Thats My Word!

San Diego Comic Con 2010 A Roaring Success

I just got home from an absolute blast in San Diego this weekend and finally have some time to post some pics from SDCC. Normally, I go on Saturday only but this year I waited too long to buy my pass so I was stuck with Thursday. I can usually get everything accomplished that I need to in one day and this was no different. One of these days I’ll get a hotel room downtown and get the 4 day pass, but not this summer. As it would turn out, that was actually a nice move because while it was busy, it wasn’t nearly as a madhouse as it is by the weekend, especially Saturday. Hollywood is really taking over Comic Con and each year adds several thousand more visitors which is leading to speculation about SDCC moving to Anaheim or Las Vegas. Hopefully, this will never happen because neither city is even in the spectrum of awesomeness as San Diego, not to mention the amount of business the city would lose.

We parked at Petco Park and walked the couple blocks and the morning started off interesting when this huge lady started stripping naked in the middle of the street near the train station. She seemed a few Cheerios shy of a complete breakfast. We did not stick around to see that. LoL.

Walking to the San Diego Convention Center, we were inundated with countless handouts of all types of stuff from fliers of stuff for sale, shows, to Mars candy bars to promote the upcoming challenge by Joey Chestnutt to eat as many Mars bars as possible. I guess this is the next move after destroying his gastrointestinal system with hot dog eating contests. I had no interest in witnessing such a display, but I figured the free Mars bar I was handed might come in handy later as a snack. For simply listening to the girl who told me about the eating contest later, I was given a Red Faction II t-shirt.

We entered the convention center and made our way to the registration area. After my friend and I registered and picked up our badges, we grabbed a ginormous bag full of goodies and headed toward the exhibit hall inside the convention center. These bags didn’t even last 5 minutes before the straps tore off. Nice quality.

Before we even left the registration area, we found a section of some well known and loved actors holding it down and signing for fans. Normally, most sit in booths downstairs in the main exhibit hall, but these guys seemed to strategically place themselves at the beginning. Normally, there are former celebrities and stars of cult classic TV shows or movies and I keep it moving, but I spotted one I just had to meet.

As a huge fan of Groundhog Day and Memento, I had to get a pic with Stephen Tobowlosky:

He was a really nice guy and I had a chance to talk to him for a little bit. Next to Stephen was the dwarf chick from Total Recall that owned the Mars bar and was also an Ewok in Return Of The Jedi, apparently. Sorry guys… no pics of her. LoL.

Next to her was Dirk Benedict- better known as Face from the original A-Team and Starbuck from the original Battlestar Galactica. My buddy wanted to get a signed picture of him for his sister and to be honest, he looked pretty crappy. Granted, he’s at least in his 50’s, but I overheard him telling the lady in front of us that he’s not a vegan, but he doesn’t eat any meat, dairy, etc.- he only eats grains, beans, and rice. To be honest, he looked like he could use a couple pork chops and some mashed potatoes. LoL. He was selling some books he had written about self-enlightment, blah blah blah. He has a really dry sense of humor and was really funny. He did a hilarious impression of Mr. T that had us crackin’ up.

Next to Benedict was Rog and Dee from What’s Happening?- the old TV classic. Sorry, no pics either (altho Dee has grown up to be a strikingly beautiful woman).

We headed to the main floor and here’s some highlights (pics taken with my phone):

Prince Adam getting ready to wreck shop:

Neytiri from Avatar

From the Stan Winston Studio exhibit:

The AMP from Avatar

The Iron Men

Bumblebee:

From the TRON exhibit:

I got a chance to hang out with Jonboy Meyers,

Jim Mahfood, Sanford Greene, JJ Kirby. Bumped into Big Boi from Outkast who was wandering the floor (he performed at a party that night altho I can’t remember which one LoL).

I got to meet the creator of Axe Cop and upon seeing my shirt, he offered to draw me a sketch- I chose Uni Baby, of course.

We watched the unveiling of Marvel vs Capcom 3 which featured a contest. Everyone wanted to use Deadpool, altho the kid who used Hulk kicked everyone’s tails.

I spoke with CB Cebulski who was promoted by Marvel and he gave me his business card with his cell and email (which is a huge comeup).

I was able to give both Joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis copies of my Body Bags soundtrack. Bendis was stoked since he’s a huge fan of the comic and he put it in his personal bag right away so he wouldn’t lose it which was awesome. I told both of them that since they both had been signing so much and giving so much, that I was going to give them something and both seemed sincerely thankful which made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Bendis’ line was relatively short when we got in it and this couple in front of us were dressed as Gambit and Rogue. They argues incessantly after Rogue was told by a staff that she couldn’t sit down in line and would have to go out in the lobby if she had to. Granted, he was pretty rude about it but her reaction to it started out funny but then became annoying. She kept complaining and said someone should tell management about what happened and how there was nowhere to sit (which is untrue as there are a zillion places to sit throughout the convention center). It led to them arguing and finally she stormed off which was awesome.

People came up asking who we were waiting in line for and after awhile, I started messing with people. I told them it was for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and James Cameron and people started excitedly wigging out. It was hilarious.

So all in all, it was a highly productive time both professionally and as a fan. I would highly recommend adding SDCC to your bucket list and if any of you make it out here sometime, hit me up.

King James Gets The Royal Treatment

I spent almost 9 years living in Akron, OH. I made a bunch of friends that I’m very close with to this day, but I couldn’t wait to dip to Cali. I thought about it everyday for almost all 9 of those years. If someone had tried to stop me from leaving to pursue a better life for myself, I would have responded in a much less civil way than Lebron has. Who is anyone to act like they own him?

As a Green Bay Packers fan, I can understand how they feel losing their beloved player even if it’s a little different. In fact, what Brent Fahrv did was a zillion times worse. He went to a hated rival knowing it would spit in our faces. When he retired, I was disappointed because I wanted him to come back. But then he retired. And well… you know the rest. I’m not going to get side-tracked talking about that old coot.

Lebron, however, didn’t go to a hated rival. In fact, he probably should have left the Cavs 3 years ago when he had the chance. But he signed a 3 year extension and stayed a Cavalier. Unfortunately, the front office couldn’t get a surrounding cast that could carry them to the top and win a ring. Yes, they led the league in regular season wins 2 years in a row but got bodied in the playoffs both times. Mo disappears in the clutch, Jamison is a pop tart (soft in the middle), and Shaq was like one of those ancient, giant, walking trees in The Two Towers.

If players are traded or cut, it’s just business. But if a player leaves as a free agent, he’s a traitor? He didn’t even go to a rival… He doesn’t owe Cleveland anything. He already gave them 7 years! Most NBA careers don’t last that long. It’s perfectly fine to be upset and saddened by his departure, but sending death threats and wishing injuries upon players is despicable.

Lebron is not from Cleveland; he’s from Akron. He has always repped the AK. When he won his awards, where did he hold a ceremony to receive them? In Akron at his old gym at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s, not something affiliated with the Cavaliers organization. People who are from or have spent a significant amount of time there understand that Akron is its own city. It is not Cleveland. Act like ya know.

Gilbert is claiming himself as a fellow NE Ohioan victim, but he’s from Michigan. Dude is a shady manipulator who doesn’t care about the fans; he cares about the potential money he’s losing by Lebron leaving. He wouldn’t have purchased the team in the first place if Lebron wasn’t there. It was a few weeks ago that Gilbert publicly put the team on blast during the playoffs, yet he has the nerve to call Lebron classless? Lebron never went public talking smack about the Cavs or teammates. Ever. However, Gilbert goes directly to the public first to voice his unfiltered hatred. He speaks of Lebron’s cowardice and lack of loyalty, yet booted Mike Brown and ran Danny Ferry out of town with the quickfast. Nice owner. Good luck convincing free agents to come to C-town now, Daniel. I sure wouldn’t want to play for him. I can understand his frustration, but be a professional. Or go back to Michigan. The owner of a company needs to be above such pettiness. There’s a strong possibility that Gilbert is the precise reason that Lebron left…

If Gilbert’s so concerned about the well-being of the city of Cleveland, why is he trying to build casinos there? Especially considering this:

“Gilbert was accused of conspiring to violate state gambling laws. He was fined, given three years’ probation and ordered to do 100 hours of community service, the paper said. The felony was dropped after he completed the sentences.”

Gilbert is storming around the glass house with a bag full of huge rocks. And he thinks they will win a NBA Championship before Miami? LMAO. Dan, Miami will probably win a title before you even claw your way back to .500 for a possible sniff of the playoffs.

Everyone is saying there’s no way these 3 egos can co-exist and play together. They say that it’s Wade’s team and Lebron will be nothing more than a relegated sidekick. As far as all this “whose city is Miami’s?” talk, does it matter? What is this? Scarface? It’s Sonny Crockett’s city! Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being Wade’s ace. Look at Tombstone. It was Wyatt Earp’s movie, but who’s the favorite character? Doc Holiday. Star Wars. Luke Skywalker? Nope, Han Solo is the more popular character.

People seem to think Lebron winning a ring only is valid if he signs with a joke of a team like the Washington Generals who don’t have any future Hall Of Fame players. The whole point is to win championships! Why would you purposely align yourself with weaker players when you can play with All-Stars? Nobody says “Oh, Magic only won rings because he had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy” do they? Nobody wins without help and to shun a better opportunity because you’re worried about the perception that winning championships might bring as opposed to actually winning said championships is a terrible decision. It’s even more asinine hearing it from their “fans.”

Here’s an analogy for you:

Maybe Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese should only cast irrelevant actors like Scott Baio and Joanna Kerns in their films. If they were really good directors, they wouldn’t need to work with great actors like Leo DiCaprio and Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, right?

People continue to compare him to Michael Jordan. His game is more like Magic Johnson’s. It’s so obvious. I swear some of you have never even seen him play from that outlandish things you say.

It will never work? This team will implode and be dismantled within 3 years?

What’s the crow population like in Florida? Eventually, they might be exporting some by the pallet. First stop, Dan Gilbert’s house.

Don’t feel too bad Cleveland… there’s always Bone Thugs & Harmony.

Happy 4th Of July!

Hope everyone is having an awesome weekend (3 days at least, right?) BBQing some grub and watching fireworks. I went to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena last night with my peeps and saw an amazing fireworks display at Americafest.

Getting out afterward was a logistical nightmare of traffic to the Nth degree. Good lookin’ out to the vendor who came by the whip and sold us some delicious hot dogs.

Remember that this man was frozen in ice for decades fighting for the freedom that you now enjoy. God bless America!

Wolverine Syndrome: Memories Of Pizza Turf, Comic Book Cheerleaders, and Poltergeist Clowns

Anyone who has moved around quite a bit especially in their formative childhood years may be familiar with and suffer from Wolverine Syndrome. I’m not talking about being relentlessly ubiquitous and appearing in multiple places seemingly at the same time or being a ferocious, diminutive Canadian killing machine with bones laced with an unbreakable Adamantium alloy. I’m talking about the pummeling bombardment of memories from the past that are sometimes indeterminable from recollections passed. Sometimes you cannot figure where these memories came from and those that are familiar are sometimes lost in the recesses of oblivion.

33% of people worldwide have experienced Wolverine Syndrome according to Willie Lumpkin who is perhaps best known as the postal carrier for the Baxter Building. When asked about where he got his estimation, Lumpkin said he often went through Reed Richards’ mail as a precaution. Attempts to verify such figures were unsuccessful after several calls to the Baxter Building were met with a rocky voice repeatedly saying, “Sweet petunia!” and then hanging up.

Some symptoms of Wolverine Syndrome include memories and flashes triggered by any of the 5 senses. A simple walk outside in the brisk air could bring back memories of playing tackle football after school. Walking by a restaurant and being enveloped by the smell of certain foods might remind you of a diner you ate in as a kid even if you have no clue where it was located. Was it a local eatery near your childhood home or was it a place your family stopped to eat at on a family trip across part of the country?

Treating the effects of Wolverine Syndrome is another matter entirely. Multiple telepathic sessions with Jean Grey at my former school- Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters- were tremendously beneficial. Unfortunately, Jean died a few years back and we were unable to continue. Emma Frost persuaded me to continue treatment with her but so far we’ve only had one session. It bizarrely began on top of the world’s largest tornado slide that was the height of the Sears Tower and led to a ball crawl filled with the yummy candy Dots at the bottom of the slide. The tornado slide was located in the endzone of Lambeau Field which had a turf made of the most delicious pepperoni pizza. Ms. Marvel, Kitty Pride, Storm, Black Widow, Mockingbird, Firestar, Power Girl, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Atom Eve, Voodoo, and Rita Medermade were dressed as Green Bay Packers cheerleaders. After I caught a deep TD pass from Aaron Rodgers, the cheerleaders surrounded me to celebrate only for me to wake up upside-down in a bacta tank like Luke Skywalker on the planet Hoth.

Next think I know, I wake up yet again in a booth at Fuddruckers where I apparently passed out after inhaling a delicious 1/3lb burger with pepperjack cheese. Was it all a dream? I checked my iPhone and all my recent calls and Internet history had been cleared. I got up to get a refill and the manager kicked me out for tracking pizza all over the carpet and told me it was rude to bring outside food to an eating establishment.

The manager looked remarkably like Bryan Cox (aka his real name William Stryker) and asked me to come get in his helicopter. Recalling the brilliant strategy from my youth of a deadly snowball attack technique, I lofted my cup in the air to him which he instinctively reached to catch. While his hands were skyward and his attention distracted, I grabbed a large handful of pickles from the condiment station and smashed him in the face. While he was screaming in agony from the pickle juice that was burning his eyes, I took off faster than Pietro Maximoff.

As soon as I got to my whip, I realized I didn’t have my keys. Where did I leave them? Memories flashed through my mind at lightning speed. The “rock garden” at my grandmother’s house in New Jersey? The cannister of pretzels in the basement? The mints that tasted like Pepto Bismol at the Brass Lantern restaurant in Norfolk, Nebraska? On the raft in the middle of the Pond in Milwaukee? Buried in poppy seeds fallen from the buns containing delicious Vienna beef hot dogs from Luke’s in Chicago? Buried in the remains of the greatest ride ever at Six Flags Great America- the Powerdive? On top of the Street Fighter arcade game at My Place pizza which is now closed? Somewhere inside the cafeteria at Paty Hall at the University of Alabama? Are they wrapped around the neck of the exact same clown as the one in Poltergeist that my cousin had?

Ooh I just remembered that I’ve got a new episode of Breaking Bad dvr’d. Snikt!

Let’s Go To The Movies… Just Not On The First Date

Some friends and I were talking about going to the movies early on when you’re dating a girl (or a guy for you ladies out there). Cliches aside, it’s probably not a great idea to go to a movie on a first date because spending at least 90 minutes in silence isn’t very productive. Well, maybe your date is extremely hot and you don’t want to spend time talking but if you do decide to go see a movie, be careful what you choose.

Let’s take a look at a few movies currently in theatres:

-Furry Vengeance (Obviously ignoring Brendan Fraser’s suspect choices in roles, if your date chooses this uh, movie, then remain calm and slip out during the previews to “get another snack” and then pop into Iron Man 2 and slouch deep in your seat in case she comes looking for you)

-Letters To Juliet (some guys think the alien chick lead in this is hot but this chick flick is a bad precedent to set as your first film together)

-The BackUp Plan (start devising your Back Out Plan)

-How To Train Your Dragon (1- She’s an animation buff 2- She’s a Renaissance fair/ medieval warfare reenacter 3- She brought her kid. On your first date. Make sure you get enough candy)

-Iron Man 2 (resist the urge to pop 75c into the candy/jewelry dispenser trying to score a ring to propose marriage. 2nd date guaranteed)

If you are feeling dangerous, tread lightly and be careful what you choose. A very loooong time ago I went and saw Basic Instinct on a first date. Every guy left the theatre equally turned on and scared of chicks with ice picks. Pick wisely…

Coming soon to televisions nowhere will be The Scary Gary Show starring Gary Busey. You can be sure that Turtle from Entourage will be tuning in.

The mascot of the Milwaukee Bucks is Bango The Buck and on Monday he had arguably the greatest dunk in basketball history. Forget about Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, Vince Carter, Spud Webb, and whoever else. They have NOTHING on Bango! Check this insanity out:

Absolutely nuts. If he’s even a foot off, he’s smashing his grill into the rim and possibly becoming deer jerky. Bango The Buck = G.O.A.T.!!!!

Ditsy Broad Stole My Spot And Burrito

I’m not sure what’s worse… having a ditsy chick on her cellphone snake my parking spot directly in front of Chipotle which I clearly had dibs on and forcing myself to walk an Aaron Rodgers deep ball from where I wound up parking…

Or…

… getting inside to find a line longer than the Magnum at Cedar Point on the 4th of July and not being able to get my chicken burrito with extra rice.

Points for me for not putting the chick on complete blast in front of everybody. Back in the day I woulda called her out and made a scene. LoL

Silly String vs. Birthday Cake

The winner? Not the birthday boy!

Don’t try this at home kiddies!

Earthquake Leads To Harbor Brawl

A 4.4 earthquake at 4am here in Los Angeles this morning was not fun. I heard stuff shaking on the desk and thought somebody was in our room. I woke up with my adrenaline pumping ready to Jason Bourne an intruder. My wife calmly told me to settle down and go back to sleep. LoL.

My vivid imagination doesn’t always differentiate between being awake and still being asleep so there are times the transition is seamless. Falling back to sleep after my adrenaline wore off, I found myself on a yacht in the harbor near the Flats in Cleveland on New Year’s Eve. Fireworks were going off and everybody was having a blast. A former college roommate who was quite the knucklehead started laying on the horn in celebration which was extremely loud to the people on the docks around us. Not content to just play with the horn, he starts the yacht and hits the accelerator jerking the yacht back and forth as it’s tied down. I started getting on him like “What is wrong with you? This isn’t our boat.”

Off the boat on the dock, a boisterous guy wearing a bootleg t-shirt of my Children Of The Light comic starts running his mouth and offending everyone and winds up getting the tar beat out of him. The first guy to hit him pulled some Kung Fu Panda style by pinching his nerves with a focused shot to the solar plexus. Then another guy came up and smashes him in the back of the head with a right cross. Lastly, a huge guy who looked like a cross between Mr. Eko from Lost and the Incredible Hulk with a white dye version of Brandon Jennings’ rooster haircut steps and finishes him off. Party’s over fellas. Everybody bounce before the po po’s show up.

So I guess the guy with the bootleg shirt was the intruder and got his after all. Blame it on the eathquake.

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