As the first of the hydrogen bombs go off the in the distance, Ghlaghghee idly wonders which of the humans the cats will eat first when the dark times come. Probably the balding one. He’s so pudgy and soft. The three cats could take him down easy.

(It’s actually a sunset. Everyone know the Catpocalypse isn’t scheduled until 2012. By which time, incidentally, I intend to make myself totally buff. So there, you dumb ol’ cats.)

I’m not sure why.

This picture requires a bit of explanation. See, this year Wil Wheaton was one of the Guests of Honor at Penguicon, and there’s a little history there in that he’s been invited before but for various reasons was not able to make it. So I made a bet that this year, Wil would show, and if he didn’t, I would dress up like a pirate and allow Joe the Pirate King to visit all sorts of buccaneering humiliations upon me. Well, as it happens, Wil didn’t make it, and thus, I was made to dresss up in a pirate vest and hat apparently ganked from Long John Silvers, to say “arrrrrrrr” in a dejected and depressed manner, to walk the plank you see there behind me, and to suck on a lime. And so on. Hey, fair is fair.

And just in case you thought that was still not enough Pirate Humiliation, there’s this:

Yes, I was also soundly whipped by a hot woman in a pirate get-up. Oh, it was terrible. Terrible, do you hear me. You could hardly hear my screams over the sound of my wife pointing and laughing.

In all seriousness, Wil was unable to come because he was ill, and he feels awful about it, but, you know. When you’re sick, you’re sick. That his illness allowed me to indulge in some of my secret dirty S&M fantasies IN PUBLIC forced me to be whipped by hot women in pirate get-ups is neither here nor there. I think he’s feeling a little better now. And my back is almost healed! So there it is. Everybody wins.

If you have to guess which is which, then I am sorry, but there really is no help for you.

Back a number of years ago when I first made friends with author Justine Larbalestier, I was showing her pictures of Krissy and me, and she having not met Krissy, she maintained that I didn’t actually know her, and that instead I would run up to this very attractive woman and quickly snap pictures of myself with her before she could respond and/or exercise a restraining order. Even when I brought Krissy to New York to meet her she was not entirely convinced; when they met Justine poked Krissy on the shoulder to make sure she wasn’t a hologram. She was not.

This picture was taken at my surprise 40th birthday party this weekend; there are more pictures of it (and of Penguicon in general) at this Picasa photo set, taken and assembled by the always fabulous Alethea Kontis. I’ll be posting selected additional photos, but go catch the whole thing.

And will be updating about my weekend soon. In the meantime, I’ve been looking at my mail pile when I got home and I have one question:

Which one of you all put my name on the GOP/Conservative issues mailing list? Because, seriously: if I get one more piece of mail that says “PRESIDENT OBAMA IS GOING TO EAT A BABY IF YOU DON’T CALL YOUR SENATOR NOW!” on the envelope, my eyeballs are like to explode. And where I come from, explody eyeballs are bad.

So: Which one of you was it? Because I know it was one of you.