Nikki's Comicon 2017 Top Ten

Every year, I tell you that I'm going to write you a Comicon post and then some how it's magically December and it's closer to next year's Comicon and it's just not going to happen. The problem is I think too big. You know I'm wordy and with an event like Comicon there's just too much to write about.

Well, I'll show you Comicon!!!!

This time I'm just doing a Top 10 list. Disclaimer - some of these will kind of blend and repeat. While there are 10 distinct experiences, the pictures overlap occasionally.

Nikki's Ultimate Comicon 2017 Top 10 Best Things Ever

10. Star Wars Booth

I'd be amiss to not mention the whole reason we go to Comicon. Dan and I are lucky to be friends with the guy who coordinated the Star Wars presence at conferences and we get to work the Star Wars booth which gets us our passes. Being Star Wars and all, their booth is generally a large attraction in the convention and this year was no different. Our booth featured a large scene from The Last Jedi as well as some X-Wing Pilot costumes that were used in the film. It was really cool.

The highlight of working the booth though, is interacting with the fans. For the most part, people were friendly and gratious. My job most of my shifts was to take pictures for the fans who came to the booth. I got a great angle and became really efficient with my role. I also really liked it. My favorite were the people with fancy DSLR cameras. I hadn't really used one before but by the end of the weekend, I wanted one.

I also got to see so many cool costumes come through and a few times I asked if I could take their photo for myself as well. I loved seeing the cosplayers have fun mixing their characters with our scene.

9. Cosplay

I didn't really get a lot of pictures of Cosplayers this year but that didn't make their outfits any less amazing. Dan and I normally put together some amateur cosplay as well, but weren't able to this year. Knowing how much work it is to make our mediocre outfits, I always applaud the people who have really good ones. While I don't have any stand alone pictures of them, you can look above for some of my favorites from our booth.

Oh wait, here's an awesome K2S0!

8. SyFy's Everything

SyFy had a huge presences at Comicon this year. They often marched through the streets with a band giving out prizes. They had a pedal cart where you could do trivia. If your team won, you would each get $20. They had a puzzle room for the Expanse (which we did not try out). Lastly, they had a huge party where they rented out the Children's museum, gave out free beers and shirts, had a 90s cover band, and was hosted by Zachary Levi. The last one was what I had the most experience with and it was amazing. I'm not a big party person but every now and then I'm into it and I had a great time at this one. It was a perfect mix of things I love - friends, costumes, beer, bands, and Zachary Levi. Very fun time.

7. Recoil

Sometimes at Comicon, you get to test out a new product. For us, this was Recoil. We thought we were just waiting in line for a silly laser tag game, but we actually really loved the product. Basically, you have some laser tag type of guns and your cell phone is your screen for your game. It plays more like a real life first person shooter where you have to reload, collect ammo, regenerate, and can command air strikes. You play on teams and you have headsets so you can coordinate. We played on a small parking lot course but you can create your own boundaries and play up to a football field sized area. Could you imagine playing in a big park or through a quiet neighborhood? With so much distance and many natural obstacles, you could really have an awesome game. Anyways, needless to say, we destroyed the other team like 40-6 or something.

Dan and I are definitely interested in buying a set. The starter pack with 2 guns and the home base is $130 with additional guns ranging from $50-70 (depending on size/quality). Our feeling was that we'd totally buy the starter set if our friends get their own add on guns. Our group plays in so many leagues that cost $50-70 every few weeks and I like the idea of starting our own Recoil league and playing weekly with our own things instead. Friends - if you're reading this, buy a Recoil gun. Thanks!!!!

6. The Kingsman Happy Hour

Comicon has a lot of opportunities for free food and drinks. This year, it seemed like there was more than ever. One of those opportunities, was a daily happy hour put on by Kingsman 2. My friends and I went two of the days and we loved it. For a short wait, you got 2 whiskey drinks, a burger, a chance to win prizes, and lots of challenge coins. What's a challenge coin? Well, it stems from a military tradition where everyone would have a special coin. While they were out drinking, soldiers would slam their coins on the table. The last one to slam their coin has to buy the next round. We had a fun time playing the whole weekend, and even more fun knowing that many of our drinks were free so no one had to pay up. 

All in all, the happy hour was a fun and silly event. The movie is kind of a spoof on spy movies and it seems like the sequel is going to be even more silly so it was cool that they took the idea and just had a lot of fun throwing some great parties.

Even Halle Berry took part in the Kingsman festivities! .... just not with us

5. New Trailers

Here's something everyone benefited from - even if they didn't make it to the convention. So many movies dropped new trailers from Thor Ragnarok to Ready Player One. I could list them all but I'm sure you've probably already watched them all. I love that people know to look to Comicon for info on new movies and it helps make the event such a major part of the film industry.

4. Photo Ops

The last 5 could probably be inter-changable. They are ALL my favorite things about Comicon but I was able to barely place them into an order.

The Photo Ops are something Dan and I have loved every year. It's probably the reason I had so much fun at our booth - it was a giant photo op. We've always loved finding places to take fun pictures around Comicon and this year was no different. With how many things have long lines, being able to just take a quick photo is such a nice instant gratification and leaves you with a lasting memory.

3. Bladerunner

Like the Kingsman happy hour, this was an outside event (meaning no pass was needed to go) and it also featured free whiskey and food (literally the theme of Comicon this year). That's where the similarities end. While Kingsman truly was a happy hour, Bladerunner was an experience. For a scant 5 hour wait in line (we must have gone at a peak time), you got to watch a VR video that landed you in Los Angeles 2049. You arrive at the scene of a crash with futuristic police officers grilling you about what you saw.

If you survive that room, you move onto the downtown scene. There's an Asian restaurant, transvestites, fog, and a lot of lights. Frankly, it felt a lot like the Castro in SF to me. I loved it. In the downtown area you could get scanned to test if you were a replicant, get a free shirt from a vending machine, eat some free noodles, and try Johnnie Walker scotch (not really related to the movie, but they were the event sponsor). It was a long wait but it was such a fun experience that it was worth it. I heard the line for the experience without VR was shorter and in the future, I would have done that. The best part was the interactive portion and everyone got to do that.

2. Sharing it with My Friends

You're probably thinking, "Damn Nikki, your friends are #2? That's cold!" NUMBER 1 IS REALLY GOOD, OK? Ok great!

Every year a few of my friends come into town for Comicon and it makes the whole thing so much more fun. There are also a lot of San Diego friends who reach out and try to meet up. Imagine how fun all of the past numbers were... now imagine it with either friends you don't see often but love or with friends you see all the time but have never seen the wonders of Comicon. It all adds up to a super amazing fun time.

While I didn't get to meet up with everyone I tried to connect with, I appreciated the time I spent with the people who met up with us. Every year I put together a really organized calendar so I can maximize my time at the con. I was happy to share it with anyone who asked and I'm glad it helped them find cool events and also find me.

Having so many friends meet up at some point took it from a very fun event to a super duper amazing fun time with some of my favorite people.

1. Panels

In my opinion, getting inside the Con has two major perks. You get to buy exclusive merchandise and you can go to panels. Dan and I try not to buy a lot of stuff so we try to maximize our panels. The holy grail of panels are in Hall H. That's about a 24 hour line though and we've never been up for the sacrifice. Luckily, many of our favorite shows are in Ballroom 20 and the line is just a few hours.

Those same shows all ended in crazy cliffhangers so getting a first look at the show's new footage was amazing. Hearing the actors' thoughts on the crazy things that happened over their seasons was also really cool. I mostly just love seeing all the banter and friendships amongst the cast.

Sometimes - you get a really amazing moment at the panels you attend. Last year, the amazing moment was the cast of Flash singing and tap dancing. That moment led to a musical episode. This year, the moment hit much closer to home. A young girl asked Stephen Amell (the star of Arrow) if he will sell anymore shirts to raise money for cancer... as she was a cancer survivor. The room went still. He proceeded to ask her some questions and the end result was him giving her a personal necklace, a hug, and a kiss. I cried then and I cry now thinking about it. Recently losing a parent to cancer as well as both god parents, I know it's a tough experience. I can't even imagine a kid going through it. That's just absolutely terrible. I'm happy she's a survivor and I hope she doesn't come across it again in her future.

That clip is here if you want to see it for yourself:

So that's it! It was hard to limit myself to 10 and I had to move things around a bit, but I did it! I wrote about Comicon! I had an absolutely fantastic time. It's impossible to do it all and I know I missed some experiences - from the friends I didn't meet up with to the Westworld experience (seriously, Google it) to my endless pursuit to meet Nikki Bella. Lucky for me, there's next year and you better believe I will keep coming back for more as long as San Diego has this fantastic event.

Urban Cidery Coming to San Diego!!!

When you think San Diego, you think of a lot of things - craft beers, the beach, fish tacos, Comicon. Cider might not be your first guess but a new cidery is trying to change that.

Cider is something that Dan and I love but generally when we go out, we find the same common brands - Ace, Angry Orchard, etc. In San Franicsco, we frequented the cider bar (UpCider) on Polk Street but there hasn't really been anything like in San Diego. So on a trip to the dog park, we were really intrigued when we saw a sign for a local cidery called Poochie's Hooch that was giving proceeds to help rescue dogs. This seemed to combine two things we love - cider and dogs - so I decided to look them up.

At first, I didn't get many hits, but eventually I stumbled upon the Facebook page and I saw that they were just trying to raise capital to open a cidery next year. I decided to send a message to see if there was a way we could buy some before then and the cider maker, Mary Paulson, invited Dan and I over to try some of her ciders.

We were instantly impressed from the start - Mary had several different ciders for us to taste through and for such a new cider maker, it was amazing how many varieties she offered. This was still just a small sampling of everything she's made as her batches are so small, she works through them quickly and many flavors don't last long. 

Dan's favorite cider was the Pumpkin Spice which was no surprise. Not only is pumpkin his usual favorite, but it's also Mary's most popular cider. Many of her fans so far have requested that it be featured year round at the future cider house. 

My favorite was the Nutter-Nilla cider. Peanut butter and vanilla seems like weird combos for an apple cider but the flavors came together really nicely in a fun new combo. Because many of Mary's other popular flavors weren't available when we went (I'm looking at you Apple Bacon). 

And then we moved onto the really fun and unique creations.

The first was Mary's Sparkling Strawberry Wine. This was probably my favorite drink of the day (but technically not a cider so the Nutter-Nilla still wins there). It was a very light and low alcohol sparkling wine that already tasted like a strawberry mimosa. Mary plans to offer Sunday brunch at her cidery with Sparkling Strawberry Mimosas (she swears it's even better with orange juice added) and breakfast food trucks. It sounds like a great way to brunch. 

The most fun beverage of the night was her cider mojito. She used her Apple Mojito flavor and then added a lime, and a sugar rim to make a lovely cider cocktail - which is an idea I'd never heard of before and where I think her creativity will really shine. Not only will she have a vast collection of ciders to try but her cider based cocktails are what will really make her business stand out from the rest. 

After we were done trying Mary's ciders, she invited us inside for some of her homemade brandy and some snacks. Her cider is dryer and higher alcohol than normal ciders so we were definitely feeling a little buzz by the end of the evening. Her hospitality definitely extended far past a normal tasting and we had a great evening learning about her ciders.

If you'd like to learn more about Poochie's Hooch, definitely visit their Facebook page. Mary is currently fundraising to open an actual cider location where she will be able to ramp up production and have a tasting room. If you'd like to donate, she has an Indie Go-Go page and a GoFundMe site where people can donate to help get her business off the ground. Future profits from the cidery will go to help rescue dogs as well. 

A Review of a Glass and a Wine: Goverre and Two Shepherds Rosé

Many moons ago, a friend sent over a Kickstarter that she thought would pique my interest. It was for a ceramic wine glass with a seal-able top so that you could fill it with wine, throw it in your purse, and bring a glass with you wherever you went. They also had little silicon sleeves that came in fun colors. Obviously, I Kickstarted for 4 of them in blue and gold.

The first go around didn't get funded and I was so sad because I've successfully backed projects that were terrible and this was truly a great idea. I was so happy when the creators tried again and made their goal. A couple of weeks ago my beautiful glasses came in the mail and I was so excited to try them out.

When I saw the Kickstarter all those months ago, my first thought was that these would be perfect for bringing wine to the pool or beach - places where glass is usually forbidden and you don't want to be bringing a big bottle of wine. So I figured that taking advantage of a beautiful San Diego Sunday and bringing a new bottle of rosé to the pool would be a great way for me to try my new wine glasses and my new wine. 

Goverre Wine Glasses

Goverre Pros

• The glasses are absolutely beautiful. I love my two colors and the design is very chic. It's nice when a functional product looks good also.
• The glasses ended up being bigger than I expected. If the end goal here really is to transport as much wine as possible outside of the bottle, you can realistically put half a bottle in each glass. Trust me, I tried this. Me and two glasses were enough to bring my bottle of rosé to the pool.
• They maintain temperature really well. Since I had brought two glasses, one was laying in the sun with me while the other stayed in my bag in the shade. When I was ready for the second glass, I was pleasantly surprised to find it still slightly chilled. This was after about 1-2 hour outside on a very hot day. Granted, if you were in the sun, it would warm up so this is about care as well but it's still nice that there's some insulation in these glasses.
• Since the goal here is to be able to throw a wine glass in your purse and go play, I wanted to make sure it wouldn't spill. I decided the best way to do this was the Blizzard test. So I held a glass upside down and was happy to report no leaks! 

Goverre Cons

• The lids are extremely difficult to get on and off. The creators sent an email to this regard with some tips on how to loosen them up so it wasn't completely unexpected. It was a little frustrating though to not be able to get the lid anywhere close to on for my blue cups without feeling like I was going to break it from pushing down so hard.
• Even though one cup passed the Blizzard test, the one I didn't test leaked all over my bag. As you can imagine, pink wine isn't ideal for getting all over ones things. It's definitely frustrating that the lids are too tight on some glasses and not tight enough on others.

Summary

These are a really cool idea, and they are super cute. I think there were some issues with the implimintation of them. I'm happy that the makers of the product got ahead of that and emailed out as the glasses were going out, but it's still crappy that there was an issue. All in all, I'd recommend these glasses... after a few more product runs to make sure all the kinks are out. 

Two Shepherds 2014 Grenache Gris Rosé

This wine is one of the newest releases from my good friend, William Allen. I was so anxious to try this wine. In the past, I used to help William at events and get a first look at his new wines but from the other end of the state, I haven't been able to do that. So, of course, I made sure to stock up when wine club orders were due. 

The wine was exactly what I was hoping for on a sunny pool day. It was so light and refreshing it almost felt like drinking cranberry juice. As I mentioned above, I was in the sun so despite chilling the wine beforehand, it did warm up while I was drinking. This didn't take away from the wine at all and it was just as enjoyable chilled as it was at more of a room temperature. 

This wine was definitely another great showing by William and I'm excited to enjoy some of his crisp whites at the pool sometime soon as well.

On a side note though, San Diego weather is not cooperating today and it's really hard to write this post about swimming and sunshine and heat while it's overcast and gloomy outside. San Diego - get with it!!! This is not what we've come to expect from you!

12 Things That Happen When You Move from Northern California to Southern California

It's funny how different two ends of one state can be. Even thought I grew up in Southern California, the ten years in NorCal really made me forget some of the perks and downsides of the SoCal lifestyle. It started dawning on me though, that these differences would make an awesome list!!!

1. You will have bathing suits and towels hanging everywhere

This is actually what started this list. I was trying to hang up my bath towel and I noticed every hook in the bathroom had different bikini pieces hanging from it and the guest bathroom had Dan's swimwear hanging. I was like "this is new." I realized that we've been going to the pool so much that some bathing suit is usually wet and hanging out to dry.

2. Sandals are usually acceptable footwear and more comfortable than you remember

I've always owned lots of sandals but it was never nice enough to walk around in flip flops in SF. I always wore boots or athletic shoes and maybe a dress sandal or heel for something nice. For St. Patrick's Day, I was looking for some shoes to match my spring dress and decided to wear my Rainbows. It felt so weird wearing something so casual and bare to go out but they looked perfect with my outfit and were comfortable. People here are so casual that flip flops are a great option for going out. This goes for shorts too.

3. Tan lines

Dan and I take the dog for walks a lot and generally try to get outside when we can. I usually wear a tank top and sports bra... and I started noticing how awful my tan lines were. I've been trying to go to the pool a bit more to even them out. We went on a big hike the day after though and the tan lines got worse than ever. The only thing worse than the tan lines though? Dan's are darker and stand out more... because he's more tan than I am. My white boyfriend from Ohio is tanner than Brazilian me... how?

4. Nice days in SF are cold days for San Diego

When we first moved here, the days were about 60-65 degrees. It was January so this wasn't anything crazy and was actually kind of like a day in SF. We needed light jackets but it definitely wasn't freezing by any means. Everyone we met told us how sorry they were about the bad weather. The next week it was 80 every day. Generally, its low 70s here but it really does make the 60 degree days feel cold.

5. Public Transit stops being a form of transportation

That's not to say that San Diego doesn't have public transit. There's a train, there are buses, there's light rail. They all look pretty clean too. We just live in a spot where the places that we'd want to transit to (because we are drinking so we wouldn't drive), we can walk to or if it's too far to walk, it's a ten minute drive. It seems like more of a hassle than a convenience and driving is so easy.

6. But it takes less time to drive short distances

I remember our first day here when we made the ceremonial new apartment trip to Target. I looked up the distance and it said "10 miles." In San Francisco, this is forever away. It was a stressful day so I sighed and just didn't want to go even though we badly needed household items... then I looked again and realized it was 10 minutes to go 10 miles. Now that we've been here a few months, it's our little joke - everything (in Central SD at least) is 10 minutes away. It also means (to my brother's disdain) that we are very late to any place further than 10 minutes away.

7. You miss out on Beta ideas from tech companies

A lot of services I subscribe to actually email based on where you live. It's pretty hard to change email lists so I'm constantly getting emails about special deals or promotions or new products for Uber or Lyft or other companies that are only for San Francisco residents. Moving from the center of innovation to a smaller big city definitely means missing out on new breakthroughs until they go a little more mainstream.... although we do seem to be the test market for fitness and nerdy events which is cool.

8. Hipsters are traded in for Beach Bros

I feel like every city has their crowd of people that are extra annoying to deal with. In SF, it's the hipsters who loudly talk about how picky they are about their coffee or how outrageous it was they got a ticket for running a red light on their bike. In SD, they are beach bros. When I'm at the pool, I can hear them from a mile away. They are the ones who ruin the pool for everyone else by doing that kind of destructive behavior that makes the apartment crew check in every 5 minutes and tighten the rules - things like trashing the pool area or blasting terrible music.

9. You accidentally bring your jacket with you on warm nights

I feel like the unspoken rule of living in San Francisco is that no matter how nice the weather is, you always bring a light jacket. Always. In San Diego, if it's a nice day, you are really going to regret bringing a light jacket. You are going to be stuck carrying that thing or maybe forgetting it in a bar. It will just make things terrible for you. Leave the jacket at home. I mean - it's April summer - the weather is perfect!

10. You find plastic bags really confusing. 

In the Bay Area, plastic bags were banned years ago. More recently, stores started charging for any bag in order to encourage people to bring their own. Dan and I were entrenched into this habit so it's always weird to us when people just start bagging our things at the store while we are standing there trying to hand them one of our re-useable bags. It's even weirder to me when I'm just getting 1 or 2 items that I can easily carry or put in my purse, and they instantly bag it. I'm so used to bags not being a thing that it's hard to understand how much they are used here.

There are alsosome stores we've been to where they'll put one item in a bag and then grab a new bag for the next thing and I have to tell them they can put everything in one bag. I'm just really hoping that San Diego outlaws plastic bags soon as well so I can go back to a world I understand.

11. You start shopping at places like Walmart and Target all the time

I couldn't even tell you where Walmart was in the Bay Area. I know I went once in college but I can't remember where it was for the life of me. In San Diego though, since driving is so easy, big box stores are everywhere and we take advantage of it. I recently went to Walmart for the second time in years. You get used to hating them for all the bad press you hear but it is really nice to find everything you need in one place for good prices.

12. .... And you really do need some new stuff

I thought we were set moving in with a boogey board and some beach towels. That's not nearly enough to really have a beach day. We needed chairs and an umbrella and a cooler. We  actually need to stay stocked up on sun screen.

And We Are Back in Business

Well, that was a crazy couple of months. Guys - moving is hard. Let me just repeat that. Moving is really really hard. I kind of thought we would just throw all our stuff in a U-haul, drive down to San Diego, and be unpacked and get settled in a week - immediately having tons of free time for blog posts and cosplay and kitchen experiments. In reality - I think there's STILL a box or two hanging around and we've been here almost 4 months! I'll probably unpack it in November and then we'll decide to change apartments or something.

To add to the madness, a month in I decided that I absolutely could not continue to function without "just going to look at some puppies." We came home with the first one that seemed like she could be a good medium sized puppy that would fit our active lifestyle. Oops.

Aside from just unpacking and getting used to a baby animal in the house, moving is so much more than that. When you get to a new place, especially one as awesome as San Diego, you want to explore. We go out more at night. We've been making friends. We sign up for a lot of events. We are doing a lot. It's always so nice here. My free time isn't spent in front of a computer, it's going on walks, or swimming, or getting some sun at the pool. Finally though, I realized I missed by blog and there are a couple of clouds outside (which is probably as close as we are going to get to good blog writing weather) so it's time to fill you guys in.

One thing that I've loved about this blog is the way it's evolved. It started as My One New Thing a Week - a way for me to get out and explore SF because I wanted to move to San Diego. Ironically, after that I decided I wanted to stay in SF longer - but hey! looks like we made it to San Diego eventually after all. From there, it just became a way to document all kinds of adventures and personal journeys, and then I just wanted to step out of talking about my personal life for a while because I was hurt and a little broken and it was easier to talk about exciting new movies and my favorite books and go into another world. When I came back again, this blog became about all of those things and more. It's a place for my adventures, nerdy interests, recipes, craft ideas - everything.


So I figured all of those branches of what this blog was and is - they are all part of where I want to take it. I want to share with you my recipes and cooking adventures (and trust me, I think all the time about trying to do another cooking challenge), I want to share event and restaurant reviews, and I want this to be a great way for friends near and far to get a good pulse and what's going on with Nikki and Dan in San Diego Ville.

Anyways - we are back! I spent a strenuous afternoon at the pool taking lots of notes on blog posts for you guys so I need to get busy writing and sharing all of our adventures with you!