Conventions. Those gatherings viewed by outsiders as gathering places for sweaty, smelly, pimply faced nerds. To us, they are gathering places of fun among other sweaty geeks. Wait….not all are sweaty…I do shower at the shows if I’m in a hotel room

My first? HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. It was 1992 i think, and my dad drove me there. I took a whopping $100 cash and my favorite issue of WildC.A.T.S to get signed by Jim Lee. Went back for two consecutive years, each one spending more money and having more fun. After my run with Heroes I didnt really do much for a long while until I decided to go with a friend to a little show in Baltimore called Horrorfind. Wow. First show I ever attended with film and Tv stars and it was an absolute blast. We only stayed one day but went back the next year for the weekend and had even more fun. Then, the big one. DragonCon. Me and two friends went for the first time three years ago, and it was wild and almost overwhelming. Four hotels, over 500 guests, 25,000 attendees, and four days of geekdom. Been attending annually ever since.

Now, this year is kind of an off year for me. No DragonCon (unless I scrap up a lil bit of cash), and nothing else really planned. Nothing major cept for wanting to kinda wanting to prepare for what is to come. 2010 will be a kick ass year. First off, gonna go home in a way back to HeroesCon. The annual tradition of DragonCon will resume. Gonna finally go to an anime con with either Animazement or Otakon. As a Star Wars fan I cannot miss the finally confirmed Celebration 5. And, since I am a World Of Warcraft player, gonna try and take my first trip (and airline flight!!) to BlizzCon in California.

There has been so much to come out of show. Met my childhood idol Adam West, the creator and stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the man behind the mask of my alltime favorite Star Wars charater Boba Fett, some of the incredible stars of the TV show Firefly, the best Jason Vorhees Kane Hodder, Aspen comics artist Talent Caldwell, and of course I can never forget meeting the voice behind my favorite Aqua Teen charater and the inspiration for my own screenname, Dana “Master Shake” Snyder.

What am I looking forward to? Finally getting to meet the cast of the great web series The Guild including the geek goddess herself, Felicia Day, Udon comics artist Omar Dogan (check out his deviantart page, he did an awesome rendering of KOS-MOS from Xenosaga for me a year ago and I look forward to getting another piece from him in the future!!), more of the stars of Firefly and MST3K, hmm, and too many others to really list