Gamers gaming with games. The costumes are incidental.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended Gen Con 2014 and took pictures as usual.
The first five parts were all costumes, costumes, costumes. In this, the final chapter in the Gen Con 2014 saga: slightly fewer costumes. Because there are other persons, places, and things at entertainment conventions besides costumes. Yes, really.
Not taking Khal Drogo seriously would prove to be his last mistake. After the scene of carnage, his friends divided up the contents of his pockets between them.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended Gen Con 2014 and took pictures as usual.
Parts One through Three were the Costume Contest winners and contenders. Part Four was cosplay in the exhibit hall, the other halls, the other rooms, out and about, and wherever. Part Five: more of those, but the last usable ones in our collection. If you’re not shown here, either our destinies didn’t cross on that fateful Saturday, or we crossed at mistimed moments (really sorry I missed Pirate Harley Quinn), or we have a tragically blurry pic of you that’s not worth anyone’s upload time. Better luck next year, maybe?
For those who know every fictional character ever invented, this entry shall be your geek-culture playground, as it contains the largest number of “WHO DAT” cosplay moments. If you recognize any of the unnamed folks in these pics, now’s your chance to label them with pride.
Right this way for the last of the famous international cosplayers!
The all-new Ms. Marvel!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended Gen Con 2014 and took pictures as usual.
Parts One through Three were folks in the Costume Contest. In Parts Four and Five: convention attendees who opted out of competition but availed themselves of the activities and walking space all over the bustling, crowded exhibit hall. More lighting, more time to concentrate, and no dozens of rows of chairs separating us from the cosplayers. Much better results in general.
Purple Bane, Purple Bane! I encountered him on the show floor before he popped up in the Contest. His stage appearance included his own version of the song, with backing track by, apropos of Bane, the Revolution.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended Gen Con 2014 and took pictures as usual.
Part One was the Costume Contest Winners; Part Two was more entrants to same, many of whom sported equally fine work and/or delivered entertaining performances in their own right. This time: our last remaining Costume Contest pics, some of which are beyond usability, but I like to be as inclusive as possible, often to a fault. If you were in the Contest and you’re not in any of those three entries, you have our sincerest apologies.
Hawkwoman! Or possibly Hawkgirl. I’m going with Hawkwoman.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended Gen Con 2014 and took pictures as usual.
Last time was the Costume Contest Winners. This time: some of the other Costume Contest entrants, whose fine works will star in Parts Two and Three. I’m splitting them up because I like to keep my photodumps to a fairly consistent size. When I go too far overboard in a single entry, chances are I’ve been at the computer too long and I’m putting myself at risk of falling to pieces if I don’t step away for a while.
Toothless! America’s new favorite reptile (sorry, Godzilla), the star of the How to Train Your Dragon series. Winner of this year’s Staff Favorite award.
This weekend our starstruck hometown of Indianapolis hosted the 47th edition of Gen Con, one of America’s oldest and largest gaming conventions. Whether your gaming mode is RPGs, tabletop games, TCGs, dice games, family board games, or video games, Gen Con has its sights aimed in your direction. Try a new game, pick up supplies for your current campaigns, network with gamers from faraway lands, or just wander the premises and gaze upon the wonders. Attendance in 2013 exceeded 49,000, an impressive 20% increase over 2012. Judging by how overcrowded the main exhibit hall became by mid-afternoon Saturday this year, I’d say they’re on target for another increase.
This was my fifth GenCon and my wife’s fourth, even though we’re not certified pro gamers. Some of our personal geek interests intersect with enough of the available exhibits, dealers, and special events that we’re rarely bored except in the occasional line, but those come with the territory. I have somewhat obsolete working knowledge of the early days of gaming. In my youth I used to spend dollar after dollar on the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons hardcovers and modules, as well as various other TSR RPGs (Top Secret!, Star Frontiers, Marvel Super-Heroes, et al.) and a subscription to both Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Adventures (starting with issue #1!) until all my childhood friends moved away and took their Player Characters with them.
Anyway: we took too many photos because too many people did interesting things. Our photos will be paced out in a six-part series that I hope to post on a slightly-more-than-daily basis over the next few days, Lord willing and if non-internet responsibilities don’t interfere. We begin with the easiest place to start: the winners of the 29th annual Gen Con Costume Contest.
Caveat for newcomers to MCC: some of our photos aren’t the greatest ever. The 500 Ballroom is poorly lit at all times whether any conventions are using it or not. Flash photography was forbidden, which is just as well because using the flash from the non-Press-Pass, non-VIP seats produces even worse results. This is something my wife and I enjoy doing, to show our appreciation and awe for those with the flair for this particular aspect of the scene. We apologize in advance for the costumes we missed, and for the opportunities we blew because of our limitations and hindrances.
Comments and especially corrections are always welcome and appreciated. (That’s my standing policy for every MCC entry anyway, not just the Gen Con six-parter.) I’m not plugged directly into every single geek scene out there. Very few geeks are, even the famous ones with their own YouTube channels. If you notice any wanton acts of mislabeling, please don’t hesitate to call me out. I enjoy learning about new worlds and universes, giving credit where it’s due, and dispelling my old man’s ignorance.
It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides and big-ticket concerts by musicians that other people love. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. Usually, 70% of our quest is food.
Each year the State Fair announces the annual theme of a single ingredient and holds a contest daring all the vendors to create a new dish around it, like a sort of Food Network cooking show except I think the grand prize is just “for exposure”. Recent history has brought us the Year of the Tomato, the Year of Corn, the Year of Soy, the Year of Popcorn, and so on. This year’s theme was the disappointingly non-food-based Year of the Coliseum, in honor of the longtime event venue that reopened this year after a two-year closure for major, modernizing renovations. Some reverence is to be expected for the Pepsi Coliseum as an integral part of the fairground experience for many attendees. Just the same, this break from thematic tradition left the vendors a bit directionless and less inspired to whip up new concoctions for us. We managed to find a couple.
Meet the donut that killed me.
Right this way for more food, if you have any appetite left!
Sample image from our day spent strolling around the 2014 Indiana State Fair. As you might expect from a state fair, there were unhealthy new food items and small entertainment spectacles and amateur art and general Hoosier happenings all around, such as the driver seen here, one of several participants in a midday parade around the fairgrounds’ long racetrack alongside numerous other farmers on tractors.
More photos to come in the next couple days, here on MCC…
Here’s something we never thought we’d see visiting the American Midwest: real Terracotta Warriors, straight out of the world-famous Shaanxi province collection. They seemed a fascinating thing, but we were surprised that their current caretakers would allow the collection to be split up.
Rare are the opportunities to see such unique creations up close, to examine the once-painted clay surfaces, the cracks from erosion and light restoration, the intricate textures of these sculptures carved over two millennia ago. Other artifacts exist from the same century, circa 200-odd B.C., as shown below. They’re interesting in their own way, but they’re hardly the stars of the show.
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 5: Wednesday, July 26th
A second round at the same breakfast buffet was a precursor to our long drive down I-35 North to the northern end of Minnesota. Along the way we zoomed past the official campaign tour bus of one Rod Grams. The Internet tells me in retrospect that he’s a former anchorman turned construction company president turned US Congressman who’s up for reelection this year, but at the time we didn’t know Rod Grams from Rod Flanders. Had I known, maybe we could’ve run him off the road and asked for an autograph. For want of a monster truck, a brush with greatness was lost.
Once again thanks to Roadside America, we didn’t stop till two hours down the road, a bit out of our way in the town of Cloquet, home of the only gas station ever designed by the one and only Frank Lloyd Wright.
Suggested motto: “Get the right gas for your car at Wright Gas!”
Painted elephants in 2-D; rhinos in 3-D!
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 4: Tuesday, July 25th (continued)
Before leaving Austin, I stopped at a gas station across the street, filled up on cheap gas, then sat for several minutes waiting for an old lady in her jalopy to sloooowly finish her business with the air pump so I could refill our leaky rear driver’s-side tire. After our interminable stakeout, we took care of the tire and retreated back in the direction of Minneapolis, stopping for supper on the way in the town of Owatonna at a chain joint called the Happy Chef. To be honest, I didn’t realize it was part of a chain until I saw others like it along the same stretch of freeway. With a name like “Happy Chef”, I’d hoped it was either a cornball buffet or an earnest Chinese restaurant. The reality was a standard diner, competent and low-priced but otherwise unremarkable.
While in town, on yet another recommendation from Roadside America (who likewise tipped us off to the Rock in the House and the Spam Museum), we stopped in Owatonna at a sporting goods store called Cabela’s. Like Happy Chef, it’s a chain we don’t have back in Indiana. Unlike Happy Chef, this franchise offers a special attraction: the largest collection of action-posed taxidermy you’re likely to see in a sporting goods store.
Spammy bids you welcome! Enter freely and of your own craving!
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 4: Tuesday, July 25th (continued)
After several hours of gawking and photographing the animals, then a few minutes of fairly priced zoo cafeteria lunch, two more hours of driving took us southeast to the town of Austin, home of Hormel Foods and the world-famous Spam Museum.
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 4: Tuesday, July 25th
Our hotel in Bloomington rewarded us with the largest breakfast buffet of the whole trip. The offerings weren’t all that different, with the notable exception of a positively luxurious three waffle-makers. Their buffet was much more spread out and streamlined, rather than crammed into a leftover nook like those of the previous hotels. Although they offered three times as many tables and chairs as we were used to, they were also just as crowded as the pool had been the previous night.
Once we were tanked up on too much sugar — I know I was, at least — we drove due south to Apple Valley, home of the Minnesota Zoo. This part was a concession on behalf of my son, the wildlife lover. We always schedule one vacation stop for his appeasement, though a zoo was a welcome change of pace from the ride-alike amusement parks of previous years. (Fun opinion I wish I didn’t hold: Six Flags parks are as interchangeable as McDonald’s franchises.)
Lakes and birdies, hand in hand: Minnesota’s nature scene in a nutshell.
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 3: Monday, July 24th (continued)
Another few miles down the Great River Byway brought us through the town of Alma, home of a business calling itself the Beef Slough Store. I had a hard time imagining what they would sell or who would buy it. Several light-pole posters along the highway advertised an upcoming production of Urinetown: the Musical. I had to wonder if Alma was one of those Small Towns with a Deep, Dark Secret that ambush unsuspecting travelers in one too many movies or Twilight Zone episodes.
After a quick pause to refuel in the town of Nelson, our next scheduled sight a mere half-an-hour away from the Rock in the House was the Pepin Historical Society and Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. Both are located not far off the shores of Lake Pepin, which we never actually saw.
You can guess which one of us was most excited about this stop. No, not my son.
This is how everyone spends their tenth wedding anniversary, right? Because my wife and I sure wouldn’t want to look out of place or anything.
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 3: Monday, July 24th (continued)
Eventually, after the dashboard downshifted from Red Alert, and after one missed turnoff along the Minnesota side of the Mississippi River, we skipped back into Wisconsin and reached Highway 35, a.k.a. the Great River Byway, a stretch of road that follows along the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi through several small towns all the way to Minnesota. We were unaware until we reached it that the byway was an attraction unto itself, but it was a beautiful surprise. The river on your left is gorgeous, but the ridges and rock formations on your right are intimidating yet impressive.
Yes, this photo again. But hours away from the Dells, we eventually remembered that we like nature.
Our first intentional stop on the Byway was in Fountain City, home of a roadside attraction called the Rock in the House. From the front, it’s just another home near a cliffside. As you approach from the modest parking area, it appears ordinary, even quaint.
Just a house….or IS IT?
From the rear, it looks like this:
You’re not helping, boy.
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 3: Monday, July 24th
The morning was spent alternating between packing, indulging in the hotel breakfast buffet — nothing special, but less stale and more choices than what we’d had in Milwaukee — and admiring the hotel’s cable selection, which offered unusual channels that we can’t get here at home like MTV2 and G4. We watched an entire (rerun) episode of Cheat! just because my son and I were fascinated by the idea of a TV show devoted to video game tips and cheat codes, even if the episode featured games we’re unlikely to play anytime soon (among them Batman Begins and God of War).
We checked out and drove straight to Riverview Park & Waterworld, arriving just as they opened the doors at 10 a.m. We originally wanted to be on the road to Minnesota much, much sooner, but the free passes were an unexpected boon. Given how much money we blew the previous days for so much underwhelming enjoyment in return, we were bound and determined to get our money’s worth out of Wisconsin Dells in general, in some bizarre karmic way, even though we don’t believe in capital-K Karma.
I was kinda pooled-out after the previous day’s festivities both at Mt. Olympus and the hotel pool. Since Anne hadn’t had a shot at water rides yet, she and the boy suited up and rode every single water ride on the premises while I played the role of our official bagman.
Water slide races! One of several aqueous pleasures that looked nifty from a distance, if you were in the mood and not BITTER about certain other things that were no fault of this particular water park’s.
Right this way as we bid farewell to this town-sized tourist trap…
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 2: Sunday, July 23rd (continued)
Our next stop after Alligator Alley had been preplanned months in advance. Our only previous water-park encounter was the single time we remembered to bring swimsuits to Kings Island, but didn’t gidet around to putting them on till two hours before closing time. We’d enjoyed what little we could in such a short timespan, but we yearned to enjoy a water park without hurrying. Besides, we’d have to be complete fuddy-duddies not to visit the self-styled Water Park Capital of the World and not visit at least one lousy water park. Our choice was an ancient Greco-Roman theme park called Mt. Olympus. For my son, it seemed a winning combination. He likes pools. He likes amusement parks. He likes Greek mythology. (He and I were among the half-dozen people in America who got a kick out of Disney’s Hercules.) All three combined should’ve been a winning ticket.
Enter, and be one with the gods! Or just pay godlike prices.
You half-expect Hercules to be hanging around and preparing to topple some of these. Or Samson, even.
Albino alligator! As not seen in the movie of the same name.
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 2: Sunday, July 23rd
Every hotel on this vacation also included free breakfast. This hotel would prove to offer the weakest of the week, mostly muffins and stale cake donuts. Maybe pilots thrive on those, but we didn’t.
The drive out of Milwaukee brought us further into bona fide Wisconsin heartland, swathed in foliage and crops greener than ours back in Indiana, dotted with businesses sporting names like “Mousehouse Cheesehaus”, and permeated with the sounds of the John Tesh Radio Show, which alternated the usual hoary old EZ-listening standards with self-help bon mots from the Teshmeister himself. Within hours we left Tesh behind and arrived at our next city of choice, Wisconsin Dells.
[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]
Day 1: Saturday, July 22nd
We packed quickly, then hit the open road after a quick stop to air up the tires — all four of which were low — and shut off that dashboard light at last. The first few hours from Indianapolis to Chicago were mostly uneventful, unless you count my hairbreadth near-miss of an interstate exit sign I’d been seeking in Chicago. To steer clear of the wrong turnoff and avoid the line of cars steamrolling past us in the proper lane, I had to drive up onto the raised median between the forks in the road. I could blame the rampant Chicago interstate construction, or I could blame my proclivity for occasional concentrated daydreaming at inopportune moments. Or I could take the easy, responsibility-free way out and blame society. Either way, no way could I have pulled that move in my own car, a ’96 Cavalier, without sailing right off both axles. For once, the day was saved, thanks to…the SUV!
Once we were well past the heavy reconstruction of the Dan Ryan Expressway, we stopped briefly in Lake Forest for gas, then motored out of Illinois, into Wisconsin, and on to the pretty, pretty town of Pleasant Prairie, where the local botanists worked overtime to make a good first impression on travelers. A few miles east of the exit was our first tourist attraction of the trip, the Jelly Belly Factory, proud makers of jellybeans and jellybean accessories.
I hear this car’s engine ran on jellybeans instead of gas, but then GM bought it and dropped it into the Mariana Trench.
