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Apr. 7th, 2012
Striking Gold
Apr. 7th, 2012 08:13 pmI wrote yesterday of being highly disappointed with the offer I got for the gold crown and that I walked out on it. Near my soon-to-be-ex-home is another sell-your-gold place that only recently opened. I went for a walk this afternoon and decided to see what they'd offer me for it. They ran a rub test and weighed it, confirming that the crown appeared to be 2.5 g of 14K gold. They offered me $50 straight up. Considering that I'd previously calculated that the best-case value of the gold was $75 and that $50 was a reasonable offer (I rejected $30 yesterday), I decided not to quibble and took the offer, which they paid (to my surprise) in cash.
I might have been able to squeeze another $5 out of them, or from the other gold place, by getting the offer in writing (the first place had a "we'll match any other written offer and beat it by 10%), but I didn't consider it worth running around for an extra $5 like that. Besides, it's probably less than 2.5 g, on account of there still some dental cement on the inside of the thing. It was a decent offer and it gives me and extra $50 to put toward the rather large dental bill I'm going to get for the replacement crown.
I might have been able to squeeze another $5 out of them, or from the other gold place, by getting the offer in writing (the first place had a "we'll match any other written offer and beat it by 10%), but I didn't consider it worth running around for an extra $5 like that. Besides, it's probably less than 2.5 g, on account of there still some dental cement on the inside of the thing. It was a decent offer and it gives me and extra $50 to put toward the rather large dental bill I'm going to get for the replacement crown.
Hugo Nomination Announcement Day
Apr. 7th, 2012 08:31 pmYesterday evening, I set up a template for the Hugo Award nominations announcements on TheHugoAwards.org. I got so nervous that at one point I disconnected the computer one which I was doing the setup from the network and made sure the wireless connection was disabled. You see, I'd been given an embargoed copy of the nominations.
( Why this is both good and bad )
Technically, the embargo didn't lift until 2 PM Pacific Time this afternoon; however, when the announcements ceremony at Eastercon ended and the results appeared on the Chicon 7 web site and about a quarter to 2, I figured the wraps could come off and I pasted the formatted results into the dummied-up page, removed the password, and moved it from draft to public and published it. Presto, the 2012 Hugo Awards Announcement Page.
This page will be the same place the final results will appear, as we just move the winner's name to the top and highlight it as the winner during the ceremony. I'm also supposed to re-order the list in order of finish, but I forgot to do that this year until a couple of months ago when it was pointed out to me that the other positions were still listed alphabetically. Getting the winners posted is first priority, and at Reno I was also faced with having Match Game SF to host immediately after the Hugo Awards Ceremony. I reckon I won't have a commitment like that this year in Chicago, and maybe will have a little more time to clean things up post-ceremony.
The Hugo Announcements were being made simultaneously at events at five conventions this afternoon, and all five announcements were to be shown on UStream. I thought they were trying to coordinate the announcements, but it appears that each of the five was independent of each other. I didn't try to follow all five for the entire ceremony — I don't have that much bandwidth — but it looked like Norwescon had severe technical difficulties and both Minicon and Eastercon had fair difficulty getting the sound to pick up well. I'm not sure where the Chicon 7 twitter feed was based, but it started putting forth nomination results as well at a pace that didn't seem to match any of the feeds I was following. It was all marvelously out-of-synch, meaning that the word spread slightly unevenly, but I don't see that as too big a deal. I thought Chicon's ambitious five-convention-plus-online reveal was pretty cool even if it didn't work 100%. Consider that just a few years ago, it would have been practically impossible to even try it. Soon, I expect we'll consider it routine.
( Why this is both good and bad )
Technically, the embargo didn't lift until 2 PM Pacific Time this afternoon; however, when the announcements ceremony at Eastercon ended and the results appeared on the Chicon 7 web site and about a quarter to 2, I figured the wraps could come off and I pasted the formatted results into the dummied-up page, removed the password, and moved it from draft to public and published it. Presto, the 2012 Hugo Awards Announcement Page.
This page will be the same place the final results will appear, as we just move the winner's name to the top and highlight it as the winner during the ceremony. I'm also supposed to re-order the list in order of finish, but I forgot to do that this year until a couple of months ago when it was pointed out to me that the other positions were still listed alphabetically. Getting the winners posted is first priority, and at Reno I was also faced with having Match Game SF to host immediately after the Hugo Awards Ceremony. I reckon I won't have a commitment like that this year in Chicago, and maybe will have a little more time to clean things up post-ceremony.
The Hugo Announcements were being made simultaneously at events at five conventions this afternoon, and all five announcements were to be shown on UStream. I thought they were trying to coordinate the announcements, but it appears that each of the five was independent of each other. I didn't try to follow all five for the entire ceremony — I don't have that much bandwidth — but it looked like Norwescon had severe technical difficulties and both Minicon and Eastercon had fair difficulty getting the sound to pick up well. I'm not sure where the Chicon 7 twitter feed was based, but it started putting forth nomination results as well at a pace that didn't seem to match any of the feeds I was following. It was all marvelously out-of-synch, meaning that the word spread slightly unevenly, but I don't see that as too big a deal. I thought Chicon's ambitious five-convention-plus-online reveal was pretty cool even if it didn't work 100%. Consider that just a few years ago, it would have been practically impossible to even try it. Soon, I expect we'll consider it routine.