{"id":1603,"date":"2010-09-06T06:15:43","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T14:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2010-09-06T06:25:57","modified_gmt":"2010-09-06T14:25:57","slug":"worth-the-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=1603","title":{"rendered":"Worth the Price"},"content":{"rendered":"

If wifi were water, this place would be Arrakis. Free bandwidth is an alien concept in Australia. A minute of internet is treasured more than the rarest jewel (or at least, it costs as much).<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding which, this country rocks.<\/p>\n

I could go on about the fact that the neurotoxins that developed in this place are, for reasons which remain unclear, the most powerful on earth. I could rave about the fact that \u2014 at least here in the east \u2014 nonhumans have rights<\/em>, that there are strict limits on how far you can displace a marsupial that’s living in your chimney because after all, they were here first<\/em>. I could go on about how it must rock to have a prime minister who is female, single, childless, and proudly atheist (often all at the same time), except for the fact that this country has not actually had<\/em> a prime minister the whole time I’ve been down here. (I’d be more than happy to give them ours, but I like these guys too much.) I could reflect on the nature of an sf community that actually has an award for “Best Fannish Cat”, that categorises their lower-end contributors as “Cheapskate Members”, the $50-contributors as “Rescuers of Kittens”, and officially designates $100-plus contributors as “Absolute Fucking Legends”. I could talk about clean streets, and street art (all following pics are courtesy of Cat Sparks, btw, unless otherwise noted):<\/p>\n

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\u2026and the sheer joy of dealing with Australian border guards.<\/p>\n

I am not being ironic. I would almost be tempted to purchase an Expedia vacation package that consisted entirely of going back and forth through Australian Customs for a few days straight. Yes, I got rerouted to Secondary (they pretty much had to, given the check mark in that little “Are you a felon?” box), but the whole lot of them were friendly and welcoming even so. Mostly they spent my wait time chatting with me about the kind of books they liked to read. (I mean, just imagine: literate <\/em>border guards. Not a species you’re gonna find anywhere in the US, I’m betting.) And finally, when they waved me through and I pointed to the big sign saying Your Luggage WILL be X-rayed<\/em> and wondered why they weren’t doing that to mine, the nice lady’s response was “Would you like me to?” She was willing to go out of her way to be extra intrusive, just to make me feel at home.<\/p>\n

And we haven’t even got to the con itself yet.<\/p>\n

This is Cat Sparks and Rob Hood (not to be confused with the guy in the green tights):<\/p>\n

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they are writers and photographers and graphic designers and bloggers and reviewers and fans (“Strange Attractor” subspecies) respectively. They live with a trinity of cats at various stages of disrepair, in a house jammed with Godzilla models, enough Ditmars and Aurealises between them to build an igloo out of, and a plastic donkey that shits cigarettes out its ass when you squeeze it the right way. They hang out with shapeshifters who appear to be muppets and martial-arts instructors but who are really visceral horror-fantasy authors underneath. It was Cat Sparks who is entirely responsible for my presence down here. She had the idea to get me to Australia; she spearheaded the fundraising; she booked my hotels and scammed me a comp membership to Aussiecon, and she and Rob put me up in their home for a couple of days before we flew down to Melbourne. Without her, this would still have been The Summer I Do Not Take For Granted; but it would not have eclipsed 1981 as The Best Summer Evar.<\/p>\n

Some highlights of the past few days:<\/p>\n