Sorry about not posting a blog last weekend, but I did not return from Edmonton until nearly 10 in the evening and by that time I had to get ready for work the next day.

All things considered, missing only two blogs in nearly a full year is something I should be proud of! To think that nearly a year ago I reluctantly began to write a blog once again, figuring that I could keep it up for a few weeks, maybe a month or two at the most and then I would allow it to fall to the wayside as I had before.

I am glad that I did not allow that to happen again.

Anyhow, last weekend I ended up attending my third expo for this year. Of course it started with the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in April, then I was at Comicpalooza in May, and finally ended the season with the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo last weekend.

And who knows, maybe I will check out the Lethbridge Comic Con in November. It is the first year for this particular expo and it will not be large, but then again, how many are during their first year? I’m not sure if I will be going to that one or not, it all depends on what the road conditions are like here. After all, November is winter here in Canada so the roads could be pretty crappy. If I do go, it will be for just one day.

Edmonton’s expo was big! Then again it has been growing steadily with each year, as one would expect. They hit 47,000 people this year, and as always the organization that puts these expos together did a bang-up job!

Sadly I did not have any really memorable moments – with one minor exception. Lar Desouza, the artist from the ‘Least I could Do’ web comic (and growing empire!) showed up in one hell of a great cosplay. Naturally I had to get a photo with him. He’s a great guy! That’s the rather disturbing photo that I’m using for this blog.

Other than that, it was just an average expo. At least I did not have any BAD memories like I have with a couple of the Calgary expos.

There were the usual attractions – celebrities galore, tons of people selling all manner of comic, games and other goodies, and of course tons of people in cosplay.

My family and I had the pleasure of getting our photo with Jim Beaver (Bobby from Supernatural), Noah Wyle (Falling Skies) and both Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar (from Big Bang Theory).  The only other one of note that I wanted to meet but did not have a chance to due to circumstance was Alice Cooper.

Again however, there were no real memories from this expo. So here’s hoping that the next expo in April will change that. Then again, they probably have something really special planned for the 2015 expo, since it will be the 10^th anniversary of the expo here in Calgary.

Anyhow… this week I was able to get more work finished on my 12^th short story ‘Traders’. I was pleased that I managed to get quite a bit of work done on it during my lunch break at work. I do believe that I should be able to finish it off this week.

Also I answered a mess of questions regarding my upcoming issues for Wisdom from the Wastelands. These issues include Underwater Rules, Two weapon issues, Alternate Character Advancement, and two from my harvesting line.

This week, unless my editor sends me any more questions, I will see about doing some work on the Powered Armor book. One thing my readers can be certain of is that they will see variations of the armor found in specific games such as Halo, Fallout, and Xcom, as well as more variations from other media such as Iron Man.

Yes, the names will be changed but all these sources will provide me with plenty of inspiration.

I do have to apologize to my faithful readers and followers however, since I have been negligent on posting new monster and weapon conversions. I will attempt to post some weapons this week, but the monsters will have to wait until the weekend now. I have committed hard to training Kung Fu three times a week, due to my health, and that really eats into my evenings.

But you can expect to see the weapon conversions from the Crysis series of games to continue this week!

I have also recently purchased a couple of card games. First is the Legendary Encounters: Alien card game. I am hoping to have the time to play this on the weekend (since next weekend is a long weekend here in Canada). I will of course post my thoughts on this game when I have finally had a chance to play it.

And come on – my readers should know by now how much of a fan I am of the Alien’s franchise! It should not come as a surprise to anyone that I have purchased this game.

I also picked up both Pathfinder Adventure Card Game’s – Rise of the Rune Lords and Skull & Shackles. I will probably have a chance to play the first one next Friday since we had to put our regular Pathfinder game on hold for one week.

Again I will post my thoughts on both once I have had a chance to play them

Only movie of note that I saw was ‘The Equalizer’ with Denzel Washington. I’ve never been disappointed by a movie he’s done and he did a great job on this flick, which was based on the old TV series by the same name. Very brutal, very violent. I really enjoyed it!

One last thing of note. To all the sociopaths and murdering assholes that comprise ISIS.

Fuck you!

I hope that the good and decent Muslim people will stand up against you and fight back. Murdering assholes…

So until next week, as always I would like to invite you to follow me on Twitter and please like my personal author page on Facebook.

Peace!

Chris Van Deelen is the author of the Skirmisher Publishing LLC sourcebook  Creatures of the Tropical Wastes  sourcebook, co-author of its  Wisdom from the Wastelands  game supplement and contributor to the  'Sword of Kos: Hekaton'  Anthology.