Gen Con...The Costume Edition

Mystery Men!

I've been back for almost a week and this is the first chance I've had to download photos and decompress from this year's Gen Con. For those of you who aren't familiar, each year Jess and I travel with my family to a gaming convention in Indianapolis. We play games, we play-test games, we talk about games, we eat lots of fantastic dinners while talking about games, and we look at costumes. Sometimes gaming costumes, most times not.

Don't know the character (anyone know?) but love the costume

We had a blast as usual. I always eat too much and don't play enough and this year was no exception. But we did end up coming home with three new games to try, some books from our favorite webcomics, and some cool steampunk accessories. I also found a writing quill which I think will get a lot of use for drawing. I came home with a lot of energy for creating.

These guys were huge hits of the convention. Love the Lego hands on Batman

We didn't spend quite as much time with family this trip and I feel a little sad about that. While looking through my pictures from the trip there are only two with family members in them. The evenings we spent with everyone but most of the mornings and early afternoons were just Jess and I. Not that I didn't have fun, but I would have loved to play more with everyone. I've really missed gaming lately. Jess and I have decided that we'll pick one day per weekend to play one of the games we have. Otherwise they just sit and gather dust and we only play games when we're with other people.

With Starfleet Airship Division. After I took his picture he gave me some Starfleet cash

As you can see, the costumes were just as good as usual this year. Each time I go I am blown away by people's creativity. And I come back wanting to make a costume for the next time we get to a convention. I had tossed around the idea of a simple Portal costume but never ended up making it. Perhaps next year. My next post will look at some of the crafts and hobbies that I was blown away by. I need to do more creating.

My mother, finds Waldo (my father). His costume was a huge hit. People even chased him down the street for photos. 

The man in the suit and tie is supposed to be Tony Stark. He had the arc reactor in his chest (although the blue glow didn't come out in this photo) and would toss out cheesy lines as each person took a picture. He was hilarious. 

Ghosts of Halloween Past

I've been going through some of my old pictures recently. Be warned. I'll probably post some of the older ones here. I'm a photo junkie, although I don't end up taking a ton of them myself. But I love when people send me old family photos. One of the ones I had in my album was the one below. Believe it or not, that's me, ready to head out for a fun night of trick-or-treating (although I looked stoned on candy already or maybe it was the wallpaper). I can't imagine how old I was. I'm terrible at guessing.

When I was younger, I went out dressed up a lot as cowboys or pirates or monsters. I was almost drawn to those type of action oriented characters. I also went out as an animal frequently. I remember an owl costume, a lion costume, and cat ears. I was never (to my knowledge) a princess, a fairy, or rockstar. I didn't do a lot of traditionally female costumes.

 I've been having a discussion with a friend of mine about how difficult it is to find women's Halloween costumes that aren't a bit slutty. It seems like every costume is for sexy nurses, sexy cops, sexy ladybugs, sexy librarians (which I pull off in my daily life ;-) ), sexy witches... everything sexy. A witch becomes a sexy witch. So now if I were to dress up, I would probably go in a man's costume. No one wants to be thrust that deeply into my cleavage.

But I have gone out in more traditionally female costumes as these pictures prove. These were Halloween parties that my sister threw back when Jeff and I were first married. The first year is me in the flapper dress, one of my favorite costumes. Jeff went as Jacob Marley (I love a man in a literary reference costume). The second year I was lazy and went in a Renaissance costume we had. My friend Josh is with us as Dracula, looking rather dashing for the undead. So I guess there are some costumes out there that don't stop at the crotch or show off "huge tracts of land". Maybe there is help for next year's Halloween.

Costumes

Inspired by all the amazing Victorian and steampunk costumes I saw this week (like the beauty above) I picked up a sewing pattern for an outfit. We won't be going back to Gen Con for another two years most likely, so I should have time to brush up on my stitches. I haven't done a ton of sewing and my preference is for hand-sewing, so this should be a bit of a challenge. But I have to try. Isn't that red one just lovely? Now imagine it with a pair of goggles and a steampunked pistol.

Packing and Planning

I'm in the mad rush to get everything done before we leave on vacation tomorrow. I'm heading out to Indianapolis for GenCon and I'm a bit excited. In an odd move for me, I've left packing until the very end. I'm normally one of those people who starts packing the week before a vacation. I'm a bit of a planner if you couldn't tell.

So with company arriving in the next couple hours and getting ready to be gone for a week, these last two days I haven't really thought about blogging. I'll be back with plenty of pictures. There will be fun costumes everywhere. I'll also be back with some good stories. This will be a weekend to let my inner geek out to play. Embrace your geekiness is the family motto. So I'll be back next week with pure geek wonderfulness. Until then, have a fantastic week.

Watching the Derby

Now I know that right at this moment my sports fanatic (and racing fanatic) friend Dan is chomping at the bit to tell me that that Preakness was this weekend, not the Derby. And he would be right. But hold your horses Dan. It isn't horse racing I'm talking about, it's Roller Derby.

I had a fantastic weekend filled with family. On Friday night my little sister, my parents, and Jeff and I went out to dinner at one of my favorite Thai places in town. It was incredibly tasty and my sister even agreed to split a mango and sticky rice dessert with me (a rare treat). Then we hung out and talked at my parent's house until late. While I was there the phone rang and it was my older sister. She wanted to know if we would go to the roller derby with her on Saturday. One of her coworkers was making her debut and she wanted to have a group there to support her. Of course we couldn't pass that up. I told her we'd pick up tickets and that we'd meet her there that night.

Saturday we had no where to be until 7 so Jeff and I bummed around town, shopped, ran errands, ate breakfast and dinner out. It was heavenly. During the day I had stopped in to see my older sister at her work, the beauty supply shop Ulta. While I was there she suggested that I get my eyebrows waxed (they needed it). And who should be doing my waxing but the same girl who would be in the derby that night. We talked about how nervous she was and I tried to reassure her. She looked like a roller derby girl.

That night we headed down to the events center and found a pretty decent crowd at the derby. I've never been before (heck I've never seen roller derby before) so I had little idea what to expect. With a beer in hand I settled in to watch. Roller derby for those who haven't gone has got to be one of the best places to people watch ever. I loved the costumes which went from risque to downright weird. The girls are often wearing very short shorts and fishnet stockings. I saw furry leg warmers, tutus, and one woman with feathers glued to her eyelashes. Then the match started. A roller derby match is broken up into jams, where a jammer tries to score by getting past the pack once and then making it through them again for points. Our girls racked up massive points quickly against an inexperienced team but it was pretty exciting. There were girls falling all over the place. My sister's coworker ended up being the first person in the penalty box but had a ball. There were body checks and fast skating and skimpy costumes everywhere. Even the participants names were hilarious. A great time.

After the derby we headed out for drinks with my sister, her fiance, one of her friends (along with her son), and my sister's coworker who was beaming from ear to ear. We stayed out way too late and I was exhausted by the time I finally stumbled into bed. Sunday I met some family for brunch and then Jeff and I headed home. I've been working on a presentation that I have to give on Wednesday which is why this is so late. But it was a wonderful weekend and I'm sure I'll be heading back to the roller derby again. I probably won't go every week but it's nice to know that we have a team, and that they're a lot of fun to watch.