neil gaiman in manila.

*coff, coff*

i'm still sick. but sick or not sick, nothing could've stopped me from going to the neil gaiman reading yesterday. i dragged a sleepless daryl to rockwell so we could line up for the book signing.

the good thing is that i got me a book signing number (#248). the bad thing is i wasn't able to have my book signed.

wot?

neil reading 01
Originally uploaded by sextonfurnival.

there were two reasons, actually:

(1) by five-thirty, daryl was already close to burnout, not having any sleep since the night before (and still having his shift later that night), so i told him we should leave so he could catch some sleep before his shift.

as the afternoon progressed, it was difficult to tell who was trying to hold whom up: he's sleep-deprived, i was (am) sick. worse, it started to rain. but we were able to get out and get a cab okay.

(2) some idiot thought i was taking photos of his girlfriends ass. let me repeat that, for emphasis: some idiot thought i was taking photos of his girlfriends ass. WTF?

now tell me, why would i want to do that?

there was still had some time before my number gets called so daryl and i were going about the tent, looking for a place we could stay to kill time in. meanwhile, i was fiddling with the camera settings to see which settings would work best in that place.

then this guy approaches me accusing me of taking photos of his girl's ass. which i wasn't; i didn't even know who his girlfriend was. i remember focusing on another guy's backside to see if the photos would look okay in dim light even without flash.

just to keep trouble out of the way, daryl (who probably has no idea what just happened) and i left that place and went outside.

when we got back to the tent entrance, the guy approached us again, with an even bigger guy with a MEDIA ID in tow, telling his friend i was taking photos of his girlfriend's ass (i have yet to get over my disbelief) and demanding that i delete the photos.

in hindsight, i shouldn't have deleted those photos. none of them showed anybody's asses anyways. i should've brought him to one of the other event organizers (i had the impression that he was part of the organizers) so we could all look at the photos. then i would've relished the opportunity of demanding an apology from him.

okay, so he won. i chickened out. but should he be there at the writer's forum and tried to harass me again, i'm going to have to ask the other organizers to boot him out of the event area.

dude. no offense to your girl (whom i never really saw -- does she even know what her boyfriend was doing the whole time?), but if i wanted to look at photos of women's asses, i know where to look.

let me clarify that: no offense to the girl. you, on the other hand, are fair game. don't ever try making a racket in my turf; give a reason to make your life miserable, and i will. gladly.