Welcome to our (mostly) weekly discussion group to talk about Stephen, our lives, our friendships with each other, and pretty much anything you’d like to talk about with other readers of No Fact Zone, what we here affectionately call “the Zoners”.

Good morning, Zoners! My sweet husband and I are still under the weather, so brunch today is a big bowl of soft, soft oatmeal and an accompanying big bowl of orange juice. I’ve been under the weather for a week, and my husband has been sick for over a month. We’re both kind of sick of it.

How is everyone enjoying Colbert in HD? My trusty new iMac is really helping with the crankiness I have in not yet getting Comedy Central in HD, as I can watch the Full Version high-res stream. It’s not quite as high-res as a true HD signal on an HDTV would be, but it is a lovely improvement over the standard res. Plus the colors are so bright!

So here’s my question to all of you this week:
Have you made any pop-culture pilgrimages?

I got this idea from a post in The Onion asking staffers of the magazine about their pilgrimages. It got me thinking about the pilgrimages I’ve made in the name of my pop-culture fave flavor du jour. Now, of course, I’ve got my latest pilgrimage, to NYC in October of 2008 (has it been that long?!). It was fantastic to get to go to the show and see and meet so many of the things and people I’ve blogged about over the past few years. But I’ve been a fangirl for a very, very long time and have had some pretty amazing experiences.

I was lucky enough to be able to go to the very first ConeCon, a Conan O’Brien fan convention in 1995. About 30 of us who were hard-core fans (including myself, who ran a Conan fanzine at the time) got a block of tickets for the show, and afterwords were invited to party with the cast and crew. At the time, Conan was barely 34, the show had been airing in that time slot for less than a year and was still the “Letterman replacement”, and the show had a very small, but loyal following. Because the network still thought the show to be iffy as far as longevity, the show was on 13-week renewal contracts, and it was the end of the 13 weeks before a weeklong break. We got to attend the post mortem party, where catering brought in a great spread of food and alcohol, and we got to mingle and drink with Conan, Andy, the Max Weinberg 7, the night’s guest (Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci), and the writers of the show who at the time included Louis C.K., Dino Stamatopoulos, and Robert Smigel. I got to give Andy Richter a hug, and I have to honestly say that he gives the absolute best hugs of anyone. Ever. Andy’s just the sweetest, most genuine guy. I was beyond nervous, and he kept reassuring me and doing his best to get me to stop shaking like a leaf. Conan got a little tipsy off of Heineken, and at some point I had my picture taken with my tongue in his ear. That was AWESOME! The best moment of the day was talking to Smigel and a couple of the other writers. I was talking about things I liked and didn’t like about some of the recent shows, and Robert was asking me questions, and I realized, oh my Krunk, Robert Smigel, THE Robert Smigel, was asking *my* opinion about comedy! The staff was so generous to us, and Conan and Andy and everyone treated us with kindness and respect. It was magical, it really, really was. That’s still pretty much in the top 3 days of my life, ever.

In my late 20’s my big thing was going to “Weird Al” Yankovic concerts. I saw him multiple times, and even sneaked backstage once or twice for the Meet and Greets he tends to have after shows. He is always fantastic to his fans and is always up for a handshake, a hug or an autograph. My biggest pilgrimage for Al, however, was not a concert at all – I went to AlCon 2000, a fan convention for Al held in Chicago, IL in, well, 2000. You have not lived until you’ve gone to a con ball with 120 other insanely passionate “Weird Al” fans and danced to the best that Dr. Demento had to offer.

So what are some of the pilgrimages you’ve made over the course of your fandoms? Tell your stories, and share your pop culture passions with the rest of us!

• Weekend Brunch
• Weekend Brunch – Happy New Year 2010 Edition
• Weekend Brunch – Christmas 2009 Edition
• Weekend Brunch – Thanksgiving Edition

Welcome to our (mostly) weekly discussion group to talk about Stephen, our lives, our friendships with each other, and pretty much anything you’d like to talk about with other readers of No Fact Zone, what we here affectionately call “the Zoners”.

Happy ‘010, Zoners! I hope everyone had a delightful New Year celebration, and a wonderful day of breaking all of your new year’s resolutions. I’m feeling pretty good about life, as I think I’m finally out of computer limbo. As a late Christmas present, my husband bought me a shiny new 21.5″ iMac. I’ve been wanting a new computer for a while, and we actually walked into the store planning on getting a new Dell. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, however. I was dreading the move of all of my stuff onto a Windows 7 machine, and nervous that some of my old programs, like Photoshop 7, wouldn’t work with the new operating system. But a Mac just made sense. It had a beautiful high-def screen (I may not be able to get Comedy Central HD, but at least I can watch the HD version of the show on Hulu and my new monitor), it had fast processors, and most importantly, it was simple. I’m tired of Windows updates every few days. Plus, let’s face it, the computer is sexy as hell. The only reservation I had is that I didn’t want to have to buy another version of Photoshop. The salesman, however, said that I could install a fresh copy of Windows XP onto something called a Bootcamp partition and it would run Windows, and I could install Photoshop there. So I was sold.

Unfortunately, almost as soon as I opened my big white box, I discovered a problem. My computer had the dreaded jaundiced screen problem. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to box it up and deal with the return issue until Saturday. I spent the better part of yesterday opening boxes at Micro Center and sitting with the monitors with the lovely guys in the Apple Center. We finally found a monitor that was acceptable, and because it was the demo, they gave me a bit of a refund. I promptly used the refund to get a copy of Windows XP Service Pack 3 so that I could run Bootcamp windows installer and install my old, but trusty, copy of Photoshop.

With the discovery of the Seashore graphics program which is super simple for screencaps (and free!), I am 100% ready to blog. The first order of business was to take the freshly installed version of Photoshop and make a shiny new header for the site. I really like making shiny new graphics for the site – I need to do that more often.

I’ve got one more day of a relaxing weekend, and then it’s back to the grindstone for me. As for New Year’s resolutions, the only one I’ve decided to start was the John P. Health Challenge. It seems simple enough. Now all I have to do is get to the store to get some actual healthy food, and get right on that! I invite you to join me in the challenge, and I’ll post my results in my Weekend Brunches.

My big activity for today is a bit more Rest and Relaxation, courtesy of the King Spa and Sauna. Soaking in an herbal spa, then sweating it out in a solid gold sauna, with a lunch of tasty Korean food and maybe catching a movie in the theater, is a little slice of heaven.

So it’s been a few weeks, and we’re gearing up for the ‘Colbert Report’ in HD. Let’s do a little catch up before we get back to the very serious business of being the best Colbert fans on the web. How was your Christmas/New Years? Did you get any exciting gifts? Did you have any exciting adventures? Are you as excited for the show to come back as I am? Do you have any encouraging words for me as a new Mac user? Do you just want to share something with the Zoners? Get yourself a cup of coffee and chat with us!

And to start off the new year right, here’s a lovely piece of eye candy.

One more fun thing for today – Zoner Forsakinghalfloves set up a map for all the Zoners to log in, to show where you all live. Make sure to sign in, and let’s see how far and wide we go!

• Weekend Brunch
• Weekend Brunch
• Weekend Brunch – Christmas 2009 Edition
• Weekend Brunch – Thanksgiving Edition