Insert obligatory Army of Darkness reference here. I wonder if their “always fresh” guarantee applies to boom sticks… (Found in Torrance, California.)
On a vaguely related note, Incredible Cafe is no more. It’s now Four Brothers Burger Grill. I wonder where they came up with that naming scheme.
2026 Update: Sadly, S-Mart eventually closed. It sat vacant for a few years until Grocery Outlet opened in 2025. Fantastic Cafe, however (not to be confused with Incredible Cafe) has expanded.
Seriously? Bacon flavoring syrup?
While I was looking for cinnamon, someone else spotted it and said, “Bacon? You might as well have beef!” (He was looking for peppermint.)
Would you buy this? What would you make with it? A bacon latte? A bacon margarita?
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Comikaze Expo, and I’d just been to Long Beach Comic-Con the weekend before, but I was curious about the new show, and for $12 a day, I figured I’d check it out. Getting a discount on that already-low price through Goldstar clinched it, and when I found out my friend Wayne was going, we decided to carpool.
What we found was a surprisingly big show, with a wide variety of exhibitors, though I’d hesitate to call it a “Comic-Con.” More of a general geek pop culture show. There were certainly comic book artists and dealers (a few of whom I recognized from last week), but it reminded me a bit of the last Wizard con I went to (Anaheim 2010). There were actors & celebrities, artists, indie publishers, authors, dealers, T-shirt and nerdy craft sellers, costumers, fan groups for everything from G.I. Joe to Firefly, tattoo artists (that’s a new one), a giant card game area, a giant tabletop game area, and a video game demo trailer. All in all, it was somewhere between Wizard and San Diego without the big names.
When I heard that Long Beach Comic Con was rebranding itself as Long Beach Comic and Horror Con this year, I was a little concerned. One of the things I liked most about it the first two years was the heavy emphasis on comics compared to San Diego (which has plenty of comics, but is so big that it’s easy to miss them) or the Wizard conventions (which seem to have refocused around celebrities). As it turns out, the horror didn’t drown out the comics at all. The front of the hall was still mainly comics publishers, with dealers (mostly comics and collectibles) behind them in a U shape, wrapped around the core: a gigantic Artist’s Alley.
Of course, Halloween and horror did make their presence known, starting with the signs for zombie parking, and continuing with programming, guests and costumes. (Jump straight to the photos.)
Overheard at Long Beach Comic-Con:
Some guy asked me, “What’re you dressed up as?” And I said, “…a Muggle?”
Found this photo I took back when Super 8 was in theaters. It’s funny how, when you get used to emoticons, they just kind of insist on being read.
This one’s right up there with Windows XP.
By now, you’ve heard that Netflix is splitting their business in two: one for streaming movies over the internet, which will keep the name, and one for renting DVDs by mail, which will be called Qwikster.
Edit: As I described it on Google+ last week:
Dairy farms get together to raise prices, putting the squeeze on your local grocery store. The local store raises their prices to cover their higher costs. People blame the grocery store.
Then the grocery store responds by spinning off a separate store. One store will only sell milk in cardboard cartons and cheese. The other store will only sell milk in plastic bottles or yogurt. This is, of course, to make your life easier.
Anyway.
Here are links to several funny (and a couple of serious) takes on the situation.
