November Writing Challenge Day 8: L.A. Comic Con

I’m blogging every day this month. Some will be game-related, but this challenge is different than my most recent play-a-game-and-blog-about-it challenge. I’m writing a single post every day: no topic guidelines, with some posts being a collection of random thoughts. Click here to read yesterday’s post.

Last month I was on the Play More Games: A Tabletop Discussion panel at L.A. Comic Con. Moderated by Chelsea Schwartz, I joined some of my fellow tabletop gaming industry folk as we talked games and more for an hour. It was an honor to be included and I’m excited to see board games making their way into non-gaming conventions.

I have more to say about L.A. Comic Con as well as Nerd Expo in Pasadena, but I’m saving that for my expanded articles that I’m writing for other websites.

The one thing I will share, though, is how much I love the cosplay at conventions these days. It’s come a long way from when I’d go to the con in San Diego (before it become Comic Con). From anime and manga characters to obscure pop culture references, there seems to be a cosplayer for everything.

In fact, the cosplay is so good now that I don’t recognize half of the costumes.

Years (decades!) ago I’d see the standard superheroes and villains, along with various Vulcans and Klingons. Today’s cosplayers have taken things to the next level, with serious attention to detail from head to toe. As I told my wife while we were admiring all of the amazing costumes at the con: today’s convention cosplayer is tomorrow’s Hollywood costume designer.

Pictured above is one of my favorite cosplayers last month, right outside the convention center while my wife and I snacked on all of goodies from the street vendors. The piano worked and, yes, he did play this song.

Day 338: Hollis-day Music

Peanuts Christmas

A Charlie Brown Christmas

I can only take so much of KOST 103.5’s 24-hour, 7-days-a-week Christmas music programming, which starts earlier every year. I’m far from a Bah-Humbug type, but let’s just say that I don’t look forward to when they start broadcasting holiday tunes two weeks before Thanksgiving.

Thankfully, there’s one song that I always gets me into the holiday spirit: Run DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis.” It’s even better when it’s been mashed up with A Charlie Brown Christmas, as seen below.

Day 264: Peanutized

I've been Peanutized!

I’ve been Peanutized!

My generation LOVED the Peanuts cartoons. The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree, the piano theme … they’re all an indelible part of my childhood. It’s a testament to Charles Schulz’s genius that the Peanuts are still published in the newspapers years after his death.

While I doubt that I’ll see the new Peanuts movie when it’s released in November, I did enjoy Peanutizing myself on their promotional website. I was cracking up because I have all of the clothes that were available to the male character, so I dressed it up with I would wear on a casual weekend. The only thing missing was my facial hair.

It seems like all of my social media feeds were filled with the fun little characters from the gang today. And that’s not a bad thing at all.