Comic-Con International 2008 - San Diego, CA

[Xroc88]

Cant wait for the pics mang, Want to see how you look like.

[BluebottleFlyer]

Originally Posted by Cassini90125

And so the adventure begins...

My flight took off from Hartford at 6:20 AM Eastern time, ten minutes later than scheduled. That was the fault of the weather. Other than that the trip was uneventful; I proceeded to Cinncinati, changed planes, and it was onward to San Diego. There was some minor turbulance on the second flight but nothing serious. They fed us rather well, too, albeit for an extra charge. I paid, and to kill time I slept as much as possible. More like dozing or napping, at best; kind of hard to sleep on a swaying and rocking plane. Eventually we landed at 10:15 Pacific time, a few minutes ahead of schedule I might add, and after recovering my luggage and taking a few minutes to unwind I got a cab and headed for the Comfort Inn Gaslamp. The driver was a talkative fellow but he had a thick accent so conversation was difficult; I think I got about one word out of every four. Ten minutes later I arrived at the CIG, which, honestly, was a letdown, at first; it's nowhere near as nice as the Marriott, where I stayed last year. But it's livable, and likable after you get used to it, which didn't take long. So I settled in, relaxed for a bit, and after that I headed out for supplies. Supplies come from Ralph's supermarket. All good non-Con things come from Ralph's. Stars, I love that store. Anyway, I shopped, picked up some sandwich materials and a few toiletries I'd forgotten to pack, and then it's back to the hotel where I found ORD checking in and Taranchula standing nearby. Nice to see y'all again, guys. We parted company at that point to take care of various things (my stuff being mostly Sims-related ). I probably should have taken a nap; aside from a little dozing on the plane I'd been awake for roughly 24 hours at that time and it was beginning to wear me down. Eh, whatever. I'm on vacation, I'll sleep later. Taranchula knocked on my door a little later; he and ORD and BlueBottleFlyer are going to the mall, do I want to come? A few minutes later we're all heading for the mall, a five-story, open-air structure packed with restaurants, specialty shops, and a Hot Topic. Yeah, we stopped there; had to see the Cheese stuff in person, y'know. Place gives me the heebie-jeebies. We hit a few other stores and after that we were off to the Marriott to join Sparky and Government Man, a ten-minute walk that took much, much longer than ten minutes, but I'll let someone else explain about that.
Spoiler Below

Do not listen to ORD when he says "This way" or "I know where we're going".

Eventually we found the Marriott and made our way to Sparky and GM's room and a little while later we all headed downstairs to one of the hotel's restaurants for dinner. I had the fish and chips. Then it was back to Sparky's room for a little idle conversation, a little relaxing, and a little planning. It was getting late by then so the four of us headed back to the CIG, pausing long enough in our travels for a very long train to get out of our way. We parted company and headed to our respective rooms where I checked in here briefly and finally collapsed, exhausted, having not slept for over 36 hours. It had been a very long day, but a very good long day, too.

That was Tuesday. Today is Wednesday, and so far I've gone out for a sandwich and typed this post. Later on the entire lot of us will converge on the Convention Center to register and get our badges. In the meantime I'll try to keep myself entertained. Shouldn't be too hard.

For the record, I'll eventually be posting some pics of the trip on my profile page. Nothing there right now; when I upload them I'll mention it here.

Glad you got here OK. My hat goes off to you for getting to sleep on a plane. I tried on my 2nd flight between Heathrow and LAX, it was impossible. I think I only managed around 10 minutes or so.
I had a feeling the "10-minute walk that wasn't 10 minutes" would end up on here somehow.

[Sparky]

I just finished repairing the Bloo costume. It was an adventure. ORD had given me some of the steel boning the creator had used to give it its shape, but I had no way to cut it. Luckily a maintenance guy in the hotel did it for me. Yeah, the costume was in much worse shape this year than last, last year I could just re-glue the boning, this year I had to tear a lot of it out and replace it. At least there were no actual rips or tears in the fabric this time.

[koosie]

Haha! It has begun!

Keep sending updates guys and enjoy yourselves! Have to drink to us absent friends in the grizzly outerworld.

[Bloo2daMacs]

Ah, I remember going to a Comfort Inn on my trip to San Diego last year. For me, it was an awful experience, especially considering there was a much nicer comfort in (at the sme price I believe) just a while away. Not much differences room-wise, but the environment was nicer.

[Lynnie]

That's awesomeriffic to hear that everyone made it down there safe and sound. That is, SAFE and SOUND. Double yay.

Look forward to hearing more updates, including preview night tonight, if there are any. Have fun for those of us who couldn't make it. That means, have even more fun than usual. Yes, that's an order. Lynnie has spoken.

[Cassini90125]

Well, let's see...

Around 3:30-ish we gathered at Sparky's room once again. CG was there this time; nice to know she got here safe and sound. I didn't really want to walk to the Marriott again so I took one of the local bike taxis. Cost $5.00 but was worth it for the time I saved. Soon thereafter it was time to go register so off we went, stopping briefly at one of the Marriott's computer terminals so Taranchula could print the form he needed. Registration requires a form with your personal barcode on it, which the Con organizers email to you when you pre-register online. That done, we hiked over to the Convention Center to the back of a fast-moving line and in less time than it takes to tell we were up on the second floor, handing over our forms and ID's to the people who register everyone, we got our badges and presto! We can now hang out at the Con all day, everyday, until it ends Sunday night. We separated at that point; CG and her friends went off to I don't know where, ORD and BBF headed out to do their thing, and the rest of us went back to the Marriott to look over the schedule of events. There's less for me personally to see and do at the Con than there is for everyone else, I think; don't get me wrong, I enjoy comics and animation quite a bit, I'm just not as into all of it as everyone else is. Still plenty going on to keep me occupied though, and I'll pass along the details as they come up, either here or in a more appropriate thread ("Guys! I just learned that Frankie's college major was-" goes in the Frankie Foster Discussion Thread, for instance). Anyway, the four of us (me, Taranchula, Sparky, and Government Man) eventually got hungry and headed out th the marina area, where we settled on one of the sandwich shops and dug in. It's a very nice area but I neglected to get any pics. Eh, we'll be back before the Con is over, I'll get them then. Having finished our meal we headed back to the Convention Center, specifically the jam-packed Exhibition Hall, which is where we met up with ORD and BBF, and where we stopped by Lauren's booth to say hello. Craig was there, too. Always nice to see them both; after all, they're the people behind Foster's and Foster's is why this Forum exists. I don't really know either of them all that well but I can tell you that they're two highly creative, talented people and I'm glad I've had the chance to meet them. Maybe we'll talk a bit more sometime; kind of hard to get to know anyone in a crowded, noisey exhibition hall, and let me tell you, it was very crowded in there. Tolerable if you're prepared for it, but given that this was just preview night, I wonder how much more crowded it may get later in the week. (Shudders at the thought.) We were at the booth for 10-15 minutes or so, after which we split up to do our own things. I wandered around for a bit, taking in the sights and sounds, gathering a few pics here and there, and finally I made my way back to the CIG to write all this and post it while it's still relatively fresh in my memory. A little later I'm heading out again, this time to find a restaurant that catches my eye and get myself a steak. Or maybe some seafood. I really haven't made up my mind yet.

Anyway, that was Wednesday in a nutshell, and yes, miss Lynnie, I am having fun for everyone. Next year you can hopefully make your own fun here.
And I can stay in and play with my Sims.

[Sparky]

After leaving Lauren's booth GM and I started at one end of the Hall and started systematically going up and down the aisles (didn't get terribly far) - the first stop is always the huge t-shirt store where I got a Bender shirt and a Foster's shirt ("Still Bored"). We hit the Telltale Games booth and I bought the new poster and Season Two of Sam and Max. I mentioned that I wanted copies of the shorts the company put out a while ago which are only on the Season One disc TTG distributes, but I already own the Best Buy edition and don't want to buy another copy...so they gave me one for free. In exchange they want lots of pictures of me with Plush Max.

Anyways this post is taking too long to type, lol. I'll tell more later.

[taranchula]

Yep, everything happened just as Sparky and Cassini described, I should know because I was there.

Yes we once more got to chat it up with Lauren and Craig at Lauren's booth, glad to see the both of them are doing well.

It was also at that same booth where I got to meet forum member cartman414 for somewhat the first time. I say somewhat because aside from maybe a quick hello or nod last year, we never formally introduced ourselves to each other.

After that I just took off on my own, did a few laps of the con floor, picked up a few posters and other freebies, played and looked at a few video games at the Konami, Capcom and THQ booths. And bought Sam and Max: The Complete Series DVD set from the Shout! Factory booth. And then hoofed it back to the Hotel.

So now that preview night is history it's time to get the main event started.

[Sparky]

I didn't know that was cartman. Someone should have told me. Well I hope I get to see him tomorrow...