Belated wishes and catching up!
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, GLENDA!
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, SILAS!
I hope you both got plenty of cake, ice cream, and presents all around! Any belated birthday wishes? If so, please post here ;)! Glenda/tirwen, eh, you already know about Gaia ;b!
Sorry I haven't been posting much the last few days, but I've been SO busy since Saturday o~O!
Saturday, I went to my second somewhat art fair of the year, Craftstravaganza which Meredith/uminomamori told me about last week. It's sort of a combination art fair and high class craft show, so I count it as an art fair ;). It was much better than that Arts@Oval thing I went to earlier this month. It was like Etsy LIVE 8D! Everything was handcrafted with love and great artistic detail! There were all sorts of neat goodies made from all sorts of material 8}! There was paper, glass, wool, felt, wood, etc.! My hands and eyes LOVED touching and looking at everything! I spent way too much money there --;! Most of my money went toward buying Criterbee's cute plushies! I got 2 jellyfish, an octopus, and a bug X)!
My only complaint about the event was the weather. It was 30-40° F that day with SNOW falling outside, so the building felt like a walk-in refrigerator o~O! Everyone was bundled up the best they could to keep warm. There were a few lucky vendors who had blankets among their wares to sell, so they kept warm and cozy wrapped in those.
On Sunday, I went to MicroCon. It was a LOT warmer and free of snow. This year's MicroCon was a lot more crowded than previous years. The organizers should consider moving it to a slightly larger venue soon if this keeps up. All the usual suspects were there including Jessica/arletta, Darla/mugmoni, Grant/gdg, etc.. I can't believe I FORGOT to bring my copy of Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink for Chris Jones to sign AGAIN X(! AUGH! I'll probably forget again when FallCon rolls around. It was a short and busy con, so not much time for commissions or anything too complex. I basically shopped around for bargains. I found a few in the manga area for Naomi/sephirothgal and some nice cheap trade collections for myself. It was also my first con using my new comic book con bag, a Tokidoki Amoré large flat bag, which I found didn't work out too well for carrying large amounts of fat trades O~O! It was designed for holding nice large flat things, and I didn't count on the trades weighing me down. I guess I'll have to bring another bag for carrying trades too for the next con I attend. The biggest bargain of the con was a large poster-sized trade paperback of some crossover story between Superman and the Fantastic 4 which I got for only $1.00. I think the retail price of that was either $10.00 or $20.00. Since the writer and artist, Dan Jurgens, actually attended, I thought it wouldn't hurt to get it signed by him as well. Dan was preoccupied talking to Dr. Kakalios when I went to his table, so getting Dan's autograph took awhile. This is the first time I've seen Kakalios amongst the crowd at any of these local conventions. Kakalios was so much nerdier than I thought he was XD! Yeah, yeah, why didn't I know about this when I was in graduate school --;?! I could have made him my adviser and do a paper on comic book superpowers ;b.
On Monday, I went to the Megamall to steak stake out Alton Brown's/AB's book signing. I took the day off from work and went there at 10:00 a.m. o~O! I didn't want another Rachael Ray incident because, other than myself, there were quite a few signed copies I needed to get. There was only 1 other person there beside myself at the time, and he was sleeping at the table to the waiting area. I waited by a chair near the rotunda with plenty of super-thick manga in hand to bide my time. I joined the one person later only when a line started forming for wristbands. After I got my wristband, I sat myself down in the line and read for the next 6 hours. I got through both fat volumes of With the Light took longer than I had thought. I think each volume took me almost 2.5 hours EACH! Now, I can't wait for volume 3 to come out in September! Around 2:00 p.m., a guy from the second floor called out to us line squatters asking, "Who in the heck are you guys waiting for?!" It was AB himself XD! He asked, "Am I worth it?!" and we all said YES! He jokingly shook his head in disbelief and left us to squat for 4 more hours. Peeking out from my book every now and then, I guess I could have arrived at the Megamall around 12:00 p.m. or even 1:00 p.m. without too much worry for getting a place in line. By the time 3:00 p.m. rolled around, the area was getting quite packed.
AB arrived promptly at 6:00 p.m. sharp to a loud round of applause and a quick round of questions-and-answers. There were several memorable moments during the Q&A. A woman asked a very technical food question concerning why she couldn't make a good sour sourdough bread even though she started from scratch with the leavening material. AB's answer was along the lines of, "You live in MN. Winter KILLS everything!" and that included the little microbes she was trying to grow for the sourdough XD! A more ideal climate for sourdough would be in an area like San Francisco ;b! AB also made a quip about our BLECH airline monopoly here, Northwest Airlines, and their treatment of first class passengers. He said the Northwest stewards weren't what he had expected. Supposedly, when he asked for snacks, the reply he got was, "YOU WANT PEANUTS?! HERE!" and the bag was slammed down on his lap! Yeah, I can definitely believe that XD! Northwest sucks and they owe MN millions of dollars in bailout money which they will probably never pay back ;P! Yeah, MN was DUMB to bail out Northwest too X(! A culinary student, dressed in chef-ware, jokingly asked, "What would you do for a Klondike bar?" AB replied, "You're a culinary student from Cordon BLEU, and you came all this way to ask me THAT?!" AB also told us that the 3rd season of Feasting on Asphalt would be in the Caribbean Islands o-O! He said, "Yeah, it was a tough job, but someone had to do it!"
I really wish I had brought my earplugs with me. Since I was near the head of the line, I was right in front of one of the speakers the entire time AB talked via microphone, so his voice was booming through my head the entire time X(! It was like John Tesh all over again. I really wish the Mall would put the speakers up on stage and away from my ears. Since I was only about 15 people deep into the line, AB wasn't grumpy yet when I got to him ^^;. He also had zero recollection of our first meeting from what I could tell which I guess is a good thing since I did somewhat made him grumpy that time.
I spent Tuesday mailing out half the books I had gotten from the signing and had an early dinner with my sister and Mom at Koyi Sushi during happy hour =9! Supposedly, according to my Mom's friend, happy hour featured half-priced sushi, but when we got there, it turns out that Koyi only offered a few of their smaller sushi rolls, priced anywhere from $4.75-$6.75 for $4.00 each ;b! We were disappointed we couldn't try any of their pricier sushi rolls for half-price, but we still ate our fill with 6 $4.00 rolls and a miso-flavored sea bass fillet.
On Wednesday, I got up at 4:30 a.m. to take my sister and her hubby to the airport at 5:00 a.m. for a morning flight to NYC to do some apartment/house hunting. My sister will be interning in NYC for 3 years after her 1 year intern stint here according to the program she was accepted. I went directly from the airport to the office at 6:00 a.m. O~O! Needless to say, I was the first one at the office that morning ;b! I had to pick up my Dad from the airport later in the afternoon (Yay, another trip to the airport, woohoo, NOT!), but along the way, I stopped by the Wild Rumpus to meet artist, animator, and writer Mo Willems and get a couple of his famous Pigeon books signed X)! It was one wild reading and signing, and much more crowded than I had expected! I think Willems is just as crazy as the pigeon in his book, especially when it came to the screaming part XD! I don't think I have much to say about this event other than the kids were extremely excited about the reading and sharing their pigeon fan art and books. You can read more about Willems on his webpage, and you can even follow his blog via syndication here with mo-willems! After the signing, I drove off to the airport to pick up Dad before driving home where I collapsed immediately into bed until this morning.
Today, I have a physical at 3:20 p.m., so no rest for the weary!