Current location:	Anaheim CA
Current mood:	hot & sweaty
Current music:	Shahin & Sepehr - "Caspian Calypso"
Entry tags:	ribbons

...Misters K and H assure the public their production will be second to none...
Order #33 (the second in the series for this summer) arrived Monday, and I've addressed and stamped them. They'll go out in Tuesday's mail. Plain and fancy ribbons include LiveJournal "head" ribbons, www.badastronomy.com, Sterilized With Fear!, and Eric in the Elevator. I expect the next shipment to arrive before I get back from Tulsa. (And I just might check out Conestoga while I'm in Tulsa, if my work schedule allows.)

And here's the 20th installment in my ribbon story. All ribbons ordered this year; three plain ones from earlier in the year, and three fancies from the current crop being made ready for laconiv.


The "Pan-Galactic Express" ribbons just arrived; the fuchsia is a nicer color than the neon "fuchsia" on the Pan-Galactic Minion ribbons. "Pan-Galactic Express" is affiliated with the L.A.con IV newsletter. It's inspired by Bucconeer's "Sea Pony Express" service. Basically it's a gopher or courier department. If you're working for a department at L.A.con IV, and you want something hand-carried to another location, you can call them up or flag down one of the people with the fuchsia ribbon, and they'll take your package where it needs to go. They'll be based in the Hilton; I'm hoping they'll have a house phone as well as their portable phones. About three times a day, the Daily Newsletter department will need them to distribute the newszine; the rest of the day, they're on call for all departments' needs.

Typefaces: Bremen Black and Clarendon Extended.


selinawoman has been known to leave her mark on people, especially her friends. Now she'll be able to do that without smearing her lipstick. Thanks to obishawn for massaging Selina's scanned-in lip-print and making it something that should reproduce well on a ribbon. She's ordered 300 of them, so expect to see these at a couple of local conventions starting with L.A.con IV.

Typeface: Blado.


Karen C. wanted "Squid Lover" ribbons to hand out at the con. I still have no idea what it means. I was looking through my dingbats looking for a suitable image, and I asked colleency "does this look like an octopus?" She said it looked more like a squid, so I figured it was the image to use. I whomped out six variations for the art (pointing to the left or the right; positioned between the words or at either end of the ribbon) and this is the version Karen liked. Her ribbons were probably postmarked Saturday, by the way.

Typeface: Clarendon Condensed and "Animals 2" (which I downloaded from somewhere).

• CASA DE WHAT?
• Stack the Brix
• Vintacon

bovil ordered these three plain ribbons in time for baycon. Baycon's gone ribbon-crazy, as you may have heard; they had approx 2500 members and ordered about 15,000 ribbons for the convention. In other words if you didn't get 6 ribbons on your Baycon badge, you were below your quota. Kevin and Andy wanted these ribbons for a variety of purposes. "Casa de What?" (and the "Casa de Worldcon" ribbons that Baycon ordered) are for their hollister208 hoax bid, for "Casa de Fruta" in Hollister, California. The principal route from I-5 to San Jose goes through Hollister (by way of Pachinko Pass), and the "Casa de Fruta" complex includes a number of Casa de This and Casa de That. Casa de Wine is one of them, I believe.

(Apropos of nothing: My all-time favorite instance of Spanglish would be the signs I've seen in L.A. that say "Renta y Venta." For those who don't habla español, venta means sales.)

Casa de Wine brings us to "Vintacon", a low-key quasi-convention for wine buffs. bovil ordered these, but the reorder in time for Worldcon is sponsored by Spring S.

And "Stack the Brix" is a related ribbon; Brix is a term that relates to sweet wines and their sugar/alcohol content. There is a private "Sweet Wine" party at many conventions; if you have a little bottle of sweet wine to share, ask Bobbi if you can bring it to the party. I poked my head in the Sweet Wine Party at conzilla (where she was fgoh), and Andy was handing out the "Stack the Brix" ribbons there.

Typeface: Their standard serif typeface. I don't know what it is; maybe I'll post some pictures of the ribbons here and some of the fontologists and typographers in the audience can make a guess...