Once Upon a Geek

SUNDAY continued

After a relaxing day wandering the Dealer Room, Exhibitor Rooms, the Celebrity Walk of Fame, and the Art Show, it was time for THE UNIQUE GEEK annual dinner.  This is basically a chance for all those that participate in THE UNIQUE GEEK to get together and hang out.  It’s open to anyone who participates in our listserv, listens to our podcast, or that we find randomly wandering the streets.  Last year the restaurant we chose was abysmal; the service was terrible and the food was cooked all wrong.  The only saving grace last year was the company.  I’m pleased to say that this year was a huge success!  There was a good turnout, the service and food were outstanding, lots of booze was consumed, and everyone had a blast!  We ate in the Hilton restaurant called “Trader Vics”, hence the official drink of THE UNIQUE GEEK became Mai Tais.  Below you’ll find a picture of the group, as well as a video.  Unfortunately, neither Jon nor Michael Bailey made it into the video… well, maybe that’s for the best. 

The gang included: Jon, Serv, Scott C, Michael Bailey (and spouse), Rox of Spazhouse, Ravenface, Shockwave, Race, Holly, Jemma, Jaiman, Eli, Ron, and myself.  Shockwave’s spouse even made a brief appearance decked out in her Cobra Baroness costume.

If you can’t use the embedded video player, you can watch the video by clicking here.

So we got a little noisy.  Given that we were a party of fifteen, that’s probably not too surprising.  Sitting two tables away from us were the guys from NeedCoffee.com.  They know our shenanigans pretty well, so I wasn’t worried about disturbing them.  However, sandwiched between the NeedCoffee guys and The Unique Geek folks was this quiet little table with two guys.  These two guys were keeping their heads low and obviously trying to carry on a conversation.  I felt kinda bad for these two guys being surrounded by such gregarious geeks.  A little later one of my table mates pointed out who the two guys were… they were Darth Maul & Boba Fett!  I’m not talking two guys in Star Wars costumes, I mean the actual actors.  It was Ray Park (Darth Maul in “Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace”, the Toad from “X-Men”, and soon to be Snake Eyes in “GI Joe”) and Daniel Logan (the young Boba Fett in “Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones”).  How cool!  I feel bad that we probably disturbed their dinner.  On the other hand, we can say that Darth Maul & Boba Fett were intimated by The Unique Geeks.  We rock!

After the dinner we retired to Harvey Dent’s Suite to watch the costume contest on closed circuit television.  We spent a while flipping channels, mocking the costumes, then watching Tropical Storm Fay, then watching the Sound of Music, then back to the costumes, then back to Tropical Storm Fay, then rinse, and repeat.  Somewhere about this time I fell asleep, as I often do.  A few folks left, I woke up about 20 minutes later, and then we started play some cool games.  The first game we played was called “Werewolf”.  In this game there is one person running the game, one person is secretly a werewolf, and everyone else is a villager.  The object of the game is to discover who the werewolf is before all the villagers are eaten.  It’s a really fun game with lots of laughs.  The person running the game was Ravenface, who was also drinking healthy portions of Crown Royal at the same time (this will be important later).  Poor Eli was the werewolf’s first victim every game we played; he really was a great sport about it.  The next game was called something like, “A Celebrity Walks into a Bar”.  This was another guessing game, but it required some memory skills.  I believe it was a game created by our own Holly, but I can’t promise that.  It was another fun game and there were lots more laughs.  After a few more games, it was getting late and most people went back to their rooms to go to sleep.  But not our fearless inebriated host Ravenface.  He was ready for action…

If you can’t use the embedded video player, you can watch the video by clicking here.

Around 2:30am, after conquering the Drum Circle, a good handful of us ended up at the DragonCon Dance.  This was a very dark room with blaring 1980’s pop music (such as Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and the Beastie Boys “Fight for Your Right”), filled with geeks who can’t dance (myself included).  Interestingly enough, this was probably one of the few dances in the world where a lightsaber was an acceptable substitute for a raver’s glow stick…

If you can’t use the embedded video player, you can watch the video by clicking here.

Completely exhausted, I got to bed around 3:30am that night.  Unfortunately, it was my turn to sleep on the floor.  Ouch.

More tomorrow…

SUNDAY

Sunday was a nice and easy day as compared to Saturday.  There weren’t a whole bunch of panels I was anxious to see that day, and ultimately ended up not attending any panels.  Instead I spent a whole bunch of time going through the Dealer Room’s, Exhibitor Room, the Celebrity Walk of Fame, and taking a bunch of pictures.

While in the Celebrity Walk of Fame, Serv and I took some time to stop by Michael Dorn’s table.  Michael Dorn is best known for his role as the Klingon Worf on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ and ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’.  However, that’s not the only show he’s starred on… As we approached the table, Dorn had this disinterested look on his face as some obsessive Star Trek fan was asking him about wearing all the Klingon make-up.  Serv and I asked Dorn if he could pose for a photo with us.  Still looking somewhat bored, he politely informed us that he couldn’t as DragonCon is very strict about celebrity photos only taking place during the scheduled photo opportunities.  We were disappointed, but carried on.  We then explained to Dorn that we were hoping to get his picture because we were actually big fans of the show CHiPs.  At this point, Dorn really perked up.  Yup, believe it or not, Dorn was a regular on CHiPs (starring in 78 episodes according to Dorn).  We then spent about five minutes talking with Dorn about CHiPs.  He said he stays in touch with a couple of the guys from the show and was disappointed when they didn’t contact him to be in the revival, CHiPs 2000.  He went on to say that if they’d called him, he would have done the revival for free just to have the opportunity to hang out with those guys again. He also mentioned that Chris Pine (who is playing the young James T. Kirk in the upcoming Star Trek movie) is the son of Robert Pine (who played the Sergeant on CHiPs).  Small world.  It would have been cool to get our picture with Dorn so we could put it beside our picture from 2007 with Erik Estrada.

We also swung by Michael Rosenbaum’s table.  Rosenbaum is best known as Lex Luthor on Smallville.  While I watched the first few seasons of that show, I’m more a fan of Rosenbaum’s work on the Justice League cartoons as the voice of the Flash.    I really wanted to get my picture with him, but he mentioned that he was probably going to skip his last photo op.  So I instead settled for an autographed photo (below) and a handshake.  We’re totally BFF now; I can feel it.

I also took some time to stroll through the Art Show.  In all the years I’ve come to DragonCon, I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never actually visited the Art Show.  So this was a nice treat.  Last year, my friend Sterling bought me a print of an Aquaman painting.  He bought it to help inspire my writing.  While I really haven’t put much time into fictional writing this past year, I do believe it’s help inspire me to write more; for example this very blog was started just six months ago.  I love the Aquaman print so much I went searching to see if the same artist was there this year.  His name is Tom Fleming and he’s done some fantastic paintings for both Marvel and DC.  Recently he’s done some of the VS. trading card game images for DC.  When I found his booth, I was in awe at his work.  I quickly found the Aquaman image hanging up on his booth… and then I was taken aback by the kick-ass Firestorm image hanging right next to Aquaman.  It’s almost like he knew I was coming.  Needless to say, there is now a framed Firestorm print by Tom Fleming hanging on my wall right next to my framed Aquaman print.

Come back tomorrow to hear the rest of Sunday.  As a sneak peek, the rest of the day included alcohol, Snake Eyes, werewolves, and the Beastie Boys.  Be afraid, be very afraid.

Exhaustion triumphed over me last night.  Getting 3 hours of sleep for several days in a row finally caught up with me.  I passed out rocking my daughter to sleep last night.  I usually write all my posts VERY late at night and schedule them for the next morning.

Come back next week for my recap of Sunday & Monday at DragonCon, some of my favorite pictures, and hopefully some videos too!

Keep it geeky!

The Irredeemable Shag

The good news is that I survived DragonCon.  The bad news is that I’m having trouble re-acclimatizing to regular life.  After being completely immersed in geekdom for four straight days, it’s a little hard to suddenly be transported from the wild to “civilized” society.

I had a fantastic time!  This was definitely one of the best years I’ve had at this convention!  Over the next few days I’ll try to cover my madcap adventures at DragonCon 2008.  Of the 500 pictures I took, a little over 400 were worth keeping.  I should have them uploaded to my Flickr account soon.  I also have a couple videos I plan to upload for your viewing enjoyment.  A few of my friends that typically attend DragonCon didn’t come this year.  Hopefully these blogs will help fill them in and possibly encourage them to attend next year.

With the convention over, I gotta say that if I see one more lame Joker/Joker Nurse costume I’m going to freak out.  Apparently dressing like the Joker is the new black.  Sheesh.

FRIDAY

The flight from Tallahassee to Atlanta went great.  I caught up with Serv and we immediately went to Moe’s in the airport.  I know, airport Moe’s?  Can’t possibly be as good as a regular Moe’s, right?  Well, they don’t have Moe’s where Serv lives and he was jonesing for it pretty badly. I’m confident that if he didn’t eat Moe’s within 20 minutes of touching ground in Atlanta he would have suffered some kind of seizure.  An alternative may have been to mainline some Chick-Fil-A (which they also don’t have in the great white north), but Moe’s did the trick.

After lunch, we caught up with another friend from THE UNIQUE GEEK, Jon, then we all rode the MARTA from the airport to Peachtree Center.  Next we checked into our hotel, room 2222; we referred to it as “Harvey Dent’s room”.  Turns out the Executive Lounge we were counting on for meals was closed starting Saturday for renovations.  Major suckage.  That just resulted in more Chick-Fil-A for Serv, so I guess it all worked out.  After rendezvousing with a long-misplaced friend, Race, we headed to registration to pick up our badges.  I was thrilled for my friends as I watched them zip through the line and pick up their badges within mere moments.  I, however, was lucky enough to wait 45 minutes to get mine!  Yay!  For some ridiculous reason, every person whose last name starts with “M” showed up at the same time.  The slowness of the “M” line was aided by the DragonCon staff member running the line with a broken arm.  My friends were kind enough to wait for me, laugh at me, and take pictures.

After a brief visit with Ravenface & his brother Shockwave, I made my way to a comic book related track.  This session was an examination of various “don’ts” for comic writers featuring Peter David, Mike Baron, and others.  There were some great recommendations as well as anecdotes.  Heard a great suggestion to embed Google Image links into your comic scripts to provide the artist with photo reference examples of what you are trying to explain.  Neat idea!

After the comics panel, I went hunting for photo opportunities and trolled the dealer’s rooms.  During the course of the first day, I took about 175 pictures.  Michael Bailey, Race, and I wandered the dealer’s room together looking for ways to spend obscene amounts of money.  Then from an unknown artist, I commissioned a sketch of Blue Devil battling Doctor Fate.  The sketch isn’t complete yet, but I should get it within a week or so.  The pencils he showed me looked awesome!  I’ll be sure to post an image of that drawing here when I get it.

I swung by the NeedCoffee.com panel, “They Did WHAT to My Favorite Book/Fandom?”  Fun panel with good crowd interaction.  I was lucky enough to win a Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker action figure “Father’s Day 2-pack”.  Too funny! Around this time we connected with Ron & Holly from THE UNIQUE GEEK and their other siblings.

Finally, after a late-evening run to Chick-Fil-A, we settled in for a night of Chez Geek, booze, and chatting.  We don’t get to hang out very often as a group, so we had a fantastic time ripping on each other and enjoying each others company.  Sweet, sweet slumber finally overtook us around 3:00am.

Great first day!  Wonderful to see friends again and have so much fun!  I’m sure I’m forgetting things, so there may be addendums throughout the week.  More tomorrow…

Assuming all is well with air travel, I should be in Atlanta by 10:30am!!!  Me and 30,000 of my closest friends all weekend long!  Check out the DragonCon website for details on the event!  Here are a few snapshots of me at previous DragonCons.  To see a gazillion (yes, that’s a technical term) DragonCon photos, be sure to visit THE UNIQUE GEEK Photo Gallery by clicking here!  Talk to you soon!

Not terribly geeky today, but related to my life right now.  Today we have Tropical Storm Fay moving in over our area.  While we certainly won’t get it as bad as others have, we should still get lots of rain and wind.

I can’t help but be reminded of Hurricane seasons past.  Below are a few humorous bits I’ve collected  or have been sent over the past few years related to Florida and Hurricanes.  Hope you enjoy.  Send me an umbrella if you can.

Just for fun, stop by CNN and watch an animated reenactment of the 2004 Hurricane Season.  It’s pretty interesting to watch.

Finally, a few things that Hurricanes have taught us…

• An oak tree on the ground looks four times bigger than it did standing up.
• When house hunting, look for closets with lots of leg room.
• AA, C and D are the only alphabet we need (think batteries).
• Chainsaw-wielding-men are nothing to be afraid of.
• You can’t spell “priceless” without I-C-E.
• Gasoline is a value at any price.
• Candlelight is better than botox - it takes years off your appearance.
• No matter how hard the wind blows, roadside campaign signs will survive.

On Monday I featured quite a few comic book related t-shirts from my closet.  Today I’m finishing up the tour of my wardrobe by showing off my DC comics shirts.  Please feel free to share any of your favorite t-shirts you own either by commenting or via e-mail!

A great Superman t-shirt given to me by my family a couple years ago.  I really like that the “S” symbol is large.  I strongly believe the “S” on a Superman shirt should stretch across the entire chest horizontally.  Additionally, I like the “ringer” look of this shirt.  A “ringer” t-shirt typically features the jersey shirt fabric in one color, but the ribbing used for the collar and the sleeve bands are of a contrasting color.  I wear this one a lot.

A fun classic Superman style shirt I picked up in the 1990’s. I love the squinty 1940’s Superman!  The primary image above is the back of the shirt with the insert being the front left hand side.

A present from my friend Ed back in the 1990’s.  This shirt came in a cool telephone booth shaped box.

Another gift from the family.  Obviously this one was pre-stressed.

This was a clever idea for a shirt.  The primary image above is the back of the shirt, with the insert being the front left hand side.  I liked the idea of having a Daily Planet staff shirt.  The fading on the word “Staff” happened after one wash.  I was kind of bummed, but it sort of makes it look cooler.

Okay, what comic book reader in the 1990’s didn’t have a crush on Death?  I’m not talking Thanos-style, but the Death character from the Sandman comic.  She was absolutely adorable.  This 1993 shirt was the first Death shirt and was drawn by Chris Bachalo.  It’s still my favorite Death shirt.  The fading/stress on this shirt is genuine; I wore it a lot.

Here is another Death shirt.  I believe this one was done by Chris Bachalo also.

A great Death shirt from 1995 featuring a line from her first appearance.  You can clearly see the Bjork influence on the artwork at the time.

I got this Barry Allen Flash t-shirt from Target just a few months ago.  This was a pre-stressed item that looked so classic I had to get it.  Interestingly enough, if Target had waited just a few more months this wouldn’t have been “classic”, it would have been “current”.

I got this shirt in the 1990’s specifically because I thought it was awesome they made a Jay Garrick Flash t-shirt.  Additionally, this is the only comic book t-shirt I own that’s long sleeve.

A very thoughtful present from my friend Ed.  DC has never produced a t-shirt that just focuses on Firestorm, so Ed made me one!  The image is taken from a cover during Firestorm’s elemental period.  You can see the fading on this shirt is pretty severe.  I wore the heck out of it back in the mid-1990s.  Once it started fading, it became a frequent nightshirt.

Another present from a friend.  This one was a gift a couple years ago from my old college roommate, Serv.  You can see the image is a classic version of Aquaman; early 1970’s Super Friends era.  I really like the “ringer” look on this one along with the pre-faded image.

Another great classic Aquaman image; this time from the late-1970’s/early 1980’s.  The image has a little bit of pre-faded effect which suits it well.  This particular shirt was also given to me by Serv last year.  So do you think by giving me all these Aquaman shirts that Serv is trying to tell me he’s gay for me?

A white pocket t-shirt from the WB store with an embroidered Aquaman swimming out of the pocket.  I got this in the mid-1990s.  Fun!

Not truly a T-SHIRT, but still a comic book related SHIRT.  This embroidered denim shirt came from the WB store in the mid-1990s and is all kinds of awesome.  The top image is obviously the front, with the bottom image being the back.  Interesting observation, Aquaman and Green Lantern look all buddy-buddy here.  However, did Green Lantern freak out when Aquaman was killed (like he did when Martian Manhunter was killed)?  Nope.  I’m not even sure Hal has realized that Arthur kicked the bucket.  Well… Hal will know for sure soon enough.  C’mon “Blackest Night”!

This is a really fun take on superhero t-shirts.  This shirt presents the one-page origin of Batman from the earliest days of Detective Comics.  If I remember correctly, I got this shirt in a record shop in Atlanta in the mid-1990s.

This is another unusual item (and I know, not a t-shirt).  It’s a silk robe featuring the Superman “S” symbol.  If you look closely, you can see small versions of the symbol all over the fabric.  Then there is the obvious red “S” symbol on the front pocket and backside.  The robe is really pretty to look at, but somehow a silk robe just doesn’t scream manly to me.  Especially Super-manly.  Needless to say I haven’t worn it much.  But on my wife it looks hot!

Well there you go, a brief look into Shag’s closet.  Don’t forget, share your favorite comic book t-shirts if you’d like!

I bought a new comic book t-shirt this weekend at Kohls and it got me thinking about what to wear to Dragon*Con.  I looked through my closet and was amazed at how many comic book t-shirts I had amassed.  I mean seriously, these things pile up.  Back when I managed a comic book store, you could consider  these to be work clothes.  Nowadays, I don’t get many chances to wear these t-shirts.  So I decided they needed to see the light of day one way or another.  Therefore, today and tomorrow you get to stroll through my wardrobe.

Over the past 15 years, I have gotten so many t-shirts that I’ve split them across two days.  Today I’ll be showing off my new shirt, Marvel comics shirts, Scud the Disposable Assassin shirts, and Astro City t-shirt.  Some designs were purchased pre-faded (or pre-stressed).  Unless specifically mentioned, assume any fading occurred naturally with these shirts.

To see the other comic book t-shirts I’ve previously displayed here at ONCE UPON A GEEK, please click here and then scroll down.

Here is my new shirt!  The image is of the late-Bronze Age Justice League of America (with a few extras thrown in for good measure).  I love the strong white outline on each character; it’s really sharp.  Also, it’s nice to have Aquaman, Flash, and Firestorm all on one shirt!  This is  the second officially-licensed shirt I’m aware of that features Firestorm. Poor Matchhead, he doesn’t get much play.

Cool Marvel Comics t-shirt bought by family a couple years ago.  Certain parts are high gloss (like Cap’s shield).

Pre-faded Marvel t-shirt from Target bought by my wife and kids within the past year or so.  The faces are very reminiscent of the 1980s corner box images.

“Daredevil Yellow” t-shirt by Tim Sale.  I bought this shortly after the series because I’ve always loved Daredevil’s original costume.

Andy Warhol-style Spider-Man shirt.  I believe this is Mark Bagley art from his original run on Amazing Spider-Man.  I wore the heck out of this shirt in the mid-1990s.

Havok from X-Factor drawn by Joe Quesada.  I bought this shirt around the time he was drawing X-Factor, long before his tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics.  The faded design on this shirt is genuine.  Because I enjoyed Peter David’s run on X-Factor so much, I wore this shirt all the time.  Once it started to fade, it became a frequent nightshirt.

Jim Lee Xtinction Agenda shirt.  Got this for my birthday around the time this story was published.

Astro City shirt I bought in Colorado on vacation a few years ago.

Fantastic Scud t-shirt I bought back in the 1990’s (when Scud was being published the first time around).  Back then you didn’t have internet shopping; you had to order shirts like this via the mail from an ad in the back of the comic book.

Another Scud t-shirt I bought back in the 1990’s.  The stress on this shirt is genuine.  I did everything I could to get people to read Scud, even promoted it on my own body.

Another Scud t-shirt.  The primary image above is the back of the shirt, with the insert being the front left-hand side.  This shirt was designed to look similar to the body of the Scud robot.  The only downside to this shirt was that it was bright yellow.  It takes a brave man to wear a bright yellow shirt.

Drywall, Scud’s sidekick.  Great shirt!  Very colorful and fun!

This is a fairly unusual one.  I got this for attending Diamond Comics 11th Annual Retailers Seminar.  It was held in Baltimore in 1994.  Diamond Comics distributes the majority of comic books in the United States.  That particular year they took us to a Baltimore Orioles game; thus the baseball jerseys.  Very cool!

As promised in a previous blog entry, here is my “Tony Was Right” t-shirt!  I can’t wait to wear this to Dragon*Con!

There were a few other comic book t-shirts I owned previously that I’ve gotten rid of over the years.  A few that spring to mind:

• A Rob Liefeld drawn “New Mutants” shirt from around the time of issue #90.  This was before his art got too wild.  If you exclude Superman t-shirts as a kid, this was the first comic book t-shirt I ever owned.
• A mega-print shirt of Jae Lee’ Doctor Doom from the “Namor” comic book series.  Mega-print shirts were all the rage in the 90’s.  A mega-print shirt would feature one primary image that had been blown up to cover the entire shirt.  For example, this Doctor Doom shirt featured a close-up of Doom’s face, but was blown up so the image spread to the entire shirt (including the sleeves), and was then repeated on the back side.
• A mega-print shirt of Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man.
• A Kyle Rayner Green Lantern t-shirt.  Essentially designed to look somewhat like Kyle’s original uniform.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this installment of “Shag’s Closet”.  Come back tomorrow for the DC shirts…

While on an eight-hour road trip with my wife, two children, and mother-in-law, this post sprung into my brain fully-formed.  It’s an excerpt from a job description for potential married geeks with children.

<<Excerpt>>

JOB DESCRIPTION

Position: Married Geek with Children

Section: Time Commitment

Applicant Prerequisites:

1. Applicant must have at least 25 years experience in geekery.  Interests to include (but not limited to): comic books; role-playing; video games; action figures; surfing the web; science fiction movies, TV, and novels; and movie/TV tie-in novels.
2. Applicants must be married to a non-geek.  Applicants whose spousal unit qualifies as a geek may be considered, however, several of the restrictions outlined below may not apply.
3. Applicants should have at least two children (some of which may be live-in step-children).  Applicants with only one child will be considered, however, until the number of children equal or exceed the number of parents the full-blown “children effect” is not as substantial.

Applicants must be willing to meet the following requirements:

Applicant is expected to give up most available geekery time.  Applicant must be willing to sacrifice geek-related activities in exchange for: chasing after children; helping with the dishes; bathing children; tucking children in bed; and all-around household chores.  Examples of lost geekery time include:

• Coming home after a long day at work, sitting down with an enormous bowl of Mac & Cheese and playing video games all night long. This will no longer be acceptable.
• Seeing geek-related movies on opening night in a sold-out movie theater.  Unless the spousal unit has a trusted babysitter, this is an activity for “remember when” discussions.
• Long leisurely visits to the comic book store will be infrequent going forward.  No more three hour discussions with comic shop employees as to who would win in a fight, Thor or Superman.  Applicant’s comic shop visits going forward will require careful planning and execution.  Economical usage of time is recommended; visit the comic book store during lunch hours, while out running errands for spousal unit, or take a few pico-seconds to stop by on the way home from work.  It’s recommended the applicants not take children to the comic shop unless the applicant wishes to spend the entire visit chasing the children or purchasing some outrageously over-priced action figure for the child.

“Alone Time” Addendum

“Alone Time” definition: The highly unusual instances (nearly mythical) in which the applicant find themselves without children, spousal unit, and/or personal/professional duties to perform.  Applicant must accept the only “alone time” they will have for the rest of their lives will most likely occur in one of the following places/circumstances:

1. In the bathroom - Whether it be using the toilet or taking a shower, this is one of the only times the applicant will be allowed to be alone.  Applicants are strongly recommended to read comic books or novels during toilet usage.  It may be the only time you get for reading the whole week.  Warning: this “alone time” may be interrupted by two-year old children banging on the bathroom door because they think it’s funny.
2. In the car - When not transporting children to or from daycare/school, the applicant may find themselves alone in the car.  Applicants are strongly recommended to use this time to their best advantage.  Recommended usage includes listening to applicant’s favorite songs, calling old geek friends who never hear from the applicant anymore, or listening to audio books/radio plays.  Warning: this “alone time” may be interrupted by the spousal unit calling on the cell phone.  Spousal units always seem to know when the applicant is alone in the car.  Said spousal units apparently believe it’s their duty to call the applicant simply because the applicant doesn’t have anyone to talk to in the car.  In order to maximize this infrequent “alone time”, it’s recommended the applicant not answer the cell phone, later claiming it was set to ”vibrate” and they didn’t notice.
3. After everyone goes to sleep - Once the children and spousal unit have fallen asleep, the applicant may find themselves with available time.  It’s highly recommended the applicant spend this time on the computer, watching TV, or reading comic books/novels.  Utilization of this “alone time”  may result in the applicant going to sleep at 2:30am.  Many applicants find the sacrifice of sleep in exchange for maintaining geek-cred to be worthwhile.  Warning: this “alone time” may be interrupted by sleep-walking eight year olds; two years suffering from night terrors; or spousal units awakening and confronting the applicant with questions like, “When are you coming to bed?” or “What are you doing up so late?”
4. Mother-in-law visits - This is the holy grail of “alone time”.  On rare occasion, the spousal unit will take the children to the mother-in-law’s place of residence for a visit.  If the mother-in-law lives out of town, these visits may include overnight arrangements.  Applicants are strongly recommended to make the best usage of this time.  Potential usages include: applicant hanging out with old geek friends they haven’t seen since they had children; going to geek-related movies; renting geek-related movies they missed in the theater while eating absurd amounts of bad Chinese take-out; and marathon comic book reading sessions/video game playing sessions.  Warning: applicants that are fortunate enough to experience “alone time” as a result of a Mother-in-law visit should prepare themselves for the resulting application of “guilt-trip 1.0″.  The “guilt-trip 1.0″ application will be initiated by the spousal unit because the applicant didn’t travel to the Mother-in-law’s residence with the spousal unit.  It’s recommended the applicant allow the application of ”guilt trip 1.0″ to run it’s course, but simply purge any resulting emotions once the discussion is complete.  WARNING: If the spousal unit detects compatibility errors with ”guilt trip 1.0″, it may diminish the frequency of future Mother-in-law visits.

<<End Excerpt>>

This excerpt was simply the section on “Time Commitment”.  Other sections include, “Financial Impact of Children and Spousal Unit on Available Geekery Funds”, ”It Really is Wonderful to Have Children… Seriously”, and “Conversational Geek”.  In the “Conversational Geek” section you’ll learn things like:

• Encouraging your children to refer to automobile acceleration as ”warp speed” or “hyperspace”.
• The challenges of explaining to a small child why Batman and Spider-Man will never team-up in a movie.
• If you find yourself explaining to your non-geek spouse the Star Trek timeline in regard to the original series, Next Generation, and Enterprise … you must realize they aren’t listening; they are just humoring you.

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It’s FLASH WEEK here at Once Upon a Geek! I’ve been on the road quite a bit in the last two weeks (Tampa, Montgomery, and Nashville). Additionally, at the time this post is published I’ll be on the road to New Orleans. All this driving got me thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great to just run at super-speed to my destination, rather than wasting hours in a car?” Couple that with the recent news about “Flash: Rebirth” (more on that later this week) and I decided to dedicate a week to the fastest man alive!

The Flash is my #5 favorite comic book superhero of all time. I’ve always been fascinated with super-speed. Even as a child, when asked what super power I’d want I always picked super-speed. For me it was the running that attracted me to super-speed; not the ability to assemble a lego set in .04 seconds. Just being able to open up and haul butt at unbelievable speeds sounds so cool to me, even to this day! I still get a buzz when on an airplane as its speeding along the runway just before takeoff. I love that sense of pure acceleration!

I bought the occasional Flash comic book in my youth and enjoyed the episodes of the “Super Friends” that included him, but didn’t really start collecting the Flash comic book on a regular basis until 1992. Mark Waid’s run on the book is what really grabbed me. Ever since then, I’ve loved the characterization of Wally West as the Flash.

Pictured above are some of the various toys I’ve acquired over the years that are Flash related. My personal favorite is the Reverse-Flash figure that was a Toyfare exclusive based upon the Total Justice Flash mold. I came very close to buying the new Professor Zoom figure from Mattel’s DC Universe Infinite Heroes collection. I had it in my hand and was set to buy it, but then I really looked at the molding and paint job and decided it wasn’t worth it to me. So I bought “The Goonies” on DVD instead. I think I came out better with the DVD. Other figures of note above include the DC Direct PVC posed mini-figures from the Flash collection, JLA, and JSA collection. Then you’ve got the Tasmanian Devil as the Flash from some kids happy meal, some DC Direct figures, some Total Justice figures (included the evil hologram Flash from Grant Morrison’s fun on JLA), and more. It’s amazing the things you pick up over time.

More on the Flash to come this week…