While at Dragon*Con this Labor Day weekend, I’ll be staying in a downtown Atlanta hotel that cost me $194 for four nights.  No, not per night.  Maybe I should be worried.  I don’t understand why I was able to score a room so cheaply.  Even a space with cardboard walls, no bathtub, and a cum-stained comforter could probably rent for at least $100 a night on a holiday football weekend.  Something’s not right here, I’m sure.  But I’m choosing to delude myself into thinking there’s some sort of government subsidy program for temporary crack whore residences.  Now I just have to buy some rubber waders to make it through the crack whore moat.

In addition to Operation: Coffey Roast (which, by the way, has been taken as a personal threat by the hand-waving, paranoid fake psychic himself), this year’s Dragon*Con has a lot to offer those of us interested in science and reality.  The geek realm has borders all over the place.  For as many chainmail-clad crystal bearers you’ll find throwing dice at each other on the convention floor, you’ll encounter just as many Dr. Who fan fiction authors furiously trying to scratch the cum stains off their Babylon 5 t-shirts.

Me, I’m a little bit of both.  I’ll be wearing a chainmail thong under my crippled Capt. Pike costume.  But while some of my fellow introverted, slightly autistic brethren will be off at the ghost hugging and crystal humping panels, I’ll be over at the skeptics’ track learning a thing or two about reality.

This year’s guests include a who’s who of heroic warriors against encroaching nonsense/people with whom I’d like to have sex.  James “The Amazing” Randi, exposer of frauds.  Dr. Michael Shermer, champion of Darwin.  Benjamin Radford, slayer of lake monsters.  Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer.  Alison Smith, the hottest ghost hunter hunter in America.

The list goes on and on, but I’ll stop there.  I’m typing this at work, and the copy boy’s starting to notice my erection.  Play it cool, Thompson.  Play it cool.

At some point during the weekend, the skeptics and the believers will take it to the mat for a star-studded debate.  Plus, James Randi will be offering a million dollars to anyone who can prove he has paranormal powers. 

Look, I know this sounds like an advertisement, and it is.  If you’re going to be in Atlanta Aug. 29-Sept. 1, you could do worse than to drive downtown and hobnob with some Ferengi, some virgins, some Hobbits, some virgins, and some skeptics.  And if you’re not going to be there, why not?  What are you afraid of, pussy?