...actually, I found Buffistas via the Guardian, now that I remember - so it's a pretty good matchmaker, all in all.

My interest, she is piqued. How did that work?

I've been told that I need to be more social.

After the Guardian talk, I read that as 'more socialist'.

You know what I'd be really (irrationally) tempted to do if I had a sum of money I was planning to spend in five years on a trip to a foreign country? Invest just that trip fund in bonds or a savings account or something in that currency. Why is that irrational? Because if you were not planning to do high risk currency speculation anyway, the risk of currency losses potential for currency gains is exactly the same regardless of whether you planned to ultimately make expenditures in that currency. And yet the irrational part of me would saying "you are planning to spend in euros. Invest in euros."

Not irrational, in investment terms it's called asset-liability matching. Yes, your chances of financial loss or gain may be roughly the same, but if you have actual spending plans for which you kind of need the money to keep its value, then it's likely that a loss will hurt you more than a gain will benefit you. So it makes sense to reduce the volatility of any swings in the value of your investment relative to your spending needs.

However, note too that it isn't necessarily the case that your chances of loss and gain are equal. At the moment the US dollar looks to be undervalued relative to the Euro, which means that investing overseas likely gives you more downside risk than upside risk. It's not a guarantee, especially over the short term, but over five years it seems more likely the US dollar will have appreciated against the Euro.

(There's some more complicated stuff where some currencies seem to have a persistent bias too, but this isn't likely to be an issue with big floating currencies like the US$ and the Euro. It may, however, be an issue with the AU$.)

If you don't mind not having internet, and only need a Motel 6 level of a place to stay, I recommend trying to get a Travelodge room. If you book them enough in advance, they're super cheap. And the one in Covent Garden is pretty awesome.

Though, she's talking about several years from now. Will there be any non-wired places then?

I'd say tot up the cost to do it now, double the airfare and add 10-20% on the rest to get a general target area.

Now I have to run to lj to see why I need to hate Connie.

Now I have to run to lj to see why I need to hate Connie.

Oh, as they say, dear. Hopefully I'll still have friends by the time the night is through.

Hey there, Mister T!

See, when I found myself falling in love with BtVS in a mighty fannish way, I felt sure that somewhere out there there had to be other adults interested in talking about the show. Not just going OMG11! Angle is so totally hot!!11!, but actually TALKING ABOUT THE SHOW. Surely? So I tentatively tried The Bronze, of which I had heard, and promptly got jumped on by resentful teenagers brandishing emoticons because I was spelling properly and using long words and generally not approaching things in the proper spirit. (This is not to say that everyone at The Bronze was like that - just that this was the impression I gained, and the reason I slunk away.)

So I ended up at The Guardian's Talk Boards, specifically the Film Unlimited section (where one also discusses telly), and spent a couple of happy years there, occasionally talking Buffy, as well as discussing other shows and movies. This also involved regular meetups to go and watch random arthouse films and Then Beer, over which to discuss said films. It was great. But then one day Salon members staged a sort of attack, and invaded the main Guardian Talk area. So Guardian Talk people grabbed their flags and ran over to plant them in Salon, and it was all quite amusing. I occasionally lurked in the main Talk area (which tends towards shoutiness and rivalry far more than the lovely FU area, or indeed the library-like tranquility of Books Unlimited), and out of curiosity I went to look at Salon.

And my eye was caught by the Buffista thread. 'Oooh!' I thought to myself.

Now, at this point I did not join said Buffista thread. But I was alerted to its existence. I think I probably came looking for you folks after JimET (who was also a regular at the Guardian) mentioned you. But I was shy. And then I found the filk, and thought that was a hilarious idea, so I wrote some. But then I learned that it had to be posted on the site, not just randomly sent in by someone you'd never heard of. So I scurried into a thread, blushing quite hard, and posted a variation on The Lady is a Tramp, all about Darla. (TLiaVamp, obviously.)

iirc, ita said "One of us! One of us!" And I decided to stay.

...'course this was back on WorldCrossing, before the culmination of The Great Buffista Migration. And in those days everyone had avatars! I remember being terribly impressed by Jilli's, and spending many happy hours crafting my own little images of Willow and Tara with a floating rose, and various other things. Although nothing could ever compete with Matt's awesome Angel/Lindsey Evil Hand icon. Superb!

Oh, I do miss the avatars.

Matt's awesome Angel/Lindsey Evil Hand icon

I had such avatar envy.

Is it wrong that my first thought was "it's just like something out of Merrkat Manor!"?

Matt's awesome Angel/Lindsey Evil Hand icon

wrod.

Also, hi everybody!!! Much craziness this month. Am hoping May is sane. Er. Saner.

And the little animated banner at the top of the page! I loved that. Lorne with his wee head!