Geeking Out the Chicago Way

Ahhh, a weekend trip to the good old Windy City. I'd planned to do nothing but have fun. Because I'm married to a geek, that means part of that fun will inevitably involve geek-related activities. Marriage is all about compromise, after all.

While waiting out a 3-hour flight delay at JFK, I found myself cracking open the first in Brian Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim comic series. I'd intended to play free online tetris til I went cross-eyed, but my Macbook battery ran out and the three-prong outlets in the JetBlue terminal were switched off. (Our flight was so delayed, the airport closed.) So my only options for amusement were either staring off into space, or beseeching my husband to let me borrow one of the 12,000 comics he stuffed into his carry-on for in-flight reading. I finished the first Scott Pilgrim book in about a half hour. Can't say that I fully approve of glorifying lazy hipsters, but the illustrations were fun and the story was definitely one-of-a-kind.

During the flight we caught up on True Blood (so much for worrying about not having enough to read). It was one of those episodes where everyone's running around naked and having sex. Actually, that's all the episodes. But anyway, as the episode played out, RM became increasingly paranoid that everyone on the plane could see what we were watching, and that they would all take offense. I took a break from drooling over Alcide to tell him he was being ridiculous. Then I went back to drooling.

A trip to any city wouldn't be complete without a visit to the best comic shop in town. My brother (our host for the weekend) and I stood awkwardly at the front of Chicago Comics for a half-hour, flipping idly through books like Why is Daddy in a Dress? Asking Awkward Questions with Baby Animals while RM perused. Before we died of boredom and left RM at the store in favor of the nearest beer garden, I skimmed the first few pages of Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. Awesome use of exposition and illustration in a way that reminded me of my own awkward childhood.

The whole trip (which also included a Cubs game, some epic bar visits and a gut-busting dinner at Texas de Brazil) was capped off by an unexpected stop at the Robot Store, where they sell, among other things, robots. Unfortunately it was closed, but you can get a sense of the sheer glee of the happening from this photo:

And that's the Chicago way...