Sick and Exhausted

So the last two weeks have been full, but not of awesome things I mist admit.
That's right blogosphere, I've been unpleasantly sick for the last two weeks. It has been decidedly un-fun, especially since I have missed NO work (despite my best judgment) and only missed one class session (history, last Friday). Course, since I've been making a concerted effort not to miss class, I've been skimping on all the other aspects of my life, like comic-drawing and writing and fun. I've been trying mostly to sleep off the sick (don't fear bloggers, it wasn't H1N1, I promise) and nurse myself and John back to health (we've both been sick and miserable. What lovely company we must have been for our friends).

I am feeling better though, so I'm dropping in to say hello world, and that once I'm feeling better and more well-rested, I'll be back to blogging a little more regularly.

So, upcoming things I want to post about:

1. My early birthday present
2. Cheap D&D books
3. Thinking about starting a cooking blog for poor college students
4. New developments in my gaming circle

And so on. I'm going to spend the rest of my Saturday watching random TV, studying for Latin (I have sentences to translate), baking tasty bread (it's my new hobby; going to my parent's house and invading their kitchen with bread-baking) and then going home to watch a movie with John <3.

More later! have a nice weekend kids!

Coming Your Way in November...

That's my novel for NaNoWriMo. With a shiny banner I made. Because that's what I do at work instead of study... make shiny banners.

First week went well, now on to week two (huzzah). I just checked my film assignment for tomorrow and it looks like I have an inhuman amount of reading to get through - at least 40 pages, probably much, much more. Also need to look over my latin again, as I have verb forms to memorize for our quiz today:

The Present Active Indicative Conjunctions for Vocō and Moveō:

Singular:

Vocō

Vocās

Vocat

Plural:

Vocāmus

Vocātis

Vocant

Singular:

Moveō

Movēs

Movet

Plural:

Movēmus

Movētis

Movent

So that's the stuff I need for class today.

I also work twice today - once now until noon, then again at 8 until midnight. Yeah, I'm already loathing Mondays. I'll most likely be scurrying home between Latin and work to squeeze a nap in. I should probably read my film articles NOW so I don't have to worry about them later... Though I make no promises.

Holy Crap, I'm a Senior

Today, the new semester begins. I've been anticipating it for a while, mostly out of total boredom. So today it's finally here. And now I'm posting my schedule up here, because I can.

MONDAY

Work - Library: 9:00am - 12:00pm
History - Fascism in Europe: 1:30pm - 2:20pm
Elementary Latin: 2:30 - 3:20pm
Work - Lounge: 8:00pm - 12:00am

TUESDAY

English - Film Theory: 9:30am-10:45am
Latin: 2:30pm - 3:45pm
Work - Lounge: 5pm-9pm

WEDNESDAY

Work - Library: 9:00am - 12:00pm
History: 1:30pm-2:20pm
Work-Lounge: 5:00pm - 9:00pm

THURSDAY

English: 9:3o-10:45am
Work - Library: 11:00am - 2:00 pm
Latin: 2:30pm - 3:45pm
Personal Defense: 6:00pm-9:00pm (starting October, ending November)

FRIDAY

Work - Library: 10:00am - 12:00pm
History: 1:30pm-2:20pm
Latin: 2:30pm-3:20pm

That's 12 hours of class, and 27 hours of work.

I'm going to be busy.

Gonna try to keep the comic up of course. And I'm going to try to do this and NaNoWriMo in November, so wish me luck!

Another 40 minutes left at work today; then I'm gonna curl up somewhere in the Union, eat my sandwich and watch True Blood. Then, off to class! Today is my most difficult day, since I work until past midnight, but I have a break, so I should have plenty of time to rest. So that's my plan! Class, nap, dinner, studying, work. Huzzah!

On Laziness and TV

Somehow the last two weeks have been so busy or so crazy that I haven't been able to finish my Tales from Comic-Con segment, but if it helps, it wasn't very interesting anyway. Not after three weeks of being back.

And things have been a little crazy; I'll get a proper update in time, but for now, I'll tell you about the TV I've been catching up on lately.

I watch a lot of TV at work, not having much else to do in the downtime between pull lists and scanning. So I've been catching up on some of the same TV shows as before (Bones, True Blood, Castle), and discovering some new ones, and new-old ones.
The first one is Warehouse 13, a funny little show from the 'Syfy' channel about a pair of secret service agents who are sent to work in 'America's Attic', the place where the government dumps any and all inflammatory items that need to be taken away from the general public. It's sort of Indiana Jones meets the X-Files, but funnier. It airs every Tuesday, so I've been catching it on Wednesdays on my Hulu feed.
The second one I've discovered new is Defying Gravity, a show about a team of astronauts experiencing strange phenomena on the science station they are touring around the solar system. It's very drama-filled, all the characters have a backstory that is revealed slowly as the show progresses, and there are still a ton of mysteries left to be told. I'll be catching this one on Monday mornings after it shows on Sunday nights.
The other show I've discovered proves that I'm at minimum a grand total of five years behind the times.

Lost.

That's right; I finally started watching Lost, after it was released 5 years ago. Go me; I'm so hideously behind it hurts. But I'm enjoying season one, which is available for free on Hulu. So I'm watching that in-between any new episodes of other TV shows I'm watching.

So that's that. I'm off to watch more Lost and have my lunch break at noon. Then just work until five. Huzzah!

More blogging later, I promise. :)

Comic-Con 2009: Part Two; Preview night, Thursday and Friday

I apologize for the delay between posts; work actually got busy this week and I got sucked in to DMing a little for John and Chris (more on that in a later post). So here we are; part two of my Comic-Con report.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22nd

We took John's mom out to lunch at Chevy's today, since it was her birthday and we also wanted to thank her for putting us up for the week (because seriously, she saved us a good $1500 dollars that we would have had to spend on hotel rooms for the week we were out there). Then we hit up preview night; Sam and Tim and I took the trolley because parking in downtown San Diego was a NO. A big, loud, stinky no. So we got into the convention hall a little later than the other three (who got a ride with John's mom, who was nice enough to drive us around, as we were minus a car at this point), but we all met up and went nuts wandering around. Sam made a beeline for the Square Enix booth (she's a huge fan of Final Fantasy XII) to buy character figurines, and Judy and I wandered around looking at various booths and shopping for goodies. I found booth 1230, where all my favorite webcomic artists were chilling out. So I got some awesome sketches, bought some books, and picked up an awesome t-shirt at The Devil's Panties booth.


Totally sweet shirt.
My other major purchase was this little guy, who was limited edition (and also about $10 cheaper at the con :3). He works like a dream and comfortably holds 4 GB.
Judy and I also found the booth for The Guild, and we made twits of ourselves in front of the whole cast by accidentally jumping the line (which we didn't even know existed). So yeah. Made a twit of myself in front of Felicia day. Go me. :3

But all was well, and everyone left happy that night, bags full of shiny swag. We grabbed some sleep and got ready for Thursday; the official start of the con.

THURSDAY, JULY 23rd

Another ride on the trolley brought us to the Gaslamp district, where Sam and I scurried away to grab breakfast at an adorable little bakery with really tasty baguettes and yummy cheese. Then I got back to more wandering around the exhibit hall and doing some more shopping, so of course by the time lunch rolled around my feet hurt like hell and I was ready to sit down. I had a panel at 5-ish; Legend of the Seeker (I wasn't gonna make it into Hall H to see Terry Gilliam, much to my disappointment), so I lined up for room 6DE and got in two panels early. So I got to sit through the Spotlight on Geoff Johns, as well as a panel about breaking into Marvel Comics. The legend of the Seeker panel was really good; I got my book signed by Terry Goodkind, who is scary-looking:


That's him on the right. He looks really scary, but was so nice when he signed my book.

So that was Thursday for me; good fun, then we headed back to the house and enjoyed a movie (Serenity). A good first "official" day at the con.

FRIDAY JULY 24th

Up early again, but I missed my early panel (The Guild Panel) because we got lost trying to get to the Interstate. Go us. So we went to get breakfast at this little place called the Cheese Shop (where Sam and I got these sweet liter bottles of mexican coke, which I managed to bring home with me too), then Tim and I got in line for Ballroom 20 and the Bones panel. The panel started at 3pm. Tim and I were in line by about 11:15 AM. We got into Ballroom 20 by 1 PM, which was in time for the Big Bang Theory Panel, which was excellent. I catch the show on occasion, so it was cool to hear the actors talk about the season. After that was the 24 panel. I don't really watch 24, but it was still cool to see Keifer Sutherland and Freddy Prinze Jr. up there.
The Bones panel was disappointing, but only because David Boreanaz couldn't make it; he was up in LA with his wife, who was dealing with pregnancy issues. So it was understandable, but still a major bummer. Tim didn't get to ask his question, and he left when it was over. Judy came to join me for the Dollhouse panel, and we had a major squee-fest when they aired the 13th episode, Epitaph one, which was fantastic. And then the Q&A was great, because the actors who play Topher and Sierra showed up to sit and discuss things with Eliza Dushku and Joss whedon.

So that was Friday. I was in Ballroom 20 for a grand total of five hours, and I was glad to get out of there, believe me.

So thats the first three days of the con. Next post will be about Saturday, Sunday and the drive home. :) And sorry for the lack of pictures; the only one I posted here took fifteen minutes to upload because the wireless at my parents' house is a bit buggy. If I can I'll edit and add some pictures later.

Comic-Con 2009: Part One; The Roadtrip Out

Because my trip to comic-con was so very epic, I'm going to have to divide this post up into several parts, if only to save the eyes of my poor readers. So here we go; the Comic-Con trip: Post #1.

MONDAY, JULY 20th

Wake-up time was 5:00 AM, though we did wake up at 2:30 initially because Evan (who had decided not to sleep the night before for some reason) began to burn the biscuits he was baking, causing the smoke detector to go off. So yeah, sleep was decidedly minimal that night.
But anyway, 5 AM rolled around, we gathered our things, retrieved Judy from her apartment and waited for Tim to show up. Sam said goodbye to her girlfriend Jess (who was kind enough to drive her down from Omaha-land the night before) and we all buckled up and headed on down the road.

We should have spotted the signs a little sooner I guess, as by the time we hit North Platte, Tim and Evan discovered that Evan's engine was smoking and steaming a bit. Now, Evans car had just gone in for expensive repairs, so this was surprising, but the car still ran okay, so we decided to let it lie and keep going.

We pressed on, and I got to do what was (in my opinion) the most boring section of the drive that day: Eastern Colorado. No offense meant to the state, but damn it's even more boring than Nebraska, which at least was green instead of yellowish. We made it through Denver and then stopped for lunch at a Village Inn just off the freeway, which was a tasty break. It's not IHOP, but they do have tasty pancakes. I like pancakes.

The rest of the drive was much prettier; Western Colorado has absolutely gorgeous mountains and rivers and other such things. Yeah, I love me some mountains (being from the Pacific Northwest does that to a girl). So the latter part of the drive was full of scary winding roads with steep gradients along with beautiful rocky and green mountains and pretty streams and cool little towns lurking in the middle of nowhere. I'm a fan of the roadtrip as much as I am the destination, so I apologize for the excessive descriptions. But yeah. Colorado was pretty.

Monday finished up in Grand Junction, where we stayed at the cozy Holiday Inn Express, which was great even though the pool was over-chlorinated. The utterly amazing shower made up for it, and the beds and the giant TV were worth it. We also grabbed dinner at a cool little diner, which I forget the name of but I remember that it was bear-themed and that their avocado cheese omelettes were delicious.

We all turned in early, alarms set for 5:45 AM, and huddled under the sheets in the too-cold rooms after over twelve hours in the car. And that's the end of day one.

NOTE: I would have pictures to post here, except I did a lot of sleeping on the first day and did not whip out my camera. I am most apologetic.

TUESDAY, JULY 21st

Another early morning, which felt even earlier thanks to the one-hour time difference, but we got a tasty breakfast at the hotel; free hot buffet FTW. Also, cinnamon rolls.
Our early morning drive was through utah, which I thought was very pretty (again, I like mountains and cliffs).

See? I think those are some damn sweet mountain cliffs!

We stopped just across the Arizona-Nevada border at a gas station (damn it was hot in Nevada) for lunch at a Quiznos-Popeye's place. The drive continued through Nevada and through Vegas, which was fairly unexciting to me. We saw all the important famous stuff driving through on the interstate, and so we continued, making it to California shortly thereafter.

Then the exciting stuff happened.

As we drove through the Mojave Desert of California, a light on Evan's dashboard started flashing; an exclamation point under the RPMs dial. Also, we got a call from Tim behind us to inform us that our exhaust pipe was existing intermittent bursts of steam. We found a rest stop after a good thirty miles of driving without air conditioning (in the desert), in a little town called Minneola. Well, I'm not sure if it even counted as a town actually, it was just one gas station and a crappy cafe that was closed. We pulled in and the car went 'hurk-die' and shuddered to a stop. Upon trying to make it start again, the car refused, so our assesment (and by ours I mean 'Tim and Evan's') was that the transmission had given out.

So Sam called AAA, and we were stuck waiting at a tiny, poorly-air conditioned gas station that was only about ten degrees cooler than it was outside. And it was at least one hundred and three degrees outside. The station attendant was a nice hispanic guy who gave us discount on ice cream and soda while we waited, and even turned his fan around so we could cool off a little (as Sam and I both dehydrate and overheat at the drop of a hat). At this point John called his Mom (who was a good three hours away in Poway) to come and rescue us from our little corner of hell.

The tow guy showed up after about three hours, and we all headed for Barstow, where we could wait for John's mom to rescue us. So we got food at a mini-mall (om nom panda express) and chilled out in a McDonalds for a while. Once John's mom rescued us, we transferred luggage to her station wagon and drove away. Her car has no AC, so it was a warm drive, but it was late so we had no problems. Her house also had no AC, which we forgot, but after twelve years living in England (where air conditioning was sparse at least in my house) that wasn't an issue for me. So we made it to Poway, got to the house, and promptly passed out. Man were we tired after that impromptu rest-stop.

So that's the trip out. Next post will be con-related, probably relating to preview night and the first couple of days of the convention. As well as San Diego, trolley rides, and tasty foodstuffs.

See you tomorrow!

Flailing about Comic-Con Panels

So we're leaving tomorrow; I'm in the process of packing, we went shopping for food items for the roadtrip, and we still have a few things to print. And we have to clean out Evan's car, but then we're ready to head out.

So I figured, before I scurry away to limited blogging access for a week, I'd write about a couple of the panels I'm probably going to be checking out each day at the mother of all nerd gatherings; Comic Con 2009.

THURSDAY:

Terry Gilliam (4:30-5:15 PM, Hall H)

After living in England for 12 years, I couldn't help but become a huge Monty Python fan, and one of my favorite aspects of the movies and TV show were Terry Gilliam's fantastical drawings and animation. I'm also a big fan of Gilliam's directing (12 Monkeys and The Brothers Grimm among them), so I'm going to happily stand in line for hours to hear him talk about his new movie, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (8:00-10:00 PM, Room 6A)

Another case of me being a fangirl here, since I've loved Joss Whedon since I was 11 years old and watching Buffy late at night at a sleepover party. Dr. Horrible combines one of my favorite creative minds with some of my favorite actors (see my previous post on Nathan Fillion squee. Also, NPH, and the far too lovely Felicia Day) and a musical. So I'll be there with hundreds of other squeeing fans to sing along to the three-part awesomeness that is Dr. Horrible.

FRIDAY:

Meet The Guild (10:30-11:30 AM, Room 5AB)

I randomly discovered the Guild online earlier this year, and even though I don't play MMOs, I loved the show instantly. I also consider Felicia Day as one of my personal heroes, and the chance to listen to her talk about her pet project is definitely tempting.

However, this has an unpleasant conflict with:

Coraline (10:30-11:30 AM, Room 6A)

When I was a kid, I saw the Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by panelist and Coraline director Henry Selick. Some years later I discovered Neil Gaiman while reading Good Omens, the book he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett, and from there I discovered The Sandman and more. I definitely enjoyed Coraline as a film, and the thought of listening to Neil Gaiman is definitely one I like to entertain. So as you can tell, I'm crazy conflicted as to which one of these panels I should go to, and probably will be until Friday.

Bones (3:00-3:45 PM, Ballroom 20)

I've been enjoying this show religiously for the last few months, and am in fact currently watching an episode as I'm typing this blog entry. I've been a big David Boreanaz fan after watching way too much Buffy and Angel, so I'm looking forward to hearing him and Emily Deschanel talking about this show.

Dollhouse (4:00-5:15 PM, Ballroom 20)

This is one of the panels I'm most excited about I think. As previously mentioned, I'm a huge Whedon fan, and I've been watching Dollhouse religiously since the beginning of the year. That and I'm excited to catch the episode they haven't aired yet. Not that I won't be buying the DVD... but still. Joss Whedon. *Squee*

SATURDAY:

Futurama: Life or Death (1:00-1:45PM, Ballroom 20)

Ah, Futurama, definitely one of the best shows ever in my opinion. I recently watched the four mini-movies that were released and loved them, and can't wait for this panel, where executives are going to decide if Futurama really is going to make a return.
So yeah. As a fan, I totally have to be there. Expect much squeeing and jumping up and down... or possibly murder, depending on what the executives say. *Shakes fist at Fox*

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (3:30-4:30PM, Room 6DE)

This is the panel I can't believe they're having; Boondock Saints, one of my favorite movies, is finally getting a sequel. I'm heartbroken that Willem Dafoe is not returning, but my two favorite Irishmen are, along with Billy Connolly. Also, Dafoe is apparently going to be replaced by Julie Benz, who I know from Angel as Darla. So yeah. It's one I'm not going to miss.

Kevin Smith (5:15 - 6:45PM, Hall H)

Like many others who have worked crappy jobs on days we weren't even supposed to be there, I fell in love with Kevin Smith's work long ago, and would be a fool to pass up this opportunity to hear him speak. It's a difficult decision, since the True Blood Q&A is taking place at the same time in Ballroom 20, but again, heroes have to be seen. And Kevin Smith is another one of my heroes.

SUNDAY:

Dr. Who (10:00-11:00AM, Ballroom 20)

Two Words: David Tennant. I'm a big fan of him and the show (another by-product of a british upbringing), so there's no way I'm missing this one!

BBC America: Being Human/Torchwood (2:15-3:45PM, Ballroom 20).

I know nothing about Being Human, but I LOVE Torchwood with all my tiny heart, and John Barrowman is... well, let's just say he's on my list of celebrities I must try not to lick. So yeah, another panel I'm not going to miss.

Those are the big ones I'm heading for next week.

Now, time to eat some dinner and finish packing. I'll be awake in less than 12 hours, getting ready to hit the road and drive off into a crazy adventure.