That Reena Girl

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07-26-11

Comic Con 2011 Recap: 50% Shorter, 110% Better

Another Comic Con has come and gone. But this year, despite only attending Friday and Saturday was the most epic of them all! Since the internet is about ready to overflow with everyone’s recaps, I’ll keep it short and give you the highlights.

Friday:

Friday I headed down to the convention center with no real plan for the day.  I had made the decision to not attend panels this year because I just didn’t want to deal with the chaos and the waiting. Before I even entered, I was handed a “Shark Week” jumbo bag. Score.

My first stop after picking up my badge was to visit the ZeroFriends booth to say hi to my buddy Alex Pardee. After some hugs, he was off to a meeting and I was off to walk the floor, which is how I spent my day. I went to all the major media company booths, taking pictures along the way and collecting all the free pins I could – I love Comic Con flare. After doing a few laps around the exhibit hall with my friend Ashley, I ventured outside into the Gaslamp District which was teeming with freebies (swag recap to follow).

Alex and I at his booth

It was pretty warm outside so after walking up and down 4^th and 5^th, I went back inside. While heading over to a booth another friend works at every year, I saw Nicholas Brendan. Being a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I couldn’t resist asking for a picture. He said sure but “why don’t you get in the picture too?” and had some random guy snap a shot. He was very very nice and I told him that my best friend was dressing up as “Prophecy Girl” and he said to bring her by.

After I roamed around some more, met up with my friends Adrienne and Adam and watched people take pictures of her and her friend every 10 feet – They we dressed as Panty and Stocking, which is an anime show.

We all walked back together and day one came to a close for me.

Saturday:

My Saturday started off as kind of nightmare; the Farmer’s Market in front of my house towed my car. While I was figuring out where my car ended up, Entertainment Weekly contacted me via Twitter and asked me if I wanted to meet Nathan Fillion. Thankfully, it was in the afternoon so I said yes.

But…I had been planning to go as Finn from Adventure Time that day. To Finn or not to Finn…I was meeting a celebrity, I should have wanted to look my best right? But I had worked really hard putting my costume together and making sure it was both cute and accurate so I said “screw it” and got ALGEBRAIC! This turned out to be a very very good decision.

My boyfriend MJ and I fist bumping like the Obamas

Today I was rolling with my bf and my bff. My best friend Jessica – who never goes by Jessica, we call her Buffy—came with me dressed as Buffy from the Season One finale “Prophecy Girl”. Before we got there, we stopped for coffee. While I was waiting for my latte a little boy, probably no older than 7 asked me if I was Finn. I said yes and he got SUPER excited. He told me my costume was perfect and we fist bumped and took a picture. Too cute.

Our first stop was Mr. Brendan as I told him I would bring my Buffy by the previous day. They met, he loved her costume, and I snapped a cute photo of them.

When Buffy met Xander

As I was making my way back to my friend Alex’s booth, we passed by Cartoon Network’s giant Adventure Time centric booth. They looked like they were filming something so I stopped for a minute. A girl working the booth then asked me if I wanted to be on Cartoon Network and I of course said yes.  I filmed several segment for Adventure Time such as “you’re watching Adventure Time on Cartoon Network” and “And we’re back with more Adventure Time!”…you get the point. So watch for me on Cartoon Network. New episodes of Adventure Time are on Monday nights at 8pm!

After my brilliant on camera performance, B and I headed over to Hard Rock to meet up with EW and Nathan Fillion. Thanks to Twitter, I got the opportunity to play trivia with none other than Captain Malcolm Reynolds himself. A very nice man came down and got us and another girl and brought up to a suite at the top floor.  Even though B wasn’t able to play, they said she could watch. Everyone at EW was so nice! They gave us all t-shirts, asked us if we needed any water or anything, I almost felt like a celebrity myself. Then Mr. Fillion arrived and we got to trivia.

Rather than tell you all the questions and how I did, you can watch the whole thing here: The Fillion Feud!

After we finished filming, he gave me a signed Serenity keychain and we took some photos. He was also super nice. Very charming and funny. I can see why so many ladies love him

Oh hey…just hanging out with Captain Mal. No big

I mentioned in the game that Buffy had the scythe tattooed on her leg and he said he had to see it. She showed it to him and he said “I’ve got to get a picture”. He tweeted it later on.

After all the excitement, B and I split up and I grabbed some food with my man. B was heading to the Zombie Walk so after we ate, we headed over too. Quite a turnout! So many different kinds of zombies- baby zombies, dog zombies, superhero zombies, and classic zombies too. I have a pretty rad video of it too that I’ll upload later. One of my favorites was Han Solo in Carbonite Zombie (even though at first I thought he was Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II)

So after one last trip to the exhibit hall, we said bye to Buffy and I headed home. I was exhausted, but it had been a crazy, fun filled day.  Even though I only did two of the four days, this was definitely the best Comic Con ever.

07-22-11

ThatReenaGirl’s Do’s and Don’ts of Comic Con

I have survived another year at San Diego’s Comic Con International. This was my 4^th year in attendance at the conference I affectionately call “my Christmas”. Though I’m hardly a veteran – there are people who have been attending since it was JUST about comics, can you believe it?! – I saw more and more attendees that seemed to be new to the game. In an effort to help guide the n00bz, I’ve put together a simple lists of do’s and don’ts for Comic Con:

DO: Plan ahead!

If you want to get into the panel for your favorite show, be prepared to wait…for hours (however, lining up days before Comic Con even starts is a little obsessive…). The best chance to get into something in Hall H or Ballroom 20 is to pack a lunch, plenty of water and a book, get there before it opens in the morning, and stay put until your panel starts. Last year I wanted to see the Dexter panel and sat in Ballroom 20 for just about 5 hours. The nice thing is, they give you tickets for free merch that you can collect after you leave.

DON’T: Half ass your costume.

Dressing up for Comic Con is great, but if you’re gonna do it, do it right. There are many people who work for weeks on end perfecting the most amazing costumes. Most people make an effort to be as accurate as possible and you should too.

Just a warning- if you want to walk the floor with some level of freedom and anonymity, reconsider dressing up. The cooler your costume, the more people will want to take your picture. Same goes for ladies in sexy getups. Speaking of that…

Ladies, not to single you out but this isn’t Halloween: animal ears and lingerie aren’t going to cut it. If you want to go the sexy route, there are PLENTY of sexy females from comics and/or movies to choose from. Hell, even your leftover Sexy Supergirl costume from Halloween three years ago acceptable. And before you decide on the ol’ sexy standby – Slave Leia – please watch this:

 Some of the best free swag is outside of Comic Con. Take a walk around the Gaslamp District and collect pins, inflatable weapons, temporary tattoos, visors, sunglasses, etc.  This is also where the free food is. Plus, it’s always good to get some sunshine!

This year, they were giving out “Shark Week” bags and Roku was handing out Angry Birds tattoos and periodically tossing Angry Bird plush toys and t-shirts into the crowd. I even heard there were Conan O’Brien oven mitts! And just like last year they were handing out free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, 7-11 was giving out free Slurpies and IGN had a whole “Oasis” set up at Hard Rock with free baked goods and drinks.

DON’T: Forget your manners!

Comic Con is very very crowded and a little courtesy goes a long way. Here are a few things to keep in mind-

• “Please” and “thank you” to the people who give you free stuff, sign something for you, who let you take their picture of, etc.
• Say “excuse me” when trying to get by and/or you hit someone with your weapon accessories
• Move out of the way for wheelchairs and strollers
• Move off to the side of the aisle if you’re having a conversation, looking for something in your bag, unable to text and walk etc.
• When asking a question in a panel, follow the rules (direct your question to ONE person on the panel, ask a relevant question, pay attention to previous questions so you don’t repeat…)

DO: Check out independent artists’ booths.

Everyone seems to congregate around the major media booths but there are two other sections of the exhibit hall you should totally check out. Towards the A section are the independent artists booths. Many have awesome comics, prints, figures, t-shirts, etc for sale. I know it’s hard to leave the allure of Hollywood’s major set up, which the chance of catching a glimpse of your favorite celebrity, but it’s worth it.

While you’re on your Comic Con cultural expedition, on the opposite end in G Section is Artist’s Alley. Here you can meet your favorite comic book artists, view their work and buy prints. Many of them have amazing pieces for sale. Even if you’re not looking to buy, stop by and check out some truly talented people’s work.

Comic Con will always be crowded and chaotic, but it also a totally awesome experience that I look forward to every year. Heed these simple rules and you’ll get along just fine.

07-13-11

Everything is Amazing and Nobody’s Happy: The Netflix Edition

There is a gross sense of entitlement in this country that really aggravates me. Our current first world problem is that DVD and Web streaming service Netflix increased their prices. THE HORROR!

First of all, they only raised prices on the combination plans that include both DVDs and streaming. You can still have the $9/month rate if you choose one or the other. While the combo plans now start at a whopping $16/month, an apparent 60% increase, the backlash it is generating is just plain silly. $16 a month for hundreds, maybe thousands of movies and TV shows? Really? You’re going to complain and freak out about that?

Am I wealthy? No. Do I have boatloads of college loan debt? Yep. Can I afford $16 a month for Netflix? Yeah, I can.

Let’s put it into perspective: My first job was at Blockbuster Video. To rent a single movie it was about $4 (and I’m rounding down here). So if your month movie budget was $16 a month, you could rent 4 movies, or one a week if you wanted to evenly break it up. Now that’s just the movie rental. This does not include gas to get there or, heaven forbid you returned you movie late, late fees. Movies were either rented for 2 days for new releases or 5 days for older titles so you didn’t even get the entire week to watch it.

Netflix single handedly killed the video store business. Now movies either arrive in your mailbox or on your computer. You pay a standard monthly fee and can keep your DVDs as long as you want without any late charges. And we’re spoiled by it. There have been articles and blog posts saying “Oh Netflix doesn’t need the money, their just being selfish!”. Well just because profits are up, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t raise prices. Do you think it’s cheap to license all those titles? To build a cloud based system (with a super back up in case that fails) so your service is always available?

Part of the reason is to drive more customers away from DVDs and to the streaming service. In my opinion, this makes sense. Mailing DVDs is expensive. DVDs get damaged and have to be replaced and Netflix has to stock multiple copies of popular titles.

Even now, you can’t even purchase a single, non special edition DVD for less than $5. And how much do you pay for cable? I’m willing to bet it is a lot more than you pay for Netflix and that’s without any movie channels like HBO.

We just want it all. We want to pay less than $10/month for movies we could ever watch in a lifetime, delivered the second we want them AND delivered to our doorstep. We don’t appreciate how convenient Netflix has made movie viewing or how cheap. I leave you with this clip from Louis CK that I always watch during times like this: