Inner?
My geek is way outer, I know I can’t fool you guys.
This weekend I’ve spent a lot of time at Cinema Wasteland, a rockin’ horror convention in Cleveland. I have some great pictures and I met a lot of very nice people! My brain is slightly nonfunctional at the moment due to sleep deprivation, but I figured I had enough grey matter left to post and let everyone know what was going on.
Saturday Marty and I made the drive, checked into a perfectly acceptable Motel 6, and he costumed up. I made do with Cthulhu-reference tshirts both days – he brought his Ash costume, a la Army of Darkness. He was a hit, man – he wore this getup for Halloween, but he’s getting good mileage out of it. It’s a rockin’ costume.
Fun Weather
It was rainy and miserable to begin with, but once we hit Cleveland it was clear that rainy and miserable wasn’t all we were going to have to deal with. We got snow… we got sleet… we got ice… and we got wind that was turning everything all horizontal-like. That paired with the slush and awfulness of the parkinglots, leaving the safety of either the convention hotel or our Motel 6 seemed worth the effort… not so much.
Dealer’s Room
We hit the dealer room immediately—here’s my method. You go once when you get there. You go once midway through the con, and you go once an hour before closing. The prices always go down significantly by the end of the weekend, and although I didn’t do a lot of spending this trip, I’m pretty sure the method will hold true. It’s not even 3:30 now – we’ll see if I can be proven wrong.
We made it most of the way through the dealer jungle and were ambushed properly by a camera crew – rather, Marty was ambushed. We have no idea who these folks were, and I don’t even know what all was said – I was too busy being entertained and taking pictures.
Evil Dead and Tom Sullivan
We eventually found our way to Tom Sullivan’s Evil Dead museum – a great little room full of Sullivan’s fabulous artwork and props from the Evil Dead movies. This guy is really, really cool – he’s well spoken and he’s interesting to listen to, and he has nifty stories. Unfortunately a lot of the nifty stories are about projects he worked on before they were canceled or some other horrible thing… but he’s still putting out a lot of unbelievably nifty material and he seems to be doing well for himself. He actually reminds me a little of Todd... I’m not sure if that’s odd or not. Probably just because he seems like such a neat, intelligent guy. (Well, okay!) I didn’t catch the name of the fellow hanging around in there – he was a guest as well, and also had a lot of good stories. He had made a duplicate Necronomicon and gotten it signed by all the Evil Dead greats; Marty got a picture with it. Silly goose. ;}
Mall and Makeup
We stopped at the mall for lunch and got photos with the locals; we stopped to watch the wonderful work of a dude called Shane, who not only did some great work on the dude who was there, but gave me a great tentacle design on my neck. I adored it! It matched my tentacle theme – Mule Design ‘Welcome Squid Overlords’ shirt and ‘Hello Cthulhu’ shirt from Dragoncon last year. I was a crazy squid girl this weekend, man. (Also, Neat Makeup Dude? The one who went just before I did? You can see how great his makeup turned out in this picture.) Okay, are you ready? Here are all the names of the people I met:
Shane was the fellow who did my makeup. This man is genius with an airbrush. Whew! Katie is the girl we first talked to – she had reptilian makeup all down one leg, and she was really fun! Gene is the dude I talked to while I was getting my makeup done (until I was told to hold still), and who I kept checking back in with throughout the con. I also met Mary and Steve, and they were both really nice too! These folks apparently do a haunted house in Cleveland not far from where the Expo is being held, and they take volunteers to be scary monsters… I don’t think I would mind being a scary monster… :-D This, I believe, is their website! Go look, they are such nice people!
New Acquaintances
We met a ton of great people. One of them was a girl whose name I think was Gwendolyn – we watched one of her way-cute movies, and she was a lot of fun to chat with. Marty and I both got a picture with Bill Hinzman, who is this truly nifty dude – he was so nice!! And it is way fun to be attacked by such a nice zombie. _
Besides which, we met Amy Lynn Best, who is just the most fun ever! I sincerely hope we get to see more of her at future cons, I am officially obsessed. ;}
Evening Escapades (Or Lack Thereof?)
Because of the weather we ended up staying inside at Motel 6 after about 7pm. We watched all of the cute movies we’d found, Marty did a bunch of great drawings, and we had a generally fantabulous time. I managed to get some, but perhaps not nearly enough, sleep. And as a result, I’m a little… sleepy… now.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!
Sunday morning we got breakfast and wandered around the dealer’s room some more – Marty got a picture with the wildly funny Low Budget Pictures folks.
Update: It is now 4:10, and we’ve made the rounds in the dealer’s room. Video prices have gone from $20 per to $20 for three, so my theory is, apparently, solid. That makes me happy. Except for the bit where we bought our videos early on, that is… Ow, my pocketbook. Wince. But, here’s the thing. I like these people. The only way they can continue to do what they love is if they make money. So… they can have my money. I love meeting so many nice people!
Everything is winding down, and we’re hanging out in the lobby next to some lamps. One of the lamps sacrificed its everlasting soul (er, its electrical outlet) so I could plug my office in and do some quick checking in. Thank you, lamp.
I don’t know exactly what the future holds between now and my flight at 8:35, but hopefully it will be interesting. I can feel the stupid seeping from my body as I get more awake. I think that B-100 I popped is kicking in. Cosmic Vitamin Power!
