At the end of the day, Brian's convention was WAY geekier then mine...

So we had two too-cool-to-pass-up events this weekend that we made time for and scheduled in pen on our calendars. The first was last night when Brian and I went to the U District in Seattle to a really cool old Gothic church to hear Neil Gaiman read a chapter from his new Graveyard Book. (If you are interested in seeing exactly what we saw, go to www.neilgaiman.com and the video footage is on his blog, the entire chapter) We enjoyed it immensely, as he is a fantastic reader, and the story was very good, funny, frightening etc... The chapter he read was the longest chapter in the book, and it took over an hour, but it was beautifully done. After a short intermission, he showed a few clips from the upcoming Coraline movie which comes out in February 2009. (Not one I'd recommend for children under 8, it's very Nightmare Before Christmas meets Stephen King... Brian was a little worried about seeing it. I can't wait!) Then answered questions for another half hour. All told it was around 2 and half hours of fun for me. Brian also enjoyed himself which I think surprised him.

Anyway it's always interesting people watching at events like this. Neil Gaiman started out as a comic book writer. He is very unkempt and badly in need of a good haircut. So there were the comic book contingent, U Dub students, who were NOT comic book followers but there to meet an author (generally the giddy teenager types), and then the truly interesting people who feel like it's appropriate to dress up as character from the book, or like they never actually left the battle fields in the south, after General Lee surrendered. I guess I'd classify them as the "artsy type". I feel into the largest group of people, those wearing black, and Brian won the award for wearing the most color. ( He wore this great shirt that is purple and khaki and blue striped. Subtle colors, pretty metro... very sexy.) All in all a great evening!

Now on to Brian's too-cool-to-pass-up event/convention. BLOCKCON 2008. Lego heaven. Like I said, his was way more "Star Trek" than mine. It was really cool and I found, to my surprise, that I was really enjoying myself. Brian was facinated by the "Lego Geeks" (I apologize, but there is NO OTHER WAY to describe them. Even Brian thought so. Yes... all children of God, but...) Brian started taking pictures of the people more than the actual art pieces.

It was like LegoLand, but on a much smaller scale. Anders and Liam had a bunch of fun playing in the toddler Lego Pit, and only Liam had a squirmish with another kid. Anders had a break down when he decided that all cars need real roads, not just pretend ones, and then we had to go, but all in all the boys did beautifully. Elleory was wandering around with her friend Drew and his parents and I didn't get to see her reaction to any of the displays, but she was ready to leave when we asked, and voted on her favorite.

So I'll post pictures of Blockcon 2008, but not of the Graveyard Book reading. We forgot the camera.

The Jedi Council discussing the matters at hand.

Rebuilding the Death Star for a speed record. NOT JOKING!!

Not a boat show, a LEGO show!

A Lego version of Seattle.