So I plan to survive the apocalypse. Despite all the odds against me making it. But I've been a fan of the genre in general for far too long to believe myself anything other than woefully ignorant of the mundane tasks of day to day life after the end. I mean really, I'm totally out of it when it comes to building a McGyver like trap to take out the last of those bastard biker nomads who just murdered my beloved wife and child. I'll need a wife first. Any takers?

I'd like to take up sailing. Windpower is unlimited, if a bit unpredictable. And the world's surface is covered with water, at around 70%. Plus, and this is important, frakking zombies can't swim. Ok, the buggery tradition of the open ocean isn't so overly appealing, but then sometimes you just need to live by the unwritten book of the sea. Not just the sailing, but the entire survival at sea class of skills, from navigation to gathering food and facing storms.

Next, I'll need to learn how to enjoy fish and other seafood. I hate fish. And I'll probably be living off it for a while. Unless there's some genetic revolution in the meantime and seacows are created. In that case, fuck the Tuna Surprise Jeeves, I'll have the steak. Scientific establishment, get on that would you?

There will probably be other survivors, and life on the move is rather lonely so I really need to work on some better pickup lines. Though accurate(hopefully), I imagine that "I'm neither radioactive or undead! Do me!" Will fail to bring in the honeys for very long. Specially after the other male survivors pick up on those magic words. Eventually I'll need to admit that I just can't compete with the three eyed mutant who can say (and prove) I've got a six inch tongue and can breathe through my ears.

I'm not going for some McGyveresque feat of "I've taken this box of rubber bands, this ballpoint pen and a bag full of baking soda and built a nuclear powered air craft carrier. What'd you do?" No, I'd settle with being able to open the hood of a vehicle and not saying "Gee-willikers, there are a lot of hoses and stuff. looks Like we're walking buddy."

Run a still and make a decent vintage(one that doesn't make the imbiber blind). I don't touch the stuff, and will likely be less interested when I see what goes into the process. But folks do like their liquor and they might be willing to trade. Keep that eye on the brass ring. Remember on you way out to try some Suttonstein's 3 hour special brew - It probably won't make you crazy.

Blacksmithing. Not so much for the weapons/tools/art, but more for the bulging muscles. It'll also give me some affinity for the warhammer.

Land navigation and wilderness survival. If I don't take to the sea I'm hitting the mountains. Which means I have to get to the mountains. And then not die of gross stupidity (I'm betting against myself on this one). It's unlikely that I'll stumble on a goodwilled ole'timey trapper type who will take me under his wing and teach me everything I need after the fact. Nope, gotta be proactive here. I plan to spend the next week or so watching and re-watching Jeremiah Johnson.

Aikido. Nuff said.

Playing gameboy without throwing it when I lose my temper after the fiftieth time in a row where the damn game cheats and I magically get hit and die right before I beat the last boss again, fucking god damn it why does that happen every time who the hell programmed this shit-fest they call a game. Best Buys might be few and far between.

Gardening. Assuming that I live to a ripe old age. Gardening is what old retired people do. I like to leave my options open. Besides how freaky would it be to one day happen on a random plot of land out in the middle of nowhere where a crazy old dude is growing petunias?

Free-style running/parkour. What the hell would be cooler than a post apocalyptic event with a parkour style chase? Imagine my bad self, clad in football shoulder pads and chaps, running through what's left of Paris as a gang of biker nomad mimes try and hunt me down after brutally killing my wife and child. of course there are too many to Aikido and I have no ammunition left (wasted it on the first gang of biker nomads - fuckers) so I have to parkour my ass out of there to lick my wounds and come back and get them with my pointed stick of vengance.

Skill 16, manufacture of kickass pointed sticks.

Knitting. So, after I broke my leg from a misstep whilst parkouring away from some rather savage looking midgets, I'll really need to be able to form a rope and climb the hell down the rest of the cliff so that I don't have to go over the waterfall. I'll just need to remember to keep a pair of long needles with me.

Exotic dance. You never know when it might come in handy.

There are probably more. But I think I have all the major ones.

Ultimate half-assedry in adventure land.

-Fool! You have awakened Tripod the Devourer. Prepare to feel the wrath of the Elder Dog.-

Here is about the most half-assed adventure of them all. Probably not. There are a few more I could throw about that might not even qualify. Visiting the grand parents and going to an antiques fair, the excitement never ends. Stick around, you're in for some high adventure the likes of which Conan the Barbarian and Amelia Erhart combined have never seen. Sshoot, iffin you're truely lucky you might even get to come along on a trip to the supermarket. If you believe that, then I have a nice piece of real estate to sell you. You might know it, it's called Washington DC. I'll let it go real cheap.

It's roadkill season in Michigan, where the less than thrilling creatures throw themselves under the tires of passing motorists. Deer, raccoons and other creatures that are less than unidentifiable in their present state. Usually good decorum demands that nobody actually tries to figure out what the smears at one time were, at least in a vocal manner. The season itself never ends, but rather waxes and wanes. The major upswing comes about the middle of spring, where roadtrippers often get the wonderful and entertaining experience of playing round after round of “What's that smell?” It's a wonderful time to be alive.

Evil and I decided to spend the weekend visiting the grand parents in and about eastern Michigan. If the lower peninsula of the state is shaped like a mitten, and most agree that it is, then we were headed over towards the space between the forefinger and the thumb. The tri-cities area if you know where that is. We decided that on friday night we'd drive up, stick around until sunday and then head home. Talk, visit and all that sort of thing. Fan-bloody-tastic.

-'Buy the carton' Is this a command or an offer? An attempt at advertising that is so blatant that it becomes subliminal once again? It's like living in John Carpenter's movie "They Live"-


It was my idea, I wanted to drop by. They like to see us and I get along well with the grandrents. I share my sense of humor with my grandfather and my grandmother is the nerdy matriarch of our family (She loves to watch X-men, Spiderman moves and has been reading LoTR since the 60s). They're a lot of fun to spend time with. And it all gets me out of GR. So all the better,

The grandrents were gifted a set of free passes for the local Antiques fair in Midland. The even runs three times over the summer and they gather vendors from all around to come in and try to sell a vast array of stuff. I'm gonna spoil the ending here, most of what is on the plate can't be considered to be 'Antiques' by any stretch of the imagination. I don't care how battered that first edition of The Mighty Ducks two with Emilio Estaves on VHS is, it ain't an antique.

-A whole table full of Beanie Babies? I don't care what they cost! Get me my checkbook now!-

Here we come baby.

Like most such events, the hordes of attendees make up the better part of the attraction for me. Unlike most events I may attend, most of the people are middle-aged or later, the mean age being probably around 50 years old. As such, it holds a lot in common with Comic Cons, in that most of the con goers are rather unappealing, with the occasional pretty girl sprinkled into the mix to keep me interested. Oh, and by and large the antique's festival tends to be rather on the vanilla side of things. That's right, middle to old aged white folks. Hundreds of them. I'm sure that rule 34 applies somewhere here too. Damn I sound like a sex-crazed old prevert, exercising my preversions.

-Check out my friend Hu Nan Boo, a friend of all the children. That is correct, here stands a six foot tall chicken. Now that screams classy eating establishment. -

We started on the road at around 6:30 friday evening. There are a couple of landmarks along the way I've wanted to get a picture of for years now. The first is the giant fiberglass chicken statue outside some small restaurant named Tony's. Supposedly they have a world famous giant steak sandwich. I've never been, since I've almost never been around when the place is open. Sad to say, as I would like to partake of yon sandwich one of these days. Giant and steak are a good combination of adjectives when applied to sandwich so far as I am concerned.

One day. One day.

The second landmark was Crapo road. I know. Childish as all hell. But it's Crapo road. Who was this Crapo whom got a road named after him(her?)? A wealthy farmer? A great warrior? My guess was that he was the least popular of the Marx brothers. The plumber. You probably never heard of him. Funny guy Crapo. He brought a lot of toilet humor into the act. But then the damn censors got a hold of him, and banned his special variety of humor as crass and offensive, and now here we are with a road named after a vanished star. I drink to you Crapo, and keep that whoopie cushion away from me.

We hit the antiques fair early the next morning, around 10ish. Which isn't really that early in the morning. We drove over to the Midland county fairgrounds and attached airfield, bypassing the worst of the traffic. Might I add, free parking biznitches, yeah baby. You recall what I said about there being hundreds of white people going to these things? I have pictures of the line which stretches back about a quarter of a mile and is 3 to 5 people deep at any given time. That doesn't count the hundreds(thousands?) already inside partaking of the revelry and orgy of consumerism. Rule 34. Look it up at your own peril.

Five bucks a head means some pretty good business.

-An antiques sale is like a giant garage sale, with a creepy carnival atmosphere. I'm pretty sure that garage sales are listed on the Stuff White People like website. if they aren't, they should be.-

We split with the grandrents and wandered off to browse. My interests are books, which there are often sellers, and anything that could be of any assistance in the inevitable zombie apocalypse. The second category is sadly lacking at the antiques fair. Maybe we should hit a gun show. More on that thought later.

Evil on the other hand was attracted to the bling. Every booth that had jewelery grabbed her attention. In the end, I got sick of waiting and wandered off. Not a good idea considering that I didn't have A) a cell phone B) control of the ride home. But hey, I'm a wild man like that, and I take my chances. Getting lost in the sea of aging vanilla and left for dead by the grandrents. It would have been a fate to sing about for ages to come.

-Tempting. So very tempting. But I would only use it in a manner strictly outlawed by the Geneva Convention. A crimes against humanity conviction is a difficult one to get over later in life. -

As I wandered through the lanes, I kept one eye open for anything of interest, while the other one was busy picking out interesting folks. Yeah, I can do that, both my eyes are lazy. What of it? The rules are different here than say at a comic or anime convention. I'm fairly certain that it goes against the social mores of the event to take pictures of random people. Mostly since they didn't come with the intention of looking like buffoons, even if that was how the fates have so conspired to make them appear.

-This, wait... Nah, they're empty.-


My one regret in this is that I didn't get a shot of the dude with the Uber-mullet. Basically he had his hair high and tight for the front 80% of his head, in true mullet fashion. From the front he might have looked like a brand new recruit for the Marines. He even seemed to have had gel in his hair to make it spiky. Then there was the rear, where the mullet truly comes into it's own as a hairstyle. It ran down to the center of his back. That was merely the beginning. He had it tied in a pony tail, with addition four more rubberbands to... I don't know why they were there. Fashion perhaps? But then the be-mulleted generally live outside the realm of what is considered fashionable. They must have their own counterculture movement.

I saw another dude, Indian(of the American Aborigine variety) who had what appeared to be a mullet that he had braided. Didn't get a picture of that either, much to my current dismay. It did kick off a wonderful idea though: the great mullet hunt. Take the crew to an event that is in effect supermullety by its vary nature, and try to get pictures of the most exotic specimens. The Fat Man suggested a 4H county fair. I voted for a gun show. Another suggestion was a random racing event. The later would be out methinks. We want to hunt mullets, not drown in them.

So I kept an eye out of the be-mulleted among the community. Much to my disappointment, they seemed to have been lacking in number that day. There was an auto-show in the fairgrounds that very day, like a cancerous growth off of the antique fair. I spose I could have visited it, in search of dangerous game. With a flash of his mighty mullet, the predator moved into position to pounce upon his unsuspecting prey. Let's see what happens.

But no, I stayed away from the car show. Mostly out of a lack of interest on my part. Cars just aren't my thing. They're there, they're great tools. But that's about all. I'd rather dig through other people's rejected possessions in hope of finding a knife, or a sword or something. Anything to keep the hordes at bay for just a little longer.

No such luck Chuck.

I did happen across a stand that was selling flags. All kinds of them. I was sorely tempted to drop my eight bucks on a Fireworks flag, and hang it on our flagpole at the house. I resisted, since that would have required more effort than I was willing to put in. Not to mention the passel of neighborhood kids looking for cherry bombs and possible visits from our local police department trying to put an end to our criminal ways. All for naught.

With a heavy heart and an unchanged wallet, we left the fairgrounds for good and returned home for lunch. It was time to charge our batteries for the second half of the adventure. Our visit to Sam's Club. I tell you, life with the grandparents doesn't ever grow dull. No siree.

Actually the Grand parents seem to enjoy their little outings to Saginaw for the Sams Club visits. Riding with them is a blast, since both seem to need hearing aids, but neither like to wear them. This leads to some amusing conversations. Which lead to my statement that they're a lot like Laurel and Hardy. I was going to let them decide amongst themselves who was who in that arrangement.

-A giant inflatable waterslide jungle-gym deal? Why the hell didn't they have one of these when I was a 80 pound kid? Fuckers! -

Sam's Club is Sam's Club. They're about the same everywhere. I should know, I've visited stores in several different states now. Huge steel boxes sitting on slabs of concrete. The insides are lined with shelving units twenty feet tall and packed with jumbo sized goods containing more of any given product than a normal human being can use in a year or more. When the zombie uprising comes, I'm staying away from that place – It'll probably attract wannabe survivors like NASCAR Races attract stupid. I'd also like to avoid the warehouse type stores in zones susceptible to earthquakes. Those are some skinny shelves when the earth starts moving.

I was impressed this time with their 'art collection' Even if I didn't think to get a pic at the time. Sorry, it blew my mind. In the middle of one of the aisles was a large cardboard display packed with all sorts of framed prints. I was mightily tempted purchase their copy of 'Dogs Playing Pool' But couldn't find my way to spending 20 on something so very tacky when only a couple hours earlier I turned my nose up at owning a copy of the movie Robo-Vampire for a mere three dollars. No, I didn't deserve this little bit of happiness. I'm a cheap bastard when it comes down to pointless purchases. Mamma would like to believe that she didn't raise no fool.

We made our rounds and then returned homeward. No high speed chases or drawn out gun battles. Just a whole lot of back road driving.
-Look at that scenery, breathtaking how it's all just pancake flat. Just a whole lot of flat. Hundreds of miles of it. Just keeps going and going and going and going and going.-

My folks come from this area. They were raised there. Eastern Michigan is a world of flat. The only feature that keeps it from being as desolate and depressing as one of the plains states are the trees that the farmers left up as windbreaks. The kid in me actually wants to get out and explore some of the copses that lie between the fields. I would love to get a close hand look at what sort of memory of wilderness that humanity has allowed to cling to the land.

But having seen this part of the state, especially during winter when the horizon stretches so much further without any relief, I can understand why my father was so desperate to move out and visit Alaska from so early in his youth, Anything to get away from that sort of featureless wasteland. Having lived in Alaska myself, I can't imagine ever wanting to live in Eastern Michigan. Maybe if I received a nasty head-wound. Something. Under any other circumstances I think that I'd find a way out, even if it meant leaving everything and just walking away.

And yet for some reason many of the relatives seem to be willing to stick around. Maybe they don't really know any better. Or perhaps the draw of family is just that strong. Personally I grew up 4000 miles away from the extended family, so their pull is nearly non-existent for me just on basis of being related to myself. I only really like to see the family members with whom I share common interests and thus a bond beyond sharing some random genetic material. That really isn't much of a basis for a relationship by itself. You need the shared experiences with those people, which I lack. So here I am rather ambivalent to the rest of the relatives on the whole, preferring to spend my time with just a handful.

-St Francis hanging with is boy Sidhartha. Word. -

So an adverb modifies a verb. Why isn't an adjective, which modifies a noun, called an adnoun? We had this discussion as we made dinner and came up with the only viable solution to the problem. Time travel. Some beatings and a petition to fix the English language. Fix some of the silliness that is inherent to our language right at the source.

Dinner happened, as it usually does, around an actual dining room table. Crazy I know. My folks long ago gave up on the tradition and instead we ate in the living room basking in the soft glow of our television. The TV was always on in those days. I don't miss it. But it's strange to eat at a table without your plate perched in your lap as the idiot box entertains you and face actual forced interaction with your family. I think this might be the way I would like to have things should I ever get married. It would fall in line with my negative views of Television's impact on our society. Too hell with religion, TV is today's opiate for the masses.

After dinner came more visiting of relatives. Thus comes the part I hate most about going to see the relatives. Going to see the relatives. A visit back to the homeland usually entails a lot of driving around to see people who are generally disinterested in my company. We share some genetics by chance and that's about all. They don't crave my company enough to stop by my corner of the world, though they do have lives – which I don't. Yet at the same time we're expected to go out of my way to see them when I'm in town. To pay homage to blood.

-Sixty mile an hour out the window of the car sunset shot. Turned out rather well.-

The excess travel really eliminates any possible relaxation factor that the weekend might have had and draws out the weekend. Though I admit that I am a fan of putting off returning to work. Not so much so that I would wish to spend eternity traveling the backroads of Bay County if it meant never having to go back to my job.

We only stuck around for about half of the next morning before up and returning back to the castle and the return of reality.

Tards run amok in the Windy City, news at 11.

Our little group doesn't have a good record when it comes to the land navigation skill set. Really, if you gave us the task of "Walk down this straight hallway, the one with no doors or turns, to the far side." At least two of us would get lost, and the rest would arrive late. We decided to goto Chicago. Originally we were going to get a hotel and stay for the weekend. But the Fat Man was all like 'sod that, I live an hour away. Let's just day-trip this bitches.' this sounded better than laying out cash for a hotel in Chicago. We're cheap and they aren't.

-There we are kids, three of the four members of Brotherhood of the Anchor, we'll be spinning in your town real soon -

Back in 2005 I visited Chicago for the first time for a class trip. Two full classloads of art students from the back woods were packed into a pair of buses and driven around eight hours right smack into the middle of the largest city in the midwest. There are a lot of hickoid jokes that one might be tempted to make on our part, but doubtful that any of them would be overly accurate.

-Godzilla will make little work of your Windy City unless you pay me one billion Yen, and get me Morena Baccarin's phone number. -

True, it was my first time in the city of Chicago. But hardly the first visit to a major city. If one counts Detroit, Boston or Seattle. Yeah, I sound like a defensive bumpkin with delusions of sophistication.

We spent several days seeing art of various quality (the piece that sticks out best was a film that involved a hobo fucking a skull - I stuck around until he started painting on a wall with some nail polish and then I was out) in museums and galleries, being herded between one and the next by our professors/chaperones. In between events we were left along to explore at our leisure. The weather was amazing for October, high 70s, sunny and a pleasant breeze from beginning to end. When we got home we found that the summer had faded and that fall had finally taken its rightful place.

The high-points for me were two. Chicago Style Stuffed Pizza is the first. An inch of cheese mixed with various toppings in reverse Chicago order. We had it two nights in a row, and for other meals in between. I raved about it for months afterwards. And the second was the Blue Man Group. If you haven't seen one of the shows yet, go see them.

-This is exactly why Tim Curry was so damn creepifying in IT -

The Art Institute was killer, as were the legions of females, both the natives and our own contingent, who were still dressed in their summer clothes. I hate hot weather, but love all the girls in their summer outfits. Some things are just worth bearing if you get good enough compensation in return.

The entire class trip can be summed up as 'fucking awesome'.

So yeah, in Febtober of 2009 I asked the Fat Man if was down for a trip to Chicago one of these weekends. He was. Chicago after all, Fuck Yeah.

-Well fiddlesticks, what we have here boys and girls is a major case of historical language FAIL. Who wrote this? What it really should read is 'Fuckin-a G, your dope ride is the Shizznitt! Didja used to use it to cruise for pussy with your boys back in the hood?' Do some research damn it, you're working in a museum.-

I had one real plan at the beginning of our planning process. Locate Pizza. Acquire pizza. Eat pizza. Four years later, and I just wanted to get some freaking pizza. How messed up is that? Just hook it to my veins and I'll be happy! Sauce!

Really, Chicago is around 3 hours from here, and a mere Hour from the Fat Man. So why not kick in and have dinner. Head in the morning, and While we were in the area, we could easily kill time before dinner. Museums, Chicago has them. Lots of them in fact. We'll get back to this later.

The Field Museum was running a pirate exhibit. Goal number two had quickly emerged. See pirates and eat pizza. What combination could be more natural? In the mean time, we might throw in some dorktastic shopping experiences if we could fit them in. A used bookstore here, a gaming shop there. Chicago has a lot to offer if you're willing to look.

Turns out that we weren't that willing to look. Chicago also has expensive parking if your ass gets there late and you have no idea where you're going.

-Shiny things rule!-

The weekend started friday night. Evil and I made our way to Indiana with the intent of getting up early, breaking fast, and roaring into our funtastic weekend and making as much of the city visit as possible. That was the intent. Portents boded poorly for our trip from the getgo. We remembered the laptop/jukebox but forgot such important tools as our toothbrushes. Easily enough fixed. The dollar store has everything one needs to mount such an expedition. Including the hot pink star-shaped Hannah Montana bubble necklace which was bestowed onto the Fat Man. Mad props, the man wore the goofy ass thing through the entire weekend.

This was the high-point of the trip. Sad huh? The rest of it involved poor navigation, missing an exit and adding an extra thirty minutes to the trip. Fun fun fun! This does lead to a question. Along our route we found some kickass billboards advertising for an adult toy store. Vibrators and dildos and what-not. The whole array. Found them later on the internet. Stop judging me. Back to the store. Who are these billboards aimed at? Who is driving down the highway at 70, sees an attractive woman inviting them to a sex-shop and says to themselves 'I'm there?' Myself aside, who are these horny bastards? Kindly put your pants back on before raising your hand.

The reality involved our dumb asses staying up till two in the morning and playing the card game Bang. Wild times. After that I had all the joy of trying to catch some sleep in a warm room, wrapped in a warm sleeping bag, on an inflatable mattress with a slow leak. A combination that is mutually exclusive with a decent night's sleep.

After breaking fast we ended up succumbing to the temptation of material goods. Yeah baby those little vending machines in the lobby of the restaurant were our downfall. The Fat Man spotted one that was packed with rings priced at 25 cents a piece. He bought one. The rest of us were dragged along by peer pressure and a healthy sense of ridiculous. I wore mine for most of the trip. Bling bling! baby. I'll make Leroy Brown himself jealous of my pointless accessorization.

Northern Indiana is a depressing place, especially the closer one gets to the border with Illinois. Gary, what you can see of it from the expressway, is a real pit. Not the kind of town I'd enjoy getting lost in. The houses were rundown and decrepit. The same mess is mirrored along the so-called rust-belt. Saginaw, Flint and Detroit. Miserable places where the people seem to be trapped where they are. Like a pit of quicksand. This was a good time to stop watching the scenery pass by and close my eyes.

-Midair terrorist fist-bump for the win. Really, we fit right in with the 8 year olds who were running around the museum.-

Through the skyway and 16 bucks worth of tolls later, we were in Chicago on what would become Lakeshore. Success! We'd gotten so far without getting lost once. Mind you, it's basically a straight shot, once you get on the Toll Road, from Southie to Chicago. If you get lost here, well then we'll start a club for the dreadfully incompetence. A club with cake, supplied by people who aren't associated with the likes of us. It'll be fun. Except for our inability to conduct meetings or actually procure said cake.

Coming from the south, and I imagine any direction, you can see Chicago rise up out of the lake from miles and miles off. Majestic is way too corny. But the skyline is an impressive sight. A range of man-made spires. Or maybe a jagged cliff rising above the blue lake. I imagine that on clear summer days that the view is dazzling. For us it was cloudy.

We rolled up Lakeshore searching for two distinct goals. The first was Fields. The second was a place to park so that we could attend Fields. The Field museum is a giant concrete building designed in a neoclassical form that has been for so long popular with Western European cultures and their descendants. In America the style of architecture has been used to connect ourselves with the culture, learning and 'values' of the ancient Greeks(the democracy part, not the man on boy action). So, someone had the brilliant idea to mold our center of learning and culture in the style of the Greek and Roman buildings.

-Despite what you might think, this is not the Field Museum. In our defense, it is an actual Museum. And there is a field in front of it.-

And there it was. A giant concrete building in the classical style, with the Greek columns and the Roman domes sheathed in oxidized copper. Our collective reaction was a drawn out exclamation, probably in the form of a colorful metaphor. The building was enormous. We were going to need all day to explore it. Score one for the away team. Now to locate that parking garage that the Fat Man had found via the internet and we'd be golden.

We didn't come across the garage, as we circled the streets pulling further and further from the museum. So we backtracked and bingo, there it was, an underground garage attached right to the museum itself. What kin of luck is that? Not the good time kids.

I figured out we were somewhat off when I went to buy a ticket and it was ten dollars cheaper than expected. When I asked if it would get me into the pirate exhibit. The girls behind the desk stared at me and informed my pasty ass that this was the Museum of Science and Industry, I would find no such exhibit here. That sort of shenanigans was housed at the Field museum.

Fuck.

-Take that bitch. Always lock your wheel and frame to the bike post.-

So, we gathered our forces and exited stage three stories up and leftish. And then tried to find the Field Museum on foot via a tour of the perimeter. For those who aren't laughing along at home, the Field museum is around five or ten miles further north. Evil noticed a definite lack of Shed's Aquarium, which shares a space with the Field Museum. We had undershot our destination then payed for parking. With the Field nowhere in sight, we decided to surrender and check out the Museum of Science and Industry.

First thing one notices, the building is ginormous. And it's infested with a horde of monkeys. The bald kind that run around fully dressed. Make a lot of noise. And generally were rather obnoxious. We fit right in.

I was wearing my I Kill People On Weekends t-shirt that the Fat Man had specially made for members of our gaming organization back in school. It was intended to be rather catchy and on the edge of good taste as it referenced perceived social bias towards violent video games and those who play them. I've had the shirt for years, and love wearing it, especially on weekends. Well, this time I forgot what shirt I was wearing. It was black with white text, like 10 other t-shirts that I own. No, I'm not a goth.

But as such, with a legend like 'I Kill People On Weekends', on a Saturday, the shirt drew a lot more attention than was intended. The first instance was one of the workers at the museum near the ticket counter who asked about my policy. I was dumbfounded as I had forgotten I was wearing said shirt. In the end, the five bucks offered was not enough to kill his supervisor. Sorry to disappoint. Moving on. Cheap bastard.

First up, we hit the Uboat exhibit. Imagine a full sized German ww2 submarine residing in someone's basement, and that's about what you have here. Along the way from the main building to the hanger where the sub is housed, is a multimedia attraction about how the sub was captured intact by the allies. We skimmed right by it. Stopping from time to time when something caught our eye and then moving on without really waiting to absorb the entire presentation.

-That is impressive. Next, the full scale model of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701(I admit, I had to google that.)-

What we found was a living breathing WW2 era German Uboat. I mean we knew it was there. But really, most museums might be expected to contain part of such a machine, or a mock-up. This was the real deal. All one hundred and fifty feet of it. And it was quite cool. The walls were line with information about the workings of the sub and the daily lives of the crew. It's enough to dissuade me from taking up the submariner lifestyle. It looks a lot like being in prison, only underwater. And with more rape.

The museum offered the option to explore the sub proper. We didn't go inside, that'd of cost extra and we're cheap/poor. So on we went to kill time till dinner.

-Those wacky Germans sure do love their Skat.-

The rest of the museum is really just 'science' for children. It reminds me of the Imaginariam in Anchorage, only a thousand times larger. They had models by the hundreds. Not the good kind of models, the ones dressed in lingerie and bikinis, but rather the informative ones representing in scale real world objects that just wouldn't fit in such a small space.

The model that got the awesome vote for the day was that of the city of Chicago and how the railway system works in tying interstate commerce together. Yeah, pretty dry stuff. I had to refrain myself from Godzilling the model. Following through with the impulse would have involved some extensive fines and jail time, but damn it was tempting. If not for the destruction, just for a pic of myself 'attacking' scale-Chicago. Nothing can stop Godzilla! Might have been worth being expelled from the museum.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around and posing for goofy pictures. If I have one disappointment, it is the Fat Man's unwillingness to Whinnie-the-Pooh the jet engine in the airliner exhibit. That would have made a fantastic picture, one to embody the entire trip. Damn that man and his pride. I suppose that I could have substituted myself, though my bony ass sticking out of the front of an engine as such would have lacked the humorous punch.

-You see, had he cooperated, in this space right now you'd be reading some classic Pooh-bear line like 'Ohh bother' or 'Mmmm honey'. But no, so all you get is some Weebl and Bob. Ready? "What the greasy poop going on here?"

Then there was the obligatory pass through the gift shop. Expensive shit. Some of it was passingly interesting, but not enough so for any of us to be willing to part with our cash for. Oragami Plane? Are they airworthy? I doubt it.

Finally we came to our true purpose. Pizza.

We grabbed the car, paid our fare and trekked north further into the heart of the great city. Yea and behold, there it stood, our original destination, the Field Museum. Bigger than life and far more intimidating, with banners proclaiming that the Pirate exhibit was located inside for those who dared to tread those hallowed halls.

I am a fat man at heart. Of all the pizza I've ever tried, I like the Chicago style stuffed the best. Fred's here in town falls into second place. I had spent four or so years building up the pizza we had had into mythic proportions. Enough to get me off my lazy ass and over to Chicago.

-You are correct. I am a schmuck. If we had been visiting Italy, I'd be the dufas who was 'holding up the Leaning Tower' in at least one of the photos we brought home. Can't help it, I just love cliches.-

We decided to hit up Giordano's, a restaurant that both the Fat Man and myself could swear by, and often did. This involved finding another parking lot, getting lost in said parking lot (we are a sad lot) and hiking down several blocks. About three blocks into our hike, it started to rain, and then it began to pour, then the level of rain ascended to whatever cosmic level is beyond mere cats and dogs.. I was greatly amused. Rain wasn't about to stop us. We just kept on going. After stopping to look up the address again, and then continuing on once more, we finally stormed the front of the restaurant and asked for a table. There was a 20 minute wait, the cute girls informed us.

Yeah. Twenty minutes, no problem. Well, if you ignored the fact that the the interior was roasting warm. Dutch held a plastic slice of pizza that marked our place in line while the rest of us were standing out front of the building watching the rain and talking with the other potential patrons. The hight point was a creepy bastard paced back and forth staring at us, he did that for around 20 minutes. That was the first and only “Wish I had a gun.” moments that I faced on this trip. I could tell that he was pondering the message of my t-shirt, and maybe considering testing the authenticity. Was it an idle boast? Or was it just a joke? The wheels were turning.

We met up with my cousin Spank-daddy about half an hour into our wait for the pizza, turned out that he had busted his face a week or so earlier with an alcohol fueled chance encounter with a similar storm and a local curb. Rather, half an hour into the wait for our table to sit down and order the pizza. What was taking so long? We found out when a stream of midgets(read children) passed through the door and was seated, filling the place to capacity. Bastard circus freaks had 'reservations'.

After our hour of penance for stupidity and failure to think ahead, we were finally seated. 45 minutes later we had our pizza in hand. It was as amazing as I recalled. Won't bother describing the experience here, go get some your own damn selves and stop your half-assed vicarious living through me.

Chicago's south side has a bad reputation for being rough and tumble and out and out dangerous. No doubt some of it is, especially to the obvious outsider (that'd be our dumb selves). Equally no doubt the south side has it's nice parts as well. At least according to the wikipedia article on the subject. Really South Chicago is like any other city. But it does have a reputation. We wandered straight into the northern edge.

-Origami airplanes? How well do they fly?-

The buildings and houses in places were fantastically beautiful, architecturally speaking.. Then a block or two later they were run down and depressed. It is like the city is rotting alive, with the dying and dead flesh right next to the healthy skin and muscle. Leperous.

Our first and most amusing taste of humanity came when we were stopped at a red light waiting for it to change. When suddenly someone pulled up behind and began to honk their horn and wave. We assumed it was an angry FIB(Fucking Illinois Bastard – which is apparently what folks in Wisconsin call people with Illinois plates) driver who didn't appreciate our stupid touristy ass blocking their road. That is the problem with being a tourist. You're forever in the purgatory of wandering the earth without knowing exactly where you are and how to get where you're going. Which tends to piss off the locals to no end.

This is what we thought we had on our tail. To the point that our Chauffeur Dutch tried to get the hell out of the way. Only to be tailed by a mysterious citizen who continued to honk and wave at us. It was like the urban legend about the traveler on the road being chased down by a car with ultra-high beams. No such luck here. It turned out that Dutch had a low tire, and concerned a citizen took it upon themselves to help a car load of confused tourists out. Most people, everywhere, would just look the other way and go on with their own lives.

Dutch decided to pull over at the nearest gas station and fill up the tire with one of the pumps. Usually they run $.75 for three minutes of time. More than enough. We pooled our cash, change was running short, and found a local BP. When we pulled up, there was a gentleman manning the air pump. He said it would be $.50 cents. As he was working his buddy came and hit us up for whatever he could, stuck his head in the car and wouldn't take no for an answer. With that kind of drive, if he had the education to match, he would have been a tiger in the business world.

Maybe he was, and panhandling on the weekends was just a hobby,

Here is the most depressing aspect of visiting Chicago. The homeless. They're difficult at times to pick out from the panhandlers who are just looking to make some quick cash off of the caring(or gullible). Whatever. A little spare change once in a while is nothing, and it might get into the hands of people who can use it. We're pack animals, social creatures, helping out a needy member of the pack is just the way it works.

But we ended up paying less than we had expected to for the air. So all in all it was a win situation. Later on it occurred to me to give them the final two slices of pizza that we took home with us. It had only been about a half an hour since we had left Giordano's, so the remaining pie was still warm. Afterthoughts are useless, unless you act on them then next time the situation repeats itself.

With our tire ready to go, and Lakeshore in sight, we were ready to head back to Southbend to rest and watch bad movies until the wee hours. And so we went.

Chicago day-trip number one, success mixed thoroughly with fail. Funny how a car full of college educated adults end up dumber than a sack of hammers at those basic life skills. The humiliation aside, it was a blast and we look forward to our next excursion into the west.

-Yep, waiting for the Never O'clock to come and end it all so I don't have to go face the humiliation of being a tard. -

Taimak, you broke my heart.

The Fatman contacted me a couple weeks back with an interesting proposal. He and Dora had made plans to visit the MotorCity ComicCon. Neither of them had even been to a comic convention before and as geeks they were interested to partake. Did I want to join?

Mayhaps.

Think of it chums. Comics, nerds and booth babes. An explosive mix.

-Does this guy even know his customer base? He dedicated a third of his display to Twilight. A third. I didn't see that many thirteen year old girls running around the floor. Just a lot of sweaty mens.-

I'm really not into comic books. I've enjoyed them, especially graphic novels. But I've not purchased one for years. Nor am I really that into toys, or anime, or paying high prices for t-shirts. I prefer gaming and fiction to the other forms of geekiness. Sadly, my two preferred forms of sport were largely ignored.


Enter Spectatormode.

-Wow, she's come far in life. All she needs is a porn movie of her very own. Wait. She already has one of those. Career complete.

There was a fairly extensive list of celebs and quasi-celebs. Some genuinely fit into the expected mold quite well. Carrie Fisher, the uber-sex-symbol from Star Wars was slated to be there. Sans metal bikini. Hell yeah I want to meet her. The likely non-existant girl that fills my fuzzy dreams is usually at least at one point clad in said garb. I first saw Return of the Jedi when I was about 5 years old. Even then Slavekini clad Fisher was hot.

Sadly, Carrie Fisher was only going to be at the convention on Saturday and Sunday. Damnation! Curses! Skullduggery! Oh well, we still have Taimak.

As were several actors from some of our favorite sci-fi shows. Battlestar Gallactia, Star Trek Voyager. The Dukes of Hazard. Really? The Dukes of Hazard? Who spilled the Billy Beer in our Mountain Dew? I mean come on. Catherine Bach is a little beyond the age of being delightful to see in a pair of low-riding Daisy Dukes. She's still a pretty mature woman, but she's no longer a sex-kitten.

-It was a great panel, funny and informative. But what the hell is that pink shit that he's drinking.-


The rest of the list seemed to be a haphazard mix of everything from aging wrestlers from the 1980s, to Playboy Playmates. Beautiful booth goddesses descending from their crystalline pedestals to tease a bunch of nerds who would be a mere table's width away. So close and so very far. Really it was like a zoo of duality. The geeks and nerds got to come in and view the beautiful and famous, who in turn got to see a parade of the Dork Elite.

Imagine it, all the inherent dorkiness of the internet concentrated into one large, hanger-like convention hall. Was I interested? Maybe. What's going on? Wait, Taimak is going to be there to meet his fans? Glee!

Fuck Yeah! I want to meet me some Bruce Leroy! We should cosplay and go dressed as Sho'Nuff and his entourage. The Fatman thought that an awesome idea, in theory, but a little cumbersome in practice. We're lazy people.

The day started out with Evil and myself meeting the Fatman and Dutch in K-zoo for a little pre-carpooling breakfast action at the International House of Pancakes. Lewis Black's premiere health club. A place where they have several different and rather random varieties of syrrup at your beck and call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A place where they have the Bacon Lover's Omlette. Six strips of bacon and chedder cheese all wrapped in a blanket of eggs. A delightful experience for those who don't wish to make it all the way back to their car before their heart explodes.

-Dutch and the Fatman from the lesser known Backstreet Boys collection. They have style and dancability. The chicks, they go mad for the goodness. -




-Dutch, using his Blackberry to look up the Boysenberry. Ironic!-

You will never hear me utter the phrase 'Hey, let's goto the IHOP.' In any of it's possible variations.

Tis a two and a half hour drive through rustic farm-land between K-zoo and Novi, driving along traffic infested highway. Dutch was trying for a new local land speed record, along with about half the rest of the people on the road that day.


- The unstoppable FIB Canuk! -

The first thing I really noticed about the convention is that the vast bulk of the patrons is made up by sad creepy bastards just like me. This was expected. I know my own people. But still surprising. Nerds of all shapes and color had convened for this sacred yearly rite. Though mostly they were round and pale and were the carriers of the Y chromosome.

I spent most of the afternoon walking the aisles and taking in the ambience, which was mostly a dull roar of conversation on all sides and a moving mass of geeks.

-I'm pretty sure that the lady at the far right is cosplaying as a preggers!-

Really ninety-percent of the population was male. There is nothing like watching two forty year old men, balding with grey hair, running around and giggling like 10 year olds. Good on ya gents, keep it real. I didn't get a picture. This is completely awesome for the female or gay male crowd who happens to enjoy experiencing an exhibit of sweaty pudgy manflesh. It was kind of like being surrounded by a blubbery maelstrom. I still feel dirty from the experience. Hot water does little to cleanse those memories I tell you.


-Naked Killer! Hell yes! This one has got to be a story driven by strong characters and a well developed plot!-

I think this is why they import the Playboy models and such, to restore some of the balance. And because lonely geeks really enjoy looking at pretty, scantily clad, women. Even if it's from a distance. Man, the creepiest part was the dude who was taking pictures from 50 feet away using a telephoto lens. As Evil said, just go up and talk to them, that's why they're here. Then again, the gorgeous women have sort of an aura of unapproachability, especially for my people. They were there to buy comics and geek out, not tragically fail at hitting on a woman way out of their league.

There were even some pretty girls wandering around the floor who were neither hired booth babes or goddesses. I think. It's a temptation to say 'they were female, they were there and thus they were gorgeous'. But I wasn't that far withdrawn from reality, yet. There were some real beauties, both as attendees and as workers in the various shop booths. One particularly pretty redhead stands out in memory. She made eye contact. I wonder how a conversation would have gone down, specially with my inability to make small talk.

-I don't know who she was, but I took this picture because what she's doing with her foot freaked me out a bit. Not because she's female and is in possession of a fine posterior. That was just a fringe benefit. It would seem that that sort of joint flexibility is common in females. Who knew?-

I was disappointed by the lack of cosplayers in the crowd. Geeks getting dressed up as their favorite characters. I was expecting them to be a dime a dozen. Really they were perhaps only a dozen total. Sure, there was the mighty lord Vader and his Storm Trooper minions. Girls dressed as Princess Leiah (no Slavekini's,sadly). One cute chick dressed as Poison Ivy, a costume which involved a corset and some green panties. She looked good. I was definitely a fan. Hurrah for pretty girls in skimpy costumes!

-Dude is much skinner than his movie made him out to be. -

So I went to the convention for one reason. To meet Taimak and get my copy of the Last Dragon signed by his own bad self. He wasn't there. I must have passed his booth a dozen times. If the goddesses took notice, no doubt they marked me as some sort of weirdo sex offender who was stalking the area like a horny chipmunk. Still no Taimak. Worse for him I guess, he was to be seated next to the beautiful Chanel Ryan. Had I thought of it at the time, I would have asked her what was up with her neighbor, and then gotten her to sign my copy of the Last Dragon. Or perhaps I did think of it and didn't have the cajones to go do so.

So with a heavy heart, we left the convention to go home. Well, first our last meal together. We hit a small greasy spoon across the street from the convention. The place was nearly abandoned and the waitress took a sadistic, and hilarious, pleasure in fucking with yours truly. The food was edible, if not memorable. The Fatman got the Hamburger's Lover Omelet, which lead to painful events later on. Not much of a capstone for the day, if somewhat appropriate.

-That was just on the floor of the diner. I needed a picture of it to make the day complete. -

Strange sights beheld:
A grown woman sitting on the floor flipping through Playboy magazines.
"The hunchbacked Lesbian"
Cosplayers.
Two 40 year old men running around like 10 year old boys away from their mother.
Voyager's Ensign Kim (Garret Wang) with long hair.
Storm Troopers playing DDR.
Attractive females who actually seemed comfortable.
Random WW2 veteran.
Cosplayers taking pictures of cosplayers.
The crazy goth-sith chick who was probably just cosplaying as herself.
Dora The Explorer, on the same table as the Zombies board game.

Lessons Learned:
Rule 34, it never fails. Stupid hamburger lovers.
I am not nearly as geeky as I once thought. Such arrogance I had in my youth.