I Am at Worldcon in Montreal

This morning I woke up at 7:25, in Brooklyn, hungover. My train left at 8:15 from Penn Station in Manhattan. It was a photo finish. Though maybe it’s better that no photos of that event are actually available.

The train is — over the course of 11 hours — taking me to WorldCon in Montreal. I’ve never been before, but judging by the program this thing is a beast. Not like Comic-Con in terms of sheer numbers, but big, and intense. And it goes on and on — 5 days (I’m only going for 3 because, you know, job). It’s a world unto itself; there are morning fricking aerobics at this con. I went through the schedule and wrote a list of the events I absolutely had to make it to. There are 39 of them.

The line-up bristles with heavy-hitters — Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Robert Silverberg, Patrick Rothfuss, Eoin Colfer, Guy Gavriel Kay, Cory Doctorow, and on and on. Bristles. There is every chance that I will finally be united with my childhood idol Larry Niven. I’m sure he yearns for this as ardently as I do.

It’s appropriate that I’m taking a train, since I’m on a steampunk panel. And ones on reading and history. And I’m doing a reading from the book. Stop by if you’re here.

Will Google’s Insanely-Fast Kansas City Network Shame U.S. ISPs?

Google’s highly-anticipated plan to build an ultra-fast city broadband network kicked into gear Monday with the search giant’s announcement that it will begin laying miles of fiber-optic cable across Kansas City, Kansas and neighboring Kansas City, Missouri. Google said it aims to create a new “high speed infrastructure” that will allow local citizens to enjoy data speeds 100 times the national average. Google’s goal? To show off its telecom engineering chops and showcase next-generation web-applications. Oh, and maybe shame the big national broadband providers into improving U.S. Internet service speed, which currently lags behind many other countries around the world.

Kemper

11 hours there. 11 hours back. If you had followed Quittner’s lead, you could have watched about half of BSG in one trip…..
Brew

So what do you think Lev would do if we all started showing up on his book tour readings to ask about his love for BSG? FYI: He has two readings next week in NYC….
Kemper

For the love of the lords of Kobol, if you go see Lev, be cool about the BSG stuff. I (obviously) am all about the on-line harrasment, but please don’t screw up the guy’s book tour. Our intimidation techniques should be purely based around on-line peer pressure and snarky comments.
Rorschach

If you could do me a favor: If you happen to run across GRRM could you please ask him to leave the event immediately and get his ass to his typewriter, computer, pen and freaking paper– whatever he uses to write… I’d appreciate it.
http://adampaxton.com Adam Paxton

The first few lines of the post sound like the beginning to a nerdy country song. Hey, you’ve started a new genre!
Brew

Of course not. But I still its our nerdly duty to support one of our own.
rananar

Kick back, relax, and listen to this. It’ll make things easier.
rananar

Make sure to hit the room parties each night. There’s a lot of interesting fans, artists, editors, and writers hanging around to chat with.
Kemper

@ Brew – No doubt. I just a nightmare scenario of somebody taking it way too far. Nerds are known for the all-consuming obsessions after all. Not that I’d know anything about that.
hannef123

@ Rorschach… amen! Though, I’m sure GRRM will be receiving plenty such requests.
dennitzio

Are they doing a John Hughes marathon, though? Then it’s not “World” enough. The man single-handedly created the leading man modern nerd with Brian Johnson, Ducky and, most importantly, Weird Science. And let’s not forget that Ferris Bueller was a hacker.
suiter

What about….. Well, will Lev be doing signings at these readings? If so, we could always just show up and have him sign our BSG seasons… oh and buy his book too I guess ;)