We set out on Thursday morning, catching a ride from Jason down to Boston’s Logan Airport to catch our early morning flight to San Diego. Since we were leaving home around two in the morning, we decided not to sleep beforehand. This turned out not to be the greatest idea, as we didn’t get a lot of sleep on the flight, and were dead tired by the end of the day. We still got a pretty full day in though. Once we landed and got our rental car, we found our hotel, a decent little place in San Ysidro. Then we went up to Qualcomm Stadium to take the trolly downtown for the con. We picked up our registration badges, made a feeble attempt at the vendor hall, then decided to grab some lunch. We took the trolly a few blocks north from the con and found Kansas City Barbeque which was okay. We then stumbled back to the hotel and collapsed.

The next morning we had to move to the hotel we booked for the rest of the weekend, the Sheraton Suites San Diego at Symphony Hall, which was considerably nicer than the place we stayed the night before, and was one of the hotels on the con shuttle routes. We dropped our bags and headed back to the vendor hall where we picked up some stuff from The Behemoth (makers of Castle Crashers) and Meg got a Firefly shirt from a pretty cool artist booth. After wandering around for a bit in the hall, we decided to head upstairs and ended up in one of the panel rooms and got to see comic legend Stan Lee give a talk on some of his experiences in the industry. It was pretty incredible to see him in person, and he gave a great presentation. After the session we decided to head back to the hotel, dump our stuff and find some food. I found a nice little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place, Maria’s Mexican Cocina, which turned out to be great. Over dinner, we decided we should return the car, as we didn’t need it with the shuttles, then crashed back at the hotel.

On Saturday, Meg decided she needed to get the Doctor Who bags that BBC America were giving away at their vendor booth, so we got up early and stood in line to get into the vendor hall as soon as it opened. We rushed to the BBCA booth just to find out they weren’t giving out the bags yet, so we continued around the hall for a while. There were a ton of exhibitors, including some giant booths for Aliens, the new Tron movie, The Expendables, LEGO, Warner Brothers, and of course Marvel and DC Comics. As we were winding our way back out, we happened to be at the BBCA booth just as they started giving away the bags and Meg managed to score one for herself and one for our friend Cole, who is a giant DW fan.

We grabbed lunch at an Irish pub near the hotel, Stout Public House, which was delicious, then went back to stake a claim in the session hall in anticipation of the Mythbusters panel later that day. Leading up to the main event were panels for Warehouse 13 and Eureka, which were both entertaining. Meg hadn’t seen Eureka before, and we’d only seen a few episodes of W13, but still really enjoyed the sessions. Then there was a preview of a new show, Nikita, loosely based on the French film of the same name and other derivative works of the film. It was okay, but I didn’t feel it really felt like something new, more just a rehash. I guess we’ll see how it does when it hits the air later this year. Human Target followed, a show that neither of us had seen, but it looked fairly entertaining, so we may check it out. Then came the panel we were waiting for, Mythbusters.

Apparently this was the first convention where the entire cast appeared together, so that was kindof cool. We had actually had a hard time taking photos of Adam, as he rarely stopped moving for more than a few seconds. Jamie on the other hand was the master of the two word answer, one of them generally being “umm”. It was a very entertaining panel, though I would have liked someone to have asked them if they ever felt they had too many explosions.

On the last day of the convention, we again wandered over early to try to get into the Castle panel. When we saw the line for it, Meg wanted to give up and just wander around again, but I convinced her to wait it out, which payed off. While we were waiting in line, we met a girl who had travelled over from Australia for the con. She’s a huge Harry Potter fan, and had tattoos of a golden snitch along with the Hogwart’s house crests down her spine. She’s also how we found out about the pen stabbing incident in one of the larger sessions the previous day. As we were heading into the Castle session they were handing out shwag boxes containing water bottles. Turns out some of them had passes for a special autograph session with the cast, and Meg had handed one of the boxes with a pass to the girl we met in line on the way in. Meg was a little annoyed that she had been so close to meeting one of her idols, but was happy that it went to someone who would appreciate it. Again it was a great panel, Fillion was hilarious, reading a passage from the book supposedly written by his character from the show. In general he was hamming it up the whole time and Meg could barely contain her drooling.

After Castle there was a panel for Merlin we decided to stay for, mostly for Anthony Stewart Head, who Meg liked from his role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Afterward we decided to hit the vendors again, but the hall was so jam-packed with people that we could barely move. Apparently I was several feet from Danny DeVito at one point, but missed it due to being preoccupied trying to shovel people out of my path.

After calling it quits on the con, we met up with my friend Matt. He’s been living out in San Diego for a few years now, attending UCSD. He took up to El Zarape for dinner, where I had some delicious Mahi Mahi tacos, then off to see some of the sights in the area. We got to see a children’s beach that had been taken over by seals, then a rock outcropping covered in sea lions. We wandered around a beach for a bit, and the UCSD campus, seeing their impressive library and some of their outdoor art installations. Also an odd amount of nocturnal wildlife, including a number of rabbits, a raccoon, and a guy sleeping on a lawn. Eventually we called it a night, and settled back into the hotel for our last night in SD.

Overall we had a great time. It was an awesome 4 days, but exhausting as well. We’d like to go again, but probably not for a few years. We did learn a few lessons for next time though.

1. Bring a backpack stocked with water and snacks. Buying supplies at the con is way too expensive.
2. If we want to see anything in the large halls (H or 20), we need to be up way too early to get in line.
3. Buy anything we really want from the vendors before Sunday. Sure, the deals are to be had on Sunday, but you have to beat a path through the crowds with a cricket bat.
4. Skip the rental car, public transit is more than adequate for the convention.
5. Plan a longer trip so there’s time to relax before heading back to work.

kittybrat

1. Who are you?
2. Are we friends?
3. When and how did we meet?
4. Do you have a crush on me?
5. Would you kiss me?
6. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.
7. Describe me in one word.
8. What was your first impression?
9. Do you still think that way about me now?
10. What reminds you of me?
11. If you could give me anything what would it be?
12. How well do you know me?
13. When’s the last time you saw me?
14. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn’t? and why not?
15. Do you want me, and if so in what ways (friend, boyfriend, fellow ninja, etc)?
16. If you had me would you ever let me go?
17. Is there a song that describes me to you, or about you and me?
18. When you know you’re about to see me do you get giddy like a school girl?
19. What physically sticks out the most about me?
20. Are you going to put this on your blog and see what I say about you?

As for the weekend, Friday night was spent bowling with Amanda, Dan, Delia, Snood, Shadow, and Tim. We bowled two games, I did pretty poorly the first one, then threw 6 strikes in the second one. One of my better games, I think. Afterward, we made our way to Applebee’s for dinner, then the Milford crew went back to Milford and I went with Delia and Snood to Shadow’s house for a bit. Upon eventually returning to Manchester, we came to discover that Snood’s car was missing. A couple of phone calls revealed that it had been towed, which is fairly rare for my apartment place. So they ended up just crashing at my place (hooray for futon) and we got his car back in the morning. Never a dull moment.

Saturday was Delia’s concert with the Merrimack Community Chorus. It was a formal event, so I wasn’t so sure about going at first. Delia said I could just go in my normal work clothes, decent pants with one of my pocketed shirts. By the time I got home and was actually getting ready, I decided to don my suit for the event anyway. I think it was the first time I actually enjoyed getting dressed up for anything. The concert was quite good, and I’m looking forward to getting one of the recordings. Also looking forward to the next concert, which I intend to drag a couple of people along to.

On Sunday, I went with Delia to the mall, where she got a Hello Kitty pirate tshirt. I think it looks pretty cool. I’ll have to get a picture when she wears it. After that I tagged along for a meeting at Denny’s, which was apparently much smaller and less eventful than these meetings typically are. Afterward, we wandered over to Headlines, where Delia got a piece of jewelry that I have to keep away from her for a while. She doesn’t want too many people to know about it, so I’ll just be vague about it. From there we went to sit in on a D&D session with Shadow and Angel, which was vaguely interesting. I had very little idea what was currently going on, since they were in the middle of what sounded like a fairly complicated adventure. I think I might ask if I can join up with that group though, I miss playing, and it really doesn’t seem like Kris’s campaign is going anywhere.

So, that’s about it for my weekend. I’ve got some other ideas floating around in my head, but I’ll write them down later, I think.