Cleaning Up

We spent most of today tidying up the apartment and rearranging things, especially as we anticipating buying better desks and shelving soon. We have one closet that is not used for storing clothes, but instead had a bunch of things in it stored loosely. I also have four two-drawer filing cabinets that I acquired from Menlo's discard pile when we moved from Redwood Shores to San Mateo. Two of the cabinets were in the storage closet off the patio, and the other two were sitting around the apartment, inconveniently blocking traffic. We decided we could clear out the closets and put the file cabinets in the closets. After much shuffling around, this worked, barely.

We are likely going to have at least one and possibly two smaller sets of shelves that are surplus to requirements coming available soon. Once we get them sufficiently cleared, I will take pictures of them. If anyone reading this could use a couple of sets of shelves and can make it either to my apartment in Fremont or to a BASFA meeting, let me know -- they are yours if you want them. Otherwise, we probably will donate them to charity if they'll take them.

(Specs: #1 is 30" h x 30" w x 11.5" d, three shelves, metal framework. #2 is 28" h by 35" w x 15" deep, two shelves, wood. Both are in good condition; we just need to use the space more effectively.)

I'd consider trying to sell them on eBay, but the shipping is almost certainly more than the value of the items themselves, which seems wasteful to me.

A Disturbing Trend

I have Google Alerts set to tell me about uses of the WSFS service marks ("Worldcon," "Hugo Award," etc.). Over the past weekend, I've had two alerts that trouble me. At least two people writing about their trip to Austin for this past weekend's World Fantasy Convention have called it "Worldcon."

The two cases are here and here. If you go read these, you will see that I've replied with messages correcting them about what the name of the convention they attended was. I'm sure they won't be pleased by that -- after all, who cares, right?

Unfortunately, it's sort of my job (albeit unpaid) to care about this sort of thing.

I'm sure this has nothing to do with the management of WFC or any particular WFC committee. Heck, SFSFC is bidding to host a WFC, and we were the parent non-profit of the 1998 WFC. It's just a creeping erosion of the Worldcon service mark that I feel obliged to do my part to stop.