On the road again: Balticon, day 1

The con doesn't start until tomorrow, but we drove up today so I'd be available for programming then without having to leave at oh-dark-thirty in the morning. The drive was hellish much of the time, with a large percentage of the drivers around me convinced that their vehicles and mine could occupy the same space at the same time. Getting around DC and then Baltimore took about two and a half hours, with more and worse traffic stop-and-crawl times than I've experienced in years and years.

I finally got to meet my handler, Ticia, who was as charming in person as in email. She joined us tonight for a delicious dinner at Pazo. We all ate way too many tasty small plates; I strongly recommend this place if you're in the area.

After dinner, we went to a late show of Terminator: Salvation. I enjoyed it well enough, but it was definitely nowhere near everything I had hoped it would be. I like action scenes and special effects as much as the next guy, maybe more than most people, but I really would love to see them coupled to a plot that makes internal sense and editing that doesn't leave you regularly asking, "Huh? How'd we get here?"

The answer to this SF movie problem is obvious: some studio should buy (for enormous sums) the movie rights to my Jon & Lobo books and make a series of films from them. Starring Will Smith, of course.