Photos: Dragon*Con 2014 – Friday

Admittedly, and embarrassingly, I admit that I spent the vast majority of Friday morning/afternoon dealing with a rager of a hangover from the previous night’s shenanigans.  That being said, I kind of felt like I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I normally do at a D*C, but at the same time, I was wondering if there were many things that me personally, wanted to take pictures of.

I’m not saying that what was out there was utter garbage, but it’s no secret that the unofficial rule of costuming is that the big guns come out on Saturday; Fridays are like for the secondary tier of costumes, or something along those lines.  After all, I can attest to having more than one conversation with friends and acquaintances that echo such a sentiment.

Regardless, there was still plenty of things to take pictures of, and again I’ll have to remark about how I’m disappointed in myself for being so negligent and unpracticed to have gone the entire weekend with my new camera and new lens operating without the image stabilization that an amateur like me probably really needs.

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2014 – Thursday

So, this picture kind of sums up my personal Dragon*Con Thursday night experience.  Once the bourbon started to flow, it literally was like an hour before I hit the deck in a well, regrettable fashion.  I know this thanks to the timestamps on the photographs of the night, several of them that I have absolutely no recollection of being taken.

I am apparently a very affectionate drunk with an affinity for attempting Blue Steel.

A little bit of backstory however: about 45 minutes after I had unloaded all of my personal effects and finally settled into my hotel room, I came to the realization that my messenger bag was nowhere to be found.  Said messenger bag contained my camera, my iPad, and one of those long-forgotten devices known as a netbook in it.  Close to roughly $1,200 of electronics in it.

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The first of likely several post-Dragon*Con posts

I realize that after giving out plug cards to my site throughout a weekend, it would be fortuitous if I actually had something about Dragon*Con on the front page, so that any new viewers aren’t hit in the face with social commentary or my more minutae ramblings, when ultimately they’re looking for pictures of themselves from the convention.  This is coming a little later than I had hoped, because upon coming home from D*C, it turns out that my furnace shit the bed, and I’ve been without air conditioning in a stifling home for the last 24 hours, until an HVAC guy could come fix it.

Anyway, it’s going to be a little while for me to process through the 300+ photographs taken at the convention, so if you’re just here for pictures, I’d recommend tracking me down on Facebook, where I occasionally inform folks when I upload my galleries.  Or, I certainly won’t mind having another reader, if you’re into verbose wordy opinions on a daily basis.

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Thoughts on my first Yelp Elite event

Not a lot of people are aware of this, but I’ve been writing reviews of things on Yelp.com for like five years now.  Primarily restaurants and the occasional business, but for the most part, it’s something I’ve done that conveniently acts as something of a chronicling of my dining experiences in my travels or general living, while indulging in my general enjoyment of writing.

Obviously, there’s often discussion about the ethics of review sites like Yelp and how there are always conspiracies of sites holding small businesses hostage with bad reviews, small businesses altering their behavior at the knowledge of known reviewers, etc, etc., but all that stuff doesn’t concern me, nor do I really care about any of it.  For the longest time, I’ve been content to keep my Yelp identity hidden, behind a faceless avatar, that wrote reviews of places completely anonymously, save for the customary first name and last initial.  Something about doing it like that made me self-righteously believe that there was more integrity in doing it that way, as I thought those people who revealed themselves and under the banner of “Elite status” felt subliminal pressure to pander from time to time.

I also thought Yelp was kind of cliquey in some regards, no more apparent than when someone writes a review of a place that’s literally no more than the phrase “omg I really luv this place <3 <3 <3 !!!!”  and it’s nominated as a city-wide “review of the day,” as voted for by local peers.  Doesn’t seem like there’s much integrity in “reviews” like such.

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Photos: Minor League Baseball in Asheville, North Carolina

So, Asheville.  I was looking forward to visiting this place more than about any other place I had thought about visiting throughout the 2014 baseball season, because to my understanding Asheville was a town known for interesting dining, lots of local breweries, and it happened to be a place within reasonable driving distance that had a minor league ballpark I’ve never visited, AND they just so happened to be giving out a bobblehead, AND they were also playing against an Atlanta Braves affiliate.  Needless to say, it was the no-brainer of no-brainers that I would be looking forward to this particular trip.

Much to my expectations, Asheville was a lovely place that I enjoyed a great deal.  The drive to get there wasn’t the least bit difficult, and it frankly just felt good to get in my own car and drive somewhere I’d never really been to before.

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Man, What A Stupid Commercial #013

Synopsis: Somewhere in a foreign country, there is car accident that is by no means a massive one by American standards, but in whatever foreign country this is in, it’s being treated as if it were a Kobayashi-maru; completely unsolvable and debilitating the entire road system. Not lost on the irony is the fact that the incident appears to be the fault of a woman, subtly driving in that knife a little bit more about the stereotype that women can’t drive.

Regardless, Ray Liotta happens to be in a taxi that’s entangled in this web of traffic, and seemingly exasperated by the notion that he’s not going anywhere, simply gets out of the cab and walks off. Also note, he doesn’t pay for his cab fare.

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Ramblings of a now 32-year old child

So over the weekend, my birthday came and went, and now I’m 32 years old, and really don’t feel that much different.  There’s still the same general concerns about life, and how it occasionally feels like I have no general direction, which admittedly makes me feel a little blue, but when the day is over, I’ve still got it going fairly adequate as far as life’s necessities go.

In regards to my birthday party itself, I actually celebrated it a day earlier, due to the fact that something else came up on my actual birthday itself, and as far as I was concerned, it kind of took a little bit of a load off my back in trying to figure out something to do on my actual birthday.  However, I ended up getting stupid sloppy drunk because I’m clearly very dumb, and when people kept buying me shots, I kept drinking them, but worse off, continuing to drink beer after beer on my own tab.

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