The Manitoba Comic-Con is as well attended as the Calgary Expo, but not as well organized. Which is not to say that it's organized poorly; it's organized as well as or better than every other normal convention* I've been to over the years. It was weird in places, but overall it seemed to lurch drunkenly through the weekend without hurting anyone and people had fun, which is all that should be asked.

It didn't bring the same volume of guests as the Calgary Expo, and it concentrated on TV actors more than comic industry giants. I can't fault that: the average Joe is a lot more likely to recognize Helen Slater than Paul Dini. But the Manitoba 2-day admission price was an extremely reasonable $12, and the Artist's Alley tables were free**. Clearly their primary objective was to get bodies in the door, and it seemed to work. 11,000 on Saturday, I heard.

We flew out after work on Friday with no problems. Michael and Kyle had flown standby early Friday morning, and they had no problems either. We went to bed early, since we'd all received e-mails from Violet, one of the two showrunners, in all capitals, which advised us that we must arrive by 8:30 am or be booted from the show. This was not the first exasperated threat we had received from her. She is a mom, after all.

We made it, barely. Only one elevator was designated for move-in, and as we got to it we discovered that it was already full. "We'll catch the next one!" Michael said, and we watched the elevator go down, stop there, come back to our floor, open the doors, close them again, go up, come down, and stop. We pushed the button. They pushed the button. Then the alarm bell began to ring, and we went in search of another elevator.

As it turned out, lmai and the others were in there for an hour.

When we got to the artists' registration desk just before 8:30, we formed a line as the girl who'd been tasked with finding everyone's names on a sheet struggled to do so. Meanwhile, an older gentleman volunteer ably demonstrated his task, which was to be a dipshit. He made smartass remarks to us, to another artist who had decided that he didn't have to stand in the line, and to lmai, who didn't make the 8:30 due to being stuck in the elevator. "Shouldn't have packed eleven people in there," he said to her (she told us later, as she sat at the table behind ours).

This is, as I said, what I am used to from cons. One can't really be surprised by unprofessionalism when one is not dealing with professionals. Saddened, certainly, and resigned. And joyful when one finds professionalism anyway which is why I have such a torrid love affair with the Expo.

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Sales were good, I think. It's hard to judge, since we didn't actually have issues of the comic to sell at the last Expo. We sold a fair amount, I think, though at a $3 price point I thought we'd move more than we did. TDA#0 suffered from its plain-paper, black and white cover and no signage. Lisa suggested re-covering them with a colour cover printed on better stock, which I think is a good idea, and I'll need to find one of those extended-arm staplers.

Postcards just do not sell. So, since our luggage was heavy enough already, I didn't bring any. However, I want to print up a bunch of Diaperman character postcards as giveaways, since the character designs are a large part of the jokes. Also, I really want to explain a glue-gun-carrying cowboy named Money Shot to moms. :)

Why doesn't the Expo have a freebie table? The Winnipeg con did, and Kyle and Lisa put postcards on it, which were all gone by the end of Saturday.

Winnipeg is, for some reason, crazy for business cards. Lisa ran out on Saturday afternoon. I'd brought my whole box, since they were already in a box anyway, and made a sizeable dent in it.

I gave away lots of little take-away magnets. I think I've found the solution: if I put a FREE sign next to them they get silently scooped up, stuffed in the swag bag, and thrown away probably. If I leave them at the front of the table with no explanation, people will pick them up and fiddle with them. "Help yourself!" I'll say cheerfully, and then they're happy that I gave them a cute little free magnet and I'm happy that they don't all sullenly disappear in the first hour and a half.

I sold two commissions, which was unusual because my table doesn't mention commissions in any way. I don't encourage them. I can't do colour without a power outlet, and it takes me a relatively long time to finish things, and I'm funny about work for pay. However, both commissions were to the same girl who wanted a female gargoyle and, heck, I can do those. I should probably just get over myself about it.

I also did a brief art trade with one of the girls sitting across the aisle from us. The girls across the aisle all liked Michael and his tendency to sing songs off the top of his head when thinking, or writing, or bored, or watching me draw, and they were sad when he left early on Sunday afternoon to attend the voice-actor workshop.

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The banners worked perfectly. Black Cat's jubblies were at the eye level of all the boys who weren't already looking at the tables, as I intended. I could tell it was working because the boys would catch the attention of the boys they were with and say "look, it's Black Cat," (or, "look, it's Catwoman," if they were of a DC bent) and then they would regard the banner solemnly and without further comment.

The Diaperman banner worked in its twofold way. It explained its disturbing premise in 73-point type right to the left of Michael's head so that Michael didn't have to. --He still talked to people, of course, but he generally pointed them to the sign and told him that it's a lot like The Tick, until I asked him to please stop telling people we're plagiarizing The Tick, as we are not. After that he described it as a "superhero satire." "Oh, like The Tick?" people would ask.

The other thing the Diaperman banner did was have a large logo, and a large drawing of a diaper, being worn by the eponymous man, and thusly warned off the junior high school boys before they could roughly paw at the table and sneer "Diaperman?!" at me. Junior high school boys have a very low tolerance for sexual oddities, because they are deathly afraid they might be one. So, having been warned at a safe distance, they kept their eyes safely on Black Cat's jubblies, which made everyone happy. Me especially.

Kyle's banners appeared to attract Kyle's target audience of sideshow/horror fans. He had seven boxes of Tarot cards, and sold six on Saturday. The last one went on Sunday morning, and after that he sold books. He doesn't ever seem to sell the books when the cards are available.

Lisa mostly just wanted her banner to get her name up at eye level, and she reports that it seemed to work.

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Lisa got one weirdo who shared his conviction that all superheroines are just sluts because of how they dress and are just asking for it because they're sluts. Why this shining prize chose to relate that to the short girl drawing sweet elven princesses and not, for example, to the guy sitting at the next table in front of a five-foot-high vinyl print of Black Cat's jubblies, I do not know.

Kyle got a fellow who explained that none of this art was ennobling or uplifting to the human condition. Whether he meant comics in general or Kyle's art specifically remains mysterious.

Michael and I spoke with only one fetishist and he was quite nice and not scary at all.

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My iPhone was indispensable, though I did not once speak into it. Naturally it led us to Starbucks and McDonalds, which is what iPhones are always used for. But it also saved the day when Lisa needed a reference picture for Helen Slater's specific Supergirl costume, and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman, and Blink from Marvel. And when I needed girl-poses to draw girls. And when I didn't remember off the top of my head how leopard's spots go. And when Amber asked if I knew what Felicia from Darkstalkers' legs look like, I didn't even know who that was--but Michael's iPhone did. (I'd have used mine but Lisa was already using it for a different reference picture.) Having the world of Google Image Search in one's pocket is an absolute must for doing commissions.

That, and PhoneSaber fights.

( Pictures below the cut! )

* San Diego is not a normal convention. I think it used to be. Now it's more like being in Kelowna when a disaster evacuation is going on and the only building in town with storm shutters is the comic book store.

The Calgary Expo is a normal convention in terms of scale and subject matter, but it is not run by normal humans. It is run by the very Incarnation of Efficiency and his henchmen, and is therefore not subject to normal convention laws. We got our table assignments for next year's Expo (which is more than six months away) last week. I did not know our table assignments for Winnipeg until we got there.*** I met the man who had sent me my Expo table assignments, in Winnipeg, as he attempted to get me to sign up for the Expo. ("Hi, Ken! We're already going. I got your e-mail last week," I told him. Twice, since he introduced himself to Kyle later.)

** Free, after a $25 donation to the Heroes Initiative, which is either refundable or not depending where you read. I wasn't worried; a $25 Artists Alley table is still a great rate. Kyle recouped some of the loss by absconding with everyone's acrylic nameplates.

*** But we found out our table assignments as soon as we got there, which puts the Winnipeg con ahead of Otafest, where we got there and discovered that the con-volunteer seated near the Artists Alley knew nothing about the Artists Alley at all, and to find Lisa's table assignment we had to locate a man we did not know, who was somewhere on the other side of the University campus and had no cellphone or radio. However, that puts Otafest ahead of Con-Version, who responded to Kyle's request for table assignments first with long silence, then confusion about the alien concept being presented, then finally dismissiveness.

After Boy Human put pancakes on the bed in front of Girl Human for some unimportant reason (it was proven to be non-cat-related, and therefore unimportant, when Campingcat--at this time still just Regular Cat--attempted to insert her face into the pancakes and was scolded) many things were loaded into the van. Among them, Campingcat. Conversation reveals that it is apparently Girl Human's birthday. Whatever, thinks Campingcat, who has seen twelve birthdays and as a result has no time for people's shit anymore. Campingcat--still just Regular Cat at this point--is tolerant of the van. Often the van trips end at the vet's office, but frequently they are to pick up Girl Human, or to wait in parking lots while Boy Human shops for random things. Girl Human is in the van today so it's not that. Once the van trip was to Boy Human's parents' house, which did not go so well. Today the van trip is very long, so after a couple of hours Campingcat raises her concerns. As a result, the humans introduce her to a parking lot in Claresholm, which is full of rural people and large trucks. They show her her food, water, and litter box, in none of which Campingcat deigns to be interested, but she offers a compromise: she will keep her yap shut and sleep the rest of the way if she is not subjected to any more parking lots. Campingcat tries to be open-minded that way. She is rarely appreciated.
	Eventually Campingcat reaches the campsite, which is at Moyie Lake near Cranbrook, B.C., and finally becomes Campingcat in earnest. She is tied to a picnic table with her harness, which is not especially welcomed by Campingcat, but she has been subjected to her harness before. So long as the humans do not expect her to actually follow them anywhere, Campingcat puts up with their crap. Campingcat is long-suffering.
	Boy Human shows Campingcat her litter box which he has placed somewhere, but Campingcat will choose her own place to pee, thank you very much. Then Boy Human moves her litter box to Campingcat's chosen location, which shows that Boy Human knows what's good for everyone.
	Fat Marmot is very interesting. Campingcat employs her usual strategy with such small creatures, which is to crouch and watch them intently until they expire naturally of old age. Fat Marmot evidently has further days ahead of him, and eventually leaves, winning their battle of wits. Well played, Fat Marmot. Well played.
	Stupid deer rank high on the list of things about which Campingcat does not care. Also on that list are dogs, with which the campground apparently abounds. There are no other cats, which is right and good.
	Boy Human shows Campingcat the most water she has ever seen. Prior to this, the most water she has ever seen has been contained within the upstairs bathroom shower stall, which is never good times. This is much more water than that, but Campingcat greets it the same way: by howling brokenly at it. Luckily for him, Boy Human does not attempt to dunk Campingcat into the water, and she retreats quickly, never turning her back on it as it laps menacingly against the shore, seemingly of its own volition. Can it chase her up the beach? Campingcat does not know, and she spends the afternoon under the picnic table, watching the humans as they insanely paddle about in the water. She yowls warnings at them, but they do not understand, or care. Foolish humans.
	Campingcat does her part to keep the campsite free of weeds and grasses. She is a giver.
The best part of camping, as far as Campingcat is concerned, is the tent. It is almost entirely made up of bed, and Campingcat would spend most of the day in there, if the humans didn't keep the flap closed most of the time. This is partly because of bugs, and also because Campingcat, when relaxed, likes to pull the fur out of her back and leave it in tufts and the humans don't want that in their sleeping bag. Campingcat attempts to let herself into the tent a couple of times, with her claws through the screen, and is scolded. Campingcat is still in the tent when Boy Human packs up the campsite, and she stands her ground as he rolls up the sleeping bag and deflates the air mattress, even though he uses a noisy vacuum machine to do so. Well, technically she lies down her ground, but you get the idea. Eventually he bodily ejects her from the tent, and she retaliates by giving attitude to Girl Human, who is not her real mother anyhow. She alternately hides under the van and tries to knock things over in the back of it, until Boy Human scolds her. Then she behaves. Boy Human will only take so much of her lip. Campingcat sleeps the whole way home, as she has had almost none of her daily naps the whole weekend, which isn't very good. She also had nearly all of her insulin injections, which she doesn't like either. However, she ate a lot of the humans' turkey- and salmon-based food, which was good. Campingcat got to lie in camp chairs in front of the campfire, which was warm and good. So, all in all, Campingcat was tolerant about the whole experience. It certainly beats being left at home, with Boy Human's Friend coming to feed her. For one thing, Campingcat will only allow Boy Human to give her insulin shots; for another, Boy Human's Friend always brings along his Horrible, Horrible Miniature Human, and Campingcat has no patience with those things. Campingcat--just Regular Cat once again--shudders to even think about it. In fact, she's going to go pull out some fur on the humans' bed now.

We lived!

The trip and the wedding went fantastically! (Except for the Westjet flight home.) It is so much easier to have a resort take care of (most of) your wedding details for you. There's no having to sheepdog relatives around or trying to figure out what colour ribbon to tie around your cake lifter. So long as you have tolerant relatives that don't mind you flinging off to go elope in foreign countries, I heartily recommend it.



And now we're married in the eyes of Cuban law. We'll be married in the eyes of Canadian law as soon as the paperwork reaches the Canadian consulate. Should only be three months or so.

As for Cuba itself, any country that has bats and lizards is okay by me.



These little anoles lived on the balconies and walkways of the resort. On Tuesday morning one of these little guys darted by my feet and I crushed him, and I was devastated. There were also three other completely different types of lizards that lived on the boardwalk by the bar, and in the grasses near the beach, and on the beach itself.

The other thing Cuba has a lot of, besides cigars and rum to which I am largely indifferent but a significant quantity of which I nevertheless brought home, is giant 1950s American cars.

It's kind of for a sad reason, since because of the embargo they can't really import a lot of newer cars. So they keep these babies shiny and running. Sadly they don't keep them in line with North American emissions standards, so sitting next to the road in Varadero was headache time.

Our Westjet flight from Toronto that was supposed to land at midnight was five hours late. This is for the same reason that we get bad service at Starbucks every so often: it makes Michael scream, and his head spins around.

A longer, more detailed post will undoubtedly follow someday. I have 748 photos to sort through.

There's only so much I can carry on my back, apparently.

Sunday's always the best day to finish off the dealer's room. There's never any good panels, unless you like "Religion in Comics", which I don't. Also, the retailers don't really want to carry all the stuff back home, so they'll cut you a deal.

Of course, the flip side to that strategy is that I have to carry all the stuff back home. Still, a deal's a deal! Mile High Comics knocked 40% off their Dark Horse books, and I picked up Identity Crisis and the ninth volume of Y: The Last Man, and Lisa got a ton of Liberty Meadows and various art collections and whatnot. They were heavy.

We finally met and got to talk to Kandrix, the man behind the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, and his wife. Michael's met him a few times, but somehow Lisa and I never crossed his path in Calgary. Heck of a nice guy. We gave him copies of our print books, and he frowned at mine, trying to place my name, and asked if I had an online name. I did, which I'm always embarrassed to admit whenever anyone in the real world asks me, and that connected things for him: he remembered the post I'd written after the first Expo and thanked me for it.

We talked about Calgary's other cons, and he let us know his secret for success: first, he's a business guy; second, he does all the work himself, with the help of maybe two other people. Lisa told him that he'd never be able to stop, ever.

James and Kyle had already finished the dealer's room. James in particular was very sure that he wouldn't be spending any more money or time in there. Naturally, the last place I saw him in there was in front of a wall of graphic novels. I don't know if he bought anything. He says he didn't. I know Kyle bought the first Film Crew DVD, because he told me where it was and I bought one too. We're watching it, right now!

The dealer's room closes at five, but by 2:30 we'd had about enough. Lisa was supposed to go to the art show to claim and pay for anything she'd successfully won, lest she be entered on the Big Book Of Comic-Con Misbehaviourers. Unfortunately we forgot all about that, and wouldn't remember until the next day, by which time it'd be much too late.

We went back to our hotel to continue filling it with plastic bags of frippery, since there was still some available carpet that housekeeping had managed to vacuum, and then Kyle, James and I toured the Star of India and its associated ships, while Lisa took a nap in the room. Then it was off to Ruth's Chris Steak House, which had neither Ruth nor Chris, but it did have great Alaskan crab legs, plus whatever everyone else had. It also had a waiter who explained steak to us, which: hee hee. We told him we hail from a land where we just push cows over and eat them, but we didn't add that his spiel about the best American beef available failed to impress us.

The plan for Monday was for Gray Line to pick Lisa and me up at our hotel at 8:30, because that's what they'd said when I confirmed our reservation. (James and Kyle went off to Sea World.) The bus hadn't appeared by 9, so we went inside to call Gray Line to find out what the hell. They told Lisa that we were meant to meet the bus "behind the hotel, at 2nd and Cedar," which they'd apparently expected us to simply intuit. So, we'd missed the Rosarito bus, but they'd refund us for it and we could get on the bus to Tijuana at 1:15 instead.

We used the morning to pack up most of our stuff, and to determine that we'd need another suitcase. At 1 we walked out to behind the hotel, having assumed that 2nd and Cedar were the streets running behind the hotel. And they are, in the sense that the hotel faces the bay and the whole of San Diego is behind the hotel: eleven blocks away, specifically. We'd never make that walk in time, so we went back inside, again, to phone Gray Line and ask what the hell, again.

"Can you be out front in five minutes?" they asked. Sure, we said, and in about ten minutes a shuttle bus picked us and drove us--one block down the street to where the cruise ships launch. And then we got on a tour bus. Evidently Gray Line had gotten confused about us being at the Holiday Inn on the Bay, twice, and had given us the pickup instructions for a different hotel. Probably two different hotels. If they'd just told us to walk one block south from the outset, things would have been fine.

Our bus driver made it clear from the outset that we would not get shivved, probably, and how to haggle, which was going to be Lisa's department. We dropped the $100 in cash I had on me, as our Canadian bank cards apparently work in the States but not Mexico. We picked up a Hard Rock Cafe Tijuana shot glass for James (which I could only purchase if it had tequila in it, so I was forced to knock back a shot) and a velvet Elvis painting for Kyle, therefore fulfilling the instructions he gave me ten years ago to, if ever I found one, buy it for him. So it's nice to have that crossed off the list.

Shopping in Mexico is a lot different; I found myself missing the silence and surliness of Calgary customer service people. In Mexico, people shout at you and touch your arm to get you to come into their store. Both are not favourites of mine. I tried the Horizon Stare that I employ with panhandlers but they were having none of that. So, we had to talk to everyone. They seemed happy to find out that we were not Americans, but honestly that was probably just part of the patter. (Although we did witness some rude American behaviour, namely the slow shouting in English at people who do not speak it, so who knows. People who don't speak English aren't going to magically understand you if you shout slowly, and you're liable to find yourself shouted at in French by passing Canadians. "Vos! Lobes d'orielles! Sont comme! Les têtes de poissons!")

All in all, it was a great adventure and we got to do something we'd never done before: pee in a nasty Tijuana restroom. I'm sure alexisbean is very proud. Also we had actual Mexican food since, as the bus driver warned us that there were no Taco Bells down there.

We got back to the hotel at around 6:30, and we spent the evening just hanging out there, which was nice. James and Kyle didn't get back until 10:30, as they'd spent 13 hours at Sea World, which was apparently super awesome.

Today we checked out of the hotel, and Kyle negotiated a $75 reduction due to the lack of Internet and air conditioning in our room. We'd been promised that the Internet would be fixed each day by various staff. One concierge told us that equipment had been flooded in a laundry room mishap but new equipment had arrived and would be up that night; that was on Wednesday. All subsequent people we talked to had heard nothing about this, so he was probably lying. They did a lot of that there.

I don't mean to be down on the trip, because it was an awesome vacation. I don't think we'll go to Comic-Con again, but that's just because it's become so huge that it's passed into unmanageability. That's not the con's fault; it's just more successful than it's set up to handle. You can't fault it for that.

We're going to keep getting tables at the Expo, of course, and maybe once we publish more we'll branch out to other cons--APE or Wondercon, maybe. Or, we might return to SDCC if they hold it somewhere bigger. I've heard rumours about moving it to Anaheim, but I heard that two years ago too.

Right now we're sitting in the San Diego airport, because our flight to San Francisco was delayed about an hour. Since we only had an hour to catch our connection to Calgary, a very nice man moved us to a later connection in Denver, with a 45-minute connection. A darn sight better than the negative-ten-minute connection we would have had, and far, far better than two years ago, when America West let us rot in the terminal for eight hours.

By the time I'm able to post this, I'll know how much fur the cat managed to pull out. But at this time: still a mystery.

On Thursday, Lisa and I encountered the Rifftrax booth, which was being enboothed by Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. Lisa wanted me to go get a signature, but I wouldn't be pulled. I knew that on my own I'd suffer fanboy-lock and gape and/or giggle at them.

Or even worse, I'd attempt to tell them that I really enjoyed the Rifftrax for The Matrix, particularly the part where Dozer's using the computer and Morpheus appears in the doorway behind him and the guys riff "Come to bed, honey." It's perfect: we laughed until we cried.

Naturally instead of saying all that I'd just have leaned forward, said "Come to bed, honey" in a prevert voice, possibly performed the Dance of the Turkey Lifters, and then giggled and run away.

Instead I waited for a time when Kyle and I could meet them together. Kyle had bought a Tom Servo head at the bulk candy shop in Horton Plaza, so he had them sign that. Bill Corbett wrote "What a crappy puppet" on it. Then we grinned like morons but happily did not stammer anything embarrassing.



That last panel we attended today was these guys: they're releasing DVDs of old movies with them making fun of them, under the name The Film Crew. C'mon, ease it on in there.

Four years ago, when we came to Comic-Con the first time, we had to line up for everything. This year, we've had to line up for everything but the difference is that we didn't necessarily get in. It's changed. Kyle's said that he probably won't be back next year unless it's on a professional basis. Lisa and I certainly won't be back, of course, what with getting married in Cuba. It's just too big now. (San Diego, not Cuba.)

Kyle and I stood (partially sat) in line to get into Ballroom 20 for hours today. Twice, because the first time security disbanded the line, saying that the Fire Marshal had closed the room. They were lying. We did finally make it in for the Battlestar Galactica, Futurama, and Joss Whedon panels, part of the last of which I videoed.

(He's working on a number of new projects, one of which is Ripper, which will be a 90-minute piece for the BBC, and something new with Fray, and an online comic called Sugar Shock. And Buffy season 8 and Angel season 6 which isn't called that.)



(He refused to perform the Dance of Shame.)


James is conflicted about liking the boobies because he thinks he's grown up and should be beyond that. Kyle and I have no such conflict. (I'm not sure why Kyle likes snapping pictures of boobies but there you have it.) Sadly, if there's any man-candy for Lisa to look at I certainly haven't noticed it, except for Pouchy Superman, which hardly seems fair.

Three girls have smiled at me because I wore my Joss Whedon Is My Master Now t-shirt today. That is something that would happen nowhere else that is not here.

Tomorrow we finish off the dealer's room because there are no panels worth attending, and Sunday is when the best deals are because nobody wants to cart stuff home. Michael, I didn't get you the TARDIS coin bank: I got you something better.

So. Much. Walking.

Still no Internet in our room, even though they've been promising it every day we've been here. Right now I'm sitting in the lobby with the other refugees; we've dragged ourselves back to the hotel after watching the showing of Superman: Doomsday. Lisa's in the shower and James ordered room service and I think Kyle's probably pretty much horizontal by now. And it's only the first full day!

The San Diego Zoo makes our zoo look pretty sad. But it makes all zoos look pretty sad, so that's not remarkable.

Here are the zoo highlights, for now, until I have a decent Internet connection I can upload with. They can be summed up with the following three words: Kyle behaved oddly.






After we were finished killing ourselves at the zoo, we went to Preview Night to kill ourselves at a completely different venue. Preview Night was busier than I remember than previous years, possibly because they were letting the three-day-pass people in too. But, as always, Preview Night was about tearing through as much as the dealers' room as possible while it's slow. Meaning, only one hundred thousand people in it.

We had a look at the Hasbrotoyshop.com booth, because Lisa needs to pick up about seventeen Comic-Con exclusive ponies.

There's a line to buy the exclusive toys they're offering. That's not unusual. However, instead of just being able to get in the line, they're giving out tickets that allow you access to the line at a predetermined later date. And there's no lineup for the tickets; a few Hasbro employees will wander around at preset times handing tickets out to passers-by who may or may not actually be interested in buying anything the booth is selling. Come back at ten o'clock Thursday morning, they told us.

Soooo, we came back Thursday morning, at about ten-thirty, because it takes about that long to get into the convention centre and snake through the huge cattle drive of people. By that time the tickets were long gone. Come back at two, they told us.

We went back at one-thirty, and joined the huge mass of people thronging outside the booth. Hardly anyone was actually in the Hasbro lineup, of course, because they didn't have tickets. Instead, with no ticket-getting line or directions at all, they piled up outside the booth, creating a huge problem for Hasbro, the security guys, and people trying to walk anywhere near there at all.

The security guys yelled at us all to disperse, but of course no one did, and when the ticket dispersers presented themselves at 2:00, they were immediately mobbed and the tickets were gone in two minutes. Nobody was able to buy anything, and the crowd, instead of being controlled, became a giant mob of frustrated people who couldn't just buy a frickin' toy already. I don't know what they're trying to accomplish with this, but it's been a spectacular failure so far, and I'm amazed nobody got trampled or had their leg broken. Lisa will probably end up just buying a pony from hasbrotoyshop.com, where they are apparently available and not at all exclusive, and the sixteen other girls who asked her to pick one up will be disappointed.

We saw Superman: Doomsday, as I mentioned, and I saw a panel for Adam Hughes and for the upcoming movie Fanboys, and apart from that it's just been the dealer's room. James says he's spent his quota already and he's not going back in there and we'll see how long that lasts.

Tomorrow is the Neil Gaiman panel, which will involve another massive crush of people and possibly my death. Evidently my boss is telling people I've died anyway.

The busier Comic-Con gets, the less I'm enjoying it, honestly. It takes some of the fun out of doing things when you have to compete with a hundred thousand other people for them. They need to look at changing venues, or... something.

Since we hadn't gotten a full night's sleep in two days, we planned to go to bed early Monday night; unfortunately the punishing heat and Harry Potter conspired to make that not happen. We got all of our packing done, but still only toppled into bed at 11. I set my alarm to wake us up at 4:30 am; our cab was due to arrive at 5.

I don't remember what Lisa said that woke me. Probably it was "oh shit!" I rolled over to look at my clock and it was 4:54. And the cab was here! I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to let the guy know we'd be five or ten minutes. He was cool about it.

The plane connections were mostly without incident. In Vancouver my suitcase got placed on the belt wheels-down, which meant it rolled in place and didn't actually present itself at the top. Since we only had an hour in Vancouver to clear US Customs, that was worrying.

Note for travellers: you can surf around like an idiot on baggage carts. However, you can't take pictures of your friend surfing around like an idiot on a baggage cart without security officers descending on you.

We got to San Diego around noon and were startled that the weather was more mild than in Canada. Then check-in at the hotel (they didn't have any of our names on record under mfiles' reservation: a quick and expensive cellphone call cleared that up) and shopping at Horton Plaza, then dinner at the Hard Rock San Diego because skullflare collects their merchandise. You know you're at the Hard Rock when a waitress goes past you carrying a stack of T-shirts.

On waitresses: Our waitress at the Hard Rock was neither crazy nor angry, and she spoke English fluently. She was in fact astonishingly friendly and outgoing. This was so vastly different from the Calgary wait-staff experience that we mumbled shyly at our cutlery. Luckily Kyle had a half-hour phone call with the hotel's incomprehensible tech support because the wireless network doesn't work in our tower (the repeaters got flooded in a laundry mishap, the concierge told us today) that made us feel better; that's what we expect from customer service people.

Everyone here, even hoboes, seems to know we're here for the Con, even though we don't have passes yet and my shirt is so far unadorned with Batman. Kyle bought one with a rainbow that says RECRUITER, that should throw them off the scent.

Today is the San Diego Zoo! And then Comic-Con Preview Night.

This weekend we travelled to the west coast to visit Lisa's grandmother, who she hasn't seen in almost ten years. Her grandmother lives in Powell River with Lisa's Aunt Wendy and Uncle John, who Lisa met once, when she was two.



Roads don't really go there. We could have driven, but it would take about twenty-four hours of driving to get there, and also two ferry trips. So instead we flew to Comox, on Vancouver Island, and took a ferry ride back to the mainland, which was a hell of a lot faster and, as we found out when we learned how much B.C. ferries cost now, also cheaper.

( Click for pictures! )

At 10 am MST this morning I, and ten thousand of my very close friends, crashed a website.

The plan was for each of the five of us to pick a hotel and attempt to reserve a room. Three of us were going for the Westin Horton Plaza, Lisa wanted the place across the street from the convention centre, and Joel was to pick whatever other hotel appealed to him.

Michael had said that he planned to phone rather than use the Intertron. I warned him that there were a finite number of human beings to talk to and he'd probably be better off with the computers who could, in theory, handle more traffic than the call centre.

The site was already started to limp along when I first began to reload it, waiting for the starting gun. When the reservations opened up, I hit an initial snag because the Westin wasn't offering con rates from Tuesday through Tuesday, when we intended to fly. I didn't discover that on page one of the reservations site, though. I discovered that after getting to page two, and I then had to go back to page one, change the date it was quibbling about, get to page two again, discover that in the meantime Sunday had filled up as well, go to page one a third time, gain page two's tacit but reluctant approval, and continue to page three to book the reservation I'd finally managed to claim.

Page three contains a fair, but not unreasonable, amount of graphics, and several fields for user's name, address, country, etc., just like on any website. I have no idea what else page three would normally contain because that's as much as would ever load. I imagine a Submit button of some kind would have appeared, eventually, but the most I ever got was a Microsoft VBScript error.

Lisa had the same problem. It took a really long time before Kyle got onto the site at all.

And Michael, blessedly, blessedly, completely ignored my advice, called them on the phone, and got a reservation.

Which is a miracle but also pisses me off. The idea that a roomful of people with headsets functions more reliably and efficiently than a webserver is anathema to me. I always prefer Internet to Phone, and Computer to Human, which is a policy that works staggeringly well at my bank, where the human tellers cannot understand putting X amount of a given cheque into account A and Y amount (the remainder) into account B.

Well, at least we have somewhere to sleep in San Diego. I guess that's what's important.

"Why not drive to Montana ourselves to buy Weird Al?" Lisa suggested.

Hell of an idea! I'd never been to Montana before, and it only costs $31 to rent a Budget car for a day.

However, by 9:30 all the cars were gone, so they gave us a Pontiac Montana (an SUV now sold only in Canada) with a tank filled with gas and irony.

We like to rent various vehicles so that we know what we like when it's time to buy one. We're sure not buying a Montana. Like the Ford Freestyle, shoulder-checking is impossible because you can't see out of the rear side windows. The Freestyle was fun to drive, though, and the Montana isn't--I wore its cockpit like an uncomfortable and poorly supportive coat. The sides hit my calves. The interior is all-around small, and yet the exterior of the vehicle is very large somehow, like some kind of reverse TARDIS.

Also, the passenger side door latch was half off.

After driving the Montana from Budget back to our house, Lisa didn't want to drive it any more at all, but I asked her to drive the leg between Vulcan and Milk River. After that stint she really didn't want to drive it again.

( Vulcan )

We stopped in Milk River, just before the U.S. border, to eat the ham sandwich lunch we packed. Milk River is a tiny-ass town out in the middle of nowhere. I tried to use my bank card to buy a bottle of water and two chocolate bars, and discovered that my bank card has been set to deposit-only, because I've used it at a place known for swiping cards. My card hasn't been swiped, but they've locked it for my protection, they said, twice. Which of course means for their own protection.

"Too bad you can't tell me where I used it that you don't like," I observed to the customer service woman. Naturally she couldn't. However, I don't work for the bank, so I can tell you that the last two places I used it were HMV and Manchu Wok in TD Square, and you can make of that what you will.

Luckily I have my brand-new TD Visa card, or the trip would have become very problematic at that point.

( Alien Customs )

( Montana )

And, of course, we accomplished our primary mission.

It may seem like a lot of effort to go to to get an album that I could sort of gotten here at home, but it was worth it. We played the album in karaoke mode, and from that we learned that we should never go to a karaoke bar ever ever. How can you put a price on that kind of experience? You can't.

Also, it took me an hour to extract the DualDisc from my MacBook's slot drive--since they're slightly thicker than normal discs, it got stuck inside the slot. I was only finally able to get it to eject by sliding a piece of paper into the drive on top of the disc, to keep the disc from hitting the top of the slot on the way out. And so I learned not to put DualDiscs into my computer. Priceless.

This is probably a pretty long way to drive for the new Weird Al CD. But we're going to do it on Saturday. So, uh, does anybody need anything from the United States? Softwood lumber or something?

*We're stopping in Vulcan so Lisa can see the Trek stuff, but I don't know how to make Google reflect that.

**Okay, actually two Weird Al CDs.

Last week I asked mister_sable to send me an art proof early, as I was going to be in the woods this week.

"Literally?" he asked.

"Sure, we're going camping," I said.

"That's crazy!"

"What?" I asked. "It's a thing. That people do!"

On Saturday we picked up our rental car, a Ford Freestyle. It's not a station wagon, it's not an SUV, it's not a van--it's the Ford Breaststroke! My initial impression of it was not great, as its visibility is limited: there's a lot of metal between the windows, and what little you can see through the rearview mirror is blocked by the headrests and the kid-pacifying DVD player. However, once we got used to that, we came to really like it: it has the fuel economy and overall handling of a car, but it's taller so it doesn't wreck my knees climbing out of it. We want one.

Our destination this year was 100 Mile House, BC, the crappy two-stoplight town Lisa had grown up in, so named because it's one hundred archaic units of measurement that Canada doesn't use away from someplace else. It's between 83 Mile House and 103 Mile Ranch. Naming things is so tedious, I find.

( Pictures )

Hooker? We Didn't Even Know Her!

On Thursday night, we had just left the Wendy's near Horton Plaza, and were heading north to the hotel, when an attractive (but not unreasonably so) woman asked Kyle and Justin if she could walk with us. So as not to get shanked, she said. She walked next to Justin and Kyle in the front, and Michael walked in the middle, and Lisa and I were last because Lisa has the shortest legs.

She didn't talk that much, but it's hard to talk as much as Michael. At one point she let us know "oh no, they don't shoot WHITE people," which horrified our Canadian ears, because it implied that not only do they shoot non-white people, but that they do it because nobody cares. Calgary was horrified last summer when a purse snatcher menaced downtown, because he rode a BIKE and someone might get run over and HURT.

She didn't seem to be on her way to anywhere in particular. When we turned west we asked if that was far enough for her, and where she was going. "To where people are," she said diffidently. And we went our separate ways from there.

"I think she was a hooker," Lisa said to me later.

"A hooker? Nooooo," I said, surprised. "Why?"

"Her behaviour was weird. First, a girl on her own downtown at night is weird. It makes sense for her to want to walk with a group for safety--but to approach a group of GUYS? Weird. And a girl finding herself in a strange group of people would have hung next to the OTHER girl, for safety, but she didn't even look at me. She walked next to Justin."

"That does seem weird," I said, "you would have appeared to be the least threat. Well, either you or the obvious flaming homosexual. But wouldn't a hooker have made an overture to Justin?"

"I didn't say she was a good hooker. Maybe she was waiting for him to invite her. In case he was a cop or something."

"Huh. Well, better not tell him," I said. "He'll be very disappointed."

The guys told him at some point, so on Monday as we were waiting in the airline line, they argued about it. "It's like we're in a Friends episode!" I whispered to Kyle and, giggling, he videoed some of it.

There was also this comic book convention thingie that went on.

( Canadiana )

( Photos )

Back to Canada!

We were supposed to get back Monday night at 11:30 pm. That didn't happen, as our 3:40 flight from San Diego to Phoenix never flew, because its secondary power supply didn't work. (Which is what grounded the space shuttle, I think.) America West put us in a hotel Monday night, and we finally got back into Calgary at 3:30 today. We already weren't going to be working today, but it meant that Lisa spent most of her birthday waiting pointlessly in an airport.

Nothing makes you appreciate home like not being able to get back to it.

We made it back in one piece, with the exception of Kyle's signed Clive Barker plushie and my shampoo bottle, which were both damaged when my suitcase experienced what appears to have been a WWE elbow drop. My cat and fish both survived (thanks Jason and Shonna!) and Lisa's aquarium is minus two gourami and the snail--though by the looks of the snail's remains, he was dead before we left. Ew.

I will post a longer entry with more pictures later, but this should hold you in the meantime. The DeLorean wasn't part of Comic-Con, it was just sitting around where any idiots could take fun pictures of it. It was also for sale for $18,500 US. Tempting!