News and MicroCon!
Why doesn't anyone tell me these things?! Again, thanks to my daily habit of skimming the obituaries, I find out over 1.5 months later, that my sophomore quantum physics professor, Dr. George Greenlees, DIED Mar 16th! Greenlees wasn't the %*#*%#! quantum professor that later would make my axis of EVIL. Greenlees was an okay teacher, especially considering how much I HATED quantum mechanics from the very beginning. I think that class was one of my breaking points in my realization that I shouldn't have majored in physics, but by the time I completed the course, I was already halfway through the program. The straw that broke my back though wouldn't drop until 3-4 more years later. I note, again, that my adviser and mentor, Dr. John Broadhurst, was quoted in Greenlees' obituary as a colleague. I know death isn't exactly a great subject to e-mail someone about, but I would have liked to have known this sooner. When Dr. Paul Ellis, family FRIEND died, no one told us either. I had to find out for myself a week or so later in the Star Tribune's obituary section >8(! I really hope this is NOT how I find out when Broadhurst or anyone else I know in the department has died, again X(! I'm not even sure if my other adviser is still alive or not O~O, PLUS the department doesn't know where he is either!
One of E!'s news segments yesterday featured the Who Wants to Be a Superhero? auditions again with Stan Lee and Man-Faye! Surprisingly though, E! BLURRED OUT Man-Faye's hairy behind o-O! National readily accessible network NBC didn't blur out Man-Faye's hairy behind, but E! did?! Since when is a cable channel concerned about showing 'too much?!'
I spent 3 hours today wandering around today at MicroCon. Even though it has been raining here since Thursday, it was sauna hot inside the convention 86! I'm so glad I wore short sleeves inside my coat which I dumped back to my car later along with my umbrella and purchases at that time. Otherwise, I would have been baked. Why can't conventions have better ventilation?
Sadly, I didn't see Meredith/uminomamori or Chandra/rous, but I did see Rana/chibitoaster and met Jessica/wogs o-O! I bought all 4 issues of Rana's yaoi manga, Spirit of Love, as well as a commission of Maes Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist to match the Chibi Roy Mustang I commissioned from her at Anime Detour last month ^-^! As another artist proclaimed at Anime Detour last year on her Chibi Hughes magnet, Hughes is ♥LOVE♥! I bought Jessica's 2006 sketchbook complete with small sketch of a My Little Pony pony 8D! I also bought a cute handmade 'metallic' folder with 5 tiny sketches, 2 of which were of Totoro, by Jennifer Menken. I never realized this until today, but I've bought Totoro art from Jennifer for the past 2 FallCons o-O! I have 3 matchbox dioramas of each of the Totoros and a color sketch card of the Totoros by Jennifer wandering around my house ^^;! One can never have too many Totoros afterall ;)! I also commissioned a sketch by Matt Wendt and Becky Grutzik of Peep and Peep Lite from Wendt's comic, PEEP, the living embodiment of EVIL in the form of a cute baby chick! I intend on buying issue #2 of PEEP when it comes out!
The saddest part of this MicroCon was that it took me 2 hours to find Source's spot in a room the size of 2 high school gyms O~O! How in the hell did I keep missing them?! I saw an empty name plaque with Dan Jurgens' name on it. I guess he wanted to come but found out he couldn't at the last minute --;. I circled around MN's usual roster of comic artists, Gordon Purcell, Clint Hilinski, Chris Jones, Terry Beatty, Tom Nyguen, Scott Griep, Peter Gross, etc. as well as Lupis Adam West-style Batman complete with bat-cycle. I also found out that next week for Free Comic Book Day, Shinder's in Roseville will be featuring IDW Beast Wars artist Don Figueroa 8D! I guess I'll be hitting both Source and Shinder's Saturday XP! Any Figueroa autograph requests if Shinder's will let me get multiple things signed by him? PLEASE let me know by Friday!
I also saw the bootleg DVD dealer whom I had bought the English fandubbed live action Sailor Moon TV series. I've been trying to get a hold of him for the past month or so now because the batch I got from him for the second season this past FallCon was defective --;. I have no idea how many voice mail messages I left on his phone. He apparently did listen to them and was going to call me and tell me he was coming to MicroCon, but he forgot to call back. He said he re-burned the episodes I had problems with on better DVD-Rs, hopefully, so I hope I will FINALLY be able to see the end of the series 8}! I also bought a few 2 more bootleg DVD sets to support him: The complete Megas XLR series and the first season of W.I.T.C.H.. If these ever come out officially though, I'll buy them again, but who knows when Disney will release W.I.T.C.H. on DVD XP? I think Disney is a bigger blockhead then Warner Bros. when it comes to releasing TV properties they own. It must be a Disney vault thing. As for Cartoon Network, they also seem slow on the prospect of releasing their shows on DVD as well. I think the only complete series they have released so far is Samurai Jack! Before I left, I requested he find a few more TV series for next time if he can of series which I probably won't see on DVD sets in my lifetime. I'm not sure if he will be able to find them, but we'll see at FallCon. I was surprised though that he and the other bootleg dealers were selling the poorer bootleg copies of TV series that were already officially commercially released like Justice League, Teen Titans, Striperella, Clone High, and Thundercats. I thought for sure they would stop selling them once the official commercial versions came out, but I guess they sell their copies for a slightly lower price than the official commercial copies --;. If I had a choice between the 2, I would always go with the official commercial one though.
I didn't find any interesting bargains or deals in terms of toys, comics, or trade paperbacks. The only mass produced comic I bought was the new edition of Oh, My Goddess! volume 1 with color inserts for half the retail price. All the other manga that were on sale for half price I already bought for full price when they came out X(! Yes, I'm a pathetic --;. There weren't any exclusive comic book releases lately besides variant covers, so I didn't buy any of those. I also browsed through every trading card dealer in the room for chase, autograph, or sketch cards of interest, but I didn't find anything I wanted. One dealer had a bin full of those Dark Horse capsule toys to dig through and choose, but the bin didn't have any capsule series I wanted or collected.
The 2 things I was very tempted to buy, a corn dog and cheesy fries, I didn't buy, but I think I should have. I haven't had a fresh corn dog since the State Fair 8(! The prices were comparable to the State Fair as well ;b!
I'll have to see if I have time tomorrow to scan my new treasures for my puny gallery. I think I'm going to dump the fan art category in favor of just original sketches ;b and give Rana her own sub-directory.
One of E!'s news segments yesterday featured the Who Wants to Be a Superhero? auditions again with Stan Lee and Man-Faye! Surprisingly though, E! BLURRED OUT Man-Faye's hairy behind o-O! National readily accessible network NBC didn't blur out Man-Faye's hairy behind, but E! did?! Since when is a cable channel concerned about showing 'too much?!'
I spent 3 hours today wandering around today at MicroCon. Even though it has been raining here since Thursday, it was sauna hot inside the convention 86! I'm so glad I wore short sleeves inside my coat which I dumped back to my car later along with my umbrella and purchases at that time. Otherwise, I would have been baked. Why can't conventions have better ventilation?
Sadly, I didn't see Meredith/uminomamori or Chandra/rous, but I did see Rana/chibitoaster and met Jessica/wogs o-O! I bought all 4 issues of Rana's yaoi manga, Spirit of Love, as well as a commission of Maes Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist to match the Chibi Roy Mustang I commissioned from her at Anime Detour last month ^-^! As another artist proclaimed at Anime Detour last year on her Chibi Hughes magnet, Hughes is ♥LOVE♥! I bought Jessica's 2006 sketchbook complete with small sketch of a My Little Pony pony 8D! I also bought a cute handmade 'metallic' folder with 5 tiny sketches, 2 of which were of Totoro, by Jennifer Menken. I never realized this until today, but I've bought Totoro art from Jennifer for the past 2 FallCons o-O! I have 3 matchbox dioramas of each of the Totoros and a color sketch card of the Totoros by Jennifer wandering around my house ^^;! One can never have too many Totoros afterall ;)! I also commissioned a sketch by Matt Wendt and Becky Grutzik of Peep and Peep Lite from Wendt's comic, PEEP, the living embodiment of EVIL in the form of a cute baby chick! I intend on buying issue #2 of PEEP when it comes out!
The saddest part of this MicroCon was that it took me 2 hours to find Source's spot in a room the size of 2 high school gyms O~O! How in the hell did I keep missing them?! I saw an empty name plaque with Dan Jurgens' name on it. I guess he wanted to come but found out he couldn't at the last minute --;. I circled around MN's usual roster of comic artists, Gordon Purcell, Clint Hilinski, Chris Jones, Terry Beatty, Tom Nyguen, Scott Griep, Peter Gross, etc. as well as Lupis Adam West-style Batman complete with bat-cycle. I also found out that next week for Free Comic Book Day, Shinder's in Roseville will be featuring IDW Beast Wars artist Don Figueroa 8D! I guess I'll be hitting both Source and Shinder's Saturday XP! Any Figueroa autograph requests if Shinder's will let me get multiple things signed by him? PLEASE let me know by Friday!
I also saw the bootleg DVD dealer whom I had bought the English fandubbed live action Sailor Moon TV series. I've been trying to get a hold of him for the past month or so now because the batch I got from him for the second season this past FallCon was defective --;. I have no idea how many voice mail messages I left on his phone. He apparently did listen to them and was going to call me and tell me he was coming to MicroCon, but he forgot to call back. He said he re-burned the episodes I had problems with on better DVD-Rs, hopefully, so I hope I will FINALLY be able to see the end of the series 8}! I also bought a few 2 more bootleg DVD sets to support him: The complete Megas XLR series and the first season of W.I.T.C.H.. If these ever come out officially though, I'll buy them again, but who knows when Disney will release W.I.T.C.H. on DVD XP? I think Disney is a bigger blockhead then Warner Bros. when it comes to releasing TV properties they own. It must be a Disney vault thing. As for Cartoon Network, they also seem slow on the prospect of releasing their shows on DVD as well. I think the only complete series they have released so far is Samurai Jack! Before I left, I requested he find a few more TV series for next time if he can of series which I probably won't see on DVD sets in my lifetime. I'm not sure if he will be able to find them, but we'll see at FallCon. I was surprised though that he and the other bootleg dealers were selling the poorer bootleg copies of TV series that were already officially commercially released like Justice League, Teen Titans, Striperella, Clone High, and Thundercats. I thought for sure they would stop selling them once the official commercial versions came out, but I guess they sell their copies for a slightly lower price than the official commercial copies --;. If I had a choice between the 2, I would always go with the official commercial one though.
I didn't find any interesting bargains or deals in terms of toys, comics, or trade paperbacks. The only mass produced comic I bought was the new edition of Oh, My Goddess! volume 1 with color inserts for half the retail price. All the other manga that were on sale for half price I already bought for full price when they came out X(! Yes, I'm a pathetic --;. There weren't any exclusive comic book releases lately besides variant covers, so I didn't buy any of those. I also browsed through every trading card dealer in the room for chase, autograph, or sketch cards of interest, but I didn't find anything I wanted. One dealer had a bin full of those Dark Horse capsule toys to dig through and choose, but the bin didn't have any capsule series I wanted or collected.
The 2 things I was very tempted to buy, a corn dog and cheesy fries, I didn't buy, but I think I should have. I haven't had a fresh corn dog since the State Fair 8(! The prices were comparable to the State Fair as well ;b!
I'll have to see if I have time tomorrow to scan my new treasures for my puny gallery. I think I'm going to dump the fan art category in favor of just original sketches ;b and give Rana her own sub-directory.