Shockingly enough, the rain held off today and I was able to go to the Southern Connecticut Renaissance Faire today.  Sadly, I wasn't able to find anyone else who was going, which kind of limits the fun to be had, but hey - a faire's a faire, and I've been jonesing to go for almost a year now.  Anyway, this was the first time I've managed to check this one out.  It's a bit smaller than the faire up in Woodstock, and it doesn't seem to be quite as well organized (judging from the lack of content on their web site, at least), but it has the distinct advantage of only being 30 minutes away from here, instead of the hour and a half or so it takes to drive up to Woodstock.  The merchants were pretty much the usual mix of weapons, clothing, jewelry, etc. - in fact, I recognized more than a few of them.  One claimed to recognize me, or at least the armor and shield I was wearing.  Whether or not I'd actually bought said items from them in the past, I have no idea.  Speaking of buying... I ended up getting a new set of bracers, as my old ones were pretty crappy, and a brooch for my cloak.  I was eyeing this bronze (bronze?  brass?  one of the two) neck torc, too, but by that point I'd spent all the cash I'd brought with me.  I guess it'll have to wait for the next faire.

As usual, I slacked off in the picture-taking department.  What can I say?  I'm too busy enjoying the happenings to go digging for my camera and trying to set up a halfway-decent shot.  That, and half the things I end up admiring end up being the bodices of female faire-goers, and taking such pictures might get me slapped and/or skewered with a sword.   I did end up posing for someone else's camera, however.  The encounter was a little weird - this woman stopped me and, after asking if I worked for the faire, asked if anyone had ever told me I looked like Leonardo DiCaprio.  I'm assuming that was supposed to be complimentary.  As one might imagine, I was more than a little confused by such a question.  And, no, no one has ever told me that I look like Leonardo DiCaprio.  Thank God.

I've come to the conclusion that something about me leads people to think I'm an employee of whatever location I happen to be at.  It happens on a daily basis at work (I have to tell them that I don't work for Stop & Shop, so I really don't know the answers to 95% of their questions).  It happened when I wandered into Best Buy a week or two back.  It happened while I was wandering around the casino at the Mohegan Sun gig.  And today, I had two or three people asking if I worked for the faire.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm especially annoyed by all of this, more like just slightly amused, but... why?  Is there a tattoo reading "STAFF" on my forehead that I've somehow failed to notice?  All I can figure is that there must be something in my body language that makes people think I'm not just another customer/visitor/whatever.

Next up on the calendar of geeky goodness is Connecticon, next weekend.  I was considering running a D&D game for it, but it seems that their RPG schedule is more or less full at this point.  Which, considering that I hadn't gotten around to actually working out the details of the game I wanted to run, isn't really that bad a thing.  If a slot opens up, I may end up putting the game together at the con, similar to what Duane and I did last year.  In the meantime, though, I plan on stocking up on Pocky and caffeine.

I just might have a place other than Cleo to stay for the con this year.  I went to check out the apartment in West Hartford on Thursday afternoon, and while I wan't exactly overwhelmed by it, it seemed like a pretty decent place.  It's kind of small for the price, but it's in a pretty decent neighborhood.  Like I mentioned earlier, being within walking distance of Dragon's Lair is kind of a nice perk. Off-street parking and, gasp, air conditioning are pluses too.  I'd planned on dropping off the application fee after work yesterday, but things somehow ended up taking far, far longer to finish than they really should have, and I didn't finish my last store until 6:30.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to take care of it on Monday, either, since that tends to be a fairly busy day for me between work and my rehearsal in Westbrook.  But, hey, all things are possible with enough caffeine to speed you along.  At least, that's the theory.

I R Goin to Connecticon on Saturday :)