Halloween Comes Early...

Over weekend, my husband's friend was promoting his new book, Pantheon High, and a panelist at a major geekfest convention, which he invited us to attend as his guests. But not just any convention... it was A-KON (not likely to be confused with Akon)... 72 consecutive hours devoted to ANIME!!!! This friend, who was a groomsman at our wedding, actually credits my husband for introducing him to manga when they were in high school and now makes his living writing and selling it. Pretty cool, huh?

While I'm not into amine AT ALL, my son and I accompanied my husband and his friend for the "amusement factor". I fear that it was probably the first of many comic book convention for both of us.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, my husband is a geek. Okay, fine. I'm pretty geeky too... but like wine and ice cream, "geekiness" comes in a wine variety of flavors to suit a wide variety of pallets.

For instance, while he's into comic books, rants about Open Source, and remembered that last week marked Star Wars' 30th Anniversary, my husband doesn't participate in any...


He doesn't own any of this stuff


Nor does he dress up like this...

With the exception of Captain America, I don't have the slightest idea who or what any of them are and I'm okay with that.

From what I could tell, it was mostly high school and college kids that dressed up. Lots of weird and skanky things that they probably only get away with wearing because it's a "costume". It got pretty gross to see "grandma" dressed up too... and there was quite a bit of that as well.

The convention distinctly smelled of fried food, B.O., and sweaty, pimple-poping desperation was crowded. I heard they're quite the spectacle, but I wasn't prepared for what I witnessed. The hotel was booked solid all weekend. The exhibits, panels, workshops, gaming tournaments, contests, retail, and banquets took up the entire lobby and every ballroom, meeting room, bathroom, hallway, and closets that the hotel could offer... and it was wall-to-wall costumes!

Although we were actually having a good time, my son and I didn't stay long. We took separate cars so that I could get my son home for naptime and my husband could hang out with his friend well into the night...

As least, he called to say, "good night" and "don't wait up".