.:Tuesday, September 2:.

..:Kidneys, Conventions and Camping.:..

Okay, see, there is an actual reason why I haven't blogged in a bit. A real reason too, it even comes with a doctors note.

Remember a month ago when I got a raging kidney infection that pretty much knocked me flat for 3 days? Yeah... it came back. According to the doc it was probably just the same one sticking around for an encore. He also said they should have given me a stronger set of antibiotics in round 1, but oh well. So I trugged down to the hospital, flirted with cute, cute, CUTE intern as he drew blood and tried to ignore the fact I looked like a hobo as I hadn't showered yet and was in the first clothes that had come to hand.

Master of denial, that's me.

Got another round of killer antibiotics, proceeded to pop them like candy as per the instructions, and wondered why I was steadily feeling worse and worse.

Decided that I was going to the con the next day, come hell, high water, or even me exhanguinating out of the eyes. Took the thursday off as I figured a day of rest would help with the whole "surviving the con" goal, and pretty much just bummed about and put all the finishing touches on Tiff's shield and spear. Turned out fairly well if I do say so myself:




Then came friday, and the annual trek to the convention center. Bryanna,in a fan T-shirt, and me in the devil contacts. (Was supposed to be going as Willow, but didn't feel up to straping and wiggling myself into the costume, not to mention it was bloody HOT out to be wearing an all black gothic outfit and corset.)

So, bummed about in line for 2 hours, laughed at those who had yet to buy tickets and discovered that saturday had sold out, and then we started seeing these:




They were doing a huge heroes promotion by having 30 guys in all black with slicked hair and black sunglasses marching up and down the lines with large, apocalypse style signs proclaiming that "Darkness is Coming" and then giving the people the masks. Unfortunately, all the fans proceeded to do the exact same thing, put the masks on the back of their heads and all proceeded to face the front of the line. The result? As you walked down the line you would see nothing terribly off except for a large number of people seemingly wearing headbands (and since Naruto came out that's not exactly uncommon) but then as you reached the end of the line and turned around, you would be faced with several HUNDRED Sylars, all with empty eyes. Very creepy.

Beej zoned out in line and played Zelda while we waited, then I spotted this boy:



and captain hammer:



and his girlfriend:



Immediately accosted him and his group and dragged them in to line to talk to us (and possibly start a sing-along, but as there is no footage and therefor no real proof, there shall be no teasing) by that point me and Beej had been stuck in line for a while and were desperate for other fannish conversation as both of our respective groups of nerds have scattered to the 4 corners of the earth and there were only a few of us that year. Dr Horrible was PERFECT, he had the voice, the twitchy mannerisms, the absolutely HORRIBLE puns and even and annoying older brother dressed as captain hammer. I love fans.

Got in at 2, immediately bought far too much stuff and delighted in freaking out even the most jaded to the booth-jockeys with the devil eyes, and of course invaded artist's alley in search of new and interesting things.

Unfortunately, the alley kinda sucked this year. No new artists, a few old friends and some of the more interesting comic guests were all residing down there this year. Unfortunately, friday consisted of only about 3 hours of actual con as I had to go home and collapse right away. Sick sucks.

Got up bright and early the saturday morning to get bloody well sewn into the 300 costume. spent 2 and a half hours getting hair and dressing done, which was effectively a large bedsheet and 2 ribbons. There was also much mocking of the tit pips that I had to wear seeing as I couldn't wear a bra in the damn dress. Tiff, on the other hand, took about 3 minutes and when she was done, off we trudged. Cabbed it down there as it was hotter than hell out and we were already late, I think the cabbie was terrified of us. Tiff spent the whole ride down with her spear hanging out the side of the cab window as that fucker was huge.

Got to the con, stepped out, made it about 2 feet when we realised something. For those who know toronto: the con was in the south building of the convention center, which is down 2 huge flights of stairs and a has a large open floor midway for those lining up. The line? took up the entirety of the ticket floor, snaking back and forth, went UP THE FLIGHTS OF STAIRS and OUTSIDE. Was rather glad for the pre-registration, lemme tell ya that.

Whilst in costume we only got to move about 2 feet at a time before being accosted for photo's. Our costumes:




Much as I whined and teased Tiff, it really was a load of fun. Drew had gone as the green lantern:



and Kat as the scarlet witch. Beej wandered off with one of her friends and shook her head in shame every time she saw me around. And we somehow managed to aquire an extra 2 spartans. We had headed out to sneak Mike in as he forgot to buy a ticket, and there was a guy who looked a hell of alot like Leonidas shouting and flailing and kicking tourists over for the camera. Hit him up on youtube, his voice was perfect (although probably absolutely shot by days end). We wandered past and he immediately shouted "My Queen!!" Bowed, and dragged me and Tiff into the melee. It was awesome.



Some other awsome costumes that we spotted:




7 foot tall chewie of doom, he and his friend were even arguing like Han and chewie. Extra points for not breaking character



A cylon holding a baby, that just cannot end well...



I really loved this one! Yoshi!!




These 3 were incredibly graceful and the costumes? Were absolutely MADLY detailed. I don't even want to think about how long those damn headdresses took.



This guy was top, freaking notch. The weird stumbly walk, the raspy coughing, and even an army of minions. Definitely best at the con I'd say.



Continuing in the Star Wars costumes of awesome, seriously, is that not the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Also, I may or may not have attacked this group:



And had a conversation about Spartans and Time Lords and how it was clearly meant to be. Ahem.

And I have just one question, much as I love Tiff: Why didn't my Spartan look like this?:



Went out to dinner at Marchee's when we were all done on saturday, still in costume, got stopped by alot of tourists for photo's on front street walking down there. We also got alot of whispering at Marchee itself, ate alot of ice cream, good fun.

Sunday brought with it Brent Spiner, me in the contacts again and a hell of a shopping spree. My bag was starting to break by the end of the con under the weight of the comics, that's how you KNOW it was good.

Bought:
-Green Lantern Rebirth series 1-2
-The Watchmen complete
-Identity Crisis
-Magician Apprentice books 1-2
-A collection of neil gaiman short comics
-Hellboy short stories
-New Avengers: Illuminati
-A Woodstock T-shirt
-B-bomb! Earrings
-Far too much pocky for a single human to ingest and remain in the least bit sane.

God I adore cons.

Unfortunately, pushing myself so damn hard to get to the con all weekend meant that the infection had well and truly set in by monday. I was off for 4 days trying to keep down everything I ate and stop the world from spinning for awhile.

That sucked.

So I finally figured that, even given the whole being stupid and pushing myself thing, there was no way I should still be that sick. So I trudged off to the doctors. Got poked and prodded and bled for a bit, then the doc came in, looked at me and asked if I was sensitive to certain antibiotics, I told him yes, any of the sulfur based antibiotics tend to srew me up, but I had told the doc at the emergency room that upon admission. He basically said, OK. Other doc was a bit of an idiot, gave me a sulfur-based medication, and that was what was buggering me up so bad. Took a few days to clear my system too...

Bloody medical doctors, voudoun practitioning quacks, the lot of 'em.

Was mostly recovered by friday, so what's the first thing I do? Head out with Kat to a house party where we managed to polish off $150 worth of booze between the 6 of us. That and there was dancing, and a guy dressed like David Bowie....

I love my weird friends.

Kat was.... drunk. Like, epically drunk. There was puking and confessions of love, and falling into tables and some truly shameless dancing. So of course we had a professional photographer there documenting the whole thing.

Can't wait to see those pics.

Oozed out of bed on Saturday morning, avoided the sun, and hissed at the cats when they started yowling for food. I don't get evil hangovers from hell like Kat, I get wicked light sensitivity and some insane vertigo. Blah.

Recovered enough to shower, discovered that sometime during the night, in the midst of being drunk, I had apparently packed for the cottage. Was too lazy to double check that everything had gotten packed and just slung the bag in my car and hoped for the best.

Kat had spent all of the party inviting everyone to the cottage party we were heading to, luckily only Shiloh took her up on it. And Matt for some reason. Y'all thought Mike was hyper on trips? That's nothing. I like Mike and can deal with Hyper Mike because he's a genuinely good guy, there's no maliciousness in it at all. Matt? Is a whiny little bitch who gossips and backstabs the instant you turn around. Me and my family delight in ripping him to shreds sarcastically every time the opportunity presents itself (which is often). He really is a douche.

And I was stuck in a car with him for 2 hours driving to the cottage. I was nearly ready to shove him over one of the cliffs by the time we parked.

Aside from that the cottage was awesome. It was Adam and Chantal's party, whom I hadn't really talked to a hell of a lot in the past but really should have because they are both really fun people. Spent the weekend trampolining, hiking, swimming, canoeing, cooking on a bonfire and reading. I have S'more residue all over my shoes, sand in my hair and A Ceasar stain on my jeans. It was a damn good weekend. Unfortunately I also found out that I'm allergic to Lychee as well, that kinda sucked. But waking up at the crack o dawn to leave on monday, and leaving Matt there for the others to deal with? That was just awesome!

Now am back in the T-dot, am on call this week (which is kinda shitty) am running the Eureka fandom this month on Crackvan, which is kinda awesome, and have nothing better to do than relax.

End o' summer and it's all good....

also, here's a video of the mythbusters doing what they do best, making some ridiculously useless and huge guns:


Painting Mona Lisa In .008 Seconds ->

Labels: conventions, Cosplay, cottage, doctors, fan expo, fandom wank, kat, parties, Sick

Meru at 11:15 AM

.:Friday, May 16:.

..:At the cottage:..

Am currently back in the boonies, up at my mum and dad's cottage out in forest. Since I couldn't really afford a birthday present for my mum I offered to come up and open up and fix the cottage for her. Get all the shutters off, air it out, sweep, clean the eavestroughs, mow the lawn, paint the deck, etc.

Unfortunately it looks as if it might rain up here a good chunck of the weekend, so I'm pretty much gonna have to finish up all of the above damn quick.

In other news, something I found kinda funny, the gas prices have gotten so outrageously bad, that the cattle farmers out in Alberta? Are regressing about 50 years. Instaed of using ATV's or Jeeps or Motorcycles to do the cattle stampede, they're going to do it the old fashioned way, on horseback. Which is actually fairly outdated nowadays as it makes the thing about 10 times more dangerous.

I thought it would be really cool to see though.

Also? Ignore my last post with me grumbling about being broke, got my tax refund, so I can actually pay off all my bills this month no problem, always a nice thing to be able to say.

I have the first 3 shows for the Molson Amphitheatre next week too. Kanye West, Sheryyl Crow and Eric Clapton. Depending on how good or bad they go I'll decide whether or not I want to keep the job for the rest of the summer.

Now I am gonna crash for a bit as squinting while driving for 3 hours has given me the headache to end all headaches.

Must sleep

Labels: cons, cottage

Meru at 7:27 PM