Blizzcon Update
So as many of you know I'm at Blizzcon. I plan on giving updates daily if I can. I left for the event on Thursday so I missed updating that day, but don' worry I'm still going to post that day.
Thursday
It is the day before Blizzcon, so I thought I would give everyone an update about what has happened so far.
Wake up at 4 AM to fly to California (landed at LAX) from Milwaukee (MKE). This involves a 1 hour layover in Mineapollis (MSP), and has never been an issue for me in the past. Shoulda figued that this one wouldn't go so smoothly. Took off late from MKE, and then while in flight we were informed that due to ground control issues in MSP, we were going to be about 30 min late landing, giving us a total of 1 HOUR LATE! So needless to say our layover required us to RUN from gate A to gate B.
We ran from gate to gate, in a hope to catch this flight. We finally get to the gate to find out that the flight has been delayed as well. They need to change a tire on the plane so it's going to be an hour before we can board the plane. Sigh of relief to hear that. I then check on my upgrade status to find out that I was upgraded to first class. I didn't think Heather was going to get upgraded as well (since I'm Platinum status [means I flew alot last year] and she has none), so I told them to downgrade me so that I could still sit with her. After which the attendant had to look up where Heather was sitting only to find out that she HAD been upgraded as well. So now the gate agent had to re-upgrade me.
Now that we are both in first class we are waiting to for the agent to call for boarding, but then they said that it was going to be another 30 minutes because the ground crew brough the wrong tire from the hanger to the plane. So massive LOLZ, we ran from out original gate to make this flight for it to be delayed an hour.
Finally time to board and we find out that we had a plane change because the tire was still being a pain in the ass for the ground crew. What we wound up on was an International plane, not the normal plane most people are used to. This plane was nice, first class had these seats where the litterally reclined enough that they were like a bed. Heather LOVED this, so she wound up taking a nap.
So we finally get our 4 hour flight from MSP to LAX, thank god there were no flight problems there.
Landed in LAX and went to pick out our car, I'm special so we just get to walk out and choose whatever car we want off the lot, though we opted to stay away from the convertable Mustang since that might get stolen or I might get in trouble with it. So we got the Charger instead.
Get to the hotel and check in. Our hotel is literally next door to the convention center, so we caught a quick glimpse of the line that was developing to get our Blizzcon badges. We didn't think it looked that bad, so we went and checked into the hotel. Then we went down and got in line.
We got in line 2 hours before the doors opened, and this is what it looked like in front of us:
Within twenty minutes, this was the line behind us:
That may seem bad, but you can't see how far back it really goes, and I don't have a picture of that.
About 45 minutes before the doors opened they started moving the line forward, we thought they had opened the doors early. WRONG! Our best guess is that the line had wrapped far enough around the building that they needed to get everyone closer together so that we didn't start causing problems for the locals. So we got to stand for the next 45 minutes before we started moving.
The line finally started moving, and we found out how far back we really were from the entrance. We were litterally on the other side of the building.
So we finally got into the building and they had this thing really thought out, which is UBER good (especailly since they had to handle 20,000 people [total, not just for that time frame]). We got into the queue and were there for about 30 minutes, and as we were going out, we noticed that people were STILL COMING IN!
So now we have our swag, so we have to go back to the room, and Heather of course has to take pictures of all of it.
Now that all our swag is accounted for, we get to meet up with one of our guildies that lives out here and go to Dave an Busters. Really nice place, it's a grown ups Chuck E. Cheese. We ate and played games, fun was had by all. The only downside was the lack of crap in the prize area. While I respect that they think we're all adults, I missed seeing all the stupid kid crap you find at Chuck E. Cheese (where's the candy?). So we just found something to waste all our tickets on and called it a night.
Friday
I'm going to save ALOT of time here, I only went to the WoW panels because I couldn't fit everything in. My notes are good, but these notes are insanely better.
Went and got more swag. Heather of course had to get the three murlocs (2 from Blizzard store, 1 for signing up for the WoW magizine).
We then sat through the Costume Contest, which was interesting. Some really good costumes, and some really bad ones too. We weren't in a good spot for pictures, so if I can find links to the pictues I'll post them.
We then sat through the dance contest, which both Heather and I think they need to do something to weedle out the not so good dancers. They also need to do something about the number of people doing the same dance, ALOT of repeats.
We ducked out when they were doing the voice impersonations, those aren't all that good.
So now we're back here, I'm being a loser and updating a blog, and Heather is on WoW updating the guildies with all that we have seen. Hope you all enjoyed this "rousing" editon of Blizzcon '09, check back tomorrow for more updates!
Thursday
It is the day before Blizzcon, so I thought I would give everyone an update about what has happened so far.
Wake up at 4 AM to fly to California (landed at LAX) from Milwaukee (MKE). This involves a 1 hour layover in Mineapollis (MSP), and has never been an issue for me in the past. Shoulda figued that this one wouldn't go so smoothly. Took off late from MKE, and then while in flight we were informed that due to ground control issues in MSP, we were going to be about 30 min late landing, giving us a total of 1 HOUR LATE! So needless to say our layover required us to RUN from gate A to gate B.
We ran from gate to gate, in a hope to catch this flight. We finally get to the gate to find out that the flight has been delayed as well. They need to change a tire on the plane so it's going to be an hour before we can board the plane. Sigh of relief to hear that. I then check on my upgrade status to find out that I was upgraded to first class. I didn't think Heather was going to get upgraded as well (since I'm Platinum status [means I flew alot last year] and she has none), so I told them to downgrade me so that I could still sit with her. After which the attendant had to look up where Heather was sitting only to find out that she HAD been upgraded as well. So now the gate agent had to re-upgrade me.
Now that we are both in first class we are waiting to for the agent to call for boarding, but then they said that it was going to be another 30 minutes because the ground crew brough the wrong tire from the hanger to the plane. So massive LOLZ, we ran from out original gate to make this flight for it to be delayed an hour.
Finally time to board and we find out that we had a plane change because the tire was still being a pain in the ass for the ground crew. What we wound up on was an International plane, not the normal plane most people are used to. This plane was nice, first class had these seats where the litterally reclined enough that they were like a bed. Heather LOVED this, so she wound up taking a nap.
So we finally get our 4 hour flight from MSP to LAX, thank god there were no flight problems there.
Landed in LAX and went to pick out our car, I'm special so we just get to walk out and choose whatever car we want off the lot, though we opted to stay away from the convertable Mustang since that might get stolen or I might get in trouble with it. So we got the Charger instead.
Get to the hotel and check in. Our hotel is literally next door to the convention center, so we caught a quick glimpse of the line that was developing to get our Blizzcon badges. We didn't think it looked that bad, so we went and checked into the hotel. Then we went down and got in line.
We got in line 2 hours before the doors opened, and this is what it looked like in front of us:
Within twenty minutes, this was the line behind us:
That may seem bad, but you can't see how far back it really goes, and I don't have a picture of that.
About 45 minutes before the doors opened they started moving the line forward, we thought they had opened the doors early. WRONG! Our best guess is that the line had wrapped far enough around the building that they needed to get everyone closer together so that we didn't start causing problems for the locals. So we got to stand for the next 45 minutes before we started moving.
The line finally started moving, and we found out how far back we really were from the entrance. We were litterally on the other side of the building.
So we finally got into the building and they had this thing really thought out, which is UBER good (especailly since they had to handle 20,000 people [total, not just for that time frame]). We got into the queue and were there for about 30 minutes, and as we were going out, we noticed that people were STILL COMING IN!
So now we have our swag, so we have to go back to the room, and Heather of course has to take pictures of all of it.
Now that all our swag is accounted for, we get to meet up with one of our guildies that lives out here and go to Dave an Busters. Really nice place, it's a grown ups Chuck E. Cheese. We ate and played games, fun was had by all. The only downside was the lack of crap in the prize area. While I respect that they think we're all adults, I missed seeing all the stupid kid crap you find at Chuck E. Cheese (where's the candy?). So we just found something to waste all our tickets on and called it a night.
Friday
I'm going to save ALOT of time here, I only went to the WoW panels because I couldn't fit everything in. My notes are good, but these notes are insanely better.
Went and got more swag. Heather of course had to get the three murlocs (2 from Blizzard store, 1 for signing up for the WoW magizine).
We then sat through the Costume Contest, which was interesting. Some really good costumes, and some really bad ones too. We weren't in a good spot for pictures, so if I can find links to the pictues I'll post them.
We then sat through the dance contest, which both Heather and I think they need to do something to weedle out the not so good dancers. They also need to do something about the number of people doing the same dance, ALOT of repeats.
We ducked out when they were doing the voice impersonations, those aren't all that good.
So now we're back here, I'm being a loser and updating a blog, and Heather is on WoW updating the guildies with all that we have seen. Hope you all enjoyed this "rousing" editon of Blizzcon '09, check back tomorrow for more updates!