Maith in the Faith!
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As many of you knew, Valerie and myself recently found ourself in Atlanta, Georgia, experiencing the one-and-only Dragon*Con. For the uninitiated, D*C is the biggest popular culture convention held on the east coast. Lots of people go there. Lots of geeky people. Lots of strange people. And they like to party. Hard. Mostly naked chicks running around in various forms of tape (yes, tape) is not an unfamiliar site, as is lots of black leather, leashes, and spikes. It's a veritable cavalcade of oddity, depravity, and shenanigans. We also went to the aquarium to see cute sea animals. So, join us, if you will, on our journey through Atlanta... |
Atlanta, City of Atlantis
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So here we are in beautiful, scenic Atlanta. This is the view from our hotel room window. Makes you want to run right the hell out and visit, don't it? |
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Here's the view from our hotel room out into the hallway. As you notice, there's not much of a hallway at all. No, in fact, there's actually something of a DEATH PLUMMET immediately outside of our door. If you look down... |
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... you can look at all the damned ant people that you would crush if your screaming body went careening down the shaft of doom. 26 floors would leave a pretty exploded corpse, I'd think. For more vertigo fun, you can also look UP... |
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Not quite as harrowing, is it? Still, this should give you an indicator of how tall this place is. If heights make you nervous, this isn't the hotel for you. After we got settled in to our room, we went to go pick up our badges in the registration room. We waited in the tiny little line and when trying to find the proper alphabetically labeled sub-line, I noticed this: |
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I was famous! I ran up to the dude, and was like, "Hey, buddy! I'm the dude on your sign! Last one in the book!" And he was like, "Huh, you're the last one in the book." And I was like, "Yeah!" And he was like, "Yup." And I was like, "Okay." And he was like, "Here you go." And then I was like, "Oh." Anyway, in the warrens of the Hyatt, they had a sort-of-life-size statue of Jabba the Hutt. It looked like this: |
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For those of you not in the know, that's Valerie's sister, Heather, in the middle, her boyfriend, Jason, on the right, and her friend Emily on the left. Now, as I noted, there's lots of people at this convention. About 20,000 or so. Imagine cramming that many people into three little hotel lobbies. Does your imagination look something like this: |
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If so, you're not quite there. This is what the Hyatt lobby looked like when the convention was slow, and there weren't many people around. The place was normally packed to the gills, especially in the evening times. If I had a picture of that, I'd show it to you, but I don't. So there. Now... People like to wear costumes to conventions. Especially this convention. I'd say that 1 out of every 4 people was wearing some kind of costume or silly outfit. Some of these people spend months perfecting their look. What follows will be examples of these people's efforts... Ever wonder what would happen if a stormtrooper had sex with the Burger King? Wonder no more: |
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Good times. Remember putting Legos together as a kid? Remember how you used to stomp all over the little Lego people and destroyed their homes...? |
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Well, he's pissed off and is going to eat your children. |
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Here's Beaker and Bunsen Honeydew. They like to chill. |
| So do the characters from Clue, when they're not investigating murders or stabbing each other.
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Even the Flying Spaghetti Monster took a break from steering his pirate ship around the world fighting global warming to come to the con. |
| Even the vicious Darth McCracken blessed us with his presence. Don't ask. Long story. |
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Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Bender! |
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Recognize this? If you were alive in the 80's, you have no excuse. I'll give you a minute... Give up? Pathetic. This dude is dressed up as Daniel LaRusso, dressed up as a shower. You know, from the Karate Kid...? Feh... Meta-costuming is clearly lost on you. |
| Some rather large fellows from Anorexics Anonymous were passing these out, noting how they conquered their horrific disease. We didn't eat them. So... Those were the free-range costumes, as it were. Those were just the people milling around the lobbies of the hotel. There's a whole other subsect of people who put costumes together for the sole purpose of entering the Dragon*Con costuming contest. Let's take a look at some of these folk, shall we... |
| It's a little blurry, but that is, in fact, Mayor McCheese. And some pirates. Furry pirates. Yeah, I know... |
| Here's some fun stormtroopers made out of cardboard boxes. I'm a fan. |
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That's the hippo and the alligator from that bit in Fantasia. Looked pretty close to the original, considering the original was a cartoon. |
| Speaking of being ripped right out of a cartoon, here's Poop Dog! I know virtually none of you know who that is, but trust me when I say he looks near identical to the original. Frighteningly so. |
| This is fun. He would jiggle himself around and scream sometimes. Gotta love it. |
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These guys, Vader's Broom, won the Best Humor Costume. They're the Bucket Troopers who clean up the Death Star, and other Imperial places. This was the brainchild of some friends of Valerie's from the DC Fanforce. Quite amusing.
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| These guys won the Best in Show award. Yes, they're the Blue Man Group. Har har. So now we find ourselves with the con over, and we need something to do. So we go to the largest aquarium in the world. Which happens to be 5 blocks down the street. Convenient. They have these... |
| Whale sharks. The only other place they have these is in Japan. They're large. You wouldn't know it from this picture, but they are. We're looking at its bottom from the big glass tube they have that you get to walk through.
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Here's some zebra sharks. They have spots, not stripes. Don't ask. |
| Here's those crazy whale sharks again, with a bunch of other stuff, like fish and rays. To give you an idea of how large that window is, those wacky whales are about 14 feet long each.
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| That's a whole lot of rays. That's also only a small chunk of the viewing window. It was 60-some feet long, and 20-some feet tall. 2nd biggest window in the world. ooooOOOOooooo |
| Here's some crazy garden eels. They look like little wormy snakes or something. They like to fight. They're fun.
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| Here's a cthulhu fish. He likes to eat souls. You'll want to be wary of him.
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| Here's some crazy jellyfish wannabes. They're kind of creepy.
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| But not as creepy as this mofo. This dude haunts my nightmares. This thing is HUGE, too. Bigger than our cat, Evil, and bigger than some dogs. They can grow to the size of cars. I swear I heard that somewhere. I wouldn't go swimming in the Japanese ocean, if I were you. He's coming for you, Barbara.... |
| Here's some sharks they let you touch. Your hand smells like the ocean afterwards.
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| Here's some rays they let you touch. Your hand smells like the ocean afterwards.
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| They even put fish in the friggin' ceiling at this place. Don't jump.
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| Here's a moodily lit catfish. He likes to eat mousefish. (They don't exist.)
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| Here's a beluga whale. He's belugaey.
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| Here's some African penguins. Yes, Africa has penguins. So there. They'll mess you up, watch out.
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| Here's a sea otter. He's cute. And sleepy.
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| Here's a hammerhead shark. He makes no sound.
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| Here's me with some rays in the tube again. They have a lot of rays. They hang out in gangs.
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| Here's more zebra sharks. They're sleepy, too.
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| Here's the big-ass window from far back. Remember how big I said those whale sharks were...?
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| Yeah, it's pretty damn big.
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| The otter woke up. He's playing peekaboo.
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| Here's Valerie with a plastic whale. There were whaley boys in there. Only one person will get that joke, and she's sitting beside me as I type this.
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| Here's Atlanta at night. Looks less depressing in the evening times, yes?
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