The Perfect Colorful Time for a Cleveland GWC Meet-up
The fall leaves are full of beautiful color, the highs are in the upper 50s or low 60s, and there is a hint of joyful holiday anticipation in the air. It was the perfect time for a Cleveland GWC Meet-up. GWC meet-ups are some of the most fun times a geek can have outside of a Con. Sure, the GWC Forum and Twitter are great ways to connect with other GWCers. But there is something special about in person meet-ups. For it is at a meet-up that a true understanding arises about the “Hive Mind”/friendliest people in Fantasy, SciFi, Anime, Comics, Gaming, and Geek. Plus, everyone ALWAYS has a blast.
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Morning. Coffee synthesizer on the fritz. Again. I ask myself for the twentieth time why I hadn’t spent the extra cash for a Mac iBrew. Maybe I can grab a cup at work. I dress slowly, pulling on my jumpsuit, buckling the belt. Shuffle to the bathroom, where my shaved head stares back at me from the mirror. I look much better with hair, but hey, it’s the future, and that’s the law. I grab my transit pass and head out the door for the short walk to the E Station. The gathered crowd waits silently, avoiding eye contact. Looks like E-Tran’s running on time for a change! Preceded by a rush of air, the car approaches, stops, and as the doors open we enter, resembling a school of bald, colorfully jump-suited fish. The doors close, and we’re on our way. Fifteen thousand miles straight up. Yawn. Just another boring office commute…
Did the new Harry Potter movie pique your interest in reading (or, as in my case, re-re-re-reading) the book that started it all? Starting this month (August 2009), a group of GWCers are going to be reading through the Harry Potter series, one book a month beginning with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and we’d love for you to join us! It doesn’t matter if it’s your first time through or you’re better at remembering the spell names than Hermione — just check out the GWC forum for discussion threads (spoiler and non-spoiler), and keep your eye out for upcoming TalkShoe chats about the books!
Finally, here’s the only man who can hold his own in the wake of the Ironman panel and the reason the hub looks forward to Saturday: Kevin Smith. He has nothing to promote right now, so his was just a straight Q&A that had us falling out of our seats! The man is gracious, kind, and will rip you to shreds if you need it!
Some wanted him to trash on Twilight, but he wasn’t having it; his wife and daughter are both into it, and when a fan offered him a killer-looking bag his wife made for friends, Kevin invited the man to sit on stage with him for the duration — and mugged for pix for the guy’s wife!
No matter how many tangents — and there were many — Kevin always brought it back around to answer or discuss the original question! Witty, profane, gracious and kind.
I’m out of adjectives.
These pictures show only a tiny bit of the Con. Wish everyone could be here!
This was easily one of the biggest, baddest panels of the day! It’s Ironman 2, with Jon Favreau and Robert Downey, Jr. — who totally owned the room, by the way. Read on for more Iron Man pix!
Chase Masterson’s newest project — the feature film Yesterday Was A Lie — is screening this Friday April 25th at the Fallbrook Film Festival. Fallbrook is just a short drive north of San Diego, so all of you lucky GWCers in the area will get a chance to see it. We hear that Masterson may be in attendance as well.
Yesterday is a film noir classic — with an interesting science fiction/science fact twist involving alternate realities. How often do you hear the line “linear time is a myth” in a detective story?
The film screens at 8:00 p.m. Friday in the Cafe Des Artistes SALON Gallery located at 103 S. Main Fallbrook, Fallbrook, CA 92028. Single-screening tickets appear to be available for $10, though one-day and three-day festival passes are also available if you’d like to see some of the other films in attendance.
Update: I started a meetup thread in the GWC Forum, and we’re looking for a GWCer to cover the event.
Yesterday Was A Lie [Film Site]
Full Trailer [YouTube]
Screening Information [Fallbrook Film Festival]
Fallbrook Film Festival [Main Page]
Audra and I were lucky enough to catch Aaron Douglas at the Dallas All-Con event today, and greatly enjoyed his Saturday panel. For those of you who haven’t seen Mr. Douglas in person, he’s very fan-accessible, affable, and entertaining. Some interesting (and possibly very slightly spoilericious) facts gleaned from his talk:
- He indicated that BSG will indeed resume shooting March 24th.
- He seemed pretty sure that we won’t see the ten-or-so remaining “season four” episodes until 2009.
- He claims to know who the final Cylon is, but obviously isn’t going to reveal it. (Thankfully no one asked.)
- He also mentioned that he has yet to see scripts for the second half of the season, which combined with the above would seem to indicate that the final Cylon reveal will occur during the ten episode run starting April 4th.
- And for female (and non-hetero male) fans, he rarely wears underwear. Hilarity ensues.
Douglas says he’ll be at the All-Con event through the weekend, so anyone in the Dallas area may want to consider dropping by. The event offers a lot of bang-for-the-buck: one day passes are only $15. Autographs from Douglas are $20, and pictures with him are available by donation (to charity).
Dallas All-Con [Main Site]
This year represents the 30th anniversary of Star Wars in Japan, and after all those decades, Celebration has finally reached the island. The three-day event will commence July 19th at the Makuhari-Messe Convention Center near Tokyo. There’s currently no word on star appearances, but if you’d like to attend, more information is available at the official site.
Celebration Japan [Official Site]
Press Release [StarWars.com]
If you’re looking for some unique comic culture, swing by the West Valley Art Museum in Surprise, AZ — a Phoenix suburb — before March 16th. They’re hosting a display of vintage Mexican comics belonging to local avid collector Russ Todd.
All of you lucky Dudes in the great northeast will have the opportunity to meet Jeff Dowd — the man who reportedly inspired the Coen brothers’ famous slacker, the Dude. He’s the special guest at an April 19th screening of The Big Lebowski at the Count Basie theater in Red Bank, NJ.
From the event’s MySpace page:
“The Dude will introduce The Big Lebowski with personal tales, trials and tribulations from the world of adventure, activism, politics, film, sex, drugs and rock and roll. Guests will enjoy a special sneak preview from his upcoming book: The Dude Abides: Classic Tales and Rebel Rants and a Q&A where they can give the Dude the third degree.”
Tickets are $20 for the “movie and Dude show” or $40 if you want to attend the after party where “you can drink, yak, and get up close and personal with the Dude.” Bring extra scratch for those Caucasians, though. It’s a cash bar.
PS: It’s not scifi, but I know for a fact that many of your GWCers are achievers, and proud we are of all of you.
(Thanks, sagindie, for the great CC-licensed photo.)
Big Lebowski Screening Q&A w/The Dude [MySpace] [via]
Note: You’ve probably heard a lot of discussion about some of the things Jamie Bamber and Aaron Douglas said during Dragon*Con recently. Well this post isn’t about those things. It’s about some of the other awesome things that happened at D*C – as experienced by longtime GWC community member Raemani. I’ll let her take it from here.Â
Because it definitely colors my experience, I should start out by saying that I decided to go to Dragon*Con while hanging out on the SciFi.com forums in the Jamie Bamber appreciation thread – we call ourselves the “Bamber Bunnies.†Eight of us who talk there went, and three of the girls brought their husbands. In addition, about twenty other people from around the forum joined us there.Â
I’d also like to point out that I owe all of my pictures — which you can view in the GWC photo pool — and videos to the people I was with. Because there were so many of us, there was really no need for me to take pictures. As it was we had over 600 pictures between us after the event.
Read on past the jump for a daily breakdown of my experiences.
GWCers on Flickr
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