North County Coffee Crawl Stop 2: Panels Coffee Bar and Comics (revisit)

It has been a while since we were last at Panels...

You can't beat the combination of coffee and comics...

Altered Ego Cafe and Hideout @ Southern California Comics + last stop of our Coffee Crawl on National Coffee Day

Still in vacation mode...

I was happy that Bert and I were able to spend this morning exploring not only coffee shops...

Return to Petite Madeline and Panels Comic Book Coffee Bar

It was really nice driving along the coast. No traffic!

And no crowds (yet)...and easy to find parking on the streets...

Portland Day 4: Excalibur Comics + Vintage Pink

After our fun stop at TOV Coffee House...

we made our de rigeur stop at a local comic shop...

Panels Comic Book Coffee Bar, Oceanside

Last stop of our North County Coffee Crawl...

was within walking distance from the bakery...

This place is new, as in just opened in August new...

A quick walk at Liberty Station + a revisit to Con Pane

With our frackin' paper cupped coffees from Butler's in hand,

(as seen from the 94, heading west)

we made our way across to the 94 to get to the 805....

Lunch with Superman @ Sublime Ale House + desserts @ The Baked Bear & Susie Cakes

It's been awhile since I hung out with our good friend Superman.

Last time I was at his place, his collection wasn't as large. I admit, I do help "contribute" to his vices.

Lunch was his choice up in his "territory" (aka North County San Diego, which is basically uncharted territory for me)...

Sublime Ale House in San Marcos it was...

E.Vil Donuts

A few blocks away from Copa Vida was a relatively new donut shop...

it's right by the trolley line and Azteca taco shop.

Despite the mostly negative reviews on that four lettered site, I couldn't pass up the opportunity...

San Diego Comic Gallery - Inaugural Exhibit: Kevin Eastman

Last month during our last free Friday of vacation went to check out the newly opened San Diego Comic Art Gallery...

The gallery is the first of its kind in San Diego to focus on the comic book as an art form.

Located in Barracks 3, the gallery's inaugural exhibit featured the work of Kevin Eastman, the creator of the famous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...

Women's Museum of California - "Wonder Women: On Paper and Off"

Finally, the last stop from our day of exhibits and good desserts...

Our last stop was the Women's Museum of California in Liberty Station for yet another comic related art exhibit...

California Center for the Arts - "Art Illustrated: Celebrating Comic Arts" exhibit

Our next stop was the California Center for the Arts...

which is a huge complex designed to showcase dance, art, and music as well as offer cultural enrichment through museums and various educational programs...

The exhibit we wanted to see precedes Comic Con by about a month or so. I'm a sucker for these kinds of exhibits so off we went to learn more about Comic Art...

Books read in 2012

This is not a list taken from the NY Times or Oprah's favorites or whatever. I didn't really read too many books last year and some that I read were an utter waste of my time. I hope not to repeat that mistake again this year

First let's clarify that when I say "books", I also include comic books and graphic novels.

Like these two....

Bridge City Comics

What we really loved about our Portland trip, despite the gloomy weather (as you can see in full force here) was the individuality of each neighborhood...

We headed out of the SE Division neighborhood and traveled out to another neighborhood. In doing so, we passed by the Steel Bridge (there are eight different bridges in Portland). It is a vertical lift bridge and the only double-deck bridge with independent lifts in the world. The other side connects to the Old Chinatown neighborhood.

The next stops on our agenda (yes, there was an itinerary) would take us to N. Mississippi Street...

Double Horned Salute!

Give it up for...

Ronnie James Dio?

NO!

I'm talkin' 'bout the HORNS!!!

ArtLab Studios

Prior to arriving at Art Lab Studios, we three noticed several auto shop workers clutching refreshing Slurpees from the 7-11 across the street.

Since I'm really anal, that post should really go here, but I wanted to post it on the "day of". So here is the link, Free Slurpees at 7-11 on 7/11!

Anyhow, one of our last destinations that day was at Art Lab Studios to see this:

We also wanted to support local comic artist, Paul Horn (creator of webcomic Cool Jerk) whose work was featured at this exhibit...

Let's take a peek in...

Searching for Dark Horse...plus Wunderland in Milwaukie

After cranking out those Canada Highlights posts, it's time to return to Portland.

We're still on Day 4, which was spent with KDB. We had just dropped him off after our ice cream break at Salt & Straw, and were headed to Milwaukie...

We passed by the Sheridan Fruit Company on SE MLK...

We also drove past the Carts on Foster food pod on SE Foster Road. KDB told us he was planning to order cannolis from Holy Cannoli for an upcoming party.

So many food pods...so little time! Let's carry on shall we?

Pop Culture

Sorry to say it, but Fort Vancouver was a bit unexciting.

We needed a shot of something less staid...

Something more attuned to the geeky masses...

Books Read in 2011

I wish I could give you an impressive long list of all the books I read last year (as in read all the words on the pages), but that would be pretty damn short. Like super short.

Instead, here's a smattering of stuff I read, stuff I'm trying to finish and books that I haven't started YET. Nothing high brow here...

Halloween Pumpkins 2011

Bert was hard at work yesterday making our Halloween pumpkins...

TC carved her own (Boo in the monster suit), while Bert did my True Blood and his favorite Avenger, the Vision...

Donut Star again..

After our lunch at Nijiya, we headed over to Donut Star to meet up with Darlene and Paulin their 'hood.

They had a goodie bag from the Comic Con to give us along with a few other items I asked them to purchase for me.