Thomas Jefferson Survives...Ooops, Guess Not.

Friday afternoon I headed over to NYC for the 2008 NY Comic Con at the Javits' Center. It was my first time at The Con but luckily I was able to tag along with my cousin and his friends who are, at this point, Comic Con veterans.

Friday we got there at about 4 and just wandered from booth to booth. I picked up a few Comic Con Exclusives (nothing spectacular unfortunately) and Earth X Hulk & Banner oversized bust. Among the many highlights of the evening were the nav system in my Hummer directing us to go the wrong way down a one way street...which of course we did, my purchasing and shameless flaunting of a rake handle walking stick, a ridiculous response to $1 Iron Man Comics, and an excellent dinner served by a cute waitress at Houlihan's. All in all it was a fun (and funny) day.

Saturday was brilliant too. We spent the bulk of the day in the IGN Theatre watching previews and panels. I re-discovered how absolutely adverse I am to Q&A sessions, I can only imagine how the "celebrities" who take part in these panels must cringe with every insipid idiocy filled question haphazardly tossed in their direction. We got to see some fantastic clips from Pixar's next film Wall-E. I was actually a little disappointed that they showed so much. I got the feeling the producer could have introduced the clips by saying, "This is what happens at the beginning of the film, this is what happens in the middle of the film, and this is what happens at the end of the film." The Prince Caspian panel started out interesting and devolved into crap, The Battlestar Gallactica panel seemed awesome but I was somewhat lost. The Star Wars and Indiana Jones hour was nearly a total waste, but the guys from Robot Chicken admirably saved it. Wanted's preview got a huge response, and the Hellboy 2 panel was amazing but short. Guillermo Del Toro is the man, that's all I need to say.

We bailed after that as no one wanted to see The Incredible Hulk panel,and we'd been sitting there for something like 6 hours. We wandered around for a few hours before the con closed for the night. I spent a few hundred dollars on shit, but since the weekend started with me paying $50 for parking and spending $7 on an ice cream concoction that both looked and tasted like someone shit in a cup, I was happy to actually get something nice in return for my money. The lot of us stopped back in Houlihan's again and the waitress from the night before recognized us the minute we walked in and said hello (could have something to do with the 105% tip I left the night before) but unfortunately we got stuck with some guy as our waiter and he was significantly less interesting than she was. His tip was still generous, but reflected our disappointment.

I spent a good chunk of Sunday sleeping and fighting off an all too frequent fever before watching a marathon finale of HBO's spectacular John Adams mini-series.

I was very pleased with this weekend as a whole. It's good to spend good time with family, even if it is all too rare.

I probably should have been more careful with the things I purchased of course, not because of the money I spent, but because (say it with me now) I'm totally out of room in my office. Also...it leaves me with less money to spend on whores, and by whores I mean on the landscaping work to my backyard ($2,700 or so) and the fence I intend to put up (another $2,000 at least) and of course...whores.

This is another one of those weeks where things are going both great and shitty at the same time. But by and large I can't complain. After all, even if I did, who would listen?