SDCC 2013 (aka, "my con entry is longer that yours" or "TL;DR")
Still working on adding all my pictures.
My trip started out almost disastrous. I showed up at Pearson Int’l Airport and couldn’t get the check-in kiosk to work. After 2 unsuccessful attempts to scan my passport, I went to a check-in agent for help and she informed me that it was 3 minutes past the check-in cut-off. Whut? Never heard of this before. I’ve gotten on international flights under the 60 min mark, not to mention, I had been attempting to check in for about 10 mins before I went to her. The way I figure, the flight was overbooked, so when a plane-load checked in already, they gave away my seat and effectively “bumped” me out of the flight (since all the other international flights I had gotten in on in under the 60 min mark all had plenty of vacancies).
I was told to go to the customer assistance desk a few isles over to see if I can be rebooked for another flight. There was no line and the lady I got was super fantastic. Her first reaction was to try to book me on the direct flight instead. No such luck. It was overbooked by 6 people already and extremely unlikely to have that many no shows. When she went to check other flights with layovers, she made a series of weird faces and then told me “it doesn’t look like there’s any space at all today…or tomorrow…or for almost the entire week.” Eventually, she noticed that I had bought my flight with points, so she had to send me away to call Aeroplan to make arrangements since she couldn’t put me on flights with other airlines and Air Canada only had one direct flight to San Diego per day.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time on Red Flags Forum trying to find all the good tips for travel and any loopholes that I may be able to exploit Aeroplan/Air Canada for, so I’ve also become familiar with all the Aeroplan horror stories. Thankfully THIS TRIP WOULD NOT BECOME ONE OF THEM.
Within 1 minute of answering my call, the Aeroplan agent managed to find an alternate flight for today that would land me in San Diego just short of 9pm (original flight would have landed me there around 2pm). I decided to push my luck a bit and see if there was anything that would get me there any earlier and she immediately came back with an 8pm arrival. I didn’t even hesitate to lay claim to it. She took a few moments to get approval from her supervisor to switch my flight (it was necessary since by this time, my original flight had already come and gone) and then gave me the confirmation details and sent me on my merry way.
Security was pretty easy going. Of course my boarding pass came with the “SSSS” of doom, but as I learned the previous year when I got the same, it didn’t really mean anything more than having to go through the body imaging machine. I’m pretty quick to assume the position in one of those. They’re lightening fast and no stranger feeling me up? I’m down with that. It’s not like I haven’t gone out in a swimsuit before. This isn’t much different (except that they couldn’t see my fat jiggle in the blurry stationary image like you can when I’m walking about in a swimsuit).
I met up with Chris and Ruth at the gate as my new flight was the next flight after theirs at the same gate. After they left, I went and got myself some Tim Horton’s and broke out my laptop to keep myself entertained until my flight boarded. I managed to get the first row of economy class and there was so much leg room that along with the guy sitting beside me (who was a middle-aged business man), we stretched out our legs as far as we could reach forward in bewilderment while making comments about just how MUCH leg room we had.
The new layover was in Charlotte, NC. Having never been there before, I had no idea that it was such a major hub. The central food court area had floor to high ceiling windows that oversaw the planes loading outside and the entire window area was lined with power outlets and rocking chairs. The layover here was a couple of hours, so I settled myself in and recharged all my electronic devices. The connecting flight to San Deigo was pretty uneventful as was the ride to the hotel where Chris, Ruth, Emilee, Nell and Shannon were already settling in. I ended up arriving around 8pm, but considering the alternative, I was just glad that I made it with only a few hours lost.
I had a goal that since we were there earlier than previous years that I would try to set up in the art show on Wednesday, so I tried to stay up to work on getting everything tagged and labeled and mounted. I had to give up sometime after 11pm since everyone else had gone to bed and all I could think of was how much I wanted to go to bed as well. Having only had 6 hours of sleep the previous night and neither leg of my flight being long enough to even nap much cemented my decision to just work on stuff the next morning.
Cue 6am and I’m up. I couldn’t find my purse the previous night (it was behind the curtains, but I didn’t think to look there), so I didn’t have my cell phone with me which meant I didn’t have a timepiece to check as I woke up sporadically throughout the night. I don’t know why, but I can’t go back to sleep unless I see the time if I wake up in the middle of the night. It’s like some dumb fear of oversleeping. By the time I decided it was pointless to try to force myself to sleep and I got up and finally found my cell phone, I was wide awake, so I just grabbed some art show stuff that needed doing and hid in the washroom so I wouldn’t be bothering everyone else with the noise and light.
Everyone else started to wake up around 7:30 and we eventually went down for the fantastic free buffet breakfast at our hotel. I miss those omelets so much. I had the same thing the entire week (spinach, mushrooms and sausage crumble omelet topped with salsa verde and sausage links and bacon on the side) and never got sick of it. It was the first time I’ve opted for egg white for the omelet instead of regular for the 3 years that we’ve stayed at this hotel, but it tasted better somehow. I wish I discovered this sooner. I also packed the same lunch from breakfast stuff every (bacon and sausage sandwich made with French toast) and didn’t really get sick of that either. It wasn’t for any good reason other than to save money on food inside the convention center and the fact that the really good restaurants in the area were always either too full of people or converted into off-site event space.
After breakfast, we caught most of a documentary/show for the top 10 most dangerous airports in the world before Ruth and Chris went off to sight see in the harbor, Emilee and Shannon went off to the Gaslamp Quarters for an emergency clinic because Shannon wasn’t feeling well and Britt went for a stroll (I think?). Nell and I stayed behind. I got to work on finishing up my art show stuff (still holding out hope that I’ll be able to get everything labeled and mounted in time to set up on Wednesday) and Nell caught up on Teen Wolf.
Everyone gathered back at the hotel around noon and rested a bit. We all originally had various plans for the afternoon, but at around 1, Chris found out that they had opened up badge pick up early because they were set up and ready ahead of the planned time, so we bolted out of there hoping to beat the crowds completely and breeze through. For the first time in the 3 years that we attended with this group, the direct trolley route was leaving from the stop closest to our hotel, so we bought tickets and waited for it. Having the direct route would save us almost 20mins of walking to the next closest stop and having to wait for a connection (not to mention the way the trolleys meet at the transfer station confuses me to no end, so I was happy to not have to navigate that). We bought 2 tickets each because they had changed their system so that the $5 day pass was no longer available. It was only after we ALL bought tickets that we noticed they were basically only good for one way travel from our starting station. Even still, we decided we would just go with it and not buy more since the fact that we were all from out of town and had 2 identical tickets was pretty good proof that we weren’t aware of this and did pay for the round trip ride should we come across a ticket check.
We got to the Town and Country hotel, running into Meg literally on the driveway of the hotel, and as expected, the pick-up line was non-existent. There was absolutely no line, so we walked right up to the tables and were able to get our badges printed instantly. On our way out, they were handing out this year’s SDCC bag. Luckily, they weren’t having a repeat of last year’s hide-the-design-and-give-them-out-blind method and the guys handing them out were MORE than happy to let each attendee choose which bag they wanted. They were even happy to accommodate me when I noticed that they had a Big Bang Theory bag and wanted to swap my Teen Titan bag for it (as I had gotten a Big Bang Theory one for the past 2 years and wanted to keep my record going). The bags this year were actually a smaller, but more reasonable and usable size compared to previous years when the bags were so oversized that even the tallest person at the con could not walk properly with the bag on. They were also built as a backpack style bag and had silly capes rolled up inside where you can unfurl them in such a way that they hang off the edge of your bag and essentially give you bag a super hero cape. Since my bag was a BBT one, my cape had a “Bazinga” flash symbol on it. It was a pretty cheap cape, but I thought it was a cute idea and definitely appreciated the attention to detail that went into them.
After we picked up our badges, Ruth ran off to go back to the hotel to get ready for her evening brewery event while the rest of us (sans Nell) went to the mall across the street for some getting lost on our way to the Cheesecake Factory. Much fattening and delicious later, we made our way back to the hotel, dropped off Ruth and Nell’s cheesecake requests and sat around for a bit before Shannon went to get in line early for her mid-night screening event. At that time, the rest of us went out for a stroll.
We made it to the Regular Show off-site location where we ran into Meg. Everyone else really wanted to check out the event, so we got into line and waited in semi-futility for a while before finding out that it hadn’t started running yet. Since most everyone else had gone around for a walk in the Gaslamp Quarters already except for me, Chris and I went for a stroll across to the Petco Park off-site event area. Everything was still in the final stages of set up, but the area wasn’t too crowded, so we took a quick poke around, grabbed some silly looking Hello Kitty headbands and made our way back to the Regular Show’s event site.
Before the line let up, Chris got news that the Nathan Fillion’s NerdHQ tickets were due to go up for sale at 8pm, so I bailed to get on the internet and try my rotten luck. Having had absolutely no luck with any of the previous years’ ticket and hotel buying/booking process, I honestly didn’t have high hopes here; however, Emilee (who was getting stuff ready for a visit to Shannon in her line up) wished me luck and when the tickets sold out by 8:01pm, I had a purchase confirmation sitting in my email for tickets for Ruth and I. I still don’t quite believe that it happened under my own powers and attribute much of it to Emilee’s luck wishing. ALL HAIL KING EMILEE!!!
The rest of the night was relatively uneventful. I continue to fail to get my art show stuff prepared.
Thursday morning. Breakfast and I FINALLY get my art show stuff ready and run out hoping to be able to get it all set up before the exhibition hall opens at 9:30. Art Show check in was pretty much a breeze as usual, and I manage to haul ass into the exhibition hall by 10am. First circle around and I got nearly nothing to show for swag. I was pretty disappointed, but figured that the good stuff will reappear later in the weekend, so with this in mind, I went over to the Marriot next door to check out the Nintendo Lounge while it wasn’t terribly crowded.
Apparently my jackpot was waiting for me there. This year’s large item giveaways required a lot more effort than previous years, but aside from the disappointing lack of impressive promo goods for Pokemon X and Y, the swag was pretty impressive.
Free swag (some were harder to find than other):
Luigi pin
Luigi gold coin
Pokemon X/Y starter cardboard hats
Pokemon mini-art print (aka a pretty flier)
Nintendo lanyard
Shitty Batman? Mask (really low quality and made from flat craft foam…didn’t bother grabbing one even if it was free)
Requirements for “earning” other swag:
Mario and Luigi in Dreamland pillowcase - play the game
Pikmin t-shirt - collect a ticket for any game you play; trade in 3 tickets at the info desk
Nintendo3DS drawstring bag - collect a ticket for any game you play; trade in 3 tickets at the info desk
Batman art print - play the game (they started this giveaway after they ran out of pillowcases from the Mario/Luigi game)
Since some of the swag involved having to play the games, I stood around waiting to play some games and by the time I was done, I had learned that I really, really suck at Donkey Kong. It was also about noon at this point, so I decided I would try to find where everyone else was and after a couple of calls, I managed to track down Chris, Ruth, Britt and Emilee who were hunting down card drops for some sort of World’s End event. I had completely missed the first round of drops for the day by the time I found them, but managed to join them for the 2nd round after which Chris and I attempted the “pub crawl” event which was a complete bust (lining up for almost half an hour in the sun to find out that they had capped the line far ahead).
After this, we went over to NerdHQ to try to find Chris details on the Hannibal NerdHQ panel and I poked at a demo of D&D’s MMO Neverwinter. I didn’t find out until half way through that I could get a nerdy “party time” t-shirt for finishing the demo. For some reason, I really, really wanted that t-shirt (and everyone had to deal with me refusing to shut up for most of the weekend about wanting to go back to finish the demo). After a lot of asking around and data usage, Chris managed to get his tickets and we eventually met up with the rest of the group again for a moment of lounging in a nearby hotel lobby. As the 3rd round of card drops was announced, Nell called about needing someone to let her back into our hotel room as her key card had ceased to work, the room did not have her listed (so the hotel would not give her a replacement) and even if it did have her listed it would have been useless since she had also misplaced her wallet. I wanted to drop off my bag of Nintendo swag and wasn’t nearly as committed to the card drops as everyone else (since I missed the first drop anyway and the others could just pick up an extra set of the 3rd drop for me), so we decided I would be best to go back to the hotel. Luckily, when we got into the hotel room, Nell found her wallet safely perched beside the bed and we made short work of the drop-by and headed right back out to enjoy the rest of the day. Since it was quite late now and there wasn’t much time left before the end of the convention, I did a quick round of the exhibition hall, found the new Tokidoki location in the exhibition hall (they had moved a lot of sections around this year, including where the art toy area was) and gave them my money.
What I bought:
- 2 Unicorno Frenzies ($5 ea). I didn’t like either of the ones I got, but they always let you swap for the display one, and as I was opening the boxes, the girl who took care of my purchases had opened a couple to put out on display and I managed to swap both of mine (they were not ones I wanted) for a Prima Donna and Peppero.
- TKDK x Stoopid Monkey collab t-shirt ($30). I don’t really care for the collab part, but I wanted something of the new Comic Corno unicorno and I didn’t really care for the large figurine they were selling (which was also lamely just packaged in a plastic bag w/ a cardboard tag).
- Carina figuring (for $10), the silver tabby dressed in a white cactus pup outfit with rainbow spikes.
- A couple of other souvenir-ish things people asked me to buy for them.
I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have any purses I wanted to buy or even ones that are just interesting. They always drag out a small number of bags (often out of production and sold out on the site) from their warehouse and sell them at really cheap clearance prices at the convention booth. This year’s selection was rather plain or stuff I didn’t really have a use for (they had a healthy stack of the plaid design in the large pencil/make-up case style for just $15). That’s okay though…I probably should stop buying TKDK bags anyway.
Before I left the con, I popped by the art show to see if any of my pieces had bids yet (I actually made a whole bunch of quick sales this day…which actually accounted for most of the money I made in the Art Show for the entire con). Not the most exciting end of day. HOWEVER, I decided to take a small detour to check out some of the off site stuff along the way and stumbled upon a “sample” giveaway for a Mexican soda brand. About 5 minutes later, I had 4 full bottles of free pop in my bag as I made the rest of the walk back to the hotel.
I met up with Emilee in the room as well as Shannon, who had finally returned from her many line ups. Borderline delirium Shannon was quite amusing, so I hung around for a while to watch Emilee attempt to make her eat or sleep. I watched some delicious Food Network and ate some delicious leftover Cheesecake Factory as everyone else trickled in. The rest of the night was relatively uneventful and as per usual, we were all in bed before 11pm so we could be well rested for the next morning.
Friday morning was relatively uneventful, with my same ol’ omelet and the same ol’ scramble for the exhibition hall opening. I was somewhat more successful with swag this time around, but somehow still not nearly as much as I had managed in previous years. Eventually, I gave up and followed Britt and Ruth to the Nintendo Lounge where they were playing game demos to collect tickets for their t-shirts. Not feeling the need for another Pikmin t-shirt, I hung around until they got theirs and then we departed. The main goal for this day was to line up for the VIP screening for World’s End. We had managed to obtain 3 full sets of the card drops the previous day and each set holder was allowed a +1, so we could manage 6 people if successful. We were supposed to get in line around 12:30 (the VIP wristbands would be handed out at 5pm), but shortly after noon, Chris got a text from Ruth that she had gotten to the line early and was already the 39th person in line. Since only the first 50 in line (along with their +1’s) were guaranteed wristbands, we literally ran to the line. Emilee had given her set to Anne since she was in Hall H for the afternoon and couldn’t do the line herself, so Chris, Ruth, Anne and I settled in for a long sit down for the afternoon. We took turns leaving the line for washroom breaks, errands, etc, so even during our 5 hour sit down, I managed to go to the local mall and get a good amount of shopping done.
Around 4:30, some of the event staff came out of the theatre and announced that our +1’s would need to be there in person to receive the VIP wristband, so we had to call Emilee and Shannon in a panic. Thankfully they had finished with their panels, so they hauled ass over in a pedi-cab and joined us just in time.
Once we had our wristbands, we rushed to get some dinner and do a run back to the hotel to grab essentials, like sweaters. After food, we scattered to get last minute stuff done before the screening started. I decided to duck into a 7-11 quickly to see what they had in terms of drinks and emerged victorious with a tall can of Soda Shaq.
(Yeah...that's the first picture from my whole trip...)
We had no idea what to expect of the pre-screening. We were really hoping that there will be special guests, but generally, the staff were very underinformed about the entire promotion, so even the staff who were working the event did not know much. Luckily, we were not disappointed as Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright walked into the theatre for a quick introduction right before the movie played. In the audience of the cozy theatre (I counted approx 200 seats total) were Nathan Fillion, Bill Pullman, and Alfonso Cuaron.
I’m not a fan of beer or pubs (except for some food), but the movie was great. I’m not the biggest fan of Hot Fuzz and I semi-enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, but this one was far superior in my books.
A number of the audience left as the credit rolled, but we stayed put because we were hoping for a much better surprise than just a shot at seeing an extra scene at the end of the credits. Gain, we were not disappointed when Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright came back on to have a panel before we were ushered out of the theatre, with goodie bags handed to us along the way. It took a while for everyone to swap shirts for a size they wanted (since our group all got smalls on our way out…lucky for me…not so much for the rest). Swag count for World’s End.
Around the con (anyone can walk by and get one):
Collectible promo cards of the 12 pubs in the movie
World’s End labeled bottled water (which they were also thoughtfully handing out while we were in line all afternoon)
For pre-screening attendees:
2 promo posters (one was out when we got our wristbands and the other was out when we came out of the movie)
Generic tote bag (with the production studio’s name printed on it…not exciting, but good size for groceries)
World’s End LE SDCC t-shirt
Glowing mouth piece (makes sense if you see the movie)
Friday ended as a late, but fun night.
Saturday morning Ruth and I decided to make a half-hearted attempt at the Indigo Ballroom for Geek and Sundry as well as How I Met Your Mother panels. We were hopeful, but weren’t counting on there being much of a chance of us getting in. It took a while to try to figure out where the end of the line was, but once we were in it, it was only a couple of minutes before a staffer came by to let us know that where we were at, there was no chance we would make it in for our panels, so we happily bailed, glad we wasted minimal time on the attempt. Immediately next to the Indigo line up was the Assassin’s Creed pirate ship line, so we joined that instead hoping to be able to poke around the merchant ship/Maritime Museum that was decorated and set up as an AC4 promo site. The line up was pretty long for a promo site, but it wasn’t due to open for another half hour, so we were hoping that it would move fast once it opened. The staff and surrounding people worked hard to keep us entertained. State Farms was giving away little foam soccer balls, so we each grabbed one and then waited around while event staff dressed in pirate and wench outfits came around handing out little promo swag every once in a while. I also had someone stealth-draw a portrait of me in my Lolita outfit and gift it to me.
Very shortly after 10am hit, we got onto the boat and had handfuls of swag thrust upon us. In the end, we each made out with 2 water bottles, 4 razors (the event was sponsored by Schick’s), a slightly awkward t-shirt, inflatable cutlasses and souvenir “antique” photos in our bags. We also went to the front of the ship (which we actually thought was off limits for a while) just in time for a history lesson on pirate weapons from an older, but very lively weapon’s historian who cracked a lot of old man jokes about himself. It was so much fun and we spent over an hour on the ship even though it only felt like about 20mins to me.
Since we were already outside, Ruth and I checked out some of the off-site stuff before eventually making it into the exhibition hall where I showed her where the Tokidoki booth was (and bought another t-shirt for which I was gifted a free unicorno frenzie! Got Caramello this time). We then stalked the Legendary booth for the next Pacific Rim t-shirt drop. In the process, we got plenty of yelling at by the hired security to move along and scored passes to the Godzilla experience that we couldn’t make (because it would conflict with the Serenity screening we got tickets for), so we gave them to people who were desperately trying to get a pass after they ran out. It was about an hour later that we finally managed to get into a line and got our t-shirts and Legendary Hot Wheels car… Emilee got lucky and had a guy offer to swap his t-shirt for her Hot Wheels, but at least we all got the t-shirts after waiting for so long!
We all split up for a while and Ruth and I made plans for when we would meet back up at the hotel to head over for Serenity in the Park (the Firefly movie they on a big screen in Petco park and everyone seat themselves on the grass to lounge around and watch it).
Ruth had grabbed food on her way back from the con, so I went off with Emilee, Shannon and Chris to Seaport Village (for my first time this trip) to get something to eat. I got my standard 2 slices of New York style thin crust pizza, one with artichoke hears and the other with sausage crumble, that I had pretty much subsisted on the entire previous year. It was still as delicious as I remember it.
After food was eaten, Ruth and I headed over to Petco Park, meeting up with Britt along the way and got into line for the movie. The line was already very long, but moved incredibly fast and we managed to get pretty good spots just slightly off to the side with a nice view.
The tickets were cheap, and the whole thing was for charity (organized by Nerd HQ), so we weren’t expecting much by way of guest appearances, but Zachary Levi (aka Chuck from Chuck, who started Nerd HQ) came out a while before the movie started to get the crowds going. There was a weird park employee who was going around with a broom and dustpan sweeping up trash amongst the crowd. I really didn’t see the point of doing so, but about 3 seconds after he passed 5m in front of me, someone on a neighbouring blanket whispered “that was Alan Tudyk”…and so it was.
Both Alan and Nathan Fillion made their way to a small make shift podium beside the screen and did an impromptu short talk before the movie started. They played peanut gallery for the first 10 mins or so of the movie before eventually leaving quietly as the main plot started up.
The movie was good, and honestly, the picture quality was much better than when I first watched it on Chris B.’s extremely dark, old TV where half of the dimmer scenes just looked like the TV black-screened. XD
Ruth and Britt decided to leave just before the end of the movie in an attempt to beat the rush of people out of the park. I had intended to stay until the end, but the funeral scene just didn’t hold my attention well, so I caught up to them by the gate where Britt was busy being chatted up by Zachary Levi as we strolled out.
It was quite late, so we returned to the hotel room and pretty promptly went to bed.
Sunday, last day of the con. I could almost feel post-con depression settling in from the morning. I didn’t want the week to end.
Sunday was the day of the Nathan Fillion Nerd HQ panel that Ruth and I had tickets for, but it wasn’t until late morning, so of course, we decided to join the madness of the exhibition hall in the morning. My original plan was to get into my other Lolita outfit that I had brought since the big meet up was in the afternoon, but by breakfast, it was apparent that I was feeling far too lazy for that, so I decided to head out in civvies and worry about changing after the panel.
Ruth and I had split up in an attempt to make a bee line for our respective goals, but as it turned out, the booth she was gunning for was right along my path, so I found her as she was doing a spot of shopping and decided to drop by and see the goods. As I was hovering over her shoulder, a random guy asked me if I would be willing to join the line with him for the Petco cat/dog Yoda ears since they were only giving out one per person and he had 2 large dogs he wanted to get them for. We were right near the front and the people behind him didn’t seem to mind, so I took a minute to help him out. Why not? Then as I continued down the aisle-way (which happened to be in the opposite direction that the Petco line was moving in), I ran into Ruth yet again, this time as she was in line to grab a set of ears as well. She had gotten a pair for Caleb right off the bat on Thursday, but she had decided to go for a pair for Caleb’s brother (whose family was taking care of Caleb for the week). I joined her and grabbed a pair for Spencer since I knew there was no chance in hell that Gypsy would ever let me put it on her.
I did a short and quick trip around the exhibition hall and didn’t really see anything interesting, so I swung by the Nintendo Lounge next door to see if maybe things have quieted down. I had no such luck. There were huge lines at every station although most of the good freebies were gone. Having more or less run out of options, I decided I might as well go to NerdHQ a little early and hang out there to make sure I wouldn’t be late for the panel.
I wound up playing another 2 rounds of the D&D MMO demo and got another t-shirt out of it before it was time for the panel. Since it was a ticketed panel with assigned seating, we didn’t have to wait in much of a line. Everyone quickly filed in and got seated in the cozy 250-seat room.
Much to our surprise, Alan Tudyk played host for the panel. He and Nathan ran a good panel with a lot of entertaining chatter. They even managed to field some truly terrible questions with minimal awkwardness. One girl asked Nathan, “What do you think Mal would be doing now if Firefly was still on the air?” As the audience groaned and Nathan stared at vacantly, Alan picked up his mic and announced, “I believe he would still be in mourning of the loss of his most loyal and excellent pilot.” Unfortunately for Alan, in his gracious attempt to save the stalling Nathan, he had just set himself up for Nathan to poke fun at him for the death of his character over the next several questions.
Nathan had brought a bag of random t-shirts he had collected over the years from various trips and cons that he auctioned off during the panel to raise more money for charity. At one point, he started talking about filming Castle in Vancouver and how Canada can get very cold. Then he pulled out a bottle of Buckley’s from his bag. It’s amazing how much money a bottle of disgusting cough meds with celebrity autographs netted. He was a pretty good sport about the crowds egging him on to take a swig and did so after getting the crowd to bid up the auction further. Overall, an extra $3000+ was raised over the course of the panel towards the charity that NerdHQ was supporting.
Afterwards, I went back to the hotel to change into my Lolita outfit so I could head to the meet up slightly early. The reason for this was because shortly before the con, the SD Lolita group announced that Sanrio would be sponsoring the meet up and in doing so, they had given 30 aluminum water bottles from the Hello Kitty Fashion Music Wonderland merchandise line that was launched (and mostly sold out) at SDCC. It was definitely one of the cutest and most practical giveaways of the con (and costly too, since it was $20 to buy at the site). Since I had no idea how they would count the first 30, I decided being early was the best way to secure my spot.
Honestly, in hindsight, the outfit was not my best, but for some reason I decided a sweeter than normal outfit would be good for the meet. Never again...
My coord:
- black h. Naoto Blood tank top
- pink BtSSB short sleeved bolero
- black BtSSB Paris no Mado (Windows of Paris) skirt
- white off-brand tights
- black Vivienne Westwood x Melissa 3 ankle strap flats
- pink BtSSB parasol
Shortly after getting to the hotel, I spotted some other lolitas included Stacy, Raechel and Trish who were all from Toronto as well and of course, Thanh, who I brought a selection of random maple flavoured snacks for.
The meet up was incredibly well attended, probably in no small part due to the fact that Sanrio was “sponsoring” it. The meet up organizers had bright pink Hello Kitty wristbands that they handed out to the first 30, so we were guaranteed our swag when we reached the final destination at the Hello Kitty merchandise truck/event location by Petco Park.
We walked along the marina behind the hotel and reached Petco Park in good time where we posed for some pictures (and videos) for Sanrio.
They also provided prizes for the coordinate contest, which was split into 2 categories, themed and general (whereas last year, the coordinate contest was split into classic, gothic, sweet and themed). Stacey won the themed contest (rightfully so! Her coord was fantastic) and got a Hello Kitty boom box in the shape of Hello Kitty’s head.
(Picture of Stacey, Emily and I at the start of the meet)
Emily won runner up in the general coordinate contest and got the standing HK plushie (which sold out during the weekend and is now going for almost $200 on eBay, wow).
A girl in a cute AP Chocolate Rosette won the general contest and got a bag of almost one of everything from the HK merchandise truck. It was QUITE the swag bag.
Once the contest winners were announced, the meet organizers set up the general gift bags for those who had wristbands for being one of the first 30 to arrive for the meet up. Much to our surprise, the bag contained much more than just the water bottle. We also received a copy of the comic book, a cell phone charm (on an earphone jack plug), a gel glitter pen (remember those from the late 90’s?), a rubber laser cut keychain and a pair of the HK fashion glasses (which I wanted so much, I was planning to buy them at the end of the weekend)! They also gave out HK shaped bottles of bubbles for everyone to play with.
("Borrowed" from xanyie/Thanh)
Unfortunately, since I still had to check my stuff out of the art show before the end of the con, I had to ditch early instead of hanging out at the meet, so Thanh and I left shortly after to go back to the convention.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to race to the art show to check out quite so early since there were still pieces waiting for pick up by their winning bidders, so I went and met up with Emilee and Ruth as they came out of the Tom Hiddleston NerdHQ panel and we went and found Chris and Shannon back at the convention center. They wanted to do a round of the exhibition hall, but I had to leave part way to finally go actually check out of the art show.
This year, I only had 2 pieces that were not picked up (I had like 5 last year )= ). As a super sweet staffer was preparing my check out paperwork, she mentioned that there were a few pieces of mine that she wished she bid on, but forgot to do so because Saturday got so busy, so I offered to sell her any remaining piece at the lowest bid price (since SDCC art show has after auction instant buys set at the BIN instead of minimum bid). She not only immediately jumped at the offer, but also called her daughter (who was also on staff) over because they had both wanted some pieces. They wound up each buying a piece and I gifted a pair of hairclips that the daughter wanted because her birthday had been the previous day (and she spent it working at the art show). Since we treated the sale as out-of-show (no commission paid and less paperwork to process on both sides), it totally made up for the 2 pieces that got bids, but were never paid for or picked up.
I slowly made my way back to the hotel with my art show remnants in hand, feeling sad that SDCC had come to an end for another year.
Contrary to our standard Seaport Village fast food end of con meals from previous years, we decided to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory for a group dinner (sans Britt who was having dinner elsewhere with an old friend). Along the way, Nell and I bonded over our love of Top Gear and quickly turned our seemingly innocent conversation about how we would camp overnight in line for a chance to see the BBC hosts into a weird and creepy alternate universe Mary Jane piece of fiction about our lives in a non-romantic marriage with our Richard Hammond bot. Don’t know how we got there, and I’m not sure if I’d ever want to go back.
Dinner was delicious and amazing. It was a far cry from my previous and only experience at OSF where the spaghetti was less than fresh and less than delicious. I think I will go there again next year if the opportunity presented itself.
We visited Anne as she was waiting for her other friends in the lobby of her hotel. The topic of conversation quickly turned to potentially leaving the Embassy Suites and aiming for one of the closer convention hotels instead. The general option seems like this is what we’re going to be trying for, with Embassy Suites as a back up as opposed to being the first pick. I guess we’ll see how well we do in the hotel lottery.
Finally, we returned to the hotel and got down to the task of packing.
Nell was first to leave the next morning with an early morning flight. Chris, Ruth and I left together in the late morning and I was dropped off at the commuter’s terminal before the cab went on to drop off Chris and Ruth at the main terminal. Check in was very smooth, and although I set off the metal detector (stupid hair tie), the customs officer (an older gent) was so entertained with my cat-eared straw hat that he just told me to go right through and not worry about the metal detector. Obviously, I need to travel with this hat more. XD
The rest of my trip home was quite uneventful and I arrived home late Monday night, already counting down for SDCC 2014.
My trip started out almost disastrous. I showed up at Pearson Int’l Airport and couldn’t get the check-in kiosk to work. After 2 unsuccessful attempts to scan my passport, I went to a check-in agent for help and she informed me that it was 3 minutes past the check-in cut-off. Whut? Never heard of this before. I’ve gotten on international flights under the 60 min mark, not to mention, I had been attempting to check in for about 10 mins before I went to her. The way I figure, the flight was overbooked, so when a plane-load checked in already, they gave away my seat and effectively “bumped” me out of the flight (since all the other international flights I had gotten in on in under the 60 min mark all had plenty of vacancies).
I was told to go to the customer assistance desk a few isles over to see if I can be rebooked for another flight. There was no line and the lady I got was super fantastic. Her first reaction was to try to book me on the direct flight instead. No such luck. It was overbooked by 6 people already and extremely unlikely to have that many no shows. When she went to check other flights with layovers, she made a series of weird faces and then told me “it doesn’t look like there’s any space at all today…or tomorrow…or for almost the entire week.” Eventually, she noticed that I had bought my flight with points, so she had to send me away to call Aeroplan to make arrangements since she couldn’t put me on flights with other airlines and Air Canada only had one direct flight to San Diego per day.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time on Red Flags Forum trying to find all the good tips for travel and any loopholes that I may be able to exploit Aeroplan/Air Canada for, so I’ve also become familiar with all the Aeroplan horror stories. Thankfully THIS TRIP WOULD NOT BECOME ONE OF THEM.
Within 1 minute of answering my call, the Aeroplan agent managed to find an alternate flight for today that would land me in San Diego just short of 9pm (original flight would have landed me there around 2pm). I decided to push my luck a bit and see if there was anything that would get me there any earlier and she immediately came back with an 8pm arrival. I didn’t even hesitate to lay claim to it. She took a few moments to get approval from her supervisor to switch my flight (it was necessary since by this time, my original flight had already come and gone) and then gave me the confirmation details and sent me on my merry way.
Security was pretty easy going. Of course my boarding pass came with the “SSSS” of doom, but as I learned the previous year when I got the same, it didn’t really mean anything more than having to go through the body imaging machine. I’m pretty quick to assume the position in one of those. They’re lightening fast and no stranger feeling me up? I’m down with that. It’s not like I haven’t gone out in a swimsuit before. This isn’t much different (except that they couldn’t see my fat jiggle in the blurry stationary image like you can when I’m walking about in a swimsuit).
I met up with Chris and Ruth at the gate as my new flight was the next flight after theirs at the same gate. After they left, I went and got myself some Tim Horton’s and broke out my laptop to keep myself entertained until my flight boarded. I managed to get the first row of economy class and there was so much leg room that along with the guy sitting beside me (who was a middle-aged business man), we stretched out our legs as far as we could reach forward in bewilderment while making comments about just how MUCH leg room we had.
The new layover was in Charlotte, NC. Having never been there before, I had no idea that it was such a major hub. The central food court area had floor to high ceiling windows that oversaw the planes loading outside and the entire window area was lined with power outlets and rocking chairs. The layover here was a couple of hours, so I settled myself in and recharged all my electronic devices. The connecting flight to San Deigo was pretty uneventful as was the ride to the hotel where Chris, Ruth, Emilee, Nell and Shannon were already settling in. I ended up arriving around 8pm, but considering the alternative, I was just glad that I made it with only a few hours lost.
I had a goal that since we were there earlier than previous years that I would try to set up in the art show on Wednesday, so I tried to stay up to work on getting everything tagged and labeled and mounted. I had to give up sometime after 11pm since everyone else had gone to bed and all I could think of was how much I wanted to go to bed as well. Having only had 6 hours of sleep the previous night and neither leg of my flight being long enough to even nap much cemented my decision to just work on stuff the next morning.
Cue 6am and I’m up. I couldn’t find my purse the previous night (it was behind the curtains, but I didn’t think to look there), so I didn’t have my cell phone with me which meant I didn’t have a timepiece to check as I woke up sporadically throughout the night. I don’t know why, but I can’t go back to sleep unless I see the time if I wake up in the middle of the night. It’s like some dumb fear of oversleeping. By the time I decided it was pointless to try to force myself to sleep and I got up and finally found my cell phone, I was wide awake, so I just grabbed some art show stuff that needed doing and hid in the washroom so I wouldn’t be bothering everyone else with the noise and light.
Everyone else started to wake up around 7:30 and we eventually went down for the fantastic free buffet breakfast at our hotel. I miss those omelets so much. I had the same thing the entire week (spinach, mushrooms and sausage crumble omelet topped with salsa verde and sausage links and bacon on the side) and never got sick of it. It was the first time I’ve opted for egg white for the omelet instead of regular for the 3 years that we’ve stayed at this hotel, but it tasted better somehow. I wish I discovered this sooner. I also packed the same lunch from breakfast stuff every (bacon and sausage sandwich made with French toast) and didn’t really get sick of that either. It wasn’t for any good reason other than to save money on food inside the convention center and the fact that the really good restaurants in the area were always either too full of people or converted into off-site event space.
After breakfast, we caught most of a documentary/show for the top 10 most dangerous airports in the world before Ruth and Chris went off to sight see in the harbor, Emilee and Shannon went off to the Gaslamp Quarters for an emergency clinic because Shannon wasn’t feeling well and Britt went for a stroll (I think?). Nell and I stayed behind. I got to work on finishing up my art show stuff (still holding out hope that I’ll be able to get everything labeled and mounted in time to set up on Wednesday) and Nell caught up on Teen Wolf.
Everyone gathered back at the hotel around noon and rested a bit. We all originally had various plans for the afternoon, but at around 1, Chris found out that they had opened up badge pick up early because they were set up and ready ahead of the planned time, so we bolted out of there hoping to beat the crowds completely and breeze through. For the first time in the 3 years that we attended with this group, the direct trolley route was leaving from the stop closest to our hotel, so we bought tickets and waited for it. Having the direct route would save us almost 20mins of walking to the next closest stop and having to wait for a connection (not to mention the way the trolleys meet at the transfer station confuses me to no end, so I was happy to not have to navigate that). We bought 2 tickets each because they had changed their system so that the $5 day pass was no longer available. It was only after we ALL bought tickets that we noticed they were basically only good for one way travel from our starting station. Even still, we decided we would just go with it and not buy more since the fact that we were all from out of town and had 2 identical tickets was pretty good proof that we weren’t aware of this and did pay for the round trip ride should we come across a ticket check.
We got to the Town and Country hotel, running into Meg literally on the driveway of the hotel, and as expected, the pick-up line was non-existent. There was absolutely no line, so we walked right up to the tables and were able to get our badges printed instantly. On our way out, they were handing out this year’s SDCC bag. Luckily, they weren’t having a repeat of last year’s hide-the-design-and-give-them-out-blind method and the guys handing them out were MORE than happy to let each attendee choose which bag they wanted. They were even happy to accommodate me when I noticed that they had a Big Bang Theory bag and wanted to swap my Teen Titan bag for it (as I had gotten a Big Bang Theory one for the past 2 years and wanted to keep my record going). The bags this year were actually a smaller, but more reasonable and usable size compared to previous years when the bags were so oversized that even the tallest person at the con could not walk properly with the bag on. They were also built as a backpack style bag and had silly capes rolled up inside where you can unfurl them in such a way that they hang off the edge of your bag and essentially give you bag a super hero cape. Since my bag was a BBT one, my cape had a “Bazinga” flash symbol on it. It was a pretty cheap cape, but I thought it was a cute idea and definitely appreciated the attention to detail that went into them.
After we picked up our badges, Ruth ran off to go back to the hotel to get ready for her evening brewery event while the rest of us (sans Nell) went to the mall across the street for some getting lost on our way to the Cheesecake Factory. Much fattening and delicious later, we made our way back to the hotel, dropped off Ruth and Nell’s cheesecake requests and sat around for a bit before Shannon went to get in line early for her mid-night screening event. At that time, the rest of us went out for a stroll.
We made it to the Regular Show off-site location where we ran into Meg. Everyone else really wanted to check out the event, so we got into line and waited in semi-futility for a while before finding out that it hadn’t started running yet. Since most everyone else had gone around for a walk in the Gaslamp Quarters already except for me, Chris and I went for a stroll across to the Petco Park off-site event area. Everything was still in the final stages of set up, but the area wasn’t too crowded, so we took a quick poke around, grabbed some silly looking Hello Kitty headbands and made our way back to the Regular Show’s event site.
Before the line let up, Chris got news that the Nathan Fillion’s NerdHQ tickets were due to go up for sale at 8pm, so I bailed to get on the internet and try my rotten luck. Having had absolutely no luck with any of the previous years’ ticket and hotel buying/booking process, I honestly didn’t have high hopes here; however, Emilee (who was getting stuff ready for a visit to Shannon in her line up) wished me luck and when the tickets sold out by 8:01pm, I had a purchase confirmation sitting in my email for tickets for Ruth and I. I still don’t quite believe that it happened under my own powers and attribute much of it to Emilee’s luck wishing. ALL HAIL KING EMILEE!!!
The rest of the night was relatively uneventful. I continue to fail to get my art show stuff prepared.
Thursday morning. Breakfast and I FINALLY get my art show stuff ready and run out hoping to be able to get it all set up before the exhibition hall opens at 9:30. Art Show check in was pretty much a breeze as usual, and I manage to haul ass into the exhibition hall by 10am. First circle around and I got nearly nothing to show for swag. I was pretty disappointed, but figured that the good stuff will reappear later in the weekend, so with this in mind, I went over to the Marriot next door to check out the Nintendo Lounge while it wasn’t terribly crowded.
Apparently my jackpot was waiting for me there. This year’s large item giveaways required a lot more effort than previous years, but aside from the disappointing lack of impressive promo goods for Pokemon X and Y, the swag was pretty impressive.
Free swag (some were harder to find than other):
Luigi pin
Luigi gold coin
Pokemon X/Y starter cardboard hats
Pokemon mini-art print (aka a pretty flier)
Nintendo lanyard
Shitty Batman? Mask (really low quality and made from flat craft foam…didn’t bother grabbing one even if it was free)
Requirements for “earning” other swag:
Mario and Luigi in Dreamland pillowcase - play the game
Pikmin t-shirt - collect a ticket for any game you play; trade in 3 tickets at the info desk
Nintendo3DS drawstring bag - collect a ticket for any game you play; trade in 3 tickets at the info desk
Batman art print - play the game (they started this giveaway after they ran out of pillowcases from the Mario/Luigi game)
Since some of the swag involved having to play the games, I stood around waiting to play some games and by the time I was done, I had learned that I really, really suck at Donkey Kong. It was also about noon at this point, so I decided I would try to find where everyone else was and after a couple of calls, I managed to track down Chris, Ruth, Britt and Emilee who were hunting down card drops for some sort of World’s End event. I had completely missed the first round of drops for the day by the time I found them, but managed to join them for the 2nd round after which Chris and I attempted the “pub crawl” event which was a complete bust (lining up for almost half an hour in the sun to find out that they had capped the line far ahead).
After this, we went over to NerdHQ to try to find Chris details on the Hannibal NerdHQ panel and I poked at a demo of D&D’s MMO Neverwinter. I didn’t find out until half way through that I could get a nerdy “party time” t-shirt for finishing the demo. For some reason, I really, really wanted that t-shirt (and everyone had to deal with me refusing to shut up for most of the weekend about wanting to go back to finish the demo). After a lot of asking around and data usage, Chris managed to get his tickets and we eventually met up with the rest of the group again for a moment of lounging in a nearby hotel lobby. As the 3rd round of card drops was announced, Nell called about needing someone to let her back into our hotel room as her key card had ceased to work, the room did not have her listed (so the hotel would not give her a replacement) and even if it did have her listed it would have been useless since she had also misplaced her wallet. I wanted to drop off my bag of Nintendo swag and wasn’t nearly as committed to the card drops as everyone else (since I missed the first drop anyway and the others could just pick up an extra set of the 3rd drop for me), so we decided I would be best to go back to the hotel. Luckily, when we got into the hotel room, Nell found her wallet safely perched beside the bed and we made short work of the drop-by and headed right back out to enjoy the rest of the day. Since it was quite late now and there wasn’t much time left before the end of the convention, I did a quick round of the exhibition hall, found the new Tokidoki location in the exhibition hall (they had moved a lot of sections around this year, including where the art toy area was) and gave them my money.
What I bought:
- 2 Unicorno Frenzies ($5 ea). I didn’t like either of the ones I got, but they always let you swap for the display one, and as I was opening the boxes, the girl who took care of my purchases had opened a couple to put out on display and I managed to swap both of mine (they were not ones I wanted) for a Prima Donna and Peppero.
- TKDK x Stoopid Monkey collab t-shirt ($30). I don’t really care for the collab part, but I wanted something of the new Comic Corno unicorno and I didn’t really care for the large figurine they were selling (which was also lamely just packaged in a plastic bag w/ a cardboard tag).
- Carina figuring (for $10), the silver tabby dressed in a white cactus pup outfit with rainbow spikes.
- A couple of other souvenir-ish things people asked me to buy for them.
I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have any purses I wanted to buy or even ones that are just interesting. They always drag out a small number of bags (often out of production and sold out on the site) from their warehouse and sell them at really cheap clearance prices at the convention booth. This year’s selection was rather plain or stuff I didn’t really have a use for (they had a healthy stack of the plaid design in the large pencil/make-up case style for just $15). That’s okay though…I probably should stop buying TKDK bags anyway.
Before I left the con, I popped by the art show to see if any of my pieces had bids yet (I actually made a whole bunch of quick sales this day…which actually accounted for most of the money I made in the Art Show for the entire con). Not the most exciting end of day. HOWEVER, I decided to take a small detour to check out some of the off site stuff along the way and stumbled upon a “sample” giveaway for a Mexican soda brand. About 5 minutes later, I had 4 full bottles of free pop in my bag as I made the rest of the walk back to the hotel.
I met up with Emilee in the room as well as Shannon, who had finally returned from her many line ups. Borderline delirium Shannon was quite amusing, so I hung around for a while to watch Emilee attempt to make her eat or sleep. I watched some delicious Food Network and ate some delicious leftover Cheesecake Factory as everyone else trickled in. The rest of the night was relatively uneventful and as per usual, we were all in bed before 11pm so we could be well rested for the next morning.
Friday morning was relatively uneventful, with my same ol’ omelet and the same ol’ scramble for the exhibition hall opening. I was somewhat more successful with swag this time around, but somehow still not nearly as much as I had managed in previous years. Eventually, I gave up and followed Britt and Ruth to the Nintendo Lounge where they were playing game demos to collect tickets for their t-shirts. Not feeling the need for another Pikmin t-shirt, I hung around until they got theirs and then we departed. The main goal for this day was to line up for the VIP screening for World’s End. We had managed to obtain 3 full sets of the card drops the previous day and each set holder was allowed a +1, so we could manage 6 people if successful. We were supposed to get in line around 12:30 (the VIP wristbands would be handed out at 5pm), but shortly after noon, Chris got a text from Ruth that she had gotten to the line early and was already the 39th person in line. Since only the first 50 in line (along with their +1’s) were guaranteed wristbands, we literally ran to the line. Emilee had given her set to Anne since she was in Hall H for the afternoon and couldn’t do the line herself, so Chris, Ruth, Anne and I settled in for a long sit down for the afternoon. We took turns leaving the line for washroom breaks, errands, etc, so even during our 5 hour sit down, I managed to go to the local mall and get a good amount of shopping done.
Around 4:30, some of the event staff came out of the theatre and announced that our +1’s would need to be there in person to receive the VIP wristband, so we had to call Emilee and Shannon in a panic. Thankfully they had finished with their panels, so they hauled ass over in a pedi-cab and joined us just in time.
Once we had our wristbands, we rushed to get some dinner and do a run back to the hotel to grab essentials, like sweaters. After food, we scattered to get last minute stuff done before the screening started. I decided to duck into a 7-11 quickly to see what they had in terms of drinks and emerged victorious with a tall can of Soda Shaq.
(Yeah...that's the first picture from my whole trip...)
We had no idea what to expect of the pre-screening. We were really hoping that there will be special guests, but generally, the staff were very underinformed about the entire promotion, so even the staff who were working the event did not know much. Luckily, we were not disappointed as Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright walked into the theatre for a quick introduction right before the movie played. In the audience of the cozy theatre (I counted approx 200 seats total) were Nathan Fillion, Bill Pullman, and Alfonso Cuaron.
I’m not a fan of beer or pubs (except for some food), but the movie was great. I’m not the biggest fan of Hot Fuzz and I semi-enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, but this one was far superior in my books.
A number of the audience left as the credit rolled, but we stayed put because we were hoping for a much better surprise than just a shot at seeing an extra scene at the end of the credits. Gain, we were not disappointed when Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright came back on to have a panel before we were ushered out of the theatre, with goodie bags handed to us along the way. It took a while for everyone to swap shirts for a size they wanted (since our group all got smalls on our way out…lucky for me…not so much for the rest). Swag count for World’s End.
Around the con (anyone can walk by and get one):
Collectible promo cards of the 12 pubs in the movie
World’s End labeled bottled water (which they were also thoughtfully handing out while we were in line all afternoon)
For pre-screening attendees:
2 promo posters (one was out when we got our wristbands and the other was out when we came out of the movie)
Generic tote bag (with the production studio’s name printed on it…not exciting, but good size for groceries)
World’s End LE SDCC t-shirt
Glowing mouth piece (makes sense if you see the movie)
Friday ended as a late, but fun night.
Saturday morning Ruth and I decided to make a half-hearted attempt at the Indigo Ballroom for Geek and Sundry as well as How I Met Your Mother panels. We were hopeful, but weren’t counting on there being much of a chance of us getting in. It took a while to try to figure out where the end of the line was, but once we were in it, it was only a couple of minutes before a staffer came by to let us know that where we were at, there was no chance we would make it in for our panels, so we happily bailed, glad we wasted minimal time on the attempt. Immediately next to the Indigo line up was the Assassin’s Creed pirate ship line, so we joined that instead hoping to be able to poke around the merchant ship/Maritime Museum that was decorated and set up as an AC4 promo site. The line up was pretty long for a promo site, but it wasn’t due to open for another half hour, so we were hoping that it would move fast once it opened. The staff and surrounding people worked hard to keep us entertained. State Farms was giving away little foam soccer balls, so we each grabbed one and then waited around while event staff dressed in pirate and wench outfits came around handing out little promo swag every once in a while. I also had someone stealth-draw a portrait of me in my Lolita outfit and gift it to me.
Very shortly after 10am hit, we got onto the boat and had handfuls of swag thrust upon us. In the end, we each made out with 2 water bottles, 4 razors (the event was sponsored by Schick’s), a slightly awkward t-shirt, inflatable cutlasses and souvenir “antique” photos in our bags. We also went to the front of the ship (which we actually thought was off limits for a while) just in time for a history lesson on pirate weapons from an older, but very lively weapon’s historian who cracked a lot of old man jokes about himself. It was so much fun and we spent over an hour on the ship even though it only felt like about 20mins to me.
Since we were already outside, Ruth and I checked out some of the off-site stuff before eventually making it into the exhibition hall where I showed her where the Tokidoki booth was (and bought another t-shirt for which I was gifted a free unicorno frenzie! Got Caramello this time). We then stalked the Legendary booth for the next Pacific Rim t-shirt drop. In the process, we got plenty of yelling at by the hired security to move along and scored passes to the Godzilla experience that we couldn’t make (because it would conflict with the Serenity screening we got tickets for), so we gave them to people who were desperately trying to get a pass after they ran out. It was about an hour later that we finally managed to get into a line and got our t-shirts and Legendary Hot Wheels car… Emilee got lucky and had a guy offer to swap his t-shirt for her Hot Wheels, but at least we all got the t-shirts after waiting for so long!
We all split up for a while and Ruth and I made plans for when we would meet back up at the hotel to head over for Serenity in the Park (the Firefly movie they on a big screen in Petco park and everyone seat themselves on the grass to lounge around and watch it).
Ruth had grabbed food on her way back from the con, so I went off with Emilee, Shannon and Chris to Seaport Village (for my first time this trip) to get something to eat. I got my standard 2 slices of New York style thin crust pizza, one with artichoke hears and the other with sausage crumble, that I had pretty much subsisted on the entire previous year. It was still as delicious as I remember it.
After food was eaten, Ruth and I headed over to Petco Park, meeting up with Britt along the way and got into line for the movie. The line was already very long, but moved incredibly fast and we managed to get pretty good spots just slightly off to the side with a nice view.
The tickets were cheap, and the whole thing was for charity (organized by Nerd HQ), so we weren’t expecting much by way of guest appearances, but Zachary Levi (aka Chuck from Chuck, who started Nerd HQ) came out a while before the movie started to get the crowds going. There was a weird park employee who was going around with a broom and dustpan sweeping up trash amongst the crowd. I really didn’t see the point of doing so, but about 3 seconds after he passed 5m in front of me, someone on a neighbouring blanket whispered “that was Alan Tudyk”…and so it was.
Both Alan and Nathan Fillion made their way to a small make shift podium beside the screen and did an impromptu short talk before the movie started. They played peanut gallery for the first 10 mins or so of the movie before eventually leaving quietly as the main plot started up.
The movie was good, and honestly, the picture quality was much better than when I first watched it on Chris B.’s extremely dark, old TV where half of the dimmer scenes just looked like the TV black-screened. XD
Ruth and Britt decided to leave just before the end of the movie in an attempt to beat the rush of people out of the park. I had intended to stay until the end, but the funeral scene just didn’t hold my attention well, so I caught up to them by the gate where Britt was busy being chatted up by Zachary Levi as we strolled out.
It was quite late, so we returned to the hotel room and pretty promptly went to bed.
Sunday, last day of the con. I could almost feel post-con depression settling in from the morning. I didn’t want the week to end.
Sunday was the day of the Nathan Fillion Nerd HQ panel that Ruth and I had tickets for, but it wasn’t until late morning, so of course, we decided to join the madness of the exhibition hall in the morning. My original plan was to get into my other Lolita outfit that I had brought since the big meet up was in the afternoon, but by breakfast, it was apparent that I was feeling far too lazy for that, so I decided to head out in civvies and worry about changing after the panel.
Ruth and I had split up in an attempt to make a bee line for our respective goals, but as it turned out, the booth she was gunning for was right along my path, so I found her as she was doing a spot of shopping and decided to drop by and see the goods. As I was hovering over her shoulder, a random guy asked me if I would be willing to join the line with him for the Petco cat/dog Yoda ears since they were only giving out one per person and he had 2 large dogs he wanted to get them for. We were right near the front and the people behind him didn’t seem to mind, so I took a minute to help him out. Why not? Then as I continued down the aisle-way (which happened to be in the opposite direction that the Petco line was moving in), I ran into Ruth yet again, this time as she was in line to grab a set of ears as well. She had gotten a pair for Caleb right off the bat on Thursday, but she had decided to go for a pair for Caleb’s brother (whose family was taking care of Caleb for the week). I joined her and grabbed a pair for Spencer since I knew there was no chance in hell that Gypsy would ever let me put it on her.
I did a short and quick trip around the exhibition hall and didn’t really see anything interesting, so I swung by the Nintendo Lounge next door to see if maybe things have quieted down. I had no such luck. There were huge lines at every station although most of the good freebies were gone. Having more or less run out of options, I decided I might as well go to NerdHQ a little early and hang out there to make sure I wouldn’t be late for the panel.
I wound up playing another 2 rounds of the D&D MMO demo and got another t-shirt out of it before it was time for the panel. Since it was a ticketed panel with assigned seating, we didn’t have to wait in much of a line. Everyone quickly filed in and got seated in the cozy 250-seat room.
Much to our surprise, Alan Tudyk played host for the panel. He and Nathan ran a good panel with a lot of entertaining chatter. They even managed to field some truly terrible questions with minimal awkwardness. One girl asked Nathan, “What do you think Mal would be doing now if Firefly was still on the air?” As the audience groaned and Nathan stared at vacantly, Alan picked up his mic and announced, “I believe he would still be in mourning of the loss of his most loyal and excellent pilot.” Unfortunately for Alan, in his gracious attempt to save the stalling Nathan, he had just set himself up for Nathan to poke fun at him for the death of his character over the next several questions.
Nathan had brought a bag of random t-shirts he had collected over the years from various trips and cons that he auctioned off during the panel to raise more money for charity. At one point, he started talking about filming Castle in Vancouver and how Canada can get very cold. Then he pulled out a bottle of Buckley’s from his bag. It’s amazing how much money a bottle of disgusting cough meds with celebrity autographs netted. He was a pretty good sport about the crowds egging him on to take a swig and did so after getting the crowd to bid up the auction further. Overall, an extra $3000+ was raised over the course of the panel towards the charity that NerdHQ was supporting.
Afterwards, I went back to the hotel to change into my Lolita outfit so I could head to the meet up slightly early. The reason for this was because shortly before the con, the SD Lolita group announced that Sanrio would be sponsoring the meet up and in doing so, they had given 30 aluminum water bottles from the Hello Kitty Fashion Music Wonderland merchandise line that was launched (and mostly sold out) at SDCC. It was definitely one of the cutest and most practical giveaways of the con (and costly too, since it was $20 to buy at the site). Since I had no idea how they would count the first 30, I decided being early was the best way to secure my spot.
Honestly, in hindsight, the outfit was not my best, but for some reason I decided a sweeter than normal outfit would be good for the meet. Never again...
My coord:
- black h. Naoto Blood tank top
- pink BtSSB short sleeved bolero
- black BtSSB Paris no Mado (Windows of Paris) skirt
- white off-brand tights
- black Vivienne Westwood x Melissa 3 ankle strap flats
- pink BtSSB parasol
Shortly after getting to the hotel, I spotted some other lolitas included Stacy, Raechel and Trish who were all from Toronto as well and of course, Thanh, who I brought a selection of random maple flavoured snacks for.
The meet up was incredibly well attended, probably in no small part due to the fact that Sanrio was “sponsoring” it. The meet up organizers had bright pink Hello Kitty wristbands that they handed out to the first 30, so we were guaranteed our swag when we reached the final destination at the Hello Kitty merchandise truck/event location by Petco Park.
We walked along the marina behind the hotel and reached Petco Park in good time where we posed for some pictures (and videos) for Sanrio.
They also provided prizes for the coordinate contest, which was split into 2 categories, themed and general (whereas last year, the coordinate contest was split into classic, gothic, sweet and themed). Stacey won the themed contest (rightfully so! Her coord was fantastic) and got a Hello Kitty boom box in the shape of Hello Kitty’s head.
(Picture of Stacey, Emily and I at the start of the meet)
Emily won runner up in the general coordinate contest and got the standing HK plushie (which sold out during the weekend and is now going for almost $200 on eBay, wow).
A girl in a cute AP Chocolate Rosette won the general contest and got a bag of almost one of everything from the HK merchandise truck. It was QUITE the swag bag.
Once the contest winners were announced, the meet organizers set up the general gift bags for those who had wristbands for being one of the first 30 to arrive for the meet up. Much to our surprise, the bag contained much more than just the water bottle. We also received a copy of the comic book, a cell phone charm (on an earphone jack plug), a gel glitter pen (remember those from the late 90’s?), a rubber laser cut keychain and a pair of the HK fashion glasses (which I wanted so much, I was planning to buy them at the end of the weekend)! They also gave out HK shaped bottles of bubbles for everyone to play with.
("Borrowed" from xanyie/Thanh)
Unfortunately, since I still had to check my stuff out of the art show before the end of the con, I had to ditch early instead of hanging out at the meet, so Thanh and I left shortly after to go back to the convention.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to race to the art show to check out quite so early since there were still pieces waiting for pick up by their winning bidders, so I went and met up with Emilee and Ruth as they came out of the Tom Hiddleston NerdHQ panel and we went and found Chris and Shannon back at the convention center. They wanted to do a round of the exhibition hall, but I had to leave part way to finally go actually check out of the art show.
This year, I only had 2 pieces that were not picked up (I had like 5 last year )= ). As a super sweet staffer was preparing my check out paperwork, she mentioned that there were a few pieces of mine that she wished she bid on, but forgot to do so because Saturday got so busy, so I offered to sell her any remaining piece at the lowest bid price (since SDCC art show has after auction instant buys set at the BIN instead of minimum bid). She not only immediately jumped at the offer, but also called her daughter (who was also on staff) over because they had both wanted some pieces. They wound up each buying a piece and I gifted a pair of hairclips that the daughter wanted because her birthday had been the previous day (and she spent it working at the art show). Since we treated the sale as out-of-show (no commission paid and less paperwork to process on both sides), it totally made up for the 2 pieces that got bids, but were never paid for or picked up.
I slowly made my way back to the hotel with my art show remnants in hand, feeling sad that SDCC had come to an end for another year.
Contrary to our standard Seaport Village fast food end of con meals from previous years, we decided to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory for a group dinner (sans Britt who was having dinner elsewhere with an old friend). Along the way, Nell and I bonded over our love of Top Gear and quickly turned our seemingly innocent conversation about how we would camp overnight in line for a chance to see the BBC hosts into a weird and creepy alternate universe Mary Jane piece of fiction about our lives in a non-romantic marriage with our Richard Hammond bot. Don’t know how we got there, and I’m not sure if I’d ever want to go back.
Dinner was delicious and amazing. It was a far cry from my previous and only experience at OSF where the spaghetti was less than fresh and less than delicious. I think I will go there again next year if the opportunity presented itself.
We visited Anne as she was waiting for her other friends in the lobby of her hotel. The topic of conversation quickly turned to potentially leaving the Embassy Suites and aiming for one of the closer convention hotels instead. The general option seems like this is what we’re going to be trying for, with Embassy Suites as a back up as opposed to being the first pick. I guess we’ll see how well we do in the hotel lottery.
Finally, we returned to the hotel and got down to the task of packing.
Nell was first to leave the next morning with an early morning flight. Chris, Ruth and I left together in the late morning and I was dropped off at the commuter’s terminal before the cab went on to drop off Chris and Ruth at the main terminal. Check in was very smooth, and although I set off the metal detector (stupid hair tie), the customs officer (an older gent) was so entertained with my cat-eared straw hat that he just told me to go right through and not worry about the metal detector. Obviously, I need to travel with this hat more. XD
The rest of my trip home was quite uneventful and I arrived home late Monday night, already counting down for SDCC 2014.