Comicon 2008 Journal
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DAY THREE
SATURDAY; JULY 26; 10:00 PM.
It’s taken me a bit longer to post this entry. I
know that, judging by the content, this looks pretty easy, but it still
involves the manual labor of sticking these little letters to the
screen, and that takes some time. Perhaps if I had those famous chimps
that have been placed in a room full of typewriters, I might be able to
meet my deadline, but my laptop was the only available keyboard and Ben
and Sam were poor substitutes for chimps. On Thursday and Friday night,
I got by on about 4 hours sleep, but it caught up with me by the end of
the Day Three (Saturday), so I had to wait till I was back home before
transcribing the rest of the journal from my copious notes and
my…uh… whaddayacall it…. total recall.
You did notice this entry was late,
right? Hello? Anyone out there?
A lot happened on Saturday, so I’m
dividing this entry into two parts.
Carrying on then…
Saturday is always the most crowded day
at the Comicon, although frankly, if you’re a four-day attendee, it
ceases being an issue by Saturday.
About the time the 50th sardine is being inserted into
that flat little can, the first or second sardines are beyond noticing
the reduction in elbow room (yes, sardines have elbows, discovered by
marine biologists while trying unsuccessfully to determine how to
differentiate the male and female of the species). Still, we thought it
prudent to get a bit of an early start, so Ben could have as much
attendance time as possible.
Once we parked the car, we decided
that, rather than take the bus, we’d take the 15 minute walk from the
parking lot to the Convention Center. I’m glad we did, because we
encountered a couple of interesting items along the way.
On Broadway Street in downtown San Diego, on the
sidewalk in front of an office building, there are the display cases
shown below.
That’s right... along with some imaginative public
fountains and abstract sculptures, the City of San Diego has installed
public exhibits of Kryptonite, thoughtfully keeping it a safe distance
from the actual Con so that frequent guest Superman won’t experience any
nausea or shortness of breath.
While waiting for a crossing light, we
encountered a nicely-dressed distinguished-looking gentleman who,
against all laws of rationality, was also wearing a convention badge.
Before our minds could be totally blown by this anomaly, he explained
that he worked for the Convention Center, and was gathering information
about the nature of this year’s attendee’s. I told him nature had
nothing to do with the attendees, but we’d be glad to answer his
questions. You’re an exhibitor, right? he asked. I wondered briefly why
he made that assumption, until I noticed that except for me, my sons,
and this gentleman, everyone waiting at the light was tattooed, pierced,
dressed as a character from Japanese animation, or holding up a “free
hugs” sign. After letting him know that, despite being past the age of
knowing better, we were rank-and-file attendees, we answered his other
questions regarding our home demographics, where we were staying and
(looking at his watch) how long we were planning on staying and if we
needed any directions out of town.
As we reached the public area directly across the
street from the Convention Center, we came across this promotional
display for the movie The Mummy 3:
Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (coming soon to a theater near you). It’s
the Dragon Emperor’s Terra Cotta army:
Apparently, in the movie, these guys come to life.
Nothing like that happened while we were here, but we may have missed it
while we were looking up “terra cotta”. Still, it gives you an idea how
much the city cooperates with the Comicon, much to the chagrin of the
local citizenry who normally walk their dogs there (my camera didn’t
catch the Terra Cotta Warrior near the back who’s looking at the bottom
of his boot).
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