It’s Been Awhile….

In A Busy Place

It has been quite a long time since I last posted anything.  The reason?  I’ve been super busy with life.  I promised you all that I would post something about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show that I took some of my family to a few weeks ago, so here’s the rundown and a few photos as well.

For starters, the show was a bit disorganized.  The group putting on the show relies on local volunteers to serve as ushers, ticket collectors, merchandise sellers, etc., in order to keep show costs down.  That’s a good thing, but the volunteers that they had (local sorority and fraternity members) made quite a few mistakes.  I’m not blaming them (the show was a sellout, after all), but I do wish that they had been given better instructions and possibly a little more assistance from the venue.

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I felt especially sorry for the young lady pictured above on the right (sorry about the photo quality, I was using my phone since I forgot my camera).  She had to deal with a ton of young Turtle fans and a bunch of immature parents, many of which paid general admission for the show and got angry whenever they tried to sneak in on the VIP seating area and/or VIP perks.  One family’s matriarch in particular raised a lot of cane whenever she was busted for sitting on the front row.  Police had to be called in to assist with the angry “adult.”

My family got a photo with the Turtles (as a rule, I never post my family’s photos on this page) and once the show started, the entire audience really enjoyed the action.  It was a mixture of martial arts performance, dance, comedy, and a bit of seriousness about bullies.  The primary message was that you can control your own destiny and prevent others from bringing you down.

Before the show, VIPs got autographed photos from the Turtles and when it was picture time, they signed any and everything the kids wanted them to autograph.  It was a very fun evening and I hope that the Turtles return very soon.

In other news, Louisiana Comic Con is just a couple of weeks away.  I am excited for this event as it’s been a couple of months since my last convention (Space City Comic Con, which rocked).  I’ll be spending the whole weekend down there, so if anybody that’s reading this plans on attending the event, drop me a comment and maybe we’ll get to meet one another!

Fear The Walking Dead has one episode left in the season and I have to admit that I’m not impressed by the program.  I keep watching it hoping that the characters become more likeable, but it’s just not happening for me.  The show is bland and very slow moving.  The lack of a bunch of Walkers doesn’t bother me, but the lack of interesting characters is agitating.  I’ll watch the last episode, but I’m not expecting much.  Hopefully it will get better next season.

The Big Bang Theory and Gotham premiered their newest seasons last week, and I’ve only been able to catch a portion of Gotham.  What I did see was great, however, and the upturn in writing quality near the end of the first season has definitely carried over into the second season.  I’ll give an in depth review of that show and TBBT in a later post.

Well, that’s all for now.  I’ll do my best to write more often.  It looks like things will be slowing down for me a bit in a week or two, which means I can get back to geeking out with my friends real soon.

As always, thanks for reading.  I’ll have more to talk about in the upcoming weeks.

Louisiana Comic Con (The Lafayette Version), Cosplay Bullies, And More!!

Lafayette, LA

In just over a month from now, Lafayette, LA will be getting a big dose of geekdom when the Louisiana Comic Con takes place October 17th and 18th.  I have plans to be there and you should too.  Why?  Because this is the first pop culture event to hit Lafayette in a long time.  Yes, there have been conventions here in the past (MechaCon and LouisiAnime, for example), but those conventions have been fairly anime-centric (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and have also moved on to a larger city, New Orleans.  Louisiana Comic Con, which is being put on by the same group that hosted an event in Bossier City earlier this year under the same name, appears to be bringing something to the table for everyone.

Lafayette is a really cool town in south central Louisiana, and I’m glad that they are finally getting a convention that offers a little bit for every fandom out there.  For more info (and a few more cool photos taken by Leslie Westbrook like the featured image), check out the article on The Advocate’s website here.

If you do plan on attending this event, be sure to look for me on Saturday as Charlie Brown and on Sunday as the Discount Dark Knight.  I’ll be hanging around with the JustUs League on Sunday as well, so if you want to have a good time, just look for us!

In other news, I recently watched a video that you can see here, that really touched me.  It appears that the young lady in the video, who goes by the name Oppai Queen (she’s on Facebook, by the way), was bullied on social media for her cosplay, specifically her body size.  She was called “Shamu” and a few other not-so-nice names and has apparently been picked at before both on social media and in person.

I can’t tolerate this sort of BS.  Why do people feel the need to pick on others just because a person doesn’t fit their particular concept of beauty or their definition of a certain character?  The young lady in the video is very attractive in my opinion and shows a ton of courage for the costumes that she wears.  If you don’t like her costume or her body type, avert your eyes and keep your opinion to yourself!  If you believe that she or any other person is too tall, short, skinny, fat, pretty, ugly, or any other adjective that comes to mind for a specific cosplay, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!!!!!  If a person is bold enough to wear something like a Slave Leia costume or a skintight Spider-Man costume, show them a little respect for putting themselves out there and taking a chance!

With that said, I want to challenge each and every person reading this post.  If you see somebody at a convention in a costume, compliment them.  Tell them that you really like whatever it is that they are wearing or ask them how they created a certain piece of their costume.  Not only will it make them feel good about themselves, it might even be the start of a great friendship.  In short, don’t be a jerk to anybody!!!!!  It’s that simple!

Now we’ve arrived at the “more” portion of my post.  This weekend I am bringing some of my family out to see a live Ninja Turtles production on, oddly enough considering the previous topic, bullying.  I’ll be sure to post photos and give a brief write up after the event this weekend.  I really hope that it’s a good show, as certain members of my family really love TMNT.

I’ve also fallen in love with the album Behind The Black Veil by Dark Sarah.  I’ve been listening to a lot of Beauty and the Beast Metal lately and Dark Sarah was a band that was suggested to me.  While it’s not Beauty and the Beast Metal, it definitely has the Beauty element with the wonderful operatic voice of Heidi Parviainien (formerly of Amberian Dawn) who portrays Dark Sarah as the character spins into darkness as she is left at the altar by her would-be husband.  The album is steeped in theatrical metal and has hints of Danny Elfman scattered throughout, particularly in the song Violent Roses.  I love this album and can’t get enough of it!

I recently watched the second episode of Fear The Walking Dead and while it’s a definite improvement over the first episode, the show is still lacking.  I still don’t care about any of the characters and I don’t make a mad dash to the television set to watch it like I do whenever The Walking Dead is about to come on.  I still have hope that this show will find its footing and win over audiences, but it better do so quickly, or it will end up just as dead as a walker with a tire wrench through its brain.

Last but not least, I want to touch on the whole Force Friday business that happened on September 4.  I read a ton of posts whining about the lack of selection, the limits set on customers, and the long hours in line only to get to the shelves and see that all of the Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma figures were gone.  You know what?  It’s not that big of a deal!  Yes, I hate it when scalpers go in and buy up all of a certain figure only to resale it for a crazy price, but as long as people are willing to pay that price, scalpers will exist.  If fans and collectors would simply wait until more figures are released (and they almost always will be), they’ll get that sacred Kylo Ren or Captain Phasma that they just gotta have!  Sure, you miss out on a few exclusives every now and then but nobody has to have absolutely every single item that is released!

I didn’t go out on Friday to pick up any Star Wars items.  Nope, I went on Saturday to a local Wal-Mart that (luckily for me) is in an area where collectors are almost non-existent.  I picked up a Kylo and a Phasma in 3.75″ size and paid retail for it.  I left a ton of Black Series 6″ figures on the shelf because I just didn’t feel like getting them and, yes, there were two Kylo Rens on the shelf!

Collecting is supposed to be fun, not a Black Friday bar fight!  Be patient, refuse to pay scalper prices, and eventually you’ll get your hands on whatever must-have you are tracking down.

Well, that’s all of my ranting for now, folks.  Enjoy your weekend and thanks for reading!!!!