NORWESCON!!!

.....Greetings All!

.....This is my second year of coming to NORWESCON on Wednesday night, and I've got to say that if you can do it, DO IT!!! There are no crowds, parking is easy, you have a leisurely evening of getting stuff put away, you can sleep in the next morning. It's like a vacation unto itself.

.....This year I'm sharing a room with Alys Firekeeper (Kim Knapp, former Dragon's Laire Chief Archer). I remember back in the Stone Age of attending the Con that I'd think nothing of sharing the room with a half dozen other folks. The last several years I've had the room to myself, which is nice, but it is also nice to have someone to share conversation as well. Plus, at $100 a night for the room, splitting the costs is VERY nice. :-)

.....Registration opens up at NOON, the first panel is on the Tengwar Alphabet at 1PM. TOLKIEN RULES!!!! :-)

.....The only thing that would make this weekend more fun would be if the Remarkably Beautiful and Wonderful Tamm were here. I tried to convince her unmercifully last night to play hookey at work and come join me, but she is just so damned dedicated that she wouldn't budge. Sigh! Maybe next year.

.....The NORWESCON schedule looks pretty good this year. If any of you are coming in for the weekend, look me up in Room 622, maybe we can all meet for a few drinks at the bar or something. :-)

.....Take care all, Aaron / Arontius.

NORWESCON! Day One.

.....Greetings All!

.....Wow! What a day! It was a helluva a lot of fun. NORWESCON is quite the restorative to the soul! Especially this Tolkien geek! I soooooo totally geeked out on Tolkien. The day started with an in-depth look at the Tengwar alphabet. For some reason my brain finally made the connection to the fact that Tengwar is not a language, but the figurative representation of the phonetics used in the Elvish languages. It made it much more easy to accept the use of Tengwar to translate direct English. In the past my brain has never been able to wrap my brain around that fact, always thinking that you had to translate what you had to say first into Sindarin or Qwuenyan and then into the Tengwar lettering. Which is not true. But it still bothers me a little. Tengwar is a beautiful set of lettering though, perfect for calligraphy.

.....Listened to recordings of Professor Tolkien pronouncing Sindaran and Quenyan and actually speaking his language. We had an in depth discussion of the similarities between how his Elvish was spoken and how Scandinavian languages are spoken today and how they were most probably spoken in the second and third centuries. Very interesting.

.....Then to cap it off we started talking about 'modern' Elvish 'dialects'. I had never noticed until it was pointed out to me that Christopher Tolkien speaks his own 'dialect' of Sindarin and that his version of Tengwar has a few character that are slightly different than that of his father. These are not just 'mistakes', he is quite consistent about them when you view his use of Tengwar on his own illustrations for The Silmarillian and The Histories of Middle Earth. It was all rather exciting! :-)

.....Went to a panel today on the taxation of 'virtual' materials. Ways are being studied on how to tax the use of online games such as Everquest. Can you imagine a day when you'll have to pay real life taxes for that new sword that you purchased for your online character? Holy Cow!

.....Looked at some of NASA's early concept drawings of America's future Moon Base. NASA wants something usable on the moon by 2015. That's quite ambitious. Some of the ideas are truly amazing though.

.....Went to a panel on other re-creationist groups. The SCA was well represented by Sir Brand. But there are quite a few other groups in this area. A lot of them may have been started by disenfranchised SCA players, but some of them are really starting to evolve into things that are looking pretty good. I remember playing for a time with the Realm of Chivalry. Oh My God, talk about disenfranchisement! But even they are starting to grow up a bit. Wow!

.....Off to the Red Dance now! I popped my head in there a while back. People have the red theme down well! I think that parlour_games ought to come and take a look some year, there were things there that would make her site up and take notice! Maybe I'll even see the Red Leather Girl again this year. :-) I'll have to see if I can get the Beloved Tamm to wear some red leather for NORWESCON next year. :-) Can red leather be made into a Victorian wedding dress? :-)

.....See you all later!

.....Aaron / Arontius.