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Wolverine and Hawkman

1. Wolverine takes off his clothes

There was a fantastic cosplayer as Wolverine/Logan. I snapped a few pictures earlier in the day, but it wasn’t until the costume contest that he really got my attention. As he walked on stage, the cosplayer took off his leather jacket. This guy obviously hits the gym. The crowd applauded.

Then, he took off his wife beater. Now, some people may describe it as the sound of thunderous applause, but I’m pretty sure what followed was the sound and crashing of 500 pairs of panties hitting the floor. I was sitting toward the back half of the room and I could see his clearly-developed abs. It made me drool. Until that very moment, I had no idea that I was into Wolverine.

He picked up his things and began to leave the stage, but the MC made a joke about his abs being painted on. Wolverine returned and threatened him with his claws. The crowd went fucking wild.

2. Alan Tudyk speaking in his King Candy Voice

Now, I was excited for the Firefly panel, but my favorite thing had nothing to do with the show at all. I was previously unaware that Alan played the voice of King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph, which was a sweet and funny movie that you should see if you haven’t already. King Candy is an over-the-top character and his lispy voice is perfect for the image. I can’t find an actual clip of if online — thank you Disney — but Youtube is full of impressions if you want to hear.

Anyway, a fan asked Alan to say something in his voice, and he obliged. He explained how he had played a racist character in the recent movie 42, and decided to say one of his lines, which happened to be along the lines of “Say Jackie, how many of these players’ wives have you crawled on?” It was entirely inappropriate but absolutely hilarious!

3. Wil Wheaton responds to Robyn’s question with a quote from George R.R. Martin

Wil Wheaton plays a jerk, but if you read his blog or listen to him talk, he realize that he’s a nice guy. He’s the nerd’s nerd. He represents the culture as a whole, and the way he talks about community is heart-warming. I remembering feeling all teary-eyed while he spoke. If you’ve seen this video, then you’ve got a good idea what Wil’s all about.

If that wasn’t good enough, Robyn had the chance to ask his a question, and it was about his favorite strong female characters. He started to list them off at first, but then he changed tactics. Robyn didn’t like it, but I loved it! Rather than name characters, he said he didn’t feel it was fair to answer that question based on gender. My inner feminist regaled.

But. then. he quoted George R.R. Martin. I don’t know and can’t find the exact quote, and Wil might not even have been dead on but it went something like this:

I like to write women as though they are people.

The crowd went wild. I fell in love. The end.

4. Michael Rosenbaum molests Robyn

You might know him better as the actor who played Lex in Smallville. Robyn, the friend with whom I traveled to Chicago, loves the show and the actor. She had her picture taken with the cast, and she went to all of their panels. His panel happened to still be going on when I got out of SciFi Speed Dating, which is the most forgettable thing I’ve done in a long time.

So I find Robyn’s panel room and I look for Robyn. I cannot spot her, but then I look up toward the center of the room where Michael is, and I see him pawing all over Robyn as he responds to her comment about how the show just wasn’t as good when he left. Later, Robyn told me that he’d queued her question but forgot about her. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have walked in at the very right time!

5. A biker dances in the street

Traffic was horrible, especially if you’re not from a big city. There were a lot of times when we could’ve turned off the engine and got out of the car for a stretch. We didn’t, but one biker did. Traffic was at a standstill under an overpass, and he was riding next to a younger biker. The older one, who was all clad in leather and had a big Santa beard, was listening to some classic rock. I’m thinking something like the Rolling Stones. He may even have said something about how rap sucked. I don’t recall exactly.

What I do remember, however, is him getting off of his bike and twirling his arms in a disco-like dance as traffic waited impatiently for the holdup to finish. It made me smile, but it was over too quickly for me to get out my camera.

So, there you have it. These are the top 5 moments. There were other awesome moments — check out my Facebook album here — and everything was enjoyable and exciting overall, but these stood out the most.

That’s my busy bee sound and I absolutely have been one these last few weeks.

At the end of July, my best friend came up to visit from Texas. This included her two little girls and husband. Unknown to the folks around here, our friend/my best friend’s sister-in-law also came up so it was a throwback to middle school. I hung out with them a lot as we caught up and spent too much money as it was the week of the fair. I played games, went on rides and even saw Styx play. Somewhere in there, I went to a birthday party for my cousin’s daughter. I caught up with my older cousins, played with the younger ones and saw my grandparents for the first time since Christmas.

There were a lot of conversations and introspection and too many insides jokes to laugh. I missed them all terribly and I’m so glad that I was able to visit with both Ashley and Christina. I definitely feel closer to both of them. Christina left early Thursday afternoon and I was soon on my way, with Robyn and Wendy, to Chicago. We spent Thursday through Sunday at Wizard World Comic-Con and it was fantastic. Highlights include:

• Awesome costumes
• Hugs from Nicholas Brendan
• Hilarious panels
• Autographs from James O’Barr
• Talking with Chad Lindhberg
• One seriously nice hotel room!

It was far better than my first convention experience and Wendy and Robyn decided I need to hurry up and have kids so we can take them to cons. I took a few pictures and posted most of them to my Facebook in real-time. On Saturday, Wendy and I went as Desire and Death, respectively. Her costume was pretty awesome but I didn’t get a picture of me because mine was full of fail. I’d grabbed some Manic Panic in Raven to temporarily dye my hair black and did that Thursday morning before we left. Unfortunately, it just didn’t take and I had neither the time nor patience to try again. Boo.

I bought some awesome things, including bookmarks, a pillow and a poster (Batman). I spent far too much time on my feet and got far too little sleep but it was pretty exciting. We finished up on Sunday and, for some reason, my ass kept being kid-height and they kept running into it. LOL

We returned home on Sunday evening and I spent Monday relaxing for the most part. Tuesday I tried to but couldn’t get any sleep so I was exhausted by the time 8:30 AM rolled around. I was expecting my mother to shower up so we could head down to Memphis for a couple days. She showed up at least an hour late and I crammed into her friend’s tiny sedan. The five of us barely fit and I seriously considered asking them to turn around so I could go home and to sleep but figured it would make my sister sad.

The car was covered in dog fur and smelled like it too. I tried my best to live with it. Unfortunately, my bad feeling was right on target. We headed South and so did.. everything. I started out tired and nothing was horrible.. until we got to Rockford or so and my sinuses opened up and my eyes and nose just started pouring. Every time we stopped, I’d steal toiler paper or paper towels from the rest rooms. By the time night rolled around, I was pretty miserable, my throat was hurting and I was ready to get out of the car.

Unfortunately for us, the “twelve” hour trip took more like fifteen. We ran into a lot of construction and a 40-mile detour so by the time we got to Memphis, to the hotel, we were all in piss poor spirits. Illinois just didn’t want to let us go, then we hit a storm and it was 1AM by the time we checked into the hotel. The hotel in itself was pretty disappointing. It was old and falling apart at the cracks–literally. They were performing construction on the floor above us and I heard the bumping and grinding all morning. Every employee had a hard hat. It was all ghetto-iffied.

I stayed in the next morning while everyone went out for breakfast because I felt awful. I enjoyed some timed to myself to shower, dress and check my email. I snuck downstairs for leftovers of breakfast and we all packed up when Mom returned. As it turns out, I had no reason to rush. We wound up waiting around for everyone to get their act together. I am pretty impatient when people are poking around. I like to know when something is happening and to do it at that time but my mom has a clock that runs at least 45-minutes later than everyone else’s.

We were out of the hotel by noon and on our way to Graceland–the point of the trip. My mom is a huge Elvis fan and this had really been a dream of hers for some time. I enjoy Elvis but was mostly along for it to be an enjoyable experience. I can’t ever remember my mom taking a vacation or traveling someplace for something other than a family event (wedding, funeral, etc)–we’ve never been on a family vacation–so this was a HUGE deal for her. She was all fan-girlish when we got to Graceland and taking pictures all over the place. I was in control of her camera and took a bunch of pictures before the batteries died. I hope she likes the ones I took (as I speak, I’m Bluetoothing them to the laptop).

We bought tickets to tour the mansion/ground itself, the airplanes and the car museum among other things but we only did those three. The “mansion” tour is interesting because the house isn’t that big and you only have access to the bottom floor. Elvis’ bedroom and office upstairs, as well as Lisa’s room are off limits. What I did see was tacky and dated. Green shag carpet on the ceiling kind of stuff and too many mirrors everywhere. There were a lot of TVs and other appliances, which just speaks to his wealth and success. Some of the grounds had been converted to showcase his wealth and success and there were flowers and memorial signs all over. It was over pretty quickly and I left feeling disappointed.

The car museum was interesting and another testament to his wealth. If owning a Pink Cadillac is no sign of your success, then having two airplanes certainly is. I think that really struck me because airplanes weren’t common back then and this guy has two and holy crap! one of them was fancy. But it was only a few hours and we were off, back on the road. The trip was just as frustrating back, involved some doubling back and ended, for me, just shy of six o’clock yesterday morning.

I’m sitting here, sneezing and blowing my nose, and really wishing I hadn’t gone. But I’m so happy that my mom did get to go. The excitement is not yet over. Tomorrow, I finally get to see Pat Benatar perform. That will be awesome!

No one needs to freak out like Samantha did when I told her I had a nose bleed. She start sobbing because she didn’t want me to die and wouldn’t believe I would be okay. Now, my sheets on the other hand haven’t done so well. I suppose it’s not big loss because they kept shrinking every time I put them in the wash anyway, so a new set would be nice after all.

I also made it home alive, if not a little delayed. I’m not sure who it was who decided that a major airport should be built in Chicago but I think this person was a moron. The weather is never, ever good for flights. I worried about the weather in Wausau being bad for my flight with what should be worse weather but all my delays were due to Chicago’s weather. At least I experienced a nice rainbow while waiting for my last plane – I sent the picture to Twitpic but, apparently, it didn’t work. Boo.

I definitely feel like a bad mommy. I could tell my kitties were very upset that I had been gone so long so I do not plan to do that to them again, despite the fact that Samantha wants me to come home in May, for my birthday. I’m not sure if ‘home’ is the right word. For the past couple years, I’ve felt like home was wherever Ryan is so I definitely feel displaced for the time being. Anyway, the kitties are better. I cannot believe how big Goliath has grown; Phantom almost seems small! As bad as I feel, they have developed some bad habits while I was gone so I shall need to retrain them.

Speaking of Samantha, she was exhausting as always. Didn’t like me to leave or have friends come over. We played a ton of Maplestory and she spent pretty much her entire Spring break with me. It was fun and frustrating at the same time. And loud. Always loud.

So it’s pretty quiet around here. I think we’re car shopping and I found a Maxima for a really good price on Craigslist. The seller has since dropped the price and it would be a steal but I think we’re going to get a Carfax report first, just to be safe because it almost sounds “too good to be true.”

Now that I’m home, I can get back to watching Netflix on the Xbox (it was here when I returned! Yay!) as well as writing reviews and finally finishing up the rest of the content on Her Realm. I know you’ve been waiting super patiently. I, on the other hand, have not so I think I shall begin on that right away.