Photos: Dragon*Con 2014 – Thursday

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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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We interrupt the following program for this announcement

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Ohio State sucks.  Bahahahahahahahahahaha

I love Virginia Tech football and all, but seriously, I didn’t even watch this game, because I thought it was such a foregone conclusion, that it wasn’t even worth watching.  #8 Ohio State versus an unranked Hokie squad slapped with the dreaded “rebuilding” tag, helmed by a coach known for his innovation with special teams?

Thanks to sports superstition, I have the belief that truly crucial games are best not being seen, because watching them will undoubtedly cause my preferred teams to lose.  That didn’t apply in this case, because I figured Ohio State was going to win something like 49-9 with the Hokies only being able to muster up three field goals, so I didn’t watch because I didn’t want to watch the seemingly inevitable slaughter.

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D*C 2014: Seems legit not

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Picture progress notice: Picture processing is complete.  Rest of the weekend will be spent uploading them, and throughout next week, I will begin posting galleries.

A long time ago at a previous employer, I had a co-worker that told me the number one culprit on how to identify a fake Louis Vuitton item.  I’m not entirely sure how or why it stuck with me, but for whatever reason, it did.

Long story short, the apparent rule of the Louis Vuitton brand is that nowhere on any piece of Louis Vuitton merchandise, is the “LV” logo mark is NEVER cut off.  It cannot be cut off by an edge, a seam, or any sort of fold.  The LV logomark is 100% intact on 100% of the entire item, or else it’s probably counterfeit.

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D*C 2014: Actually partaking in programming

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Picture progress notice: I’m going to be spending the better part of the weekend processing images.  If all goes well, then next week will be a series of gallery posts, from each day of the convention.

I know I’ve “bragged” about how very little advertised as convention programming genuinely appeals to me to a point where I really wish to participate in a panel or a show, or anything that requires waiting in a long and time-sucking line.  The fact is, I still glance at guest lists and panels regardless, it’s just that I ultimately don’t bother with them once the convention begins.  I’d rather wander around and take pictures and chance into running into friends and acquaintances as opposed to waiting in lines.  It’s not to say that I’m not interested in them, it’s more the fact that the reward of seeing or meeting doesn’t outweigh my love for flexibility.

I broke this trend this year, ironically, in spite of my most recent manifesto about how convention programming doesn’t appeal to me, when I went to go meet an author whose works I’ve really enjoyed over the last few years, Jonathan Maberry.

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D*C 2014: The dryhumpers

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Okay, I wanted to address this, before someone sees this picture in the eventual gallery and thinks “wtf, danny’s a fucking voyeur perv.”

Naturally, there’s a story behind it.

It’s no secret that lots of conventions, and not just Dragon*Con, are full of sexually frustrated boys and girls, hoping to get their rocks off at some point during the weekend.  After all, conventions are kind of the perfect setting; what with being away from home, a mutual meeting place for those who have been courting one another be it in person or over the internet, or those simply hoping to spontaneously meet and engage in a quick fling.  And in the case of D*C, there’s probably no other convention with as much alcohol flowing throughout the concourses and hallways, and with alcohol often times comes questionable decisions.

Like dryhumping in public.

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D*C 2014: Not as crowded?

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I know it’s ludicrous to say such a thing, considering that at least at one point, every single person in the convention, myself included, uttered words along the lines of “it’s so goddamn crowded!” and that it was as a result miserably sweltering hot, and so forth.

Looking back at the weekend that once was, I actually think that this year’s D*C wasn’t as crowded as last year’s. Not to say I didn’t get agitated by my share of walls of sweaty humans from time to time, but the fact is, it sure seemed like I ran into a lot less of them than I have had in prior years.

Naturally, the worst crowds coincided with the never-timely release of panels or events, causing mass influxes of human traffic into the existing masses, but what it boils down to is that at least to me, it sure felt like there were far smaller numbers of said existing masses. What it boils down to is that it seemed like there were far less numbers of people simply milling around and hanging out, as opposed to people trying to get from point A to point B at any given time.

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The first of likely several post-Dragon*Con posts

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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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