Saturday Grab Bag and the Glad Rags

The most important news item requiring follow-up and thus necessitating a SGB post is as follows: this past Monday I got an e-mail from the friend I had taken to chemo the week before, in which she thanked me effusively, not so much for the gesture of tagging along but for the fact that her entire course of treatments for the week had far fewer side-effects than usual. She attributed this to me, joked that I should come with her every time from here on out, and referred to me as her "good luck charm". This of course made the little anima-worshipping pagan inside me do a little triumphant dance. So ... magical thinking FTW, I guess? Hell if I know anything about how anything works in this world anymore. But no sense arguing when good things happen.

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The other thing I suppose I could follow up on is the comic con from last weekend, which was fun, mainly (as always) for the people-watching and especially for watching the cosplayers. There were, as always, plenty of chicks dressed like Wonder Woman or Supergirl and plenty of dudes dressed like Spider-Man or Batman. I saw a father and two sons, all dressed as the Incredible Hulk, and the array of them in staggered heights just made me think, "Hulks. Hulks all the way down."

Comic cons have become more all-encompassing geek cons these days, which I'm fine with, but one result is that the most prevalent costumes were from a live action sci-fi show (that would be Doctor Who) or from a cartoon (that would be Adventure Time). Seriously, those Finns and Fionas were freaking everywhere.

I tend to be more amused by the more obscure comics character homages, though, and there was no shortage of those either. I caught a glimpse of a guy dressed as an old 80's bad guy from the Spider-Man comics named Sin Eater. A couple of girls were dressed as interesting variants on Transformers, where they had the heads of robots (Jazz and Shockwave, respectively) but then were wearing old-fashioned dresses with color schemes corresponding to the robot's chassis. And I saw a woman dressed as Alana from Saga.

That's her on the left. Saga is a comic that not only you have never heard of but I haven't gotten into, however my dad has thanks to one of my brothers gifting him with the first issue, and I've hear nothing but good things about it. The woman I saw had the hair, the wings, the clothes, and even a baby doll. I happened to pass her in one of the aisles on the con floor, and I gave her a respectful little knowing nod which I hoped conveyed my respect for the deep pull.

Strangely enough I only saw one Princess Leia in Jabba's Slave garb, which used to be a get-up you couldn't swing a dead womprat without hitting half a dozen of. Since it was so played out, I'm not lamenting its passing at all. But I did also think it was strange that I saw exactly zero people in Game of Thrones cosplay. If Slave Leia's day has come and gone, you'd think Daenerys in khaleesi animal skins would be a natural replacement. Maybe that's just me.

Also, my friends and I went to a screening of Jay and Silent Bob's Super Groovy Cartoon Movie, and it was ... disappointing, on many levels. I think Kevin Smith has destroyed the better judgment centers of his brain with weed. But maybe that's a post for another day.

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BASEBALL UPDATE: This past week, the Orioles and Yankees played each other, mercifully for the last time this season. One evening I was worried the game would get rained out and they'd have to play one last-miute make-up game, but it was just a delay. Some nights the O's won, and some nights the Yanks won, but on no nights was there anything approaching smacktalk coming from either side of the marital union under our roof. In fact, by the last night my wife was asking in all seriousness, "Can we just not watch the game and pretend it isn't happening?" I commiserated with her and even went a bit further in explaining how grim the entire end-of-season state of the standings happened to be (as of a few days ago, at any rate):

The Red Sox are in first place with a commanding lead - that alone is borderline intolerable. Meanwhile the Rays, Orioles and Yankees are all in the mix for the wildcard, with Tampa Bay at the moment in the second wildcard slot and New York and Baltimore within a game or two (along with a couple other non-AL East teams). While the O's and Yankees were beating each other up, essentially treading water in the standings as they traded wins and losses, the Red Sox and Rays were playing each other. Logic would dictate that since the Red Sox are all but uncatchable it would be in both my wife's and my own best interest to root for Boston to sweep Tampa Bay, so that both of our teams could gain some ground in the wildcard race. Except I can't stomach cheering on Boston under any circumstances, it brings to mind words like "unconscionable" and "anathema" and other such high-end synonyms for "I'm a big baby sore loser". I would much rather hope and wish for an epic Sox collapse than be pragmatic about it.

Of course I should, as I've alluded to earlier this season, be grateful that the post-season is even a slim possibility for the boys from the Bronx this year, and just shut up and count my blessings. But what fun would that be?

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And speaking of sports, and follow-ups, I had a pitiful Week 1 in the football pick'em pool. After getting the Denver win right, I went 3-and-12. Yowch. I told y'all it wouldn't last!