CONNNNN!!!!!!!

So here it is my report on this years fan expo convention. I figured I'd break it into 2 parts--the bad stuff and the good stuff. Believe it or not,this year the bad stuff outweighs the good. So usually i compare fan expo to Christmas. It's a place to go hang out with fellow geeks and get great deals on comics and see cool costumes and celebrities. This year i would compare it to Christmas i found out that Santa clause wasn't real.

We packed into a van with Rob and Nickle and Rob's kids and Russell. We had pre purchased tickets for the first time ever in hopes to avoid at least one line up. We figured we'd have a bit of a wait getting in with everyone else in the pre ticket line up. What we didn't count on was the gigantic line up around the building. The line up to buy tickets was short and they were being let in right away. Us poor bastards who actually bought tickets in advance had to wait almost 2 hours in line. It was like we were being punished for buying tickets in advance. It really sucked.

We finally got into the building and then had to stand in line to exchange our advance tickets for another ticket. So we got in and all went our separate ways. We had scheduled an interview with Liana k but we decided to skip it since it was so busy and crazy in there. Kath and i did a bit of shopping and then texted Rob. Come to find out Nickle had gone back to the van to quickly get something and then had to wait in another massively long line because no one was being let back into the building. Apparently the building was filled to capacity--yet continued to sell tickets. So no one--including vendors--was allowed back inside. It took Nickle another 2 hours and 45 minutes to get back in the building.

It should be mentioned the con was held in a smaller section of the convention hall. So it was wall to wall people. No one was happy to be there. Myself included. It was the worst con experience that i ever had. After our awesome experience at wizard world last March i was really disappointed. I should have known when we were declined press passes that it was gonna suck bad. It was so crowded that i didn't even want to search through bins for old comics. I love doing that by the way. Fan expo needs to get its act together next year or we might skip it. We've been going 10 years and this was the most disorganized we have ever seen it. So that's my rant. Tune in tomorrow for a recap of a couple of cool things that happened.

Yes! Back to work!

so my first day back after a week sucked balls and not in a good way. I spent the day missing Kath and Diana.I had a great weekend with them both. Nothing but cranky assholes. One guy just kept repeating over and over again "go to hell." So that was nice.

On the plus side we finally did find out that Diana will be in school all day this year. I can walk her in the morning and Kath can pick her up at night. Sleeping in was fun while it lasted.
Thats about all the rambling i can muster for now. I know i have a big fan expo write up to do. I'll get to it in a few days. Hope everyone is ok tonight. Thats a wrap

My kid is the coolest

So not to long ago i bout a box set that co-ntained most of the tv series Wiseguy. Wiseguy was a show i loved in the late 80's early 90's about a cop played by Ken Wahl who went undercover to infiltrate the mob and other organizations. Not a lot of people remember this show. Anyhow long story short--i had last week off so i watched a bunch of episodes while Diana played on the computer. We're all hanging out the other night and she starts humming. I immediately recognize that she is humming the theme from Wiseguy. I was very impressed. Also in the car the other day she was belting out "free falling by Tom Petty. My kid continues to impress me on a daily basis!

Day Off #2

Yesterday and i went to Kath's work with Rob and Anthony. Why you may ask? It was minacs appreciation day. They had a bunch of those bouncy houses for kids to jump around in. One was shaped like Wal-E the robot. Diana loved it in there. They had hamburgers and hotdogs and chips and sno cones to. We got to hang out with Kath and Nickle on their break. It was pretty fun. I drank a lot of pop. It so beat getting yelled at by customers at my work. Speaking of which i don't remember my work having an empluee appreciation day. Just saying.

No customers = happy Jay

Praise the God! I am off the rest of the week. Yesterday was my only day at work. It started off good. All my customers in the morning were actually nice. Then i made the mistake of saying to my friend Trudy "i'm having an awesome day so far!" Yep i had jynxed myself. For the next 4 hours or so all my calls were horrible people who had nothing better to do then call and swear and ask for supervisors. I'm surprised Hitler himself didnt call from beyond the grave. It was rough. I even had a crazy old lady keep me on the phone through my lunch break. I was really starving and cranky and i think i got a little mouthy by minute 45 of the call.

So yeah my day blew goats. I booked the rest of the week off so i should be headache free. Gonna catch up on my wise guy box set and of course saturday is the con, We emailed tv's Liana K yesterday and she is totally cool with doing an interview for the show. So we won't be completely shut out this time. Anyhow gonna go eat some breakfast and wait for Diana to wake up. Have a great day

Jay

Tron Time

Friday night The Stewart family joined forces with Rob and Nicole and family to go see a screening of the 1982 film Tron. Pulp Comics in Niagara Falls was putting on a free screening in front of Niagara falls city hall. I hadnt seen the movie since i was 12 and Kath had never seen it. Seeing how there is a sequel coming to theatres this Christmas we thought we would go and see the original.

We all packed into the van and stopped to get a few pizzas. We picked them up from a splace on Hartzell road. For some reason there were dozens of under age kids hanging out in front of the shop. We got to see the gay version of Jonah Hill. It was entertaining.
We got to the Falls shortly before 10 and set up our lawn chairs. THey also sold pop corn and snacks there. It was a cool set up.

The movie itself was kind of dated. It was still cool seeing it though. Made me miss going to the arcade. I am looking forward to seeing Tron 2. We all had a big laugh. Bruce Boxleitner wore gigantic glasses. It turned out to be an extreemly chilly night. It was a fun time though and hope they have some more free screenings. I'd buy that for a dollar. OOo they should play Robo cop!

The comedy stylings of Diana Rose Stewart

Diana is a funny kid. We were sitting in macdonalds and i asked her if she'd seen the Stuart Little movies. They're being plated on the movie network next month. I explained it was a bout a mouse that gets adopted by human parents and that there's also a talking cat in it. So the kid then says

"then the talking cat eats stuart Little. The end."

followed by

"then the dad comes in and steps on Stuart Little. The end."

The kid makes me laugh.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

ok i can reveal a big secret I've had for 2 weeks. Our friend Amy (or hot amy if you will) cut my hair. Why is this big news? Its the first time since 1997 that my hair is short. I had reservations about cutting it. Last time i cut it short it was because a girl i had a crush on told me she thought i would look good. Aside from making out with her one night nothing else happenned so i grew it long again and vowed to never cut it short again. So what happenned? Well a few things. Kath said i started to look like an old man with thinning long hair. Then we went to a stag and doe where we saw a creepy guy in his 50's with greasy long hair. I figured I'd give it a try. Hey if i didnt like it than it would grow back.

Amy was very cool and didnt go crazy or anything and gave me a respectable hair cut. I was the talk of the call center the day after the trim. Everyone was coming up to me making comments and saying i look younger. Yes Kath loved it.

Why was i keeping it a secret? Well i wanted to see the look on my moms face in person so didnt want her to know beforehand. She's been after me the whole time to cut it. SHe was definately in shock but she loved it. SO thats my story. At least i won't get any more of "hey you look like the Undertaker!" I sure won't miss that

A sea of assless chaps

Last Sunday i was out of my element yet again. Kath and i went with Rob and Nickle to the church street fetish fair in Toronto. There were lots and lots of men with assless chaps and a couple of naked ladies. Here's what Kath and i took away from the experience.
1)there were a lot of dogs there. It started up the "we should get a little dog" discussion again
2) We saw my gay look alike. Rob even called him Gay Stew
3) Had an amazing cheesburger for lunch one of the best i ever had.See picture above
4) it really smelled like leather there as that was pretty much qhat everyone was wearing
5) went to an amazing comic book store on Younge street afterwards. Could have stayed in there all day. So many cool statues and t shirts and comics. I found a stargate comic i had missed getting

So a weird experience to say the least but interesting

Tuesdays and wednesdays suck to

Apparently i don't like Tuesdays or Wednesdays eithr. So i sure hope i didnt get marked on any of my calls yesterday because

a) you could tell in my voice on every call i didnt want to be here

b) Since i didnt want to be there i didnt go out of my way on a lot of calls--just did the bare minimum

c) i raised my voice to 3 customers. One guy made a big deal out of a 2 dollar credit he thought he deserved. After he complained for 10 minutes i gave him a credit becasue i didnt want to deal with him anymore. I pretty much gave him the "i'm giving you a credit to shut you up speech" although i didnt say it in so many words

yeah was an all around miserable day> Everyone was disputing long distance calls on their bills stating that they never made the calls and magically someone must have just called a number from another phone and it gor charged to them. I have news for you people. The only time you get charged for a long distance call is when you input the numbers on a specific phone. I was really mad after my 5th or 6th call of this type yesterday. Everyone was cutting me off and making me repeat myself over and over again. I hate repeating myself at all but it gets annoying when you tell a customer the same stuff 5 and 6 times in a row.

Yeah i realize i need a new job cause its not cool to be angry at work all the time.
Thankfully i have 2 days off with Diana and my mom and i are seeing a movie tonight--the expendables. So I'm hoping i re energize and start feeling happy again.

i really don't like mondays

Well after the garbage fiasco my day got worse. Work was crazy busy. Trudie and Tammy werent there so i was by myself all day. It sucked. Then Kath gave me some shitty news at noon that i wasnt expecting.

Fan expo turned us down for press passes. So we have to pay and we definately cant try and interview any of the big celebrities. That being said I'm still going with Rob and Nickle but Kath might be staying home. We can't afford for both of us to go and get a babysitter. I will still be bringing the recording device. We may try and speak with some comic book writers or at least try and set up future phone interviews. I'm really dissappointed. I was looking forward to going with Kath and doing some work for the show. By getting declined it makes me feel like we arent legitimate. I shouldnt feel that way i know. Wizard world had no problem accepting us and even invited us back next year. Oh well i guess i at least still get to go so i should be happy about that and stop being such a whiny baby. I get to hang out with friends who i love and look at comics so it'll still be a good day.

Anyhow the day is over. Gonna get some sleep and hope that tomorrow turns out differently. Have a great night

Starting Monday off right

Friggin garbage pick up. I'm pissed. Ever since i started my later shift at 9:30 our garbage pick up has occurred between 7 and 9. They never used to come that early. As a matter of fact i used to come home for lunch and garbage would still be here. So the last 2 weeks I have goten up at my new time and the garbage dude has been here already. I used to put my garbage out the night before until my complex sent a letter to everyone asking us not to do that. We have had extra garbage pick up on Fridays for the summer. So last week i woke up early on my day off to put the garbage out. Then no one came until 5 pm. I can't win. Oh good its time for work. Yay.

Corey T

Oh almost forgot. Apparently Diana wants me to be Corey Hart or Mr T. As i was putting her to sleep tonight she asked why i have an earring and then added if i have an earring i should start spiking my hair up or get a mohawk. Yeah either would be an awesome look for me. I pity the fool that don't wear his sunglasses at night! Night everyone!

Saturday

Another lovely day of work has come to a close. It was kind of slow though and that was ok with me. I finished all my comics. Speaking of comics the convention is exactly 2 weeks away. Wew put in a request for press passes last week and we were told the request would be reviewed and someone would get back to us. Man its like Tom Petty says--the waiting is the hardest part. I don't see why the request would be denied as we are on a legitimate station with a legitimate show. Just worried a tiny bit that we may be denied. If we're denied we can't ask for interviews for the show so that would suck, Hey i'm gonna try and not worry about it until we get an answer.
Happy to be off tomorrow. Looking forward to another get your geek on. Nothing else to report on so going to get some sleep. Have a great night everybody!

Thursday is cool

Having a pretty good day with Diana. Took a walk and played some catch in the park. Man that kid tires me out with all her running and jumping.

Went to McDonalds for ice cream. Man I'm gonna miss going with her when school starts. Speaking of which we should be finding out soon what her new Diana's school schedule will be.

Took a look at Value village. They were just starting to put out halloween stuff. Hoping to get some costume ideas for Halloween and next years convention.

Played some more indiana Jones Lego 2 on the ol wii. I am now officially 30 percent through the game. Just made it past the temple of doom stage. I'm such a nerd.

When Kath comes home we're gonna watch the 1984 classic movie Supergirl. We've never seen it but we've heard its bad and this weeks show is about bad superhero movies. I'm sure Diana will at least like it--she loves supergirl. Anyhow gonna let the kid use the computer. I'll write soon

Cupcakes rule!

After yet another frustrating day at work, Nickle and Rob came over for a visit. And they brought over the most amazing cup cakes. Man i could go for a dozen cup cakes right about now.

Actually i lost another pound this week. I'm down tio 214 now. I have lost 18 pounds so far. i really wanna drop another 4 pounds before fan expo. Thats only 2 weeks away so i guess we'll have to wait and see.

Doesnt look like we're gonna be able to fashion together any costumes by fan expo. Its ok though we'll just get a head start on wizard world in March.

Man i actually stayed up until 3 in the morning watching Clerks 2. Oh well at least i don't have to work today.

Yesterday at work sucked but Tammy brought in a mini connect 4 game so that was kinda fun. So monopoly 2 days ago and connext 4 yesterday--hoping for hungry hungry hippos next week.

Thats plenty of rambling for now but i will probably be back later!

Christmas is coming!

Had another great show the other night. Nickle was kind enough to babysit for us. Kath sent a request off to fan expo to see about Press passes. Fingers crossed they approve the. It would be nice to get in for free and have credentials for interviewing celebrities. I'm so looking forward to fan expo this year. Seriously its my version of Christmas!

Not sure if i mentioned this but i booked the week of the convention off as well. Oh yeah its gonna be a stress free week. Its gonna be kick ass! Can it be August 28th now? Viva la convention!

Spoke with my mom the other day and she wants to see the new Stallone movie the Expendables. Not a film i would have predicted her picking but I'm cool to go with her. We usually do see one movie a summer anyhow. Hey it has a scene with Bruce Willis so I'm there.

Anyhow I'm done rambling. Gonna go play some lego Indiana Jones. Have a great night.

Can it be my day off now?

ugh. What a hot, shitty day. Work sucked too. Big surprise there huh? Lots of angry senior citizens. Always a good time. Trudie had a pocket monopoly game so we were playing that between calls. That was kind of fun. Came home and grilled chicken for Kath and I. We watched a really horrible comic book movie from 1998. Nick Fury Agent Of Shield starring David Hasselhoff. You can imagine how good it was with him starring in it. Just have to get through one more day and then its 2 off in a row. I can't wait.

You're a damn liar!

Man am i ever a big fan of senior citizens! More specifically senior citizen customers. So my last call of the day Wednesday was a doozy.

An 85 year old man called in pissed off because a lady at our front counter didnt add a channel that she suppossedly said she would for him. So i added it and it was an additional2 dollars a month. So then he takes down my information and says he's gonna go yell at the lady at the front counter. So i open my stupid mouth and it kinda went like this

"Sir is it necessary to do that? The situation has been resolved and the channel is working now."

"yeah I'm gonna go down there and tell her you called her a damn liar."
"uh i never said that and I'd prefer if you didnt tell her i said that."
"you did say that. You said i never had the channel she promised me."
"yes i did but i never said anything about anyone lying."

so this went on for a few minutes about how i said the lady was a liar and how he was gonna go bitch at her and he was gonna get her to call me? I didnt need this it was hometime. So i admit my voice went up and i was just about yelling because i really don't appreciate people putting words in my mouth. so he threatens me and says he gonna come down here and shove his foot up my ass. So i blurt out with I'm in Canada you're welcome to come down here. I shouldnt have said it but i was pissed at this point. So he replies with

"good I'll tell the lady that Jason from Canada called her a damn liar!"

Really? Seriously he was the only one throwing around the word liar. So I'm hoping that because it was a half an hour call no one will listen to it. Thats all i would need--to get in shit because of a crazy old bag. Anyhow thats my tale.

Spoon!

Another highlight of my life occurred on Sunday night. Kath and i got to interview Townsend Coleman. Who you may ask? He's a talented voice actor on many animated features. Some of his roles include Michaelangelo on The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and of Course the Tick. The tick was a series in 1994 that i loved that featured a hero dressed like a tick and his sidekick Arthur who dressed like a moth. Arthur was voiced by Mickey Dolenz of the music group The Monkees.

The interview came about in a funny way. Our friend Amy who works at the same day job as Kath took a call from a customer and she recognized his voice. She mentioned we had a show and he was kind enough to pass along his email address.

So last Sunday we called him live from the show hoping to get a 15 minute interview and he wowed us with stories for almost an hour! He occasionally broke into the voices of his characters and we all sat there with our mouths open--just geeking out. He even told a story about how Mickey Dolenz introduced him to the internet back in 1993.

It was an incredible experience. I think our interviewing skills are getting a lot better and was pleased with how it went. I can't wait until fan expo later this month to try my hand at some more interviews.

So thanks to Mr Coleman for the wonderful interview and a big thanks to Amy for setting it up.

stag and doe good times.

The stag and doe turned out to be pretty awesome. Yes i was going on a few hours of sleep and yes i was destroyed on a couple of beers. So our friends suzy and mike are getting married. Suzy is the one we got Merlin the cat from. Rob was dj'ing the event so i went with him early to help choose movie. I gotta tell ya--best stag and doe music ever. i would say 95 percent of the music Rob chose was from the 80's. It rocked! Rob asked me if i would ever be interested in helping him dj other events. Of course i'm in. I would get paid and hang out with friends? Yeah i think I'm ok with that.

So Kath and Nickle showed up later. Nickle was selling shots out of what looked like a utility belt. Drunk Nickle is a lot of fun! So i had 4 beers and because i dont trink anymore i was blitzed.

A girl there who used to date Colin recognized me but only knew me as Colin's friend. That's ok cause i only knew her as the girl who was making out with colin in a car topless while scott and i watched. Good times.

So after good times with good friends the evening came to a close. I somehow made it without getting a hangover the next day. Life is good!