Bellydancer, Gaius Baltar, Number 6, and Ellie.

Here's a few more delightful photos and such from the NY Comiccon:

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful, Courtney Powell (Bellydancer), being interviewed by season two host Major Victory.


Bellydancer using her beguiling powers on the editor, who shortly after this photograph walked into a wall, an accident requiring over five Guinness.

Lucien: What's your name?

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful: My name is, uh, my real name is Courtney Powell.

Lucien: And what's your hero name?

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful: (Shakes hips, jingling bells.) Bellydancer.

Lucien: Why don't you tell people why you're here...

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful: Well I'm here to be on Who Wants To Be A Superhero, I'm auditioning, and I'm playing the superhero Bellydancer.... I called in sick for work - Shhhh - and I just came over here.

Lucien: What's your power?

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful: My Power? Well it's, ah, all in the shimmy. (Shakes hips again, with musical results.)

Lucien: Oh... Ah, uh-oh.

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful: So when I do my vibration shimmy, which is like this: (Shaking whole body - jingle jangle.) It makes an earthquake and they fall to the ground, and when I do my hip shimmy (another shake) it creates a wave, and when I shake my hip this way: (jingle!) the guy flies to the right, and then this way, the guy flies to the left (Jangle!).

Lucien: I love those powers!

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful: Yeah!

Lucien: It's working.

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful: Yeah! It clouds their mind so they can't think straight.

Lucien: I can barely think straight myself right now.

Who Wants To Be A Superhero hopeful: Exactly, right?

James Callis (Gaius Baltar) & Tricia Helfer (Number 6) from Battlestar Galactica, laughing at Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith: So Trisha, You're from Alberta, and James, you're from Not Here, either.

Trish: That's right.

James: Yes.

Kevin Smith: Alberta, Canada. When I was a kid, I was a member of the Star Wars Fanclub, and got "Bantha Tracks," and all that shit where you could organize penpals. There was a dude who I was a penpal with named Darryl Morton. Do you know that guy?

Ellie

Lucien: What's your name?

NY Comiccon girl: My Name is Ellie.

Lucien: How long ya been workin' this thing, Ellie?

NY Comiccon girl: For, um, two days.

Lucien: What's your position here?

NY Comiccon girl: I'm just a volunteer.

Lucien: Big comic fan? Are you a fangirl?

NY Comiccon girl: Yes and no. My littles brother's a really big fan, so the minute he found out about this he was like, 'oh my god, ya gotta go!'

Lucien: So you're just here for the perks for your little brother?

NY Comiccon girl: And for myself a little bit.

Lucien: What's the thing you're most looking forward to seeing?

NY Comiccon girl: The anime. I like anime

Lucien: What do you think is the strangest thing you've seen here?

NY Comiccon girl: A lot of people in cosplay. A lot of people in costumes. I haven't seen that before.

Lucien: Any intention of being a cosplayer? Perhaps next year you'll show up in costume?

NY Comiccon girl: No. Uh-uh. Nope.

Lucien: If I were a cosplayer, who should I be? Who do I look like?

NY Comiccon girl: Star Wars. Star Wars character.

Lucien: Oooh. Star Wars. like Luke or Darth Vader?

NY Comiccon girl: Anything that covers your face.

Ouch. Gotta love NYC!

-Lucien

I am not an addict. No I am not.

So, there's this game. It's called World of Warcraft.

(Yes, let's do all roll our eyes, shall we? "Oh, that, way to sell out, man!" you say. Shaddup.)

World of Warcraft has been in existance for quite a lot of years now, and I have too. We have co-existed peacefully, as it were, with me thinking that WoW was a fairly silly thing mostly filled with angst-ridden teenagers. Mostly, I did my thing (writing) and it did its thing (I did not know what this thing was.)

A couple of days ago, I was offered the free Ten Day Trial of the full game. "Ah! Finally! Some perks to being a writer!" I thought, but that was silly, because it turns out anyone can do it.

Tempted by nothing very much, I did it. I downloaded the game...

....and lost two days to it. Devoured. The game ate my life, and to prevent me from feeling guilty, it also gobbled up my wife in all the bits of time when I was not actively playing.

This is not a review of the game, though. This is a bit of musing.

One of the things that put me off to the game were a number of local kids I know in various ways. Many of them are your typical creepy gamer kids. They are thin, pale, and awkward. I feel cool and sauve when I am around them, merely by being married, speaking with women, and using complete sentences that do not include the word "Uh..." or "Like." in it.

A number of these kids play WoW, and with disasterous results. Two of them have failed college semesters miserably and been kicked out of school, one of them has been told to move out of his parents basement (snickersnort) and another one is barely keeping a job at a grocery store...and even then, only to pay his WoW subscription.

("Hah!" Pete rants, "Were that the only bill I had was a goram game subscription...!")

So when I began playing WoW, I specifically had in mind the kids this game had swallowed, because it fascinated me. I play all sorts of games and enjoy them very much, but then...I turn off the game and I get back to my life, my job, my writing, all that. It puzzled and fascinated me that these people simply couldn't do that.

The thing about the game which captivates is that it's fairly unrestrictive and unjudgmental. You can be anyone you want. An Elf, a Dwarf, a Carrion eater (Er....) a Minotaur. It's fascinating and fun, and the game has entire cultures built around these species. You can do any sort of job, from mining to skinning, to hunting, to fighting, to blacksmithing...

...And here in the real world, you can work a job, to pay your bills, and grow slowly older as the days tick by and quite a lot of people out there haven't the faintest idea you're alive.

This doesn't just apply to geeks and scared, pale kids. It applies to anyone. Hell, it applies to me. I enjoyed my couple of days in the game (days! Agh!) because I had things to do, places to explore, entire worlds out there full of generally nice and helpful people and things to do.

I was fascinated and captivated because in the real world, I have a short story or two to send out for publication, I have a lot of writing to do, and I have all sorts of other things with the word "DEADLINE" sitting next to them.

And yet, in the game, I had just one more Trogg to kill before I levelled up. I had just one more pelt to gather for a level. I had just one more, just one more, just one more....

I'm not passing any judgments on the game, which is delightful, or on the nerdy kids, who are in their quiet and hesitant way, very wonderful. I'm just noticing that the game takes away all the boring parts of life, gives you interesting bits and you'd resist it as a time-sink, except you never think "God, there goes two hours of my day," and instead think, "Just one more, just one more, just one more..."

...

This would have been an interesting article on writing things, except that I tend to write those when I'm irked at some Very Silly Person who's just talked about writing in a very stupid manner. Maybe next time 'round, someone will irk me into that. I should have just about resurfaced from World of Warcraft by then.

Happy New Year, folks.