ComicCon ramblings

Back from ComicCon (obviously) and now that a week has passed and I am caught up and rested from my rest and relaxation, I can discuss calmly and sanely, my days in San Diego.

It was insane.

Insane, but fun. The trip down as mentioned was uneventful, if not a bit illogical. There are direct flights from Eugene to San Fransisco. There are direct flights from Portland to San Diego. My flight was from Eugene to Portland to San Fransisco to San Diego. Find the logic. Please. I certainly wasn't able to. My room in San Diego was just that. A room. Four walls, a window and a door. Plus bed, table and a place to put your clothes. Realistically this was all I needed while down there, but it was still somehow a bit off putting, even though it was amazingly cheap. I believe the accurate term used to describe this is a hostel. Do not let the very nice lobby of this location fool you. It worked very hard to earn that star and a half.

But the important thing is of course the show itself. I reiterate, it was insane and sold out all four days with 125,000 people milling around the dealer floor, conference rooms and the Great Hall H where all the pronouncements of cool for the upcoming year were made. Now the last time I went, many years ago, they convention was not using all of the space available in the convention center and I commented that it certainly was a bit busy on Sunday, the last day of the show and usually the slowest. This year the convention was bursting at the seams and taking up every square inch available in the convention center and if there was slowness anytime I didn't see it and nobody chose to bring it to my attention.

I did meet up with some guys I work with who are in Symantec's Culver City office, and I got to touch base with my pal Bill and my new pal Jane (who is totally awesome). Dinner with Bill, his wife Kayre and Jane was fantastic and the iPhone's GPS saved my bacon when I was getting oriented in San Diego to walk to the restaurant (along with being able to get my email, etc. while I was down there without having to lug my laptop). Twinkle on the iPhone was also handy to see what other people were up to locally and answer any questions on the fly if possible.

Friday night I had Sophie's Choice with going to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reunion or the first live taping of The Totally Rad Show. I opted for TRS since I figured that MST3K's line would get capped fast - and I was right. Of course I completely blanked that the Eisner Awards were also Friday, and not Saturday as I was assuming. So I missed out on Bill hosting the ceremony. Ah well...

The show floor was fairly clearly divided between comics - what the convention was obstenibly about, and media - games, television and movies. Sure, artists alley was down next to video games, but that was just throwing crumbs to the people who were there strictly for the comics. In fact, once you walked past the Image Comics area at the show you were squarely in multimedia land and the traffic was honestly a little more crowded. No thanks to G4 television, who at least tried to keep traffic moving past their booth, and even less thanks to Paramount who encouraged people to cluster around their booth waiting for freebies (unlike other booths who were getting orderly lines formed to keep everyone moving). As a result the Paramount booth, sitting right along the main aisle for that side of the show was responsible for some massive traffic jams.

But I did have fun and left Sunday afternoon to make it back home. Sure, I made it to the airport in time like a good little traveler. I even got through security with a minimum of fuss. No thanks to Delta who had a delayed flight out of San Diego, making my trip from gate 1B to 12D in Salt Lake City an insane mad dash with me pulling my wildly flailing bit of luggage behind me as I didn't even have time to swing carry on in front of me to push and not pull. On the second moving sidewalk I heard the final boarding call for the flight to Eugene. When I saw the escallator heading down to the gate I very nearly gave up. But if there was anywhere I was going to be stranded due to a missed flight, it sure wasn't going to be Salt Lake City.

Pictures are available as mentioned before in the gallery...