Posts tagged atlanta
Dragon*Con 2010: The Madness!
Sep 13th
Dragon*Con 2010 took place in Atlanta last weekend. During this, my 4th year of attendance, I had a lot of fun as always. But I gotta say, it had a few moments of FAIL that make me kind of leery about the commitments I’m willing to make for next year.
To start with, I will absolutely NOT be pre-registering as I did this year. Through a series of FAIL, I ended up with 2 badges: the one I pre-registered for and never picked up because they wanted me to wait outside for 4+ hours, and the one I paid cash for and had hanging around my neck inside of 10 minutes. Apparently I’m not the only one who thought the wait was completely not worth it and just bought another badge. I have since read that D*C plans to switch to a barcode system for next year that *should* make things run more smoothly, but I’ll believe it works when I see it. I also had a friend there trying to pick up a Press Badge, and what should have been a simple process became a 60 minute ordeal as no one knew exactly where the pick up was, and we ended up going from the Sheraton to the Hyatt and back to the Sheraton before she was actually able to get it.
It would also appear that the con is getting a little too big for its britches. Hotel security went into lock down a couple of times, only allowing people with con badges or room keys to get into the hotel. From what I heard, the Fire Marshall was threatening shut down due to too many people. Though the con is spread out over 4+ hotels, there’s not enough room for everyone! The wall to wall bodies was not fun.
I also heard that there were a NUMBER of sexual harassment and battery issues taking place throughout the course of the weekend. While this didn’t personally happen to me, I have to admit that I didn’t feel safe enough this year to go anywhere by myself. The number of people was not comforting, and the limited number of staff and con security didn’t make me feel entirely ‘secure’.
I won’t even go into the problems of staying in a con hotel. Of course it had amazing benefits, but the elevator situation was just plain annoying. And walking down 18 flights of stairs wasn’t very fun either.
All in all, my complaints aren’t terrible enough to prevent me from going back, and my level of enjoyment was still quite high. So here are a few choice photos from the weekend for your viewing enjoyment!
Dragon*Con 09 review – coming soon
Sep 8th
So, because I have WAY too much work to get done tonight, I am taking the time to post that in the coming days, I will recap my impressions of Dragon*Con this year. So be warned. There may even be photos posted, since I took so freakin’ many.
You too can smell like purple!
Jul 9th
At World of Coke, they are clever devils, as you would expect from such a global corporation. The only way to get out of the building is by exiting through the gift shop. Now Snackpants loves him some Coke products. So we browse through the t-shirts, the shot glasses, the stuffed Coke polar bears, the lip balms and the messanger bags, and find a table with scented shirts. That’s right – the shirts come pre-stinked for you in a variety of scents. One of the Coke products loved so dearly by Snackpants is Grape Fanta. And wouldn’t you know it, they have a shirt bearing just that odor.
Snackpants does not get to enjoy the Grape Fanta as frequently as he may like, due to the predominant ethnic population at his place of business, who happen to share his affinity for the fizzy purple drink. As a way of satiating his love, I now have (sitting here beside me on my desk) a shirt that smells like purple.
I am undecided as to whether or not I will actually wear this shirt. Were my social life more active, I would be concerned about being sniffed by virtual strangers. On the other hand, it eliminates the need for deodorant or perfume, as long as I don’t operate heavy machinery or go for a jog. I am thinking about just keeping it in a Ziploc so as to preserve it’s purple smell for as long as possible, since the scent comes out in 8-12 washes.
What ever is a girl to do! If nothing else, I will take the sticker off before wearing it in public. No one should walk around wearing an open invitation like that!
Big Naked Weenie
Jul 7th
No, this does not mean that this post will be pornographic in nature! That was actually the name of the menu item I ordered for lunch at The Vortex Bar & Grill yesterday.
It was exactly what is said: a big naked weenie. A footlong all-beef hot dog with nothing on it, cause that’s how I roll. And instead of fries, I got… tater tots!!! And they were crispy and yummy and so awesome!
Snackpants ordered this monstrosity consisting of bison meat, cheese, bacon, and onion rings [edit: I forgot the BBQ sauce! For shame!]. It was an adventure watching him trying to smash it into his mouth without things falling all over the place, since it was so tall.
The Vortex is a really cool place. I think my favorite feature was the toaster on the ceiling. There were all kinds of random things on the walls and the ceiling. Perhaps my least favorite thing was that they allow smoking, but I admit that it was separate enough that I could not tell that there were people actually smoking in the restaurant. And of course, I LOVED that it was 18 and up only. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against kids or teenagers eating in restaurants – but having an adult only place was kind of cool.
After lunch we headed to the aquarium, which was just awesome. We saw all kinds of crazy fish and whales, weird looking creatures and humongous sharks! The highlight of the afternoon had to be when we went into one of the banquet rooms (which was technically not open, I don’t think, but the doors were open) and had a closer view of the Beluga whales. Here is Snackpants with his new friend:
The fun didn’t stop there. There were 2 females and one male, and the females liked swimming by that back window. Of course, they liked doing their business by that window as well, so we had front row seats to Beluga whale poop. It was pretty gross. Ah, nature.
Here are a couple of other things we saw:
After the Aquarium, since the World of Coke was just right there, we decided to go. Admittedly I was not real excited about it, since I am not a Coke fan. But it was neat. We got to see a small bottling plant in the building, a real cute “documentary” about the folks that work inside the Coke machine and put the soda in the bottle when you put a coin the machine, and go on a very intense 4D ride that should be banned from even a theme park for being so violent!
We tasted some lovely drinks from around the world, Snackpants (for some unknown reason) decided to verify that the Beverly was still gross, and we got our commemorative “World of Coke” Coke bottles to take home. A tiring but very good day.
