Random Thoughts/Oz Convention Report

What is amazing is that, despite being at a convention, I still have time to review comics and to find links...

The convention has been restful and relaxing today. After a nice long session of 'netting last night while the evening program was going on, I retired rather early and had a really good night. The rooms at Asilomar have some nice advantages... No phones, no televisions, just a clock radio. I couldn't access the wi-fi from the room, which was just fine. Very restful.

I did have to leave the sliding glass door to the room open for much of the afternoon to get the room down to a bearable temperature. For some reason the heat was on in the rooms when we arrived. While Pacific Grove isn't as hot as, say, San Diego, it's still warm enough that heat wasn't just unneeded, it was too much.

I had only one real goal with my digital camera during the convention. Asilomar is known for its wildlife, particularly the deer, and I wanted to "catch" a deer. On the way to breakfast this morning, I spotted a couple of beautiful deer in a wild area between parking lots. As I paused to take a picture, hubby-Eric pointed out a few more sitting nearby, almost invisible. In fact, there were six total, though as they moved around they were hard to see in the morning gloom. One of the folks headed down to breakfast with us seemed convinced that there weren't any there at all.

In addition, I also caught a racoon, but the distance was enough that I can barely see it on the picture, even though I used my full zoom.

After breakfast we got ready for the costume contest/parade. It's a neat event every year, although the turn out at this convention was so low that we weren't sure what sort of costumes there would be.

The Oogaboos, the Oz group centered in the Pacific Northwest, did a group costume. Eight participated, including myself. We got shirts from Zazzle that had the name "JO" on front and an image of marching Oogaboos from one of the books on the back. All the people in Oogaboo except for the queen are named "Jo". And they have neat trees upon which they grow all kinds of stuff. I was, not surprisingly, "Jo Comic Book", so I handed out comics from Free Comic Book Day. Eric was "Jo Sandwich" and handed out sandwich cookies (nutter-butter and oreos).

There weren't many other costumes. There was a generational costume, in which Grandpa dressed as the Gnome King and his two graddaughters dressed as Dorothy and an egg respectively. Why an egg? Eggs are poisonous to the Gnome King...

We had another Dorothy, dressed as the movie version, and her brother dressed "in character" as the tornado. Another kid dressed as Jack Pumpkinhead. There was also an excellent Polychrome (daughter of the rainbow) who danced her way into the costume area and charmed everyone. Unfortunately, that was it. But then, out of 60+ people who attended this year (one of the lowest turnouts in a long time), 15 got into some sort of costume (eight of them Oogaboos).

As in other years, some people from other groups here the same weekend stopped by to watch the costume parade. It tends to be popular, mostly because no matter what happens everyone has so much fun.

Later today, or tonight, I plan on posting my Saturday Sketch™ which is made so much easier by having wi-fi in the local forum instead of only down at the registration building. In the meantime, here are so nice links for you to follow.

Shane at Near Mint Heroes pointed out this news item about filming Aquaman. Thanks Shane!

Fascinating on-line comic strip called Fleep. Well worth a read.

The construction company that took down Seattle's Kingdom has video of the demolition on its website. An ignoble end to a very cool building. Via Boing Boing.

Slashdot points us to Apollo 11 images newly scanned and posted online. Wow.

Marvel comics solicits are now up officially.

The one thing I'm NOT trying to do is get through the comic book blogs and check out all the San Diego news. Should anyone notice San Diego Aquaman news, feel free to e-mail me. But I may just have to pass on trying to learn about most of it until I get back.