This is entirely because the other two are away to work and I need to do some squealing, so, no obligation to read or anything!

Best Q&A of the night:
'So, what started you being interested in gods, and writing about them?'
'I don't know. I always think I ahould have a really interesting origin story, like "when I was five, I got bitten by a radioactive spider..." I dunno. That's a bad answer...'

Other best Q&A of the night:
'So, why the red ballons anyway?'
*me attempting to explain the red balloons concept without completely dying from dear-god-talking-to-person-who-writes-my-favourite-books syndrome.*

And I refrained from asking 'Why Dundalk' and am now being good and not sending in the standard local answer to 'Why Dundalk', which is that there are some things even Newry won't take...

And and and I met Neil! And he signed stuff. And I am very happy boardie. Also, I have the Midnight Creatures hardcover, and so I have the Black Cat story in very very pretty artwork. Yay!

quote:

Originally posted by Marvinmarymac:
This is entirely because the other two are away to work and I need to do some squealing, so, no obligation to read or anything!

Best Q&A of the night:
'So, what started you being interested in gods, and writing about them?'
'I don't know. I always think I ahould have a really interesting origin story, like "when I was five, I got bitten by a radioactive spider..." I dunno. That's a bad answer...'

Other best Q&A of the night:
'So, why the red ballons anyway?'
*me attempting to explain the red balloons concept without completely dying from dear-god-talking-to-person-who-writes-my-favourite-books syndrome.*

when the board was five (in internet years, that is) it was bitten by a radioactive spider.

Anyway, I take it you gave him a red baloon? We can consider the red baloon tradition to be underway?

No I didn't. I said that the Board said Hi and he got a slightly hunted look and asked did I have a red balloon (which I didn't cause had nowhere to get one ) and then he asked what was the whole red balloon thing. And that he wasn't sure what he was meant to do with them. It was funny.

I think we need to make it a tradition though!

Mwahaaaaaaaa!

We're stalking him!

He was quite pleased with the baloon we gave him, though he did end up giving it away to some bloke who'd qued twice and who's birthday it was...

However, it's our duty to keep freaking him out!

Hehehe.

I think it was the not knowing why people were giving him balloons was bothering him. I suspect he was afraid there was some kind of ritual involved that he hadn't heard about or something.

Gotta keep freaking him. Although I think my housemate accomplished that very well by giving him a Choc Dip, which is something I hadn't seen since primary school...

quote:

Originally posted by Marvinmarymac:
Gotta keep freaking him. Although I think my housemate accomplished that very well by giving him a Choc Dip, which is something I hadn't seen since primary school...

You mean one of these?



Cooooool!

Man, my whole childhood just flashed before my eyes!

Yep.

I seriously haven't had one since, ohmygod, Matthew's sixth birthday party. christ he's 17 now. Ohmygod I'm old.

So, er... why the red ballons, anyway ?

(that's some part of the board mythology I'm not really aware of, and the Search thingy doesn't seem willing to provide an answer)

Red balloons being a welcome gift to all newcomers to the board....

What the red balloon signifies, I have no idea...possibly somehow linking to an old 80's pop song by Nena, 99 Red Balloons (or 99 Luftballons in German).

However, I think it doesn't really matter where the balloon came from, it's what you do with it that counts!

That's pretty much the explanation I gave. Which sounds really odd when you say it out loud. Particularly to distinguished authors

I still can't believe that I told Neil Gaiman off!

I gave him my baloon to sign, and he put it to one side with the other baloon we just gave him, and I was like:

"No! That's MY baloon! Can you sign it and give it back!.....Please!"

He was very apologetic!

I told Neil Gaiman off!

quote:

Originally posted by St.BabababaBarbaraAnn:

What the red balloon signifies, I have no idea...possibly somehow linking to an old 80's pop song by Nena, 99 Red Balloons (or 99 Luftballons in German).

Thanks StB ! I first thought it could be some reference I had forgotten everything about, hidden somewhere in one of Neil's books.

... Then I thought that if it was, he probably would have figured it out without asking.

99 Luftballons !!! I had forgotten about this song ! Our German teacher had us study it in college, out of despair in front of our Goethe/Mann lack of craze.

(went to check, seems that luft means baudruche, means... air. But that's so much better if they're red !!)

quote:

However, I think it doesn't really matter where the balloon came from, it's what you do with it that counts!

Totally agree. I loooove what you did with yours !

I tried to leave an explination, i guess it wasn't a very good one.

and i don't know who started the red balloons, but I believe i was involved, i went through a phase of giving various balloons, but it settled into a red one. it was either me or giabow i thinks. maybe both of us. or someone else - hell the board is 4 years old now, and the red balloon tradion at least 2 or 3 - so...nobody knows!

Hee. "A slightly hunted look." Hee. That's funny.


(and, moving this one over to the Tour Forum)

Well it was!

Sorry for not putting it here in the first place, didn't think.

I gave him abook of stories about fairies that my 90 year old neighbour wrote.
He asked me if i wrote it, i told him who did and he said it was lovely and shook my hand.
I was shaking like a leaf!

I thought i would have noticed if someone there had a red balloon, but i didn't see anyone.

I now own a signed copy of good omens(Armageddon is coming... look busy!), a special edition of Shoggoth's old peculiar (Lä! Shub! etc!) and the script book of mirrormask (Dream!)which i hope to get signed by Dave Mc Kean next saturday. *crosses fingers*

Did the whole thing take long? Was anyone there till the end?

When we left, there was still a good amount of the losers of the queue toss - but I'm not sure how many were queueing and how many were chatting. I know we were away by about 9.

I decided I'd be very good and only get one thing signed - and if I'd taken Anansi Boys out of my bag my housemate would have nicked it and it wouldn't have got signed anyway, cause she'd have had her nose in it. My crazy house

Dave McKean? Is he going to be here or are you heading off?

So did he look OK and healthy, aside from being worried about the balloons?

Over at the Diana Wynne Jones mailing list, they're fretting about him :

quote:

Thanks for the reassurance about Neil not being too shattered by the time he got to Dublin. Last time I was driving him during one of these signing marathons he slept in the car all the way from Bristol to London, he stays up all night writing blogs, it can't be good for him.... I worry about the boy, he should eat right, I make him chicken soup but does he drink it? In this weather I just hope he's wearing a vest under that teeshirt, I must have told him often enough, wool next to the skin, but does he listen?

:-)

- Minnow (at DWJ mailing list)

- Cho

Awww.
He looked fine to me.
As fine as anyone who's talking and signing and having random lunatics give him Choc-Dips can look, really.

He survived Dundalk unscathed. Dunno what he was like when he left mind Belfast though

The read balloon does not signify anything, really. Back in the day, when we decided to be nice to new posters, we'd give people "welcome presents". I think it was dayvd who first gave someone a red balloon, and Theatre Geek would always offer cookies. Eventually at some point whenever someone was welcomed, some posters would offer a balloons and cookies on behalf of dayvd or TheatreGeek, if they weren't around, and eventually it was just a tradition that someone, anyone, would offer a red balloon.

I like the idea of freaking him