Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I can now check these items off my Comic Con to-acquire list:

• 4-day Comic Con pass for me
• Thursday and Friday Comic Con pass for Ben
• Hotel reservation
• Airline tickets

The only thing left to acquire:

• More money (so that we can eat food, drink beer, and buy things while we’re there)

There’s still a lot of planning that needs to happen in the next couple weeks before our plane leaves at an ugly-ass early hour on Wednesday, July 23. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to read all about the glorious details. (Do I bring my favorite Teva sandals or sneakers? Or both? How can I maximize space for swag in my suitcase and still bring all the clothes that I need?)

I will definitely be bringing along my camera, cell phone, old laptop with wireless card, mini notebook, and pen. Which means that while I am splattering my geek saliva all over everything at the con like a Saint Bernard, I will also be taking copious notes, snapping photos like a madwoman, updating my Twitter feed via cell phone, and hopefully not being too exhausted to write a little about each day on this blog and maybe post some photos.

I did a little research and just discovered that the DC Comics talent search, which includes a free seminar and portfolio review, is just for aspiring artists. Writers are left with the old-fashioned way to break into comics: by hobnobbing with any editor they can corner at a booth and forcing sample writing and business cards down their throats.  Maybe I’ll be nice and round the corners of my business cards.

Have you seen these pictures of eleven of the coolest geeked-out cars ever made? They include:

1. Classic Battlestar Galactica Viper
2. VW Microbus Ball (does is actually work? Even if not, I think it’s hella awesome in terms of art)
3. Circuitboard-covered Sedan (Ben has an aging Saturn and enough crappy old circuit boards laying around to actually make this one)
4. Pyramid Car (doesn’t look particularly aerodynamic)
5. Pac-Man Race Car (the driver sits inside Pac-Man’s head! Don’t get me started on the woman in a bathing suit and heels standing next to the car in this photo)
6. Subaru Outback Ecto-1 (ZOMG! All-wheel drive Ghostbusters awesomeness! This would be the only reason for me to ever get a white car.)
7. Multi-colored 5 1/4-inch Floppy Disk-covered Honda Civic
8. USS Enterprise NCC-1701.7 Shuttlecar
9. Star Wars Landspeeder (can’t go back and erase the wheel shadow on this one, George)
   
10. Jawa Sandcrawler (Um, I don’t think this one’s even close to scale…)
11. X-Wing car (with R2-D2 in the back)

What I really want to see now is a track race with the Pac-Man car and four Ghost race cars chasing him… until the Pac-Man car catches the power pellet that’s speeding around in front of him (like the bunny in a greyhound coursing).

Then Pac-Man would spin around to chase Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde for a set period of time and when he overtakes one, the Ghost car would have to do a Drive of Shame back to its pit.

Fans would be outfitted with paint guns and instructed to colorize the overtaken Ghost car, which would then be washed off in the pit and resurrected into the race.

There would not be a “first to cross the finish line” goal. Scoring would consist of points for overtakes, drafting, driving style, and zealotry of paint gun-wielding fans. At the racetrack entrance, fans would have to declare whether they want to be Pac-Heads or Ghost-Heads for the day and sit in the appropriate stands.

To round out the racing teams, Pac-Heads would also be entitled to support race cars in the likeness of Ms. Pac-Man and characters from the early 1980s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series: Chomp-Chomp the dog and Sour Puss the cat. Don’t forget about Baby-Pac! He would be the adorable team mascot. On the Ghost side, the mascot would be the evil Mezmeron, leader of the ghosts from the cartoon series.

The only thing that would make this racing scenario cooler is if it were possible to screw with physics in some science-y way so that the race cars could drive off the East end of the track and instantly reappear on the West end (and vice-versa). And then maybe have a grand finale demolition derby. Yeah, I think that would score some serious green and some hardcore fandom.

Any other ideas to make this live-action Geek Race a valid sales pitch?