It's Phlegm-tastic!

I have a cold, which is extra-fun since the weather outside is amazingly gorgeous and all I can do is stare at it and sniffle. When I was a kid, I was sick a lot--at least, I remember being sick a lot, I had a tendency towards bronchial infections and became intimately familiar with chalky-pink-crap medicine, aka Amoxicillan, over the course of my childhood. My mom used to keep a supply of small but entertaining toys hidden in the linen closet for me, so she could pull them out when I was bed-ridden and cheer me up. Now I'm 37, and mom's linen closet is a 15 minute drive from here, and I think it's just got linen in it at this point. (Though she does occasionally present me with some trinket that was bought in the early 80's and squirreled away, only to be rediscovered when my newly retired dad makes her clear out the nether reaches of the storage cupboards at their house...) Anyway, so last night I was feeling low, but not too low to actually leave the house, so I went out to the toy department at Meijer. Meijer on a Sunday night is not as deserted as I would have imagined, and it took me a while to check out with my loot. But I considered this a work-related activity; we're starting work on the upcoming LEGO exhibit, and I needed research materials.

I was disappointed in the small selection of Star Wars LEGO at Meijer, so was forced to buy a few--ok, several--action figures to meet my need for a Lucasfilm fix. They had slightly more in the medieval castles LEGO line, so I selected a LEGO arbalest and a catapault, both with heroic knight defenders and evil undead skeletons to operate the machinery. I'm a LEGO fan from way back; if they had had the huge castle playset at Meijer I would have been sorely tempted to buy it. But the two war machines I bought work quite well, and I'm having fantasies about purchasing the Jawa sandcrawler in future. It's all for work, mind you. Work.

Gahhhhh!!

My blog lies fallow--all is lost! No, seriously, I've just been kinda busy, and I'd been planning to get my photos from the San Diego zoo up online so I could post one of them to the blog and it'd be all cool. But instead of uploading photos I've been doing all that grownup stuff I keep hearing other people talk about, like cleaning the house and working. And complaining about work, over beers with friends. (Not that I have a lot to complain about, it's still the most awesome jorb in the world, but like all jobs it occasionally has its moments of "oh, for heaven's sake, WTF??" And now I feel guilty for even mentioning it, because they're sending me to New York this week so I can go to some cool museums. Aw, I'm sorry, job! I didn't mean it when I said you were annoying me earlier this week! Forgive me, you are still cool.)

Bring Em Back Alive!

Back from Sandy Eggo, only slightly the worse for wear. There were many excellent things about the Comic Con (not the least of which was that I was there on the museum's tab--my per diem covered the basic needs of food, water, and action figure exclusives each day.) I'll post more exhaustively later--being as I am somewhat exhausted now, since I returned at 1:30 am to an enthusiastic household of pets who all wanted to stamp on my face in a welcome-home dance at random times during the night. High spots included a frantabulous trip to the SD zoo yesterday morning; seeing the ever-amazin' Stan the Man Lee in person; watching in jaw-dropped amazement at the 10,000 people lined up to watch a sneak preview of "Heroes" season 2; and the schmoozapalooza in which I talked about our exhibit to the McClouds of Clan McCloud, Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man, the Ever-Fabulous Foglios, and many others. I went to an amazing panel about writing hosted by Marv Wolfman, who along with Mike Grell and Bill Sienkiewicz is responsible for my entry into the comics hobby in the mid-80's. I got a book signed by Peter S. Beagle. I fed my inner nerd. And now, y'all, it's m'birthday! I'm off to drink beer and play pirate mini-golf! (not necessarily in that order, though it might enhance the experience....)

Wait, what?

July is rushing past me like a freight train; it's very disconcerting. The month just started, now it's nearly over, my dad's birthday was last week and mine is next week and holy crap what the hell just happened? Foosh.

I think part of the problem is I've been having some (minor) health issues in the past couple weeks, which have resulted in my coming home from work most days and crashing, maybe watching some tv, foraging in the fridge, reading a book and going to bed early. So I feel like I'm not really doing much of anything consequential lately. I'm travelling for work for most of this next week, so that'll shoot the rest of July and I can get a fresh start of laziness for August.

On the bright side, one of the great things about where I'm working is that my coworkers send me links like this one:
Real World Metropolis

Joining my Nerdwork...

Despite my persistant protests that I am too old to have a MySpace profile, I finally gave in and jumped on the bandwagon. I used to have a profile that I merely used to check out other people's profiles (kind of like my LJ account, only Even More Lame) but the email account it was attached to finally died--choked to death on spam--and I decided I might as well make a profile that didn't wholly suck. So far I have 6 whole friends, which doesn't particularly worry me. But were I, say, a 14 year old girl, I can see how MySpace could become a vital new tool of the social dissing that formerly only occurred in the locker bays and gym classes of high schools around the country. Friended by the popular kids? Unfriended by your former best friend? A sudden friend request from the hottest jock on the football team? Who's got the most profile views this week? Jesus... what a terrifying vision. Though, really, I was damn oblivious to my own unpopularity in high school, I probably would have been the one whose MySpace was all pictures of Star Trek mashups and ewoks and 70's metal bands, and who was perfectly happy with only 6 friends. But I can see the potential here for the kids who do care--now you don't even have to leave the comfort of home to know you're not popular! Hooray! Wow.

BIG TOP RETURNS! Sort of...

My pal Rob Harrell's comic strip, "Big Top," was discontinued a few months ago, to my unending sadness. However, I just got an email from him a week or two back, and Ucomics is re-running all the strips from the beginning! So if you, like me, find Wink, Pete, and the gang irresistable, bookmark Big Top and you can catch it all there. Or buy the book. I know it's shameless plugging, but honestly, Rob is a nice guy and a really talented artist, and he deserves all the acolades I can give him.

Go Toby! It's Your Wedding!

Went to a wedding today; the groom was someone I have known since he was very small and cute. Now he is big, though still cute, and has married someone almost as nerdy as I. I'm very proud of him.

I'd rather wondered if I would see a bunch of people from my rich-kid high school at this doo-dah; I was braced for possible encounters of an oh-my-god kind. But only one teacher, and three guys who I hadn't seen in 20 years (all younger than me) and of course the bride and groom. I'm not sure if I'm relieved, or disappointed.