9.09.2008

Day Three: Swag with a Smile

Yes, I know it's been well over a month since Comic-Con and you are probably all tired at looking at my vacation photos by now. Too Bad!!

Saturday was the big day at Comic-con. The single day passes for Saturday get sold out before full ride tickets do. It was a crush of humanity. I had opted to volunteer at 11 am so that I could get there early and grab some more swag (like I needed more crap!) I went to the Warner Brothers booth first. I had missed out on these huge swag bags the booth had been distributing since Wednesday night. I knew that I needed to grab at least one so that I could carry around all the crap I was going to collect.

Unlike the day before at the Fox booth, the Warner Bros. crew had the whole distribution down to a fine science. Once I made it to the booth, I was through the line in less than five minutes. I then wandered around the Dealer Hall and picked up stuff like posters from the upcoming Spirit movie.

I am a huge Spirit fan and I so want this movie to be cool, but I just have a bad feeling... Not to bring down Frank Miller, the man who resurrected the Dark Knight, the man who made you want to be a Spartan and come home on your shield, but I swear the artwork reminds me more of Sterenko than Eisner. We'll see.

Some of the steampunk folks from the convention


Annie had decided to get into a little cosplay for Saturday. Annie and I are huge fans of the Steampunk movement. I am not sure why - it probably has something to do with reading 20,000 Leagues Under Sea too many times and watching First Men In the Moon multiple times when I was a kid.

Here she is in her partial costume. She has boots, but they are not broken in yet and she opted not to wear them. To be truely steampunk, she needs to obtain some rocking goggles, some bits of neo-victorian mechanical apparatus and a watch. We are working on that. In the mean time, I think she looks very nice. (Being her mater and all...)

Around 9:30 am, I was hanging out with Annie at the WETA booth ogling the awesomeness that is their wares when I discovered that I had not pocketed my credit cards and cash when I changed clothes that morning. PANIC!

I looked at the time and decided I could make it to the hotel and back in time to meet my volunteering deadline. I was wrong. I missed my chance to go to the professional suite again by 15 minutes. Instead I was able to greet folks just coming in the door. Easy work. You just handed out bags of scheduling information and welcomed folks for 3 hours. My cheeks hurt after smiling for that long.

While I was making my dentist proud, my daughter and Tate had gone off to see Howard Chaykin. Annie said she was amazed at how few people were there to see him speak. Afterward she talked to him, telling Howard how she had read all her dad's American Flag comics and he complimented her on her "bosom". Yes - he actually said "bosom".

No, she did not get to buy this. I think it's illegal to tempt men into sinful thoughts if you are under 18.

Speaking of bosoms, I have to say that if you have one, you do get great swag. Annie's shirt popped a button and it allowed her to display a more than average amount of cleavage. (She was lucky I did not have a safety pin!) Her Saturday swag included, but was not limited to: a 4 gig USB drive (shockproof and waterproof), a role-playing guide ($50 retail value), goodie cards for City of Villains, t-shirts, autographs and lots of invitations to after hours parties.

Where was my hubby all this time you ask? Why wasn't he keeping our daughter buttoned up and lady like? 'Cuz he was doing magic. There is a strong magic community in San Diego and Tony went to hang out with J.C. Wagner who performs at a bar on Coronado Island. I was kinda sad I did not get to hang out as well. JC does some amazing stuff.

I had planned on attending the Masquerade - if you love costumes, this is the event you wait on. I went to look for the end of the line, when I found the beginning of the line at about 5 pm. I asked the lady sitting in pole position one how long she had been waiting. "Since 7am," said she. "Screw this!" said I and went looking for Tate and Annie instead. I called Tate on his cell. My journey to find him took me past all the poor souls who were sitting in line to see the Masquerade. It almost wrapped around half the convention center. And this was at 5pm. The damn event didn't start until 8pm. The convention even made an overflow room with a live video feed for people who couldn't fit in the ballroom. The ball room seats almost 4,500 people. You get the idea.

Tate and I grabbed Annie and headed back to the hotel. 6 pm and we were pooped. Tony was waiting and I made him take us to dinner. We found this tiny little Mexican restaurant that said "Mexican Food" over the door, ate some mediocre food, had a few margaritas and went back to the hotel. Jet lag was really getting to all of us by then and we turned in.

Just one more day!! Well actually one more day of Comic-con and two more of vacation... I will try to be brief...I promise.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rosie, You're hilarious and you made my day.
Since you seem like a true foodie, you should check out this new site called www.behindtheburner.com.
It's going to provide tips and tricks about anything and everything in the culinary world. Check it out!

Dave said...

Hey Rosie, I'd probably be getting into fights with guys staring at Annie. I better learn to relax.

Looks like great fun.

Rosie said...

Dave,

I take the whole thing with a philosophical grain of salt. When Annie was younger, we were very diligent in keeping the bucks in line. Tony had more than a few talks with young men concerning her tender years and what would happen to them should that fail to avert their eyes.

Now that she is 17, I think its important that she understand the power that her sexuality holds. Usually she dresses fairly conservatively, but its nice to let it "all hang out". I've told her its a power for great good - and great evil. You have to learn to accept that kind of attention (both wanted and unwanted) and learn to manage the reactions of yourself and others. I know that sounds kinda crazy, but the fact is that she could be wearing a burka and there would still be guys trying to guess her cup size.

Plus Tony has taught her how to put a world of hurt on grabby men.

It's still not too late to put Frankie in a convent you know...

pellinore said...

"but I swear the artwork reminds me more of Sterenko than Eisner"

Aww...you say that like it's a bad thing ;P