I have been having a most excellent time in Montreal. There has been an impressive storm, and I have been acquiring new minions. I have My own badge, and I have received two ribbons as offerings. They are both green, of which I approve. The first is a "Woman of Cthulhu" one, which came from cynthia1960. I have crossed out the first two words to make it accurate, and have been pleased to see many of My minions wearing them. The second came from cherylmmorgan and reads "Menace to Fandom". You shall both be eaten slightly earlier.

I also have a red dot marking My attendance at the Japanese party on Thursday night. It seems I will be back in Japan in the spring. I enjoyed Japan as the people seemed to like Me, and I got lots of tickles under My tentacles.

As befits someThing of My importance, I have been on Canadian national television, where my role as Devourer of the Worthy was explained.

I have devoured Julie Czerneda, John Scalzi, Peter Watts and some others. I have not devoured Paul Krugman. He is making much use of his brain and needs it at the moment, so we have made an appointment for it to be devoured on his retirement. I am a patient Entity.

I did not get to LX until Saturday night thanks to the uselessness of minions who would prefer to have fun rather than tending to My desires.

I have nibbled on some brains, including that of Tim Powers, which had a most pleasant flavour. I have also been to the panel about why minions are daft enough to like cats. It was most interesting.

I have been tweeting more, as My iPhone has been set up now.

Some pathetic minion who will be eaten last seems to think that he is not going to take Me down to Bradford with nojay and amend_locke tomorrow morning. I have told him I do not devour musicians (except the odd filker, by accident) but he seems to think that I ought to travel with minion feorag.

He is also moaning about being granted the honour of bearing Me from the Hilton to the convention hotel, saying that I am "bulky" (is he calling Me fat?) Special minion desperence will not be there, either. Do I have any minions staying at that hotel who would take on the great honour, at least until feorag shows up on Saturday.

I am at Novacon, supervising Ina Shurrock who is sticking labels on envelopes. auntiealice is proving to be a very special minion indeed, and will have her preferences concerning the Inevitable taken into consideration.

The bed in the hotel room is very small, but they have provided a "single" roll out chair bed, which is very much sized for Me. The minions are distressed that the pool is not open, so I have told them about the Brine Pool in town. I am hoping they will take Me with them, as I could do with a spell in something salty.

I have noticed that feorag's new laptop contains everything needed to produce a fanzine except the printer. I will have to search for a printer, as the Unnamable is well overdue.

I am in Washington DC, which is suitably laid out and contains enough evil to make me very comfortable indeed, though there seems to be a shortage of quality brains.

Upon arrival on Tuesday, the minions took Me to the Brickskeller. They might have 1000 beers, but they do not do brain smoothies :-(. autopope had pre-announced My presence, and there were lots of people there to greet Me. I met a number of potential special minions, who did enjoy tickling Me under My tentacles.

There is enough space in the accommodation for Me to sleep peacefully and not push the minions out of the bed. They appreciate this.

Wednesday I was taken to Pizzeria/Birreria Paradiso to be worshipped by elaine_brennan and her partner (I am assuming here, but I am a god and allowed to make assumptions). She is already a Special Minion, and made sure I was kept happy. The venue did neither brain smoothies, nor had brains as a pizza topping.

I plan to snooze today, and tomorrow evening is the Washington Science Fiction Association. I hope they have laid on some suitably brainy snacks.

P-Con was most satisfying. clanwilliam took time out to make sure that the area beneath My tentacles was thoroughly tickled, and moved a few places up the eating order. I was drafted onto the Religion in fiction panel, and did moderate the Authors' partners panel (but only slightly - jemck and C.E. Murphy did insist on defending themselves. autopope had the good sense to stay well away. I also went to the Armageddon panel, which was most interesting.

Was in the Porterhouse for the Dead Dog, which was as good as ever.

Despite evidence to the contrary, it really, really was not Me. When I nibble brains, I leave plenty enough to ensure that you are suitably terrified, driven insane etc. when the stars are right. It would not be in My interests for it to have been Me.

I have not been enlightening you with tales of My trip to Japan, but now the minions are trying to sleep and have left a computer where I can get at it.

The convention was good. I enjoyed brain sashimi from Joe Haldeman, Naomi Novik and others. I will make the minions post photos soon. Many, many women did tickle Me under the tentacles.

Now I am in Tokyo, and I have a bed to Myself and I have been able to set the weather up to My liking, though this is why the minions are trying to sleep and are not actually asleep.

I have just been informed about My travel arrangements to Japan. It is mostly up to spec -- business class on a flag-carrier. feorag is happy because the trip involves two new types (B777-200 and B777-300) and three new airports (Paris Charles de Gaulle, Narita and Kansai) I am told I will particularly approve of the latter airport -- is it under water or something? But there is a problem -- I have been told that the rules have been changed, and as feorag wants to take her MacBook, Nintendo DS Lite, games, books and much other stuff, that I must go in the bag with it in case they count Me as a separate piece of hand luggage! This is apparently Not Allowed any more.

I have been assured that I only need to be in the bag for certain parts of the journey, and I will not be stuffed into the usual small pink backpack. Indeed, being good minions, they have bought Me a new bag, which is slightly smaller than the maximum allowed, and they say that I will be able to sleep comfortably in it as there is a lot of room. I have had a good look at it, and it looks spacious enough. I also notice that it is a Tumi bag, which is sufficiently expensive for Me, but I am not happy about having to stay in it during security checks, as I like to see the faces of the minions as they try to work out Who I am.

The civil servants responsible for this decision will be eaten last.

I have been told that coming home will not be too bad as Japan does not have this lunacy. I suspect Japanese security staff will want to be My minions as they seem to have a thing for tentacles there.

The minions are flapping around getting ready to head south to Chester tomorrow. I am already prepared, as all I need to bring is Myself. I am not on any programme items this time, mostly because there are no programme items which demand My eldritch presence. I will instead attend My minions' items and try to put them off, in-between brains, of course. If you see Me, I will gladly receive your adulation, worship and tickling under My tentacles.

feorag says that I will like Chester as it is multidimensional.

In the morning, I go to Ireland to see various special minions, and hopefully to eat some of the local brains before they are destroyed on the 17th. Even though I am not listed, I will be on this panel at P-Con on Saturday:

11:00 – 12:00 The Old Ones

So which of the old gods has the best powers, and who would win in a cosmic version of Top Trumps. Would the Greek, Roman, Celtic, Aztec be the winners or would Cthulhu just suck all their brains? Raven Dane / Bob Neilson

Of course, we already know the answer, don't we? I might also interfere with this one on Sunday:

11:00 – 12:00 I'm Not Scared
With so much terror (real or imaginary) in the world today, does horror fiction need to go to new lengths to find something frightening, or is the genre dying out in favour of real-world scenarios and serial killer book deals? What can frighten even the most jaded readers and send tingles up their desensitized spines? Charlie Stross / Kim Newman / John Sexton

Plus there are various games. The participants are reminded that gaining My affection often leads to victory.

Some extremely unwise persons have tried to comment spam My LJ! They will be eaten considerably later than they would have been. I am slightly amused by the thought that one of them thought that I might be interesting in Christian dating. It might have been a typo, as the D and E keys are quite close.

I am posting this from Picocon at Imperial College, where autopope is a guest -- conventions invite him because they are too scared to invite Me, the real star, directly.

We did come down on the Caledonian Sleeper, which is not named properly because not even I could sleep on it. A minion once said that it has square wheels on one side, and triangular ones on the other. I went shopping in London yesterday. It is possible to get brain smoothies in Harrods, in the Cthulhu Requisites room. It is not marked on the maps of the store, but this is obviously not a problem for Me. If you are foolish to want to find it, I advise you to look at all the gaps in the plan of the basement.

jadeblood has posted a load of icons to hoivenicons, and a recent batch included one of Me, with some writer person whom they thought was the real star of the icon.

I have been looking through the various fanzines that were passed to Me at Novacon, with the intention of coming up with a Usual of some sort. One thing struck Me about Plokta 36 (in addition to the stunning picture on page 13), and that is the cover, which is a parody of those gift catalogues where you pay for some charitable thing to be done, like buying goats for families in Africa, or brains for destitute Old Ones. This has been named "Bad Gifts", but I cannot help thinking—Isn't providing a big box of Chinese fireworks for an East London boy with an ASBO a good idea? Especially if they are very cheap fireworks, and ideally not from any legal source. Or have I been reading the Darwin List over feorag's shoulder a little too often?

I am in the bar at Novacon with minions nojay and a_cubed. I can see many other minions, including purplecthulhu who is ignoring Me and talking to autopope. I will eat him slightly later. ½r did say that he had a T-shirt that would offend Me, but it turned out to be one of those encephloPod ones of which I approve.

I did eat the brains of the artist David Hardy, and nibbled on bugshaw and stevegreen.

I am now at Novacon, and have appropriated feorag's laptop for a few moments before getting some sleep, so I thought I'd better remind you that I am here and in need of worship.

It appears that it is minion supergee's birthday, so it seems appropriate that Nice Distinctions 15 did arrive yesterday and that I should write about it today.

It is, as ever, a banquet of words leaving Me stuffed to bursting with words. There are the usual appetizers that I have already read on LJ, the reviews of books and obituaries of minions who have just made it slightly harder for Me to get into their brains. I did like that he had noticed that, on 6th June 2006, I had made the mortgage interest rate in the US 6.66%. It makes a deity want to do more of this sort of thing when Your efforts are noticed.

The cerveaux sautés avec des globes oculaires of this issue is the final long piece about avoiding killing other minions before the stars are right. It is all about his experience with something called VISTA, which was some kind of social service scheme which allowed him to avoid conscription during the Vietnam Disagreement. He does not, alas, describe what the scheme actually was, or who ran it, but the detail of the people he met there and the early examples of corporate bollocks were interesting. There is also a sex scandal, and you know I like sex scandals.