Ser Knight Somerville

Thank you for the notice! Coach ticket purchased.

For what it's worth, my hotel reservation is to leave Dublin for Belfast on the 21st.

Likely not since the FB page is very active. This is the link: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=brotherhood without banners%2Fsan jose 2018

The incident took place not in Newark, the State's largest city, but rather in the NJ State Capitol, Trenton, 50 miles to the southwest of Newark. As others have posted, the incident was related to a gang dispute, and immediately followed several instances of persons engaging in fights. Shooting incidents are sadly common in Trenton. The person who died was shot by police, and had not only an illegal type of gun but had been released a few months ago from prison after incarceration for many years after conviction of murder and other crimes. A follow-up news report can be read here: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2018/06/trenton_shooting_suspected_gunman_killed_at_art_al.html#incart_most_shared-news

Not too many questions. In the USA, an entity registers the desired trademark with the federal administrative agency that administers the trademark process. That's the short answer. Here are the details, probably a lot more than most would want to know, at the federal government agency's site: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-getting-started/trademark-basics

I strongly suspect that the Disney lawsuit was based primarily on trademark, not copyright. Those are two different things. In the USA, unlike copyright, trademarks are of unlimited duration and can be lost by the trademark owner failing to enforce its rights. A classic law school example of this is the trampoline, i.e., the jumping device. "Trampoline" was the trademark of the original manufacturer and marketer of the device and others eventually began to use the term trampoline for their similar products. The trampoline trademark owner failed to take legal action for a long time and when it finally did litigate, was found by the courts to have lost the trademark due to inaction.

Dave, (and BEX) thanks for the heads up. :-) Just booked it. 12 places left. ---Ken

Why, the "George R.R. Martini" of course. George's theater in Santa Fe, NM won the best Cocktail of the Year for 2018.   :-)  

Lurk ---> post. Great! Welcome!

Two dogs here. Jeffrey, a Treeing Walker Coonhound, is 12 years old and I adopted him from a person who rescued him in Georgia (USA) about 6 years ago. A local rescue group here in New Jersey arranged the transportation. Jeffrey's favoring ASOIAF quote is: "A bear there was, a bear, a bear! all black and brown, and covered with hair. The bear! The bear!" There are black bears in my neighborhood and when Jeffrey scents one he desperately wants to hunt it. Takes considerable effort to hold on to his leash. Only happens a few times a year, fortunately. The other dog I adopted a few months ago, "Muffet" about 2 years old, American English Coonhound a/k/a Redtick Coonhound. She has similar reactions to the scent of an animal, not sure what type, but I suspect that it is the fox that lives in the woods behind my house.

Tuesday through Tuesday at the San Jose Marriott, though the con rate for the first two nights was sold out, so wound up using Marriott guest rewards points for those first two.

I plan to attend both. Worked great for Loncon 3 followed by Eurocon Dublin and this will as well!!! :-)

Plan to attend!!