wizard world 2006

man, it's been like four days since i've blogged. i've felt so incomplete with no internet access. i'm such a dork. owell. well, i just got back to oanh's house from wizard world 2006, and man... was it freaking amazing. let me fill you in on my four geektastic days at one of the biggest comic conventions ever. well oanh took me to rosemont thursday afternoon. i was booked at the hyatt. well apparently there were two hyatts, and i was staying at the oanh that WAS NOT connected to the rosemont convention center. shit. so we drive around looking for this other hyatt that we booked by mistake thinking it was the other one... and it turned out to be like a half a mile away from the convention center. ok. well atleast the hyatt provided a shuttle to go to the other hyatt, which connects to the convention center. okay. so i check in, oanh and i have lunch, and she goes home. i go back up to the room, have a little relaxing poop, and head off to the first day of wizardworld. i get on the shuttle. i walk to the convention. man, it is freaking dork-breathtaking. so much bigger and grand-uh-ER than i remember it being six years prior. i pretty much spend the first day wandering around the giant convention center in circles, taking everything in. the place is so freaking big, loud, bright, and PACKED. over 50,000 dorks attended this year. right when you enter there are tons there is a big section of all the major comic label's booths. marvel, dc, and whatnot. then over to the right in the middle, are all the hundreds of individual booths where the comic distributors were selling comics. then to the right of that, is 'artist alley' where all the hundreds of great artists were signing their books and shit. man. so great. it's like 5 samclubs put together, if samsclubs only sold comics. and if it was on acid. ...that was a weird analogy. ok moving on. so i walked around, bought some comics, and ran into the infamous tommy tallarico.... the founder of video games live, and an awesome video game music composer. he's awesome... i watch him every week on g4: tv for gamers. so i got my picture with tommy. then i went back to the hotel. upon coming back to the hotel i found out they had no internet access, unless i wanted to be charged 10 bucks a night, so i figured screw that, i can wait 4 days to blog. friday i got up around 8:30... and headed for wizardworld. again i was still walking around with my mouth wide open... such a great place. a fanboy's dream. a comic collector's geek-mecca. lots of people dressed as their favorite comic book characters. lots of stormtroopers. surprisingly there were maybe like 30% women there, which like 5% of that 30 were actually hot. since when do hot chicks collect comic books? so besides walking around the showroom floor, i sat in on alot of great comic book 'panels' as they call them, which are basically just q&a's with the biggest names in the comic business. it was great. @ 11 i sat in on the 'mondo marvel' panel which was all about the upcoming year for marvel, and it was packed with all the marvel guys, including the big man, marvel editor and chief joe quesada. @ 12:30 i sat in on the brian wood panel. brian wood is a cool up and coming indie comic writer, who writes one of my new fav books, 'dmz.' after that i sat in on the marvel:civil war panel @2. civil war is THE biggest event in the marvel universe this year, changing everyone's favorite characters forever. great stuff. again with all the big marvel creators. @3:30 i sat in on the aspen panel booth. creator michael turner was there with his aspen comics team. this was one of the funnier panels, all these guys are great. walked around the showroom floor for a while, getting some comics signed... by the 'mouseguard' artist, and also geoff darrow....creator of 'shaolin cowboy.' man he kicks so much ass. @ 6 i sat in on the wizard fan awards. that was really cool. us fans voted for our favs on the wizarduniverse.com. after that i went back to the hyatt, ordered room service, pooped, and went to bed. ok, so saturday was the big day. got up at 6 in the freaking morning. this might of been the earliest ive woken up for anything in a long ass time, that wasnt like school-related. got to the convention center, only to wait FOR LONG HOURS to get in, to get kevin smith tickets. yes, this was what i came to wizard world for this year, and damnit, I WAS NOT GOING TO MISS IT. so i got my ticket, all was good. walked around the showroom for a bit, and then went to the ultimate marvel panel. again, all the biggest guys at marvel...talking comics. awesome. wicked awesome. after that i ate lunch and walked around for a bit. it was really fun to like 'barter' with all the comic distributors. i got really good at it buy the end. i was getting great comics worth alot of money for really cheap. i liked to do the 'not interested fake walk-away' and then the guys are like 'OH OK....have it your way and bring down the price. it was fun. so @ 2 i walked in on the 'sam loeb college scholarship art auction fund. i wasnt really planning on bidding on anything, being that all the shit was going for like well over 5-7 thousand dollars. i only wanted to attend, because that was the only place that the extremely beautiful erica durance(of smallville) was appearing. god shes hot. so then i snuck out early from that, and FINALLY went to the kevin smith Q and A. it was soooooo great. if you didn't know, he's my fucking hero. and his q and a's are like nothing else. the man is a comedic genious. he holds nothing back. and ofcourse his fans ask the funniest questions. he covered such topics as 'pussy trolls,' 'ass to mouth,' and even got to comic geeks engadged in front of everyone. it was hilarious. and well worth the four-hour-wait. can you tell i'm a fanboy?? so after that, i figured i'd had enough, and went back to the hyatt. waited around a little bit for john and tag to come, and then we were off to 'video games live.' such a great event. well the 'festival' before the show wasn't that great, it wasn't really much of a 'festival.' more like two video games, and tons of nerds in line to play them. but the fun part was there was lot of dudes dressed as video game characters... me and tag took our pictures with them. so we went into the theatre for the show. and it was wonderful. a full orchestra. a full choir. a giant big ass screen. and lots of lights and stuff. they played all the greatest soundtracks to my favorite games, accompanied by gameplay footage. it was so great. alot better than like going to the ordinary orchestra, where u have to sit there with your hands folded. we got to jump up, scream, and cheer on our favorite video games. plus there was some live stuff.... people were randomly selected to come up and play video games in front of everyone. on dude came up to play space invaders, except he was the ship, having to run back and forth across the stage to move himself. it was funny, cuz the dude was pretty fat, and couldnt move fast...so he died early. then these two peolple were chosen to play frogger in front of everyone, and the winner, a 13 year old punk kid, won a 5000 dollar laptop. crazy. such a good show. afterwards tommy tallarico and all the other game creators had a meet and greet, but i didnt really care, cuz i saw tommy at wizardworld on thursday, got to talk to him, and take a pic with him. i got to meet a few celebs and take my picture with them as well. lou ferrigno, the original hulk. and kristen bell. god i love kristen bell. so after videogameslive on sat, came back to the hyatt, started bagging and boarding all my purchased comics, and then finally went to bed. such a long day. sunday/today i woke up early....pack up, checked out, and got to wizardworld early. after waiting like a stupid hour to get in, i browsed a bit, bartered with a few dealers....getting the best deals cuz it was the last day of the con. then i waited in line for kristen bell (aka veronica mars.) HUBBA HUBBA. yes, i gladly paid freaking 30 dollars for a signed picture, and another freaking 20 to get my picture with her. i dont care, she can have the damn money...i love her so much. veronica mars is the greatest show. when i got up to her i was so nervous, hands sweaty, and tried to talk to her but i sort of mumbled i was so nervous. i did get out "you were sooo great in the movie 'reefer madness.' " to which she replied "thank you so much." she's nice. not a bitch. and so damn skinny in person. we got our pic taken... and she put her arm around me.... ahhhhhhhhhhhh.... so after that, i walked around, said my goodbyes to the great comic convention, and went back to the hyatt, to get my bags... and have oanh pick me up. such a great experience. i'm so glad i went. it sort of rejuvinated me, and gave me a much needed boost.... to motivate me in the upcoming semester of college. i wanna pay my dues, and maybe become an artist. that would be so great to travel around to these cons for a living, whoring out artwork, and maybe becoming famous enough to sign books. that would be so much fun. so we came back to oanhs house. i ate food since i skipped lunch, (kristen bell is more important than food) which brings us up to date, while i sit here blogging. everyone is gone because oanh and john are in the process of moving to a new house. what are my plans for the rest of the day? i'll probably go through the motions, watch my hbo shows tonight, and then we're flying back to ohio tomorrow. ugh, then i get two final weeks of summer. then: BACK TO SCHOOL. those two weeks will probably be spent lounging, burning dvds, reading the comics i bought, playing video games. you know, THE USUAL. when i get back, i'll upload the pics from my digital camera to my desktop. you're gonna love them.... they are so funny. i'll probably upload them on flicker or something. well that's it. it feels good to blog again. i missed the internet.

later book of jeff-ers.

bye internet.