Posts Tagged Geekery

(Click Here for the Photo Gallery of the Con!)

Overall, the Con was just as awesome as it always is, though we saw fewer panels (we really only attended two) and attended fewer events.  There were fewer elaborate costumes this year, likely as a result of the economy, but those that were were some of the most amazing I’ve seen to date.  (Did everyone get  a chance to see that amazing Big Daddy Costume that won the Masquerade?)

BioShock Big Daddy and Little Sisters costume at DragonCon

The only really big disappointment of the Con was the photo-op with Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, which had been the thing we were most looking forward to.  We found out afterwards that the stars themselves were upset about the way the photo op had been run – it was fairly clear that the photographer, Froggy-Photos, had over-booked to make more money and it was rather more like being herded vaguely and forcefully past the actors rather than actually getting to meet them, much less thank them for all that they have done and been to us.  Considering how much we paid for that photo, we most certainly didn’t get our money’s worth, and then to add to the annoyance and disappointment of it all, the photographer lost our photo, and those of several other people.  They re-printed them, but at that point we were disgusted enough that we’d almost have rather had a refund than our photo.  Not only did we have the expense of the photo, we had actually taken off work a day ahead of what we’d intended (losing pay for that day) and taken a hotel room for an extra night just so we could make it to that photo-op which, rather than being a wonderful experience, turned out to just be infuriating and disappointing.

Needless to say, we will not be wasting our money on any Froggy-Photo run photo-ops in the future, and I would suggest the same to others, no matter who the stars are. It’s not an opportunity to actually get to meet the stars, you’ll just get to walk behind them and don’t even have a chance to compose yourself before the flash and you’re herded off.

Dirk Benedict, Bryant, and Me at DragonCon

But before I get too ranty about that, the remainder of the Con, after that inauspicious start, was great.  Thanks to an additional Digital TV channel that got added this year, playing mostly tv shows from the 80′s, we’ve been watching a lot of the A-Team lately.  So we went to the A-Team panel that Friday with Dwight Schultz and Dirk Benedict, which was fun and really unexpectedly touching.  From there, we headed to the Walk of Fame, where we met Dirk Benedict and talked with him for a good long while about his books, one of which we bought and had autographed, and had our picture taken with him. As far as celebrities go, meeting him was the unexpected highlight of the convention.

The unexpected good things continued Friday night as we headed up to Nicholai’s Roof for what was undoubtedly the best meal I have ever put in my mouth.  Neither Bryant nor I had had foie gras before – we may be foodies, but we’re not exactly wealthy foodies – and neither of us like liver, so it was with some trepidation that we headed into the flavors that, for us, were experimental.  There was not one morsel I put in my mouth that was not absolutely heavenly.  If ever there was orgasm inducing food, that was it.

DragonCon Parade Banner

The parade was the next day, and as I said, the costumes were no where near as numerous or as elaborate as they have been in years past, which is understandable as everyone is tightening their belts this year.  Nonetheless, the parade is always fun to attend, and the people we ended up watching it around this year were pretty awesome folks.  We lined up well ahead of the event and had a chance to sit and talk with them for a long time.

We then headed to get in line for the Adam Savage panel.  To be honest, I didn’t expect the line to form as early as it did, but I’m glad I listened to B and we headed on over there.  We managed to be close to the front of the line.  The Sheraton employees proved to be just as rude and obnoxious as last year, but fortunately the DragonCon officials were having none of it.  (Seriously, you guys are my heroes!)  DragonCon continues to be one of those rare places where waiting in a queue for hours can actually be fun and interesting.

Adam was wonderful, as, of course, he would be.  I never did guess what his costume was at the Con (a chewbacca outfit that we must’ve walked past a dozen times and never recognized as him).  He proved to be yet another of those examples where it seems like the stars have just as much fun at the convention as the fans – something that seems to set DragonCon apart from other conventions of its kind.  He talked at length about how Mythbusters became so successful as an educational show rather by accident.  They had set out to entertain, and found out that the scientific method was simply the best way to do what they were setting out to do, and that it gave the show a natural narrative flow.

Saturday night, we went to the DragonCon at the Aquarium event, which was amazing and relaxing.  It was nice to get away from the congestion and the noise, and to sit and watch the whale sharks and mantas seeming to fly across in front of us was absolutely wonderful.

Most of the rest of the weekend was spent people-watching and relaxing and just generally being on vacation.  All in all, we had a wonderful time, and the things that we enjoyed turned out to be the unexpected things.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to build a Big Daddy costume, in many complicated steps (joystiq.com)
• w00tstock, Three Hours of Geeks and Music With Adam Savage, Wil Wheaton & Paul and Storm (laughingsquid.com)

I’ve had a number of people ask me about podcasts lately.  It’s an odd enough subject that I was a bit surprised to have several people ask me about them in fairly quick succession, so I thought I’d do a little list of my recommended podcasts.

If you don’t know what a podcast is, well, it’s like a radio show that you can play on an MP3 player (any MP3 player, it doesn’t have to be an ipod) or your computer.  I’m one of those odd people who concentrates better when I’m listening to something, so I listen to a lot of podcasts at work.  I’ve tried, discarded, and become a devoted listener to quite a few.  Naturally, thanks to my interests, they are all suitably geeky in nature.

For the Book / Writing / Grammar Geek:

• Grammar Girl: Quick and dirty tips for those persistent grammar-related questions, done with a sense of humor.
• The Writer’s Almanac: A short little daily show from public radio regarding what’s going on in writing on this day, what has occurred in writing history, and always ending with a selected poem.

For the History Geek:

• Hardcore History: This is my favorite of all of the podcasts, and seems to be one that even non-history geeks might enjoy just because of the way it’s presented.  Dan Carlin goes beyond the pages of the history book and guides you through imagining what things were actually like for the people who lived them.

For the Gamer Geek:

• Analog Hole Gaming: This podcast is definitely not for ginger ears, but it’s the best general-gaming podcast that I’ve come across that, more often than not, leaves me chuckling.
• Game-Specific Podcasts:
  • World of Warcast: This is possibly the oldest continuing WoW podcast, and is a lot of fun. The hosts, Starman and Renata, are both older gamers with Jobs, Families, and Mortgages, so it’s nice to get a more grown-up point of view on gaming.
  • The Instance: The instance is the most popular of the WoW podcasts, it tends to focus on news and strategy discussions with more of a raider point-of-view.

For the Whedonverse Geek:

• The Signal: You can’t stop the signal. This podcast definitely deserves the awards it’s won, and the hosts are well on their way to becoming “celebrity fans” in their own right. They have interviews with whedonverse stars, a radio melodrama based on the Serenity/Firefly universe, and good music.  What’s not to love?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Dan Carlin – Hardcore History “Addicted To Bondage” (craiggunderson.com)

I’m a little late posting today because of a couple of reasons…first, my only coworker had jury duty so my downtime today was zilch, and I spent what little time there was over on My Tweeple removing twitter spammers from my follows.

Twitter‘s such an awesome thing – as long as you do a little pruning now and then.

I had the *strangest* dream over the weekend.  It just sort of stuck in my head as vivid as if it had actually happened.  It involved me, my mother, a motorcycle, and a fox.

My mother hates motorcycles. Thinks they’re dangerous death machines or something.  So you can probably imagine my surprise when, in my dream, she pulled up in front of my house in a custom pink, glittery chopper with a sidecar, declaring that we were going on a shopping trip to Augusta.

The review in a single short burst:  Star Trek was Awesome. <Insert Geeky Fangirl Squee Here>

Spoiler Free Review:

We had here a new cast, playing old and very beloved characters. There were some very large, difficult shoes for them to fill and it would be extremely difficult to do so without making a parody of them, particularly the more, erm, unique qualities of, say, Bill Shatner.

So the new cast/writers/etc. had a lot to live up to.  I don’t exaggerate when I say that they did so in an absolutely phenomenal fashion.  Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban were, in particular, absolutely spot on as Spock and Bones, about as perfectly played as anyone could have asked for.  McCoy was appropriately grumpy and complaining about something every time you saw him.

Spock was as you would expect a very young Spock to be – still fighting the conflict between his human and vulcan self.  I particularly appreciated this treatment of the character, watching how he became what he became later on where he had resolved his two halves.  Quinto simply could not have done a better job even if he had been Nimoy himself.

There were plenty of nods to the originals that only a fan would notice, and those done with a respect for what had come before.

The real test of it was that it felt like the original Star Trek’s felt.  Not with sad nostalgia (a la Indy IV) or with some sort of vague imitation.  It felt like Star Trek, not something trying to pretend to be Star Trek.  Not only that…it felt like one of the best of the movies with the original cast. Wrath of Khan quality.

Even the most devoted Trekkie shouldn’t be disappointed with this movie.

And now come the Spoilers:

This is a complete reboot of the series, complete with alternate timeline.  I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, though I realize that this allows them the opportunity of creating sequels without worrying about stepping on the toes of the movies and shows that have come before.  Since it is an alternate timeline, the stuff that happened before has no relation to this timeline.

However…it rather means that the stuff that happened before, on the original timeline…didn’t happen, and likely will not. I think that this is where my uneasiness about it comes in.

Time travel stuff always gets a little wonky.  However, it didn’t seem like they were using it as a crutch here, it made sense and fit well into the universe they were creating. This isn’t the first time Star Trek’s gone time travelling, after all.

The sets were wonderful. The Enterprise actually looked like a battle-ready ship rather than a cruise liner, complete with independently firing gun turrets and defenses.  She was beautiful, as Scotty would proudly proclaim. His engine room, too, was huge – exactly the sort of scope you’d expect on a ship that size.  And that’s exactly the feeling you got from it – that feeling of size and scope, that this wasn’t a dinky little boat they were flying about in but an enormous fighting vessel.

You really could not have asked for a better cast of characters to replace the ones that had come before. They do a wonderful job and honor the people that had played these characters previously without making a parody of them.  No, Kirk doesn’t have his …. familiar …. and …. infamous …. Shatner-speak, but he is most undoubtedly James T. Kirk with all of his reckless rulebreaking and lack of respect for authority.  Though not as perfect in character as Quinto and Urban were, Chris Pine did a wonderful job in the role.

And yes, I’d use the word perfect for Quinto’s Spock, particularly.  He was, without any doubt whatsoever…Spock. Young and unsure and emotionally conflicted, yes, but Spock nonetheless. It would have been unrealistic to expect a Spock that young to have fully resolved his human and vulcan sides, to not be fighting his emotions.

That conflict is the real story of the movie.  Nero and his vendetta provide a vehicle, a villain to fight against, but it is Spock fighting with himself, and how his friendship develops with Kirk, that becomes the central plot.

It would be a lie to say that I didn’t get a little misty-eyed when Spock (Prime) reached out to Kirk and said, “I am, and always will be, your friend.”

I’ve gotten moved over to my own domain and gotten all of my posts imported, now all that needs doing is a little customization of my theme and to get all of my articles, stories, poems, and papers linked up for my writing portfolio page. For my faithful subscribers, thanks for hanging in there while I got everything moved and set up. You’ll be able to find me a little easier now!  For the new folks, welcome! Let me give you a bit of an introduction. I’m a writer, a gamer, and pretty much an all-around geek. I’m also a girl. Go figure.

You can follow the little link above for my writing portfolio (still in progress), if you’re interested in reading some of my fiction or articles.

You won’t find me claiming to be any sort of expert in anything. I’m still learning. Hopefully I always will be, and I’ll be able to take you on that trip with me as I do so.  What you will find here are my thoughts on things I come across in life, my opinions on the world around me and, of course, my favorite forms of entertainment. I try to be an objective critic, but when it comes to some things, I have the tendency to go completely rabid fangirl…

Especially if it involves Joss Whedon. You have been warned.

Thanks for coming, and if you like what you read, thanks for staying long enough to do so!

Overall General Synopsis: DragonCon is FUN, FUN, FUN! Did you expect anything else? Come, you’ll see. DragonCon never fails to impress me at how well-run it is, considering that most of the staff are volunteers, and how well mannered, accepting, and polite everyone is. There are lines. There are always lines. There are crowds, and sometimes it’s hard to just get a bite to eat for all the people, but you can meet some really nice people in those lines and as long as everyone’s being nice to each other, it doesn’t seem to matter how long the queue is for an event.

Day One, Friday:
Jokers Spotted: At least 10
Jokers in Nurse’s Costume: 3-4, mostly girls
Creepily real, male, in-character Joker in Nurse’s costume with detonator: 1
Batmen: 1
….Things aren’t looking good for the Bat. He’s outnumbered.

4:00 PM: We went to the Battlestar Gallactica panel. Almost the whole crew was there, and though I’ve never seen the show, I had a lot of fun. Edward James Olmos, in particular, was hilarious. It was really nice to see the comraderie of the cast toward each other.

7:00 PM: Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog Of course, I cheered like the Joss Whedon fangirl I am, and sang along with more than 500 other folks to every song in the show. The shadow-cast did really well. The picture cut out a couple of times, but they got it fixed quickly enough, and the shadow-cast kept the show going perfectly.

10:00: The Brobdingnagian Bards Concert: There was a little confusion as they weren’t actually listed on the schedule, but we made it only a few minutes late. I love these guys. I have pretty much all of their cds and am an avid listener to their podcast. They never fail to make me laugh, and they wear kilts. There is no bad in this.

11:30: Abney Park Concert: The first not-so-great thing at DragonCon…the sound system simply wasn’t equipped to handle them, and there was so much reverb that it was difficult to make out the music. I’ve loved everything that I’ve heard of theirs, it’s a pity that, at least where I was seated in the audience, I couldn’t hear what they were playing and pretty much just got…indistinguishable white noise.

Day Two, Saturday:

10:00: The Parade, started with bagpipes and men in kilts. This, I think, is a good start for anything. Batman appears to have gotten reinforcements, there’s three of them now, as well as Robin, and Adam West in the Batmobile. He’s flanked by superheroes of both the DC and Marvel universes. The Jokers better watch out! Unfortunately, the parade was the place where we encountered our first (and only!) rude person of the Con. In a convention that has always amazed me by the courtesy of the people who attend it, her behavior rather stood out in comparison. Nonetheless, we found a good spot on the corner and got some good pictures, and I think the parade caught some Geek converts – a badgeless little girl who was Ooohing and Aaahing over the costumes, particularly the Star Wars people.

2:30: Living in Smallville – Michael Rosenbaum was absolutely hilarious. He didn’t really want to talk much about Smallville, he was more interested in discussing his newer projects, and he was a bit dismayed by people who insisted on calling him Lex, but he was extremely appreciative of the fans and played along with them to great effect. He even got down in the audience (much to the chagrin of the DC*TV folks who had to shoot him in the dark). The highlight, I think, was the fellow dressed as Zod in a handmade coat, who asked Mr. Rosenbaum to repeat his line: KNEEL BEFORE ZOD! – said line became a running joke throughout the whole panel.

THEN WE WENT SHOPPING. I got a corset from the wonderful folks at Brute Force Leather. They had some nice steampunky looking corsets, goggles, weapons, gears…. I’m not really into the goth stuff right now (I have been before!) so I get tired of corsetiers who come to cons with nothing but black…black….black….and the occasional blood red with black accents. Sometimes you want variety, you know? The Brute Force folks had some absolutely phenomenal fabrics I didn’t see anywhere else during the whole con. Maps, clocks, parchment, playing cards. I ended up settling on a canvas map fabric that had black lining.

Dinner: On my mom’s recommendation, we tried Daily’s, but, unfortunately, weren’t that impressed. The desert bar was something to see, though, and the key lime mousse we got for desert was phenomenal, but the actual entrees didn’t seem to be as good as you would expect for the price. Compared to similar higher-priced eating places we’re familiar with, the food just wasn’t as good.

10:00 The Shindig: I was rather shocked to arrive and find that I was the only person in the Giant Pink Fluffy Thing. There were tons of other Casual Kaylees there, and tons of pictures were taken, which I never, ever expected. I’m usually the one behind the camera, not in front of it. It was a wonderful party, but we ended up leaving fairly early in an attempt to get to the Vaudeville/Burlesque show. Unfortunately, we fell into the trap of Trying to Do Too Much At Con, and by the time we got changed into an outfit I could actually sit down in and got down to the show, it was full and had been closed. Probably would’ve been better to just stay at the Shindig, but by that point my feet were two giant pain-generating devices and we decided to head back to the hotel to rest up. Along the way, we ended up walking to our hotel beside James Callis, Edward James Olmos, and Michael Hogan…and despite me poking him discreetly in the side for several minutes, the SO didn’t even notice that he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people he idolizes. Meanwhile, it was all I could do to “act cool” and not go rabid fangirl, no matter how much my feet hurt.

Turns out they all were headed to the Colonial Fleet party, where they…partied with their fans. How awesome is that?

Day Three, Sunday:

11:00: Sean Astin, Remembering the Taste of Strawberries. This panel was, by far, the most touching of all of them. Of course, I have adored Sean Astin since I first watched Goonies as a child. He’s one of those actors that has managed to have the best of both worlds – a successful career in movies and a wonderful life at home. I honestly think he could have gone on the whole hour just talking about his kids, and I would have loved to hear it. He talked a great deal about his charity work and his upcoming projects, all of which I am extremely excited to see.

2:30: An Hour in the Firefly Verse: Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, and Jewel Staite were all there for this one. The main thing I can say about it is….Nathan Fillion is absolutely nuts. In a good way. He and Michael Rosenbaum should team up and be a comedy team, because they both had me absolutely rolling with la
ughter during their respective panels. The crew were still very much a crew up there, clearly fond of each other and happy to be where they were, and very appreciative of the fans, those Browncoats who became a true force to be reckoned with and still, to this day, work to get Firefly back on the air. Probably the highlight of this panel for the entire audience was when someone pointed out that since Firefly has been cancelled, Mal and Inara would never kiss…so they did, drawing it out with huge over-dramatic sighs for comedic effect.

For the rest of our time at DragonCon, we pretty much just relaxed and hung out, touring the art show and the Walk of Fame. It was an exhausting weekend, but well worth it, and we had a blast!

The Pictures:
(There are more, but these are a good sampling.)