Tag Archives: pop culture

C2E2 2023 Photos, Part 4 of 4: Convention!

April 7, 2023 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Life-size recreation of a giant furry white bison/manatee friendly hybrid monster with a beige "Last Airbender" arrow pointing down its forehead.

A life-sized Appa the sky bison from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

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. After its 2010 inception, we attended every year from 2011 to 2019, then took a break due partly to the pandemic and partly due to guest lists outside our circles of interest. This year’s strong lineup lured us back in, much to our delight…

…and the exhibit hall didn’t disappoint, either. It all comes down to this: one last gallery of the C2E2 sights and wonders that we didn’t already post from our two-day extravaganza. Sure, our passes could’ve gotten us in for Sunday as well, but we’re getting old and can only handle so much sensory stimulation and so many miles of walking before our legs snap off.

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Indiana State Fair 2022 Photos, Part 3 of 6: The Year in Canned Food Art

August 20, 2022 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
canned Baby Yoda!

Canned Grogu for the win!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

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, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

One of the many creative events each year is the Canstruction contest, which isn’t necessarily exclusive to local 4-H youngsters. Canstruction is a charitable organization that holds nationwide events in which engineers and other clever planners compete against each other in building the best sculpture made entirely from canned goods, preferably in recognizable shapes and not ordinary stacks with boring titles like “The Can-Can”. After the judging and the public displaying are over, all those meticulously planned figures are torn down and the components are donated to local hunger relief charities, who in turn forward them to needy families totally unaware their next few meals used to be Art.

Possibly in keeping with this year’s “Fun at the Speed of Summer” theme, each team of contestants made vehicles or vehicular acccessories out of cans, starting with the floating space crib in our lead photo. Some machines were built for more speed than others.

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Our Ten Terrific Tricks for a Stay-at-Home Comic Con

May 17, 2020 By in Comics/Lit, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Quarantine Jazz Hands!

With your host, Dr. Bane-ton Forrester!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: for the past several years my wife Anne and I have made a tradition of going somewhere — anywhere but home — for each of our birthdays. One-day road trips and events, such as last year’s tour of the Art Institute of Chicago, give me the gift of new experiences and distract me from the physical decay at hand. It was a nice tradition while it lasted.

For my 48th birthday we had hoped this weekend would see us returning to Motor City Comic Con up near Detroit. Our first trip to Motor City in 2017 was a fantastic experience, and this year’s guest list had a few larger-than-life personalities we would’ve loved to meet. Then, much as has happened to You, The Viewers at Home, our best-laid plans gang agley. In the wake of COVID-19, businesses closed or severely restricted their services, workplaces were scuttled, my employers enacted strict rules about out-of-state travel, and any and all events involving two or more people were canceled. All one-man events, such as the worst YouTube channels ever, were allowed to continue on schedule. I haven’t had a birthday party in years, but the state of the world has derailed our road-trip tradition for my big day. Whether we can resume our practice on Anne’s birthday in October will hinge on a number of variables, none of them within my personal control, though I’d totally be on top of that for her sake if I had Dr. Manhattan’s powers.

Anne and I were determined to line up an enjoyable weekend for ourselves anyway. Between the two of us we made the most of these past two days with the resources safely available. We found a way to recreate ten (10) commonalities we’ve encountered at various entertainment conventions over the past several years. Welcome to what I nicknamed “TakeoutCon 2020”, which included the following comic-con-esque features:

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A Series of Scarecrows on a Small-Town Square

October 27, 2019 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
fitness scarecrows!

In this display a Danville fitness center shows us why we’ve never seen a fat scarecrow: they work out till they’re healthy and strawng.

Last weekend my wife Anne and I were out of town visiting my in-laws’ church and scouting the surrounding areas for fresh donuts when we stumbled across a surprise delight. Apropos of the autumn season and the upcoming Halloween holiday, we learned the nearby town of Danville, Indiana, holds an annual contest inviting local businesses to create their own scarecrows. A few craftspeople kept it simple. Some drew inspiration from their own lines of work. Some dove right into pop culture for their subject matter, which of course is bound to catch our eyes. Still others let their imaginations run amok. These were some of the standouts to me, proudly on display around the town square.

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Dragon Con 2019 Photos #11 of 12: The Dragon’s Lairs

September 10, 2019 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
RX-24 + Mouse Droid!

RX-24 from Star Wars Rebels and a Mouse Droid from the same universe, signs we were definitely in the right area.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…though we weren’t sure how easy it would be to transition from one mode to the other. Thankfully we found D*C has the best head-start program for newcomers that we’ve ever seen at a convention.

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Dragon Con 2019 Photos #10 of 12: Last Call for Cosplay

September 6, 2019 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Chernobyl Russian nuclear technician!

A Russian nuclear technician from HBO’s Chernobyl.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…and thus we arrive at our final D*C costume gallery. From the badge pickup on Thursday afternoon to the last cosplayer we caught at the Peachtree Center food court on our way out Saturday, ’twas a merry assortment of wardrobes and wearers. Our own modest collection here on MCC is but a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay on display among the tens of thousands of attendees and passersby. The fun thing about so many folks sharing their own cosplay pics is you’re guaranteed never to see the same lineup twice.

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Dragon Con 2019 Photos #9: No Parades, Just Cosplay

September 6, 2019 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Insurance Mascots!

TV insurance mascots role call: Lady Liberty Mutual! Mayhem! Flo from Progressive! The General! (“For a great low rate you can get online / Go to The General and save some time!”)

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…where, as you can imagine in a show with 80,000+ in attendance, with or without the parade in progress, boring sights were in short supply. Every con of every size has its share of cosplayers bringing fun, creativity, imagination, and heightened quality of life to any and every square foot around them. We spent much of our time in lines, panels, and massive crowds where poses and shoots became next to impossible without making gridlock even worse, but we did what we could whenever time, space, and energy allowed to salute those who did their thing.

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Dragon Con 2019 Photos #8: Ultimate Final Cosplay-Parade Climax Endgame Finale

September 5, 2019 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Adult Swim coming!

An Adult Swim coterie on the horizon at left. If you know the characters at right, let me know? That isn’t Princess Bubblegum, right?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. And it all comes down to this: one last catchall entry of parade pics that I thought had their own charms, uses, and/or recognizable characters. We have dozens remaining, but they’re largely shots of (a) tiny people waaaaaay in the distance, (b) characters we don’t know and didn’t think we did justice to, and/or (c) parade marchers who turned the wrong way at the last second and faced too far toward the other side of the street, or were obscured by the people next to them. If anyone’s interested in some of those, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add them here for posterity and curiosity.

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Dragon Con 2019 Photos #6: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued Yet Again

September 5, 2019 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Whovians!

Doctors and Daleks and Davros, oh, my!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. In this installment we throw in a smattering of Doctor Who and then another roundup of random characters from science fiction and here and there and everywhere. Same cautions apply as last time: we’re pros, not fans; corrections are very welcome if we misname anyone; we do take requests, but can’t guarantee we photographed every parade participant; enjoy!

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Dragon Con 2019 Photos #3: More Cosplay on Parade

September 3, 2019 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Penguin!

The Penguin from Batman Returns but 100% less slimy.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

..such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. Same cautions apply as last time: we’re pros, not fans; corrections are very welcome if we misname anyone; we do take requests, but can’t guarantee we photographed every parade participant; enjoy!

Continue reading →

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