The Cult of Lincoln

Saturday, August 09, 2008



Sarah links me to the first-ever Time Lord Rock song: An Awful Lot of Running!

Kat and I have decided that for the two days I am in DC, we will form a trock band called "Rude and Not Ginger." Epic nerd win!

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Priscilla said at 11:29 AM

2 comments


Monday, July 28, 2008



~
Presentinge The Most Woefulle and Arduous Tale of Travells to the Comicke Conventionne
~

I arrived at the airport with plenty of time, as befits a seasoned traveler such as I. However, In the security line, as soon as I reached the front, the employees insisted my line double back on itself with another line, with the end result that about forty people got in front of me. The motivation for this has not been explained. I described the incongruity to a fellow line-waiter as "Kafkaesque." How little I knew of what pandemonium awaited me, dear reader!

The boarding went without a hiccough. I was seated in an aisle seat, across from the aforementioned fellow line-waiter, a publicity representative from Wizard. As the plane taxied away from the gate, I mused over which panels I would elect to attend Thursday morning. Minutes to take-off, however, the plane stilled. We all waited expectantly.

Many minutes later, we continued to wait expectantly. The pilot informed us of the dire weather situation, which blocked off the airport from all sides, but which would hopefully clear up soon. The pilot continues to string us along on this lie for two hours. I fiddled with my iPhone and finished reading Havemercy. Brilliant.

At 5, the sleeping woman across the aisle from me (hey, it's the woman that works for Wizard I met in the security line!) wakes up with a start, wondering why we were on the ground, as she thought this was supposed to be a nonstop flight. The woman behind her informed her that we never left. Angst all around!

At a loss, they started airing the in-flight entertainment. I enjoyed a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother, enriched by my new appreciation of Neil Patrick Harris, but all the while bemoaning the fact that even if the plane left right then, I wouldn't be able to stop by the convention center that night to pick up my badge and avoid the ridiculous Saturday lines.

The flight attendants then began airing the in-flight movie, 21. The plane taxied around uselessly on the runway in some demented tarmac ballet. I picked up the newest Artemis Fowl. About thirty minutes in, we suffered a second-long power failure, which resulted in 21 being restarted from the beginning. The passengers groaned and laughed, because otherwise we would have started screaming.

I struck up a conversation with Wizard woman, Maria, and the woman sitting behind her, Kristi. Good people.

About four hours in, a line began to form at the galley as the passengers sought out sustenance. They ran out of food within twenty minutes. It was not unlike Lord of the Flies.

The sixty planes on the tarmac continued their taxi dance, and somehow we ended up at the back of the takeoff line. Ultimately, this did not matter. We also used so much fuel that we wouldn't have been able to make it all the way to San Diego anyway.

Five hours in, the pilot received word of a possible route out! Win! However, it would steer us majorly off-course and take more than the five hours the trip was supposed to take, and San Diego's airport has a curfew due to its proximity to residential areas. It took the pilot a further thirty minutes to recognize that the longer route plus the time it took to refuel would result in us missing said curfew. Apparently a 777 full of angry passengers frantic to get to Comic Con wasn't worth the fee for breaking the rules.

Time to deplane! Everyone pulled our their cell phones to try to reschedule their flights. To my dismay, I saw that I only had 10% battery life remaining. Awesome. Also, in my haste, I left my carry-on in the overhead bin and had to go back to get it, swimming upstream in the crowd like a stupidly forgetful salmon.

I stood in the long ticket line with Maria and Kristi, internally flailing at the news that the earliest flight the next day was at 3pm, which would put us in NY around 8. I felt my Comic Con slipping through my fingers, and I wanted to cry. Fifteen minutes later, as I am still paralyzed waiting in line, the 3pm flight sells out. AUGH.

Whatwhat? Kristi manages to snag a ticket agent over the phone and tells him a sob story about a nephew's christening the next day. This is made up, but the ticket agent coughs up a flight on a different airline that would get her into San Diego around noon. She snags it. HOPE! She remains with Maria and me to offer moral support and the prospect of a shared hotel room.

Another fifteen minutes later or so, Maria and I reach the front of the ticket line. Kristi's flight has sold out. NO! But something in my distressed countenance warms the ticket agent's frozen heart and she finds a single ticket opening on a flight that gets me in Thursday at 4pm. I want to kiss her. I tell her I'll take it, but then she pauses, investigating a different trail. She finds another seat on a flight leaving from Newark that gets me into San Diego Thursday at 1pm! I nearly leap over the kiosk and hug her. Maria immediately asks if a second seat is available, and there IS! Maria hazards to ask if there is a third seat, as Kristi doesn't mind getting in an hour later if it means traveling with friends (which we are at this point), and huzzah, YES! WE'RE GOING TO SAN DIEGO, BABY!

Flush with victory, we grab our bags and decide to head to the Newark Airport to try to find a hotel room nearby. HahahahahaahahaNO. Assorted cab drivers, legal and otherwise, tempt us with fares of anywhere from forty to sixty-five dollars EACH to get us to Newark. Um, what?

We locate a Super Shuttle, which offers to take us there for forty, which Maria haggles down to thirty-five. Maria is awesome like that. There are four other passengers with destinations in Manhattan, including a woman we would learn is the mother of Joey Lawrence, actor on Blossom and regular feature of Dancing with the Stars.

I use my dying iPhone to find phone numbers for Newark hotels, and Kristi calls three or four before the clerks finally convince her that no, just about every hotel in the entire New York metroplex is booked solid.

I propose a new solution: Maria and Kristi come sleep at my apartment, and we put the cash we save from the hotel room towards a car service to whisk us off to Newark in the early AM. Good plan, me! This solution is pretty much the best plan ever. Oh my god, we are so tired. We inform Super Shuttle driver of the new plan, and as the driver no longer has to factor in exorbitant New Jersey tolls, Maria renegotiates our fare to $25 each.

Ten minutes later, Joey Lawrence's Mom decides she is furious at this price inequity. She's getting off before us, but her fare is $35. She tries to renegotiate her deal, too, but as she has no grounds to do so, the driver is having none of it. She doesn't seem to get that the three of us represent $75 worth of passenger going to one location, whereas she is only one woman, and her situation has not changed since she and the driver agreed on a price. She's still paying way less than she would from any other driver anyway! They fight loudly over this stupid ten dollar discrepancy for a stupidly significant portion of the ride, culminating in the driver pulling over and telling her to get out. She stays put and ratchets down her obnoxious whining from eleven to four and a half or so. We side with the driver, because we want to get home at some point that night.

Home, finally! We bring our bags up to my apartment and plan to get take-out from an Italian restaurant two blocks away, but as it immediately starts pouring buckets the second we step outside, we instead order in pizza and open a bottle of wine and bask in the knowledge that we just might come out on top, despite the horrors before.

In my infinite grace, I accidentally knock over a glass of wine, which shatters on the hardwood floor. Despite our thorough search, we were still finding little micro-sized bits of glass an hour later. I vacuum.

I re-pack my bags, stuffing my entire Molly costume (big boots and all) into my carry-on, so that if they lose my bag (which feels inevitable at this point), I'll still be able to dress up.

We head to sleep around 12:30, after ordering a car for 5 and setting three alarms for 4am. I volunteer to sleep on the futon, allowing Maria and Kristi the bed. I am like a saint or something.

I am awakened by an impossibly loud buzzer at 1:30. I immediately assume it is an alarm clock, until I see the clock on the TV. Finally, my sleep-addled brain recognizes that it is the door buzzer. I muzzily ask over the intercom who it is, and it is revealed to be roommate's boyfriend. Roommate is wonderful and understanding and miraculously cool with the idea of me inviting near-strangers into our home, but I kind of want to stab roommate in the head for not answering the freaking buzzer herself. (In the morning, she apologizes, which is very cool of her. I love you, roommate!) I buzz him in and open the door a crack, and I am asleep again by the time he walks up the stairs to the room.

I am awakened again around 2 by someone's impossibly loud cellphone going off on the dining room table, also sounding much like an alarm clock. This time, there will be no mercy. I stumble into roommate's room and tell her and her boyfriend that one of their cellphones is going off, but it isn't theirs. My urge to kill wanes slightly. Turns out, it's Maria's. Mrsfgl. Okay, no death tonight. Too sleepy anyway.

4 am! I wake up for real! We take showers and munch down toast and are ready for the car at 5. The car is punctual and clean and the driver is courteous and we arrive in Newark in like forty minutes, rather than the hour-plus I was expecting. It feels like even less time! Could things finally be looking up?

We check in and head down to security, where the line is unfathomably long. When we get to the front, the security guy and I exchange witty banter about my Battlestar Galactica t-shirt, then he informs me I've been selected for random search. Lovely. So have Maria and Kristi. Good grief! Fortunately, said search is quick and painless.

I am so jaded about our trip woes at this point that I take random strangers not coming up to me and shooting me with a tazer as a kindness. We nickname ourselves "The Murphies," after Murphy's Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. We subsequently refer to each other as "Murphy" and "Murph" for the rest of the trip.

We get to the gate, only to find that they have oversold the trip by THIRTEEN SEATS. How the heck does that happen? Fortunately, we have seat assignments already, so we win! I pity the poor folks that thought they were safe and arrived a little too late. Off to Minneapolis!

We land without incident, grab lunch, then head off to San Diego! Then OMG, WE'RE HERE! We get our bags easily, though Maria and I have to hold our suitcases in our laps for the short trip to her hotel, as Kristi's friend's tiny Ford Focus wasn't built to tow such cargo. I dress in my Delirium costume in Maria's hotel room, and I get to the con just before 3. I've missed the panels for Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Middleman, but I'M HERE AND I KISS THE GROUND AND YAY YAY YAY COMIC CON!


Things that made the hellacious ordeal worth it:
  • Seeing my wonderful sister on her birthday weekend! LOVE YOU, MELISSY!
  • Hanging with buddies Jimmy, Kevin, Amber, and Gail/Daoine. Amber and Gail are friends from the Jim-Butcher.com forum, and it was a treat to get to finally meet them in person. Gail and her crew had the most amazing costumes I've ever seen. My pictures are awful, so hopefully someone else will produce images that actually do them justice.
  • Spending all day Saturday hanging with Jim Butcher and his friend Cam. RIDICULOUS FUN! We prowled the con floor at length, snagged a delicious lunch, and relaxed a bit in his hotel room before his signing and panel.
  • Meeting Nathan Fillion! As soon as he saw my Maeve costume, he whipped out his camera and asked for a picture. I'M ON NATHAN FILLION'S CAMERA, YOU GUYS! Afterwards, Jim joked, "Wow, your geek points just skyrocketed. Nathan Fillion took your picture while Jim Butcher held your stuff."
  • Taking an elevator ride with Allison Mack of Smallville and sitting at the table next to Patton Oswalt's at lunch. Cam's wife refused to believe it was Patton, so we considered giving him a sign that said "Yes, Jess, I am Patton Oswalt" and taking a picture with Cam's phone. Unfortunately, Patton finished his lunch before we could convince ourselves it was a good idea. Also caught glimpses of Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene of Pushing Daisies and the Mythbusters boys, and got to hang briefly with Jim's awesome editor, Anne Sowards, and Ernst, Les, Derek, and Neil of the Dabel Brothers.
  • Went to panels featuring Shauna Trpcic (costume designer for Firefly, the later seasons of Angel, Doctor Horrible, and more); Bryan Fuller (creator of Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls, and Dead Like Me); the show-runners of Lost, Terminator, and Chuck;
  • Making a Dresden cosplayer's day when he didn't make the line cutoff for Jim's last signing by bringing him to Jim's attention afterwards, so Jim could sign his staff.
  • Seeing so man amazing costumes! MAN, the world is filled with creative fans!
  • Having my own costume praised by so many people! Man, the number of photographs taken of my outfits was staggering. On Saturday, Jim and I died laughing at the number of people that asked him to take pictures of themselves with me, without realizing who he was.
Then on the flight home, as I worked off two hours of sleep, the flight was delayed nearly an hour on the tarmac, and when we got to New York, we couldn't land because of the weather, so we apparently flew to Cincinnati and back. Then they lost one of my bags, and I had to wait nearly two hours before it finally surfaced. Then I went home and went to sleep.

GOOD CON!

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Priscilla said at 12:38 PM

12 comments


Thursday, July 17, 2008



The Watchmen trailer hit the web a day early! SO MUCH GUH.

I need to reread. I wonder if Coworker Skabla has finished with my copy?

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Priscilla said at 8:56 PM

1 comments


Thursday, May 08, 2008



I stand corrected.



Your jealousy smells like Marmite. It's more New Zealand-y that way.


I accidentally left my camera battery in the charger this morning, so these are a couple taken with my iPhone. Another girl waiting with me at the stage door got some better ones of us--I just had to post these now!

P.S. Who knew Bret was tall? He seems so much shorter on TV. And the picture of me with Jemaine, without him realizing a photo is being taken, is a rival for the title of my favourite photo of me ever. Me geeking out, while the object of my geekery looks like he would rather be somewhere else... It should be in the Great Internet Dictionary under "Fangirl."

And now it's time for bed.

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Priscilla said at 12:56 AM

2 comments


Wednesday, April 02, 2008



*dies and is dead* I just put the Small Favor audiobook on (the book came out yesterday! And it's FANTASTIC!), but I had to pause it after two sentences to giggle like a moron. James is reading the snowball fight with such grave seriousness. And I can't help comparing it to the reading Jim gave at PhauxCon, which was done with a near-lunatic glee. I love my fandom.

And speaking of my fandom, check out the crossover fandom fanart image I did for FictionAlley's April Fools' Day Tradition. I love my wizards named Harry. :D

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Priscilla said at 12:19 PM

1 comments


Saturday, March 29, 2008



Now that I'm most of the way though Watchmen, I went back and to look at the costume photos posted earlier this month.

HOLYCOWYES.

Well, except for Ozymandias. And Sally looks more like a grown-up version of the daughter in The Incredibles than her comics counterpart, but eh. I didn't like her costume in the comics, either. And anyway, the Comedian's HOLYCOWYESsitude more than compensates. Rorschach looks spot-on, and I can't wait to see the shifting mask effect in action.

Now I'm just hoping they can do justice to the layers of narrative complexity in a movie.

Edit: Hey, John Cassaday helped design the costumes? Props to him! As if I needed more reasons to be reduced to a brainless, fawning fangirl in his presence when I see him again at NY Comic Con...

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Priscilla said at 12:52 PM

2 comments


Friday, November 02, 2007



Oh my good lord. Anyone that has seen even a single episode of Torchwood needs to read Torchwood Babiez, right now. Too much cute, liver shutting down...

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Priscilla said at 3:05 PM

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Saturday, October 20, 2007



My god. It's canon.

Friends have expressed sentiments along the lines of "Dumbledore is gay. In other news, the Pope is Catholic and bears go number two in the woods," but the fact that JK Rowling stated this so nonchalantly is alone cause for squee. Of course it should be stated nonchalantly! I really wish she'd disclosed it sooner--what was she afraid of?--but without thinking about it too hard, I'm generally happy. It's a rather naive hope, but these books are so well-loved by so many millions of fans, if this in any way contributes even slightly to destigmatization of gay people among even a tiny segment of younger readers, I will do a freaking dance.

And the best part? Fandom is going to stay EXACTLY THE SAME.

As JKR hammers the final nail in the Neville/Luna coffin, I offer congratulations to the Grindledore shippers! Now when do the Sirius/Remus fans get our turn? :D

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Priscilla said at 9:46 AM

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Sunday, October 07, 2007



I'm back from PhauxCon! I had such an amazing time, and I'm already teasing out ideas for a panel next year. I was lucky enough to meet Jim Butcher (author of The Dresden Files) at NY Comic Con last year and found him to be all the things you'd hope a favourite author would be in real life: affable and funny and down-to-earth. But getting to hang out with him and his wife Shannon (also a published author) in such a relaxed atmosphere was an entirely different dynamic! The Butchers are such great people, and they're even more fun when they're not exhausted and stressed out by the grind of a huge convention or a signing tour!

Friday night, we watched the unaired, 67-minute Dresden pilot, and Jim merrily heckled the entire thing. It was HILARIOUS. Heckling bad Sci-Fi channel movies is a tradition in the Butcher household, and the incomplete special effects and temporary voice overs in the pilot made for a lot of easy jokes. One of Jim's running comments was to repeat the text of the cards on the temporary effects in an excited tone with "Trust Us!" added, like "Bianca's face is burned! Trust us!" He also shared a bunch of cool behind-the-scenes facts about the series, such as "This is where the stunt guy broke both his legs." Poor stunt guy.

Saturday, Jim and Shannon each did a Q&A session, and as many of the attendees are writers, they were able to share their experience dealing with the writing process with us. Shannon wore my Maeve tiara during hers, as she is Queen of Estonia. Jim also talked about his experience with the various Dresden media spinoffs--the TV show, the comic, and a few potential projects on the horizon. Coooooool!

The other panels were excellent. Steph continued her "Flashcard Fandom" tradition with Torchwood, Deb made an extraordinary presentation I wish I'd recorded on public perception of fandom, Nikki talked about anti-heroes (and why we love them), Steph and Eurydice talked about the transition from fan fic to pro fic, and another woman whose name begins with an L but completely escapes me talked about the significance of alleys in Buffy and Angel. It was fascinating stuff, and it generated some great discussions!

At the three dining events, the Butchers joined us in geeking out over various nerdy pursuits and regaled us with stories about their son, J.J., who is quite clearly the coolest kid in the history of the universe (and is also goin' to Utah!). At the signing, Xionin gave Jim a set of the Serenity Alliance Currency Money Pack that hadn't sold in the silent auction, and he joked about "Gettin' paid in cashy money," quoting Mal, then amended this statement to "Gettin' paid in cash and coke," referring to the seemingly bottomless supply of Coca-Cola Xionin provided for him. I took home the other money pack and the Tenth Doctor and K9 action figure set. Now Ten and Illyria and the cast of Mirrormask can have wacky escapades on my desk at work!

The Shindig was all kinds of fun. As readers of my blog know, I came as Maeve, and I was delighted at how well it turned out! I got all kinds of praise from both Jim and the other con-goers. Most of the group didn't come in costume, but we did get a wonderful Michael, a Charity, a hybrid book cover/TV Harry, a vampire, a 70's dude, and a pair of ladies in Ren Fest attire. Jim joked that was dressed as Dr. Chao, the cameo character he played on the TV show. He showed us concept art from the upcoming comic (including some images I hadn't seen yet!) and read from one of the Dresden books, doing so in the most energetic, geeky, delighted voice imaginable. He was having SO MUCH FUN as he read to us, and we laughed and cheered and winced right along with him. It was like reading it again for the first time! Crazy fun. A splendid time was had by all!

I'm mostly relying on Xionin and Rob for photos, but here are a few that were taken with my camera:
Me and Jim
Me, Jim, and Rob
A very blurry shot of our Carpenter couple
And here's the wig alone again, as I am so freaking proud of how it turned out!

I'll post more pictures (and a link to the video of Jim's Q&A session) as soon as they're available. Hopefully Xio and Rob will upload them sometime this week, after they recover from the con and perhaps take a three-day nap. :D And note that Jim and Rob are not short, I'm just wearing six inch platforms, making me 6'3"! And I didn't break an ankle! Win!

I have no hat, so I will say that my wig is off to Xionin for putting together an absolutely extraordinary con experience. I'm in awe of all the work she does for PhauxCon, and I'm so grateful. I had such a blast! Love to all the returning members, and I hope I can hang out with some of you again before PhauxCon 6!

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Priscilla said at 5:35 PM

5 comments


Monday, September 17, 2007



Peter Jackson eyeing "Temeraire." OMGYESPLZ.

And right on the tail of that news, Jim Broadbent has been cast as Slughorn. BAHAHAHA YES!

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Priscilla said at 2:07 PM

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Sunday, July 15, 2007



Let it be known throughout the land that Kat gives the best hugs in the entire history of the universe.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

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Priscilla said at 9:01 PM

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Friday, July 06, 2007



Holy cow! The Harry Potter release party in Union Square just got about fifty trillion times cooler! I knew Jim Dale (performed the US edition audio books) would be in attendance, but we're also getting:
  • Dave Barry (via video) and Ridley Pearson, co-authors of The New York Times bestselling prequels to Peter Pan, Peter and the Starcatchers and Peter and the Shadow Thieves, as well as the upcoming final book in the trilogy, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon.
  • Eoin Colfer (via video), author of the multi-million selling global phenomenon Artemis Fowl series as well as the upcoming Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel.
  • Rick Riordan, author of the number one New York Times bestselling series Percy Jackson & The Olympians.
  • Jonathan Stroud, author of the bestselling Bartimaeus Trilogy.
  • Cinda Williams Chima, author of The Warrior Heir and The Wizard Heir.
  • Rob Kidd, author of The New York Times bestselling series Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow.
The event will also be webcast live at bn.com/midnightmagic.

HECK. YES.

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Priscilla said at 9:16 AM

3 comments


Monday, June 18, 2007



*gaaaaaaaaaaaasp!!!!*

How is it I'm only now learning that there's to be a fifth "Thursday Next" novel? Thursday Next: First Among Sequels hits bookshelves July 24th.

For those that haven't been introduced to the series, they're brilliant and book-nerdy and WONDERFUL and I thought the fourth book was the last one! They take place on an Earth where the Crimean War is still going on, people keep Dodos as pets, and instead of Rocky Horror, fans stage audience-participatory versions of Richard III.

SO MUCH LOVE. AND NOW THERE IS GOING TO BE MORE OF IT!

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Priscilla said at 8:00 PM

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007



EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE GOT WHITE NIGHT!!!!! 19 days in advance, BOOYEAH!

And good LORD did Jim butcher (yay for real-life Tom Swiftys!) the spelling of my name. XD

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Priscilla said at 4:45 PM

4 comments




Holy cow. Just talked to the girl I bribed into getting me a copy of White Night (the newest Dresden Files novel, due out in three weeks) super-early, and IT SHOULD ARRIVE TODAY!

*dons SplatterCon!!! shirt*

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Priscilla said at 10:46 AM

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Thursday, March 01, 2007



It's a silly reason to preen, but...

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Priscilla said at 12:29 AM

3 comments


Monday, February 26, 2007



Got back from New York Comic Con late last night! It was sooooooo fun, but I am sooooo exhausted. Setting up a meeting with my advisor at 10am the next morning was stupid beyond belief. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I posted a lot of costume- and Dresden-related pictures here, plus a little bit about meeting Jim Butcher and Paul Blackthorne here. Full con report coming after I sleep for a week, waking up briefly to take the Midterm From Hell on Wednesday and write a paper for Friday.

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Priscilla said at 9:34 AM

6 comments


Monday, February 19, 2007



Rules of Engagement. Oh, wow. YES, Dresden TV, YES. It's like all the naysayers in the fandom cried out, and were suddenly silenced. Silenced by AWESOME. Delightfully pervy Bob, actual magic, the frying of technology... et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Book!Harry would have come up with something more clever than "Mr. Crispy," but I appreciate the effort. :D

Yayfun!

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Priscilla said at 12:38 AM

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All content © 2000-2005 Priscilla Spencer unless otherwise noted.
Title cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan, used without permission.

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