Finished my Vcon 38 report, and man are those fun to write. Is there some way to do that kind of thing for a living? Just go to events, write down the basics of what you did there, plus whatever else pops into you head at the time, and then go home, write a report, and make moolah?

It sounds sort of like journalism, but a very soft kind of journalism. And it’s also comedy and warmth, and those are two things I do well.

I resisted doing con reports for a long long time because it seemed like it would be so much work, trying to summarize everything that is happening.

But you don’t have to do that. That’s reportage. Me, I do something else.

Anyhow, now that I am done with the con report, it’s time to clear my browser of all the links I have accumulated while doing science and con reporting.

Like this very funny list of actual tourist complaints that are completely and hilariously insane.

Here’s my three faves.

12. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”

How thoughtless of us. Next time you fly to Jamaica, we will have invented an entirely new and revolutionary form of transportation that gets you from England to Jamaica in three hours… and we won’t like Americans use it.

14. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort’. We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”

You got us. We hate hairdressers. I’m surprised we let you leave the hotel alive, you future hairdressing monster. I’ll have the reprimand the assassins.

19. “My fiance and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

Three things. One, twin beds is two words, not one. Two, you can’t be re-reimbursed. It’s logically impossible. Either you have been reimbursed, or you haven’t. It can’t happen twice. And lastly, I sincerely hope you plan to sue us about this. Whatever it ends up costing us will be worth it to hear you explain your case out loud to a judge. And judges have tough jobs. They need a good laugh now and then.

Then we have this awesome Six Flags commercial I had completely forgotten.

I mean, how can you not love seeing a clearly fake old guy dance the dance of ultimate joy? I think the real credit for the awesomeness of that ad goes to the dancer and/or the choreographer.

It’s like he’s dancing as much as is humanly possible. He’s at Maximum Dance. You can’t dance more than that.

Also, I think a free bus that cruises residential neighborhoods looking for people who want to go to your amusement part would be a brilliant marketing strategy.

It would make it all seem just a little bit magical.

Then there’s this firm and authoritative commentary on the American shutdown crisis from someone who, like Jesus, Republicans claim to admire.

Of course, like Jesus, they prefer the imaginary version in their heads who just endorses everything they do to the one that might actually tell them that they are vile evil anti-Christian scumbags.

Real Reagan would have been absolutely horrified at the way the USA has gone in the last decade or so. He was a reasonable moderate who had no idea that his statement about “government IS the problem” would unleash a wave of sheer barbarity upon the nation he loved.

Come to think of it, I’m pretty fond of it too.

Now we have the Most Awesome Escalator Ever.

Wherever they did this, for whatever reason, you rock. It’s a simple yet brilliant idea. It could not have been easy taking the original text and chopping up into stair-sized bits, let alone getting the font right.

Because that’s the thing about doing things for nerds. We’re a very picky bunch. You have to get it right or we will turn up our fannish noses at it.

Then we have this website that wants you to pitch in and Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.

The site is filled with the kind of dry humour that I love. Like this :

Like this gem :

What percentage of profit from Tree Octopus products sold on this site goes to support protecting the species?

None.

Tree Octopuses don’t need your money. They need your love and willingness to write angry letters to the editor demanding action.

I heartily recommend reading the whole site. It’s simply marvelous.

Then there’s this “prank” :

To me, that is obviously fake. Everything came off too perfectly for it to be a real interaction with some random chick. So, shenanigans on that.

Still, this will no doubt stir up a lot of lively and productive debate online.

And of course, we have my little ol video of the day.

The song is okay but no big deal, so I decided today was the day I investigate my video editing program’s ability to import animated GIFs.

And it works okay. Not great, but okay. Some animated GIFs, it imports the first frame and that’s it. Others, it imports the whole thing but the video goes way out of whack.

Like this one, which I must include here because it got gibbled when I tried to import it.

For those of you who don’t speak Cat, the other cat is not being evil. That is just a cat’s way of saying “tag! You’re it! Come play with me!”.

Ditto with people who complain about their “psycho” cat “attacking” them for “no reason”. If your cat does that, odds are that the cat is simply bored and trying to get you to play with him or her.

It’s just treating you like you were another cat.

Play with your cat more, or ideally, get it the ultimate cat toy : another cat!

Trust me, they can entertain one another all day.