Moderated by Dragon Con High Fantasy Track Director Jen and featuring myself, my Sagas & Sass co-host Nami, and Seth Lockhart, this panel put some of the [really] bad ladies & gents from ASOIAF/Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon to the test – against each other! Listen to find out who the audience voted as “The Worst Person in Westeros”…with plenty of hilarity and friendly debate along the way!
(While some minor sound editing was done to make the original recording somewhat easier on the ears, please keep in mind that this was recorded live and therefore the sound quality is uneven at best.)
Geek Saga Podcast Episode 80: Worst Person in Westeros at Dragon Con 2023
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As always, while my Dragon Con schedule is subject to change right up to the convention starting (I had panels dropped at the last minute in both 2021 and 2022 due to guest schedule changes), with just two weeks left until Dragon Con 2023 I wanted to share where you can find me!
That said, I hope to see you around at Dragon Con this year…
Friday 9/1 @ 1 PM PANEL: Please Adapt This (Marriott L401-403) @ 2:30 PM PANEL: Tress of the Emerald Sea (Marriott L401-403) @ 4 PM PANEL: End of Days: The Loner vs. The Community (Westin Chastain F-G)
Saturday 9/2 @ 11:30 AM PANEL: Shadow & Bone Season 2 (Marriott L401-403) @ 4 PM PANEL: The Madness of the King: Depictions of Mental Health in High Fantasy (Marriott L401-403) @ 5:30 PM PANEL: The Worst Person in Westeros (Marriott L401-403)
Sunday 9/3 @ 1 PM PANEL: The Princess & The Queen: Exploring Alicent & Rhaenyra (Marriott A601-602) @ 4 PM PANEL: House of the Dragon Season 1 (Hilton Crystal Ballroom)
Now, while I’m not revealing my exact Saturday secret cosplays, I will say that my daytime one is Barbie themed 🙂 Otherwise, you might see me out and about in the following…
WEDNESDAY Find me in my Gang Goes to Dragon Con shirt!
THURSDAY Day: AFC Richmond Football Player Night: Bunny Hutch-style Stede from OFMD
FRIDAY Night: Modern Masquerade-style Viserys Targaryen from HotD
SATURDAY Day: *New* Secret Cosplay (Hint: Barbie themed!) Night: *New* Secret Cosplay (No hints for this one, sorry not sorry 😉 )
SUNDAY Day: Ted Lasso! Night: Security Person (From the technically non-existent Dragon Con Disaster Movie)
Moderated by Amin from A Podcast of Ice & Fire and featuring myself, my Sagas & Sass co-host Jonathan, and Varun of the Demon Slayer Podcast, this panel focused on how to choose co-hosts, the tech and software you might need, and how awful editing is. (Also featuring: the San Diego Central Library Dog Fight Club we maybe aren’t supposed to talk about…)
Geek Saga Podcast Episode 78: Podcasting 101 at SDCC 2023
Imagine my surprise – and excitement, of course! – when a couple of months ago I stumbled on an Instagram reel from Rob Wiethoff (John Marston in Red Dead Redemption & RDR2) talking about an event he was attending this summer in Tombstone, Arizona – and not just ANY event, an entirely Red Dead-themed event called “Tombstone Redemption”!
The event was actually originally announced in March of this year, so it was disappointing to realize we discovered it too late to snag a hotel in Tombstone itself. But I kept it in the back of my mind, and about three weeks out started checking availability twice a day. And hey, my persistence paid off – about two weeks ago I lucked upon someone’s cancelled room at the Tombstone Bordello Bed & Breakfast! So after work last Thursday Dean and I packed my car full of Red Dead costumes and began our trek to Arizona for this event.
We spent Thursday night at a friend’s house in Tuscon, which was great because we didn’t leave home until about 5 PM and ended up stuck in traffic on I-10 for over an hour thanks to a monsoon that literally blew TEN tractor trailers over. We also both had to work for a bit on Friday, but we still got to Tombstone, settled in to our B&B, and were out and about to explore the town a little before 2 PM…
After getting the lay of the land (which wasn’t hard; downtown/historic Tombstone is technically less than 5 blocks long and 3 blocks wide) we went back to our room to freshen up before grabbing dinner and drinks. (It also helped that it had already started to cool down!)
It was exciting that we were back out for less than an hour before we ran into our first cosplayers!
We ended up chatting with them for a bit under the overhang because there was a surprise rain shower…Dean and the Arthur cosplayer bonded over the impossible knot on Arthur’s hat, haha. And the rain shower made for a beautiful sunset!
We had dinner at Big Nose Kate’s, explored the little store/mine area in its basement, and then made our way to the Oriental Saloon, where we ended up spending quite a long time drinking and talking with some other fans…so long, in fact, that we got a much later start than expected on the first official day of the event.
Dean really wanted to sign up for the costume contest, but by the time we’d eaten breakfast it was already after 10 AM, so we walked over to Schieffelin Hall to sign up. Neither of us had ever done a costume contest before, and to be honest I wasn’t into the idea, but sometimes you gotta compromise with your SO, I guess 😉
Sign-ups took a lot longer than we expected (at least half an hour) because they were talking to everyone about their costumes. We found out the next day – AT the contest itself – that they were considering this “pre-judging”, so needless to say it felt a bit odd that it wasn’t explained that way/there was no announcement that you had to (or at least SHOULD) wear your contest costume when you went to sign up.
Anyway, we ran back to our room to finish getting ready and headed out a little after noon, with Dean dressed as RDR John Marston and me as Bonnie MacFarlane!
We grabbed coffee from the local espresso bar and then wandered around a bit with some friends (new and not-so-new), did a mini photo shoot in front of the Blackwater bank sign (see above) and then had a quick drink at the Crystal Palace before getting in line for autographs/photo ops with the actors at about 2:10 PM.
And we waited. And waited. And waited and waited and – okay, you catch my drift. Seriously though, it was probably about 100 degrees out, and 90% of the line wasn’t in shade. We would creep forward a few feet every 15-20 minutes, or so it seemed. We did at least have time to chat with the friends who were with us, meet some new people, and even got high fives from Steve Palmer (Bill Williamson) when he came out to walk the line and thank everyone for waiting so long <3
The actors were supposed to stop signing at 5 PM to do their 5:30 PM panel, but they ended up delaying the panel until I think about 6:30. We finally got into the signing area at about 5:45 but *only* because someone came out and said that anyone who didn’t need to meet Rob Wiethoff (John Marston) or Benjamin Byron Davis (Dutch Van der Linde) could go in. Thankfully we had Ben and Rob’s autographs from previous events so were able to get in and meet Alex McKenna (Sadie Adler), Curzon Dobell (Hosea Matthews), Gabriel Sloyer (Javier Escuella), Peter Blomquist (Micah Bell), Michael Mellamphy (Sean Macguire), and Kaili Vernoff (Susan Grimshaw).
All of the actors were super lovely despite having been in the sweltering Oriental Saloon signing for nearly 7 hours at that point. And at least we got to say hi to Rob on our way out – while I was lucky enough to moderate the Red Dead actors panel *and* run the Blackwater Squares game show at Dragon Con 2023, Dean wasn’t able to attend last year and was so excited to finally get to meet Rob – however briefly – in person 🙂
I definitely have more to say about the rest of Saturday evening/night, the costume contest on Sunday morning, and the event as a whole, but I’ll save that for part 2, so stay tuned!
Episode 77 of The Geek Saga Podcast is our second 90s & Noughties Cringe Factor discussion about 1998’s Can’t Hardly Wait, starring Ethan Embry, Lauren Ambrose, and Jennifer Love Hewitt…among others!
Hosts Tara and Manny from the Geek Saga Podcast series Hot D Takes are back for the next episode in a new[-ish] podcast series, in which we will watch, dissect, and discuss the most popular “teen movies” of the 90s and early 2000s! Our second episode is a diatribe that features the 10 Things We Hate About Can’t Hardly Wait…as well as the “These’re All That” things that we actually, err, “liked” (?) about this movie, and our final 90s & Noughties Cringe Factor rating of it on a scale of 1 to 10 Zach Morrises!
Join myself and three friends who have been attending Ice & Fire Con since the very beginning (in 2013) as we talk all things IAFC…and have…well…a lot of drinks!
Geek Saga Podcast Episode 76 – Thirst of the First Men: Pre-Ice & Fire Con 2023
I suppose I should have assumed that my participation in an interview regarding this blog series would lead to my having to write yet another interlude post, but I guess I hoped that speaking my truth for 58 minutes would speak for itself…so to…speak. (lol)
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it didn’t go unnoticed/ignored for long.
Of course, it seems as if the only reason my interview came under fire in the first place – at least to the extent that it has – is because Alec Peters was recently accused of allegedly buying YouTube views for his channels.
I’m including some screenshots that were shared as possible proof of this happening, because I feel it’s important to note that these accusations certainly weren’t baseless – YouTube channels that do not produce viral-level new content do not usually get tens or hundreds of thousands of views in a day, period; also, YouTube often negates views for a variety of reasons, but very rarely if ever do they negate tens of thousands, or HUNDREDS of thousands, of views at a time…unless those views were from bots, or possibly from the purchase of real views from a questionable provider – particularly if those views happen in large chunks that do not mesh with a channel’s usual average daily/weekly views.
Now, YouTube will also remove views that come from the same user watching something multiple times and views that are under 30 seconds long. Also, if a user changes a video from public to unlisted or private (or deletes it entirely), that video’s views will be removed from the channel’s stats unless/until it is made public again. Therefore I leave it up to you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions regarding the stats pictured below and what they might mean:
First, I have to be very clear that I really don’t care about the number of YouTube views that this interview has received. Apparently that’s a point of contention, but I have participated in a LOT of webcasts/video interviews, and let’s just say that if I truly cared about the number of views they got, I would have stopped bothering with them a LONG time ago.
For posterity’s sake, here is the interview in question:
Regardless of WHY Jon Tessler suddenly started harping on a week-and-a-half-old interview (by the way, see my Interlude 2 post for more on this particular person), the most absurd thing to come out of my interview being brought to the forefront is that in the 58 minutes I spent talking with Matt of TrekZone, the 3-ish minutes that I spent talking about Crysstal Hubbard’s accusation regarding a man named Curtis Short allegedly assaulting her has become a sort of focal point – and Crysstal Hubbard lied about what I said regarding that situation.
RE: Her lying, I am specifically referencing the line “You want to talk for an hour about not believing a man hit me” – I spoke about that situation for about 3 minutes, and I did not (and have never) said that I do not believe that he hit her. What I actually said was along the lines of: if it – or anything like it – happened, no way was Dean involved in encouraging or celebrating such behavior. (Additionally, how the heck I’m supposed to know anything about Curtis as a person when, as I’ve stated more times than I can count, I don’t know him at all, is also curious. heh)
That said, lying about what someone said in a publicly available interview – and then being called out for your lies and rather than retracting them, giving the reasoning “this might be what you say publicly but *I* believe you feel differently”…OOF.
I honestly can’t believe this is something I even have to state, because one would think it’s obvious…but apparently there are some people who actually might not understand that the only person who looks bad when YOU lie about someone, is YOU.
Of course, I do understand that people are often going to assume whatever they want to assume – but a person’s assumptions don’t change the truth. To be more specific, Crysstal’s assumptions about how SHE believes I think or feel are (a) her own assumptions, (b) do not change how I actually think or feel, and (c) obviously also do not change the fact that the only argument I have EVER made is that my partner did not do what she said he did…and again, LYING about what I ACTUALLY said doesn’t make ME look bad ::shrug::
Funny enough, while the main reason I haven’t yet posted part 6 of this series is because I’ve been SUPER busy (I do, after all, have a day job and a family, take Taekwondo classes 2-3 times a week, run a convention that is happening in just over a month, host regular webcasts/podcasts, etc.), I’ve also put it off because I was having a difficult time coming up with a proper segue from all of the online bullshit that happened in the summer of 2021 to an incident that happened at Dragon Con 2021…an incident that I knew nothing about until after the fact yet was somehow still accused of participating in. But as further recent comments in the “””Real Truth About Axanar”””” Facebook group have brought that up as well, I think this segue will be quite a bit easier than I originally expected.
For now, until I have time to go into detail regarding THAT situation and how, despite my complete lack of involvement in it, there have been some over-the-top accusations levied against me surrounding what happened, I leave you with this reminder: Both Dean and I have Alec Peters, Crysstal Hubbard, Jon Tessler, and a few others from the Axanar camp blocked on Facebook.
It’s more difficult to block all of them on other social media platforms (i.e. Twitter and Instagram), but as I can, I do. I recognize that because my other social media accounts are public, there are still ways for the people I block to view them – which yes, they seem to be doing on a daily (or at least near-daily) basis, but hey, that’s on them. And really, the lack of self awareness regarding the fact that these people have so much free time on their hands, and feel the NEED, to follow every word that comes out of my mouth/every single thing I post, particularly on Facebook and Twitter (even things that have nothing to do with them) – and whine about so much of it, to boot (which we tend to learn about from others, usually when it gets shared in Axamonitor) – is just sad.
But as sad as that is, it’s also extremely problematic – though not as problematic as people insisting that I was involved in some sort of [non-existent, mind you] conspiracy to commit a crime [that did not in fact happen]. So stay tuned for part 6, I guess ::sigh::
I already wrote about the awesome first part of Lundi Gras in my post detailing my absolutely amazing trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras…but now it’s time to talk about what we did that evening, because it was probably the best 6-ish hours of our vacation!
Our hotel was on Canal Street, but future experiences (read: the very next day) and my anxiety about being pressed in among strangers for long periods of time (or well, ok, at all – NOT my thing) made me SUPER happy that I ignored the “advice” I received on Reddit to not bother with stands.
Knowing that we only had these two days and needed to make the most of them, I took a chance – despite the aforementioned “advice” – and booked two spots in the stands at a hotel on St. Charles Ave. My ONLY complaint is that they advertised that there would be local food available for purchase, and I…don’t believe that was the case. (You could go inside the hotel to use the bathrooms, which was a HUGE plus, and also purchase drinks at the bar – and there was also a food cart outside, but it appeared to just have the basic fried chicken, burgers, etc. type options – no big deal, but maybe don’t advertise you’ll have true NOLA food if you, ya know, don’t.)
But hey, at least we got very close seats for these parades!
Krewe of Rex
LOL Orpheus WHY
Anyway, we got to sit in the stands with a great mix of people – locals and tourists alike! – and we made a LOT of friends! (Let’s be real, that’s what two extroverts do, right?)
It was a LONG night, by the way – we arrived at the stands around 6 PM and waited quite a bit for the first parade – Rex – to come by. But WOW, was it worth it! As I already mentioned, we met so many friends – including the Australian couple who was sitting next to us (and who we convinced to check out our favorite brewery, Brieux Carre, the next day)…
….as well as a local woman who was there with her two little girls 🙂
Because by the way – us being tall people, we caught a LOT of throws from both Rex and Orpheus that night – which meant we also got to pass them around to the little kids who weren’t quite tall enough to catch them. Let’s just say that I caught a seahorse plushie from Orpheus that I absolutely wanted to keep, but let’s be real, the kiddo wanted/needed it more 🙂
But that’s the true spirit of Mardi Gras, isn’t it? It’s celebration, it’s giving, and it’s loving the city and the people around you. And when one of the little girls was admiring the hat that I’d made especially for this trip, I realized…what was the point of bringing it home, when I could give it to a child who lived in this amazing city, a child who appreciated it and would hopefully continue to appreciate it for years to come? So…I did 🙂
At the end of the night – and it was a WAY later night than we prepared for, considering we had to get up pretty early the next morning – we realized that we’d had the best experience we could have, well, experienced. We met new out-of-town friends who had never been to NOLA and were able to give them suggestions about the places we loved…and we got to meet a local who was actually part of the Zulu crew the next day, and were able to give her two amazing little girls a great night by making sure they got the throws they wanted and passing on my hat to a kiddo who was super excited to perch it on her adorable little head 🙂
Needless to say, as much as we enjoyed the next day, I think our Lundi Gras experiences were the highlight of our trip!
For Christmas 2021 I surprised my partner Dean with a trip to Maui for his big present, and while I knew I would be hard-pressed to outdo that, for Christmas 2022 I surprised him with a trip back to what we affectionately call “our place”: New Orleans, of course!
But not just ANY trip to New Orleans – a whirlwind 3 night/2 day trip for Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras!!
So unfortunately, our trip did NOT get off to an auspicious start – before I even got through security at the local airport, the connecting flight was delayed by 30 minutes. This was the first time I had flown Southwest since their holiday meltdown, and when we flew to and from Hawaii with them in March 2022 we had experienced delays (albeit minor ones), so I wasn’t feeling super great about actually getting to NOLA in a timely manner.
In the end, I was right to be concerned. I was supposed to land in New Orleans at 11:10 PM….but it was after 1 AM before I arrived. I’d already planned on collecting my bag, grabbing a rideshare to the hotel, checking in and going to bed…but there’s a big difference between a just-after-midnight and a nearly-2-AM bedtime at my age, haha.
But hey, no need to let that ruin a vacation as a whole! We were up and at ’em by mid-morning on Lundi Gras, and hoping to grab some beignets at Cafe Beignet on Canal…unfortunately, the line looked like a 30+ minute wait, and as my layover had happened in one of those airports that had next to no food options later in the evening, I was STARVING.
And truth be told, I also wanted bergnerts. Begnets. BINYAYS. (Okay listen you had to be there.)
Luckily, we found “Hot Benny’s” on Canal – which to be honest didn’t have the local feel we love, and also had very few drink options outside of hot/iced coffee type drinks, but the bergnerts were great and my iced latte hit the spot…plus, there was basically no wait, even on Lundi Gras 😉
After that, it was back to the hotel to stock up – aka grab a mixed drink from the bar – before we meandered through the French Quarter on our way to our favorite brewery, Brieux Carré!
Now to be fair, I knew that the Krewe of Red Beans was parading through this area starting at 2 PM, but also, I will never pass up a 90s Power Ballad or one of BC’s delicious schwarzbiers…so it was a fun midday break with great beers while we waited for Red Beans to make its way through the Marigny 🙂
After Red Beans, it was time to make our way back to the hotel to freshen up and head to the Zulu Lundi Gras Festival! This is where Dean and I parted ways for a bit because his aim was seafood (and I can’t eat most shellfish, unfortunately) and my aim was making sure I saw the the Zulu King and Queen arrive…but hey, I got some amazing King Cake bread pudding along the way!
I also met some awesome people who hung out and chatted with me while we watched the Zulu King and Queen give their speeches. I’ll just say that I had some incredible experiences over the two days we were there, and this was absolutely one of them.
Zulu King & Queen
That’s just part one of our amazing first of two days in NOLA for Mardi Gras…stay tuned for more fun, because we LOVE this city and it’s always an amazing time when we experience it 🙂
