Fan Expo 2008 Photos

Whoa! FanExpo was a blast! Long days, but large amounts of awesome. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the We Are Wedges booth to say hello, and to everyone who took a wedge (or two, or three, or four) home with them. Tons of people had awesome costumes, and many were kind enough to let us take pictures of them:




Oh, there were a fair number of Star Wars costumes, too. In some areas you were in the minority if you weren't a stormtrooper:

Oh, and there were some famous people, and lots of Wedge photo-ops. More on those soon!

Countdown to Fan Expo 2008 - DAY 1

Wow! Who's this girl? She's pretty hot! Is she wearing any pants? I guess we'll never know. UNLESS YOU GO TO FANEXPO AND FIND OUT, THAT IS. $35 for a picture, though? $25 for an autograph? Man, I went to a Star Trek convention in grade 7 and Marina Sirtis signed autographs for free. She danced around the stage at the beginning and posed provocatively, too. And I got free instructions on how to build my very own tri-corder! What does this girl have on Counselor Troi? Well, the no-pants thing, I guess. But that's not even guaranteed.

FANEXPO STARTS TOMORROW GET YR TICKETS HERE!!!

ps: Benita would like everyone to know that she claims no responsibility for this post.
pps: Smallville is actually a pretty good show.

Countdown to Fan Expo 2008 - DAY 2

Introducing Octo! Octo is a Sea Wedge. He works at a stop sign factory at the bottom of the ocean. He takes a great deal of pride in his work and has completed several certification courses above and beyond his regular workload. He is trained in the use of precision laser cutting devices. He's big on lasers in general. One of Octo's life goals is to have lasers mounted on his tentacles and to become a crime fighting ninja octopus. A Ninjoctopos.

Octo has either 8 arms, or 6 arms and two legs, depending on who you ask. At any rate, Octo tends to favour his 4th arm for table tennis (4th and 6th when playing pairs solo) but he's generally quite ambidextrous.

Did you know that Octopuses are ridiculously intelligent? They can open jars and escape from any aquarium that is not locked down like Fort Knox. There have been reports at zoos of Octopuses that have escaped from their aquariums, slurped across the floor to their feeder aquarium, and gorged themselves on fish. If that wasn't enough, they then knew enough to break back in to their own tank to avoid getting into trouble. This blows my mind and makes me want an Octopus as a pet, except that that is the worst idea I have ever had.

Countdown to Fan Expo 2008 - DAY 3

With so much to see and the Comic Expo, Sci-fi Expo, Horror Expo, Anime Expo, and Gaming Expo combined all in one, you'll need to carefully plan out your 3 days!!! You can check out the floorplan here and map out all the Artists and exhibitors you just have to see! Don't forget to put Booth A71 (We Are Wedges by House of Hsueh) at the top of your list! ;D



Need to plan your time? Check out the following schedules:

• COMIC BOOK EXPO
• SCI-FI EXPO
• HORROR EXPO
• ANIME EXP
• GAMING EXPO

Countdown to Fan Expo 2008 - DAY 4

A few days ago, we introduced Squido the librarian. Today we're proud to introduce Sluggo, a sea snail who lives at the bottom of the Wedge Sea. Sluggo is a window cleaner, but has been unemployed for several months. We're all for skilled trades, but he may have wanted to consider that there are very few windows to clean at the bottom of the ocean.

Sea snails are gastropods. We were going to steal a general overview of the class from wikipedia, but the following really jumped out at us, so we're going to focus on it:

"Snails are distinguished by torsion, a process where the visceral mass of the animal rotates 180º to one side during development, such that the anus is situated more or less above the head".

Wait a minute, what was that last part? They have butts on top of your heads? Headbutts? Needless to say, our Wedge tribute to all things gastropod is not entirely anatomically correct. No headbutts. Sluggo is however pretty much adorable. Not a showboat like Octo, Sluggo's content without pesky appendages, just slinking across the ocean floor, feeding on whatever floats his way.

Watch for Sluggo soon in the Wedge Shop!

Countdown to Fan Expo 2008 - DAY 5

BRENT SPINER IS HUGE IN JAPAN. This makes a lot of sense, in that lots of things you wouldn't think are huge in Japan, in fact, are.

The photo is of our friend Data on a Japanese interview in 1995. It's from a Japanese fan site that has more pictures of Brent Spiner than I have ever seen. Seriously, check it out. It's pretty fantastic.

As we've mentioned several times now, Mr. Spiner is going to be at Fan Expo. If we can manage to sneak away from our home in BOOTH A71, we will attempt to get a picture of Brent with Miko and Mantari. I can hear it now, in the inquisitive Data voice: "Curious."

We Are Wedges were big Star Trek TNG geeks. We even read the books. We read The Boogeymen. Of course we read Imzadi. We even read Vendetta (The Giant Novel!) Somewhere in our parent's attic, we have a big plastic 1701-D with the 4 built in noises (photon torpedoes, phasers, impulse drone, and warp drive spinup!)

Biggest. Geeks. Ever.

See you next week, Brent!

Countdown to Fan Expo 2008 - DAY 6

With just 6 days to FanExpo 2008, it's time to start rolling out some new Wedges! Over the next several days you'll get to know the new members of the Wedge family, Squido, Sluggo, and Octo!

Squido is librarian at the bottom of the Wedge sea. She spends her days sorting her books and lobbying for much needed public funding for expansion of the oceanic wedge libraries. She is very efficient and is an effective public speaker.

Squido made us promise to give you a refresher course on the Dewey decimal system, so here goes. Melvil Dewey invented the Dewey system in 1876 (pff, not even as old as Canada). It's comprised of 10 main categories, which are further subdivided to narrow down your search for books on a specific topic. The top-level categories are:

• 000 – Computer Science, information, and general works
• 100 – Philosophy and psychology
• 200 – Religion
  
• 300 – Social Sciences
  
• 400 – Languages
• 500 – Science and Mathematics
• 600 – Technology and Applied science
• 700 – Arts and recreation
• 800 – Literature
• 900 – History, geography, and biography

Personally, our library is 99.4% science fiction fantasy, so we're a bit heavy on section 813. And hey, if Dewey isn't your thing, Squido understands. Maybe you're more for the Library of Congress classification system, or maybe Universal Decimal Classification system? The fun never ends!

Countdown to FAN EXPO 2008 - DAY 7

The countdown begins to We Are Wedges at Fan Expo 2008!

You will find us at Booth A71 (Under House of Hsueh on the floorplan map). Repeat the mantra: Booth A71!!

Just when we thought things couldn't get any better, they add a World of Warcraft masquerade! Mind = blown. Think about it! Hundreds of people dressed up like orcs, pretending to chop wood and mine gold. We at the Wedgequarters never made it past Warcraft 2, but we're still pretty psyched.

There's going to be a pile of other WoW stuff going on, but we can't make much sense of it. Dan "sPoh" Street will be there, and he's going to "outline numerous tips and tricks for PvP, including comp selection, advanced arena positioning, and preparation for LAN play". Thanks Dan, sounds awesome!

It's a World of Warcraft SUV, complete with airbrushed elf-girls and dragons! It's amazing. We're amazed.

Let me tell you a bit about Fan Expo. Let's say you want to attend AnimeCon (who doesn't), and you really need to get that limited edition Cowboy Bebop box set. But it's the same day as HorrorCon. If you don't get Wes Craven's autograph you're going to explode, right?

Wait a minute, ComicCon's on the same day? Are you serious? And ScifiCon? And Gaming Expo! What the munch?!!?

Don't worry, guy it's just FanExpo. It's the culmination of all geek gatherings and it's at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, August 22-24, 2008. It's pretty much the most awesome. Buzz Aldrin is going to be there. Guy went to space! He and Edward James Olmos are going to have a boxing match*! You can find out way more than you need to know at the FanExpo website.

But forget about them for a minute, and think about this! We Are Wedges has secured a table in the Indy/Artist alley at Fan Expo. We're not sure what we have to do with race cars, but whatever. You can come meet the Fonz, punch Lex Luther in the face, and fill all your wedge-related needs, in the same weekend!

Stay tuned for information on where to find us in the maze of exhibitors. We'll have some incredibly short-run special show-only items for sale (think big), and the new sea wedges, Octo, Squido, and Sluggo, will be available as well.

* Oh, and by boxing match, we mean, they'll be in the same building at the same time. They could conceivably get in a fight though. I'd be in the mood for a fight if Earth turned out to be a barren radioactive wasteland, too.