#tahnycc

[fyeahthrillingadventurehour]

It's us! Your merch-selling, line-wrangling Adventurekateers of TAH booth #888!

[fyeahthrillingadventurehour]

New York Comic Con!

Howdy Adventurekateers!

As hopefully you already know, New York Comic Con is this week, and The Thrilling Adventure Hour will be at NYCC!

The schedule of TAH at NYCC has been posted!  The schedule is much easier to see on this link than on your dash.  

Also, the booth is #888.  If you were at NYCC last year, it’s in the same spot!  Here’s a NYCC Floor Map!

There are still some tickets available to some of the evening shows, click here for tickets!

We mods here at FYTAH will also be at NYCC 2015!  We’ll be posting as much as possible with news and pictures of all the goings-ons (Past con experience as shown that this is more difficult than we’d like...).  Mods Annakie and @chedsy also be working at the TAH booth selling the merch and answering questions, so please say Hi if you come by!  We’ll be at all the shows (Clink! Pow! Improv and We Got This with Mark and Hal) as well!

If you’d rather not see NYCC stuff on your dash, please blacklist #TAHNY as that is the hashtag for the weekend both on twitter and here on tumblr.

Completely trustworthy and non-Jupiter-Spy substitute mods @tinycatfeet and @mariusperkins will be keeping things going here on the blog, answering your asks and reblogging important info, so don’t worry, you’re in good hands AND you can tell them all your secrets.  Man, do they love secrets, as all non-Jupiter Spies do.

So long, and away!

[fyeahthrillingadventurehour]

A new NYCC interview with Mark Gagliardi and Hal Lublin!

[annakie]

TAHNYCC final post - Sunday night, Monday and Wrap-up.  I posted the first half of Sunday earlier today.

Those first two pics need some explanation.... the first one is a mariachi band that was playing for money on a piece of our way home.  There were certain "New York" experiences that I really enjoyed, things that, living a mostly suburban lifestyle in the middle of the country you don't really get.  So things like hearing awesome street musicians, riding in a taxi, just... walking down crowded city streets, that kind of thing, I tried to make notes of them.  Even things like getting kicked repeatedly by a homeless man on the subway, well, take it in stride.  This is New York. So the band was just one of those experiences and my phone was out so... picture.  And that disc laying in the subway tracks... I'd noticed it Thursday night on our first full trip back to the hotel from Manhattan and the second night when I went by myself I was really unsure I was the right spot to catch the right train for a minute or two, but then I saw that disc and was like "Oh, yeah, this is the place" so the rest of the nights after that, it was all about spotting the disc.

After we got back to the hotel Sunday, Jena and I decided we wanted to have like, a real meal for once that weekend, since it was our last chance.  We asked the front desk people for a recommendation and ended up walking about 4 blocks to a place called Monsignor's.  It was amazing.  It was just the meal we needed, and they had the cutest covered patio to dine at. All of the food was really great and it was just relaxing.

Midway through dinner I saw I had a new tweet and checked my phone and... oh for no reason at all Marc Evan Jackson, Hal and Mark had said really nice things about us.  Jena and I... uh, there may have been a couple misty eyes after we saw that.  It really meant a lot to us.  I'm going to shut up about it because some of them will probably read this but THANKS GUYS really.

On the way back, Jena and I took a different route than how we got there, and walking down one block Jena stopped and went "HOLY SHIT, THAT'S THE STATUE OF LIBERTY!"  So I peered down the street and WOAH, THERE IT IS.  So if you look at that one picture taken from the middle of the street and expand it and look real close right in the middle, there she is!  Look mom, we did sightseeing, okay?  We also walked by Macy's on 34th street every day on our way to the Javits Center and saw lots of subway tracks so, we basically saw it all, right?

That night after getting back to the hotel we saw that Ben Acker had said another really nice thing to us on twitter and well, our entire day was made between Marc's tweet and his, so thanks Ben for that. :)

I also took a pic of our hotel / grocery store / subway stop because hey, we really liked these things and we'll definitely stay there again if we have reason to do this trip again.

When we'd asked about where to go for dinner, we also asked about an easier way to get back to Newark airport because neither Jena or I relished the idea of schlepping our gigantic suitcases through the subway / train during morning rush hour.  So we splurged and asked them to get us a car to take us there.  There was a flat rate that included tolls and tip and it was way way more than we would have spent on the subway / train but at that point we were just exhausted and decided... this splurge was worth it.  So we did.

In the morning we packed up, had breakfast, and when the car arrived we said bye to Shannon.  Jena and I both noted that sitting in a car being driven around felt really weird, and kind of like a luxury.  It was so so worth it though.

The flight from Newark to Houston was full but it wasn't too bad except the couple that sat with me was really chatty.  I put on my headphones and listened to TAH the entire way.  But we arrived late due to weather, and I thought I'd miss my Dallas flight, but it was delayed two hours.  So instead I had dinner and eventually managed to snag a nice comfy chair with power to wait things out.  That flight was half empty, but so short that I started listening to The Once and Future Thing during takeoff and when it ended we were preparing to land.

There'd been crazy weather in Dallas, and in Houston so many Dallas flights had been delayed that they ended up just throwing any Dallas-bound luggage on any Dallas-Bound flight.  So luggage in Dallas was A DISASTER.  I ended up waiting over an hour for my luggage only to find out it'd arrived an hour before I had.  Ugh.  By the time I got home, it was after 10 pm.  I emailed my boss and said I was taking Tuesday off, too.

So, final thoughts on the trip...

There was a rough moment or two here and there, but like 90% of this trip was really great.  Working in the booth was really fun, we met SO many cool Adventurekateers and introduced SO many people to the show.  If I met you this weekend, please say Hi!  

All the Ladykiller people are SO great, and the WorkJuice people... as always, just the kindest and most generous people you could hope to be fans of.

I would work in the booth at every con TAH is at if I could afford to go to them all. Sure, it was exhausting, but really rewarding and so, so much fun.

I wish we'd set aside some time for sightseeing, but eh, maybe next trip.  Whatever.  Just kinda living in New York for a few days was this whole other lifestyle that was really cool.  I'd love to do it again for like one week out of the year, then come home to my spacious-ish house and car the rest of the time. :D

Also, in between Jena and I getting to Newark and leaving, I bet we asked at least a dozen or maybe two New Yorkers for help and directions.  Without fail, every single one was kind and generous with their time and knowledge.  The staff at the Best Western Prospect Park were also fantastic.  Sure, there was a little rush to get onto the subway every time but whatever, that's life.  

And getting to meet like a dozen friends who had been online-only to this point was also one of the best things of the trip.

Seriously, I said this in the 30 Days of TAH but the last year of my life has been so much more fun with making so many new friends and getting to have so many cool experiences traveling and meeting people because of TAH.  Just as much as I love the show, I also love the things being a fan of the show has brought into my life. 

Oh and ALL my TAHNYCC pics can be found here.  Feel free to use them for whatever, as long as you credit me and link back to that gallery.

Next trip - 10th Anniversary Show at Largo in March!

[annakie]

TAHNYCC - Sunday Part 1

Sunday morning we weren't supposed to work at the con, and it was panel day and cosplay day, so we spent longer than usual getting ready.  Shannon went to the con earlier than Jena and I, who ended up hopping on a train at our usual stop that took a different route.  Once we figured this out, Jena figured out that we could get off at the next stop, and from there hop on a different train that would take us where we wanted to go.  The new train sat around for 15 minutes before leaving, but eventually, we made it to Javits.

We walked around the floor a little and picked up some souvenirs.  I had literally seen nothing of the con that wasn't between the TAH booth and the doors, or the VIP lounge at that point, so it was good to see what else was happening. We then headed into the panel, where Shannon had saved us seats, and met Jamie and the Croach Puppet there!

I was cosplaying The Troubleshooter, sort of a lazy cosplay so I mostly looked like a cowgirl with a badge (the first pic) and a space gun.  Shannon was Sparks, and Jena had made a really cool Saloon Doors T-shirt  Sarah was Sadie, so our whole group looked pretty great.

Before the panel started I walked around and took a few cosplay pics, thanks ringasunn and your group, the King of Coffee and Frank and Sadie as well!  I wish there'd been time to get all of us together.

Anyway, the panel started and I'll admit a lot of it is a blur because of the whirlwind of emotions all the news caused.  So much good stuff, but also the live shows ending, well, we all feel that punch in the gut.  There's not a lot to recap on that, since you all heard it already. :)  I'm still not done processing all of those emotions but I'm feeling a lot better about everything than I was on Monday.

Also, the one guy who said nice things about the booth workers and everyone applauded AND The Bens talked about the wiki?  Those things were both so, so touching and I get a little teary-eyed relistening to those parts on the podcast.  Also singing the Sparks theme at the end.  So sweet, so great. :)

After the panel was over, we snapped a few quick cosplay pictures and then went down for the group photo. We four booth nerds pulled Jamie into our pic with us and snapped that last picture with the cast.  Seeing how almost everyone else did fun poses made me sad we didn't do one, but we also got pulled to the front of the picture line and had ours done first.

Because as soon as we were done with our picture, we went back up to the booth.  The Paget Mob was already forming.  So, we weren't supposed to work, but they had Jena and I stay anyway and help out.  bookoisseur was working then (and I failed to mention we'd gotten to meet very very briefly before the Bell House show) but had to run and do an interview and though the line guys were also working, things were already nuts.  So I helped with merch for about two hours and Jena helped the line.

After what happened with Janet, they passed out armbands to get a place in line, and a few people who didn't get an armband came and yelled at us a little.  Most of them ended up sticking around and getting an autograph at the end.  After about two and a half hours of work, I headed to the VIP lounge and had a snack and rested while Jena and Shannon stayed to get some things signed by Marc and whoever else did the final signing, the only one I wasn't around for.  

Once they were done, it was time to go.  We said bye to Jamie and Sarah and and headed back to the hotel.

One more post to go. :)

[annakie]

Saturday Night at TAHNYCC!

We made it to the Bell House a little later than we wanted to but still in plenty of time.  In fact, we saw the cast rehearsing in the bar what we later figured out was the middle segment and they waved to us through the window.  Clint also came out to make sure we couldn't hear them, and we assured him we didn't want to know what was going on inside.

So all week long food had been an issue.  We had a big breakfast thanks to free breakfast in the hotel, and then generally for lunch we'd have a granola bar Ladykiller had a bunch of at the booth, and then dinner so far had been... nothing Wednesday, cheese pizza Thursday, a bag of beef jerky Friday (for me at least) and so ahab99 ordered us a Margherita pizza from a nearby place that delivered. So, fancy cheese pizza.  It was good!  It came right as we were getting in the door and we grabbed the table the WJ people had been rehearsing at and ate.  Some people had drinks.  Eventually, all our group arrived and we had the front of the line and all just waited around until it was time to grab seats, which we did... second / third row center for our entire rather sizable group.  Nice.

The show started and it was.... well amazing.  I'd seen the WTNV/TAH crossover show in Seattle and this year's Sparks Nevada's "I'm from Earth" day Special but I'd never gotten to see just the entire regular show before and it was amazing.  Some Bucatino ads, a Patriot ad, Sparks, Beyond Belief and MY FAVORITE MIDDLE SEGMENT!  I laughed so much, it was all so perfect.   I snapped many pictures and couldn't believe that I got to see it all a second time right away, but we did!

Oh yeah, best surprise?  Cecil Baldwin.  I mean there were a ton of great guests and the entire show was awesome, but having Cecil show up unexpectedly was fantastic. There was an audible gasp in the crowd when he walked out.

Between shows we hung out maybe where we shouldn't have, I don't know and got our seats back.  And then you know how they always say that if they do the show twice in one night you should go to the second one? It's true.  The second one was a little looser and the actors were drunker but it was amazing.  A couple of slips and unintended jokes from the first show carried through, too.  

OH AND, I almost forgot.  Between the shows, I heard Jena call my name and I turned around and she was there with Ben Acker's Dad, who, you probably don't recall, we sat with during the WTNV crossover in Seattle!  He totally remembered us!  It was SO NEAT to get to talk to him again, and meet his wife Ben's mom (sorry Ben!).  We talked for a few minutes between shows. :3

After the second show, we hung out and the actors and Bens and got to talk to a bunch of people like both Bens, Mark, Mark, Hal, Paul, Craig etc.  I got some hugs I'd been hoping for (and a kiss on the cheek I wasn't expecting).  We hung out talking until they kicked us out of the show room, then we hung out in the bar for a bit, and eventually we realized it was like 1:30 am and we had places to be in the morning.  Luckily for us, much later that morning than usual.

We were still wiped out, though, and once we walked to 4th Ave, we hailed a cab.  It was only a mile or two, but we had no idea how long it'd take for a subway car to show up and we were beat.  I kinda wanted to do a taxi anyway just as a part of the whole New York experience.  It was worth the $7.50 or whatever after tip.

I was asleep that night not long after my head hit the pillow.

[annakie]

Okay, splitting Saturday into two posts because I don't have a lot of time today for a long post and I have WAY TOO MANY PICTURES I want to post of Saturday night, so, here have some from Saturday during the day.  For older posts, see here.

So, Saturday it was rainy.  I had failed to bring any sort of rain protection but luckily a guy was selling umbrellas right at the bottom of the steps leading to outside Penn station for five bucks, and that was five bucks well spent for a very cheap umbrella for the nearly mile walk from Penn station to Javits Center.  I took a couple of pictures from a secluded-ish balcony of the river I posted up there.

That morning right off the bat was a signing with Autumn, Mark and Len Wein.  That part of the signing was way less hectic than the previous days.  But we knew immediately when we got there it'd be a very busy day because we had dozens of people coming up to ask if that's where Janet Varney was going to be, and the "line" to see her started forming like, an hour before it was even going to start.  Luckily our line guys were there, and they pulled Jena out from behind the booth to also help work crowd control.  So in those pictures up there, there's one pic I took from the booth like Thursday before things started happening, and then there's a picture I took while waiting for Janet to start signing.  Mark and Marc were trying to do an interview right about then and it was so loud that those of us working at the booth could barely hear each other.  

We had a large corner area in front of the convention center for our booth.  Normally our corner of the floor had people in it but you could walk through, it wasn't too busy.  For this part of the day, that corner was completely blocked off, people just had to go around. (My co-workers & boss from my real actual job were asking me how it was going and wanted a pic, so I sent them that one.  They were like "You'd probably be working a lot less hard if you'd just stayed home."  haha yes but it's LESS FUN.)

By the time the signing started, the "line" was more like a dozen lines kind of in an orderly mob and Jeff, Jeremy, Jena and whoever else was out there were physically holding people back with their arms outstretched.  

The line became more orderly when J/J/J let people through and had them line up in front of the booth, then they were moved to the final line.  Shannon, Sarah and I decided that nobody was getting through that line without hearing about TAH.  So when they got to the booth part, one of us made them listen to us launch into our speech about TAH, and we did put a focus on Janet's characters (Donna and Ginny) but also made sure they knew who Marc Evan Jackson, who was doing the signing with her, was. 

A lot of them were rude and ignored him anyway.  Ugh.  But Jena thinks everyone who was there to see Marc (she was trying to make an effort to let obvious Adventurekateers into the line) or both of them got through, and we seemed to get a lot of people just there for Janet interested in the show, so we'll see.

Hal came by later, and was supposed to sign with Paul and Storm, who weren't there for reasons we never learned (I'm sure someone knew, we just didn't hear about it, we were trying work and not be all buttinskis).  Mark or someone hung out with him, too.  

Okay, so I forgot to mention in Friday's post the cutest thing that happened and one of the highlights of the con.  We met SO many people who were SO excited to meet the WorkJuice players and some of the guest stars, but one stands out the most.

There was one adorable 12-ish year old girl who was a huge Night Vale fan that came by to ask where the Night Vale booth was while Hal was doing a signing. So I leaned down to get eye level with her and pointed out Hal sitting at the signing part of the booth and said "Do you know who that is? That's STEVE CARLSBERG!" and the thrill and fear in her eyes was the most amazing thing. I kind of shepherded her over to the booth and introduced her to Hal.  Even though they weren't supposed to do pictures, it was slow at that point so after signing her little card thing Hal came out from behind the booth and gave her hugs and got his picture taken with her. She said she'd written an article about WTNV in her school paper so Hal had her mom tweet it to him so he could read it. She was crying and shaking, it was the cutest thing. Sarah, Shannon, Jena and I stood at the booth "YAY!"-ing and clapping for her.

We told her mom to bring her back in an hour, and she did, when Mark was signing again. So then we told her that John Peters... you know, the Farmer? was there and again with the shaking and crying. Mark spent a bunch of time with her (it'd gotten slow by that point, too) and she came back over to show us his autograph, and he'd signed it "Mark Gagliardi... you know the farmer?" and was the happiest thing on earth. Seriously, that little girl made the entire thing worth it if it hadn't been already.

Anyway, when our shift ended at 3:30, Shannon, Jena and I immediately headed back to the hotel.  The entire commute from leaving the booth to getting to the hotel room took about an hour and a half, so we made it to the hotel right about 5:00, literally spent less than 5 minutes all changing into our fanciest clothes, no time for anything more than dragging a brush through our hair to freshen up, and we were back on the subway then walking the 4 or 5 blocks to the Bell House to meet up with ahab99, whit, Stefwith1f and the rest of the New York crew.  And that'll be the next post.

Oh yeah also I took the only non-TAH cosplay pic I'd take all week of an awesome Joel and Tom Servo. <3

[annakie]

Previously on TAHNYCC  (I actually went back and updated the Wednesday/Thursday post quite a bit if you want to see it.)

TAHNYCC Day Three (Friday)

Friday was the first morning we had to be at the booth early-ish (10:30) which meant waking up early (6:30) to make sure all 3 of us could get ready, get breakfast, and get there on time.

This also meant taking the subway in during the height of morning rush hour.  FUN!

Oh yeah and on the way in, the subway tracks in front of us got flooded so there was a good 30+ minute delay on the most crowded subway car we were on the entire time:

Except for having to push down my claustrophobia for about a half hour, it wasn't that bad, honestly.

We made it in and-- oh yeah, it was chedsy's birthday!  The ladies at Ladykiller (the company that runs the TAH booth and all the WJ players schedules at cons and such) had bought Jena a card we all signed and gave us chocolate muffins-as-cake. 

The signings at the booth that morning were Craig Cackowski and Scott Adist and... I think Hal or Mark or someone was there to fill in for a missing Janet Varney?  I don't remember for sure.  From 12:30 to 1:30 Mark and Terry Kinney, and from 2-3 Autumn Reeser, Hal and Andy Paley.  Andy was a little late, so Mark filled in until he got there.

The crazy part of that day was the Autumn signing.  We normally up to that point had a pretty busy first half hour with a much chiller second half hour, but generally a pretty steady stream of traffic overall during signings.  A lot of people would come by the merch side of the booth and buy a poster or something for them to sign, or ask questions or whatever before getting in the autograph line.

When Autumn was there, the line was long, and it was busy the entire time.  And apparently, there were a couple of people who were... kind of gross and inappropriate.  Ugh.  These guys clearly weren’t TAH fans, but autograph hounds looking to get her to sign things to resell.

Oh!  Also that day was the first day Sarah / Kitty worked with us!  She and Shannon hit it off super fast, we hadn't met yet but by the end of the weekend we were all buds. <3  We also had a couple of guys (Jeff and Jeremy) working the floor in front of the booth, helping do crowd control and passing out the little promotional postcards. They were great. 

Anyway, at the end of that day I was like, just exhausted. Shannon and Jena wanted to walk around a bunch and we had a Nerdist Writers Panel to go to before the TAH improv show but I... just couldn't.  I was completely exhausted and knew I needed some rest.  So I split and went back to the hotel and rested. I intended to go grab a good dinner but instead, I just lazed about the hotel room, ate a bag of beef jerky for dinner, and browsed the internet.

I met up with Shannon, Jena, Sarah and the rest of the New York crew at the TAH improv show that night.  The show was awesome.  Ted Leo was the monologist (basically he tells stories from his life and the rest of the cast improvises sketches based of his monologues).

Some memorable moments --

Scott Adsit getting out of a "car" through the driver's side, where Marc was sitting

Throat Cancer Palace

The most awkward elementary school reunion ever

THE DIRIGIBLE

Oh God why can't I remember more things?

After the show was a panel, which I didn't get to actually SEE due to the line forming right in front of me but I got some good pictures before that happened and it was still great to.. you know... still listen to. Could do without people’s asses right in my face next time though.

After the show we hung out in the bar for a bit with the New York Adventurekateer crew, except Jamie, who had to go back to work as soon as the improv part was over.  But, we had a super early day the next day so, before too long, we took the subway back to the hotel, just 3 stops away.