Philcon is only a few days away, and the schedule is not yet posted to the website. This does not surprise me in the least. Last year I think it went up all of 24 hours before the con started. Of course, last year I didn't know that other cons get everything finished with a little more time to spare, so I was more patient. I find that loading the site every 45 minutes or so is not producing results. Sad day.

The panelists did get their panel assignments yesterday, and I've been hunting down posts to find out what I can. First the panelists I actually know. Then friends of friends, friends of Philcon... I wonder whether it would be possible to reconstitute the whole schedule given sufficient webcrawling? Probably not, but it might be interesting to try. However, that pesky gainful employment thing will keep me from finding out.

At least I'm finding a taste of what's in store. No, maybe, probably, none of those... well, THAT'S got my name written all over it... Ooh, I'll go to anything that lets me listen to her talk.

But the burning question in my mind will probably not be answered until the full schedule goes up: Is there a theremin performance, and if so, when and where? Because I wish to be as far away as possible. I have learned that I loathe the theremin with a deep and abiding passion. It's not just because it can be played very badly. The people who play at cons are generally very talented. It turns out that even a well-played theremin still causes a visceral reaction in me which is not quite illness and not quite nails-on-the-chalkboard, but has elements of both. I think it's got to be something subsonic, because I have this problem only with live performances and not with recordings.