Monday, September 28, 2009

Flee to the Cleve

This weekend, a WebCoderGuy, a renown bobblehead collector asked if I'd like to take a trip to Cleveland to take in the Indians game (vs. the Orioles). Apparently there was a cool Grady Sizemore bobblehead. Now I don't mind a road trip, but for me it has to be about more than one stop. I countered that if we could go early and check out Great Lakes Brewery's Oktoberfest and watch the Ohio State football game, I was in.

Ok, it is pretty cool.

WCG (WebCoderGuy) went on StubHub and purchased tickets for $25, which is more than I really wanted to spend on two teams with a combined win total of 121. I was brought around as the tickets were originally $75 and we were ended up sitting in the front row behind Baltimore's dugout.

The Great Lakes Brewery is a regional brewery started in 1988 and has undertaken a number of steps to promote sustainability including composting leftovers from the resturant. I'll leave the description of their award winning brews to tBG, when we can make it there together. I will say that the beer tasted extremely fresh and tasty. There are seasonal brews (Oktoberfest in this case...duh), and brews that are found only at the brewery and not bottled or distributed.


Since this was Oktoberfest weekend, there was a special German menu, all the wait staff were in dirndls (although not authentic ones like at the Pittsburgh Haufbrauhaus), and there was a special where $22 got you a keep the ceramic stein filled with a liter of beer (under a certain alcohol percentage which really limited your choices) and $10 refills. This was the first year for the steins, with new ones to come out every year. We were also told that if we brought them back next year, we could still get the $10 refills. We had a couple appetizers which were pretty good, a german wurst platter and a very lightly fried fish (I really liked this, but WCG would have prefered a heavier batter). Our waitress was great and kinda looked like Hellboy's girlfriend from the movie. No word on if she controled fire, but I tipped her ok just in case.

Unfortunatley there were no tours today due to the Oktoberfestiness of the occasion. Tours normally take place every hour. In looking around, the basement pub was all old school brick and pretty cool. Live German music was playing down there as well. The Men's bathroom was not as nice as the rest of the place. All in all, I would love to take another trip and bring tBG with me!

Another great thing about the Great Lakes Brewery is that it is 1.3 miles from the stadium formerly known as "the Jake". We got into our seats just after first pitch and enjoyed the best seats I've ever had for a game. It was a little rainy and not a ton of fans showed up, so WCG and I dreamed of the chance to get either a foul ball or one of the players to toss us a ball. WCG was dressed in Baltimore orange in hopes of attracting their attention. FAIL


Front Row Style. Ten's of people in the stadium were jealous.

WCG is also known to have his pic taken with various mascots. I got into the spirit and buddied up to Slider. If only Chief Wahoo was available...


The game was pretty competitive, but we had to roll. WCG had a race to run the next morning and we were trying to get home before midnight.

We didn't get a game ball, but we did get the bobble head and a pretty cool stein to remember the trip!

Pittsburgh G20

So, the G20 protesters in Pittsburgh didn't live up to the hype. If you didn't live in the Shady Side part of Pittsburgh, you didn't see anything other than police and military unless you went looking for it. Due to some work constraints, I personally didn't get to see any protesters, let alone anyone getting hit by bags of poo or urine. Pittsburgh is not a west coast city like Seattle. The natives don't have a lot of patience for tomfoolery in this city and we aren't close enough to California to pull crackpots in driving range. The most entertaining thing that could have happened would have been if the G20 had coincided with a Steeler's game. There are enough people in this city already looking for a fight that Yinzer rage would have been front and center if only the protesters could have tried to interfere with game day...



Artist rendition of what protesters vs. yinzer Steeler fans might look like.

Protesters did threaten to do a lot of damage around the city (including the company I work for), but it just didn't pan out for them. They did bust up some banks, a Boston Market, and Pamela's, which is home to some of the best pancakes I've ever had. The banks and Boston Market are big companies theoretically ruining the world, but Pamela's is a local business. Maybe Pamela's was targeted because the President has taken a liking to their pancakes and even reportedly flew them to the White House to cook breakfast. But isn't that just like stepping on a pretty flower because someone you don't like loves daffodils? We all want to enjoy delicious pancakes, anarchists or government storm troopers alike.




President and the First Lady enjoying Pamela's.  I have the same look on my face when I eat there.

Which brings me to a question that lots of people around here have been asking...Why do protesters think smashing up someone's city and/or hitting people with urine and poop is going to make people come over to their way of thinking?  Oh, now that you have damaged the place I work and closed down travel to where I want to go, and tried to destroy places I like to go, in the town I live, and hit me with human feces, I see your point about global economics?  This type of action actually reinforces the rest of society's belief in the need for cops in riot gear.



Furries: Significantly less of a drain on society than most G20 Protesters

Here is my theory. Protesting this type of meeting isn't really about getting your message out. It really is about getting together with other like minded folks and meeting other people with the same freak as you do. I saw it last month at DragonCon and also in my outside-looking-in observation of the yearly Furry Convention (Anthrocon) here in Pittsburgh. Instead of liking Star Wars way too much or liking to get your groove on dressed like Tony the Tiger, these folks hate the way society is going and like meeting other people who don't look at them like they have a tattoo of Barney Rubble on their forehead when they discuss "the Man".


Plus, don't we all like to have a little adventure in our travel? Maybe a little danger? Well they are guaranteed both when they come to an event like this. Next year, they'll be sitting with a beer in their hand telling stories about how they almost got arrested, got hit with tear gas, or hit a cop in right the face with a rock. The difference is, of course, that society doesn't pay when the Furries enjoy animal passion after the Anthrocon Masquerade (although the cleaning staff at the Westin might). When millions of taxpayer dollars (somewhere in the neighborhood of $10-20 million actually) are spent because you are douche bags, or people are exposed to disease from your bio-waste, or businesses spend thousands of dollars to repair their buildings, it is a whole different story.

I'm sure a lot of protesters are actually out there because of their passion for their cause. Good for them standing up for what they believe in. Just keep it classy and maybe the world will listen.




Tuesday, September 15, 2009

DragonCon 2009



So in proving that she is the coolest girl in the world, the wife a.k.a. the Beer Girl(theBeerGirlBlog.blogspot.com) wanted to go to Atlanta's yearly mecca for all things nerdy...DragonCon. How could I say no to that? Well if you've ever met the Beer Girl you know the answer is, you can't. DragonCon is a huge Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comic Book, Robot Fighting, Gaming, and Cos Play get together that now spills over into 4 downtown hotels.

Thursday:

I was in Brunswick, Georgia on business and hit the road to meet the Beer Girl who flew into Atlanta earlier that day. We stayed in the Holiday Inn Express in the Buckhead area and got upgraded to a really nice suite with a common room and kitchen and two separate bedrooms, each with a bathroom. This worked out well considering I am suffering from mutant space flu and was able to use the second room during my middle of the night hack-fest.

After watching Man-Vs.-Food's visit to Atlanta, I knew I had to hit up Vortex (http://www.thevortexbarandgrill.com/). In addition to having a great beer selection, a wait staff with an attitude that adds to the places charm, but also is famous for their burgers. One burger in particular was in my sites tonight, the Double Coronary Burger. Two fried eggs, four slices of American cheese, 5 slices of bacon, and two grilled cheese sandwiches replacing the buns. Fabulous!




Friday

We stow our bags at the Buckhead Intercontinental, which will be our home for the rest of our trip. This is when we find out that this was also home to the Chick-Fil-A kickoff game between Alabama and Virginia Tech. We will see VT and 'Bama fans the rest of the weekend. This was a particularly busy weekend as NASCAR was also in town this weekend. We then drop the car off at the airport and hop on the Marta back downtown.

We run into a dude decked out in Umbrella Corporation (Resident Evil) gear and a red tipped plastic machine gun. We ask him for directions to registration which sends him into a disgusted tirade about how we needed to pre-register instead of using Ticketmaster (or as he put it "PRE-REG, PRE-REG, PRE-REG"). He also lets us know that we are "mundanes" because we are not in costume. If we are in costume people come up and want to talk to you. We didn't have any problem talking to people, but over the course of the next few hours we would find out he was right about PRE-REG part...

10:30am We hit the line to get our badges. The lines break between PRE-REGers and Ticketmaster orders. I am happy to see that my Ticketmaster service charge provides...such...well lack of service. We get in line just ahead of a pirate who does his best to keep us in good cheer with his pirate-y antics.

10:56am The line moves inside! As we move inside we see what will turn out to be the first two of many golden bikini clad Princess Leia. Apparently Jabba didn't let these two out in the sun...ever.

11:43am We are through one line, but now we have to wait for our badges to be printed. You get to put whatever name you would like in addition to your real name. I choose Karate Chop Jones which will later give name to this blog.

11:47am After a surprisingly short wait of 4 minutes, my badge is ready. The Beer Girl calls out "Karate Chop Jones, they are calling your name." Woot!

Overall I give the registration process a:

FAIL! I understand the need to prevent counterfeit badges and other tomfoolery, but come on an hour and seventeen minutes??? Don't think you escape the lines by pre-registering, you just get a head start. Think of it as being 10 cars ahead of someone in a traffic jam...better than the next guy, but it still sucks. Good thing we didn't even hold faint hopes of getting into the Shatner-Nemoy session.

We hit up the nearby Gyro King for a quick lunch. Only seats a few people, but reasonably price and not too shabby.

By the time all is said and done, we've missed the start of the 1:00pm sessions, so we decide to check out two of the vendor rooms. All manner of corset, board game, comic, or toy are available here my friend.




In addition to many amazing costumes from shows, video games, and books, we also see many people dressed as "steam punks". Steam Punks are Victorian English-y in a world where steam power drives technology. That is my mundane opinion, but regardless the costumes are pretty sweet.

2:30pm Being a big fan of Firefly we hit up our first DragonCon panel. Only Ron Glass (also from Barney Miller) has made the trip this year so no Nathan Fillian for us. Ron was clearly emotionally attached to Firefly and was upset with his character's death. Still he was gracious and good natured, if a little wacky.

We are treated to the music stylings of the Bedlam Bards singing the classic Firefly song "The Man they Call Jane" as we leave Mr. Glass and meet up with some Charlitan's. The Beer Girl is a huge Charlaine Harris fan and her Sookie Stackhouse books (basis of the HBO series Trueblood). Over the last couple of years she's formed a friendship with some other fans and Charlaine herself. I've been lucky to tag along and meet some really great people and the NY Times bestseller herself. It also explains the Beer Girl's Merlotte's shirt she is rocking.

I should also mention that I am sporting a Monroeville Zombies shirt commemorating both where the original Night of the Living Dead was filmed, but also the mall 5 miles from my house. I end up getting three call outs during the day. Who says I'm a mundane? Woot!

I give the group some time to hang out and go exploring the con on my own. I find a third vendor's area on a lower level and also check out the Hall of Fame, where all your favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy stars line up for autographs.

Time for dinner so I leave the con area and go to Gibney's Pub. Seeing Frito Pie on the menu, I give it a try. Fritos are then covered in beef or turkey chili. I go with turkey. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. Probably fabulous at 2am. I am less than enamored with my $6.25 draft which seemed high for a non-sporting event, but not criminal.

I meet back up with the Charlaine Harris crew (hereby referred to as CH) for the Opening Ceremony which happened in the same room as CH's panel. This lead to the second FAIL of the day, but this one was entertaining. Someone thought that a couple beach balls would get people pumped up. But the brand of nerd waiting to see CH lacks a certain...coordination. The Opening ceremony is pretty tame.

Pre CH panel, all the girls dressed as Sookie get pictures together. Good effort by the ladies as some have made True Blood bottles and even Merlotte's order pads. Charlaine is as gracious a speaker as there is. She addresses everyone's questions and is politically correct and nimbly dodges some tricky questions about if Eric's blood is in Sookie and Bill drinks from Sookie, is he affected by Eric's blood. I may have the names backwards, but you get the general idea.

We then roll over to a bar called the Avenue with the CH crew, where intelligently they have a draft beer special for DragonCon-ers. $3 drafts! There is quite a stir as two of the stars of Stargate Atlantis, Joe Flanigan and Jason Mamoa, stumble by and go into Mortons. The Beer Girl, who doesn't know or care who they are, becomes a hero to her crew by jumping a festooning chain, dodges cars and chases them down in Mortons. She asks for a picture. They say "Are you serioius?" Affirmative fake star ship guy, she sure is.



After drinks, it is musical Buffy the Vampire Slayer time. Think Rocky Horror Picture show only with the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where a demon is making everyone break into song. All I can say is "They got the mustard out!"


We hope to hang out for Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long blog, but we start to worry about how late the MARTA runs. Bummer. They even got the girlfriend from the show to join in the fun. Sadly we leave as streams of people in Captain Hammer T's come in... Thus our first day of Comic Con comes to an end.

Saturday

First let me say that I travel quite a bit. For work and for fun. I've stayed in nice hotels. The Buckhead Intercontinental is a very nice hotel. But the bed we slept at the Intercontinental in this weekend was incredible. Next to my buddy Jim's bed in Colorado that he gave up to the Beer Girl and me when we visited, it might be the most comfortable I've slept in.

10 am Saturday starts off with a bang. This is the start of the big DragonCon parade. The parade is broken down by category as Ghostbusters, super heroes, pirate ships, aliens and space marines, orcs and Venture brothers, even the characters from Galaxy Quest came trotting past. Also bemused Virginia Tech and Alabama football fans checking out the freak show. Some guy on youtube captured it pretty well here with 9 minutes of highlights:



11:30am We then get in to a panel by television's Ghost Hunters. These guys are funny and cool. Even the guys from Ghost Hunter International who I was luke warm on before hand. Apparently Joe Chin farts quite a bit. The Beer Girl would check them out a couple of more times during the weekend and further confirm their cool-to-hang-out-with-ness.



tBG (the Beer Girl) and I head over for lunch at the nearby Durango's Steak House. There we find a truly great prime rib sandwich. They also accommodate my desire to watch Ohio State's first football game of the season. We watch the first half then head back for more DragonCon.

We catch the tail end of Micheal Biehn. I'm a big fan of three of his films. Aliens (Hicks), Terminator (Reece) and my sister's personal fav, Tombstone (Ringo). Kinda dry overall but he did have a pretty good line when a bunch of guys dressed as space marines came up for a pic and he asked if he should pretend to be asleep.

We get to hang in the same room and thus get right up front and center in the first row for the next guest Karen Allen. Allen is famous for being both in Animal House and for being Indiana Jones' love in the first movie, and now his wife! Allen is delightful with a smile that lights up the room. Some douche dressed up as Indiana Jones first tells her that his favorite movie is the first one his second favorite is Crystal Skull because those are the ones she is in. Really? Crystal Skull? Come on buddy. He called the chick in Temple of Doom a bimbo and wanted to know why Allen wasn't in the second one. Allen responded that she'd be sure to let Kate Capshaw next time she saw her and educated this uber fan that Temple of Doom took place earlier than Raiders of the Lost Ark. He then thanks her because he did not know that. FAIL. If you dress up like a character, know what you are talking about.

I run down to the dealer room and get a Hellboy comic autographed by creator Mike Mignola, then it is time to head back to our hotel for a little rest for tonight...

8:30pm DragonCon has a nice treat for con-goers this year. The Atlanta Aquarium stayed open late for us and made available discount tickets. The Atlanta Aquarium is awe inspiring. tBG and I have been snorkeling off Cancun with whale sharks, but it was amazing to see them in clear water. The manta rays were another personal favorite. I could sit in front of the huge tanks all day. I strongly suggest you make the time to visit!

Sunday

Riding in on the Marta today we run into John, a volunteer at the walk of fame, and his wife. They answer our questions about which stars are cool and which are tools. (i.e. Lou Ferigno cool, shockingly Reading Rainbow's Gordi LaForge a big time tool) We also talk to a couple from my hometown of Columbus, Ohio who own Larry Smith Book Sellers and have a set up in the vendor area.

Breakfast at the Corner Bakery is delicious. tBG has a tasty breakfast sandwich while I have a chocolate muffin and cheese grits.




We check out the Comic Artist Alley this morning. This room exceeds expectations. The artists were personable and engaging. tBG got an autographed comic board from the artist of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and an autographed print from the artist of the Dark Crystal comics. I score an autographed Batman comic, an Excalibur and two Courty Crumrin graphic novels all for under face value! We also get Mouse Guard Fall 1152 hard bound edition. David Peterson not only signed it but sketched a character for us. There was one thing we didn't realize about the artist alley, but wish we had. If you bring a sketch book, many of the artists will sketch something for you. Some charge, some don't. Either way, that is a great souvenir.

Next I check out some fighting robots similar to the TV show Battle Bots. The small ones are going today and it is fabulous. They are something like 5lbs or smaller. Wins are accomplished by pushing the opposing robot out of the ring. One guy had what looked like a spinning pizza cutter on it, while another had what looked like a reverse spinning old school push lawn mower that rips people's robots up. One guy taps out when he sees the blades taking chucks out of the only expensive part of his bot.

1:00pm I go down to the dealer area to try to get my badge signed by artist Eric Powell who draws the comic "The Goon", but he isn't there. I race over to another hotel to check out MST 3000 panel "Crow vs. Crow" staring both men who voiced the wise cracking, awful movie watching robot who brought me much joy. It starts with a montage of Crow bits, then a not very interesting moderator mono-tones through the interview segment and I decide to see if I can get that autograph for my badge. Unfortunately this is a FAIL as Eric is still not at the signing location.

tBG and I then hit Mellow Mushroom for lunch. A work buddy told me to check out the Atlanta pizza chain. This was an excellent idea. I have the House Special pizza sporting Pepperoni, Sausage, Ground Beef, Onions, Green Peppers, Mushrooms, Black Olives, Tomatoes, Ham, Bacon, and extra cheese. This also was an excellent idea. I wash it down with the Mellow Mushroom brew, Bogart. We liked this place enough to hit it for lunch the next day. One more thing about our trip to Mellow Mushroom. Two guys were walking around with real live pythons around their necks. Apparently this is some kind of new fad (or douchbaggery. Your call.). Anyway, since tBG has irrational fear of snakes, it was really lucky they decided not to stop and eat here.

Next up is the Art section. We don't want to waste the last slice of the pie so we gave it to one of the artists. They are supposed to be starving right? Some pretty cool stuff here, but nothing we had to have. Hard sell to tBG to have barbarian art up in the family room.

The Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant was starting so off I went. How could I miss that? I have to say that this was significantly more funny than I anticipated. Some of the contestants were really witty and prepared. There is something about a woman dressed as a Klingon, pointing a sword and singing Pat Benatar's "One Way or Another" that just lends itself to a good time.

5:30 pm Time to get serious. DragonCon is trying to break the record for number of people dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller at the same time. This is the last practice session and is manditory to participate. At first one of the organizers is showing us the dance slowly and helping up build more and more of the dance. Then we get pulled into a room where we were run through the whole dance over and over with hopes we would pick it up. But, I get it. We are almost out of time. Lucky for me the nearby storm troopers knew what they were doing so I could copy them.

7:00pm Dance time. Over 900 people gather to walk the walk and dance the dance. If the fire inspector shows up, we are screwed. No spectators can fit in the room. One woman who earlier was dressed as a giant hand of blue (Firefly) is now a giant sequin glove. Aliens, zombie Elvis, afore mentioned storm troopers, and cross dressing sailor scout (Sailor Moon) all add to the atmosphere. We run through it once, then it is lights, camera, action. We have to pose til the laughing ends or the Guiness Book of World Records will not count our effort. In the end...Success!!!



I am really thirsty at this point and we hook up with the CH-ites at the end of another CH panel. She is one busy lady this con. We head to Pacific Rim, a high end resturant that has much promise, but was not ready for Sunday night DragonCon-ers. FAIL 15minutes to get drinks, if you wanted sushi you were looking at 45min-an hour, which is ironically the same amout of time it took people at our table to get their soup... I will say that Kristy Swanson (movie Buffy) was eating there, so that was cool. We did also learn that she smokes.

Monday

10:00am Charlaine Harris is the coolest. She paid (crazy high hotel catering prices) out of pocket to have a wonderful brunch for her on-line supporters. tBG and all the great folks we've met over the weekend are there. One that goes by the moniker Atlanta Sassy Belle is a local who really helped everyone feel welcome all weekend deserves a special call out, but everyone was great. Trivia and contests abound for autographed books, signiture rubber duckies (her website's mascot) and gear HBO generously donated!

We check out a little bit of the 30lb robot battles, and they are cool too. I think I may have enjoyed the creativity of destruction showed by the smaller bots. I did get to see an asian bot competitor throw a screw across the room like it was the first thing he's every thrown in his life. It was one of the most amazingly unathletic moves I've ever scene. I wasn't the only one to see it, as the dude behind me snorts when I say "What was that?" while raising one eyebrow. By the way, don't throw screws. The other bot nerds were pissed. They may not be able to beat you up themselves, but some of their bots look like they could do a number on your lower extremities.

We made one more stop that can not be revealed at this time, but will be in time.

Marta us to the airport, and our weekend is over. Overall a fantastic weekend I won't soon forget!