Time Travel to the Fantastical

Last weekend I had a bit of a fun adventure. I traveled back in time to a place where the history of the Renaissance was meshed together with Medieval Fantasy. A place where one minute I was avoiding an armor clad Klingon heading right in my direction and the next I was scoping out a beautiful young harpist playing by the side of the road. Another minute I would be watching a cute little Wood Nymph play with a young, visiting child.

This place of great mystery, oddities and magic can only be one location. I speak of course of the local Renaissance Fair.

Last Sunday some of my family and friends hit the road, out of the city, and out into the Southern farm lands. Once we traversed the traffic and mass amount of needless construction we found ourselves on a quaint back road that led us to the wonderful little township of Bristol, a berg that time forgot.

As soon as we got out of the car we noticed the many folks dressed in Renaissance, Medieval and Fantasy clothing. All the while I was thinking, "Now these are my kind of people!" As you may have guessed, I have a very soft spot for people who really get into the Fantastical.

And this would be the place that they would be able to let their hair down and feel welcome and comfortable, far away from the mundane, judgmental and yuppie-esque "real" world.

As soon as we made our way through the main gates we found ourselves immediately plunked, smack dab into a magical little township. The yells of storekeepers selling their goods, the smell of delicious foods and the music of a time thought long gone attacked our senses.

A jester entertaining a small band of royals and wealthy was the first introduction into our immersion into the fantasy world that these imaginative people who run, work at and attend the Ren Fair had for us.

We finally reached our initial destination of the jousting field. The knights, both good and evil, put on a great show where one of the evil knights won the contest. Huzzah for the dark ones!

As we made our way further into the heavily wooded township we saw a bevy of young wenches selling pickles, mushrooms and cheese fritters. Of course my eyes were glued to those tasty cheese fritters the whole time......... honest.

There were many leather good shops and blacksmith stores selling all manner of battle tool. My Bro-In-Law played around with one a bit. It was a wonderfully nasty instrument that was a staff that had an axe at its head with what looked like a pronged meat tenderizer on the opposite side of the axe. Not being a weapons historian, I have no clue as to what it was called, but I'm sure quite a few knight in shining armor got sliced and diced by one of them back in the day.

There were a few shops I enjoyed quite a bit. There was the little occult shop where I picked up a book on Zombies for my Halloween reading. There was also a shop dedicated to walking sticks and staffs. I have to admit, I was eyeing up one particular large, black staff that had a twist design going up it. At it's head was a Samuel Adams Black Larger tap. It was a bit out of my price range for this month's budget. So Sadly I missed out on my "Staff of Everlasting Grog" It would have given me a +50 against weak, skunky domestic beers.

"PBR Me? I think not! Get me a good micro-brew or import you silly lackey!"

Which reminds me of another good thing about the Ren Fair! They have five or six pubs throughout the township that not only sell the usual domestic swill, they also have a few lager and stout imports on hand.

The best part of it all were the people who come to these things dressed in full fantasy regalia! These aren't the people who work or run the fair though. These are the incredibly imaginative and talented folks who come in their own armor, with swords and magic staffs in hand. They're always ready to do battle with whatever invading army or dragon that may come to threaten the fair. Actually the only threat are the foul-minded yuppies who show up and shake their heads in disbelief. Sadly, they just don't get it. But, this isn't their world. There are no stock portfolios to plot and plan over, no golf courses, no business suits, no trophy wife / husband and no greed or boredom. Only the magic of imagination.

My only regret is that I never get a chance to hang with these Ren Fair people. Rumor has it, they throw real good parties after the fair shuts down for the day. And what self respecting geek wouldn't want to party with a bevy of wenches?



In other geekified news....

I've gone back to playing Fallout 3 since I have a couple of add on packs that I've installed. I finished up on both "The Pitt" and "Operation: Anchorage" and now I'm working on "Point Lookout" and "Broken Steel". All the bloodshed and character development a gamer could ask for in the post apocalyptic world of Washington D.C. and Maryland. Point Lookout looks particularly creepy as it takes place in some swampland and involves fighting off inbreds.


The Festival of Robahain (my friend Roberto's B-Day party) is coming up next weekend. There's sure to be bloodshed and fun. You can read about past Robhain's HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. I'll report back, if I make it out alive.


Concerning reporting back, Zangz's Blog of Geekdom is sending a special agent to the geek festival of DragonCon, a five day Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror and gaming convention held every year in Atlanta. Since Gen Con has become pretty lame since it left Milwaukee, DragonCon has become the "go to" con for Role Players and fanboys alike.

My buddy Bruce is heading down there and I'm trying to get him to prep a report on his findings. So watch for that soon!


You do know what is also coming up, don't you? C'mon! All the signs are there. The slight change in temperature, the ever so change in the color of the leaves in trees, the Octoberfests and Pumpkin ales are already starting to hit the store shelves and the fact that a bunch of Halloween Express' are already popping up around town! The Season of the Dead is coming quicker than you may think. I've already bought a pumpkin scented candle. Is it too early to get into the Halloween vibe. Perhaps......... NAW!!!! It's never too early to get into the Halloween season!!!!


And with that, I close this blog. Until next time, as a wise man once told me, Stay Vertical!

Zangz.

Back from the "Big T" in Time to Remember John Hughes

I can't say that I was an uber-John Hughes geek like many other fans of filmdom are. But, like hundreds of thousands of people within my age range, I was saddened to hear of his untimely and sudden passing this past week.

The Breakfast Club, Uncle Buck, Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, and my personal Hughes fave Ferris Bueller's Day Off were great comedies aimed at teens that spoke to them, not at them. The movies didn't portray teens as sex hungry knuckleheads , like many of the teen romp movies did during the '80's (well...Weird Science kind of did.....but who wouldn't be sex hungry after taking a shower with Kelly LaBrock?).

John Hughes' young characters were people we all could easily relate to. They all could have very easily existed at that time and place that was known as the mid eighties. These movies were something special for those of us going through our young high school lives at the same time these movies were being released.

Rather than continuing to pathetically attempt to eulogize him here, I came across a personal blog via Ain't It Cool News. It's by an outstanding woman who, as a teen, had a pen pal relationship with the late producer-director. It's pretty phenomenal reading whether you're a John Hughes fan or not.

Click HERE to take a gander.

RIP John Hughes.


In other tid bits....

I got back from the family road trip to Houston, Texas relatively unscathed. There were a couple of tense moments once we drove into Houston and got a bit off track due to some faulty directions from AAA. But, it all came together in the end.

Highlights included seeing the George Lucas exhibit at Houston's NASA center. It was quite small, but there were some cool props displayed. Perhaps I'll post some photos for all to see someday.

There was also a visit to the Kemah Boardwalk on Galveston Bay. Avery fun place, but it was waaaaaayyyyy too hot and muggy that day. We didn't stay too long. There was a visit to the USS Texas. They let you climb up into the gun emplacements and operate the side to side and up and down movements!! My Bro-In-Law regressed to ten years old each and pretended we were shootin' down zero's. We also saw the nearby battlefield at San Jacinto.

There was much eating done on that trip. I believe I ate my own weight in BBQ, pancakes, Fajitas, pizza and Korean cuisine. The bathroom breaks were plenty but well worth it to make more room for the next meal.

All in all, it was great seeing dad and my step family again. My sister got to take her "little side trip" to Dallas and myself and Bro-In-Law made great time driving back.

I hope to go back and see more of Texas. I definitely want to check out Austin someday.


What am I listening to right now? We'll I just picked up Dream Theater's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings". It's an incredible piece of music about personal pain and how it's dealt with. If the song "Wither" doesn't bring a lump in your throat, you have no soul.

We'll folks, I have a baby shower to go to this afternoon, so I gotta get movin'.

Later.

Zangz.