#AlwaysKeepFighting

I could lie and tell you all the fabulously wonderful things I filled my Sunday with, however, let's be honest here.  Today was essentially a day full of sitting and live-streaming all the fabulously wonderful thing others people were doing at Comic Con.  It may not be crazy exciting, but you need one of those Sundays every once in a while and I enjoyed mine greatly.

So, all of that is to say, there's really not much to share about today that can't already be found on YouTube or any other entertainment site.  However, I will tell you the best thing I saw today, because I'm still shocked by the sheer awesomeness of some people, mainly Supernatural fans.  

I know I say it a lot, but there's just something about this fandom.  I'm not sure if it's the type of people that are drawn to the show or that the openness of the other fans just creates kindness or maybe it's the cast that may be the kindest and most talented cast to ever walk the planet. But the ability of these people to band together and help when they're needed is fascinating and something I've never quite seen before.  It's pretty awe-inspiring.

 And at Comic Con, it was no different.  

A group of fans, I'm not sure who to credit this to (I so wish I did!), got together and created these:

Then handed them out to the audience.  At the appointed time, everyone lit their candle surprising the cast who had no idea what was going on.  With most everyone knowing the story behind this awesome movement, I'm sure the entire audience was inspired by the gesture.  You can read about the cast reactions here.  Suffice it to say they were pretty impressed and touched by such an outpouring of love.

Wouldn't the world be a little nicer if we were all just a bit geeky like these awesome people sharing the love with some candles and a heartfelt message?

Friday Five

1. 3 Words to Describe Comic Con: I suppose if I had to describe it, I'd choose, Super Awesome, Geektastic! 
           
2. This is 100% truth.  Though I highly disagree with #11.  It should be Books & Tea - wine is not necessary at all!

3. I'm kinda loving Complications on USA Network.  I was trying not to get interested, because I'm still mourning White Collar (How could USA cancel the best show on TV!?).  But I accidentally caught an episode on repeat, and it's pretty darn compelling.  I'm guessing it's because Jason O'Mara is darn watchable (and adorable, but that's beside the point.)  Oh and Parker from Leverage is playing his wife - how could it go wrong!?

4. A few years ago I found the Almost Better than Anything cake on the back of a chocolate cake box.  And fell in love with it.  It's basically a chocolate poke cake with the holes filled with sweetened condensed milk, caramel and toffee, then covered in whip cream.  Yes, it's as decadent and delicious as it sounds!  I hadn't made it in forever, until last night, and had forgotten just how amazing it actually was.  I do amaze myself sometimes : )

5. I'm in the middle of a little Lunchbox Project.  I've been terrible at taking my lunch to work with me lately, so I wanted to start.  But the problem with taking lunches is that I can never find something yummy to make.  That's when Pinterest came to the rescue.  For the last 4 days, I was able to put together some fairly healthy, delicious lunches that included snacks and goodies.  Oh and they're kinda pretty too!  Plans are to continue at least 4 days a week.  At least one day has to be out lunch fun day : )

Fangirling!

Just about every year at this time, I start dreaming of San Diego.  I mean, honestly, how could you not?  San Diego Comic Con is the biggest gathering of geeks and geek culture in the world, and it's awesome.  I unlike some people, have gotten the chance to experience it. Unfortunately, I realize now, that I didn't get to really grab the bull by the horns and live it up while I was there.  I mean, I didn't even wear a costume or an ironically funny tee shirt.  I don't even have any weird pictures to share. These are about it.

At least I got the shot everyone has to take, going down the escalator into the convention center.  But, since we were there for only one day, we had only one purpose - Sit in line for hours to assure we could get in to see the USA Network panels (White Collar, Burn Notice and Psych).  You see?  We weren't even really geeking out.  We were just wanting to see the dreamy Matt Bomer - which was by no means a bad thing, let me tell you.   If by some magic, he's even dreamier in person than he is in real life!  All I'm saying is that if I were to go this year, there would be about a dozen other geekier things I'd need to see.  I think I'd go full on Fangirl.

At the time that I went, in 2010, I hadn't fully embraced my geekiness.  I was sort of aware of sci-fi, but I was much more interested in other things.  Now I get it.  I've drank the Kool-Aid, and I understand the true awesomeness of these events.  Oh, and I REALLY want to be a part of them :)

So what's a good sci-fi fan to do when she's not at Comic Con?  That's easy - take to Twitter and YouTube of course.  Have I mentioned how much I loved technology lately?  Why, just this afternoon I was able to watch the preview to end all previews for the Sherlock Christmas special, the utterly perfect lead in video to the Sherlock panel, the exclusive trailer for ConMan the series and the trailer for next season's Doctor Who.  How awesome is that!?

And that's not even the best part.  It's only Thursday.  Everyone knows that the REALLY good stuff (though I'm still not convinced that Sherlock isn't the REALLY good stuff) doesn't even happen until Saturday.  I can't even wait!  I still have a Supernatural Panel to catch, as well as all the awesome Conversations for a Cause on Sunday run by Nerd HQ.

It's a good weekend to be a geek - even if I'm not there with all my fellow geeks!

So Very Jealous

No thanks to BuzzFeed, and Twitter for articles like these, I've been hearing all sorts of fun things out of San Diego.  At first I thought it wouldn't be a big year.  There weren't many things I was excited about opening or panel-ing, but now that I'm seeing EVERYone there having a blast, including Benedict Cumberbatch, the Supernatural dudes, The Hobbit, Big Bang, Bones, and I could go on and on, I'm so darn jealous of all the fun everyone seems to be having!  A few years ago, I don't think I lived it up enough, at some point in the near future, I'm going to be needing to go back - I feel a costume is even on the horizon.  Now what should I pick - Amy Pond or Mary Morstan? : )

This Place Thursday: Geek Edition

In celebration of the biggest geek fest of the year starting today, we'll be visiting Comic Con for This Place Thursday.  Up until a few years ago, I had never heard of Comic Con.  It's been around for decades but it's seemed to really explode in the last decade or so.  For those of you not geeky enough, Comic Con International is the largest Comic/Pop-Culture/All things geek convention in the US which is held in San Diego every year.  Hundreds of thousands of nerds, geeks, and all around pop-culture fiends flock to the city to be treated to panels, parties, exhibits, and stars galore.  It's a mecca for a lot of people, me being one of them.

So, in 2010 I got the crazy idea to see what the big deal was.  Tickets are surprisingly affordable.  It's that darn flight and hotel that get you every time!  And of course since I couldn't fly across the country alone, I dragged the bestie along. 

Now I must be honest, I am a certified nerd.  I love The Big Bang Theory.  I have a picture taken in front of a prop Stargate.  The songs of Dr. Horrible are on my iPod.  I'm a Whedon-ite: Go Browncoats!  I wrote an entire post on the Higgs-Boson particle.  I saw the Lord of the Rings trilogy on their opening days.  I know about, understand and LOVE steampunk.  You could say I have the geek-cred but I really didn't want to attend for that reason.  Seeing that stuff was just a happy by-product! No, the bestie and I were much more interested in the USA Network panels that were taking place on Thursday.  For 3 glorious hours we listened as the casts (and semi-casts: BN I'm looking at you!) of Psych, Burn Notice, and my personal favorite, White Collar cracked jokes, told stories and kept every one of the 1500 con-ers in the room rolling in the aisles.  It was fabulous!  We had great seats, which were to be expected, since, to actually get into this particular room we had to sit in line for 4 hours before hand. 

That's the thing about Comic Con.  Everyone else is just as big a die-hard as you are.  You have to do the work and pay the price if you want to see the greats. You need a solid plan of attack, of which we had none.  Due to this pain in the neck, we pretty much spent the majority of the day sitting on the floor twiddling our thumbs and people watching, which just happens to be the other thing about Comic Con.  People watching on a regular everyday street can provide about 5 minutes', give or take, of enjoyment.  Comic Con people watching should be its own sport.  In no other place can you sit and watch Dr. Horrible, Darth Vader, Pokemon, the Ghostbusters, Dexter, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp was big that summer: Creepy!) and Captain Tightpants himself (not the real one unfortunately) walk by like it's an every-day occurrence.  It's magnificent!  It would be even greater if I wasn't so afraid of getting caught taking their pictures but I snapped a few so I guess that's progress.  I wouldn't say the 4 hours blew right by, but it definitely made them more bearable. (Of course, dreaming of the Neal Cafferey I was about to see didn't hurt either.)

After the panels (which I'm sure can be found on YouTube if you really try.  They are well worth the hour!), pretty much everything good had ended for the day, so we trolled the floor for a while, then left.  Of course, since the convention takes place over 4 days and most of the stars that come, stay the weekend, if you don't have weekend tickets, you can star watch all over the city.  At the hotel I saw Patton Oswalt and Grant Imahara (Mythbusters).  And while having dinner on the water, Deidrich Bader and his family strode by. I was kinda hoping to see Nathan Fillion or at least the other 2 dudes from Mythbusters, but not so much.

Overall, it's an experience of a lifetime if you go into that kind of thing.  Even if you don't, it's shiny (token Firefly reference) and fun and a super cool experience to have.  I would recommend planning your attack very carefully and getting tickets for the whole weekend.  San Diego is a beautiful city but I could have roamed the halls of the SD Convention center for hours!

Below: First set are pics of the floor and exhibits.  The next 3 are the panels.