And We Shall March

Okay! Here's How That Swag Thing Is Going To Work

Once it starts, here are the guidelines I made up that I am going to use! They are mostly fair! I think!

• Participation is limited to people who wanted to, but for whatever reason couldn't, attend SDCC '12,*** thus having no chance to get any swag at all. Poor dears!

• Which means that if you did go to SDCC '12, you may not participate in this swag gifting thing. Clearly honor system in play with that. Let's see what happens.

• I don't need to know you (or you me) in order for you to participate.

• Wait until all swag items are listed and I give the GO before trying to claim an item. I will wait 24 hours before opening it up.

• Claim an item via @ reply of the item you want.

• Claim an item only in the live stream after the GO has been given. Item claiming via DM, email, texts or the like will be ignored. (Pickup/delivery will be worked out via email. But claiming an item will only be done in the live stream.)

• Timestamps are all. S/he who gets to an item with an @ reply first (and fits most or all of the other guidelines), wins.

• I figure getting everything up and then giving folks a day before saying GO gives all interested a fighting chance, and an opportunity to see everything on offer so informed choices can be made.

• Limit one item per person or household. 

• Priority given to locals, a.k.a. the LA metro area.

• For those living outside the LA metro area, priority is given to those I know over those I don't.

• Not open to folks living overseas. Unless you are Kwasi.

• No giant bags are on offer, so don't ask as I've already given away my extras and have plans for the rest.

• If you have no idea what I'm talking about, worry not!

 

*** Yes, I've caved to the masses. It should be #CCI, but people just won't let go of #SDCC due to custom. <eye roll>

I'm Sorry, I Didn't Hear You Because I Was Thinking About Godzilla ***

So here's a picture of the new friend Long Tail Kitty made instead!

** Dude, the surprise teaser of the upcoming Godzilla reintroduction was EPIC.

While I Sit Here In My Awesome Avengers Movie T-Shirt (Even Though I Don't Actually Care About The Avengers Movie) Enjoy This Thandie Newton Talk Until I Get Back

Back soon!

"And The New Song, Which Has No Title As Yet"

I can't remember if I've tried to explain the concept of Sounding here before. Let's assume I have, and you then understand this. But as I know only maybe five people reading get Sounding? I apologize for confusing the rest of you.

Regular missives will commence after our return from Geek Vegas. And by "regular missives" I mean, you know, when I get around to it upon return.

xo

When My Dad Finally Gets Around To Checking His Email, He's Going To Go !!!

As part of the mobile strike force in my CCI department, I'm back and forth at certain hotel HQs all day long in the execution of moi workerbee duties. On this day I zipped past him on my way to do something else, my head went waitwhat, I ran back to make sure, and then I said O MY GOD and also WILL YOU TAKE A PICTURE WITH ME SO I CAN SEND IT TO MY DAD and also YOU ARE AWESOME.

I come from a family of people who love cop dramas, in both book and tv form (which kinda explains my previous day job). Mom likes the softer cop dramas, Dad and I prefer the hardcore approach. This man was in The Wire, The Corner and Oz which - along with Homicide: Life on the Street and The Shield - comprise the greatest cop dramas Ever In The History Of The Universe.

#yay

Update! Inbox tells me Reddick is also in Fringe. I've never seen Fringe, none in my various circles have ever seen Fringe, nobody I know has ever talked about that show, so I'll take their word for it. But now that I know he's in it I'll check out some of the dvds for Fringe. (Apparently Peter Weller showed up in a Fringe, too!) Only thing I know about Fringe is last year I got a giant bag at CCI with Fringe on it, and also promo cards from some booth that made no fucking sense, kinda like the first Lexus ads from many years ago that were like WTF, and so I threw those cards away because they were irritating. In truth I hunted down that bag via swaps because the other side has V on it, which at the time seemed to be a promising reboot. (It wasn't. Boo.)

But, like all my other giant CCI bags, I kept the V/Fringe one because they are perfect to use for hauling laundry.

So that's why I didn't know he was in Fringe. I know his work from cop dramas, which I looove.

Meanwhile, full CCI 2010 post is in the works.

CCI 2009 In Mostly Pictures - Stuff

As I said earlier, my shopping budget went from woo to o no right before show, so the personal shopping list had to be severely curtailed if I wanted to check out of the hotel without incident. I can pick up the rest of the stuff on the list later at Meltdown.

Already packed for mailing the stuff to the niece & nephews, so no picts. They're getting 12 comics, 1 Where the Wild Things Are crown, 2 pencil cases, various buttons, 2 T-shirts, 3 totes. Alas, no capes despite trying.

My New Intern is getting this powder blue bag filled with mostly manga stuff:

  

That's 11 manga books (4 purchased, the rest free), 1 anime dvd, manga tissues, a VIZ necklace, a VIZ tote. Non-manga includes 3 buttons, a Don't Panic towel, a NerdProm double cd mixtape, Twilight trading cards, a CCI exhibit guide, an IMAX semi-giant bag. I wanted to get her one of those things the Naruto kids had strapped to their heads, but I had no moolah for one, plus I didn't know which tribe she liked best. The kind folks at the VIZ booth explained that the insignia things the Naruto kids had strapped to their heads indicates a specific tribe or something (much like Airbender), and it's best to know which tribe the kid wants rather than just pick..say...the purple one. Next time!

Update! She really liked the bag o' manga!

For Moiself, this selection of stuff, combining purchased must-haves and swag/gifts:

The biggest surprise of the bunch is a copy of Bruno D'Angelo's latest (in collaboration with Giassetti) about immigration in Brazil, hand-delivered to Moi by the brothers Moon & Ba. Half of it is in Portuguese, half in Japanese. I can't read a word of it, but it sure is lovely. Highlights of the pile include the first Long Tail Kitty mainstream book (woo hoo!), the second Beanworld collection of course, a sneak peek at the upcoming post-Adams HHGttG novel. Not pictured is a replacement Miskatonic University license plate frame, as the previous one died with that car.

As for the beans in the corner, more accurate to describe my being their Temporary Custodian. Much more about that later, after I've talked with The Woman In Charge. Stay tuned!

Update! I forgot to add the giant bags, aka the best laundry bags in the world. I'll post those tomorrow. I'm tired.

CCI 2009 In Mostly Pictures - NerdProm 2099 Hosted by Meltdown Comics

$8 dress purchased at the prime gay thriftstores in Hollywood. Ridiculous, giant, 80s-era Dynasty bow sewed out of cloth left over from a princess costume I made for a kid last year. Belt, frog and jewel from faire. 1800s nickle-plated replica Peacemaker (the gun of Wild Bill Hickock). 1950s US Army medic bag.

Didn't think I was actually going to make it to this event because I didn't get off duty until after 10 p.m., and I never go to parties at show. But I made it! What fun it was.

Much commentary, and links, later. Pictures now!

    

     

CCI 2009 In Mostly Pictures - Artists Alley

As ever, I had a fabulous time at show, even though Car Drama that hit two days before I left wiped out 2/3 of my spending money for the week.Never pleasant when that happens, but nothing to be done but adjust and go forth - and shower thanks on friends who took care of your Evening Beverage needs!

For the first time ever I had a camera-like device in hand. I'm part of my department's mobile strike force, which means I spend a lot of time moving all over the convention center and off-site in the execution of my duties. Let's just say 7- to 9-miles walked daily during show week is not uncommon, and I see a lot.

Turns out I took over 300 on-the-fly picts! No wonder that guy at the other outlet where I streamed most of them for upload here later complained. Here's a small selection. Many of them are crap because they're phone pictures. Do you care? Didn't think you would!

Only wish I had been table to take pics of even more of the fabulous costumes, which were everywhere, maybe slightly more than last year.

Though there are captions embedded in the picts, looks like TypePad still hasn't fixed the hover problem, so you can't see them. Sorry.

Artists Alley is the best place ever. You have to dive through the Badlands of the film/tv/videogame booths to get to it, but it's so worth the trek through Mordor. Unfortunately 3/4 of my AA shots came out crap, so here are the almost decent ones.

I made Steve Lieber give me back the swag from the Whiteout movie.. heh.

     

     

  

CCI 2009 In Mostly Pictures - Sunday

As ever, I had a fabulous time at show, even though Car Drama that hit two days before I left wiped out 2/3 of my spending money for the week.Never pleasant when that happens, but nothing to be done but adjust and go forth - and shower thanks on friends who took care of your Evening Beverage needs!

For the first time ever I had a camera-like device in hand. I'm part of my department's mobile strike force, which means I spend a lot of time moving all over the convention center and off-site in the execution of my duties. Let's just say 7- to 9-miles walked daily during show week is not uncommon, and I see a lot.

Turns out I took over 300 on-the-fly picts! No wonder that guy at the other outlet where I streamed most of them for upload here later complained. Here's a small selection. Many of them are crap because they're phone pictures. Do you care? Didn't think you would!

Only wish I had been table to take pics of even more of the fabulous costumes, which were everywhere, maybe slightly more than last year.

Though there are captions embedded in the picts, looks like TypePad still hasn't fixed the hover problem, so you can't see them. Sorry.

In general for worker bees at show, Sunday is a light day. For the most part we are free to hit to floor that day. Wednesdays used to be our light day, but then the fans discovered Preview Night...

Because you can't see the captions - the one of the kids holding up the handmade Twilight sign? The caption for that one is DICKS. I saw several of these throughout the week, berated them all if I had a moment free to do so, and am still appalled by how those mostly-female Twilight fans were treated by entirely too many fanboys. That's going to be it's own post, so more later.

The caption for the blurry panel room shot is "Why Is He Still Talking?" And that's all I'll say about that one.

The two pictures of people holding up giant bags were my Giant Bag Swap Triumphs! The first swap (for myself) I had to get a V bag in exchange for a Harry Potter bag, which wasn't hard..took maybe 20 minutes of approaching people at random. The second swap (for the girlfriend of a friend) I had to get a Harry Potter bag in exchange for a Watchmen bag. That was *much* harder and took over an hour. It wasn't until it occurred to me to Profile - as in pick people with Harry Potter bags who didn't seem to be the Harry Potter type - that I scored. Even though the second one took forever, had much fun hunting for both swaps.

The "Wild Things" crown shot (actually captioned The View From My Head), too bad I didn't get a full picture of me in that crown, because I looked great in it! It's off in the mail to my niece.

There are two shots taken while I Was Actually Standing In A Line. When I got in that line I fired off multiple texts to buddies so they could point & laugh. One of them actually ran from wherever he was to the line, found me in it, and pointed and laughed! The running joke is I Don't Stand In Lines, I Boss Around People Standing In Lines. Seriously, the last time I stood in an actual line for anything at show was 1998. But the WB booth was giving out Superman & Batman capes, and I wanted to snag one or two for my nephews. Alas, right when I got up to the table they were out of capes! So it goes. The coolest thing about that line was once you finally got up to where the snake began, there was a WB suit worker bee there giving out high-5s for making it that far. I laughed so hard! (That line ran all the way from the WB booth all the way down the middle one of the center aisles to the far wall of aisle 5200. Normally that sort of thing would wig out we CCI worker bees, but it was Sunday, they had their people and Elite stationed throughout the length, and it went well. I was ready to speed dial up the chain for reinforcements, but didn't have to.)

Standing in line every once in a while keeps me humble. Heh.

For the guy with the giant painting, go here for details. It took him 9 months to do, and there are over 1540 pop culture figures represented in the work. Amazing!

       

  

       

     

       

     

CCI 2009 In Mostly Pictures - Saturday

As ever, I had a fabulous time at show, even though Car Drama that hit two days before I left wiped out 2/3 of my spending money for the week.Never pleasant when that happens, but nothing to be done but adjust and go forth - and shower thanks on friends who took care of your Evening Beverage needs!

For the first time ever I had a camera-like device in hand. I'm part of my department's mobile strike force, which means I spend a lot of time moving all over the convention center and off-site in the execution of my duties. Let's just say 7- to 9-miles walked daily during show week is not uncommon, and I see a lot.

Turns out I took over 300 on-the-fly picts! No wonder that guy at the other outlet where I streamed most of them for upload here later complained. Here's a small selection. Many of them are crap because they're phone pictures. Do you care? Didn't think you would!

Only wish I had been table to take pics of even more of the fabulous costumes, which were everywhere, maybe slightly more than last year.

Though there are captions embedded in the picts, looks like TypePad still hasn't fixed the hover problem, so you can't see them. Sorry.

Saturday is giant line day, moreso than any other day, I think, though Fridays are getting close. On Saturday I saw my boss from WonderCon out front, and we had just enough time for a hug & a hi before he was called off to deal with one of the giant lines. I sent him off with a cheery "Don't die! More importantly, don't kill!"

When I go to show I have a comics & prose show, because that's my interest. I have friends who do the same, some who do a bit-of-everything show, and more who have a Hall Hell & Hall Hell North show, camping out in giant lines so they can camp out in dark rooms for four days and watch Hollywood People. We all have a great time, and at the end of the day it's cool to do the visiting circut and share experiences.

As a worker bee I rarely get to sit through an entire panel, but I write down all the panels I want to attend just in case I have a chance to pop in. This year I had 36 panels I wanted to hit up throughout the week. Managed to get in 16 minutes of the Dave Gibbons master session, 90 seconds of the Frebergs, 7 minutes of Bill Sienkiewicz, 20 minutes of Leonard Starr, and 90 or so seconds of the Boondock Saints II. The latter is the first time a media panel ever showed up on my panel list. I just wanted to stand in the same airspace as Billy Connolly! O how my elitist self was mocked by buddies later.

The clockwork doll below, you can't tell in the picture but the green tubes in the front of her outfit (that she built) had actual water circulating through! Badass. The giant hand picture, that's Dave Gibbons drawing/educating during his master session. It was *so awesome* to watch him draw and listen to him talk about his process. I had no idea tai chi was involved.

The master sessions were an entirely brand new thing this year, somehow tied to the CBLDF. The room I saw was intensely into it, taking notes and asking detailed questions. Throughout the week I overheard attendee pro aspirants raving about these sessions. RAVING. I hope more of this type of panel shows up again down the road.