2010 hit the ground running - for the second year in a row, my best friend convinced me to attend the local anime convention. Although I am not particularly a fan of "Japanese animation and pop-culture", there are always new things to be learned, and
Ikkicon [4] did not disappoint.
I skipped the Friday activities, since at our house New Year's Day is a strictly-pajamas, sleep-until-noon sort of event.
Saturday and Sunday were quite busy:
We sat in on
Mock Combat for Cosplay, a two-hour panel run by
Chris Ayres. If this panel shows up again I'm definitely jumping in, because it was incredibly fun. Ayres demonstrated how to make it look like you're throttling (or groin-kicking, or slapping, or punching, or arm-twisting) someone without hurting your partner. Even better, he's a fountain of funny and interesting stories of stage trickery, which I find fascinating.
This apparently doesn't hurt at all.
But it looks
painful, doesn't it?
This is one of my favorite shots, although I wish I'd gotten video of the kidney-kick. Another memorable panel was
Cosplay Chess, which is just about the geekiest thing in the universe. The floor is blocked out into squares, characters are placed, and two people play a game of chess, moving the characters around the room. Points are, of course, awarded for ingenuity and cleverness in "finishing moves." I don't know who was dressed as Doctor #10 and Rose, but The Doctor produced an award-winning display of sorrow when Rose was bumped off (and just two moves from checkmate - isn't that always the way?). Our team (white) won, and poor Darth Vader was destroyed by a seething mass of characters.
So, apparently it's difficult to take an interesting chess photo. Look, if you want great board game imagery, go here. I'm just a nerd with a camera.
Nice to see the boys getting along.We later wandered into the artists' and dealer's areas, where I was coerced into parting with my cash. I had decided ahead of time that I was only going to shell out for "experiences" or "
charity" so I got two
Sereniteas from the
Austin Browncoats table. 1) How could I turn down a Nathan Fillion-inspired tea blend and 2) proceeds go toward
encouraging more kids to read.
There were about twenty different blends. The woman had me at "you can smell as many of them as you like!"
Right around 5pm the first afternoon, things went blurry. As it turned out, I was simply vibrating at a faster speed than the rest of the world. Possibly due to the event laughingly called "lunch", where I had enjoyed
melon bread,
chocolate koala bear cookies,
Calpico with aloe, and what I think was
mochi.
We also stopped in at the charity auction, which unfortunately did not have many convention goers in attendance.
Of course, that didn't stop the signed Serenity comics from rapidly soaring above my price range. I did, however, shell out for a dvd of Trinity Blood signed by about 14 different people - which definitely fell within my charity/experience plan. The money goes to
Kids Need to Read, and I've never won a live auction before. It was thrilling!
As much as I enjoyed Mock Combat, if there was one panel that was worth the entrance fee all by itself, that panel was A Very Merry
ninjaHELL! Last year's left me a little cold, but I laughed my ass off this time - particularly during the traditional "we need to stall because the equipment hasn't shown up yet WHERE THE HELL IS THE RIGHT CABLE" segment.
What else? Lets see. . . we took a little time for photos, because Ivy had a great costume and the Hilton has crazy decorations.
You think this is nuts? One of the rooms had a lighting arrangement on the ceiling that looked like a Viking ship made of diamonds
.We also exchanged gifts! Ivy got me a Doctor Who pop-up book, which is exactly the sort of thing everyone wants and is too embarrassed to buy for themselves. I got her a
mug designed by Wil Wheaton and a box of Earl Grey.
Look, ma! Nerds!
(Alternate caption: when you've known someone for over a decade, your brains eventually synch up. Half the fun this weekend was laughing at each other's jokes, taking pictures of toilets, and bringing up embarrassing things we both did in middle school.
)
On the back -
My handwriting over the last 14 years: largely unchanged.
This apparently doesn't hurt at all.
But it looks painful, doesn't it?
This is one of my favorite shots, although I wish I'd gotten video of the kidney-kick. 
So, apparently it's difficult to take an interesting chess photo. Look, if you want great board game imagery, go here. I'm just a nerd with a camera.
Nice to see the boys getting along.
There were about twenty different blends. The woman had me at "you can smell as many of them as you like!"
You think this is nuts? One of the rooms had a lighting arrangement on the ceiling that looked like a Viking ship made of diamonds.
Look, ma! Nerds!
I realize that 2009 was good to me. If you've been following this blog, you know that I graduated from the University of Texas, had fun with my family, started a new (and better) job, was accepted into the graduate Teaching program at St. Edward's University, enjoyed a lot of performances by local theatre troupes, attended my first Bouchercon, met one of my favorite authors, took a vacation where I got to spend an entire day on the beach, read an insane number of books, and discovered "new" musicians and BBC shows.
so I can share the highlights with you.
and also the year I finally realized I'm in love with The Proclaimers.
2009 was a year for spending time with family:
Alek finally caught that pesky Christmas fairy.
We tried something new - fish 'n' chips, shepherd's pie, and Woodchuck cider - at a pub.
We fought over who had the best holiday photos.
We .... stood in front of trees together.
And to try new things.
We had bad pet news
(Omar was diagnosed with cancer)
(The lasers are now 100% operational!)
and enjoyed life's little luxuries.
2009 gave us surprises,
narrow escapes,
and plenty of time to reflect.
Sarah went with the theme "mod", and I went with the theme "pirate costume I can still play laser tag in".
You see, I was worried that if I went the full striped skirt and boots route they wouldn't let me play. And let's be fair - laser tag trumps Halloween costume, always. (As it turns out, I would have been fine. They let a rather tall man in a gorilla costume in with no problem... which was totally terrifying in the strobe lights)
and then one of us went, "wait, they have mini golf here?" After seeing the word "Glo" before "Mini Golf", it was a done deal. We were not disappointed, because the first thing we saw after walking in? This:
Yep, that's clearly a neon stargate knockoff. I absolutely love it. The rest of the mini golf area was similarly psychedelically amazing:
After a full round of golf and another $20 in shooting/killing/stabbing/horse racing games, we were starting to check the clock
and sure enough, it was time to head over to the local Alamo Drafthouse for the Texas premier of Dead Snow. The showing of Dead Snow was just amazing - there's nothing quite like the energy of sitting in a room full of semi-drunk Halloween revelers while watching a Norwegian Nazi zombie movie. Or, if there is, it's probably illegal.
Sarah was Tsu, and Jyan and I chose our names from How I Met Your Mother, in honor of the fact that Jyan's got me hooked on the show. SWA in this case is short for Swarley ... and don't think I didn't get a huge kick out of my score in frame 9.
