The Halloween Creeper

Normally Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but in the last couple of years, it's been feeling a bit lackluster. A couple of years ago, I went as Leeloo from The Fifth Element. Since I was pretty poor at the time and making shit-all for money at my job, I made the costume on the cheap out of medical gauze/bandages from the drugstore, not the best idea since the forecast was calling for some rain, but I figured since it was an unusually warm Halloween, this was my chance to go out and not freeze to death.

The night was a disaster. Boyfriend and I wanted to go to the parade that goes through the village, since I had never been before. We got on the train and rode into the city (we were living in Brooklyn at the time) but by the time we got there, the skies had opened up and there was a torrential downpour. It was like something out of a disaster flick. We had a tiny umbrella for the 2 of us and it did very little in the way of keeping us dry. We couldn't see the parade over everyone's umbrellas, so we decided to cut our losses and just go home. We turned around to try to get back in the train station, but the police had blocked off the entrance. We trudged through the crowds and the buckets of rain that were slowly dissolving my costume. We finally found a train station that the cops didn't block off and waited for the train. My costume was still covering the parts that needed to be covered, but I felt a little naked. It was a sauna in the train station, especially with all the rain, it was humid as hell. Even while wearing next to nothing, I was sweating and uncomfortable. While we were standing talking and waiting for the train, Boyfriend stopped and suddenly went ape shit on this middle-aged guy who was apparently taking pictures of me from behind without asking. Boyfriend chased him down the platform a bit screaming at him, while I, embarrassed nearly to tears, covered up with Boyfriend's coat.

This brings me to today's lesson: If a girl is dressed in a sexy Halloween costume at a party with her friends, or even at a bar, it's probably ok for people to take pictures, because it's a safe environment. However, if you are at a Con or out on the street (parades are the exception to this rule) and see a girl dressed all sexy, fucking ask before you take their picture! It's rude not to ask. Yes, they want to be seen, otherwise they would not have worn a costume that grabs people's attentions, but their image is their intellectual property and they have every right to not want it to be captured by some creeper they don't know.
So, somewhere out there some random 40-year-old guy has a series of pictures of my ass in tighty-whities in a NY train station. #ThingsThatMakeYouGoBleh

Happy Halloween, stay safe everybody!
Me post Halloween rain storm. (You can sort of see where the orange is washing out of my hair and where the costume is coming apart on the right and on my legs.)

Happy Day of Birth, Cary Elwes!

Happy 49th birthday, Cary Elwes! I hope your day is just as you wish it to be!
(I should write Hallmark cards!)

Sexy New Twitter Follower

This is a short post, it's just something I have to share.

You can follow my Twitter @GurlOnGirlGming, which sounds sexual, which makes it funny. So, I already pointed out that this punny name of my blog gives me some strange stats, but now, my Twitter is followed by @EdenFantasys, a sex store. Again, I guess it's just what I get for trying to be clever...
(I got the picture at A Liar's Autobiography panel at NYCC 2011)

P.S This morning, before I found this new follower of mine, I tweeted about Gonorrhea. (Not mine.) I also, had to Google how to spell Gonorrhea.

P.P.S I feel icky after all that, here's a puppy palate-cleanser:

New York Comic Con (Part 3: Revenge of the Nerds) ~UPDATED~

NYCC Day 3:It was a crisp Sunday morning. It felt like October should: a bright sunny clear sky, a small breeze and the smell of autumn. It was Kid's Day at NYCC, so we laughed at all of the cute kids in costume and decided to forget the crappiness of the first 2 days and just enjoy what was left of the weekend and the con.

We started off at the Women of Marvel panel, which was awesome. It was really inspiring and encouraging and entertaining listening to the ladies on the panel talk about being female creators, editors, artists, and inkers in what is typically a "guy's environment." I also loved that there appeared to be a fairly equal ratio of men/women in the audience. That panel really made my day. They began with the women of Marvel asking all of the females in the audience who were trying to get into the business to stand up. I stood up, having applied as a proofreader for Marvel in the past. The panel then asked the rest of the audience to applaud for the standing gals. I thought that was a nice touch. The ladies opened the room up for questions almost right away, which I have seen before, and seen go awry quite quickly, but this time it went very smoothly. People got up and asked really intelligent questions and the panel discussed and debated and offered very encouraging feedback to aspiring women (and men) in the comic and/or "nerd" industries.

The main idea/advice I walked away with was to drop the idea that if you're a female it's harder to get into the industry, and that apprehension of being rejected because of your gender is the biggest hindrance to women. While this idea of rampant sexism in male-dominated industries may prove true on rare occasions, the general consensus among Marvel is they love women and want women in their company and in the industry. My favorite quote of the day was from comic creator Kelly Sue Deconnick : I don't know of anyone who is out there saying, ''Oh don't give Kelly Sue that job, she's a chick. She's going to try and write it with her vagina!" I want to hang out with Kelly Sue! She's my new hero! I also found a full blog/report/summary on this panel at Newsrama.

So on the positive start to the morning, the rest of the day was quite enjoyable. We wandered the show floor a bit to do some shopping, we got some shwag, and I got to chat with Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Ahsoka in Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network. I also bought a Cylon shirt from her booth, Her Universe.


After shopping, we tried to get into a Jim Henson panel, but it filled up quickly since it was in one of the smallest rooms, and it was kids' day (way to plan ahead, NYCC). But we felt satisfied with the day at that point, so we sat near the entrance to people-watch and saw some good cosplay before we decided to call it a day. Overall, my first NYCC experience was a pleasant one with some major disappointments. Next year, I plan to just get a day pass or, better yet, a press pass. Gotta keep blogging.

NYCC Day 3 = 3.5 out of 5 Lightsabers

The Horse-Pony ~UPDATED~ (For realsies this time)

While waiting for the bus to take us to the Javits Center for NYCC last Saturday, I noticed a policeman on a horse nearby. I love animals. If I could take all of the homeless, abused and unwanted animals in and make sure that each one of them was loved and cared for, I would. If the resources and the man hours existed, it would be done tomorrow by me (even birds, and I am terrified of birds, I would rather kiss a snake than touch a bird, I'm crazy).

I had a dog growing up named Sophie, who sadly died a couple of years ago from a heart attack. I also (like every little girl) desperately wanted a horse when I was growing up. I took riding lessons and would go out of my way to pet, play with, or be near horses (which wasn't too difficult growing up in Colorado). I wanted every pet imaginable as a kid. I wanted turtles, mice, gerbils, hamsters, ferrets, skunks, prairie dogs, tigers, elephants, frogs, and more. I never got to have anything more exotic than goldfish (and Sophie after years of begging my parents), but in college I missed having a pet and had trouble coping with being in that adulthood limbo that comes with living on your own in college but still getting some financial help from your parents, so I got a ferret. And another. And another. I could dedicate an entire blog (not just a post) to my love of ferrets and the Mustelid family. But I won't...yet. My ferrets were awesome pets. They were my babies and the main source of joy in my life. Alas, they have extremely short lifespans and have all since departed this plane of existence, but that's another tale for another time.

Long-story-short: I love animals, they make me happy and when I see a cute animal, I get a little adrenaline rush and I will point and say the type of animal when I see it, almost like a toddler when they learn their animals. It's ridiculous, but it's a strange compulsion I have, it's almost a reflex.

So on this particular morning, I hadn't had my coffee yet, I was coming down with a cold, and I was shivering a little from the wind; my brain hadn't quite turned on yet. I saw the police horse, and got a little thrill and in my tired mushy brain the words, horse, police, and pony all got mixed together. I pointed down the street and said, "Look, it's a horse-pony!"
Boyfriend just chuckled at me and said, "I think most ponies are horse ponies." He went on about the difference between "dog-ponies" and "cat-ponies" and "tweetybird-ponies" for a few minutes, just to make sure he got the most he could out of this new classic "Jessword", while taking every advantage of making fun of me as much as possible.
I started thinking about it. What would a Horse-Pony or a Dog-Pony look like..?

Um, the best thing ever!!!

According to Getty Images, this is a Horse-Pony:

UPDATE: 4/2/12- Well, at least now I can dress one up to look like a horse-pony...

This is a Dog-Pony:

Here's a dog that kind of looks like a horse:

I like my Horse-Pony the best:(Thank you MS Paint and free time at work)
This is my Dog-Pony:

And my Cat-Pony:

Maybe they will all go on adventures together and fight crime or something.


P.S I am not the only one who gets excited about cops on horses and "horsey-cops" and Horse-Ponies. Thank you, Simon Helberg's wife!

In Case You Wanted More Opinions...

I probably sound like I've been bashing NYCC in my previous blog posts, well, I kind of have. Now, in NYCC's (minuscule) defense, I was tired, I was coming down with a cold, and I was on my period all weekend, so I was bound to be a little testy. However, the main issues I had with the show lie strictly with the management/execution of the show (i.e. ReedPop) and the Javits Center, not the comic con community. I was very disappointed, mostly because PAX East (a con I adored) is also managed by ReedPop, yet the 2 shows were run very differently.
Let's start on a positive note so I don't sound like a whiny troll with nothing better to do than bitch and moan about stuff, k? Ok.

Good stuff about PAX East:
-I got to visit Boston for the first time, and Boston is a tolerable bus ride away from NYC, where I live, so it was easy enough to get to and fro.

-The Boston Convention Center was massive (almost too much so) and easily accommodated all who attended/participated. That being said, we did not get into every panel we wanted to, however there was an abundance of alternative yet equally-as-awesome panels we could choose as 2nd or 3rd choices.

-The "Enforcers" or volunteers/staff who helped keep everything running smoothly were energetic, informative, and had great attitudes during the 3 day weekend nerd extravaganza.

-The convention center food was not terrible and not too badly overpriced.

-We did not have to pay for a single autograph/picture.

-There were show-sponsored concerts that were included with admission (and they rocked).

-Most people seemed to follow "Wheaton's Law"

Not-So-Good-Stuff about PAX East:
-The Con was held the weekend of DST kicking in (a la "Spring ahead") so we lost an hour Sunday morning after the concert, which translated into 1 less hour to sleep, which translated into thousands of sleep-deprived convention-goers. Sunday looked a bit like the Walking Dead (minus the blood and entrails). But it was soooo worth it.
JoCo summed it up best at the end of his set on Saturday night/Sunday morning: "It's late at night. It's spring forward night which I think it means it's already Wednesday, so we're all fucked." Indeed, sir.

-We did have to take a cab to the bus depot from the convention center as there was no other mode of transportation, but it was fairly inexpensive.

-Convention center food was pretty much the only option for sustenance.

Good stuff about NYCC:
-It was held in NYC, so it wasn't much longer than my normal morning commute to attend, plus I was familiar with the train/bus routes already, and I got to sleep in my own bed at night.

-Overall, it was fun...ish.

-Bought some cool toys/merch

-Got some autographs/pictures from some cool people.

-We saw some great Cosplay

Not-So-Good Stuff about NYCC:
-Many non-follower's of Wheaton's Law (Worst offenders: the 3 douche mongers who cut in front of 1000 people in line to see the Masquerade).

-Lack of organization/information from the staff

-Lack of information provided by the show management/organizers

-Paying for autographs sucks ass (apparently $30 is the new $20)

-Etc, etc, etcNow, this all having been said, I understand that organizing and executing a large convention of these magnitudes (or larger) is not easy. I know that it takes the show management team loads of planning all year long and that at the end of the day, it's not possible to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. I know all of this because I happen to work for such a company (who will remain nameless to protect their identities and my job). So having an insider's view of the convention/trade show management process, I think I'm qualified to be a little picky about the conventions I choose to attend. I don't plan to attend NYCC in the future, unless I can be a guest on a panel or possibly qualify as press with my blog. However, after my scathing reviews, they may not even want me there...

New York Comic Con (Part 2: Attack of the Assholes) ~UPDATED~

NYCC Day 2
Today just started out on a bad note, a note that, unfortunately carried on throughout the day. I woke up excited about my costume, I went as Baby Doll from Batman: the Animated Series. Unfortunately, I woke up with a dry stabbing tickle in my throat, the unmistakable feeling that a head cold was eminent int he near future. Poop. Boyfriend and I got our costumes ready, he was also going as a BTAS villain. I tried to power through the sickiness feeling and pump myself up for a fun-filled day.


After getting off the subway in midtown, the wind was whipping down 42nd st while we waited for the bus to take us over to the west side, since there is no subway directly to the JCC yet and I hate 34th st. I was quite chilly in my little dress. We were a little late meeting our buddy Max and thus missed the first panel we wanted to go to, then we couldn't get into another panel due to it's time having changed to an hour earlier. The time changed? How the hell was anyone supposed to know? There were no signs, the app wasn't updated, the Twitter feed wasn't updated, there was no way anyone could have know that! Was anyone even in that panel as a spectator?
So, grumbling about yet another fuck-up by show management we decided to go to the autograph area to see Felicia Day for an affordable $22! Her wrangler/handler/helper-person who was taking our tickets was a colossal bitch with some serious power issues. Max went first in line, then Boyfriend, then me. But even though I was with the boys/taking their pictures, Handler-Lady wouldn't let more than 2 people at the table at a time. Then when it was my turn to talk to Felicia, Handler-Lady closed the line for the day and rushed everyone through. So even though I paid just like everyone else, I was rushed through and didn't get to pick up an autograph from Felicia. Lame!!! I got a pic with boyfriend and Felicia, but felt really screwed by Handler-Lady and the "green shirts" rushing everyone out of line. Bitches. That really put a damper on the rest of my day. I tweeted Felicia that night, but she's a busy gal, I don't blame her for not being able to get back to me.

So, we got some dinner (oh and way to go running out of fried food and Cherry Coke, Javits Center! You seriously don't know your audience!) and attempted to process the failure of a day we just experienced. But, we still had the 2 Walking Dead panels, the Avengers panel, and the Masquerade to look forward to that evening, and all 3 panels were held back-to-back in the large IGN Theater, we were sure to get in to at least one of those. (Oh hope and optimism, you fickle bitches.)

We got to the line for the Walking Dead panels 90 minutes beforehand, both were full and the line was closed. What?!
So we asked if there was a holding area for the Avengers panel. Full. Dare we ask about the Masquerade line? After milling about trying to find someone with information, we followed a "green shirt" to the Masquerade line which appeared to be a bunch of people corralled in an airplane hangar with the shittiest metal line busters you've ever seen. If you breathed on those things they would tumble to the concrete floor and clatter with ear-pounding awfulness. To say that the Masquerade line was a clusterfuck was the understatement of the year. It zigged and zagged through this abyss of a holding area as more and more people trampled in. We were in line for at least an hour before they started shuffling us out in a snaking slow-moving "line" of people. One word came to mind: Moo.

Now the geniuses running NYCC decided that they would lead this ever-growing living mass of crazy through the convention center...you know, where anyone could just join the line anywhere they wanted (and they did). They moved us in this way just to put us in another airplane hangar! Why we didn't just start in that hangar to begin with, I don't know. But now in this new hangar, the "line" gained a couple hundred "line-cutters" including the 3 assholes behind us who attempted to cut in front of us. I wasn't having any of this. Boyfriend and I called them out on their douchery, but they cared not.
This the face of someone not obeying Wheaton's Law!

On the bright side, we looked as though we were somewhere near the front half of the line, so we would get seats, and probably decent seats at that. Huzzah.
As I peered behind me at the frighteningly large mass of people, we all thought the same thing, "WTF? There is no way half of these people are getting into that theater."

Our conclusion: NYCC oversold their tickets for Saturday by at least 2,000 people. Why? Simply, because the JCC can legally hold X number of people, but the conference rooms can only hold X-3000 number of people. (Sorry to hit you with a sudden burst of math.) There is no reason that 3 panels in the largest room available should fill up 2 hours before they start.

But, we tried to put that thought out of our heads and anticipate the Masquerade while trying to keep the Douchey 3 from cutting in line even more. Enter a surly hoarse "green shirt" yelling something incoherently at us as she made her way up and down the aisles. The message: "Due to technical difficulties, the Masquerade will not start until 10:15pm." At this point, it was 8:45pm, the Masquerade was scheduled for 8:30pm, and we'd been standing in line for almost 2 hours.

At this point Max, Boyfriend, and I had just had enough of this shitty excuse for a day. We said "fuck it" with several hundred other people and left the airplane hangar, the giant line, the orchestra of clattering metal line busters, and the 3 douchebags behind. We tried to be positive and optimistic that Sunday might be salvageable, but the disappointments with high prices, disorganization, and lack of communication on behalf of NYCC was inexcusable. (Especially with all the technology and nerds the world has at it's disposal!)

The day wasn't a complete wash, though, we got to meet Felicia Day and Jewel Staite. We saw some awesome Cosplay. We saw Steven Lang from Terra Nova. We did get into an interesting fantasy novelists panel, and we came to a very important conclusion: next year, we might come back to NYCC, but we are certainly not wasting money on a 3 day pass when one day can hold all the excitement and/or disappointment we need. I also decided on a new goal: get this blog up and running fairly regularly so that I can attend NYCC on a Press Pass next year, and hopefully by then I can afford a better camera to take way better photos for the enjoyment of all.

NYCC Day 2 = 1.5 Lightsabers out of 5