A Madman's Ramblings...: Westbound and down.

So last weekend I took a much needed break from my life and went with Sam, her friend Lea and we went to Ft. Lauderdale. It was pretty fun, we didn't do the whole Miami thing but 2 hours. I hate that place, we intended spending alot of time in swamps and woods but weather had other plans. We decided to just drive around alot, spent time at the mall there and went to the most amazing comic shop I've seen. It's called Tates, it's in Lauderhill, one of the many psudeo townships in that god forsaken town.

It won the Eisner award this year. I bought a very cool Sabretooth figure I had never seen before. Probably the best one I've ever seen made. Sam got a bunch of vinyl toys she wanted (among other Hello Kitty things at the mall). This place was huge, I do have pictures of it. This place was two stories tall and about 3 shops long. Not much in the name of comics, various back issues, new stuff. Alot of indie comics and a good number of graphic novels. They were selling the Wolverine Origins movie the weekend before it came out, I thought that was cool. They had a small art room upstairs called the Bear and Bird gallery. It was like indie art and etsy style vinyl and wood figures. Most the art was done by Tattoo artists so I didn't look all that much.

They had more anime and vinyl figures so Sam was really impressed. They had a large selection of other things, so I wasn't too thrilled when they lacked on comic book related stuff. What I did like was they had a library of indie artist and comic book artist books. They had alot of instruction guides, and drawing materials. We drove around and found funny signs, found the only 24 hour Wal-Mart in the area, got lost in this crazy cemetary, Sam drove over a grave.

I drove the way back home, through a typical hurricane size Florida storm. We ate out alot, more than I wished, but we had no other options. We were kinda sick of it. The mall was nothing to write home about, typical, nothing fancy. The hotel was kinda disgusting too, roaches were scene and the room smelled like smoke. The place had a nite club that was filled and you could hear all night. Was kinda annoying but had a nice mixed crowed, the place was rather relaxing. Nice people that we met. Alot of people on business. No one goes to Browered except for Summer I think.

The girls did take a dip in the pool where we met a rather interesting fellow. He was from Lee county I think. He came to take a emotional management course that he said cost him a pretty penny. He was pretty ripped and had nice luggage. He was looking for hot tub but he went into the pool. I felt bad because he told me the only reason he came over on our side was because the steps were there. I guess I had a defensive vibe he thought, like I was watching the girls like they were my pride and I was the male Lion. He told us about the course, He said his "father" abused his mother a bit and his brother and him as well. I say father because he told him at 23 when he was on his death bed he wasn't his real father.

He loved him I take it but he said that it shook him up. He took the class, they had a anger session. He said he is good at calming him self down, he didn't like confrontation. They were trying to channel his dad, it wasn't working, then the guy spit in his face and started pushing him and it trigured it, he said he took tae kwon doe and he ended up elbowing the guy in the nose and flipping him over by reflex. They later got into it again and he got through it all. He is now able to confront it and channel it to something else. I liked the guy, he was very nice, very open. He was about 5'8" I think, curly hair, took care of him self, worked out alot, that was his release. I think he said he was an IT specialist.

Like I said, I drove home, everyone was asleep, I listened to Old Crow Medicine Show the way home. It was nice, quite, nothing happened. It was woods and swamp the whole way. I liked it, it was night time, it relaxed me, I got alot of thinking done oddly enough.

Here are some pictures.