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instruments. I could actually stay there an en- tire day, easily. I was on a mission to obtain a copy of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, a Star Wars novel I owned during the seventies. The author, Alan Dean Foster, would be a guest at the convention and I wanted him to sign it. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a copy, al- though I did find one of his old paperbacks and a few other treasures. Next up, we went over to Drawn to


My friend Rusty LaRue, the mascot of The Astrology Store, Glendale, AZ.


(Eric Wenzel Photo)


zel, now a retired Navy Chief, was there to meet me, and we were off and running on Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, round two. Since it was lunch time- actually a couple of hours past lunch time on my own time schedule- we made a bee-line to a restaurant I remembered from two years ago called Akai Hanna, a Japanese diner that has some awesome sushi. Since I penned a review two years ago, I will just say once again that I love this place – so much so, that we returned two more times during my visit. Mister creative here ordered the exact same meal all three times. The crunchy salmon roll (yum), their excellent and generous portion of seaweed salad and the usual edemame appetizer that I shared with Eric. It never fails to freak me out when Eric


goes into this place and starts conversing with the Japanese chefs, waitresses and everyone in Japanese! I am as lost as a redneck in New York when they start speaking. Eric learned the language while stationed in Japan. After lunch, we returned to yet another


place of business I enjoyed on my previous visit, Bookman’s, a huge book and record store that also sells collectibles and musical


Comics, the regular comic book hangout of Eric, where I met his friend, proprietor Ken Brown, a really nice guy and a walking ency- clopedia of comics. He has the coolest store, and I must add, very reasonable prices. No price gouging on back issues here folks. I love that. We spent a while in the shop and I dropped some bucks and came out with a stack of Harley Quinn, Batman, Groot #1 and other goodies. We learned that Ken would be on a Podcasting panel at Comicon the next day, so Eric and I synchronized our nerd watches. We strolled across the road to another


favorite place of mine, The Astrology Store, owned and operated by two of the nicest fellas on planet Earth, Dave Campbell and Ray Watkins. I briefly spoke with their African grey parrot, Rusty Larue and held him on my finger. Sweet bird. He’s popular too. Has his own Instagram account. If you are interested in astrology, psychic phenomenon, paranor- mal activity, tarot, or just love pretty things like gemstones, fairy and mermaid art work, they have it all. The love of my life would have been in her element. I wish she could have met these guys. After hanging out a while and catching


up, we walked down the street to a newer place called Desert Rose for dinner. (See re- view this issue.) I had honestly never seen so much steak on a plate. Later we visited another comic shop


called Jesse James Comics. Nice place. There were a couple of comic book writers in store signing, so I purchased their fantasy comics


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