Tag Archives: geeks

Mr. & Mrs. Golden, 21 Years and Counting

July 20, 2025 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Selfie! Anne wears a blue T-shirt with a Superman S-shield. I'm wearing an orange Superman Celebration 2017 shirt with art by Jon Bogdanove.

Strange visitors from another planet.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Two geeks met in 1987 in high school German class, somewhat out of sync with the ordinary folks around us. Divine timing would keep our unplanned parallel paths intertwining over the years. Everything led up to our determinedly simple wedding in 2004, by which time we best friends had already started traveling together after growing up in families and lifestyles that didn’t lend themselves to much of it. All these years later, our story continues together through ups and downs, highs and lows, chuckles and tears, aches and pains, and mountains and valleys both figurative and literal.

We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

When I posted about our 20th anniversary last year — a milestone, mind you! — almost no one cared. Despite the apathy of You, The Viewers at Home, it’s an MCC tradition, so here we go again anyway! Briefly, even! By my standards, I mean!

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C2E2 2025 Photos, Part 4 of 4: Comics and More!

April 18, 2025 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Six comics on a table: Ain't No Grave, Living Hell, The Schlub, Let's Make Bread!, Mister Miracle, and Peppermint Desert.

Hey, kids! Comics!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, plush dolls, variant covers, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed a couple of past installments since their inaugural 2010 gala, but more often than not, whenever they send out the call to convene, we’re happy to answer…

…and one of my favorite aspects of C2E2 is Artists Alley, one of the largest and most diverse of its kind in all the Midwest. Maybe it’s hard to tell by looking at my last several months’ posts, but comics have been my primary hobby since age 6. Sure, jazz hands with famous folks are cool, but graphic storytelling is my bag. This year was no exception, though nigh-impassable aisles posed a serious challenge to getting in, through, and out.

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C2E2 2025 Photos, Part 3 of 4: The Stars in Our Galaxy!

April 14, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Us doing jazz hands while Emilio Esitevez kinda shrinks away from me and leans behind Anne.

Hi, it’s Emilio Estevez! You might remember him from such films!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, plush dolls, variant covers, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed a couple of past installments since their inaugural 2010 gala, but more often than not, whenever they send out the call to convene, we’re happy to answer…

…and call they indeed did! This year the showrunners at ReedPop assembled a dense guest list with cast reunions for quite a few beloved works, which attracted larger autograph crowds to McCormick Place than ever and forced us attendees to weigh a lot of tough choices. Anne and I kept our checklist short and modest, but still ran into scheduling issues that forced us to exercise one of our least favorite comic-con tactics: we had to split the party.

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C2E2 2025 Photos, Part 2 of 4: Saturday Cosplay!

April 14, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Severance cosplayers!

Helly R. and Mark S. from Severance. See you at the Equator!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, plush dolls, variant covers, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed a couple of past installments since their inaugural 2010 gala, but more often than not, whenever they send out the call to convene, we’re happy to answer.

While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this collection of cosplayers who brightened our day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapters because everyone loves costumes. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re clearly not professional photographers, journalists, costume designers, or Oscars red carpet commentators. We’re just an aging geek couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun…

…and here’s our Saturday gallery. We left Chicago around 6 p.m. CDT that day and missed everything that came after, but did what we could till our legs threatened to collapse. Enjoy! Again! Please feel free to identify any characters we failed at recognizing!

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C2E2 2025 Photos, Part 1 of 4: Friday Cosplay!

April 13, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Nazgul cosplayer with sign picturing The One Ring and asking "Lost ring, if found please call 1-800-4NAZGUL".

At the show’s very special Lord of the Rings cast reunion, of course someone’s still searching for The One Ring.

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, plush dolls, variant covers, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed a couple of past installments since their inaugural 2010 gala, but more often than not, whenever they send out the call to convene, we’re happy to answer.

While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this collection of cosplayers who brightened our first day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapters because everyone loves costumes. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re clearly not professional photographers, journalists, costume designers, or Oscars red carpet commentators. We’re just an aging geek couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun.

Enjoy! Please feel free to identify any characters we failed at recognizing!

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Our 2023 Road Trip #3: Tennessee Geeks ‘n’ Grub

April 5, 2025 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Two stuffed dolls of Grogu and Pancake Popple the same size sitting on a display case. Hanging above them on the wall are five Snorks toys.

Grogu and Pancake Popple welcome you to their burger joint!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

For 2023 it was time at last to venture to the Carolinas, the only southern states we hadn’t yet visited, with a focus on the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Considering how many battlefields we’d toured over the preceding years, the home of Fort Sumter was an inevitable addition to our experiential collection…

After the overlong Kentucky leg, only Tennessee stood between us and the Carolinas. Our first hotel of the evening would be in a rather charming city where we previously stayed for a convention and had hoped to revisit someday. Same as the first half of the day, the drive took far longer than we would’ve liked, though this time road construction wasn’t to blame.

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So You’re Going to a Comic Con: Our Convention Survival Tips for Beginner Geeks

March 9, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments
us with Chris Evans, all doing jazz hands, and he is smiling SO brilliantly.

Let the clipfest begin! From C2E2 2023, Anne and myself in a jazz-hands photo op with Chris Evans, the old Captain America.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I share a fannish love of attending entertainment and comic conventions together, whether in our hometown of Indianapolis or in adjacent states (or sometimes beyond). She’s been doing them since the early ’90s, and invited me to tag along as our relationship evolved from classmates to coworkers to neighbors to BFFs to married geeks, now twenty years and counting. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Every con is someone’s first. We’re happy to offer advice whenever we chat with newcomers to the scene. In the various Facebook groups dedicated to each of the cons we regularly attend, Anne has taken to posting practical advice for newer con-goers — the teen, the elderly, and everyone in between — who are beyond excited to mingle in all those crowds of merry hobbyists and scintillating costumes and vintage collectibles and character merchandise and rows of celebrities from their favorite movies, TV shows, animated works and streaming channels. It’s a lot. It can be daunting to figure out where to start. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed. It’s impossible to prepare for every possible contingency.

Cons are foremost on our mind in anticipation of our season beginning next weekend. As we discard the psychological shackles of a depressing winter and prepare to leave the house a little more often, we offer a selection of suggestions for coping with some aspects of the comic-con experience for the absolute beginners out there.

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Another Transformation: A Eulogy

May 19, 2024 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Two guys in suit jackets and ties sitting on a carpeted stage. The back wall has thin beige and blue glass panels alternating within white borders.

Flashback to 2004 with our Best Man.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our birthdays together, usually traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. It’s who we are and what we do. Well, usually. Preferably.

This year I struggled to pick someplace, anywhere, to hit up for my occasion. Nothing lit a light bulb over my head. Should we explore one of the few Indiana small towns we haven’t already combed over for roadside attractions? Revisit one of the large cities in our neighboring states? Break tradition, stay home and binge-watch? Abandon Anne at home, go out alone, attend the Bad Religion/Social Distortion concert happening that very night in downtown Indy, and unwittingly get my teeth kicked out in an impromptu mosh pit? I hemmed and hawed for weeks.

On Mother’s Day the entire brainstorming list fell down the garbage disposal when unconscionably horrible news struck our family: my cousin Shawn had passed away. I was about to turn 52. He’d just turned 50.

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C2E2 2024 Photos, Part 5 of 5: And the Rest!

May 2, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Me doing jazz hands inside fake Alien webbing beneath a looming Alien Queen statue at least 15 feet tall.

Hi, I’m a xenomorph host!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We were undecided for months because this year it was scheduled the same weekend as one of our hometown shows, Indy Pop Con. Ultimately Chicago lured us back…

…and we had a great time pushing ourselves to the brink of exhaustion and possibly over its curb. We’ve shown you costumes, celebs, panels, jazz hands, and Artists Alley comics. But wait! There’s slightly more!

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C2E2 2024 Photos, Part 4 of 5: Artists Alley!

April 29, 2024 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A dozen new comics and graphic novels, one bagged Star Trek back issue, and a tin sign with Fallout's Vault Boy handing you some Nuka-Cola.

My Artists Alley loot pile, plus a few freebies, a Fallout tin sign, and a back issue Anne really, really, really wanted.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We were undecided for months because this year it was scheduled the same weekend as one of our hometown shows, Indy Pop Con. Ultimately Chicago lured us back…

…not just with actors, but with their promise of comics! Lots and lots of funnybooks and graphic storytelling narratives for all ages, temperaments, and cliques. C2E2 consistently has the best Artists Alley of all the cons we attend regularly. Though the pandemic reduced their ranks a tad even for a while after the vaccines came around, this year’s lineup felt like its strongest in years. The Windy City once again welcomed hundreds of creators to the festivities — a mix of returnees and new faces, pros and wannabes, purveyors of handicrafts and sellers of reading matter. Longtime MCC readers know the latter is always my primary objective. It’d been a while since my last major book-spree. I’d missed the splurging.

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