September 15, 2026 • 32 mins
Here be Dragon Con. Anney has returned from her annual nerd migration to downtown Atlanta, and reports on thoughts and popular costumes.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
And Samantha.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another edition of Happy Hour.
As always, if you choose to drink or whatever you're
choosing to do, please do so responsibly. Samantha, are you
sipping on anything?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I am drinking on some bubble water.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yes. Which is interesting because I feel very energized.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
We should be the opposite.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yes, we'll talk about that more in a second. I
am sipping on my old classic red wine. And we
have to say, the time is coming for our voyage
with our friends at Virgin Voyages. We are going on
stuff at sea. This is a five-night adults-only sailing trip.
(01:03):
That is bringing together not only us, but fellow podcast,
stuff they don't want you to know and stuff you
should know. We're going to be having live podcast recordings
on the ship. We're going to be participating in events
and we're going to be out and about. It's going
to be really fun. Samantha and I were just talking
about the things we're excited about, the foods we're excited about,
(01:26):
the food. possible dancing. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I saw that they had some like boy band dance
classes and I'm thinking, yeah, that might be for us.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I think it is for us, in fact. So we're
excited and we would be so excited to see you.
That would be so fun to get to meet you
and talk to you and just hang out. That would
be a lovely time. So it's from October 2nd to 7th, 2026.
(02:00):
And it's from New York to Bermuda. So if you
are interested, you can check out virginvoyages.com slash stuff. But yes,
it is coming up. And we are working on our topic.
And it's a fun kind of Halloween topic. It's going
to be cool.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Good and spooky.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yes, I'm excited. So we're recording this on September 8th.
which is the day after DragonCon, because this episode is
my post-DragonCon review. And I was there yesterday. It feels
like a year ago, but it was merely yesterday. But
(02:38):
the episode is coming out way later, because we are
preparing for this voyage. So we're trying to get ahead.
So something might come out about this year's DragonCon later,
or I might find out I got COVID-19. Our cyclospora.
And later, the whole tune of this might change.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
But not measles, right? You won't get measles, right?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
No, I have that shot. Okay, good, good, good, good.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Making sure.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
My mom was on top of that. No, so right
now I feel great. But it could be a couple
days from now I'm going to be kicking myself. I'm
just going to put the date in here. So... Everyone
knows in case I come back at a later date. Like, okay, well.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
JK.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
All right. But that's why I'm feeling so good. That's
very rare because it's a five-day event wherein I got
very little sleep. Very little sleep. But I did sleep
very well last night. I slept nine hours. Cool. It
(03:50):
was fantastic. Oh, I see what people are talking about. But, okay.
So this is my annual post-DragonCon review with the top
costumes and everything like that and some things I noticed.
If you somehow have missed it, DragonCon is a huge
(04:10):
event in Atlanta. It is a big fantasy sci-fi convention
that happens over Labor Day weekend. It has grown from
one hotel with like a thousand people coming the first
year to 75,000 people at least this year and five
host hotels and a bunch of secondary hotels. It was
(04:35):
packed out this year and it was the 40th anniversary
of DragonCon. So I don't know if that was a
part of it or if it just is because this
has become more mainstream, like this kind of convention. But
it was crowded. This is the only time I've ever
attended DragonCon and had to abandon the badge line.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Really?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Because the line was so long. It has never happened
to me before. I've been going at least 10 years,
I think. That has never, ever happened to me. But
there was a certain point because also we were experiencing
a heat wave.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It was so hot.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Here in Atlanta, there was rain, like sudden rain, heavy rain.
So Atlanta. Yes. But it was when people were trying
to pick up their badges on Thursday, which is when
the day it starts. And I think that's when the
line was the longest. And I mean, people were passing
(05:37):
out from heat exhaustion. It was... It was really bad.
But people were saying a lot, and just the rain,
huge downpour. So we had to wait until Friday. We
woke up at 7 a.m. to go get our badges.
And the line was an hour long, even so.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So, yeah, I drove down, I think it was like
two streets over from where the badge pickup line. I'm
not sure. I could be wrong, but Piedmont Road. Mm-hmm.
So I was going down to my class around, like,
9 o'clock, and I saw a line wrapped around. I
was like, what?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Oh, wow. And that was insane. And I think I
had texted you, and you were like, yep, it took
me an hour. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I heard some people saying three to five hours it took.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, so is it true? So I heard, because, you know,
my feed was full of DragonCon for all my social medias,
That a part of the issue was that the computers
went down?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
That's what I heard as well. I can't verify it
outside of what I saw on social media or Reddit.
But yes, that is what I heard. I also heard
that just the influx of people. I was telling Samantha,
when I used to go on Thursday, it was not crowded.
(07:01):
It didn't used to be. It used to be really
low key and I would go and it was like
nobody there and it was kind of lovely. Thursday is
now like they're already full swing. In fact, Wednesday has
become the new Thursday. Exactly. So I don't know if,
I think it's probably a combination of things, but I
did hear that as well, that the machines went down.
(07:25):
When we got our badges, everything went really smoothly. And
I actually had a friend who came later that day
and she didn't wait at all.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Oh, really?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
On Thursdays?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
No, she came on, she came later on Friday.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
On Friday, on Friday. Gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Man, Friday feels like such a long day because I've
never woken up that early at DragonCon to get a badge.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
It's like, wow. Yeah, but it was Friday. And we
did have some good luck with lines. We didn't wait
at all to get into the Mart. Amazing. The Mart
is where you buy all of your nerd.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, that's always run, like, always overcrowded. That's surprising.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
It's like, The longest line encounter. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
It was.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
The Dragon Con gods were with us, but there was
no line. Later we saw it, and the line was
three hours long. But that was awesome. And then the checkout.
When you check out of the hotel, everybody's usually trying
to get out at the same time. And the wait
for the elevators, which is kind of a notorious Dragon
Con thing, that you'll be waiting for the elevators. None.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
And.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
The four of us with all of our stuff got
one elevator to ourselves. There was nobody else in the elevator.
It was amazing. But we also woke up early because
I wanted to get out before the checkout crush. I
think that's the earliest we've ever left. Because I used
to be like, I paid for this hotel until 11
and I'm going to be staying until 11. This year
(08:56):
I was like, we're leaving.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Cannot handle this.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Let's go. Yes. But it was awesome. That was really great.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
As I said, the heat wave really put a damper
on some things because I think there were some events
that were canceled. Popular events, too, like the burlesque show,
which is huge. It was canceled because they were worried, basically,
(09:26):
that the HVAC system couldn't keep up with the amount
of people that would be in the room. And it
was so hot. And that there would be heat exhaustion,
so they canceled it.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I think that the parade attendance as the parade marchers,
I think it was actually less this year, even though
it was the 40th, because it was so hot.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, that's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yes, but I wanted to tell you this, Samantha. I
learned an interesting fact okay about the parade it is
always led by a woman bagpiper oh yes yes named
jannie warts i hope i'm pronouncing that right but she
always starts it she's a fantasy author who traditionally yeah
(10:14):
has opened the parade i love that yeah i just
i when i learned that the crossover I need to
tell Samantha this. And that's because of our, at this point,
past episode on women and bagpiping. That's why I was thinking.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
One of our recent episodes, whether it's future or past.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yes. Again, we're recording this way in advance.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Right. We're all over the schedule. Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yes. I did appreciate that there was increased diversity this year.
I talked about this last year where I was happy
about it. And it had continued this year. There's a
huge range of ages. Just enormous. And I really loved
seeing just the kids being so happy, but also older
(11:02):
adults being so happy and having fun. And that was
really cool. Both me and a good friend of mine, Katie,
had interesting interactions with exes. But that's kind of, that
comes with the con. You have to.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
You have to share.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
But they weren't bad. They weren't bad.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Good, good.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But I did have a creepy encounter.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Oh, no.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And we have talked about harassment and stuff at cons
and what that looks like. And so the last night,
probably I was out at 2 a.m. I was with
a good friend of mine. And this guy comes up
to us and he asked me if my good friend
was a woman. was my husband and then he kept
(11:47):
asking me how old I was and then he wanted
a picture and he was like make it look like
she's my girlfriend and all of this stuff excuse me
yeah it was really creepy and then my friend later
like I hate that I felt too uncomfortable to just
be like no because I was worried he would get
like violent.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Or something right legitimate.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Later my friend was like first of all If I
was your husband, how dare he?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
How dare he ask for your picture and say, make
it look like she's my girlfriend? If you think we're... Together.
She had all of these grievances, and so we had
a good time having a little bitch and wine about that.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Good. Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So I have more of my final thoughts at the end,
but before we get into that, I wanted to go
over the top costumes. Yes, that I noticed. I would
say that Samantha and I's predictions from our pre-DragonCon happy
(13:00):
hour were mostly right. I have to say, I'm not
sure if it's because I'm not familiar with the Odyssey,
but I didn't see too much of the Odyssey. Really?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Really.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
But I did see a huge Trojan horse group. Oh.
But it could just be because I could mistake that
kind of costume for a bunch of different things, and
I haven't seen the Odyssey. So that was one I
was like, oh, okay. But the biggest one, in my opinion,
by far, was Dungeon Crawler Carl, which we talked about
(13:35):
with Genevieve. on our recent episode about books and editing
and publishing and all of that. I'm so glad we
talked about it on that episode because I would not
have known what it was otherwise.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You would have been confused.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I would have been very confused, but luckily I knew
what it was. Prepared. Yes, and it was everywhere. And
I think there are a couple of reasons for it.
I mean, obviously the popularity. I do think that for
the main cosplay, you could do that pretty low-key. So
that's accessible, that's easy enough. It doesn't have to be,
(14:11):
because some were much more elaborate.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
The dedication to having Princess Donut was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yes, some of the other characters, absolutely. Not easy at all.
And I want to make it clear, I'm not judging
the easy characters. I have plenty of low-key, easy cosplay,
so I'm not judging that. I'm just wondering if that's
part of why it was so popular. Dolly Parton and
(14:41):
Tim Curry? Yeah. We were right about that. Tim Curry,
especially as Rocky, like Rocky Horror Picture Show Tim Curry. Yes, yes.
I didn't personally witness this, but two of my friends did.
But there's always a huge contingent of inflatable dinosaurs, like T-Rexes.
And my friends saw them dancing to 9 to 5.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh, that's so cute.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
That's so great. And I've mentioned before, there's a Hall
of Shrines. And so there's three main, there's five hotels,
and then three of them are connected via sky bridges.
One of the sky bridges has like a Hall of Shrines.
And this year, the Hall of Shrines is, was more
(15:31):
somber than it usually is. Like, usually they're very funny.
And there were some funny ones, don't get me wrong. Like, Odyssey,
Matt Damon meme, whatever that is. This year there was, like,
Dolly Parton and Jim Curry and, like, Catherine O'Hara.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah. And there were some, like, really big voice actors
who died, too.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah. Yeah, so it was a lot more like that
this year. Bad Bunny Grass from the Super Bowl halftime show. Huge.
So many people.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
That was awesome. I don't know this one, but we
were able to figure out what it is. It's Vultrumites,
Vultrumites from Invincible. I don't know, but it was huge.
Project Hail Mary, which I have to say I didn't
mention in the episode, but afterwards I texted Samantha and
I said, I wonder. Yes, it was huge. There was
(16:28):
a lot of, a lot of, Different types of Rockies.
My favorite one was the one in the, like, it
looks like a D & D dice to me. You know,
when he's in, like, his little device. His little tank. Yeah. Yeah.
I love that. There was, like, a puppet one that
somebody had. There was a lot of the Brian Gosling
sweater from that. So that was big showing. World Cup
(16:51):
stuff was big as well. I saw a lot of Hollands.
One had the raccoon. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
The taxidermy raccoon oh no that raccoon yes not jimothy
but there was.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Jimothy we'll talk about jimothy later but yes um there
was a lot of people dressed as like the tartan
army or like they had cones um traffic cones there
was a lot of pro canada stuff i have to
say really yeah yes one we didn't guess but i
(17:26):
thought about later i wasn't sure but toy story was
pretty big obsession yes yes yes yes there was a
Nikki with the flowers at least one Nikki with a
cat like carrying around the cat there was somebody dressed
as the one wish willow there were people in like
(17:47):
the work outfit that they have for the music store
there were a bunch of Nikki's which makes sense that
makes more sense than anybody else but yes so that
was there Another thing I don't know, Amazing Digital Circus.
But that was a big one. It's like teeth. It's
(18:09):
like an animated show with a guy with big teeth.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Oh, I have seen that. Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yes. Has been Hotel. Mrs. Frizzle.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Oh, yay.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
There were a lot of Mrs. Frizzles. I just said Mrs.
I'm so sorry. I get that mixed up all the time.
But yes, there were a lot of Mrs. Frizzles. There
were a lot of Leon from Resident Evil 4, and
I'm not sure why, but Resident Evil, I guess it's
in the zeitgeist because the new movie is coming out
and people are getting excited, but a lot of those.
(18:43):
So there were, like, in the kind of broader category,
there was pretty good showing of classics like Star Wars, comics,
Lord of the Rings, I would say. I'm not someone
who knows a lot about anime, but I have my
anime expert who is with me, and she sent me some.
She said One Piece, Hatsune Miku, Demon Slayer, Apothecary Diaries,
(19:10):
Jujutsu Kaisen. So those were there. And this brings us
to my honorable mentions, which are ones that I wouldn't
say there were a lot of, but like stood out
to me. This, my favorite one, probably. was this group
of J. Jonah Jamesons. So J. Jonah Jameson is the
(19:34):
guy in Spider-Man who's always like, get me pictures of Spider-Man.
And he's played by J.K. Simmons in the more recent movies.
But it was a group of about 10 people dressed
as him. And they had newspapers that said, like spider-man
we've got you and they all have the cigars and
(19:55):
every time they saw spider-man they would just so enthusiastically
be like it was like the best it made me
laugh so hard I think it's the only picture I
took of a costume.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
You sent me that one, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I loved it. It was so funny just how they
would immediately pop up. Spider-Man! I loved it. Another thing
I sent you, and this was a thing I was
hoping to see, was Buff the Hutt from The Mandalorian
and Grogu. So I ran into one in the wild separately.
(20:33):
But I missed this. Apparently they had a whole parade
of them. Just inflatable buff the huts. Yeah, Rada. Rada
is his real name. But I like buff the hut.
I feel like it gets to the.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Point for people who don't know. If you say Rada
to me, I just look at you.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Exactly. But buff the hut, you're like, ah, yes.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yes. So there was a whole parade of them. There's
a lot of conga lines at Dragon Con where big
groups will go through the three main hotels. And so
there was one of those for them. I saw the
Mulan concubines. That was good. I really liked it. Perfect.
(21:15):
There were people dressed as lettuce in Cyclospora. There was
no Taylor's version. No. That I saw. But there were
people dressed as lettuce and the psychospora was giving out
free hugs. There was a Jimothy. I did not see,
but I know that the person who did the cosplay
(21:39):
is like a famous cosplayer. Oh. Yeah. A Darth Vader
drinking out of a pink bucket. That made my day.
That was so cute. Yes. Oh. Somebody did dead Bitch McConnell.
And he was doing like, you know, Weekend. What is
(22:01):
that movie called?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Weekend at Bernie's.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Weekend at Bernie's. And so it was like that picture,
but it was a dead body. That's amazing. Yes. Yes.
I also saw somebody doing a cosplay I've long wanted
to do, which is the Qui-Gon Jinn meme. So this
is a meme where it's a behind-the-scenes photo from The
(22:26):
Phantom Menace where George Lucas is talking to Liam Neeson,
who plays Qui-Gon Jinn, who is in full Jedi attire.
And he has a white layer of zinc on his nose.
And he's holding a rainbow umbrella. And he has this
(22:46):
bandage around his head to keep the sweat out. And
it's just the funniest....
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Picture.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I love it. But somebody went as that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Nice. Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yes. Somebody, there was a group of Galaxy Quest people
and they had the big rock and they were just
pushing it around. That was fun. There was a group
of people who were doing the 300, but they were
doing Marta.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah. This is Marta.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
This is Marta, which is our local um, public transport
in Atlanta. So that was fun. There was a Coors night.
There's somebody who was a night, but it was all Coors. Uh,
there was a hot ones, uh, and they had all
the sauces.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah. There, that was cool. There was a dick in
the box, which is a little wild display they had going, um,
Some of these costumes are a little bit not safe
for work, if you know what I mean. But that
was interesting. I also love somebody. It was a woman
and she had like a watermelon bra. And my friend
(24:01):
who was walking with me said, look at those melons.
And I was like, that's exactly what she wanted. That's
the exact thing. There were some people dressed as AO3 tags,
which is a popular fan fiction site. So I liked that, too.
So those were my big costumes. Those are the things
(24:23):
I noticed.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I know that there was definitely a big group of
Widow's Bay, because I saw people doing the Patricia's Party,
quite a bit of that.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yes. And I was telling Samantha, unfortunately, I haven't seen
Widow's Bay, so I didn't pick up on that.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Which makes me sad, because I'm like, when you see it,
you're going to be like, oh, oh.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, like looking back.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Because there was definitely a lot of Patricias. Patricia, she's
an it girl.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
The it girl. Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I need you to watch it.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I'm happy to watch it. I would love to watch it. Honestly.
Then next year, maybe. I could be like, oh, there
it is.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Well, I was wondering, because I did ask you sinners,
because I know it was last year, but at the
same time, with it coming back with all the Halloween houses,
were the sinners still pretty relevant or big?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, they still had, I'm pretty sure you saw it
over social media last year, but this year they still
had the kind of installment. Okay, I wonder. Like the
burning and the banjo. Yeah, because some of the cosplay's
costumes get really big and they have like sets.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
And Sinner's had one last year and they had one
again this year. Nice, nice. Yes, yeah. So this brings
us to kind of my wrap up and just things
that I liked, things that I saw. So this is
the first year I went to the secret food court.
There's a secret food court.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Oh, you did?
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yes. Yeah, it was very on a whim. But I
was stuck in a line and I was like, there's
the secret food court. My friend was like, here we go.
We're going to the.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Secret food court.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
And it was really cool. Okay. Good to know. Good
to know. This is the first time I've ever... gone
to the Hilton. I guess there's a trinket exchange in there.
I didn't know that. But it was the final night,
and I didn't want it to end. And I had
one friend that was like, I'll stay up with you.
(26:25):
So I said, let's go do a final walkthrough through
the hotels. And it was such a wonderful adventure. We
saw this huge inflatable Bowser trying to go up the stairs.
It was great. And then we saw this huge inflatable
dragon bigger than the inflatable Bowser trying to get into
(26:47):
the rave. That was fantastic. So we were seeing all
these really fun things. And we ended up at the Hilton. Which,
by the way, not sponsors. I didn't know. At this time.
But yes. Yes, that is where the final stop is.
(27:08):
And there was like an exchange of trinkets. And it
was so cool. I love it. I think it's like,
because a big tradition now is to hand out ribbons
and to hand out little trinkets or something. And I
think it's, you know, it's the final night. I didn't
get rid of all my trinkets.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Oh, no.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
I just put them on a table. And so that
was really cool. I think that was one of my
favorite things I did this year was this random adventure
where I discovered that and there is a lot of
random stuff you can discover there are games that you
can do there's a a popular it's a guy who
has like a mimic chest from dungeons and dragons and
(27:51):
you can like go and roll and see what prize
you get and you can add modifiers if you do
like push-ups or something oh okay yeah you have to
get over a 14 to get something good But yeah,
there's just a bunch of stuff like that that's really
fun that you can stumble on. This year, we put
a sign on our hotel door. That was of Luke Skywalker, obviously.
(28:14):
And we got offerings because of it. People leave stuff
outside of our door.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, cute.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, like little trinkets. We got a knitted potholder. Yeah,
that's amazing. Yeah, very, very cool. You can find a
bunch of this stuff online. out and about too. So
I sent Samantha a picture, but I found like a
tiny one wish willow. It has a stick inside of it.
And I found it. Yeah, it was so cool. And
I found it like on one of the elevator notice things. Also, yeah,
(28:46):
the ribbons, if you don't know, people have these ribbons
that you could attach to your badge and that's called
a beard and you can get a really long beard.
And they have a contest on Sunday to see who
has the longest beard. And it's gotten up to 10
stories at least.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, that was insane. So there was videos of that.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
I was like, whoa. It's wild. So this year, this
is the most ribbons I've ever gotten, which is not
impressive for me. I think the most I've gotten before
this is two. But one of them I got was
from the show Traders, the reality show Traders. And we
were in the elevator with this guy, and he had
(29:22):
all of my friends and I reach into this bag.
And everybody else got... traitor but I got murdered and
then he handed me a letter and it was like
wax sealed and I opened it up and it was
like dear boy whatever you have been murdered sincerely the
(29:43):
council fantastic like moments like that are so fun and
then somebody had like they were throwing these parachutes down
from a top floor and everybody's trying to catch them
and eventually we finally caught one And it just had
a worm, like a worm.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like you'd get at a fishing store or something. It
was funny, though. So we did catch that.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
If you go back and listen to last year's, I
talked about how it was fun to have a new
friend and show her around and how it was kind
of rejuvenating. And she came back this year, and it
was still really fun because, you know, last year we
didn't get to do everything.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
It was nice that she had such a good time.
She came back and this time she's already got her
badge for next year.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Nice. BT dubs, that worm, I think they were fishing
and they caught you.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
That's what I thought too.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah. I'm pretty sure that the minute you said we
caught one, I was like, no, they caught you.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Because we were trying to figure out if it was
from something. And it's like, I think they're just fishing.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
I think they're just fishing.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
And they got you.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
And they get to watch all of us trying to
catch it.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Like going at it. You know, people were talking about it, like, no.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yes, yes, yeah. I did go one night out of cosplay. Oh?
And I have to say it was actually kind of nice.
I've never, I can't remember the last time I did that.
But it was nice to be able to, that was
the night I took the picture of the J. Jonah Jamesons.
Because it was easier. I didn't have all the stuff. Yeah, yeah,
that's difficult. Yeah, yeah. So that was cool.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
But yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I had a good time. I feel really good right now.
Hopefully I don't get COVID.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Cross your fingers.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Cross my fingers. Well, as always, thanks to everybody who
listens to these, even if you didn't go. I hope
it's interesting. I just like seeing... I love seeing the costumes,
but I also like seeing what's in the culture right now,
what is happening right now. Yeah, and it was fun. Well, listeners,
(31:56):
if you would like to write in, we would always
love to hear if you were there. If you have costumes,
cosplays you want to talk about, let us know. You
can email us at hello at stuffonevertoldyou.com. You can find
us on Blue Sky at Mom's Self Podcast, on Instagram
and TikTok at stuffonevertoldyou. We're also on YouTube. We have
some merchandise at Cotton Bureau, and we have a book.
You can get wherever you get your books. Thanks, as always,
(32:18):
to our super producer, Rima, and our executive, Bruce Amaya.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've never told
you is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
you can check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
And Samantha.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another edition of Happy Hour.
As always, if you choose to drink or whatever you're
choosing to do, please do so responsibly. Samantha, are you
sipping on anything?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I am drinking on some bubble water.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yes. Which is interesting because I feel very energized.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
We should be the opposite.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yes, we'll talk about that more in a second. I
am sipping on my old classic red wine. And we
have to say, the time is coming for our voyage
with our friends at Virgin Voyages. We are going on
stuff at sea. This is a five-night adults-only sailing trip.
(01:03):
That is bringing together not only us, but fellow podcast,
stuff they don't want you to know and stuff you
should know. We're going to be having live podcast recordings
on the ship. We're going to be participating in events
and we're going to be out and about. It's going
to be really fun. Samantha and I were just talking
about the things we're excited about, the foods we're excited about,
(01:26):
the food. possible dancing. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I saw that they had some like boy band dance
classes and I'm thinking, yeah, that might be for us.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I think it is for us, in fact. So we're
excited and we would be so excited to see you.
That would be so fun to get to meet you
and talk to you and just hang out. That would
be a lovely time. So it's from October 2nd to 7th, 2026.
(02:00):
And it's from New York to Bermuda. So if you
are interested, you can check out virginvoyages.com slash stuff. But yes,
it is coming up. And we are working on our topic.
And it's a fun kind of Halloween topic. It's going
to be cool.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Good and spooky.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yes, I'm excited. So we're recording this on September 8th.
which is the day after DragonCon, because this episode is
my post-DragonCon review. And I was there yesterday. It feels
like a year ago, but it was merely yesterday. But
(02:38):
the episode is coming out way later, because we are
preparing for this voyage. So we're trying to get ahead.
So something might come out about this year's DragonCon later,
or I might find out I got COVID-19. Our cyclospora.
And later, the whole tune of this might change.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
But not measles, right? You won't get measles, right?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
No, I have that shot. Okay, good, good, good, good.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Making sure.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
My mom was on top of that. No, so right
now I feel great. But it could be a couple
days from now I'm going to be kicking myself. I'm
just going to put the date in here. So... Everyone
knows in case I come back at a later date. Like, okay, well.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
JK.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
All right. But that's why I'm feeling so good. That's
very rare because it's a five-day event wherein I got
very little sleep. Very little sleep. But I did sleep
very well last night. I slept nine hours. Cool. It
(03:50):
was fantastic. Oh, I see what people are talking about. But, okay.
So this is my annual post-DragonCon review with the top
costumes and everything like that and some things I noticed.
If you somehow have missed it, DragonCon is a huge
(04:10):
event in Atlanta. It is a big fantasy sci-fi convention
that happens over Labor Day weekend. It has grown from
one hotel with like a thousand people coming the first
year to 75,000 people at least this year and five
host hotels and a bunch of secondary hotels. It was
(04:35):
packed out this year and it was the 40th anniversary
of DragonCon. So I don't know if that was a
part of it or if it just is because this
has become more mainstream, like this kind of convention. But
it was crowded. This is the only time I've ever
attended DragonCon and had to abandon the badge line.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Really?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Because the line was so long. It has never happened
to me before. I've been going at least 10 years,
I think. That has never, ever happened to me. But
there was a certain point because also we were experiencing
a heat wave.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It was so hot.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Here in Atlanta, there was rain, like sudden rain, heavy rain.
So Atlanta. Yes. But it was when people were trying
to pick up their badges on Thursday, which is when
the day it starts. And I think that's when the
line was the longest. And I mean, people were passing
(05:37):
out from heat exhaustion. It was... It was really bad.
But people were saying a lot, and just the rain,
huge downpour. So we had to wait until Friday. We
woke up at 7 a.m. to go get our badges.
And the line was an hour long, even so.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So, yeah, I drove down, I think it was like
two streets over from where the badge pickup line. I'm
not sure. I could be wrong, but Piedmont Road. Mm-hmm.
So I was going down to my class around, like,
9 o'clock, and I saw a line wrapped around. I
was like, what?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Oh, wow. And that was insane. And I think I
had texted you, and you were like, yep, it took
me an hour. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I heard some people saying three to five hours it took.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, so is it true? So I heard, because, you know,
my feed was full of DragonCon for all my social medias,
That a part of the issue was that the computers
went down?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
That's what I heard as well. I can't verify it
outside of what I saw on social media or Reddit.
But yes, that is what I heard. I also heard
that just the influx of people. I was telling Samantha,
when I used to go on Thursday, it was not crowded.
(07:01):
It didn't used to be. It used to be really
low key and I would go and it was like
nobody there and it was kind of lovely. Thursday is
now like they're already full swing. In fact, Wednesday has
become the new Thursday. Exactly. So I don't know if,
I think it's probably a combination of things, but I
did hear that as well, that the machines went down.
(07:25):
When we got our badges, everything went really smoothly. And
I actually had a friend who came later that day
and she didn't wait at all.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Oh, really?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
On Thursdays?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
No, she came on, she came later on Friday.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
On Friday, on Friday. Gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Man, Friday feels like such a long day because I've
never woken up that early at DragonCon to get a badge.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
It's like, wow. Yeah, but it was Friday. And we
did have some good luck with lines. We didn't wait
at all to get into the Mart. Amazing. The Mart
is where you buy all of your nerd.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, that's always run, like, always overcrowded. That's surprising.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
It's like, The longest line encounter. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
It was.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
The Dragon Con gods were with us, but there was
no line. Later we saw it, and the line was
three hours long. But that was awesome. And then the checkout.
When you check out of the hotel, everybody's usually trying
to get out at the same time. And the wait
for the elevators, which is kind of a notorious Dragon
Con thing, that you'll be waiting for the elevators. None.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
And.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
The four of us with all of our stuff got
one elevator to ourselves. There was nobody else in the elevator.
It was amazing. But we also woke up early because
I wanted to get out before the checkout crush. I
think that's the earliest we've ever left. Because I used
to be like, I paid for this hotel until 11
and I'm going to be staying until 11. This year
(08:56):
I was like, we're leaving.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Cannot handle this.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Let's go. Yes. But it was awesome. That was really great.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
As I said, the heat wave really put a damper
on some things because I think there were some events
that were canceled. Popular events, too, like the burlesque show,
which is huge. It was canceled because they were worried, basically,
(09:26):
that the HVAC system couldn't keep up with the amount
of people that would be in the room. And it
was so hot. And that there would be heat exhaustion,
so they canceled it.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I think that the parade attendance as the parade marchers,
I think it was actually less this year, even though
it was the 40th, because it was so hot.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, that's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yes, but I wanted to tell you this, Samantha. I
learned an interesting fact okay about the parade it is
always led by a woman bagpiper oh yes yes named
jannie warts i hope i'm pronouncing that right but she
always starts it she's a fantasy author who traditionally yeah
(10:14):
has opened the parade i love that yeah i just
i when i learned that the crossover I need to
tell Samantha this. And that's because of our, at this point,
past episode on women and bagpiping. That's why I was thinking.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
One of our recent episodes, whether it's future or past.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yes. Again, we're recording this way in advance.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Right. We're all over the schedule. Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yes. I did appreciate that there was increased diversity this year.
I talked about this last year where I was happy
about it. And it had continued this year. There's a
huge range of ages. Just enormous. And I really loved
seeing just the kids being so happy, but also older
(11:02):
adults being so happy and having fun. And that was
really cool. Both me and a good friend of mine, Katie,
had interesting interactions with exes. But that's kind of, that
comes with the con. You have to.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
You have to share.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
But they weren't bad. They weren't bad.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Good, good.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But I did have a creepy encounter.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Oh, no.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And we have talked about harassment and stuff at cons
and what that looks like. And so the last night,
probably I was out at 2 a.m. I was with
a good friend of mine. And this guy comes up
to us and he asked me if my good friend
was a woman. was my husband and then he kept
(11:47):
asking me how old I was and then he wanted
a picture and he was like make it look like
she's my girlfriend and all of this stuff excuse me
yeah it was really creepy and then my friend later
like I hate that I felt too uncomfortable to just
be like no because I was worried he would get
like violent.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Or something right legitimate.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Later my friend was like first of all If I
was your husband, how dare he?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
How dare he ask for your picture and say, make
it look like she's my girlfriend? If you think we're... Together.
She had all of these grievances, and so we had
a good time having a little bitch and wine about that.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Good. Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So I have more of my final thoughts at the end,
but before we get into that, I wanted to go
over the top costumes. Yes, that I noticed. I would
say that Samantha and I's predictions from our pre-DragonCon happy
(13:00):
hour were mostly right. I have to say, I'm not
sure if it's because I'm not familiar with the Odyssey,
but I didn't see too much of the Odyssey. Really?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Really.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
But I did see a huge Trojan horse group. Oh.
But it could just be because I could mistake that
kind of costume for a bunch of different things, and
I haven't seen the Odyssey. So that was one I
was like, oh, okay. But the biggest one, in my opinion,
by far, was Dungeon Crawler Carl, which we talked about
(13:35):
with Genevieve. on our recent episode about books and editing
and publishing and all of that. I'm so glad we
talked about it on that episode because I would not
have known what it was otherwise.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You would have been confused.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I would have been very confused, but luckily I knew
what it was. Prepared. Yes, and it was everywhere. And
I think there are a couple of reasons for it.
I mean, obviously the popularity. I do think that for
the main cosplay, you could do that pretty low-key. So
that's accessible, that's easy enough. It doesn't have to be,
(14:11):
because some were much more elaborate.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
The dedication to having Princess Donut was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yes, some of the other characters, absolutely. Not easy at all.
And I want to make it clear, I'm not judging
the easy characters. I have plenty of low-key, easy cosplay,
so I'm not judging that. I'm just wondering if that's
part of why it was so popular. Dolly Parton and
(14:41):
Tim Curry? Yeah. We were right about that. Tim Curry,
especially as Rocky, like Rocky Horror Picture Show Tim Curry. Yes, yes.
I didn't personally witness this, but two of my friends did.
But there's always a huge contingent of inflatable dinosaurs, like T-Rexes.
And my friends saw them dancing to 9 to 5.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh, that's so cute.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
That's so great. And I've mentioned before, there's a Hall
of Shrines. And so there's three main, there's five hotels,
and then three of them are connected via sky bridges.
One of the sky bridges has like a Hall of Shrines.
And this year, the Hall of Shrines is, was more
(15:31):
somber than it usually is. Like, usually they're very funny.
And there were some funny ones, don't get me wrong. Like, Odyssey,
Matt Damon meme, whatever that is. This year there was, like,
Dolly Parton and Jim Curry and, like, Catherine O'Hara.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah. And there were some, like, really big voice actors
who died, too.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah. Yeah, so it was a lot more like that
this year. Bad Bunny Grass from the Super Bowl halftime show. Huge.
So many people.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
That was awesome. I don't know this one, but we
were able to figure out what it is. It's Vultrumites,
Vultrumites from Invincible. I don't know, but it was huge.
Project Hail Mary, which I have to say I didn't
mention in the episode, but afterwards I texted Samantha and
I said, I wonder. Yes, it was huge. There was
(16:28):
a lot of, a lot of, Different types of Rockies.
My favorite one was the one in the, like, it
looks like a D & D dice to me. You know,
when he's in, like, his little device. His little tank. Yeah. Yeah.
I love that. There was, like, a puppet one that
somebody had. There was a lot of the Brian Gosling
sweater from that. So that was big showing. World Cup
(16:51):
stuff was big as well. I saw a lot of Hollands.
One had the raccoon. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
The taxidermy raccoon oh no that raccoon yes not jimothy
but there was.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Jimothy we'll talk about jimothy later but yes um there
was a lot of people dressed as like the tartan
army or like they had cones um traffic cones there
was a lot of pro canada stuff i have to
say really yeah yes one we didn't guess but i
(17:26):
thought about later i wasn't sure but toy story was
pretty big obsession yes yes yes yes there was a
Nikki with the flowers at least one Nikki with a
cat like carrying around the cat there was somebody dressed
as the one wish willow there were people in like
(17:47):
the work outfit that they have for the music store
there were a bunch of Nikki's which makes sense that
makes more sense than anybody else but yes so that
was there Another thing I don't know, Amazing Digital Circus.
But that was a big one. It's like teeth. It's
(18:09):
like an animated show with a guy with big teeth.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Oh, I have seen that. Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yes. Has been Hotel. Mrs. Frizzle.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Oh, yay.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
There were a lot of Mrs. Frizzles. I just said Mrs.
I'm so sorry. I get that mixed up all the time.
But yes, there were a lot of Mrs. Frizzles. There
were a lot of Leon from Resident Evil 4, and
I'm not sure why, but Resident Evil, I guess it's
in the zeitgeist because the new movie is coming out
and people are getting excited, but a lot of those.
(18:43):
So there were, like, in the kind of broader category,
there was pretty good showing of classics like Star Wars, comics,
Lord of the Rings, I would say. I'm not someone
who knows a lot about anime, but I have my
anime expert who is with me, and she sent me some.
She said One Piece, Hatsune Miku, Demon Slayer, Apothecary Diaries,
(19:10):
Jujutsu Kaisen. So those were there. And this brings us
to my honorable mentions, which are ones that I wouldn't
say there were a lot of, but like stood out
to me. This, my favorite one, probably. was this group
of J. Jonah Jamesons. So J. Jonah Jameson is the
(19:34):
guy in Spider-Man who's always like, get me pictures of Spider-Man.
And he's played by J.K. Simmons in the more recent movies.
But it was a group of about 10 people dressed
as him. And they had newspapers that said, like spider-man
we've got you and they all have the cigars and
(19:55):
every time they saw spider-man they would just so enthusiastically
be like it was like the best it made me
laugh so hard I think it's the only picture I
took of a costume.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
You sent me that one, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I loved it. It was so funny just how they
would immediately pop up. Spider-Man! I loved it. Another thing
I sent you, and this was a thing I was
hoping to see, was Buff the Hutt from The Mandalorian
and Grogu. So I ran into one in the wild separately.
(20:33):
But I missed this. Apparently they had a whole parade
of them. Just inflatable buff the huts. Yeah, Rada. Rada
is his real name. But I like buff the hut.
I feel like it gets to the.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Point for people who don't know. If you say Rada
to me, I just look at you.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Exactly. But buff the hut, you're like, ah, yes.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yes. So there was a whole parade of them. There's
a lot of conga lines at Dragon Con where big
groups will go through the three main hotels. And so
there was one of those for them. I saw the
Mulan concubines. That was good. I really liked it. Perfect.
(21:15):
There were people dressed as lettuce in Cyclospora. There was
no Taylor's version. No. That I saw. But there were
people dressed as lettuce and the psychospora was giving out
free hugs. There was a Jimothy. I did not see,
but I know that the person who did the cosplay
(21:39):
is like a famous cosplayer. Oh. Yeah. A Darth Vader
drinking out of a pink bucket. That made my day.
That was so cute. Yes. Oh. Somebody did dead Bitch McConnell.
And he was doing like, you know, Weekend. What is
(22:01):
that movie called?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Weekend at Bernie's.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Weekend at Bernie's. And so it was like that picture,
but it was a dead body. That's amazing. Yes. Yes.
I also saw somebody doing a cosplay I've long wanted
to do, which is the Qui-Gon Jinn meme. So this
is a meme where it's a behind-the-scenes photo from The
(22:26):
Phantom Menace where George Lucas is talking to Liam Neeson,
who plays Qui-Gon Jinn, who is in full Jedi attire.
And he has a white layer of zinc on his nose.
And he's holding a rainbow umbrella. And he has this
(22:46):
bandage around his head to keep the sweat out. And
it's just the funniest....
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Picture.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I love it. But somebody went as that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Nice. Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yes. Somebody, there was a group of Galaxy Quest people
and they had the big rock and they were just
pushing it around. That was fun. There was a group
of people who were doing the 300, but they were
doing Marta.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah. This is Marta.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
This is Marta, which is our local um, public transport
in Atlanta. So that was fun. There was a Coors night.
There's somebody who was a night, but it was all Coors. Uh,
there was a hot ones, uh, and they had all
the sauces.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah. There, that was cool. There was a dick in
the box, which is a little wild display they had going, um,
Some of these costumes are a little bit not safe
for work, if you know what I mean. But that
was interesting. I also love somebody. It was a woman
and she had like a watermelon bra. And my friend
(24:01):
who was walking with me said, look at those melons.
And I was like, that's exactly what she wanted. That's
the exact thing. There were some people dressed as AO3 tags,
which is a popular fan fiction site. So I liked that, too.
So those were my big costumes. Those are the things
(24:23):
I noticed.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I know that there was definitely a big group of
Widow's Bay, because I saw people doing the Patricia's Party,
quite a bit of that.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yes. And I was telling Samantha, unfortunately, I haven't seen
Widow's Bay, so I didn't pick up on that.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Which makes me sad, because I'm like, when you see it,
you're going to be like, oh, oh.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, like looking back.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Because there was definitely a lot of Patricias. Patricia, she's
an it girl.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
The it girl. Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I need you to watch it.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I'm happy to watch it. I would love to watch it. Honestly.
Then next year, maybe. I could be like, oh, there
it is.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Well, I was wondering, because I did ask you sinners,
because I know it was last year, but at the
same time, with it coming back with all the Halloween houses,
were the sinners still pretty relevant or big?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, they still had, I'm pretty sure you saw it
over social media last year, but this year they still
had the kind of installment. Okay, I wonder. Like the
burning and the banjo. Yeah, because some of the cosplay's
costumes get really big and they have like sets.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
And Sinner's had one last year and they had one
again this year. Nice, nice. Yes, yeah. So this brings
us to kind of my wrap up and just things
that I liked, things that I saw. So this is
the first year I went to the secret food court.
There's a secret food court.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Oh, you did?
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yes. Yeah, it was very on a whim. But I
was stuck in a line and I was like, there's
the secret food court. My friend was like, here we go.
We're going to the.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Secret food court.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
And it was really cool. Okay. Good to know. Good
to know. This is the first time I've ever... gone
to the Hilton. I guess there's a trinket exchange in there.
I didn't know that. But it was the final night,
and I didn't want it to end. And I had
one friend that was like, I'll stay up with you.
(26:25):
So I said, let's go do a final walkthrough through
the hotels. And it was such a wonderful adventure. We
saw this huge inflatable Bowser trying to go up the stairs.
It was great. And then we saw this huge inflatable
dragon bigger than the inflatable Bowser trying to get into
(26:47):
the rave. That was fantastic. So we were seeing all
these really fun things. And we ended up at the Hilton. Which,
by the way, not sponsors. I didn't know. At this time.
But yes. Yes, that is where the final stop is.
(27:08):
And there was like an exchange of trinkets. And it
was so cool. I love it. I think it's like,
because a big tradition now is to hand out ribbons
and to hand out little trinkets or something. And I
think it's, you know, it's the final night. I didn't
get rid of all my trinkets.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Oh, no.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
I just put them on a table. And so that
was really cool. I think that was one of my
favorite things I did this year was this random adventure
where I discovered that and there is a lot of
random stuff you can discover there are games that you
can do there's a a popular it's a guy who
has like a mimic chest from dungeons and dragons and
(27:51):
you can like go and roll and see what prize
you get and you can add modifiers if you do
like push-ups or something oh okay yeah you have to
get over a 14 to get something good But yeah,
there's just a bunch of stuff like that that's really
fun that you can stumble on. This year, we put
a sign on our hotel door. That was of Luke Skywalker, obviously.
(28:14):
And we got offerings because of it. People leave stuff
outside of our door.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, cute.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, like little trinkets. We got a knitted potholder. Yeah,
that's amazing. Yeah, very, very cool. You can find a
bunch of this stuff online. out and about too. So
I sent Samantha a picture, but I found like a
tiny one wish willow. It has a stick inside of it.
And I found it. Yeah, it was so cool. And
I found it like on one of the elevator notice things. Also, yeah,
(28:46):
the ribbons, if you don't know, people have these ribbons
that you could attach to your badge and that's called
a beard and you can get a really long beard.
And they have a contest on Sunday to see who
has the longest beard. And it's gotten up to 10
stories at least.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, that was insane. So there was videos of that.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
I was like, whoa. It's wild. So this year, this
is the most ribbons I've ever gotten, which is not
impressive for me. I think the most I've gotten before
this is two. But one of them I got was
from the show Traders, the reality show Traders. And we
were in the elevator with this guy, and he had
(29:22):
all of my friends and I reach into this bag.
And everybody else got... traitor but I got murdered and
then he handed me a letter and it was like
wax sealed and I opened it up and it was
like dear boy whatever you have been murdered sincerely the
(29:43):
council fantastic like moments like that are so fun and
then somebody had like they were throwing these parachutes down
from a top floor and everybody's trying to catch them
and eventually we finally caught one And it just had
a worm, like a worm.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like you'd get at a fishing store or something. It
was funny, though. So we did catch that.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
If you go back and listen to last year's, I
talked about how it was fun to have a new
friend and show her around and how it was kind
of rejuvenating. And she came back this year, and it
was still really fun because, you know, last year we
didn't get to do everything.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
It was nice that she had such a good time.
She came back and this time she's already got her
badge for next year.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Nice. BT dubs, that worm, I think they were fishing
and they caught you.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
That's what I thought too.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah. I'm pretty sure that the minute you said we
caught one, I was like, no, they caught you.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Because we were trying to figure out if it was
from something. And it's like, I think they're just fishing.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
I think they're just fishing.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
And they got you.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
And they get to watch all of us trying to
catch it.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Like going at it. You know, people were talking about it, like, no.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yes, yes, yeah. I did go one night out of cosplay. Oh?
And I have to say it was actually kind of nice.
I've never, I can't remember the last time I did that.
But it was nice to be able to, that was
the night I took the picture of the J. Jonah Jamesons.
Because it was easier. I didn't have all the stuff. Yeah, yeah,
that's difficult. Yeah, yeah. So that was cool.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
But yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I had a good time. I feel really good right now.
Hopefully I don't get COVID.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Cross your fingers.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Cross my fingers. Well, as always, thanks to everybody who
listens to these, even if you didn't go. I hope
it's interesting. I just like seeing... I love seeing the costumes,
but I also like seeing what's in the culture right now,
what is happening right now. Yeah, and it was fun. Well, listeners,
(31:56):
if you would like to write in, we would always
love to hear if you were there. If you have costumes,
cosplays you want to talk about, let us know. You
can email us at hello at stuffonevertoldyou.com. You can find
us on Blue Sky at Mom's Self Podcast, on Instagram
and TikTok at stuffonevertoldyou. We're also on YouTube. We have
some merchandise at Cotton Bureau, and we have a book.
You can get wherever you get your books. Thanks, as always,
(32:18):
to our super producer, Rima, and our executive, Bruce Amaya.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've never told
you is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
you can check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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