lines with big guns - but I was relieved when Tim Roth appeared and started to chew the scenery - really getting his teeth into his role - and it just rollicked along from there.

I've been pulled up for using the expression 'chewing the scenery' but let's face it when an actor really starts to have fun with the role - that's what they're doing.  Apparently it's something only 'oldies like you' say.  Well, humph to that.

We saw 'Prince Caspian' and for a PG movie - wow the body count was higher than Hulk!  One of my gay friends said that the actor who played Prince Caspian was the most gorgeous guy he had ever seen.  

"What," I said, "you were sitting there wriggling and giggling like a schoolgirl?"

"You were there!" he said.  

Caspian was very pretty - but he was the prettiest one there!  Even prettier than the girls!  And I happen to like the man I'm with, kthanksbye.

Gonna be a hectic four days with GenCon coming up.  Next week I'm going to take a couple of days by myself to hide away and get some writing done.  Deadline is looming, and I'm only halfway there.  Don't panic, though, I'll get it done! 

Trips to the cinema with my husband and daughter are always fun.  Me and Missy are critical, and Himself just sighs and asks why we have to wreck it!

I wanted to see "Speed Racer" because it had been so very heavily slammed by the critics.  It was made by the guys who produced the Matrix (which as a jaded SF reader for me was sort of 'yawn - yeah - seen all that before' except for the martial arts sequences and splosions which were SHINY).

"Speed Racer" has been heavily criticised for being plotless with poor acting and eye-watering special effects that add nothing to the storyline.

Well, I'm sorry, critics, but I really liked it.  They knew exactly what they were going for, and they got there.  Yes, plot takes a back seat to the SHINIES but that's what I like in my movies.  It was a wonderful capturing of the spirit of anime - simple, straighforward, and spectacular.  The visuals struck a particular chord in me with the mix of seventies kitsch with futuristic design and the colors were perfect.  It was more like a theme park ride than a movie - in fact the critics have panned it for being just that - but I happen to like my theme park rides thankyouverymuch and if that's what a movie sets out to deliver then I'm happy to sit back and go along with it.

At one stage I was laughing - there was a building in this futuristic city that looked like a goddamn parrot for god's sake (deliberately so!) - and my husband whispered in my ear, "What are you laughing at?"

"It's just so silly" I quietly replied through the giggles.  And it is.  This is a monumentally silly movie with a ridiculous storyline and eye-popping visuals. 

And I happen to really like silly.  And eye-popping visuals.  So: I don't care if the critics said it's not Oscar material,  I liked it. 

My daughter had me in fits by singing the old anime "Speed Racer" theme in the car on the way home.

And her verdict?

"Speed Racer is so GAY!  And why would anyone call their kid THAT?"

Another movie we did the Family thing with was Indiana Jones.  Missy has now seen all four of the movies (and after a return to Temple Of Doom I can again say I don't like that one, I don't enjoy watching people being tortured and killed, call me a wuss.)  He verdict is the same as mine - One and Three are cool, Two is Ick.

I was very good in the cinema at Crystal Skull.  When Indy is surviving That Blast I did not loudly say "Oh yeah, like that's going to happen."

When Indy is gazing up at a certain spine-chilling Cold War icon I did not loudly say, "Hey, Indy, you're dead in two days, mate, make up your will now."

The kids in my clan in the online game still laugh and tell each other to 'call it a rope!'

The verdict on Indy?  Well it broke the SHINY meter (which is a smoking wreck anyway after 'Speed Racer') and went halfway up the "OMG How Cool Is THAT!" Scale. Cherrie said the ending was 'stupid' but I quite like watching whole valleys being destroyed and the Amazon rushing into wash them away.  

Himself made the comment (Spoiler warning) - 'Why Aliens? That's sort of lame.'

My reply? 'Well he's found the Ark of the Covenant, and the Holy Grail, there wasn't much left for him to find, was there?'

Himself: 'Yeah, I spose.'

So verdicts on the two movies:

Speed Racer - SHINY 10/10 SPLOSIONS 10/10 who cares about plot on a theme park ride?

Indy - SHINY broken and halfway up the WHOA HOW COOL IS THAT scale.  SPLOSIONS 10/10 as well.

Next: Shiny Green Giant.  We're gonna go see the Hulk. 

Okay so I'm not writing all the time.  I've spent some wonderful part-time hours working at Drug-Arm, a fantastic drug support and outreach centre here in Brisbane.  I've been helping them to promote their 'Healthy High' fund-raising event for this year - which works as a ten-day sponsored alcohol-free marathon. (www.drugarm.com.au )

I received another Big Box o' Books from Stephanie at Harper-Collins (god I LOVE this part of the gig).  Just finished Jenn Fallon's third 'Tide Lord' book, 'The Palace of Impossible Dreams".  But the series isn't finished at three!  Oh the horror!  And GO JEN for producing a four-book series.  The storyline just gets more intriguing and the ideas are certainly mind-blowing.  In my books, people struggle to attain Immortality.  In hers, they regard it as a curse.  Great fun.

I fail as a mother.  My 13-year-old daughter had never seen ANY of the Indiana Jones movies.  How could we take her to see 'Crystal Skull' if she hadn't experienced the other three?  We had a DVD marathon, the three of us, and now she can't wait to see the latest instalment.

Went with the family to see 'Iron Man', and I enjoyed that immensely too!  It wins 8/10 on the 'SHINY' scale, 7/10 on the 'PRETTY SPLOSIONS' scale, and 9/10 on the 'WHOA WHAT A RIDICULOUS PLOT POINT' scale (this is not a bad thing!).  Who cares, when it's shiny, it has very pretty 'splosions, and the characters are all so great.  The bad guy with his close-up stand-over tactics was just slimy, so well done Jeff Bridges.  Everybody's done RDJ's take on Tony Stark to death, but he's proven that he's an actor of true class with this one.  A couple of times I wanted to slap Gwyneth Paltrow, but she pulled it all together in the end. 

A couple of times I loudly said 'SHINY' in the cinema, much to my family's embarassment.  Haven't done that since the second matrix movie. 

Missie has two weeks off from school and I told the temp agency I would be busy.  I will be busy - working on book four.  And doing my tax.  And preparing some legal documents.  And clan events.

I went to Supanova with my daughter, son and son's girlfriend on Saturday.  The anime shops are evil, I tell you, EVIL!  I have extremely fond memories of Astroboy (the original sixties black and white version) from when I was a child.  When you're four years old, that sort of stuff can really be inspirational - a vision of the future inhabited by robots!

So when I reached the Madman booth - there they were.  Complete boxed sets of all the episodes of Astroboy ever made.  The black and white sixties series, and the excellent colour series produced in the eighties.

I bought the eighties set, cringed at the money I was splurging on myself, and went back to the kids.

"They have the original sixties version too," I said.

"Why didn't you buy it?" Missie said.

I cringed.  "It's TWO boxes and..." I raised my shopping bag.  "I've already bought this!"

Missie pushed me.  "You won't get this chance again, Mum.  Go buy it.  Oh, and by the way, you're OLD!"

So I did.  I bought TWO boxes of sixties Astroboy as well as the eighties version.  I'm gonna be Astro'd out by the end of the holidays.

Later I went back to the Madman booth with my son and told the staff there that they were evil because I'd just bought all the Astroboy.  The staff member grinned and pointed.  "Have you bought the manga?" ... Evil! 

My husband was sceptical.  How could anything from 1963 still be good value?  I pulled out the first episode and was immediately transported to 1968, when I used to sit in front of the TV, rapt.

And then, Oh My God.  Stuff that's 'funny' when you're school age takes a whole new meaning when you're an adult with an evil mind.

Astro's father sells him to a circus owner in a fit of insanity.

Slimy Circus Owner (in best paedophile voice, rubbing hands together): 'Oh my, you're an interesting little one.'

Me (to husband): 'Oh my god he just got sold to a paedophile.'

Child circus robot, on the scrap heap for 'not pleasing the crowd': 'I'm running out of energy, he won't feed me!'

Astro: 'I'll share my energy with you!  Where's your socket?'

Child circus robot: 'On my hip.'

Child circus robot then gets down on all fours, and Astro pulls down his pants revealing his tiny bottom, with sockets on it.  Astro inserts the cable, you don't quite see where though, his hand is in the way...

Me: <boggle>

... And then the child robot bounces around, excited, 'Oh wow that feels amazing!'

I rewound it and showed my husband.  His reaction: 'Wow.'

Actually, I think I'm going to enjoy watching the rest of this.