Sorry, Not Here Right Now

I have been away for awhile. My class load this semester consists of completing my community nutrition internship, Nutrition: Quantity Food Purchasing, and Culinary Techniques II. Lots of things happened in the last month, but not much I feel comfortable sharing in the not-anonymity of the internet. I am going to propose that my go to blog-topic when I haven't much to write about will be things I like to read.

Let's start with webcomics.

It is an interesting medium, as even more so than print comics, it is highly fluid and influenced by audience participation in the form of comments, forum posts, and fan works. In a comic that updates, weekly or even daily, an artist/writer can get immediate feedback and adjust the story accordingly. Some have even successfully put their work into print. Scott Kurtz, the author of PvP, has written a lot about the subject, in addition to the subject of  making comics a successful business.

Currently I have bookmarked over 100 webcomics. Some have finished, and the creators moved on to other projects, some fizzled out and haven't updated in months or years without any peep from the creators. For a lot of them, I slowly drifted to more sporadic checking so that I may consume bigger chunks at a time. Others I stopped checking daily because my constant attention was not necessary for me to understand the story, as is the case in a lot of my bookmarked humor and slapstick type comics. Come to think of it, I blame a lot of losing time to my hobbies to having to devote more and more to school and upkeep of my household, as it is difficult to read webcomics on my phone or iPad at either work or school without seeming obvious. Plus there is the additional quantifier in that I like to sit and immerse myself in the work when I'm reading. It is easier to browse Pinterest, or play a short mobile app game than try to engage in a few pages of story. That could also explain why my DVR and online streaming queues are so long and unwatched. However, I probably could make time if I put some effort in. It worked for including an exercise routine into my week, so why not?

I'm thinking to link a few webcomic type things at a time whenever I feel like blogging, but don't feel like I have anything to entertain the internet with. These are some such comics I find are pretty awesome:

Gunnerkrigg Court Nature vs tech + boarding school full of mythological references and robots.
Skin Deep If mythological and folkloric figures had chosen to hide among normal humans. Story takes place in the modern American Midwest.
Trying Human If aliens (think 1950s aliens) conducted research and were trying to hide among humans. Also, how it is difficult to talk about weird experiences with normal people.
xkcd Funny comics about math, science, and engineering. The alt-text is always good, too.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things One artist's crusade to maintain the classic manly muscly hero image from action stories by referencing a lot of video games and pop culture.
Girls with Slingshots The shenanigans of two women and their group of friends. Also a talking cactus and many sex jokes.

Much Ado with Movies

This Veteran's Day, I hit up my favorite thrift store for the 50% off sale and managed to find everything I wanted except what I originally wanted to find, which was some nice button up shirts. Between my shoulders and my chest size, it is hard to find button-ups that will look fitted without looking like they might explode open from my boobs. That is a sentence I never thought I'd write...

Anyways, afterward I headed to the movie theater to finally see Wreck-It Ralph, and also happened to catch Frankenweenie. I went in with high expectations for Wreck-It Ralph, as both my brothers, avid video game fans, and the lovely writers of The Mary Sue site both gave high marks for story and characterization. More on these gems later.

Firstly, previews of movies that are coming out, and what I think of them:

Rise of the Guardians: I am fully behind reimaginings of myths, especially when it comes to Guillermo del Toro's imagination, and Peter Ramsey has more hits than misses when it comes to  movies. However, I am seriously questioning Jack Frost as the protagonist, as the combination of Chris Pine and the pale skater boy look remind me more of someone from the cast of Twilight than something with more substance like this movie is looking to be. His attitude in the trailers isn't helping either: he seems so emo, in an Anakin Skywalker kind of way (meaning terrible). I'm willing to give it a shot, though. If anything, butch Russian Cossack Santa Claus and Australian warrior Easter Bunny will make for an entertaining ride. I have mixed feelings about the tooth fairy, but I've read stranger things, so again, willing to give a bird looking fairy a chance. Sandman is clearly the cute mascot, which seems odd to me when they've got all those elves, and Nightmare King Guy is clearly a recycled villain trope, but maybe they'll do something slightly different with it. I'll wait and see.

Oz, The Great and Powerful: I am loving the effort put into making Oz look awesome, but I am hating the Hollywood need to take classic children's stories and make them more grownup, and therefore sexy (gives stinkeye to Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland). I have serious reservations I will enjoy this, as the Wizard has always been an old man for a reason. I also seriously doubt Hollywood will follow the actual story and allow Mr. Wizard to remain a street magician with some seriously good stage skills who clumsily makes his way to power through illusion and trickery. Yet who knows, maybe allowing Harry Osborn free run of Oz will make some amazing entertainment. March 2013 cannot come soon enough.

Smurfs 2: WHY? Live action or 3D imaginings of 2D animated characters only emphasizes how uncanny their anatomy is. CGI smurfs look WEIRD. Plus the first movie wasn't very good from what I've heard of it.

The Croods: I am failing to see this movie having more plot than Dreamworks showing off how pretty they can make computer worlds. The trailer implies little of what will happen beyond trying to survive. Heck, if the family even has character growth I will be amazed, as all the sitcom tropes are present: angry teenage girl, ditzy grandma, controlling dad, other relatives that sometimes have speaking parts...

The Hobbit: Squee! Mostly my gripes at this point are consistent from when I first saw the production photos and heard the confirmation release date: Why do some of the dwarves look human? And how the heck is Peter Jackson stretching this barely over 300 page novel into 3 movies? I have very high hopes, though, and will be going to see it for my birthday.

Despicable Me 2: If this movie addresses my biggest gripe with the first film, which was why they didn't at least hint Gru would raise his daughters to follow in his villainous ways, then I will be a happy fan.

Now for Wreck-It Ralph! Spoilers ahead, and I apologize not at all for going MST3K-style on my review of the film.

I really liked the pre-film short, Paperman. It seemed to capture some of that classic Disney magic. I enjoyed the choice to have the characters not talk, and the driving element was magical paper airplanes! I loved the animation style and the love story was quite cute.

Something that immediately impressed me was the contrast between pixel view and "behind-the-screens" view. The richness of detail put into the video game character's perception of their world was quite amazing. Also, I wonder how many people caught the subtle jab at progress over nature when the premise of Ralph's game is that his forest home was torn up and built over with a high-rise building that he feels he should destroy for wrecking his land.

M. Bison's accusation of Ralph going "Turbo" made me think of Street Fighter II Turbo (spoiler, it's not). Very good work there, Mr. Lasseter... Also awesome is the fact that the pac-man ghost is busy knocking about his "room" when the Bad Guys Anon meeting breaks up.

The cord travel is ingenious, as are the "surge protectors." Poor Q*Bert guys, if anyone in the audience still didn't care about Ralph, his generosity here should drive it home that he is more than his bad guy status.

It is during the first view of Game Central that I made the vow to buy this movie and watch it frame by frame to catch all the video game references. I especially found Sonic the Hedgehog's PSA very funny.

I feel really bad for Ralph during the anniversary party scene. Felix, being a genuine Nice Guy, just can't say no to him not being invited in. I kind of want to punch Gene in the face, though; you'd think after thirty years and Ralph's obvious depression would tip them off to his mental state by this point, but then, the denizens of Niceland seem like typical ignorant suburbanites that way.

I highly suspect somewhere out there is a game based on being a bartender, but hilarious nonetheless for the arcade characters to have a bar called "Tapper." Ralph is clearly not that bright though, as you'd think that a guy in heavy-duty, futuristic armor who freaks out at a cockroach no bigger than his thumb would be some indication of the level of violence his game is capable of. I do thank the writers for thinking of leaving Zangief's underwear in the Lost and Found, as Mr. Soldier would otherwise have to deal with letting people know the awkward fact that men have certain anatomical features between their legs that can be covered by positioning their legs in the proper sitting position. Or maybe Ralph wants to save him some dignity, who knows.

Mr. Lasseter, I salute you for not only having a girl play Hero's Duty, but an obviously shy and geeky glasses-wearing girl play it. By the way, I love Jane Lynch, and Sgt. Calhoun is one tough mamma jamma.

I am literally biting my lip to restrain my raucous laughter at the bug zapper method of clearing the psybugs for new games. I have to admire Ralph's determination to overcome obvious obstacles in his quest for the medal, and silently cheer his brief moment of victory, knowing his innate clumsiness was about to once again make things awful for everyone.

My initial impression of Sugar Rush land is that someone put Dr. Seuss, Candyland, and Strawberry Shortcake in a blender and loaded up on sugar puns.

Sarah Silverman is awesome at anything she does. Being a pint-sized sarcastic little smartass is the perfect foil to big and clumsy Ralph.

King Candy reminds me of a very gay Disney Mad Hatter circa 1951. Sometimes the candy jokes aren't very subtle, I mean the cops are doughnuts!

The explanation of Turbotime now makes all the references to "going turbo" quite different. The fem-dom relationship role for the budding romance with Calhoun and Felix is quite interesting for a Disney movie. Cracking up at the Laffy Taffy vines.

The bakery build-a-kart mini game is not helping me want to play Sugar Rush (please become an actual game!). Ralph is so cute as he breaks everything trying to make something. I'm actually impressed with Vanellope's kart, it's a glittery candy brownie!

At first I thought people avoided Diet Coke mountain because it was sugar-free, but I guess soda lava with the potential damage of Mentos explosion is a good reason...The training montage is really cute. It's at this point I'm realizing these events are all happening in one night...

The terrible thing about tricksters is that they can use the truth to lie. King Candy makes some obvious sense, but you can literally feel each blow to your heart as Ralph wrecks Vanellope's kart and tells her not to race. Again, we are reminded that Ralph isn't that bright, but once he catches on, he is a very bad enemy to have.

The racetracks for Sugar Rush look as challenging as anything Mario Kart has churned out. Besides, I would love to lob ice cream missiles and candy bazookas at other players! I really need to brush up on my narrative structures, as I totally should have guessed King Candy was Turbotime by now. I am also seeing how some people are griping about a gay effeminate character once again being the villain. I mean, there ARE other ways to show someone being a silly nutter without referencing their sexuality. Although the only argument for his status is that he corrects Ralph's evaluation on his love for pink because the color is obviously salmon. Then again, there are very few recognizable tropes who can make that joke work.

The psybugs are clearly a threat, but mostly I kept wondering why they didn't rush Vanellope across the finish line anyway? Maybe it has to be intact for the race to finish? I'd think resetting the game would eliminate the psybugs, but then, we wouldn't get Ralph getting to make a heroic self-sacrifice move. By the way, the combination King Candy/Turbotime/psybug is definitely going in my nightmare material.Yay for Ralph getting a dramatic heroic moment, and Vanellope getting to show off her skillz in the name of friendship!

No one in their right mind would believe Sarah Silverman capable of being a pretty sparkly princess. Luckily, neither did the writers of Vanellope. I am loving the political implications here, though, of presidency over monarchy. That was pretty awesome how she duped the other racers with that "everyone who was ever mean to me will be...executed" line.

So, Ralph has accepted that his label doesn't define him, the denizens of his game have learned to treat him better, Vanellope gets to be a star racer, and the Q*bert family gets a new home! Everyone wins! Also, I would totally love to have the glitching power in any game. Seriously, it would better than god-moding. I would have liked more implication of  Vanellope and Ralph getting to visit more often, although now I'm wondering if the credit montage of the main characters playing around in games is canon.

Frankenweenie
This movie makes a lot more sense once you realize everyone's actual name, fair warning. I never saw the short this film was based on, but I could tell right away from the trailer it was going to reference or at least parody classic monster films of early cinema. If that wasn't enough, turning Cinderella's castle into something Gothic out of an 18th century story at the title screen would have sold me.

Victor Frankenstein's home monster movie with his dog, Sparky, would have made any monster fan proud. It's actually quite a good attempt for something thrown together with a dog, toys, and cardboard buildings.

I am constantly blown away by the level of detail in this world. The little books and posters, not to mention the textures and classic film black and white make for a very believable world. Sparky is also the cutest dog, I would prefer him to my current one that farts in my room all the time. His interactions with Persephone the poodle are consistently adorable.

So, based on constant frown, overly controlling demeanor, and general unpleasantness, Mayor Uncle Bob Dutch of New Holland is supposed to be our main antagonist.

Mr. Rzykruski is an amazing science teacher. Can we send him back in time to my grade school years? Who else would teach about lightning as if it was immigration, and demonstrate neuromuscular activity with a dead frog and car jumper cables?

It is at this point that I realize Tim Burton went all out with the monster references, as most of the students have a monstery look about them similar to classic monsters. For example, we have Edgar E. Gore, who is a hunchback and missing teeth, looking all weasely and conniving. We also have Elsa Van Helsing, an eerie girl who always looks shocked (reminds me somewhat of Merricat Blackwood), with a creepy kitty named Mr. Whiskers that makes prophecies with his poop...Nassor looks like Frankenstein's monster, and there the similarities end. Unless Bob is supposed to be the Blob or something. Toshiaki, Victor, and Cynthia Dutch actually have the most normal (for Tim Burton) seeming appearances.

Mr. Frankenstein, the travel agent, strikes me as meaning well, but seriously needs to get a clue and encourage his son to pursue what he actually likes, meaning science. Although I'm sure he feels really bad about Sparky getting hurt because of his suggestion to get Victor to try baseball.

The pet graves are hilarious, I mean, Bubbles the fish gets a fishbowl? I can't recall the snake's name, but it was a very tall grave.

Victor needs to learn something important about grave robbing: don't leave evidence there was grave robbing!

So in cartoon Tim Burton world, movies still get to be live action...Also, Victor is a very good ninja.

I am not understanding all the appliances being used as conductor/generators, but then again, this is science fiction for a reason. Sparky LIVES!

Victor's mom seems rather ditzy, I mean a robotic bucket? There aren't any buttons or anything! Victor also shows his youth as he clearly did not think through how to hide his reanimated dog who still likes to bark and explore things. The female dog as bride of frankenstein though was a joke that needed to be done, clearly.

This dog is now a robot, if it can be recharged like a battery, lol. OMG his eyes even glow in the dark!

Edgar may be a manipulative little twit, but he's rather bold and badass about it, I feel. His choice of a dead fish for attempting the experiment again is rather bizarre though. Scary invisible fish is scary.

Toshiaki may be smart, but clearly needs work on the ethics aspect of science if he thinks it's ok for his classmate to test their untested soda bottle rocket pack on the roof of a house.

Teacher Rzykruski is still awesome, but methinks his English and social skills need more work. Telling people intent on firing you they are stupid, ignorant, and that your best bet to improve them is to open their children's heads and get at their brains is not the best way to keep your job. Still, ignorant parents are ignorant if they only just heard Pluto is not a planet anymore (although I agree it was a stupid change). During his leaving, he is clearly very wise, though, as he makes some good points about people liking what science can give, but not the questions that need to be asked to get there. Victor clearly understands the need to have heart in pursuing anything, but the other children are desperately in need of the lesson that science isn't innately good or bad, it is in how it is used.

I feel so bad for Cynthia, she is clearly as isolated as Victor, but for different reasons.

Victor's parents are awesome! I wasn't sure they'd react so well to finding out their son dabbled in reanimation.

I am continually amazed that the other students are still obsessed with winning the science fair trophy after everything that's happened. I changed my mind, Edgar is a weak ass prick. Toshiaki may be the most evil of this group, but clearly all these kids are psycho.

I am confused as to how Sparky's grave got refilled (Victor clearly didn't in his rush to sneak the body back to his house earlier). It is rather ironic that Sparky's grave is the only place he felt safe enough to rest.

I am continuing my sympathy for Cynthia. Not only for having Mayor Bob Dutch as an uncle, but also having to wear that outfit and sing the town anthem, yeesh.

I want to research this later, but it seems that each kid picked an animal according to their personality, or at least their image as presented in the movie. See, Elsa Van Helsing's cat grabbed a bat and turned into a vampire-like bat cat (I will call it hellcat); Edgar E. Gore made a rat monster; Nassor apparently had a hamster named Colossus (weird or else very rich to have such an elaborate tomb); and Toshiaki uses his turtle, Shelley, to make a Godzilla sized monster (rolling my eyes at the obvious jokes here); while Bob somehow makes gremlin/creatures of the black lagoon out of sea monkeys.

Mayor seems like a typical politician and runs away at the first sign of actual crisis, but hiding in a port-o-potty? Very low, but laughing at the attacking sea monkeys.

Epic monster fight! Victor uses BRAINS, it's very effective! (sorry for pokemon joke, actually not really). I am not understanding Toshiaki's OCD need to record everything even in the face of very obvious danger to himself.

Now we have the classic Frankenstein movie mob and chase scene, ending at the classic windmill. Ineffective adults are ineffective.

The hellcat is seriously getting on my nerves, but it gets to die a dramatic vampire death, so ok. Epic scene with Sparky!

Victor's dad redeems himself, it is too true that sometimes adults don't know what they're talking about. What follows though, is something that tends to bug me at times about American films. In any other country, this movie would have ended with Sparky staying dead and Victor learning that some things science shouldn't mess with, but still able to handle his grief in the face of his dog being heroic rather than losing him to accident. The fact that the adults were willing to try to revive Sparky was satisfying enough, I think the audience could have handled Sparky remaining dead. I mean, now that he is "alive" again, how is the rest of the world going to react to a boy who has the means to bring back the dead? Yet, as the end song for the credits says, "love is strange."

This movie is way cuter than the original Frankenstein story, but not nearly as resonant as Tim Burton's last attempt with the same plot, which was Edward Scissorhands. I think I'd still watch it again though.

Road Trip: Part Two

I seem to be mired in school and internship commitments. Today is the first time in a long while that I felt okay with sitting down to blog about my thoughts. How I long for that week in August when my mind was freer to enjoy the open road.

First though, I'll place some pictures from the drive through Oregon. It really was beautiful with the smoke clouding the sky, even though the smell was not as enjoyable.

SO, after wandering around Pike Place for most of the day, my friend and I managed to walk past a bar decorated with very colorful imagery. Since the name of the place was Unicorn, we spent a good five minutes trying to use our phones to figure out if it was a gay bar. It's totally not, but something even more awesome. What sealed the deal were two "hobos" outside the door: a scuffed-up Storm Trooper with a sign reading, "Teenagers blew up the Death Star, every little bit helps" as well as a bloodied Black Knight.

Inside was a neon and darklight carnival that we quickly guessed was set up for geeks in mind, as in the downstairs area there were no fewer than 10 pinball machines, and an adult-themed claw game with such things as dildos, condoms, hemorroid cream, and a giant stuffed unicorn. The upstairs area had a lot of stuffed animal heads and other things on the wall. Seriously, is this not awesome? The drinks menu was in keeping with the theme of "We are crazy, but also cool" as you can see in this picture:

The menu also had awesome things on it. I for instance, had a really nice quinoa salad thing, but as was becoming too much of a habit on this trip, I was neglecting to take any pictures. It also didn't help that everything was under dim lighting and my phone camera didn't have good flash. Coincidentally, we had wandered into Unicorn on a night where a cosplayer club was having an outing. I recall seeing Naruto, a couple of what might have been Pokemon, catwomen, and some sort of other ninja. It was quite fun, and definitely a place I'd love to go to if I lived in the city.

The next day we headed to Ballard to do touristy things. We drove through the neighborhood before going to one of the boat lock parks, and got to see one of them working. I took a couple videos of it, here and here. Then we drove past the Fremont Troll and waved at him before going to lunch at JhanJay Vegetarian Thai over in Wallingford. I certainly will miss how many nice vegetarian restaurants there are when I return to Nevada. Here's my Thai tea as I remembered I had a camera phone:

 

After some excellent spicy tofu, we wandered along the street and found a kid's toy shop where I got Sirenidi a rainbow puzzle toy. Then we went to Gasworks Park where my friend was ecstatic for the two hours we wandered around looking at the machinery and overgrown bushes of blackberries (she's really into industrial post-apocalyptic stuff). 

There was going to be more in this post, but once again I went too picture crazy. Until my next moment of free time!

Road Trip 2012 Part One

The road trip is a brilliant idea provided you have the funds (or a decent credit card) to make it happen. It also helps to have good travel companions. This fact makes me realize why I hated car trips with the family for so many years. Being crowded into a back seat with my brothers and sister for several hours is not nearly the same as swapping driving duty with my bff Jennifer from high school for several hours. For one thing, we manage to talk a lot more about things we have in common. Plus, with good travel companions, even the shitty parts of the trip become something to laugh about and share for many years. Also, I reeeaaallly like my car, Rosalinda.

At first, the plan was to drive up to Oregon early in the morning with plenty of time to stop and stare at interesting things along the way. However, my friend's flight was delayed as she arrived at LAX airport far too late to make the departure, and therefore had to summon financial support from outside sources to make another flight. This outside source didn't take into account we wanted to go NORTH to OREGON, and instead of looking for any city that would suffice to keep us within our time frame, such as Sacramento, decided to just rebook a later flight to Reno. Killing time with taking my brother to work and double checking all supplies packed in the car, my friend didn't arrive until around 2:30 pm, so it wasn't until 3:00 pm that we were able to leave Reno.

The drive north through Susanville was very interesting, and I wish we both had been able to get better pictures, because all of the smoke was so thick the landscape looked like a post-apocalyptic setting. It also helped that it was very empty with only scattered buildings and farm houses. I had been a very good Girl Scout by the way, and had plenty of food and self-defense items should we have run into zombies or punk bikers looking for fuel.

Towards evening, we stopped in Burney, CA at a Chinese restaurant my friend insisted looked too sketchy, but that I insisted was the perfect way to get the experience out of the way early on in the vacation. It was pretty decent Chinese food, and they even had pretty good vegetarian options. The drive further on skirted past a solid chunk of national forest, and we managed to hit Mt. Shasta National Park around sunset, which still looked pretty cool with all the smoke in the distance turning the sun a brilliant shade of red. Stopping in Weed, CA, we didn't find the tacky gift shop that tried to extol the virtues of the town's name in the form of gratuitous amounts of merchandise. It was still worth a chuckle, and we made good time the rest of the way up to Bend, OR. Understand that it was past midnight by then, so we both promptly passed out.


The next morning, Jennifer found out that the bookings did not include breakfast, as she has previously thought. This was an unfortunate development for our budgets, and neither of us felt particularly excited about the buffet or breakfast menu, so off into town we went. Luckily we were both modern young women with smart phones, and could map our way a few blocks to someplace claiming to be a cafe. I say "claiming" because the place wouldn't open until 11 am. Ludicrous! So to kill about 40 minutes of time we wandered around the strip mall area, and found the awesomest spice store! We seriously spent about 20 minutes browsing and smelling and tasting. I am asking for spice blends for the holidays. So to anyone wanting to impress me, savoryspiceshop.com is the magical place where dreams are made. Or at least really awesome curry blends. The lady there was really nice to us two tourists not intending to buy anything, and even recommended an awesome breakfast place. McKay's Cottage is one of the prettiest little cafe/restaurants, and it helped the weather was so nice to sit under the trees. Look at all the happy customers!

Jenn ordered an Eggs Benedict served on foccacia with red bell pepper, spinach, and perfect crispy, chewy bacon, while I splurged and got Stuffed French Toast. They frickin made it out of croissants, with mascarpone! *Drool,* Sorry, it still brings good memories. Of course, that breakfast had the unfortunate result of making my friend fall in love with Oregon, when the whole goal of the trip was to visit Washington and keep it in mind as a future place to live. It became a good-natured argument the rest of the way to Seattle.

We actually had to stop in another little place in Oregon, because my shoulders started hurting, and we found the most awesome gel massager thing at Ross! We also got a skull pillow for my car, a neck aromatherapy cushion-thing, and also the brilliant invention of shoe straps to turn dress shoes into strappy dress shoes (Fact: I never thought I could wear strappy dress shoes because usually they have needle-thin heels and I feared breaking something, so I usually avoided them). And that is how I had possibly the best nap while riding in a car, ever.

It also meant my first view of Seattle was unimpeded by trying not get anyone killed with my car. Seattle at sunset was very pretty, and there was just enough light to see how the buildings and highways stacked on top of each other, and how there were so many growing things, as though all the manmade things were a new breed of organism sprouting out of the hillside and flowing down the hills into the water. There was also Safeco stadium, which I at first thought might have been a shopping center and couldn't imagine walking through it when my local Whole Foods makes me twitchy, but then my friend started trying to remember who the Seattle sports teams were and I felt silly. Also, for anyone traveling to Bothell, Washington, the area we stayed at did not have good bars. Just saying.

The next morning, we planned a semblance of an idea of how we would explore the city. Neither of us expected parking to be such an issue, but we probably spent about 30 minutes hunting for a decent parking garage to keep Rosalinda for a solid chunk of the day, and very few places were able to cover more than two hours at a time without reaching ludricrous costs. Then we wandered Pike Place for about five hours. I was on the hunt for a pelican souvenir my father requested, as well as a new hemp necklace. This excursion was actually the most fun I'd had shopping in a long while, because Nevada hardly has anything close to the kind of odd little finds that Pike Place has unless you manage to score at a craft fair in good weather, and few of those come with numerous food stalls to explore as well. So besides browsing the shops, we walked past the first Starbucks, a few promising bakeries, and managed to find our way to some awesome indoor vendors on the lower levels. I took a picture of the wall labeling the ladie's bathroom by the staircase, for obvious reasons:

Our first place we browsed after going through the obviously touristy tacky nick-knacks was Market Magic Shop where they have lots of vintage stage posters, prank products, and of course, magic tricks. I scored some hilarious postcards there:

 Next place of interest was this odd little smoke shop. Inside was no hemp jewelry, sadly, but they had really nice figurines in the windows. I was very tickled by the statue of the cat-girl fairy. Plus the monsters and things were so cute!

 
 

The next place we were intrigued by was apparently the oldest comics shop in America, Golden Age Collectables. Besides the awesome life-size carboard displays outside the shop, the inside had lots of cool things too, including one of the best Dr. Who posters I've seen. There was lots of memoribilia from various franchises, including color as well as black and white photo prints of music and movie people. I only wished I was wealthier to have such items on display at my own place, a Tardis would be very cool to show off. Still, I scored some awesome pictures and buttons.

 

 

Walking along the pier, we came across Ye Olde Curiosities Shoppe with a pipe organ outside it, so we paid the quarter and listened to the aggravatingly loud music. Browsing the shop was another fun experience, it reminded me a lot of the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in San Francisco. There were lots of interesting things in that shop:

 

I even paid out a quarter for one of those vintage fortune teller puppet machines xD

We ate lunch at Ivar's Acres of Clams. I had an awesome White Peach Sangria, the Alaskan Chowder, and a summer salad. My friend ordered a beer, the traditional Clam Chowder, and these scallop slider things. Both chowders were good, the traditional being creamier than the Alaskan. The salad was the perfect balance of sweet, sour, with really creamy goat cheese. The scallops were smoked and served cold, and it was an interesting combination with the crunchy sweet flat crackers they were on. I also ordered some fried calamari because that's my favorite, but I got too full, so we boxed it up and carried it with us the rest of the time we explored the pier.

Something I really enjoyed about Seattle was how thriving the arts community was there. Among all the stalls for handmade crafts were street musicians and even street artists! The pier was very nice, and I'm a little sad we couldn't make time to go to the fairgrounds on the boardwalk. Practically every cafe also had local artwork for decoration and sale, I was severely tempted many times to make purchases, and Jenn was not helpful with resisting. While I took many more pictures of the actual city, I'll wrap up this part of the road trip recount with the remaining pictures of the pier and Pike Place: