Dallas Comic Con

Last weekend Lizzie and I went to Dallas Comic Con! It featured almost the entire cast of Firefly with photo ops, autograph signings and a reported 60K projected attendance. It took place in the Dallas Convention center and upon arrival on Friday night we headed straight for the dealers room. My first impression was confusion. The pace was huge and under construction and well, there wasn't but a maybe few thousand people there total. The dealer room was quite large, think Gencon sized for those con going readers and I noticed there was a ton of kind of Fan artist style vendors. Of course they had all the regulars which was great but it was interesting to see that there were a ton of booths with custom t-shirts, art, and stuff that was basically unlicensed material that I guess falls under the "parody" section of copyright law.

Don't get me wrong, it was really cool and most of the stuff was well done. It was just different from what I'm used to. The likes of William Shatner, Stan Lee, and Nathan Fillion were guests of honor here. So it was no joke.

We attended the Nathan Fillion Q&A and the Firefly Q&A and both were so fun! It was so cool getting to hear almost the entire Firefly cast speak. Really, most of them seemed shocked that so many people still care about the show. That panel alone had 4500+ people that packed the room. Lizzie got her picture with Nathan Fillion which was a huge bucket list thing for her and it was so awesome seeing her get to meet him. We also met Tate from the movie make-up show, Faceoff. He was insanely nice which made us even bigger fans. We had a blast all weekend, ate good Tex Mex and enjoyed everything about Dallas and the con. (We even got Han Solo frozen in Carbonite ice trays!!) This was one for the ages. I love traveling with Lizzie, we always have a great time wherever we go, but this was just wonderful nerdy indulgence around every corner.

Lizzie and I at the Red Carpet

Lizzie with No Face

Lizzie with Tate from Face Off

Nathan Fillion at his panel

Fireefly cast at their panel

Ghost Busters!!!

Lizzie with Fluttershy

Cool Dragon Lady

Drinks!

Today we're going to take a quick break from wonderful authors, music, and steampunk culture to talk about drinks. Homemade drinks at that! Lizzie and I are always on the search for wonderful and powerful new adult beverages that have yet to be discovered or have been sadly forgotten in the past. When we lived in Nashville one of our favorite places to go was the famous Patterson House which is a speak easy style place that serves drinks from the prohibition era along with seasonal offerings that you're not going to find at most other places.

So we've stumbled upon a few of our own really great and easy to make drinks that we'd like to share.

The Nikki Heat
Named after a fictional character in the show Castle, The Nikki Heat is a slight variation of a drink I tasted from John "Ichabod" Anderson at Dragon Con a few years ago. It's spicy, sweet and tastes like Christmas!
1.5 oz. Fireball Whiskey
3 oz. Cream Soda
.5 oz Grenadine
Serve over ice and enjoy.

The Valentino
Named after our surname, Lizzie constructed this drink that's smooth, a little sweet and can transport you to your favorite beach in one sip. Warning, you can probably drink ten of these if you're not careful.
2 oz. Coconut Rum
4 oz. Pomegranite/Cranberry Juice
1 sliver of lime
Serve over ice and enjoy.

Orange Hook
The Orange Hook (which I just named because we couldn't think of a great name before) was discovered by Lizzie when she had a beer in one hand yet was craving orange juice. With the beer flavor still in her mouth she took a sip of orange juice and wow... genius struck. It sounds gross but it's amazing! Think of a more robust mimosa. The measurements for this drink vary as you can drink a lot so it depends on the glass you're using.
1/3 glass of Copper Hook Beer (from the redhook brewing company)
2/3 Non pulp orange juice.
Serve cold (No ice) and enjoy and enjoy and enjoy.