hellziggy

hellbob says I should definitely go to the Phoenix Comicon!

\0/

He's going to go too if we can manage it. It will depend on how I get there and how much it costs.

Do any of you guys want to go too? :)

One option we were considering was road tripping down.
It is a 28-29 hour drive according to the Google Maps. It is between 1700 & 1800 miles depending on which route you take. If road-tripping I'm leaning towards the route through Denver as I've already taken the other route once, and I've never ever ever been in the Rocky Mountains.

This option is really only feasible if there are a few of us heading down. To minimize time needed off work, it would be nice to drive straight through to only lose just over one day to travel. That means multiple drivers. Plus, depending on start time it would also have the advantage of driving through the not-so-scenic Iowa & Nebraska in the dark. You could even go with if you're not Minneapolis people as long as you live somewhere close to that blue line.

Option #2 is flying. This option minimizes the possibility of Rick being able to go. Right now, round trips to Phoenix are running between $280 and $330, give or take a few fees. Southwest, who we love, is not the cheapest. They do, however, have a $20 leeway built in since they won't charge for my checked bag. (for ex., I consider a $320 United flight and a $300 SWA flight to be the same price). If flying is the decided method of travel, I still have over 3 months to keep an eye out for a sale, or possibly a really good air/hotel combo special.

If flying, there's no travel savings for multiple people going, like there would be driving. But either way, if any of y'all wanna go we could split hotel room costs. If it is just me I will take spellwight up on her generous offer of crashing at her place before she has a chance to think twice about it. (DON'T tell her I snore!) ;) But I won't even think about imposing if I'm more than just me.

So yeah, definitely going. Don't know how I'm getting there. \0/

I've really sucked at the whole LJ thing lately, haven't I? Im gonna have to work on that.

This weekend (well, starting tomorrow actually) is one of my favorite weekends of the year: CONvergence! hellbob & I will be staying at the hotel as usual. This year, we are back in the North tower! hell yeah! No 19th freaking floor this year!

I'm pretty sure I'll keep facebook & twitter updated since I've got my iPhone. I'm just not sure how much I'll keep up with everything else online. Since the Torchwood ep doesn't air until after the weekend I probably won't feel the need to break down and pay the hotel's internet charge.

I do have my iPhone set up for tethering now, but I don't know if I'll use that. The hack hasn't been out there long enough yet to find out if AT&T will rape users with insane fees if they tether.

ugh. I should be sleeping. Also, I should have been packing already. OK then. I'll pack quickly and then go to bed.

Tomorrow, CONvergence! (after working all day.)

Problems with ddddddddddddddddddd
My d key isn't working very well - i have to sometimes hit it several times for it to work - so if a word looks funny in this post and would make more sense if it had a 'd' somewhere in it, it probably should.

OK. Important stuff first: My Happy Happy Joy Joy post from just over a week ago.

genevra is pregnant! There's gonna be another Monkey in February!!! Yay! Me & hellbob get to be Auntie & Uncle again! The doctor told her that it is just one this time, but that's what they told her at the first ultrasound last time too!


Not so good stuff: My layoff happened on schedule last friday. Because this first week unemployed is a holiday week followed by CONvergence weekend, I'm not really hitting the job hunt hardcore until next week. Thank you to you all who expressed best wishes/condolences/etc. on my "I'm unemployed" post. I really just wasn't feeling up to replying last Friday.

My what the hell I've been up to lately bullet points:
Friday
*Drank yummy beer and chocolate martinis friday afternoon (started at 2 pm!)
*Had dinner at El Loro with hellbob, lucky13charm, michaellee & frozendragon.
-----*lucky13charm had been an El Loro virgin before that!
-----*frozendragon - If you remembered to bring my book I forgot to get it from you! Either this weekend maybe, or when I get the roaster pan back from you?

Saturday
*Went down to Hidden Valley Campground w/lucky13charm on Saturday to camp with Tiki Neighbors & Friends™
-----*Had to buy a tent before going to camp. Now that we own a tent I intend to convince hellbob that we should camp more!

Sunday
*Came home from camping and showered! Yes, this deserves its own bullet point!
*Went to Ratatouille w/hellbob. We liked it.

Monday
*Did the online application for The Creative Group and got my resume and stuff together for my meeting there on Tuesday.
*Clan Foley came over for dinner, and after dinner I almost kicked butt at Star Wars Monopoly, but hellbob pulled out the win in the end.

Tuesday
*Went downtown to The Creative Group.
*Fucking Rocked the Photoshop proficiency test! I got 92%. The average of everyone who's taken it was only about 77%.
*I also did good on the In Design test. I got 80-something% and the average score for that was 60-something%. Also, more important, the chick I met with knew that I was all self-taught on In Design which makes 80+% extra impressive.
*Went to the Police concert at the X with hellbob,kaldeth, kalfoley, romeoa, and Jeanine-of-no-LJ. levertwok also managed to score a same-day ticket.
-----*It makes hellbob gloat a little to hear it, but I like the Police more now than I did before seeing them in concert.
-----*This does not in any way, however, change my complete love of Uncle Kracker's music!!!

Wednesday, aka The 4th of July, aka Independence Day
*Besides being the birthday of our country, July 4th is also hellbobDad's birthday.
*We went to Hellbob's step-sister's house to celebrate the momentous occasion of my father-in-law's birth.
-----*All his gifts were either gin, or golf related.
*hellbob unfortunately had some kind of minor stomach ookiness going on so he stayed home that evening while I...
*Went to mhuot & dragonsden's annual 4th of July Fireworks party with akdar, genevra, technomonkey_m, and gigglemonkey_b.
-----*There was much good food (meat on a stick!) and even more good company. I will forget people, cuz that's how I roll, but attendees included shrique, tripstumblefoot, and their lovely N, kalmn, monstersocks, and Mr. Monstersocks (whose LJ handle escapes me at the moment), Erik, Linda, ummmmmm and a buncha other people!
*The loudness of the fireworks scared the Monkeys at first, but by the end they were enjoying the heck out of them.

Thursday, aka today
*I slept in.
*didn't do much during the day.
*Went to the MN Zoo's member preview of the revamped Minnesota Trail
-----*If you live in the Twin Cities, go see it! They've made a lot of really nice changes. It certainly had needed this facelift after the almost 30 years since the zoo opened.

Friday. Yes, Friday hasn't happened yet, so I can't tell you what I did. But I can tell you what I'm gonna do!
*CONvergence starts tomorrow.
*That is where I will be all weekend.
*If you know me, say hi.
*If we haven't met yet, say hi. But also tell me who you are!
*If you want to contact me, my cell number is in a friends only post back in 1970.

They've added another guest to the James Marsters event in September: David Fury!

So the current list is:

James Marsters
Tony Todd
Kevin Sorbo
David Fury
Jane Espenson
Steve DeKnight
Michael Winnick
Dee Dee Bradley

Home from another fabulous OmegaCon. It was lucky13charm's first one and she didn't seem too terrified of the geeks.
Some random phrases & stuff from the weekend:

Me, after smelling a glass of bourbon - "Oh my god! It smells like my mother!"

Slutty Pippi Longstocking

"It's like leprosy, only fun."

About a picture of a man in a loincloth - "When you move, his nipples follow you..."

"He killed a lot of whores." - this was the Salad Bowl clue given for Jack the Ripper.

There was a picture of Godzilla on our hotel room wall, until you turned on the lights, then it was a Ruffed Grouse.

This year's video game obsession? Crack Ball, aka Katamari Domacy. I did not play, therefore I did not get trapped in one room all weekend.

Dippy the retarded deer.

Prime Rib is finger food.

Number of sets of pajama I went to OmegaCon with? 3
Number of sets that I came home with? 4

"What happens at OmegaCon stays at OmegaCon."

Comic book coloring as performance art.

Just for 7thstranger - "Oh, oh Geoffrey, right there. You've got it." Hee hee hee! mhuot has the FTP for the site up, so I shall have to get that mp3 out there for everyone to enjoy. *insert evil laugh*

There will be pictures and stuff tomorrow.

While I'll still be taking my daily pictures this weekend, I don't think I'll be able to upload them until Sunday night. I'm pretty sure that I won't have access to the internets, unless the hotel in Siren has added it since last year.
Tomorrow, at about 1 or so, lucky13charm & I will be hitting the road to Wisconsin for a weekend of relaxing, hot tubbing, drinking, board games, and conversation. Yay, OmegaCon!

Dang. i just realised that i posted way more tonight than I had in a while...

One quick poll before I go to bed:

[Poll #599230]

*edit* LOL! I was just looking at this and noticed that I have a text box at the end of the poll for no apparent reason! hee hee. In my defense, I was literally falling asleep in the middle of posting it. At one point one of the choices was "No, I'm ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss" Feel free to put anything you want in that text box!

HellBob & I just got back from Fargo a couple hours ago & we had a blast! Virginia Hey is not only beautiful but is a wonderful, sweet, funny woman. HellBob & I will have to get our convention report for the Cthulhu Coffee site up as soon as possible while we still remember everything (except the parts that HB has lost to Klingon Blood Wine...)
If you are wondering who the heck Virginia Hey is, she is the woman who played Pa'u Zothoh Zhaan on the tv show Farscape. Her character was blue & bald. She was also one of the guests of honor at the ValleyCon convention that we were at this last weekend.
If you were a teenage boy when Road Warrior came out, you most likely remember a character who didn't have a real big part - Warrior Woman. I guess she had a crossbow & wore a headband... It was fun watching HB & our friend Tom actually meet a woman that they had adolescent fantasies about! We chatted with her several times over the weekend & also sat at her table for dinner on Saturday. *big grin*
The artist GOH was a fellow named Dave Devries who has done a lot of comic book art, mainly covers since painting is his medium of choice. He was also a very nice guy. We did the party crawl with him Saturday night.
The writer GOH was Kevin J Anderson who has written some Star Wars stuff (which I haven't read) and is writing all the new Dune books with Frank Herberts son. I've been reading the Dune stuff & I really like it! I did get a chance to chat with him briefly, and like the others, he was also very nice. He had free copies of a short story that leads into his new book that were done up by his publisher as a free promo & he very generously autographed a pile of them for me to bring back to give out at Waldenbooks. I didn't even ask him to.
Having been to ValleyCons years ago we weren't expecting much, but were completely blown away by how much fun we had. A big part of it was due to the wonderful guests. Virginia is just about one of the sweetest women you will ever meet!
I will let y'all know when the report is done & up on the w
eb page. You'll just have to wait until then for details!

Friday tomorrow!

I have figured out why artists wear black. It's not to be all broody & morbid & cool. It is so that when you get the f#@king charcoal all over your clothes it won't show! I am gradually learning to change to all black before my drawing class.

This Sunday when I am at Como Park I am going to take my sketchbook instead of my camera (or maybe in addition to) and get some of my sketches for class done.
I had forgotten until last Sunday just how much the polar bears there depress me. They each have a pattern that they walk or swim over & over & over again. One even has a sore on his head where he rubs the wall each time.

Fargo-Moorhead actually has a zoo now. When we moved away 8 1/2 years ago they were trying to raise funds for it. Guess they did. I'll have to go check it out when we are up for Valleycon in 2 weeks. We've got 5 people going up for sure: Me, HellBob, Mark, Tom, & Sandy. The room will be a little crowded, but cheap! If we had one more person we could probably get 2 rooms with 3 people in each. Not as cheap, but more comfy. Feel like a road trip from Duluth, uglyzebras? :) How about one from Madison, bloodlossgirl? Our resident convention hopper chebutykin can't go cuz she has one wedding to attend & one to be a bridesmaid chick in. I normally wouldn't even consider Valleycon, or Fargo-Moorhead for that matter, but Virginia Hey from Farscape will be there!
Blue chicks are cool!

Tried calling my friend Becca up there & her phone is disconnected. Don't know what to make of that since the last time I talked to her she was working for Qwest....... I hope she didn't up & marry the idiot already. We never even got our invitation. Even though we don't like him, we would still go cuz she is our favorite psycho-readhead-bitch from hell! Had her cell # once upon a time but don't know where it is. :( :( :(