My girlfriend and I, and our new Dunny's, are headed back home (after pit-stop's in Denver and Chicago). I am going to again multi-task my travels with the reading of a whole bunch of comic books. See you back in Canada.

Bad news. It seems like my girlfriend has been food poisoned. Funny (not funny ha ha, but funny weird) news. The exact same thing happened when I travelled to NYC with a friend of mine last year. Exact same time-frame in relation to the vacation, exact same evil food eating scenario. So, as happened last time, despite protest on my part I was encouraged to get out of the hotel and do stuff as she lay in a food poisoned coma.

I went to the official Kid Robot store in Vegas, and today was the unleashing of another round of limited edition Dunny vinyl toys. I would have waited and bought them from Lost Marbles, my home-town purveyor of such things, but last time Kid Robot put out a ultra limited edition semi-secret round of toys akin to this batch I completely missed out. They were sold out before I even knew that they existed. Following that I got my learn on at the Natural History Museum and the Neon Museum. The Natural History Museum has actual live sharks and cool not-live dinosaurs, like this crazy looking deinonychus all covered in feathers. If indeed it ends up that a whole bunch of dinosaurs spent millions of years covered in feathers, Jurassic Park is suddenly a little bit less scary.

After checking in to make sure that the girlfriend was ok, I went and checked out some Ocean's 11 locations, and braved some impending tornado like winds for a final check off the Vegas list by getting some food at Pink's Hot Dogs. Another nice day in Vegas, though of course sad to have done it solo, accompanied only by the Nerdist podcasts. Lesson learned for one and all, if travelling with me, only eat exactly what I eat.

We trekked south along the strip to go and see the famous Welcome to Vegas sign. The landmark was much smaller than I expected, and there was an Elvis in attendance, seemingly kinda' just hanging around. What's amazing about Vegas is that for a city that's so famously big and loud and bright, if you look out on the horizon there is endless an endless desert of nothing. Down by the welcome sign, there's nothing much visible to the South, and if you look East, a lot of sun-baked sand.

We partook in lazing about in the Riviera pool, and later on did the slightly more exciting and maybe a bit more dangerous zip-lining over Fremont Street. For some reason I was zipping at an exceedingly high and seemingly non-stopping speed, and for a brief second I thought I might just fly right through the end of the line. Luckily the scientific principal and safety enforcements placed on the structure stood true. While walking along the actual Fremont Street we witnessed lots of giant Neon signs, girls dancing on bars, and a Superman chatting with a pair of Elvis (there's a lot of poorly costumed folks trying to trick you into taking a picture with them in trade for money in Vegas).

We ate dinner at an impressively giant buffet, then took in some musical Broadway culture with The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It was very good, but I love the movie and portraying a role that I saw Dolly Parton portray first = big shoes to fill. I also missed her original songs from the production, which were done for the movie and aren't in the stage show.

The night was capped off with a visit to fake New York City, and a ride on their roller coaster. It provided a lovely view of the city at night, and simultaneously made me feel like I was about to die on numerous twists and turns in a short few minutes of time.

Also, while visiting Vegas, Obama was re-elected as President of the United States. I can confirm nor deny that I assisted his victory with a vote.

We found a great lil' vegan place called Red Velvet, hiding in a mall nearby to our hotel. I had a delicious wrap and salad and we contained ourselves to walking away with only one giant delicious dessert in tow.

We visited the local roller derby shop, the Viva Las Vegas Skate Company, because we are too late in the season to catch a bout and derby folks love acquiring derby shirts from foreign lands. We hit a bunch of Vegas landmarks and touristy spots like the exterior of the Bellagio where Clooney and the Ocean's 11 gang stood, and the flamingo's and ridiculously enormous coy fish at the Flamingo.

We also spotted some pretty great local flare like an amazing seeing eye dog valiently guiding his master through the insane streets of Vegas. Equally impressive, though much funnier, was a tough as nails bus employee seemingly whose job it is to make sure drunks don't die.

When in Vegas there are a number of fun yet cliché things to do while you visit, mayhaps at the top of that list is going to a burlesque show. We went to one from the talented ladies at X Burlesque, and I just might believe their claims that it is the best burlesque show on the planet. Yes, I fully admit that I enjoy mostly naked beautiful ladies as much as the next fella, but their dancing skills were truly astounding. It was a very impressive show.

Before the burlesque, we went for dinner at Planet Hollywood. A pretty touristy restaurant chain I know, but it's probably not too much of a surprise that I never get tired of looking at movie memorabilia. As you enter the restaurant, you are greeted by a trio wardrobe collections from Expendables 2, Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone and Jean Claude Van Damme (which is the jacket that I wanted to steal). Overhead there was an X-Wing, a Tie-Fighter and the Enterprise. My favourite thing about the place is how amazing pieces of motion picture history are displayed alongside left-over crap from garbage movies that no-one would ever care about preserving. For example: Princess Leia's gun from Empire Strikes Back, a pair of boxing gloves from Raging Bull, and the axe from The Shining...alongside a dress that Paris Hilton wore in some movie. Example 2: The ankle bustin' hammer from Misery, gold bars from Diamonds are Forever, and the frickin' Maltese Falcon!...alongside something Lindsay Lohan wore in a stripper movie.

Had a safe and uneventful flight to Vegas, with a brief lunch-time stop-over in Newark, spent most of the travels getting caught up on reading comics. We are staying at the Riviera, and because I am a giant geek, the first thing that I wanted to know was what films shot there. Ends up that it has a pretty historic track record as a film location, hosting films such as Diamonds are Forever, Casino, Austin Powers, and the original Ocean's Eleven.

All of the hotel staff and bus drivers and waiters are the utmost of professionals, have seemingly have a genuine sense of enjoying their job and workplace. Though my first instinct is that it is going to be a nice and worthwhile place to vacation, there is also easily spotted evidence that this place also crushes hopes and dreams via the whole gambling thing. There is also a sense of being transported back in time to an era when everyone smoked cigarettes. It's such a bizarre thing to see being done by dozens if not hundreds of people inside a building, you practically feel that you have stepped into a Twilight Zone of a plot twist.

On our first night in the city, we managed to fit in a very Vegas happening of dinner and a stand-up show. I wish I had written down the comedians names, they were both very funny. The show located in a cosy hotel located club featured a proud and loud Sarah Silverman-esque 40 year old woman, and a silver-haired veteran insult the audience Don Rickles type pro.

I was naive to the fact that along with all other forms of tie-ins and merchandising that cross-over to everything in our world, there are also pop-culture themed gambling machines. We played a Jaws game, and a very impressive Christopher Reeve Superman game featuring movie clips, audio and the rousing John Williams score. It was the perfect game for nerds and children alike, and we walked away with an impressive $10 profit.

Tomorrow I'm off for a lil' getaway to the wilds of Las Vegas, Nevada. Traditionally what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but I will be sure to share all of my thrilling adventures with the blog-verse. If not thrilling adventures, I will at least do my bestest to regale in stories of watching burlesque and music stuff, eating buffet, seeing lots of drunk people and bright shiny lights and witnessing gamblers shattered hopes and dreams. I will also be there on election day, so I'll do my best to help out in that manner as well.

If this poster for the acclaimed Winnipeg produced, post-apocalyptic, pop-culture, no-budget (or $2,000...which is as close to no-budget as a production can get) masterpiece doesn't make you want to halt all other plans and run out of the house to see this movie, you may have to stop everything and re-evaluate everything about your life.

Manborg - Ottawa Premiere - One night only at the Mayfair Theatre - Saturday November 3rd at 11:15pm

Tomorrow I will join my derby family for a road trip across the border to Vermont, for the Rideau Valley Roller Girls Vixens team to battle the Grade A Fancy of the Green Mountain Derby Dames. If you happen to be in the Vermont area, specifically 105 Pearl Street in Essex Junction, do join us for what I'm sure will be a great night of derby action. As long as I don't get halted at the border for being confused with a criminal names Jamar (that happened on my last derby border crossing), I'll see yah there.

Join us at the Mayfair Theatre tonight and wrap up the Halloween season with Little Shop of Horrors, the greatest evil alien plant musical ever made in the history of motion pictures.

We've had a great month of October at the theatre, including sold out screenings of Shining, Exorcist and Rocky Horror Picture Show (thank you Mayfair patrons!), and Little Shop of Horrors is an excellent way to cap things off. This movie not only features the comedic talents of Rick Moranis, Bill Murray and Steve Martin, it's also directed by Yoda (or Frank Oz...but same thing). It's our very own day after Halloween scary movie kinda boxing day, filled with murder and Motown musical styling, tonight at 9:20pm.

It's a busy day of Halloween themed activity today. First I'm off to get a Doctor Who haircut to match my Doctor Who costume. My girlfriend has what you would call imagination and talent, hence she made herself a Dalek dress costume to dress-up in. I do not like dressing up in costumes, so when I do have to dress up I go for the easiest thing possible. So her choice of costume easily allowed for me to pair up to her and costume up as the 10th Doctor Who. The character dresses quite close to my usual attire anyhow, so it really wasn't that much of a stretch for my lazy costuming self.

Tonight we're going trick or treating with three of my fake nieces (real kids, just no blood relation). Wherein I will help to make sure that they safely partake in the receiving delicious candy from strangers, and then I will eat all the vegan friendly treats (I will eat all the gummi peaches and life savers!). After that it's out for a costumed night on the town to watch some Halloween themed burlesque. Somewhere in there I have to fit in my annual viewing of Charlie Brown and Thriller.

Then it's off to the pumpkin patch to await the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. I hope that your Halloween is equally action packed as mine is planned out to be. And that you get to steal much candy from children, what the holiday is truly all about.

Every other geek on the internet is talking about the exact same thing today, Disney has bought Lucasfilm and hence there are more Star Wars film on our horizon. I'm sure that you can go to countless other websites featuring folks of actual journalistic skill to learn about the importance of the event and facts and money matters and consequences.

When I read the headline "Disney Buys Lucasfilm For $4 Billion! STAR WARS EPISODE VII Scheduled For 2015 Release!" over on the exclamation point loving Ain't It Cool News, my first thought that it was some kind of April's Fools prank. That was genuinely the initial thought to pop up in my brain, I of course then realized that it was October 30th, a date not usually associated with online pranks.

Some folks seemed to think that I would be upset at the idea of Disney taking over the Lucasfilm and Star Wars reigns. That couldn't be further from the truth, yesterday I lived in a world with no new Star Wars movies to watch in my future, and now there will be at least one more trilogy produced. And they will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy, who has a long and successful resume working alongside none other than George Lucas' best friend Steven Spielberg.

I'm also far removed from the angry anonymous internet nerds who are happy that George has passed along the torch to allow other filmmakers to play in the Star Wars sandbox. I enjoyed the prequels just fine, anyone who thinks that they are the worst things ever made in motion picture history clearly haven't seen enough movies, especially say anything with giant robots as directed by Michael Bay. My controversial stance is that the original Star Wars films aren't as perfect as you think they are, and the prequels aren't as horrible as you think they are. They are all just fun sci-fi serial matinee calibre escapism, and if you take them too seriously or put them too high up on a pedestal, you are missing the point of the series. You also need to get out more if disliking a movie gets you that upset. I hated Batman and Robin, but I didn't devote my life to telling everyone how much I hated it. I hated and moved on. Star Trek V was not what one would call a great movie, but I'm not going to spend all my days hating William Shatner for directing it. I'm going to look on the bright side and remember that Star Trek VI came out after it and it was great.

There also seems to be much teasing over the concept that Star Wars will now be Disney-fied, and that that is a bad thing. I remind people that Muppets has treated very well since becoming part of the Disney family, as was Marvel, and they've maintained a great relationship with Pixar for ages.

There will be a new Star Wars movie in theatres in two and a half years or so, and that makes me a very excited geek indeed.

Grant Morrison's Action Comics #13 is another prime example of the powerful storytelling ability possible in mainstream super-hero comics when in the right hands. Excellent super-hero comics are few and far in-between, about the same odd's as excellent network television or Hollywood movies. Luckily, for the time being at least, Grant is hanging around the DC Universe; meaning we get some great Superman and Batman stories for the next few months at least.

Especially if you like dogs, Action Comics #13 will likely emotionally wreck you a little more than your average guys in spandex punching each other in face epic. If you don't like dogs, there is something wrong with you, and it probably means that you don't like comics or other things that bring joy to one's life either. Well, then maybe you don't deserve to read Action Comics #13! Go read a math text book or something.

The Mayfair countdown to Halloween continues with more frightfully awesome programming...

Leatherface takes claim on it's poster that it is "The Most Controversial Horror Film Ever". That's quite a heady statement to make, especially in a world in which various slasher, cannibal and revenge grindhouse movies exist. They wrote this on their poster because the sequel was the final horror film threatened with an X before the NC-17 rating was instigated.

This third film in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise comes from director Jeff Burr (whose filmography is strangely top-heavy with sequels: Stepfather II, Puppet Master 4, Pumpkinhead II, Puppetmaster 5). Writer David J Schow worked on the 1990's super-hero goth classic The Crow, but is strangely enough also horror sequel inclined with the likes of Nightmare on Elm Street 5, Critters 3 & Critters 4 on his resume.

The film stars geek genre veteran Ken Foree...go look at his imdb page, he's been in everything from Dawn of the Dead to X-Files to Devil's Rejects. Although I'm sure he'd rather you neglected this part of his resume, TCMIII also features future Oscar nominee, Lord of the Rings icon and David Cronenberg mainstay, Viggo Mortensen. And of course this cinematic treasure also features a really big scary guy with a chainsaw killing people.

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III - Monday October 29th - 9:30pm at the Mayfair

Tomorrow night marks the première of the seventh annual Killer63 short horror film festival at the Mayfair. Time does have a tendency to fly, and it blows my mind a bit that all of a sudden we're up to our seventh Killer63 event. I don't have the exact statistics on hand, but I bet that we've probably screened nearly 100 short films in that time. The one night mini-fest began with a 63 day time-frame to produce the short, and was all local Ottawa filmmakers. It has since dropped the 63 day rule, and now screens films from accross Canada and the States, international offerings, and of course we continue to screen local talent as well.

Tomorrow night we'll screen fourteen shorts in all, ranging from under a minute in length to 13 minutes. We'll have shorts on hand from Ottawa filmmakers of course, some from elsewhere in Canada, and one from Italy. One is Total Fury from Quebec (pictured above), it is a few years old, but we've never screened it and it is awesome (awesome in a hilariously offensive girl-power kinda way).

Killer63 year seven - Sunday October 28th at the Mayfair - One night only!

This weekend we have two matinees of one of my favourite movies of the year, Paranorman. The more I think about this movie the more I think that it's truly destined to become a Halloween cinematic classic. Besides for being a beautifully produced piece of animation filled with great characters and an impressive script, it also has cool monsters in it and some fun kid friendly scares. Also, in a rare twist when it comes to movies now-a-days, Paranorman is an actual original. It's not a remake, reimagining or reboot, it's not based on a book, comic, tv show, video game, toy line, board game or pre-existing movie. Shocking I know, but this is actually a brand new original piece of filmmaking.

Do yourself a Halloween themed favour and come out and watch Paranorman on October 26th or 27th at 1:30pm. Unless you don't live in Ottawa, then you should find some other means to watch it.

The insanity and madness that is the annual Halloween screenings of possibly the most successful cult movie of all time - The Rocky Horror Picture Show - is upon us yet again! Tomorrow night at 9:30pm and Midnight, Saturday October 27th at 9:15pm and Midnight and on Halloween at 7:00pm and 9:45pm.

As per usual, our Rocky Horror events are hosted by the amazing Absent Friends shadow cast, whom I will proclaim as the greatest shadow cast on the entire planet. Please, no rice or confetti; use bubbles! Yes...we know that rice and confetti are part of the tradition, but they are an incredible pain to clean up. Throw a bunch of rice and confetti around your living room...see how messy that is? Now multiply that by a couple hundred people doing that same thing. Not a pretty sight.

Tickets are $10 for members / $15 for non-members. These screenings have a history of selling out, so be sure to arrive early (or drop by and buy your tickets in advance), and don't be too shy to dress for the occasion!

Tomorrow night the Rideau Valley Roller Girls unveil their hot-off-the-presses 2013 calendar at Patty's Pub (1186 Bank Street) at 7:00pm. After that, the festivities move over to the Mayfair for a 9:00pm screening of east coast comedy troupe Picnic Face's big screen debut, Roller Town. Come out and see a genuinely hilarious new Canadian film, hang out with derby girls, and buy a calendar from 'em too. It's your chance to participate with a triple dose of Canadian content support at the Mayfair...and yes, as per usual with out RVRG events, there will indeed be pizza and beer for sale too. What more could you possibly want from a night out at the cinema!?

I don't want to alarm anybody, but mainstream Hollywood seems to have actually produced an awesome movie poster. If you look at the evidence put forward in such posters such as The Avenegers, X-Men: First Class, or the Transformers movies, to name a few from the countless many, I thought that maybe Hollywood had actually lost a dare and had to produce only terrible one-sheets. Almost everything made in the past decade or so seems to make use of junior high levels of skill at photoshop, and looks like it was produced in about 15 or 20 minutes by someone distracted with another chore. Good job whoever did the Iron Man 3 poster, it's not quite a Drew Struzan painting, but a very fine bit of effort none-the-less.

Watched the HBO film The Girl. It was ok, but I can't help but think it's just the Snakes on a Train version of a behind-the-scene's filmmaking biography, which will likely be told better in upcoming Hitchcock starring Anthony Hopkins (even though this one was about The Birds and the next one is about Psycho). Toby Jones plays Hitchcock in the tv movie, in the shadow of Anthony Hopkins portraying the icon just in time for Oscar season. Interesting since he played Truman Capote as well, in the shadow of Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar winning performance of the same bio-pic role.

The real stand out though is Sienna Miller in her portrayal of Tippi Hedren, up and coming model turned actress and Hitchcock's mental punching bag. I was only familiar with her work in the Alfie remake, and gaining love and admiration from geeks for if not the GI Joe movie, at least for her Baroness poster from the movie. She does a great job as the only person gutsy enough to stand up to the director's insanity, and her film within a film moments are even more impressive if you are familiar with The Birds and Marnie.

The Girl is alright, but if looking for a truly memorable movie about Hitchcock, you're likely fine to wait for the next version.

If you are looking for a movie to watch in honour of the Halloween season, you can't get much better than a comic book inspired anthology from Tom Savini, Stephen King and George A Romero. If you were too tired to stay up for the late late show of the 1980's horror classic a couple of nights ago, you can catch the encore presentation of Creepshow tonight at 8:30pm at the Mayfair. It just may indeed be the most fun you'll ever have being scared.