Nerd Vegas, Day 2: Cosplay Nerds
Continued from Nerd Vegas, Day 1: Gamer Nerds...
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Las Vegas when our nerds ventured out of the pyramid. They had the pleasure of sleeping in, but the day ahead of them was too full for them to lay about all day. So they got dressed and headed out into the bright Nevada sun.
scruffyrebel and rurouni-jedi were being all sexy in front of the Luxor. They chose to pose in front of this huge statue of a pair of bare buttocks. Only in Vegas, I tell ya...
You all know that famous saying: "when the sun hits you eye like a big pizza pie, time for cosplay!" And time it was, indeed. Scruffy Rebel dressed in her blindingly accurate cosplay of Albert, from Gankutsuou. Gankutsuou is an anime series which adapts Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" and places it into a futuristic sci-fi setting. But future or no, Albert is a wide-eyed French boy. So our cosplaying destination was clear. We were off to... New York New York!
Just kidding. We went to the Paris hotel/casino, of course.
Paris is decked out in the style of so many of the newer hotel/casinos in Vegas. Which is to say, it's over the top. The shopping area is made to look like a Parisian street around the year 1900, complete with sky-painted ceiling and glistening cobblestone floor. The shops and eateries look like perfect little French bistros and boutiques. It was almost like being on a movie set, but with about a hundred thousand holiday weekend tourists tromping through. This presented its own set of problems, photographically. Although it was intended to look like outdoors to the naked eye, the interior was still pretty dark. This meant long exposures without tripods, resulting in blurry shots. Additionally, the crowds of people spelled problems for anyone hoping to get pictures without early-21st-century tourists in the background. However, anyone who has been inspired by lionboogy's phenomenal photographic talents, and his preternatural ability to get great photos in difficult, uncooperative settings, knows the value of patience, perseverance, and careful shot selection.
It also helps to have help. The nerds began coordinate themselves so that, as one of them lined up a photo, two others would stand strategically to channel traffic away. They didn't actually block off any thoroughfares, but they would stand casually as though watching the photography, so the crowds would naturally tend to veer around them rather than walk directly through the middle of the shot. This would often work long enough to squeeze off a couple of shots, and was much more effective than patiently waiting for a gap in the traffic.
The casino area of Paris is similarly thematic. It's broken up into areas which resemble neighborhoods, and has a few scattered landmarks and fountains. There are also small pergolas which recall the famous art nouveau subway station gazebos of Paris. They found some nice design elements in there, but it was still rather dark. Additionally, photography is generally prohibited in casinos.
The exterior of the hotel/casino is truly impressive. The centerpiece is the 50-story-tall half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, which poses as if stepping over the grand facade of the Paris Opera House. At least lighting wasn't a problem out here. But the desert wind began kicking up a dust storm which succeeded in irritating the irritable. In the end, however, the nerds managed to get several dozen decent photographs of Scruffy Rebel as Albert in Paris.
And one photo of Jinyo.
Jinyo decided to dress up in his Elegant Gothic Jinyo outfit, so he wouldn't feel like some kind of bizarre freak, walking around in public wearing muggle clothes.
Keep an eye out for a photo post of Scruffy Rebel as Albert here... eventually. Meanwhile, you can get a bit of a preview. There are several shots from the photoshoot posted in Scruffy Rebel's Cosplay.oom gallery. Go have a look!
As Rurouni Jedi always says, "after a hard day of cosplaying, there's nothing like molesting a teenage boy." The rest of them, on the other hand, settled for getting some food.
Soon it was time for the next, and possibly the most awesome, segment of their Vegas adventure. The nerds got changed and headed out toward the MGM Grand for the evening. They might have been geeks, but they were sexy geeks!
The tiring day of cosplay left Scruffy Rebel a bit depressed. "I wish I was still in costume," she thought sadly. At least she was wearing her Escaflowne Hitomi pendant. Meanwhile, Rurouni Jedi was getting a little testy. "Where the hell are the tickets," she asked G-Mal. The birthday boy replied, "I gotcher tickets right here!" as he gestured.
The nerds settled into the spacious seat of their limousine. And by "limousine," I mean the monorail-like tram that took them to the Excalibur.
Scruffy Rebel cosplays Hitomi After Dark, as Jinyo cosplays a ghetto fabulous undertaker.
The event of the evening was KA, the Cirque Du Soleil show at the MGM Grand. KA is the newest of the Las-Vegas-based Cirque du Soleil shows (though that will no longer be true this July), and quite different from the circus company's previous shows. KA was quite theatrical, resembling a stage play much more than their circus-like shows typically do. While most Cirque productions have a general storyline from which they draw their theme and upon which they hang their acts, KA actually had a plot and numerous locations and settings. And while there was no specific dialogue, KA did have some spoken lines which took the form of a foreign, possibly invented, language.
As G-Mal & Rurouni Jedi's first live Cirque show, it couldn't have gone any better. Thanks to the embarrassing and rather distasteful efforts detailed here, Jinyo managed to score four seats, right in the center of the front row. They were close enough to rest their feet on the stage. G-Mal, the birthday boy, got the centermost seat, and enjoyed it immensely as several times in the show, performers looked as though they were almost about to fall right on him. It was like a 3D movie without the glasses!
The theatre itself was custom-built for Cirque. There were catwalks all about the auditorium that looked like the industrial version of the Ewok tree village, and as the performance grew nearer, more and more performers came out onto the catwalks and began swinging around from platform to platform on ropes, or bouncing several stories into the air on bungee cords. Before the show even began, Jinyo and Scruffy Rebel had a close encounter with one performer as he snuck up on them and got right in their faces, eliciting a pair of yelps.
The show itself was amazing thanks to the skill of the performers as well as the imaginative staging, costuming, and music. It began with really cool wushu performances and a Beijing Opera spear routine, combined with a capoeira performance by one cast member. Then came traditional circus acrobatics and Chinese acrobatics, innovative interactive digital image projections, some really freaking cool costumed characters and creatures, and a moving stage that could rotate, tilt, and stand on end. I could go on and on about the show, but I don't want to spoil it for any of you. Suffice it to say, it has my recommendation. Unfortunately, the show will not be coming to DVD, which is true of all the Vegas Cirque shows. So you'll just have to go to Vegas and see it in person.
After the show, the nerds were so amazed and inspired that they... went shopping. What can I say? the Cirque gift shop has some really cool items, bags, and garments.
The hungry quartet found themselves sitting in front of the Grand Wok, a restaurant in the MGM Grand which combined Japanese Sushi with a broad Chinese menu. Jinyo was overheard saying "no," during a lengthy conversation with the restaurant pager, after which they were seated. The sushi was quite good and the restaurant was nice, though the server was a bit forgetful. Scruffy Rebel finished most of a carafe of warm sake in about three gulps.
There was more, of course, but that's all you need to know about.
And now, here's a bonus for all of you LOST Season 2 nerds: a shocking discovery made in Las Vegas!
Next time...
Nerd Vegas, Day 3: Star Trek Nerds
.
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Las Vegas when our nerds ventured out of the pyramid. They had the pleasure of sleeping in, but the day ahead of them was too full for them to lay about all day. So they got dressed and headed out into the bright Nevada sun.
scruffyrebel and rurouni-jedi were being all sexy in front of the Luxor. They chose to pose in front of this huge statue of a pair of bare buttocks. Only in Vegas, I tell ya...
You all know that famous saying: "when the sun hits you eye like a big pizza pie, time for cosplay!" And time it was, indeed. Scruffy Rebel dressed in her blindingly accurate cosplay of Albert, from Gankutsuou. Gankutsuou is an anime series which adapts Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" and places it into a futuristic sci-fi setting. But future or no, Albert is a wide-eyed French boy. So our cosplaying destination was clear. We were off to... New York New York!
Just kidding. We went to the Paris hotel/casino, of course.
Paris is decked out in the style of so many of the newer hotel/casinos in Vegas. Which is to say, it's over the top. The shopping area is made to look like a Parisian street around the year 1900, complete with sky-painted ceiling and glistening cobblestone floor. The shops and eateries look like perfect little French bistros and boutiques. It was almost like being on a movie set, but with about a hundred thousand holiday weekend tourists tromping through. This presented its own set of problems, photographically. Although it was intended to look like outdoors to the naked eye, the interior was still pretty dark. This meant long exposures without tripods, resulting in blurry shots. Additionally, the crowds of people spelled problems for anyone hoping to get pictures without early-21st-century tourists in the background. However, anyone who has been inspired by lionboogy's phenomenal photographic talents, and his preternatural ability to get great photos in difficult, uncooperative settings, knows the value of patience, perseverance, and careful shot selection.
It also helps to have help. The nerds began coordinate themselves so that, as one of them lined up a photo, two others would stand strategically to channel traffic away. They didn't actually block off any thoroughfares, but they would stand casually as though watching the photography, so the crowds would naturally tend to veer around them rather than walk directly through the middle of the shot. This would often work long enough to squeeze off a couple of shots, and was much more effective than patiently waiting for a gap in the traffic.
The casino area of Paris is similarly thematic. It's broken up into areas which resemble neighborhoods, and has a few scattered landmarks and fountains. There are also small pergolas which recall the famous art nouveau subway station gazebos of Paris. They found some nice design elements in there, but it was still rather dark. Additionally, photography is generally prohibited in casinos.
The exterior of the hotel/casino is truly impressive. The centerpiece is the 50-story-tall half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, which poses as if stepping over the grand facade of the Paris Opera House. At least lighting wasn't a problem out here. But the desert wind began kicking up a dust storm which succeeded in irritating the irritable. In the end, however, the nerds managed to get several dozen decent photographs of Scruffy Rebel as Albert in Paris.
And one photo of Jinyo.
Jinyo decided to dress up in his Elegant Gothic Jinyo outfit, so he wouldn't feel like some kind of bizarre freak, walking around in public wearing muggle clothes.
Keep an eye out for a photo post of Scruffy Rebel as Albert here... eventually. Meanwhile, you can get a bit of a preview. There are several shots from the photoshoot posted in Scruffy Rebel's Cosplay.oom gallery. Go have a look!
As Rurouni Jedi always says, "after a hard day of cosplaying, there's nothing like molesting a teenage boy." The rest of them, on the other hand, settled for getting some food.
Soon it was time for the next, and possibly the most awesome, segment of their Vegas adventure. The nerds got changed and headed out toward the MGM Grand for the evening. They might have been geeks, but they were sexy geeks!
The tiring day of cosplay left Scruffy Rebel a bit depressed. "I wish I was still in costume," she thought sadly. At least she was wearing her Escaflowne Hitomi pendant. Meanwhile, Rurouni Jedi was getting a little testy. "Where the hell are the tickets," she asked G-Mal. The birthday boy replied, "I gotcher tickets right here!" as he gestured.
The nerds settled into the spacious seat of their limousine. And by "limousine," I mean the monorail-like tram that took them to the Excalibur.
Scruffy Rebel cosplays Hitomi After Dark, as Jinyo cosplays a ghetto fabulous undertaker.
The event of the evening was KA, the Cirque Du Soleil show at the MGM Grand. KA is the newest of the Las-Vegas-based Cirque du Soleil shows (though that will no longer be true this July), and quite different from the circus company's previous shows. KA was quite theatrical, resembling a stage play much more than their circus-like shows typically do. While most Cirque productions have a general storyline from which they draw their theme and upon which they hang their acts, KA actually had a plot and numerous locations and settings. And while there was no specific dialogue, KA did have some spoken lines which took the form of a foreign, possibly invented, language.
As G-Mal & Rurouni Jedi's first live Cirque show, it couldn't have gone any better. Thanks to the embarrassing and rather distasteful efforts detailed here, Jinyo managed to score four seats, right in the center of the front row. They were close enough to rest their feet on the stage. G-Mal, the birthday boy, got the centermost seat, and enjoyed it immensely as several times in the show, performers looked as though they were almost about to fall right on him. It was like a 3D movie without the glasses!
The theatre itself was custom-built for Cirque. There were catwalks all about the auditorium that looked like the industrial version of the Ewok tree village, and as the performance grew nearer, more and more performers came out onto the catwalks and began swinging around from platform to platform on ropes, or bouncing several stories into the air on bungee cords. Before the show even began, Jinyo and Scruffy Rebel had a close encounter with one performer as he snuck up on them and got right in their faces, eliciting a pair of yelps.
The show itself was amazing thanks to the skill of the performers as well as the imaginative staging, costuming, and music. It began with really cool wushu performances and a Beijing Opera spear routine, combined with a capoeira performance by one cast member. Then came traditional circus acrobatics and Chinese acrobatics, innovative interactive digital image projections, some really freaking cool costumed characters and creatures, and a moving stage that could rotate, tilt, and stand on end. I could go on and on about the show, but I don't want to spoil it for any of you. Suffice it to say, it has my recommendation. Unfortunately, the show will not be coming to DVD, which is true of all the Vegas Cirque shows. So you'll just have to go to Vegas and see it in person.
After the show, the nerds were so amazed and inspired that they... went shopping. What can I say? the Cirque gift shop has some really cool items, bags, and garments.
The hungry quartet found themselves sitting in front of the Grand Wok, a restaurant in the MGM Grand which combined Japanese Sushi with a broad Chinese menu. Jinyo was overheard saying "no," during a lengthy conversation with the restaurant pager, after which they were seated. The sushi was quite good and the restaurant was nice, though the server was a bit forgetful. Scruffy Rebel finished most of a carafe of warm sake in about three gulps.
There was more, of course, but that's all you need to know about.
And now, here's a bonus for all of you LOST Season 2 nerds: a shocking discovery made in Las Vegas!
Next time...
Nerd Vegas, Day 3: Star Trek Nerds
.