Posted on January 22, 2017 Posted by John Scalzi 51 Comments
This was at ConFusion, just before Joe and I did our respective readings. Because who doesn’t want to see a pillow fight between two best-selling authors?
How was your weekend?
Taunting the tauntable since 1998
John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, contributor – AMS
About the site
What's the Big Idea? Authors explaining the the big ideas behind their latest works, in their own words. See the latest Big Ideas!
Authors/Editors/Publicists: for information on how to participate, click here.
I was in DC with my daughter. Amazing! Encouraged and energized. We can do this.
What exactly happened before this video that caused a pillow fight to break out?
thomashewlett we were sworn to secrecy to never mention what happened before the pillow fight (or immediately after).
Friday night my husband FINALLY took me to my favorite brewery. It is steampunk themed and I’ve fallen in like with their new beer – Drydock. To make it even more fun, my friend Sue showed up. After that we went to visit at game night and I ate a cookie and purchased an owl mug with some of my Christmas money.
Saturday I went to a local con to help out with the 501st table and great vendors who will be with us at ConCarolinas 2017.
Today I’ve been sewing a “sleep sack” aka bundting for my brand new great niece. I had to give my sewing machine a bit of a break and I’m watching the Packers get spanked by the Falcons and cooking salsa chicken and mexican rice.
Oh and just as my husband was about to get up to go to the gym our cat, Sam Sam, jumped in his lap.
I am glad you had fun this weekend. Can’t say that I did, but it’s nice that someone out there had a good weekend.
Next time I challenge someone to a duel, I’ll propose hotel pillows at 2 paces. . .
We’ve been enjoying heat in our house for the first time since our old furnace died on December 31st. (One last 2016 death.)
I cannot think of a single thing to complain about this weekend. Except that Packer thing. Sigh.
You won the pillow fight, so now you get to go to Disneyland if you want.
Oh, my spousal entity and I performed a prolonged experiment to see how hard one had to squeeze a male nipple to get milk. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion. However, we did discover a direct causal link between a male nipple and the f-bomb. Science Fiction at its best!
We had an unusual (for here) power outage: a rather large tree fell across the street and took down power lines. We were about 20 hours without power, which was a new experience for me. I think our cats were a bit weirded out by it, especially in conjunction with the frequent and sometimes quite heavy rains. At least it wasn’t as cold as it was earlier this month. Got to find out our cats know the sound of the manual can opener as well as they do the electric.
I had a great time this weekend. I watched two whackos having a pillow fight :)
You clearly won, and now I’m rather afraid of you.
Say, does this work at contract negotiations? :D
Oh, salsa chicken and Mexican rice sounds awesome. Mmmm.
I had a rewatch of The Expanse, season 1, and am looking forward to season 2 starting in February.
And my arm has become a cat pillow once again. Not that I mind too much most of the time.
Hung with 175K old and new friends on Boston Common. Y’know, the usual.
You have a good life, John Scalzi. I think I had a decent weekend, but this afternoon a neighbor’s dog at two of my chickens (half my flock), and it’s rather taken the shine off it. I got writing done though so I guess it wasn’t all bad.
Due to the fact I work about a mile from the White House, I had a four-day weekend. Accomplishments included knocking a few things off the DVR, catching “Hidden Figures”, and dealing with the piles of stuff on my current computer desk in preparation for the new one arriving this week. And I did make it down to the Mall yesterday for the march.
I marched. The weather was fine. Since the comments section for Veronica Roth is closed, would you mind passing on to her that her book was the entire side window of the Book City on Danforth Avenue in Toronto this week? She might like that.
Kid, you’ll put your eye out…
My weekend as spent plotting…down with traitor, up with the stars…
Also “Alternate Facts” should be added to the Name of my Next Band list.
Best,
Took the dogs to the vet for their annual check up and vaccinations. The vet was very good about their quirks (they are rescues) especially the growling from the boy and me not telling him to shut up; his previous owners had taught him not to growl so he snapped instead so I am very happy that he is learning to growl again. A growing German Shepherd is understandably not something one can assume a vet will take in their stride.
Made Seville marmalade to lay down to mature for a couple of years.
Got forgiven by the very shy bitch for taking her to the vet and gave her five minutes of cuddling as demanded. She stands with one paw on your foot until she is ready to permit you to stop.
Got to hang out on the Boston Common on Saturday with other knitters. Went with a friend who met up with other Smith alums. Great day in all. Been spending today recovering from our adventure.
Got chores done. Did some PT for a recent rotator cuff surgery. Went for a walk. Snuggled with the feline beasties. Watched Stargate SG-1 to escape reality for a while. Donated to ACLU & a few others. Cleaned off & organized my desk – finally! So, a decent weekend. Hope you feel better soon.
I think Joe Hill was insufficiently committed to that pillow fight.
My weekend was housework & tax prep (on the meh side), and dancing and RAIN (on the YAY side).
Apparently some fool anchorman in a local ABC broadcast said the California drought is over now. I trust he’s been advised not to say that again until, you know, it actually *is.*
Jazzlet, my husband and I made grapefruit marmalade because we couldn’t find Seville oranges anywhere in Boston! My husband is now deeply jealous of your oranges. What’s the secret to finding Seville oranges? Any tips?
I read “The Blind Assassin.” Pulps-era SF for the win! Did yard cleanup with one of the filial units. Watched movies of greater or lesser quality, and provided a lap for a cat to sleep on.
I’m still curious about what prompted the pillow fight. Anyone in a position to comment who ~hasn’t~ been sworn to secrecy? ^_^
I don’t know how to link this, so….
Joe Hill @joe_hill
It’s true! I’ll be ConFuse-d all week! http://confusionsf.org/
John Scalzi @scalzi Jan 17
The rumor is Joe and I will do a reading here. Either a reading or a VERY SEXY PILLOW FIGHT. We’ll let the audience choose.
ConFusion did a poll and the pillow fight won handily.
The enormous ancient heavy Sony Trinitron TV, the last of the cathode ray monsters, is out of the house, as is its stand. The Craigslist ad did good work, and it is on its way to a new home. Now I must vacuum up years of gecko poop from where the thing used to hulk.
I went to our local Women’s March with my family and 50+ of my friends. I continued organizing an Indivisible group for my area and participated, along with 20.000 other organizers, in a phone training provided by MoveOn, Indivisible, and the Working Families Party. I have never been involved in activism before, but I’m all in from here on out. In between, I got in a bunch of family time watching ST:TNG and helping my partner set up beer brewing equipment in our garage. It was a pretty good weekend.
I spent my weekend at the local march, as it seems so many of us here did. We quite overwhelmed the public transit; it was really impressive.
Thanks Ell. Not grudge settlement or conflict resolution, then – just good, sexy fun!
Weekend. Hm. Friday night, a friend’s karonkka (a party held after a doctoral defense, the Finnish word probably comes from the Russian коронка, but I don’t know how it ended up with that meaning). Tailcoats & white ties, suits, longer and shorter dresses, the German (or maybe Dutch, I didn’t really get where he was from) opponent in his robe, singing, great food, afterparty at a local NGO’s punk club. The doctor (not the Doctor, sorry) played the drums.
Saturday. Flying lessons at the Helsinki-Malmi aerodrome. Apron, taxiways and runways very slippery (thin layer of ice covered with 1cm of snow), but we found some spots with dry asphalt to do the pre takeoff tests. One Zephyr ultralight ended up in the snow bank but nobody got hurt, there was no serious damage to the plane, and we only had to do one extra circuit before they got it out from the runway. Our old Cessna handled the conditions nicely.
Sunday. Visited family, even our cousin was there, and my little nephew. Watched a marvelous sunset and chatted about, well everything. Global politics, yes, but local and smaller and more positive things, too. Meanwhile, my beloved spouse got to gallop with an Icelandic horse, and loved every moment of it.
A very nice weekend, thanks for asking.
Signed up for a subscription to the Washington Post–someone’s got to pay for real journalism and news. Changed my voter registration from Independent to Democratic.
Took apart Legos. Everytime you-all complain about lack of flying cars, I mutter about lack of household robot to take apart jigsaw puzzles and Legos.
Muscadine wine. LOL
I think Joe knew if he unleashed the fury, he would likely cause serious injury and so pulled his punches.
Great! We had 45,000 of us marching in Austin, TX! Never been so proud of my fellow Texans.
I dreamed I hit Joe Hill with a pillow last night
Alive as you and me . . .
Having been profoundly depressed by the Inauguration, my spirit revived thanks to the Marches. Thank you to everyone who took part, all over the world; it meant a great deal to me.
Spent Saturday with 700,000 or so other like-minded folks in Los Angeles, roaming the streets like well-behaved zombies with an agenda. Awesome! Sunday: my New England Patriots made the afternoon enjoyable as hell (for Patriots fans!)
Thursday, shopped at Costco for food for marchers who were staying at Friends Meeting House. Friday, delivered three cakes baked by Marcia to FMW. Saturday, delivered a pot of baked beans to FMW, spent time with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, all of whom had just returned from the march; went out to dinner with friends. Sunday, went to a Condolence Party for those of us who need company in our Trump-era misery.
Still marveling at the latest euphemism for a lie: “Alternative facts”.
I marched on Chicago and the weather was frighteningly beautiful for January.
Did a lot of PC gaming, did domestic stuff, did some reading, ate brunch with a friend, watched the Steelers stink up the joint against New England.
Also, who here thinks that the clinched-fist salute of friendliness is going to catch on as the new way to greet friends and strangers?
Marching with my daughters in a crowd of 20,000 in St. Petersburg, Florida. “Love trumps hate!”
You two are both completely useless at the fine art of pillow fighting. My brother could have, at age 11, left you weeping and huddled up on the floor guarding your heads.
Took part in Atlanta’s March with some 60,000 other people.
Hm, now I’m even more sure that my husband and Owen King were changed at birth. Not sure how it happened, but…
Our weekend was not so good, because the beloved family dog died on Saturday. So we spent a lot of the time grieving, and spoiling the remaining dog.
Marched in Chicago with my mom, my daughter and about 250,000 others. Yes, my mom and I voted in the election. My daughter didn’t– she’s only 13. It was a beautiful day that restored my hope for the future.
Marched in Denver. Amazingly the people I talked to all voted, and were protesting for lots of things, equal pay, a right to choose on reproductive health, equal opportunities on both social and economic fronts, for an environment that stays suited to human life, and against the Pussygrabber-in-Chief Trump.
sistercoyote, I’m so sorry. May the memory be a blessing, in time.
Let’s see: went for a walk with some friends in Seattle (no arrests or injuries! Yay us!), made some really tasty beef stew, called my senator and thanked her for doing her part to make sure that government appointees are, y’know, qualified and such, did the completely sucky ankle exercises my physical therapist assigned and wrote actual dead tree letters to friends. Yeah, not a bad weekend, John, thanks for asking!
Marched in Seattle in amazing weather (Hi Epiphyta!) with a bajillion amazing people (ok, 120,000-ish people), then spent Sunday doing chores and reading and staying out of the suddenly nasty weather.
I had an amazing weekend at Confusion. I geeked out all weekend and saw this amazing obviously unscripted pillow fight that in no way detracted from the readings. I met some great people, including Blaze, a beautiful 10 year old Alaskan Malemute.
I picked up some great books, had some great conversations, saw a couple of Mel Brooks movies, and exhausted myself. I am now recovering by actually doing a bit of work. Wow!