Hehehe. I think Christmas dinner just got a lot more interesting.

Glad to help!

All this planet X and angry aliens talk has led to me being earwormed with Orbital Be-Bop (dancing in heaven). It might not be so bad if I knew more than 8 of the words.

You people are funny. Especially "Operation Comet Spank."

I got out of an all-morning Meeting of Doom with people who have in their heads the notion that they followed up/did due dilligence/suggested something, but do not actually pursue any of these notions outside of their heads. We all had to be very diplomatic and play along with their version of the events (blaming us for problems), and then we privately went out to lunch and blamed them! Blame blame blame. The problem, of course, being that there's not even an expectation that they will not do the "in my head I did it" thing again, because we were under orders not to mention that part.

Stupid people. Can't live with them, can't call them stupid to their faces without getting fired. What to do??

I spent last week at a genetics convention in LA. There was a Scientology convention at the same hotel

Oh, oh, that's almost as much fun as the time that Boskone, a regional science fiction convention, was in the same hotel complex as a mega-evangelical Christian convention. Double points, because the Christian folks were carrying around Jews for Jesus shopping bags. (?!?) It was one of those same planet, different universes type of situations (in thoroughly polite fashion).

Wow, Perkins. That sounds intergalactic. Planetary, even.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Re the who and why of our various freedom-bringing efforts around the world, just print out this flash card and keep it in your wallet.

Who We Invaded/Blew Up/Might Do Eventually::How Come?

Afghanistan::As God is our witness, to capture Osama dead or alive
Iraq::9/11 WMD Frog-Marching freedom
Iran::Next door and thus convenient
North Korea::Nuclear program
France::Mean to us
Canada::Married gay people with health care
Spain::More married gay people, plus they all sleep a lot and then stay up too late, WTF is up with that?
Darfur::Yeah, yeah, massive human rights violations blah blah genocidecakes, look, we've got a lot on our plate right now, can you whiny whinybutts please keep it down to a dull roar?
Saudi Arabia::OMG NEVER, they are a shining beacon of glossy democracy and oil and our bestest friends ever
The San Francisco Bay Area::very, very angry aliens.

Actually, it looks like we're not going to need that money anyhow:

GLENEAGLES, Scotland - World leaders scaled back goals for relieving African poverty and combating global warming under U.S. opposition to British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s ambitious objectives.

Wow, Perkins. That sounds intergalactic. Planetary, even.

ita=mean.

Oh, oh, that's almost as much fun as the time that Boskone, a regional science fiction convention, was in the same hotel complex as a mega-evangelical Christian convention.

Half of the cons I've ever been to have been scheduled at the same time as some religious convention. At the last DragonCon, Peter David regaled some of us with a few anecdotes about clashes between sci-fi geeks and very confused religious people.

Our very first Buffista F2F was sharing a hotel with some kind of church group convention.

There was some sort of religious group in the hotel at the DC F2F, Myself, Deb Grabien, NoiseDesign, Beverly, Kristin T and Ginger got on the elevator with a very nervous middle aged man. I should add that we were on our way to the Prom, and dressed in various finery. Drew was wearing a kilt and I was wearing a rather impressive corset (IMHO). the man stared straight ahead, and you could practically see him praying in his head. we got to his floor, he scurried out. Someone said, don't worry we dont' bite, and Drew added "unless you ask us to".