Monthly Archives: March 2014

Yes, There’s a Scene (and an Easter Egg) During the “Veronica Mars” End Credits

March 18, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars

Just think: those poor, carefully cultivated flowers would’ve had no screen time at all if this had been shot as a made-for-TV movie.

My wife and I were impressed by the first two seasons of Veronica Mars and jilted into a mutual depression spiral by season three. When creator/writer/director Rob Thomas launched the famous Kickstarter project to bring back the infamous detective for an unlikely feature film, I had mixed emotions. Surprise that yet another well-written but mercilessly treated series was taking the Firefly route to a post-cancellation revival. Disappointment that the campaign occurred during my still-in-effect Kickstarter moratorium and would therefore receive no pre-production dollars from me, through no fault of its own. Good cheer when the campaign succeeded without me. Skepticism at some of the clunky lines in the trailer. A tinge of geek entitlement because someone still owed me reparations for season three.

Unlike five other Kickstarter campaigns that have yet to keep their promises to me, the Veronica Mars project has borne fruit within a month of its original stated deadline, resulting in a finished product that opened in nearly 300 theaters this past weekend and is simultaneously available for rental via Google Play. At last the lingering question was answered: did anything positive ever happen in Veronica’s life again after that dreary series finale?

A long time ago, we used to be friends…

Indiana Comic Con 2014: Leftover Talking Points

March 16, 2014 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Adipose, Doctor Who

Adipose wasn’t at the Indiana Comic Con, but I took this pic later the same day. Cuteness goes a long way toward banishing frustration.

Several random digressions were tossed from the previous entry because I wanted to keep it concise and streamlined for first-time visitors and photo addicts. The following self-Q&A represents what I hope will be the final roundup of anecdotes from our weekend in general, a few reflections on the positive things that came from it, and some eager anticipation of potentially exciting events ahead in 2014 for us and for MCC readers.

So…was that it? You left the con, went home, wallowed in your high blood pressure, and registered your dismay on the internet for all to see? We had a backup plan, but I didn’t expect to have time to use it. After abandoning downtown we headed out west and attended the open house at Who North America. Touted as America’s largest online retailer of Doctor Who memorabilia, they’re normally closed to the public except by appointment, but they open one Saturday every month for a four-hour window. They timed their March open house to coincide with the con and drew at least ten times their normal visitor count. The line to enter was a ninety-minute wait…but at least we were allowed inside. They even announced they were extending their hours to accommodate the tremendous response. We literally applauded their generosity.

This way for more questions, a map, and a 2014 convention schedule!

Indiana Comic Con 2014 Photos: Costumes, Artists, and Other Sights Seen Before the Meltdown

March 16, 2014 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Indianapolis hosted Star Wars Celebrations II and III in 2002 and 2005, which each attracted over 20,000 fans. Every year since 2003 we’ve hosted Gen Con, which keeps climbing in attendance and turned out 49,000 strong in 2013. We’ve hosted Super Bowl LXVI, the Big 10 college basketball conference, the Indianapolis 500, the Pan Am Games, and other large-scale sporting events. Indianapolis is centrally located in the Midwest and easily accessible from four different interstates in four different directions. The Indiana Convention Center is conveniently located in downtown Indianapolis, where visitors have easy access to countless restaurants, hotels, and tourist attractions they can visit in their off-hours or when either hunger or alcoholism strike.

But no one’s ever thought we were worth blessing with a comic book convention to call our own. Apparently word on the streets was that we suck. Or something. When the Indiana Comic Con was announced, that was kind of a major deal. Finally someone scrimped together enough sense to realize Indianapolis might be ready for the kind of geek conference that Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Columbus, and other Midwest cities have had for years. Chicago even has two of them. This, we reasoned, might be our chance to join the big boys and show all of fandom that Indianapolis is, in fact, a real, live city.

Well…they tried.

Indiana Comic Con, crowds, Indianapolis

The scene as we exited the exhibit hall around 12:30. Before it got worse.

This way for the complete, done-in-one saga!

Dear Event Promoters: Please Don’t Make Us Pick Your Twitter Hashtag for You

March 15, 2014 By in Conventions & Events, Meta Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

#ICC2014 #failtag

Ugh. Just…UGH. No, this won’t do at all. #ICC2014 #failtag

Midlife Crisis Crossover is coming to you live this evening from my living room while I’m in the middle of planning for our big day at the inaugural Indiana Comic Con on Saturday. (I’ve written about it here and here, so loyal MCC followers are well aware and waiting for it to be over with already.)

As part of my prepping, I thought I’d check in on the Twitter scene and gather impressions from the three-day attendees who edged ahead of us in joining the fray. I saw a fair amount of evidence that my sincere hopes for everyone to enjoy themselves are largely being realized. I’m looking forward to joining the discussion tomorrow myself.

That’s assuming I can figure out where the discussion is. Continue reading →

Some Holes in Your Want List Will Never Be Filled

March 14, 2014 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Val Mayerik, Steelgrip Starkey 5, Epic Comics

Art by Val Mayerik, co-creator of Howard the Duck. I promise he’s done far, far better work in his time.

Every collection has gaps. Every collector dedicates a certain part of their hobbyist enjoyment to filling those gaps. It’s all part of the game.

Most collectors who consider themselves organized and serious about collecting certain collectible things for their collection have a want list. Sure, you could attend conventions or flea markets and simply buy random issues from whatever boxes lay in your path. The dealers and older collectors who have hundreds of pounds of pamphlets to unload won’t stop you.

There’s something to be said for spontaneous browsing and impulse buys up to a certain point. By adding the element of goal-setting, though, suddenly your hobby becomes a full-fledged quest. Now you have bragging rights because you’ve made it all seem so noble.

I’ve been reading comic books since age six. I’d say I began Collecting with a capital C around age twelve, when I first discovered comic dealers at a local antique show. I was used to buying comics off the spinner racks at Marsh or Hook Drugs, but the dealer’s approach was a radical new paradigm to me. All the comics stood in longboxes, were alphabetized by title, were filed in order by issue number, and went back several years. It was a mind-blowing moment to discover that I could buy old comics that went with my new comics. Years’ worth of them, even.

Not long after, my comics want list was born.

Ruminations from an old man about his Dulcineas…

“Revolution” 3/12/2014 (spoilers): Spy Kids Must Die!

March 13, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Elizabeth Mitchell, Revolution, NBC

The lead photo from an upcoming True Romance article titled “Will Our Love Be Ruined by Underage Enemy Soldiers?”

Tonight’s new Revolution episode, “Exposition Boulevard” (a common street name in California? I guess?), picks up where we left off two weeks ago, with a Mexican standoff between the Mathesons and the Nevilles. Once that threat fades into nothingness, the road beyond it runs afoul of Patriot Youth, a belligerent Chief of Staff, a love triangle, a new alliance, and more screen time than usual for Steven Culp as Ed Truman, Patriot at a crossroads.

This way for more sinister Patriot shenanigans…

Modest Hopes and Well Wishes for Indiana Comic Con 2014

March 11, 2014 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Indiana Comic Con, Indianapolis

Official flyer handed out at my local comic shop. No idea what the QR code does.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, back in June 2013:

This week the Indianapolis Star reported that someone out there wants to make my pipe dream a reality. A young Florida-based company called Action3 Events and Promotions has scheduled a comics convention for March 14-16, 2014, in our very own Indiana Convention Center. It’s as yet unnamed and not yet listed on their official site, but official enough that they’re proclaiming its proposed existence in public interviews. That much alone is a positive sign.

A name was assigned shortly after I wrote that. Nine months later, its time is nigh. March 14-16 sees the world premiere of the Indiana Comic Con, a three-day meeting-of-the-minds for connoisseurs of the graphic storytelling medium, and/or a temporary point of interest for autograph hounds. For once, local comics collectors will have someplace massive to converge that’s not Chicago, Ohio, Louisville, or some faraway land reachable only by air travel.

This way for more details and reservations…

More Than Flowers at the Indiana Flower & Patio Show

March 10, 2014 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

In our previous installment, you saw signs of the forthcoming spring as heralded through the exhibits at the 2014 Indiana Flower and Patio Show. While flowers were the star attraction, they weren’t the only uncommon objects on site. The two buildings that contained this year’s show were filled with various examples of gardens, patios, spas, tools, local repairmen, self-employed salespeople, As Seen on TV hucksters, chocolate stands, and concrete constructions we’ll never be able to afford.

Also, someone turned a piano into a fountain. See, music lovers, this is what happens when you walk away from your talent and abandon your instrument: someone jams a hose in it and turns it into their patio centerpiece.

piano fountain, Indiana Flower and Patio Show, Indianapolis

This way for more curiosities…

I’m Told Flowers are Still Pretty

March 8, 2014 By in Indiana, Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Twice per year my wife and I escort her grandmother to one of two special events at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Each November we visit the Indiana Christmas Gift and Hobby Show. Each March the highlight of her month is the Indiana Flower & Patio Show, which features numerous displays of colorful flora, booths where gardeners and homeowners can peruse and pick out their new seeds, plants, implements, and accoutrements for tending and cultivating their yards in the forthcoming spring and summer. Assorted horticulturists and lawn care companies show off bouquets, sample gardens, and ostentatious flowers you’ll wish you owned.

It’s that time of year again! Today we three traipsed around the fairgrounds and gazed upon tiny, fragile parts of God’s creation, manifest through the works of people with much greener thumbs than ours.

red flower, Indiana Flower and Patio Show, Indianapolis

This way for more flowers, harbingers of winter’s demise!

How Not to Get Chopped from “Chopped”: a Starter Guide

March 8, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Chopped, Food Network

[Special note for this historic occasion: 70% of the following entry was written by Midlife Crisis Crossover’s very first guest contributor, my wife Anne. She knows I welcome her input anytime — above and beyond her ongoing, invaluable photo contributions — but she’s never taken me up on my standing offer on a writing basis till now. Remember: the more you applaud and embrace this entry, the more leverage I’ll have in wheedling her for more contributions in the future.]

* * * * *

Blame our 2013 road trip for this entry. We discovered the Food Network’s Chopped while flipping channels late Tuesday night in our Boston hotel room. The concept of this cooking-competition series is cerebral and daffy at once: four chefs are given a basket filled with four different ingredients that must be transformed and worked together into a single course, even if they don’t go together, even if they don’t go with the course in question (e.g., meats in the dessert rounds), even if they’re the vilest substance on Earth (durian!), even if mishandling the ingredients might kill put one of the judges in the hospital. (We’ve never thought that last one was a good idea…) The winner selected by three judges earns $10,000.00. The rest are treated to an empty-handed walk down the Hallway of Disappointment, with reactions ranging from excited letdown to disgusted fury to indignant self-hatred to horrific realization that defeat has destroyed their livelihood. The show can be funny and inspiring and tear-jerking and tragic in the space of a single episode.

After vacation we marathoned every Chopped episode available On Demand, caught many of the Tuesday and Thursday reruns, and are now keeping up with new episodes each week. Even though we’re recent converts, we’ve been taking mental notes along the way of the errors and omissions that occur with the most frequency, from the stupefyingly obvious to the obscure-but-fatal. Just in time for the upcoming Chopped five-part “Tournament of Stars” miniseries (yay celebrity contestants!), the following compilation is our armchair-cook advice for future would-be Chopped competitors based on the dozens of episodes we’ve devoured to date. This list is far from complete, and we welcome any additions in the comments below, especially from those among you who can truly cook. Though neither of us is a fancy gourmet chef by any stretch, we hope this helps anyway.

Continue reading →