gwalla

I need to be better about updating with stuff I've done reasonably close to when I do it. It's been a week since WonderCon!

I went all three days, but only have pics from Saturday and Sunday. Oh, I brought my camera on Friday...it just refused to turn on! Batteries were fresh too. I was a little put out, since I'd lugged the damned thing to work with me (I work just a few blocks from Moscone Center), and I'd just had it fixed (I just hadn't bothered to try it out since I got it back from the shop, and it'd been too long since then to just bring it back and get it fixed again for free). I borrowed my folks' digital camera for the rest of the weekend

( Dr. Who, Cobra, and Girl Genius )

( Art Adams, Silent Hill, and Cartoon Network graffiti )

( By the gleamin' gates of funky Asgard! )

( lol wut )

( Street Fighter, Star Wars, Mike Mignola, Johnny Depp, and Batty bad girls )

( The Dark Horse panel, plus criticism )

( Violet Incredible, Dan Brereton, Halo, and MST3K )

( Above ground: R2D2, Link, Cassandra Cain, and a monster )

( Boba Fett, Green Hornet, the Clone Wars, Mike Royer, and ROB! VAN! DAM! )

( Boba and Boushh, Gandalf, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon )

( Kurt Busiek, manga maestro Jason Thompson CHARGIN EYE LAZOR, Sergio Aragones and Steve Leialoha )

I also attended the latter half of the DC panel, saw some Bleach, and saw a couple of movies. One was the 3DCG anime Appleseed: Ex Machina. The semi-cell-shaded look took some getting used to, but it was pretty fun. Although it's kind of hard to believe that Deunan is an "unmodified human" when she's pulling off crazy Matrix gun-fu acrobatics. And it's produced by John Woo, so naturally there are flocks of doves everywhere (later it's revealed that the doves are actually robots broadcasting a mind-controlling signal. At this revelation, the entire theater broke out laughing). The other was the animated Justice League: New Frontier, based on Darwyn Cooke's revisionist (but not "superhero deconstructionist") take on the Silver Age DCU. I missed most of the first half, but what I saw was pretty good (I don't think there was any need for Hal Jordan to be abducted by a UFO to find Abin Sur rather than just being led to him by the ring, because blowing up the room he was in makes his secret identity a little harder to justify, but then by the end it seems like a lot of folks, including Rick Flagg of all people, know his ID, so it hardly matters). Both are worth checking out, JL:NF more than Appleseed (unless you're up for some fairly mindless explodification).

And to sum up, here's all the stuff I got:

( Con haul )

So, I saw SoaP on Friday. Capsule review:

It was awesome! Snakes everywhere!

( Slightly longer report (spoilers and pics) )

I started off the trip on a bad foot by getting off at the Concord BART station instead of North Concord, and ended up waiting around until after midnight. I didn't have Starlock's cell number at that point either. Fortunately Starlock, his daughter Caitlyn, and CPOK did end up getting there (good thing, because BART stopped running) and we took off. The drive down was mostly uneventful (read: I slept through most of it, although we did talk for some of the it, about random things like driving and patriotism and anime). Chief and I did switch off driving duties in a rental (Starlock and Cait took his truck) so he could catch some Zs, but somewhere down a little south of L.A. (I think), I woke up and managed to avoid swerving out of my lane. We took the opportunity to grab some breakfast at Crap in the Sack and swap again. I forget when we finally rolled into San Diego, but I do recall CPOK getting agitated about Starlock not signalling in the lead, forcing us to e.g. cut off a Lincoln just to make an exit.

The first thing we did in San Deeg was head to the airport to pick up moltare and TSKy. Caitlyn had drawn up a two-sided sign for the purpose, and I regret to say I never got a picture of it. It was quite impressively silly. We found Mol first (he'd actually arrived the previous night and gotten a hotel room near the airport), but had to wait for a while for TSKy's plane to empty out. Once assembled, we went (more or less) straight to the Holiday Inn in National City, which is a considerable distance from downtown SD (past the Naval station). We were a little early, and one of the rooms wasn't ready yet, so we chilled in what became the "girls' room". Mol and I exposed each other to silly music via iPods (and I got Wesley Willis's "I Whupped Batman's Ass" stuck in his head). TSKy kept getting calls from her friend whose name I can't remember, who she was at first supposed to meet downtown but it got changed to him just taking the trolley all the way out because she didn't realize how long it would take and then he overshot because he didn't realize that you had to press a button to open the doors and detrain even though he lived there and TSKy kept getting madder and madder. He did finally make it. I introduced a few people to Bang!, the spaghetti western card game. TSKy liked it (which could have had something to do with the fact that she won).

johnforstershowed up, and I cajoled him into giving me a ride to get some camera batteries (I had film, but no power). We were also joined by CPOK's two Canadian friends, Hellfire and The Quiet One Whose Name I Could Never Remember. Sometime later, after we'd gotten our stuff into the second room, we took off for Preview Night. For those who've never done the San Diego Comic Con thing, Preview Night is something they added some years back, a special half-day only for people who pre-registered. The booths aren't necessarily fully set up yet, but it is a good opportunity to case the joint before the real crowds. When they first started doing it, it was pretty quiet, but word got around and now even Preview Night is pretty busy.

( Walking to the con )

Getting in on preview night was a breeze. It used to be that at the pre-registration line, you had to go to the booth for the first couple of letters of your last name, and they had to look up your name in little index cards. No more. The new pre-reg tickets have bar codes, and they just scanned it and let you through. No line whatsoever, even thought Preview Night was pretty packed. Pre-reg has always been the way to go (the on-site lines are insane), but now you're crazy if you don't pre-reg.

( I'm tired of this muthaf***in' booth )

( Delicious UDON )

( Hot Wheels get funkay )

After the dealer floor closed up, John and I met up and tried to gather the rest, but it turned out they'd left earlier. So we went to the Gaslamp District and got some good (albeit pricey) Italian food. Nice seafood pasta. Back at the room there was horsing around and watching videos (far too many AMVs), and sleep sometime in the early morning.

( Photos from the 2006 San Francisco Japantown Cherry Blossom Festival: koto, origami, paper dolls, swords, tea, etc. )

I'll be going to the taiko performance on Saturday night. I would like to go back to the festival this Sunday, because it's the last day, with the big parade. Plus there's a kendo exhibition. However, that's also the day of the conlanging conference at Cal, and there are a couple of seminars there that sound interesting (plus, it may never happen again). I'm kinda torn. And I need to decide soon, because I would need to register for the conference. What to do...

Hey starline,
( I didn't know you were an entrepreneur )

( Posting the rest of my Wondercon '06 pics! Grant Morrison and Jim Lee! Peter David and Terry Moore! Pewfell Porfingles! Cosplay! )

Took me a while to get these developed, but here's part one. Part two (which includes most of Sunday) is waiting for me to finish off the roll of film, because I don't like to waste it.

( Behind a cut to protect friendspages from utter ruin )

So I'm going to inflict photos on you all, including some really old ones!

Like this first set. These are from the first time I met craziesunshine, on Free Comic Books Day. This is back when she was with her now-ex, before hooking up with walkerton.

( Teh photos! )

That's the lot. I have so much more to show you all (I let 4 whole rolls of film build up before finally getting them developed), but fixing them up in Photo Express is a pain, so they'll probably come out in small bunches.