Pre-Dawn Patrol
(Updated)
Wednesday into Thursday, for some reason or reasons unknown, I was neither able to sleep much nor to concentrate sufficiently to get anything useful done. In the end I think I got a fairly solid hour of sleep between 5:30 and 6:30 am. Concentrating on calculations and reports on Thursday was something I had to do in short sessions, but I believe I cleared my work for the week.
I had the sense to keep online time last night to a minimu, but lacked the sense to turn the tv off. I soon became interested in watching The Great Escape on TCM, though I was asleep soon after that. I was awake before 3am, though. (Steve McQueen would have been 75 this year, btw. It's strange to think he's been gone nearly 25 years. That The Empire Strikes Back was that long ago, too, borders on disturbing.)
Today's the kick-off of Wizard World East, their Philadelphia convention. I and fellow comics fan and co-worker, the convivial Eric G., will be taking the train in and out each of the first two days of the event. These things are only worth doing with a good travelling companion who shares the interest. Going solo -- which I did one time over a decade ago -- is a flat experience not worth doing. I have little to no objectives to fulfill at the convention, aside from picking up an oversized Dark Phoenix heroclix and trying to have a fun time. I haven't even gone over the guest list nor the panel schedule, as that'll be something to kick around while waiting for and riding on the train.
The plan is to go Friday and Saturday and leave Sunday for other things. Ari's working Friday night, so I have to be back here by 8pm or so. The convention center in Philly is directly above one of the train terminals, the show ends for the day at 6, so timing shouldn't be a problem. Worst case (well, avoiding all of the Jack Bauerish or ER-ish real worst case ones) scenario would find something happening with the trains causing a delay getting home, but I could call Ari, let her know, and she could head off to work as normal as I could have Eric drop me off at home once we finally got back in the area. The kids being in their middle teens has some advantages.
I've been getting up and doing a little here and there while casually knocking the cobwebs and this text out. That includes setting up a large beef eye roast with sectioned potatoes, onions and a couple cans of sliced mushrooms set up, seasoned, pan covered in aluminum foil and already started cooking. That way it can be turned off early and easily reheated when people want their dinner. The aroma is just already filling the air. This is the type of potpourri I can enjoy.
It's odd to be the one taking the day off for fun when the kids will be going into school, but I'll do my best to avoid any obvious cackling before I get out the door.
Time for the pre-launch runaround so I'm all set to go as soon as Ari gets home. As it's now heading for 5:00 I guess I'm up for the day. But, hey, this sort of sleep schedule was always a part of my away-from-home con experiences, so the fuzzy, surreal window on the world that derives from too little sleep should help make this feel more like a proper vacation. 's all good.
I've been drinking a lot of water this morning, and apparently needed it. Spongebob without the irrepressibly optimistic skew, that's me. I wasn't in the mood for such fruit juices as we have on hand, and I resisted the urge to hit any soda since a caffeine and sugar rush since this time in the morning it would be a terrible mistake. An erratic arc skyward to spastic mania followed by a halting wobble and a certain crash into a zombie-like state by the train ride into the city. I'm enough of a lox in social situations as it is, I don't need any help. No, best to stick to iced water for this stage of the day. Coffee's not much of an option for similar reasons. Besides, I never developed a taste for the foul brew. And yes, as with beer, I have had "the good stuff", and I still didn't like it. No need to argue about matters of taste, java junkies and chugging brewmeisters-- it just means more for you! It's a win-win, folks. If you should ever see me drinking beer, rest assured I'm doing it solely to be sociable and/or trying to get drunk; depending on the situation and the people involved the two are likely indistinguishable.
Okay... time to get the rest of the dishes taken care of, another load of laundry switched to the drier, then it'll be time to get a shower, pull myself the rest of the way together and leave time for a last run-through of what I'm taking with me.
A good day to us all.
Follow-up: (I'll likely go back and put in some more links where appropriate, along with cleaning up the draft in general, a little later. I'm too tired to do it just now. This is just the quick, bulk dump.)
Lines, lines, lines. Wizard - the cenvention organizer - still doesn't have its act together, and interfacing with Philadelphia city regs and the delays will find you standing for a loooong time. My thanks to the city fire marshal for keeping us standing in line for most of an extra hour.
Still, all in all it went well.
An oversized Dark Phoenix Heroclix stares at me from atop a motley stack of discs and boxes on my computer desk. Beside her is a chrome, 200 pt Nova, the pair being my only Power Cosmic clix to date. A Shiro Mechwarrior 2005 Convention exclusive is another of the freebies they tossed in; I don't play that game, so if I can sell that for something I will.
When I was looking to pick up some other items at the Wizkids booth so I could boost the $30 Phoenix buy up past the $50 mark so I would get the Nova LE tossed in, I decided on some Indy boosters because these were ones from the European set, with one, black plastic shelled Euro-only clix in each booster. I also picked up a booster of Ultimates, on a whim.
The Indy boosters gave me 4 Euro clix, though only 3 distinct pieces as two of them were exp. levels of Stix. I also pulled 2 rookies, a Brit City Judge and Torquemada. Beyond that, though, I got a vet Rasputin and a unique Shi, which was something I was still missing. (I'm not sure if I ever managed a vet Rasputin before -- I'll have to check -- but if I did it was only after much extra wrangling.) What did I find in the Ultimates booster? A unique, UItimate Hulk, a piece I'd been considering for a while. The odds were not only in favor of no unique at all, but to pull just about the only piece from that set I was still looking for? Nice. They also tossed in a Statesman LE, the only clix made so far that ties into the whole City of Heroes concept.
They also tossed in a special Pirates pack, so I can make those little pirate ships and pretend I'm going to play yet another game. They're always trying to hook people with freebies for new games. Sometimes it works - that's how they got the Heroclix hooks into me in 2002.
Back at the goodie bag level, each attendee received a DC limited edition(LE) clix. I pulled a Pamela Isley (Poison Ivy), and a Eric pulled a Dinah Lance (Black Canary), which he didn't want so he gave it to me. My VIP goody bag included three Legacy LEs: Bruce Wayne, The Red Hood and Connor Kent.
While we weren't to take pictures of them, and they're still weeks from going on sale, we did get to see the complete sculpt set for the upcoming Fantastic Forces, and with few exceptions it's an attractive set when seen up close. The perspectives of some of the online shots make several items look poor or even goofy, while in person they're well-proportioned and attractive. Two examples: Moonstar, who online appears to be riding a My Little Pony, is actually astride a horse with a really impressive wingspan, and Mr. Fantastic, who looks awkward in his Plastic Sam routine in the online shot, but is a smooth and interesting sculpt in person. The people I was standing in line with all seemed enthusiastic about the quality of the sculpts, even those who didn't know who some of the characters were. Nimrod really is Pepto Bismol pink, though.
My special ticket package also included a coupon for a free t-shirt, which I managed to pick up during the transition from one line to another, so I have a Wizard World Tour 2005 black t-shirt. The people behind the VS card game gifted me with another black t-shirt, this one with blue and while images and printing advertising a new DC expansion (last year the printing and images were white and red, and pushing a Marvel set), so I suppose my summer wardrobe is complete. I also picked up several random cards from their table for me to never do anything with beyond looking at them.
We caught lunch, and then dinner, at different eateries in the Reading Terminal Market -- Chinese for lunch and Italian for dinner. If I hadn't prepped a roast for everyone at home before leaving this morning I'd have been tempted to pick up an already prepared Peking duck from another of the vendors. It's not even that I especially like duck -- very oily meat -- but it looked tasty and would definitely not be something they'd expect. Of course, that thought was in my head when I saw it because I was hungry at the time. The "super-aged" wheel of 4 year old gouda was looking tasty, too.
Cooked, baked, grown in the soil, finely aged or raw, the Reading Terminal Market is a nice mix of (mostly) food and drink vendors.
Aside from the whole VIP angle and outlay, my extravagance this time otherwise involved tracking down the best prices for 6 of the 7 latest Marvel Legends Series 9 action figures. The lure? Each one of the 7 comes with a huge body part - no sniggering, please - unrelated to the character. When they're assembled, one has a Galactus. If I can find a good price on the final figure tomorrow, I may pick that up. If not, Galactus becomes the most dangerous one-armed man in the universe. I knew about these before, and had ignored them until today, but not only did I keep seeing them, but once I found one vendor selling several of them for half to a third of what most of the others were selling them, I picked those up... and the slope was quite slippery.
Tomorrow will be pass #2, this time we may take in a panel presentation or two - something we didn't bother with today - pick up more freebies, and have a relaxing time. I don't have any driving consumer urge - aside from perhaps the green Hulk action figure alluded to above, complete with the Big G's arm. If it's still too pricey, I'll give it a pass.
Tomorrow, though, I'm going to make sure I take more drinks with us. Worse by far than all the standing was going too long between drinks, and while I don't mind buying some things there keeping properly hydrated on their fare would be just expensive enough for me to resent it.
Tired.
Oh, something I was waiting for finally arrived in today's mail. I should be set to write something about that in a week or so.
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