I didn’t get a chance to take (m)any photos today. There were many characters of interest including a disturbing-looking man wearing a lamé (or lame) bodysuit and (quite obviously) no underwear. I had to turn my head and look away if only because I didn’t know WHAT my expression was conveying. At all. If anything.

I walked the floor a bit looking for a few companies/booths, but didn’t find any aside from the mimobot people. I have a USB drive, but I really could NOT resist. Really. They were discounted, and I only wanted 1GB and it came with a free gift! So, here’s my new mimobot friend:

Number 810 of 2000, if you please.

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Yesterday, my friend Sara called me to tell me about a used book sale going on in the next town over. She’d gone earlier and acquired a treasure-trove of beautiful old books for a total of $1.75 ($1 and $2 books for 50 and 75% off!)

Well, I went this morning before heading off to ComicCon, and they were having a bag sale—all the books you could carry in a paper shopping bag would cost you $5 (it was a fundraiser for a local school). Here’s what I brought home (minus one that I gave to my sister):

There are some I’ve heard of and some I’ve never heard of and bought because they looked like an interesting read from a time long gone and are probably long since out of print. To start, there is this gem from one of my favorite wits of all time, George Bernard Shaw (a 1928 publication):

I’m not sure if it’s a serious work or not… that time period was rife with things that would sound misogynistic these days but which were considered quite complimentary almost 100 years ago. I guess we’ll see just how intelligent a woman I am.

The purple cover below just made me smile - a combination of the title, the illustration… the whole cover treatment. Amusing. And it’s from 1909!

Then I found this very cool 1944 edition of Crime and Punishment. I love the embossing on the cover.

I have to admit that I bought this next book for the novelty of the title and the cool logo action. It’s from 1924…

And an interior that removes any possibility of having stumbled across interesting 1920’s erotica… I don’t think “happy ending” had taken on a lewd secondary meaning yet at that point.

And the Tempestuous Petticoat from this post’s title? Well, that’s from 1948, surprisingly. But I love this illustration.

I’m going to sit here for a bit enjoying the look and feel of these. Maybe I’ll even start reading one once I finish obsessing…

Well, today was the first of my two days at New York ComicCon. The annual east coast comic convention at the Javits Convention Center. I was at the booth alone from 3:00 on, so I didn’t get to wander the floor and see what was going on, but I did get some photos. Kind of boring photos since they were taken from the confines of my company’s booth:

In the two images below, I’ve circled a light-saber battle for you. They were pretty far away and I don’t have a true telephoto lens for the camera, and there was a lot of motion and I didn’t have a chance to change the shutter speed since I just saw this craziness happening and NEEDED TO CAPTURE IT.

There was a girl and a guy, both in weird Captain America-esque outfits. Just -boom!- in the middle of the aisle as people sort of scooted around them, totally nonplussed by the sword battle going on in their midst. It’s amazing how one’s acceptance of the non-traditional really reaches new levels here (half-naked women wearing red contact lenses and 8″ high platform boots? Ain’t no thing!)

Yeah. There was that. And lots of other interesting things and people. Thankfully, unlike the last convention I attended, the time passed by rather quickly and before I knew it, it was time to leave. I took the ferry back over to New Jersey and took this photo in the ferry parking lot - that’s the New Yorker building, among others… :

Yup. Rinse and repeat - doing it all again tomorrow, though not for nearly as long. That will be nice; I looked up an old friend from my bookstore days who is a comic book artist and learned that the studio he co-founded has a booth at ComicCon. I went over to say hi to him before I was due at our booth and we chatted for a bit, but I’d like to pop over again and perhaps buy a sketch from him or some such Fun.

Phew. I am planning on spending the rest of the evening watching highly entertaining silliness with my sister and her boyfriend - “Wet Hot American Summer.” From the folks responsible for “The State.” Yes. It’s quite funny.

I don’t even know how much time I’ll have to write in the next week. Seriously.

Today I drove my friend to the airport in the morning so he could catch his flight to San Francisco, and I will be flying out there to hang out with him next Wednesday. The seven days between now and then will be both interminable and far too short.

For example, I’ll be working every single day, including the weekend. That’s when I’ll be working the New York ComicCon to represent my company’s Shakespeare: The Manga Edition series. It should be pretty cool (if providing a little bit of geek overload - which I might even enjoy a bit if I didn’t get scared by people who are crazy hardcore about [insert comic book/graphic novel/manga/TV/movie series here] ) and the days should fly by since it will be busy.

Neil Gaiman is doing an appearance and signing sometime during the convention, but one part is a $500-a-ticket fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the other (reading - $20 a ticket) is most likely going to have lines spilling out the door if it doesn’t sell out. Since I’m working Saturday and Sunday, Friday is my only free night this week (and I’d like to see my other friends before I disappear for about two weeks), I won’t be attending, as much as I enjoy Mr. Gaiman - and I do.

All that coolness doesn’t change the fact that I will have spent all the hours between noon and 8 pm (you know, hours when I could be taking care of things like laundry and shopping and packing) standing in a noisy convention center.

It just puts a lot more pressure on me to get things done in the evenings. My usual evening routine is to get home from work around 6/7pm, change into running clothes, run for 30-45 minutes or so, shower, eat, check email/RSS feeds, and then read or watch a movie until I fall asleep. Tonight, I was unable to adhere to that routine; I got home at 6:30, checked email quickly and then ran out to stores to get vitals like sunglasses, shorts, a couple of tank tops and such. I got home at 9:00 and ate some dinner (leftover spinach and a piece of toast - PATHETIC) then tackled email, checking tracking on some stuff I ordered for said trip (durable rock climbing pants since Old Navy cargo pants won’t cut it), put away purchases, did some cleaning… and now it’s 11:00. Where does the time go?

Somewhere I can’t see. And the reasons for my blindness may vary.

But I’m glad to know that the title of a mix CD I made provided the possible title for a story my friend is writing, that I am basically guaranteed to have non-stop fun during my vacation which makes everything coming up to it worthwhile, that the stress I’ll be feeling at work will be productive stress because I’ll be getting lots of things done, and that I’m going to go rock-climbing tomorrow and it will feel good.