gavingibson’s blog

There's a new search engine on the net and it's revolutionized the way I do research online!!!

It's called DracSearch!  Check it out!

http://themoonshake.com/dracsearch/

This sounds like fun: http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/wikipedia-names-your-band

Wikipedia Names Your Band

Music Buzz New meme: here's a totally random way to make your new random band's new random album cover. Post one! Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band. Then go to “Random Quotations” and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. Anyway, you're now looking at my new side project, which will probably sound like Evanescence if they were on 4AD.

OK, let's try it...

Album cover

It's creepier than I would have imagined any album cover of mine being, but it does look pretty plausible!  Watch for me on iTunes!

I sometimes wonder what criteria Facebook uses to determine which ads it shows on your pages.  I've gotten some that are extremely well-suited to my interests and some which are very poorly suited.  This one I saw today is either both or neither...

Tpol

It was little late getting here, but the 21st century finally started today...

Barack-obama-official-small

Man, I can really drag these things out, can't I?

Let's see, what else we got...

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Slightly off-model Doctor Midnight.  It's cool, I'd get sick of dressing up like Blade every year too.  Funny that you never see any Luke Cages.  Or is it?

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Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?  Rosemont, Illinois, it would seem.  Strangely appropriate that I didn't manage to get a shot of her face, isn't it?

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In the wake of the X-Men movies, it is somewhat rare to see a comic book version of those characters.  Here's Rogue.  I did not stick around long enough to tell whether or not she called everyone "Sugah."

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Eeeaaaiiiggghhh, it's Mumm-Ra!  I'm just letting this one speak for itself!

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Yikes, it's the Super-Skrull!  I do enjoy the semi-obscure and/or detailed costumes.

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Aw, Batman and the Joker aren't always sworn enemies.  Sometimes they can get together and enjoy a comic book convention. Batman's feeling so laid back that he didn't even shave!  Robin confuses me somewhat on a continuity level.  The hair suggests that it is the Carrie Kelly Robin from "The Dark Knight Returns," but I think that that's a boy!

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A regal-looking Doctor Strange.

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Judge Dredd??!

I think that's about it for the costumes.  Next entry: Fun with celebrities!

Huh?  Oh right.

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These guys were here yet again, offering more off-model DC Universe fun.  That fat guy was Superman before!  That skinny woman was Wonder Woman before!  Come on!  OK, they seem to have some sort of alternate universe costumes.  Anyway, the Question is new.

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Ooh, Incredibles costumes, that's something I actually haven't seen before!  This guy is Syndrome and later I saw that he had a companion who was dressed as Elasti-Girl, but I didn't get a picture of her.

You know what?  I'm going to get back to you on this whole convention photo thing.  Soon, I promise.  I sleep now!

Hey, the main reason for the continued existence of my "blog" came early this year: Wizard World Chicago!  Blah blah blah comic book convention, blah blah blah people dress up, blah blah blah some celebrities from various levels of fame.  Let's go!

It seemed like there were fewer costumes this year than in other years that we've attended.  Maybe it was because the convention was almost two months earlier this year.  It sure caught me off-guard.  I was going to make a cool Iron Man "arc reactor" under a t-shirt sort of thing, but ran out of time and do you know how expensive blue LEDs are?  More than I thought, anyway.  (We did see at least three other guys at the convention who did make this costume.  One saved money by using a single LED, but he just looked like a guy with a third nipple that could light up.)  So, I decided to be Yorick Brown, the last man on Earth by velcro-ing a monkey stuffed animal to one of my shoulders, but the less said about that the better.  It was pretty unstable (adhesives don't stick well to fake fur) and nobody seemed to recognize my character.  One guy yelled "hey, you should get that monkey off your back!" and the creator of a third-rate cartoon show called me "monkey boy."  I took it off shortly thereafter.  THERE ARE NO PHOTOS.

There are photos of other people in costume, of course...

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Here's Ms. Marvel/Binary/Warbird/Carol Danvers.  I'm not really a Marvel Comics guy, consult Nick for more information.  She looks a little dejected, she must have just come from a long Avengers meeting.

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As I've said before, if I don't know who they're supposed to be, it's probably from anime.  Let's say that these guys are from Naruto.  I think that could even be correct!

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This was the first cool/funny/I-can't-believe-they-did-that costumes that I saw and I asked the guy for a more formal picture: it's one of the Guardians of the Universe!  He looks a little haughty and unimpressed, but that is pretty much the way that the Guardians are.  Method acting?  I am 99.9% sure that this is the guy who had an awesome Kingpin costume last year.  (I wonder if he thought "I am 99.9% sure that this is the same dork who took my picture last year?")

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Here is Black Canary browsing through some back-issues.

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Ooh, inter-company crossover!  The Mighty Thor encounters baby Supergirl and baby Green Arrow.  Seems to be going pretty well...

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Wait, though, what's this??  Supergirl can lift Mjolnir, Thor's Uru hammer?  Only those who are completely worthy can wield it!  This changes everything!

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I thought that these people had a great Doctor Who costume and a pretty good Rose Tyler costume.  Again, I went to them and asked if I could get their picture.  They nodded that it was ok, and posed.  I said "my brother and I were Doctor Who and Captain Jack last year and hardly anyone recognized us!  Your costumes are great!" and they smiled mildly.  I took the picture, thanked them, and they went on their way.  Silently!  Ooh, creepy?

More to come later, including things that I actually involved me!