interesting weekend
yesterday i had lunch with mike's friend --- now my friend, too, i suppose --- keith, and he showed me around his cubicle. he has a very colorful arrangement of toys on his desk, and a whole heap of photos on his computer. among other cute things --- keith is just an all-around adorable guy --- it seems that keith's partner's niece calls him uncle bear. isn't that just the cutest thing you've ever heard?
after lunch i hopped on the train and went down to san jose to spend the rest of the day with mike. we hung out and had some chinese food for lunch (including dim sum desserts!) and then took a short nap together before driving over to his friends' place for dinner and settlers. now here's a trippy thing: eating pizza and playing board games with two people, both around 40 years of age, and both with math PhDs and heavy-duty think-tank research jobs. shan, you should have been there. i will additionally say that eleanor and david are two of the sweetest, most socially capable people i know. i only say that because they deserve the credit; let's face it, most math nerds can't carry a decent conversation worth beans. *shifty eyes* most of the time we talked about hedgehogs and where we've lived and stuff like that, but i did get to hear about quantum computing and how they're using it to factor large integers.
today i went to a comic(s) convention with my friend phil. it was the first such convention i'd ever been to, and somewhat surprising considering that, until today, i hadn't owned any comics. i went to a really interesting panel on/by queer cartoonists, and it was interesting to hear about the different things they try to accomplish: mainstream non-sexual drama on one end of the spectrum and explicit S&M erotica on the other end. after the panel i went to paige braddock's table and asked her to draw a picture for mike, which she did, and i also got her to autograph a copy of "jane's world" for me that i bought. "jane's world" is one of mike's favorite comics.
in regards to the comics being displayed at the convention as a whole, i did not find a single comic that had both a story i liked and also art that i liked. but i did very much enjoy the hot, manly erotica being sold by one of the gay cartoonists, steve macisaac, and he was so kind as to autograph it for me. i also picked up his business card, which has a drawn picture of his beefy, unclothed upper torso. i found it very interesting that macisaac included condoms in his drawings whenever two men were having intercourse. drawings aren't film and cartoon characters don't have to worry about catching diseases the way that porn stars have to worry about it. but he said that it was part of the reality of things, and one of his goals --- indeed, something that all of the erotica cartoonists on the panel had agreed on --- was that erotica needed to be more humanizing and less forceful. so that was kinda cool to hear, and then to see in the comic, too.
one of the scaries things i saw there were "sock" puppets (not made with real socks) that looked like sheep, or maybe monkeys without tails, but they had genitalia. each male puppet had a penis and a scrotum with two distinct testicles, and each female puppet had boobs. now, i could be wrong about their sexes, but the more important thing is that puppets with genitalia are creepy!
we left the convention around 3pm and phil introduced me to some of the more famous bear bars outside of the castro (the gay area of SF). i got to go to the lonestar and the eagle, which were interesting and almost quaint. you think i'm crazy for using that word, but, inspite of the few gentleman clad head-to-toe in leather regalia, the bars were rather quaint. at the eagle, a very strange man with no social skills called me a sexy guy and put his hand on my shoulder in a very uncomfortable way; i was told later that he -is- that one weird guy who hangs around at the bar all the time. phil quickly found an excuse for us to walk over to the music stage, and otherwise my bar tour was very nice and filled with lots of innocent eye candy. why is it that bartenders are either 'okay' or 'really fucking hot'?
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*achem* GARGOYLES COMIC BOOK COMING OUT IN JUNE! Flyer reads: "Betrayed by those they had sworn to protect: frozen in stone by a magic spell for thousands of years. Now here in modern Manhattan, the spell is broken, and the Gargoyles live again! Based on the popular Disney/Buena Vista animated television series GARGOYLES returns in comic book form with new stories by creator Greg Weisman." Judging from the flyer, the art is very similar to the that from the animated series, but more detailed and a bit edgier. I hope it turns out well...
after lunch i hopped on the train and went down to san jose to spend the rest of the day with mike. we hung out and had some chinese food for lunch (including dim sum desserts!) and then took a short nap together before driving over to his friends' place for dinner and settlers. now here's a trippy thing: eating pizza and playing board games with two people, both around 40 years of age, and both with math PhDs and heavy-duty think-tank research jobs. shan, you should have been there. i will additionally say that eleanor and david are two of the sweetest, most socially capable people i know. i only say that because they deserve the credit; let's face it, most math nerds can't carry a decent conversation worth beans. *shifty eyes* most of the time we talked about hedgehogs and where we've lived and stuff like that, but i did get to hear about quantum computing and how they're using it to factor large integers.
today i went to a comic(s) convention with my friend phil. it was the first such convention i'd ever been to, and somewhat surprising considering that, until today, i hadn't owned any comics. i went to a really interesting panel on/by queer cartoonists, and it was interesting to hear about the different things they try to accomplish: mainstream non-sexual drama on one end of the spectrum and explicit S&M erotica on the other end. after the panel i went to paige braddock's table and asked her to draw a picture for mike, which she did, and i also got her to autograph a copy of "jane's world" for me that i bought. "jane's world" is one of mike's favorite comics.
in regards to the comics being displayed at the convention as a whole, i did not find a single comic that had both a story i liked and also art that i liked. but i did very much enjoy the hot, manly erotica being sold by one of the gay cartoonists, steve macisaac, and he was so kind as to autograph it for me. i also picked up his business card, which has a drawn picture of his beefy, unclothed upper torso. i found it very interesting that macisaac included condoms in his drawings whenever two men were having intercourse. drawings aren't film and cartoon characters don't have to worry about catching diseases the way that porn stars have to worry about it. but he said that it was part of the reality of things, and one of his goals --- indeed, something that all of the erotica cartoonists on the panel had agreed on --- was that erotica needed to be more humanizing and less forceful. so that was kinda cool to hear, and then to see in the comic, too.
one of the scaries things i saw there were "sock" puppets (not made with real socks) that looked like sheep, or maybe monkeys without tails, but they had genitalia. each male puppet had a penis and a scrotum with two distinct testicles, and each female puppet had boobs. now, i could be wrong about their sexes, but the more important thing is that puppets with genitalia are creepy!
we left the convention around 3pm and phil introduced me to some of the more famous bear bars outside of the castro (the gay area of SF). i got to go to the lonestar and the eagle, which were interesting and almost quaint. you think i'm crazy for using that word, but, inspite of the few gentleman clad head-to-toe in leather regalia, the bars were rather quaint. at the eagle, a very strange man with no social skills called me a sexy guy and put his hand on my shoulder in a very uncomfortable way; i was told later that he -is- that one weird guy who hangs around at the bar all the time. phil quickly found an excuse for us to walk over to the music stage, and otherwise my bar tour was very nice and filled with lots of innocent eye candy. why is it that bartenders are either 'okay' or 'really fucking hot'?
*********
*achem* GARGOYLES COMIC BOOK COMING OUT IN JUNE! Flyer reads: "Betrayed by those they had sworn to protect: frozen in stone by a magic spell for thousands of years. Now here in modern Manhattan, the spell is broken, and the Gargoyles live again! Based on the popular Disney/Buena Vista animated television series GARGOYLES returns in comic book form with new stories by creator Greg Weisman." Judging from the flyer, the art is very similar to the that from the animated series, but more detailed and a bit edgier. I hope it turns out well...