April 2015 – Whimsy. Tacos. The DMV.

In the second weekend of April, Amelie and I headed to Orlando to attend Megacon, the third largest sci-fi/television/gaming/anime convention in the United States. I’ve been to many Megacons over the years, and my favorite things about them are primarily the panels and the costumes. They’re pretty crowded.

I love the panels because you often get to hear backstory about the filming of things, as well as bits of interesting life stories from the people on the panel. Plus the jokes… oh, such jokes!

This year, we attended four panels that were interesting. The first is Cary Elwes, best known for playing Westley in The Princess Bride.

The second was a special “Companions” panel which featured three Doctor Who names- Tony Curran, Karen Gillan, and Alex Kingston.

Next, we had an Arrow/The Flash shared panel, featuring Robbie Amell, Danielle Panabaker, and David Ramsay. In this photo, you can see that Robbie is wearing Batman underwear… and David is taking a picture of it.

Next was a Firefly panel, with Summer Glau, Adam Baldwin, Alan Tudyk, and the cardboard head of Nathan Fillion.

Lastly, we got to hear a nice chat with Stan Lee. About ten minutes in, Lou Ferrigno crashed the panel, followed by Michael Rooker (not pictured.) I’d like to point out that Lou Ferrigno is in his sixties, and he looks like he’s in his forties.

The rest of the photos in this post are all costumes. I took hundreds of pictures at this convention, but these were some of my favorites.

This is most of the Belcher family from Bob’s Burgers. They were only missing a Gene.

Oswald Cobblepot, at your service.

This gold Lamborghini was parked at the convention hotel, covered in Walking Dead stickers. I’m pretty sure it belonged to one of the Walking Dead cast members who was attending the convention.

Beetlejuice!

Griff Tannen.

A pair of scientists from Veridian Dynamics. (Science. Better.)

He was just killing time!

Run, Geordi, run!

Eddie Valiant and Roger.

Tetris!

A quiet moment between Joker and Harley…

This was one of my favorite cosplays- The Flight of the Navigator. He even had Max’s interface and the Puckmaren.

Jay and Silent Bob.

Bender Bending Rodriguez.

Doctor Strange, pre-Cumberbatching.

A rather astonishingly well done Silence and Madame Vastra.

Lando Calrissian.

Green plastic army men, complete with little foot-bases.

Number 9 from Futurama’s “Into The Wild Green Yonder.”

Anna of Arendelle.

The Arrow, Black Canary, and Arsenal, CW TV version.

I must confess that I’m not sure who this character is. I thought I knew, but when I checked the Internet to confirm, I discovered I was wrong.

Edit: A sharp-eyed friend spotted that this is Bishop, from the X-Men. I was so close!

A nearly full Serenity crew.

A tiny Eleventh Doctor, Rory, and Amy, along with a pint-sized Tardis.

A spot-on (and adorable) Jinx.

Static! I love this character.

Skeletor.

Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham. Yes, this is a real character- he first appeared in 1983.

Gru! (with a tiny Minion)

Chip and Dale, Rescue Rangers.

Jeoffrey and Khaleesi? I don’t know for sure, because I’ve never watched (or read) Game of Thrones.

Hawk-Girl.

The guy in the middle is Kuzco, and he’s carrying a tiny model of his summer home, Kuzco-topia. The lobster’s just a lobster. (Actually, I think he’s Sebastian from the Little Mermaid, but I’m not positive.)

This is a little dragon that I bought for Amelie. He’s super-cute, isn’t he?

Have you ever been to a Con? What was your favorite costume?

I went to Trader Joe’s today for the first time ever. I’ve heard people raving about this store for years, but the big expansions into South Florida didn’t’ take place until I was already in Germany.

It’s kind of funny that I never had a chance to try any Trader Joe’s food until now, because some Trader Joe’s food is sold in Aldi stores in Germany. (A quick history: Trader Joe’s started out as a California-only store under a different name in the 1950s. It was renamed Trader Joe’s around 1967, and was American-owned until Theo Albrecht purchased the chain in 1979. Theo Albrecht is the owner of Aldi Nord.)

I digress. Amelie and I were trying to go to Target today, not realizing that all of the Target stores would be closed for Easter Sunday. It’s astonishing how quickly I have forgotten about everything being closed on Sundays now that I’m back in the United States. The Target we were trying to visit was only a mile or so from the Trader Joe’s, and it seemed like as good a time as any to have my inaugural visit.

I totally stole the next two photos from Yelp because I didn’t know I was going to write about this while we were in the store.

I’ve heard many people say that the Trader Joe’s aesthetic is very similar to the Aldi experience, but I think that Trader Joe’s is much closer to a Whole Foods type of store than Aldi. Still, the pricing of all the Trader Joe branded items is much closer to Aldi levels than Whole Foods. I was expecting Trader Joe’s to be more upscale than it was.

I liked the bag they put our stuff in. It’s been ages since I’ve been given a paper bag at any kind of a grocer.

We originally went to the store in search of some body wash for Amelie, and we found one that she likes in the store. The cookie butter cookies and the power-berry juice blend were total impulse buys.

It is not for nothing that they call cookie-butter “cookie crack.” That stuff is super-delicious. Some of you will know it as Speculoos or Spekulatius. It’s the same stuff. It is delicious, delicious stuff. The juice is also really tasty.

We also decided that we’re going to try some not-at-a-restaurant Indian food for dinner. We’ll probably trade rice- Amelie wants the Paneer Tikka Masala but doesn’t want the spinach basmati rice. We both want the naan though. I have been known to make a meal out of just naan and a mango lassi.

I don’t really have a well rounded closing for this post, so I’ll just show you a picture of this amazing dog we saw in Boca Raton today. He was so tiny, and he looked kind of badass with his tiny sunglasses on.