...but has it been done well?

"Harry Potter and the Transfer Student from Midchilda", anyone?

[size=smaller](Yes, I'm looking for recommendations.)[/size]
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Hogwarts Great Hall, September 1st 1995

The Sorting Hat had finished its song, but before McGonegal could call up the first of the new students there was rumble and a pop and a small pile of dirt appeared under the three-legged stool it sat on, suddenly enough to make the Hat bounce in place a bit. Leaning closer, she was quite taken aback when it suddenly declared, "GRYFFINDOR!"

The more so when a second voice added, "Grip a what?" in a broad Brooklyn accent, and for that matter without the hat's mouth-like tear moving. Thus the normally unflappable Deputy Headmistress merely looked on in amazement as a pair of white gloves supported by grey arms poked out from under the brim and felt around for a few seconds, before picking the hat up to balance against a forehead and two long, wide-splayed ears. "Eh, what's up, doc?" the owner of said voice, gloves, arms, and ears asked, before shimmying up out of a hole that had somehow bored straight through the seat of the stool and producing a carrot from somewhere behind his back. He munched on it while looking around at the Great Hall and the many curious students and staff waiting at the long tables. "My, my, dis certainly don't look like Coney Island... I knew I shoulda' toinned left at Albuquerque."

Gathering her composure, the teacher drew herself up into a more dignified posture. "Indeed not, this is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and I am Professor Minerva McGonagal, Deputy Headmistress and teacher of Transfigurations. At the moment, however, I was attempting to introduce the new students to be Sorted into their houses," she added, with a quelling wave of her list.

"Ooh, Magic?" asked the newcomer, impressed. "I know some transfinaglin'... like dis! Alakazoot!" Having finished his carrot and tossed the butt end with the greens back into the hole, he drew another (nine and three quarter inches, carrot with a D. carota sativus heart core, quite crisp - a well balanced carrot, good for all purposes) and gave it a twirl and a jab.

The list in McGonegal's hand grew a bit longer and a new name appeared. "Bunny, Bugs?" she read aloud.

"I already told you, this one's a Gryffindor," the Hat said irritably. "Go along now and sit at the table with the red banners, I've got a lot more Sorting yet to do tonight."

(later that evening, in the Headmaster's office)

No matter how much of a surprise his appearance might have been, McGonegal was too fair-minded to deny that the school Register had accepted Bugs as a student, and likewise that the transformation he'd done on her list was well above first-year work. That did leave the question of where to actually place him, however.

"Oh, I loined magic from Da Amazin' Ali-Bahma," Bugs explained. "All kind of innnterestin' spells - here, he can tell ya!" Pulling the Sorting Hat off its shelf, he flipped it over and reached inside, leaning down to fit his arm in nearly to the shoulder before incanting "Roota boota zoot!" and pulling out a rather tall man in a black suit and turban, quite podgy about the middle, who looked confused for a few seconds before focusing on his conjurer.

"Ze rabbit?" he exclaimed, a bit fearfully.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with amusement, but he calmly asked, "You would be The Amazing Ali Bahma then I take it, who taught this talented young... fellow, to perform such skilled transfinaglatio- that is, Transfiguration?"

Ali Bahma looked back and forth between the Headmaster and the rabbit, blinking and making inarticulate noises, before being pre-empted by Bugs once more.

"Oh, he taught me lotsa magic, ain't dat right Ali? Like conjurin' a pie!" Bugs rolled up the fur of his free arm and waggled the fingers theatrically. "Nuttin' up my sleeve!" he announced before plunging it back into the Sorting Hat. "Roota boota zoot! See, a fresh cherry pie, still warm from da' oven. Tell 'em how real it is, Ali!" he crowed, before smashing it in the tall man's face. Ignoring Ali Bahma's indignant sputtering and the way he just got redder even as he wiped the remains away, Bugs delved again into the Hat, this time climbing half into it as it hung in the air where he'd been holding it in order to pull out a large wicker basket. "An' den dere's dat trick wit' da swords..." he he continued, reaching in a fourth time before pulling out the Sword of Gryffindor. "Ooh, dis is a nice one."

Anger blown away by the memory of his last round in the basket and not about to go through that again, Ali Bahma cut into his supposed student's patter. "Zat's right, he's all trained up, just needs ze hat, ze owl, and ze stuffed alley-gator to be ze proper wizard. Bye-bye!" Before any further indignities could be inflicted on him, he waggled his own fingers at the still-floating hat, incanted "Rooty zoot zoot!" and jumped for it, pinching his nose shut with one hand before diving back in.

Giving his best batty-grandfather smile Dumbledore said, "Well, that settles things I should say. It's far from the first time an older, independently taught student enrolled to brush up in his OWL year. Minerva, I trust you can instruct the house-elves in expanding your fifth-year boys' dorm accordingly."

(. . .)

There needs to be some Umbridge in here, too, protesting the inclusion of a "subhuman" student and getting thwarted in humorous ways each time she tries to interrupt, but those details are not resolving for me except for Bugs' aside after one of the more spectacular ones, "I do dis kind'a thing to her all through da picture."

And, of course, there's the interactions between Bugs and the Trio, Bugs and Snape, Bugs and (shudder) the Twins...

Bugs is pretty much a by-the-numbers Trickster Folk Hero, when you get right down to it, and if there's one thing Harry desperately needs, fifth year more than any other, it's a non-pushy/overprotective mentor in the heroing business and the ability to find a bit of fun even when the situation looks bad.

Opinions on the bunnybunny?

- CD, still not back on his own machine... getting an anti-static workspace togehter was more idfficult than expected, and procrastination has set in too...

EOF
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

House Raising - 10/Jun/2012
Mid Spring, 2008, Luna.
Can you raise a house on the Moon?  If most of the bits come from Earth, is that a 'house falling'?  That doesn't make much sense.  But, if the Moon's above the Earth, it might still be 'raising'.
This and other nonsense went through Brains head, as he sat on the Lunar surface, looking at where home would be.  On land he owned.  On the Far Side of the Moon.
He'd spent nearly two months, over-working to get his plans and materials ready, since his 'day trip' up here.  Fortunately these days he'd the help of Brainless, who honestly seemed to enjoy the more structured (dare he say 'simpler'?) bits.  Though he'd almost nudged him out of his cottage workshop, to the one on the 'SS Champ'.
He'd come up with a new variety of 'paint'.  This took transparent mylar film used for a lot of his work and both strengthened it and made it convert about 25% of the light passing through it into electricity, while still making it almost invisible.  UV and IR too.  He'd treated the mylar pressure dome, the one he'd used to avoiding waving the clay pit, with this.  After tests he thought it ready for Moon duty.
Resources was a major problem[1].  Theoretically handwavium must be capable of transmutation of elements, one reason he thought it was benevolent femtotech[2]. But, that was a can of worms he wouldn't open, just for his own convenience.  The results could be so horribly messy that it'd make juggling anti-matter look user-friendly.
The big problems were nitrogen, for his air, and carbon.  Oxygen was no problem.  Hydrogen was solvable if that mythical Lunar water was actually exploitable.  Otherwise it was asteroid mining time.  That'd give him water ice, and carbon, and he could hope enough nitrogen.  In the short-term he'd enough power to distil nitrogen out of Earth's atmosphere, and bottle it, or stock-up on ammonium nitrate.  And charcoal.
He'd waved the 'Recyclosaurus'.  Sometimes handwavium seemed to like silly things, and this was one of them.  An immense vegetarian dinosaur head and neck, currently attached to a bare frame robot body.  Uran called it "Nom Nom"[3], and insisted it was male.  He'd just slot in the cargo hatch of the 'SS Champ' and his chemical 'stomachs' reprocessed just about anything he ate, into useful feed-stocks.
Brains hadn't much use for Titanium, Aluminium, Magnesium, or even much Iron, at the moment, but something would probably come up.  Some nice stone walls for the garden were worth thinking about, and he'd need to make his own soil.  Plants in tubs would be a good start.
He looked over at the faint distortion where Nom Nom had been dug into the lunar regolith.  He seemed to be making good progress, the measures to stop lunar dust wrecking his works were holding.  That'd been a pain to fix.  The stuff got in everywhere.
Nom Nom's companions, the twin giant Beaver robot builders were doing well.  Following behind they took processed material and built then sealed underground walls.  Brains had named them 'Castor' and 'Pollux', but Uran said one should be called 'Teddy', though she wouldn't explain why.
A few more hours and they could seal the area where the dome was going to be raised, and stop relying on stored power.  The ship itself generated some power, of course, from energy it absorbed rather than diverted around, and the newly installed image system could provide a trickle, too.  Neither had a big enough cross-section, though.  Until he got the deep heat sinks installed this place'd show-up like an infra-red beacon to anyone who scanned it from orbit.  It was a risky time.
Uran had offered to help with the work.  But, the first part was mostly supervision, and he'd prefer to give her opportunity to play, rather than be bored.  He thought she was finishing reading "Harry Potter", at the moment.  Dipping into engineering and technical works when she wanted some diversion.  She seemed a competent programmer, but the subject didn't seem to interest her, in general.  Vehicles also didn't seem to catch her fancy, so she probably wouldn't become a 'Gearhead'.
'Ting!'  This time, unlike on the day trip, he'd brought a way to communicate with the others.  The display showed Pollux was saying they'd completed the first, outer, circle.  It'd seemed sensible not to make them too smart, and that'd worked so far.
Time to go down into the basement...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Uh... Terr? Is there something you haven't been telling us?
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

So... I finally got around to watching the first few episodes of "Legend of Korra."  And so far, it's looking like a worthy successor to ATLA.

But... not far into the first episode, there was a moment of truly epic trollage.  Or shouting-out.  Or... well, it's one of those things that manages to be more than one thing at once.

The scene in question (and those of you who have seen the episode probably already guessed what I'm talking about) is when Katara is asked by one of her grandchildren, "Whatever happened to Zuko's mother?"  Which most ATLA fans know was supposed to be a major element of the originally intended followup series, before the decision was made to go with LoK instead.  
And Katara replies!  "Oh, that's the most amazing story--" and BAM!  Cue interruption by another (and more highly caffeinated) grandchild, and the entire topic gets dropped never to be seen again.

I screamed.  I literally screamed "oh you magnificent BASTARDS, I can't believe you DID that!" at the screen (it helped that I was home alone).  I can't recall the last time I managed to howl with rage and LMFAO at the same time at this intensity.  I had to hit pause and give myself a few minutes just to get my brain back in order.  For a moment there, just a moment, I actually thought they were going to do more than simply troll us on that question.  And it worked b/c it came completely out of nowhere with zero setup... and went back to nowhere almost as fast.

UnbeLIEVable.

Formerly the Second richest man in Ireland (After Seán Quinn), possibly Second richest in Fenspace (After Noah Scott), Second known individual from Ireland to make it to space (After Liam Corcoran), owner of the Second 'Dedicated Private residence' space station in L5 to be constructed (After Kickassia) and owner of the second privately owned Space Shuttle in Fenspace [ref] At least, as he sees it [/ref].

He is a man used to being Second. And he Hates it.

Padraig made his multiple millions during the heady days of the Celtic Tiger in the Republic of Ireland. He was one of the posterchilds of the economic boom with a world-spanning property portfolio managed through his former corporate persona, Eirstar. Padraig rubbed shoulders with the elite of power in the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway races, being conspicuously involved in the 2007 election campaigns that returned the Ahern government to power.

He made his millions buying farmland cheaply, which would later be rezoned for housing and commerical development.

Padraig understood the potential of handwavium, and as the potential to expand his personal empire to space.

Unfortunately, reality had other ideas.

The crash of 2008 hit him hard, with the value of the majority of his holdings collapsing. Still, ever the opportunist, and with the insider information that made him aware of how bad the impending crash really would be, he saw an out. O'Neill was one of a group of property developers and bankers who advised the government throughout the summer of 2008 that the banking sector was properly capitalised, while simultaneously building up the fund to fund construction of his orbiting home by selling off his stake in numerous banks and development companies, hoping to get out of dodge before the shit finally hit the fan. [ref]Proving this, on the other hand, is almost impossible[/ref].

The majority of his personal wealth went into the construction, fitting out and launch of the eponymous station. Frustratingly for him, he was beaten to orbit by Kickassia by just over a week. At one stage wealthier than Noah Scott, he slipped into second place as construction costs of O'Neill ballooned, then fell further behind as Stellvia Trading began to take off. Padráig made an investment in the struggling startup Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles, eventually increasing his stake to a controlling interest as he brought it to prosperity

He quickly gained a reputation for 'Keeping up with the Joneses', with the CHOAM and the remains of his mundane holdings, including a multi-million Euro a year pension, being able to fund his lavish lifestyle with ease. He is notorious for being conspicuous with his expenditure of wealth and with the appearance of success, a still acts very much like the Celtic Tiger he sees himself as.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Eirstar was declared bankrupt with it's holdings either sold off or folded into NAMA in mid-2010. In a fit of irony, many of the ghost-estates sold off in the great land-sale of 2015 were constructed on land once owned by O'Neill, with some being purchased for less than a tenth of the price he sold them for at the peak of the boom.

in genera; He's a charming, likeable, agreeable fellow when he thinks he can sell you something, or there's money to be made from you.... or is just plain on your side. He's been described by some as an Irish Austin Powers, a description he doesn't exactly shoot down either. His 'Angels' appear to genuinely like him, though how much of that is his persona, how much of it is the lifestyle, and how much of that is his money, is anybody's guess.

On the other hands, he's burned a lot of people to make his money and contributed to the ruin of a national economy, then split when it looked like it was all going to fall down.

He is not popular with Fen of Irish extraction. Not at all.

----- Attributes

Gifted Gabber: A real charmer, and with what appears to be an 'eager to please' salesman's person.

I am the 1%. Filthy stinking rich, and damned proud of it.

Anything you can buy.... : Has an ongoing one-sided' rivalry with Noah Scott. Space Shuttle, Solomon Space Agency, CHOAM... station full of 'Angels.

And I'll pay any price: Willing to spend money excessively to avoid being seen as behind the times, or inferior to anyone else. Likes to appear obviously rich.

It's not personal, it's just business: Not above using 'underhanded' tactics to make money. Nothing illegal as such, but it probably should be.

It's business, not rocket science: Genuinely good at what he does, however. [ref]He did managed to turn the CHOAM into a stable, profitable business, after all[/ref]

This round's on me!: Not above meeting potential business partners in a pub/bar first, 'to get a feel for them'. Is conspicuous about buying drinks. [ref]Including introducing Vulpine Fury to his 'First Pint' while negotiating a deal that eventually fell through[/ref]

-------

Okay. Maybe I am just a little bit bitter.

Although it does offer a nice explanation of why Ford Sierra was able to afford a classic Shelby GT-500 (In need of restoration)....

EDIT: Bloody typos. And filled it out a little.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

Bootstrap 2 - 31/May/2012
Late Autumn, 2007, UK.
Brains would be the front of the queue.  To agree that his first bootstrapping hadn't been an unqualified success.  A great deal of work.  His best efforts and much lack of sleep for more than a week.  And, all he had was a framed Victorian picture of a girl, cradling a cloth cat.  That scared the life out of him.
He'd gone back to first principles.  He had to understand handwavium.  After several attempts he had a toy tricorder which could detect even minute qualities of it.  And, he was learning to interpret the display so he could tell how much, and of what type.
The Victorian picture did not show up at all on his 'w-scanner'.  Nor did the area where he'd done the ritual, though he'd literally painted it all over.  All totally clean.  Thank you, Emily.
The weather had been quite kind, so far, but he was sure Autumn was going to bite, pretty soon.  He'd made quite a load of money, lately, with animated dioramas for a number of TV channels.  They were impressed by the accuracy he managed, and, how quickly he could provide them with high quality footage.  They wouldn't believe him when he said he wasn't using secret cutting-edge computer animation.  And, they really liked the individualism of the figures.
Careful investigation had lead him to the idea of a clay pit, such as used in many old episodes of Doctor Who.  He'd been finding just what sorts of ultra materials[1] he could handwavium up, and so far 'Doc' Smith's dureum led the pack for toughness, and Campbell's lux and relux for strength combined with exotic properties.  The first having a density 200 times water, and the later two about a 100 times, meant he had to be very careful who found out about them.
He thought he'd been careful, but obviously not careful enough.  He'd waved his wheelchair.  Now it would fold not just to go in the boot of a car, but into a walking frame.  What really worried him was he couldn't spot any downsides.
The MEMS tip alarm had become some sort of flight system.  The rain cape which he'd jokingly referred to as his 'invisible forcefield' now was.  His 'magic' hot cup provided pure water/ OJ/ tasteless pap labelled 'Nutrition'.  One of his diapers had become 'ever clean' - some sort of waste disposal/recycling system; he suspected it might be feeding the hot cup.  Too many late nights watching space flight on 'Discovery' channel...
Loggy with lack of sleep when he'd first noticed this, he'd remarked out loud that all it needed was air regeneration, and a (Niven?) electro-stim anti-muscle wastage gadget.  Then found in the morning, after thirteen hours sleep, his 'keep fresh' ionic air-freshener and his auto-exerciser had somehow been incorporated.  Sleep tinkering?
That was the final straw.  He'd build a negative pressure hood inside which he did all his small-scale handwavium work, and, later added isolator gloves and waldos.  At every break, and at the end of the day, he did a careful sweep of his workshop, and himself, with the w-meter.  No food or drink ever went anywhere near the workshop, and he'd added an automatic w-alarm to the doorway.  And an emergency shower unit for accidents.
He was wrong about the wheelchair not having any problems.  Over the years he'd joked that being in a wheelchair made him invisible.  As much as a six-foot tall, ex-Rugby playing, stocky build man, with brilliant green eyes and bright red hair could be.  Now he found that unless he deliberately drew people's attention, their eyes just slid past him.  This didn't apply when the chair folded into walking mode, but the shock of his sudden 'appearance', and several near heart attacks, led him to restrict this to climbing stairs, certainly where anyone could see him.
A wheelchair that made him more socially isolated didn't strike him as being the sort of 'self improvement' that Emily had implied he needed.  But, it led him to thinking about means of going invisible, remaining undetected, which seemed wise given the fuss starting to be made about handwavium.  Meta materials, with negative refractive indexes, bending light and radar around them.  Super carbon black, absorbing all wavelengths.  Seemed a good start.
He'd started to experiment with 5 micron mylar, polyester, sheet[2].  Previously he'd used this for model work, sometimes coated with tissue, and he'd found its already amazing strength-for-weight could be boosted by waving.  With careful use of heat and paint you could shape it, and make it look like anything. Taking this to the next level mylar could be waved into dureum, lux or relux, and become nearly indestructible.
Though, you'd to be really careful with the edges, and he'd developed a regime of carefully rolling them to avoid limb-threatening 'paper cuts'.  You could probably take someone's head off with a dureum frisbee bowler hat...
The wheelchair had tempted him in ways he couldn't resist.  It seemed to be able to fly, sliding through the air to cause minimum turbulence, at up to 300mph, then above 65mls go into some mode he thought they called 'speed drive'.  The view from the edge of space had been spectacular.  He could be anywhere on the planet in under an hour, and half of that was the journey through atmosphere at each end.  The brief New Zealand visit, to watch his elder brother's family, from a distance, had been fun.
What annoyed him was he hadn't planned the wheelchair, so he didn't know how it worked, what logic it followed, even whether the batteries might fail at some unfortunate time.  Careful study of SF space drives had led him to suspect Prof Laithwaite's[3] gyroscopic anti-gravity.  A test vehicle, literally a flying crate, seemed to operate happily using a pair of MEMs gyroscopes, powered by an old car battery, directed by a model plane remote control.  One of the pair seemed to give zero gravity, the other thrust and artificial gravity, which seemed to include protection from acceleration.
The crate amused him because it reminded of Blish's[4] "Welcome to Mars" - a boy makes the first Mars flight and human landing in a packing crate.  But, the spin-dizzy of "Cities in Flight" also came to mind, and the idea of a city like New York going to the stars was a bit terrifying.  Throwing planets around was probably best left to 'Doc' Smith.
The idea of spotting when people were observing you seemed a good idea, and an excellent way of checking if your invisibility was working right.  The 'now you see me, now you don't' problem with the wheelchair proved an excellent tool for checking this.  His 'obs-detector' seemed to work for humans, and gadgets, even AIs he later discovered, but not animals - strange...  Maybe his initials being 'OBS' helped him develop this?
All this pondering, and R&D, led him back to his back garden, early one Autumn evening, checking he wasn't observed.
He'd assembled his 'work horse' a few nights ago, a 2m diameter cylinder, 6m long, 'cigar shape', and found its invisible hull worked fine.  Then, the last few days out-fitting it, in the near-derelict garage, just beyond the edge of his property.  Not as nimble as the wheelchair, but capable of hauling plenty of mass.  The mylar pressure dome was folded and stored, on-board, as was the compressor, and, he hoped, all the bamboo poles and mylar rolls he'd need to use.  And the paint.  Couldn't forget the paint.
Ten hours later he was done with the clay pit.  The shell of his new craft, curing nicely, and already properly invisible, was gravity-tethered over a nearby disused air field.  Mylar sheet had become dureum strips, pre-shaped into hoops and struts.  The pressure dome reduced the amount of handwavium being sprayed in all directions, and an electro-static charge directed it to where it was needed.  Finally, fitting and spraying an outer sheath of layered dureum, relux and lux.  His w-scanner said his wheelchair forcefield had kept him clean.
The 'work boat' as a 6m diameter cylinder, 20m long, 'cigar shape', should be good enough for any of his purposes, and he could spend the Winter months drawing and waving circuitry onto the insides, with the odd MEMs device, or focus crystal.  Two floors, in most parts. Drive, accumulator banks, force fields, passive sensor array, emergency drive, emergency force fields, air and water regeneration...  Then, in Spring, he could add living quarters and tidy-up the on-board workshop.
Later, he wondered if he'd made a mistake.  His work horse was just too long to fit in the standard parking spaces used in Fenspace.  But, maybe people wouldn't have liked a permanently invisible 'truck'.  And, people trying to park where you already were parked might've got annoying.
At least he could be quite sure that neither his work horse, or boat, should develop AI.  Emily had scared him off that; point-and-shoot navigation should be good enough for any journeys he planned.  'Doc' Smith technology at least had the great virtue of not needing any computer support.
Though, getting a very basic mobile phone, and waving it up to an all-band monitor and communicator might be wise?  Hmm.  Now, how'd he shield that, and any other electronics on board, so no one'd detect them?  'Doc' Smith or some other technology?
Of course, if he wanted to travel in real safety, something like an invisible 'Doc' Smith mauler would be nice.  But, at 300m length you could really get lost in there.  And, that's an awful lot of mylar...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Deadly Weapons - 09/Jun/2012
Eastercon, 2008, UK.
He'd survived his encounter with Maureen and Dave.  After Dave talked to him for a while the 'wheelchair invisibility' didn't seem to affect him any more.  He wasn't sure why Maureen immediately saw him - maybe it was because she was sort of an AI?  Uran and Brainless had no trouble, after all.
The talk by the "British Interplanetary Society"[1] had been revealing.  He'd expected more talk of handwavium, here at the con.  There'd been some minor chat, and he'd heard some discussion of it being mass hysteria, or a minor blip in the laws of reality that would soon correct itself.  Or, just the world's biggest hoax.  The enthusiasts seemed to be keeping their heads down.  Con security had made it quite clear that carrying functional non-peace-bonded weapons, of any sort, outside the Masquerade, would result in them being safety tested on the carrier.
So, they were now the "British Interstellar Society"[2].  The slide show of the planets, zooming-in from orbit to ground level, had been quite fun.  The gas giants obviously didn't have a 'ground level', so various moons had been substituted.  And, Pluto was included.  Showing Earth all the way from orbit down to the North Pole, then the South Pole had been a bit novel.
"Look out, she's got a ray gun!"  Not the normal sort of shout he'd expect in the hotel car park.  He'd been out getting Brainless some more supplies for their table.  People had been buying pre-painted figures and taken all the leaflets, and it looked like he'd some really nice orders.
There was a flash of light, and a "Ka-zap!", as he wheeled out from behind the van.  As he looked around he realised something was different.  He hadn't been a lightly-built female before, in a white plug suit.  Yes, that was blue hair.  But, he was still sitting in his wheelchair.  Ah!  That must have been a "Rei Gun".
A woman in a tight silver costume, showing a lot of skin, lumbered up to him.  "Sorry, sorry!  I didn't see you there!"  'It would be Kei', he thought, 'I expect Yuri is around somewhere'.  He noticed she was wearing a fluorescent green headband, which clashed with her red hair.  The voice sounded pretty accurate.  'Classic Dirty Pair', he thought.
Another woman popped-up from behind a car, further down the car park.  "In The Name Of The Moon..."  She stopped, and looked at Brains.  "What's a Rei doing in a wheelchair?  She's not wearing bandages."  Sailor Moon was wearing a florescent red headband over her blonde hair, tucked underneath her pigtails.  'Odongos I think I'm supposed to call them', he thought.
'Hmm', thought Brains, 'she moves a bit better'.  "Time out!" called a third woman, and they were joined by a number of more-or-less magical girls.  Including more than one plug-suited Rei.  Brains recognised the Leona costume, he was pretty sure he'd made it for someone to cos-play.  All were wearing either red or green headbands (except for Rei).  The shock was beginning to wear-off, now, and Brains found it interesting that they could all obviously see him (he didn't care if he looked like a Rei, he was still 'him'!).
"We caught a bystander in the cross-fire."  Brains didn't recognise the speaker, probably one of the more recent manga or anime.  While they all looked and sounded pretty authentic, some moved in ways that suggested they weighed quite a bit more than their character.  'I wonder if we have any Sailor Bubba here?', he thought.
The older woman, presumably one of the organisers, turned and looked at him. "We're sorry.  The con security implied they'd have no problems with our game of 'Killer'[3] as long as we stayed out of the con buildings.  And no one complained."  She tried puppy-dog eyes on him, "You aren't going to complain, are you?"
Something had been nagging at Brains for a while.  A buzzing sound.  Just on the limits of his hearing.  He looked down, and plucked something previously invisible off his now reappeared clothes.  Holding it close he saw a small bee-like machine, one wing crushed, with stylised crosses over where eyes might be expected.
Several of the women looked away from him, and seemed puzzled.  Some kept on looking but frowned, and only the ones that'd spoken to him seemed unaffected. "Where did the Rei go?", asked one at the back.  'I guess that was a light-bee'[4], thought Brains.
"If you don't mind me holding on to this", and he held up the faux insect, "I won't be making any complaints".  "Those aren't cheap!", someone called, but was subdued by a glare.  "Maybe if you keep an eye on the various entrances you won't 'ka-girl'[5] anyone else", he continued.  "OK?"
"Leona?" and the woman in that costume turned to him, obviously only now recognising him.  "I see you liked the costume I made for you."
And, she blushed.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Planetary science, that is. And you (or at least your shoes) have to be in Boulder today.

http://www.dailycamera.com/science-envi ... ght-budget]Boulder planetary scientists to shine shoes Saturday to highlight budget cuts

Elsewhere, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/08 ... undrisers/]PhDs are holding bake sales for the same reason.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

That all the ships in the Sutter TF are biased off real ships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mason_(DDG-87)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Donald_Cook_(DDG-75)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stout_(DDG-55)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mitscher_(DDG-57)

How cool is that?

*points go to Ran for actually confirming my theory*