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Comic Con - 2011
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2176
Father's day and we're bereft of things to do, we decide upon the Comic Book & Sci Fi Convention.
$50.00 admission, $25.00 apiece. We did this last year...
...and it's much the same. Countless artists and vendors promoting their work, abundant costumes, superheroes of every shape and size: a 60 year old overweight Batman, a 14 year old underweight Superman in a skin-tight lycra that hangs from his skin like a tent, various others, a Jessica Rabbit, very convincingly done (less the curves, which I found too abundant anyways), only I think she's not really trying, the resemblance is natural.
Others, too, there's Zelda, and no less than 100 unwashed Katamari whose resemblance is probably pure chance, but how convincingly they've done it, there's zombies and Star Trek Aliens and Vampires and any number of Steampunk heros and people in costumes that probably have no comic book equivalent, merely dressing up, events like this bring out the kink....
Much to look at, but the most impressive thing by far (and most of the celebrities and vendors I'm sure were noticing as well) was the stall that sold mini-donuts and slushies. Averaging $10.00 every 30 seconds and a line that wouldn't diminish (the katamari's need feeding, after all, rolling away stuck to their slushies and donuts...), I'm guessing this is the business to be in. Forget everything else, run a mini-donut stand at Sci Fi conventions and in year you'll be rich....
Firewall of Sound
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2068
Another IFN pick by the boy, mind you he had a limited selection - Forks Over Knives, The First Grader being the other choices.
Now it's part of the Sled Island independent music festival in Calgary, and the theme of the documentary is how the internet is changing peoples experience of music. Only marginally interesting, and nothing that you didn't know.
But what was interesting was the promised Q & A with the director at the end, wherein they propped a laptop up on a folding chair on the stage and the audience could converse with him vis-a-vie Skype. Positively surreal, but it got better with the questions - one particularly muscular and healthy young fellow wondering if "the democratization of music" should be seen as a good thing....
More books, less gym.
Garage Sales - Week 8 -2011
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1854
And yet another rainy weekend, some terrific sales cancelled or simply postponed or not held.
There are pages and pages of sales on Kijiji and in the Herald, but try as I might there's no drawing a map, not a single one that jumps out at you as being possibly better than the rest. And so I simply hop in my car and drive.
Surprisingly it's not such a bad morning. A couple of Laguoile corkscrews, a handful of expensive looking celluloid pens (promotional remnants) - suitable for work, some bad quartz watches for a dollar worth it if only for the fine leather straps which I can recycle onto other watches, an antique oak mirror, a 30's oak wardrobe for fifty dollars that has me humming and hawing - beveled glass and ornate highlights, I'm saved from myself when the host tells me it's already been sold, other trifles for staff members that couldn't be bothered to attend.
Sunday morning - flea market, nothing, Crossroads - nothing, on to the book fair - $2.00 admission (and where did they come up with the idea to charge admission to used book sales, and worse yet - why do we pay it?), I find a pile of books, Catch 22 and Oxford Dictionary of Quotations for the boy, a copy of Pablo Neruda's "20 love songs and one of despair" in Spanish, for the dishwasher at work, the autobiography of PT Barnum, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
All in all, not a bad weekend. Now this marks the end of Garage Sale Season, there will be more, week 9 and 10 surely, but the bulk, the best of the treasures should have surfaced by now. But still I'll go and we'll see....
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