(no subject)
Another trip entry.....
Ok...so this first picture actually has nothing to do with the trip...but actually a wedding gone to...and in seeing birdie...made me think of Jinx....as had just gotten white peacock pet cause of her. And then..was seeing white peacock! So...this picture is for Jinxie mostly.
Ok...now tripness...So on the first of August we set off for California...Because earlier in the year we, the hubby and I, had tossed around the idea of going to BlizzCon this year (it only occurring every two years, and this actually only being the second BlizzCon ever)...And then about a month before, the hubby was on their page and asked if we really wante dto go cause tickets were for sale...and I said sure..He got two tickets..and then a couple days later, we learned that tickets basically sold out within 36-48 hours..So it was all a matter of timing and dumb luck that we got tickets...and were set to be taking this venture....For the hubby, a chance to show me some of the stuff he'd gone to and seen on his various business trips out there...for me..the first time out to the west coast...And of course...BlizzCon! Though, we also decided that we'd go a day earlier with the convention center being not far from DisneyLand.....and also decided to go all out and do the tr!
ip in style. So our hotel was in the middle, one block from the convention center, two blocks from Disneyland. And flying first class all the way, another thing I'd never actually done.
So...come August 1st, we got up and made our way to the airport....After parking the truck, the tram ride from the parking lot to the airport was...interesting...For at the last stop, there was this woman with two stroller, one a double stroller, and the three kids to go with it. The tram was already packed...and she had already passed up one of the trams, and so had to get on...She was good humored about the situation and tried to make light of it, apologizing. Though really...why pick the very last area to park in when you need to haul so much stuff upon the bus? It was amusing, but some better pre-planning on her part could have made it a little less stressful for her.
But we were there with plenty of time anyways, so not to stressful on us, just vaguely entertaining to watch. Got all checked in and through security, well nabbed some breakfast before going through..and then onto planness....very nice to also be able to get onto the plane first! Which...first class was a sweet experience....Drink service while the other people were getting on, plus omelets and fruit and basically breakfast served...while everyone else got snacks. Oh yes.....and the massive leg room....
We had layover in Fort Worth, which was a rather nice airport, and the second leg, they served us lunch. (Everyone else only getting their snack, one again!) Which, the last time I'd had an airplane meal was when I was in junior high, and it'd been nasty. But both were really quite good. And this lunch one even baked cookies, so we had fresh cookies. It's proof, people in first class really do get all the good stuff! They had some shows playing for the second leg, no movies. So I mostly entertained myself with checking out the windows, thus...you all are stuck with more sky pictures...but from a different perspective this time!
Getting luggage and the rental car once we landed in Santa Ana (or which ever of the five zillion names it is referred to by you prefer) went fairly smoothly. And since we got in fairly early in the day, plus all our flights were on time if not early (I know, shocking), we went ahead and headed up the coast to have dinner at this place that was a favorite of the hubby's when he's out there at the one base in the area.
General shoreline picture for everyone (yeah, I've seen the oceans on both coast now!)
The restaurant picture...
The food was rather good as well. Very simple, though mostly seafood stuff (since the ocean is right across the street)...So probably not a place for everyone.
Which, as I said, right across was the street...a beach for the surfers. So we wandered over after we ate to just kind of sit a moment and watch the surfers bob around on their boards and enjoy the ocean....and there was one heck of a surprise after a little bit...A pod of dolphins showed up and came swimming through the area! A thing that just cannot be planned or scheduled, so was really cool to see. I did try to nab some pictures, but was a bit hard to get any really good ones, all a matter of timing and well they weren't doing leaps and jumps. So I ended up with a number that were just dorsal fins, could have been a shark or dolphin at that point in the picture if you didn't know otherwise. But here are a couple of the better ones I did manage to get....
After that there was just some more driving along the coastal highway and the hubby pointing out some of the other things from her work travels, the base, the agricultural fields and other little odds and ends before we made our way to the hotel and crashed for the night. As it ended up being a long day, travel always causes that...but the three hour time zone difference between home and destination added to it.
Though...I have to say, overall I wasn't horridly impressed with the look and feel of California as a whole..Very dirty and dusty, granted I know is in part to the fact they don't get much in the way of rain. But there was also tons of litter everywhere, and lots of suvs and hummers...which just totally didn't go with the whole Go Green and Environmental friendly type image that they always seem to want to sell. So from that side of things, was a touch disappointed and not horridly impressed....After all...I didn't get to see the Hollywood sign cause there was to much smog that day!
The next day.....
That time change did sort of go in our favor in the morning since we got to sleep in and it was only like 7 or so local time. And of course no kitty to pester and wake me up and force me out of bed before I wanted to get there. We got around and had breakfast at the hotel before striking out towards Disneyland! Eeyore here I come!!
We got tickets and into the park we went, with much thanks to foxmagic for a this of ideas of what to see and were to go, as that was in hand as well as the park map to figure ot where to wander first. Which, after taking a picture or to in the entrance area and taking some pictures for a family or two (this would be a reoccurring theme for me all day! I got asked to take so many pictures!) it was time to venture forth....Which ended up being shopping first. The first stop ended up being the Mad Hatter's store, tons of mouse ears everywhere. And some rather cool varieties actually. But I found this little section with 'other' ears as well..and that led to the first of many Eeyore related purchases...Eeyore Ears! Which, I proudly wore for the rest of the day (well for a short span, but I'll get to that later). Through the day i would get many odd looks for wearing them as well, save from the one person who's path a crossed, who happened to be sporting Tigger ears! Most everyone else either not having ears or having the more popular mouse ears, in which ever flavor they preferred. Though I did see a couple sets of goofy ears, but the mouse were by far the most popular.
Ear purchases and worn, then there was much wandering through the various shops and purchasing of many Eeyore things. Which, foxmagic, I did end up getting many an Eeyore pin...plus some Stitch ones as well...though those more so in other areas of the park itself...No pin trading occurred though, as I didn't actually open any of them til I got home, they were buried within all the other stuff.
Eventually, did get through the main street shopping, very good placement of having it as the main area in and out of the park...
The first ride we did hit was the Jungle Ride with it's silly and punny humor. Cute and very enjoyable, though the boat was a bit jerky. It was definitely good for a laugh. And certainly a few things that were rather cool to have pulled off.
One of the many scenes to be found about the jungle.....something about not wanting to be the low man on the totem pole....
The one thing I did find to be rather neat as we wandered about the park was the fact that they did have fruit as snack options and several other healthy selections, rather than that standard 'amusement park' food, which granted they had a selection of that as well. And was also nice to have bottled water instead of pop, even if that is a common thing these days. Hey, it's been a horridly long time since I've been to any sort of amusement like part.
Anyways, to the next ride, which was Pirate of the Caribbean! Wooo!! very enjoyable, and had a lot of fun on this ride, granted it helps that I am a huge fan of the movies. The only down side to this was the moron in our little boat that couldn't understand the concept of NO FLASH PICTURES!!! Even when someone came on in the middle of the ride over the speaker and said for the bazillionth time, no flash pictures!!
But here are some of the pictures I managed....without a flash...
We did wonder afterwards about what modifications and updates had been made and added in due to the movies. There were a few obvious ones like having the likeness of Jack Sparrow in several places, and an end area with him about. But since neither of us had been before, we hadn't a clue..Still fun to think about.
Next we wandered into the Haunted Mansion, which was amusing and cute...Granted, I am sure I wasn't supposed to laugh as much as I did...since it is all ghosty and ghoulish, and certainly younger folks would likely be a touch more frightened with everything. A good time all the same. It was after coming out of this ride that we noticed a trend, as near all the rides so far we'd gone in with the signs saying 5-10 minute wait, and after we'd leave, it'd be up to a 20-30 minute wait. We were hitting things just right...Granted, we'd not rushed off to the more popular roller coastery rides either. Which, I don't like...I am not a roller coaster person...I have issues with heights.
Next it was time to round about to....
Mostly to see if Eeyore was out to get some pictures...Which he wasn't yet, just Pooh...So we went ahead and hitched a ride on the Winnie the Pooh Ride, again just a fun little thing. Scenes from some of the books and different cartoon features that exist. Very colorful and everything flowed nicely....And as with most things, geared more towards the little, young people.
The ride.....
...and into the ride..
We did go ahead and get some photos taken with Pooh while we were around and got an idea of when Eeyore would be out, so I could swing back or wait for him to get pictures. And hit up the Pooh Corner's store, which is where I nabbed the Winnie the Pooh pin collector's starter kit, again didn't open it until I actually got home...cause there was just so much going on! Did find out it'd be another hour or so before Eeoyre would be appear....So we wandered off...Which took us back around by Pirates...and just look how insane the line had gotten!!
We'd practically walked right in when we'd hit it earlier on. Well we wandered over and went on Mark Twain's river ride, nice slow little thing, but they had a good story to go with all the indian villages and other scenes they'd set up. And was a relaxing way to pass some time. We decided to nab lunch after that, ended up eating in the French Quarter...Which paid about what one would figure for eating in a park..But food was far better than we figured from past experiences with park related food..As I ended up with fried chicken and red beans and rice, the hubby had this stew in a bread bowl and a side salad. Really quite good and I didn't manage to finish all of mine.
Then it was back down to critter country to catch up to Eeyore...and he seemed to be out early, so hopped into line to get pictures. And like within a minute, they were taking him on back! So..I had to ask the character helper person about it cause she was the same one who'd told me in the morning what time Eeyore would be out, she apologized, of course. And gave a time frame of like 20 minutes and he'd be back. So we got out of line, hubby called his parents...I called my dad and ended up leaving him a voice mail...As I'd not really told him all what we were going out to Cali to do and he of all people would appreciate me and the Eeyore-ness. In watching the turn over in the picture taking and line, it was decided that it would be best just to get in line, cause by the time we actually got up near the front, Eeyore would be back out and if we got in line once Eeyore was out, but the time we got round to the front...he'd be going back. Granted, can't blame the high rotation!
with the heat and of course needing to add back in more fluff for it surely melting away all to quickly. So hopped in line...and I was right! Got up to the front (they had several characters for you to get your pictures taken with), by Pooh, (they always had a version of him out, but were rotating Tigger and Eeyore), we let a few extra people by, which the character handler saw what we were doing and thought it was great...but...by that time, they were doing another rotation...and since we'd already done the Pooh photos earlier on....she went ahead and let us go to the second area where they'd be bringing Eeyore to....and thus....
Unfortunately, the best parts didn't get snapped to put to film, as Eeyore and I spent a bit of time comparing Eeyore. ~coughs~ I'm sure people thought me odd. But Eeyore-ness was achieved!
And it had been fun to watch some of the little kids in line, cause several couldn't wait and would try to run up to Pooh or Tigger or Eeyore...And it was just to cute.
After we managed that, we figured it was time for a bit of a break and also not long til we could pick up our badges for BlizzCon...Being the reason we'd come out to Cali to begin with....though as the hubby put it, there was no way he was getting me out there and that close to Disneyland and not have to let me go. So we made our way back to the hotel (getting the handy hand stamp in exiting the park as that in combination with the ticket being required to get back in.) A brief break at the hotel and the dropping off of the Eeyore loot I'd amassed...we wandered on over to the convention center....
Which we ended up being more than a bit early (this being that time frame in which I went without the Eeyore ears)..>As the hubby had gotten the time wrong, recalled the time from a few years prior...though when we checked the info in getting back to the hotel....they'd changed it from what had been sent out..So they should have started earlier then they did.....So with being early, this is what the line and gathering looked like...
Waiting in line was kind of interesting since people would just startup conversations about what server people played on and get into conversations like they were old chums...Plus of course, seeing the various geeks was amusing...the majority being male..of course. But eventually they got around to the whole opening up (when all the Blizzard People arrived from their regularly scheduled day of work) and started giving out the goody bags and convention badges....And wooo! We were among the first handful of people to get them (there being like 13,000 or so people to attend this 'little' event). Of course...the line had changed just a wee bit between the time we showed up and the time we got our badge and were making to head back towards the park....
It actually goes out the doors and extends to 5-10 people deep once out the door. So...yeah...a few people.
But it was time to dump the goody bags back at the hotel...ok...we poked through them a little first. they included a t-shirt, special hardware to be sold during the convention, special discounts on stuff during the convention from some of the hardware companies that would be there and J!NX (gaming/t-shit company, not to be confused with Jinxie!), plus codes to get the WoW in-game murloc costume and a key to their next beta test (still up in the air on whether it will bet Starcraft II or the next WoW expansion), drink coasters, Blizzard hand sanitizer hookthingy (with the sanitizer), some special packs for the Warcraft board game, stickers, buttons, and some WoW themed Tattoos from J!NX..and some other odds and ends...
But time to get back to the park, since only having a day to spend there! It was amusing to walk back to, cause we were picking out which people were also around for BlizzCon. Once back into the magical world of Disney-ness....We hit up the all so classic ride...It's a small world.... Which, while I don't think I could stand having to actually work the ride itself...I thought it was rather neat, there was tons of detail to all the different sections and egads, the number of outfits and cultural costumes to work onto the gobs of little puppet figures. I just can't imagine the oodles of work that had to go into this thing....
Some of the pictures that came out alright (again, that no flash and movement thing factors into it all)
Though this room just had to make me wonder....pink kangaroos and blue koala bears? Really..Charmer...Jinx....You don't dye the poor things on a reuglar basis do you? (;
Oddly, I think the favorite part of the ride for me wasn't even within the ride itself, but all the intricate sculptured hedges they had on the outside. Done in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Another job I cannot imagine having to tackle, as along with all the animals, like the one pictured below...they had just geometric shapes and designs on some of the border ones about the ride...just insane detail and design going on.
Then we wandered a little, looked at the carousal...before deciding to actually get in the insanely long line for the Finding Nemo subs....The wait was noted as something like two hours, which we did manage to get on through in about an hour. I think most others that we went upon were at worst 15-20 minutes, if that. But very cute ride, the way they had video going in certain areas and it seemed like the nemo characters truly were about was rather neat...they did something similar in Pirate, but were projecting onto smoke/fog...neat effects. But a few pictures from the subs...
..the subs themselves and the seagulls...who did go off with the 'mine mine mine' ever now and again...
And they had the various characters down in the lagoon area, hidden here and there..before going into the deep tunnel thing where they had the animated story line for the ride.
After that we hit Mr. Toad's Wild ride....Short but amusing little ride. And then there was just random wandering about the park before hitting the shopping area between the two parks...We never did get over to California Adventure, just didn't have the time and by that time between all the walking and the time change, we were getting tuckered. The hubby jokingly complained about how he couldn't keep up with me, as really outside of lunch and the badge pickup, we never really stopped to rest...and were walking here or there...Well and of course the sitting during the rides.... but we weren't done walking yet! I'd seen there was a Lego shop in the shopping plaza between the two parks and wanted to check it out...So it was off to find that..which annoyingly it was all the way at the other end and of course all the shops were pretty much in a straight line...So we hiked on down....Rather neat Lego sculptures were to be seen...though I really didn't find any Lego sets I had to !
have...I imagine if we'd had the time to actually go to LegoLand, might have found something....thus just some nifty pictures...over all there was a giraffe (as you can see below), this snake that popped in out of the wall - very neat, and a number of Starwars characters. I can't imagine how long any of the actually took to make.
Then we made the hike on back to the hotel (noting the various geeky BlizzCon people that were heading towards Disneyland). We grabbed some food in the little bar place attached to the hotel. Which we both realized how hungry we were once we got the food...and then crashed...far to tired to stay up for the fireworks and attempt to hang out for that part of Disneyland.
Moving on to the next day....
It was breakfast again at the hotel, tons more geekyness in there this time...and then the short stroll over towards the convention center....some protesting to be had by leg muscles. I was faintly amused by that since I do the step aerobics regularly during the week....so thus really must have been quite the walk..but hadn't noticed so much since we were doing so much. Anyways...
Blizz Con! Wooo!!
We got there a bit early and joined into the rest of the crowd....just a whole lot of gammery-geeks sorts milling about and waiting for the thing to get going. Lots of 'For the Horde' (the Alliance just don't have a catchy phrase to shout, or chant) and other comments shouted about, the tv crews trying to get footage and of course also some of the more web based reporting peeps trying to get footage.
But then it was into the fray once the doors were opened! I managed to pick a good door for us to line up outside, as we were able to jump straight into line for the BlizzCon store, which was setup kind of like the lines for a ride at a park...with the back and forth maze thing...Which we managed to get into that part...the line would stretch round the convention center soon....As the common thing was get your stuff early as they run out fast. Which there was a limit of 5 per any item. The baby murlocs however were held up in custom yet at this point and time, which was disappointing as I was quite excited to see them on the order form. Which, they did a good job of trying to process the line quickly, had a bunch of registers and passed out order forms for people to have marked up what they wanted before they got to the counter (with display cases outside the line to see what things looked like)...The one down was that fact the lights went out shortly after the start, least in the area...Power didn't go as everything else was still working...Which made things slow going, but people pulled out cell phones and other such things to help keep things moving somewhat. And eventually the lights came back and the line moved along better...And we got a couple of posters, t-shirts, they had night elf and blood elf magnet sets - got some of those, got a mouse pad for the hubby, and I got a shaman black light keychain. Hmmm..I think that was it.
After going through that all...still had a bit of time before the opening ceremony.....So checked out the sculpturey guy they'd revealed last time...
Scary dude...One of the main bad guys...which name would likely mean nothing unless of course you play Warcraft or World of Warcraft...in which case...you'd probably already know the name...who doesn't look near as neat if you use a flash...was so hard to get a picture with everyone else using flash..as they have special lights on him....
Opening ceremony was cool; they announced the new expansion pack for WoW, Wrath of the Liche King, and just general Blizzard topics. Which, the opening ceremony and pretty much every panel can be found online by now...video and transcripts...in case anyone is actually truly interested. We hit several of the different discussion panels during the day, the main one being the more detailed going into the expansion pack and what was going to be in it...least current plans since it is likely a year and a half to two years out yet. We also went and played the newly announced expansion, as they had a bank of computer setup so people could get a glimpse of the new content. Least a bit of it, as you only got about 30 minutes to play around in it...which isn't very much once you pick a char, set up your action bars...and then try to find something - along with the other people doing the same exact thing. But it looked really cool and had a nice feel to it...definitely a good continuation with the game.
Amusingly...between Disneyland and BlizzCon...all the long lines we ended up having to wait in...were at BlizzCon!
There was wandering about after that...well lunch in there some where...Went back to the hotel for that...Bunch of other people went there as well...and there was only one guy working..he was busting tail..Though some people were still getting ticked. We ended up giving him a rather nice tip cause he was doing a good job for what he was having to do.
We just wandered about and checked out the different art and booths when we weren't in one of the lines or at one of the panel discussions.
Here being some of the concept art, that looked neat...and the pictures actually turned out for.....all for the expansion...
Eventually we just grabbed a spot to settle for the vening events, sound alike contest, dance contest, and costume contest. And they got Jay here as the MC for the events...
He did an awesome job and I have to say we gamers are a tough crowd. All rather hard to describe, was just lots of laughs and fun and I think I was near hoarse by the time it was over with. At one point and time he even came out and was recording the audience! So...think he was having a time with it as well...Between the crowd and the contests and...the people jousting off to the side....as they had one of those padded jousting things that people could do.
The sound alike contest was cool, lots of good sound alikes...the winner did a little speech thing from Warcraft III...and the crowd favorites were the WoW clips from YouTube that got spoofed...And while they were doing the judging, the real Leroy Jenkins came out to help Jay with passing the time and did his rather famous lines......The dance contest was amusing, not quite so much as the sound...way to many girls doing the night and blood elf dances...But some rather good renditions of the troll dance by some of the guys. Then came out some awesome costumes, also some rather lame ones..
Here is the overall grand winner...
Then this one won for the Warcraft division..
There were winners for Starcraft and Diablo as well...Just didn't manage to get good pictures (again do imagine there are ones to be found all over the internet by now). This one was a winner from the event they had in Korea...
A WoW costume, but there is actually this huge following in Korea for Starcraft...which is actually where they made the announcement for Starcraft II like the month before...Which they also had a bank of computers setup so you could play that a bit....So basically cracks at playing two things not even released...and likely not to be for least a year or two....
Eventually the night wrapped up and there was tromping on back to the hotel.... Random tidbits....The hubby wore his EVE shirt and actually had one of the Blizzard employees comment about it, seems they played the game...which caused the two employees on either side of him to give odd looks.....Hmmmm...and then there was the one dev who made mention that he'd tried rolling a hunter...but then wanted to kill himself. XD Oh and more amusing statement during question and answer period was how one guy was saying that there was this urgent need, explained..then ended with and my girlfiend is of this class, if she doesn't play, I don't play. Yup, urgent need there!
But sleep was had, after watching a bit of Shark week....got to have Discovery channel!!! Oh and the hotel's internet rather didn't work, so never got on line from there like we'd figured would be possible...got sign of a connection the first night just to see if it was around, but then the other nights when we actually wanted to use it...signal was basically non-existent.
Oh!! And the baby murlocs escaped customs and appeared in the store during the afternoon, so waited back through the store line to nab up some of them. Go murlocs!!!
Anyways...onto the next day....
Since there wasn't anything we wanted to really check out or attend until like...noon. We decided to wonder up the street to the IHOP.....so this one is for you Bri!
It's the hubby's cup...since I don't drink coffee. :P Of course, was a number of people there, and a bunch of WoW folk, easy to spot since most people had gotten t-shirts the day before and were wearing them (me included!!) Was amusing to hear some of the conversations, plus rather cool yet in being able to strike up conversations and in general the gaming group as a whole is fairly friendly (just don't say gnomes suck unless you know the person is Horde and will agree!) So...nice leisurely breakfast...
The one panel we did want to get to was the one where they were going to cover their plans for a Warcraft movie. It'll be live action and done by Legendary Pictures (the same people who did 300! Also did Sin City, I believe)...So here is quite a picture...
That'd be the top people from each of the companies...Ceos and head creative peoples.... It was amusing when they got around to the question and answer portion and someone inquired about from which perspective the movie would be told..and of course the answer was Alliance (rather obvious for marketing purposes), and there was this resounding boo from the crowd...Which is funny when one considers that server wise...we Horde folks are in the minority...big time. But Con wise...we seemed to do a good showing....back to it...To which the head Blizzard guy responded with saying and showing how he had a Horde belt buckle on and how his heart ws with the Horde but marking wise....people just wouldn't warm up to some big green guy....And of course, someone in the audience shouted, 'What about Shrek?' Just all rather amusing...more so in being there...and of course in being part of the game. And then they closed out the panel with the piece of concept art for the movie below...alo!
ng with a rather nice 'For the Horde' from the top Blizzard folk.
Which over all....it was rather amusing to listen to most of the devs, since it was obvious that most tended to play upon the Horde side....quite a few sessions ended up with 'For the Horde!' Though again...Alliance really don't have any good battle cry like that. Afterwards, there was just more wandering around the convention center and checking stuff out....
Some random pictures...
Here is the bank of computers that were setup for people to have a chance at paying the expansion...
True geekness...the professional gaming tournament that they had going on...
They had several different levels and types of gaming tournaments for the various games. And then also ones for the WoW trading card game that exists out there. We ended up back at the hotel for a bit, got pizza from the hotel bar place as lunch/dinner....and also took a bit of a swim to just relax and take a break...since we'd been wandering and running for spot to spot (or line to line, as the case may be).
Then...was back off to the convention center to hop in the line for the closing ceremonies....which one huge line....but then, I think there were like only 9,000 seats for it in their dome, stadium thing and well...there being that 13,000 number of attendees.....Amusing thing while standing in line, we were wrapping the line around the last panel discussion, and it closed with the 'For the Horde' (was the head creative dude again) and the people in front of us commented about how everyone cheers for that but how every one plays Alliance....I had to speak up and say..Well I play Horde...they back tracked and started talking server population split. I found it rather amusing.
Pictures to help give some idea of just the massive amount of people all brought together over a handful of games (mostly Starcraft and WoW really, Warcraft and Diablo didn't get as much attention)....
Jay was the opening act....again...gamers...tough crowd. He did great with rolling with most things, though there was one bit that we obviously threw him...As he started in with how...wouldn't it be easier to learn how to type if the keyboard had been laid out in alphabetical order....and he got a resounding no...He totally wasn't figuring that would be our answer...But hello...room full fo geeks...we know why the keyboard is laid out the way it is. Just a really good comedian....even if most people likely are more familiar with him from movies...He's been doing stand up for like 19 years.
After Jay was Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain....basically a developer band (though one of the head guys and co-founder plays bass)...Rather a bit of a metal band, all songs are of course game related....And they are Horde based (the name says it all there)....And thus there was lost of jokes about the Alliance.....Best thing about Starcraft? there are no gnomes in space! Related pictures :
Then...it was time for Video Games Live...a full blown orchestra that goes around doing performances of all game music! Their list of performances seemed to be mostly over seas. But they were there..and gong to be dong all Blizzard related music (sort of a given really). It was really cool, as they'd be playing the music and have the various scenes from the games up on the back there....~points to the pictures below~ And they had smaller groups playing music, listing out all the grammys they'd won and who they'd play with...Lots of names thrown out then.
Again...tough crowd...as when the announcer pronounced one of the Starcraft races wrong, someone yelled out the correction within the phrase 'It's Terran, jerk!' Just rough...granted, if your job (he was also the founder of Video Games live!) you should know the games a bit. He did get the crowd doing the Alliance, Horde shouting match.... And at one point, there was the talk about how back in the day they used to pull the lighters out for certain songs at crowd....but this day and age, people don't have lighters so........he had everyone pull out their cell phones and DS Lites...and anything else that would light up...looked hilarious! Of course there was a crack about, waiting a minute as someones PSP was still booting up. It had been amusing, since most people had some bit with them when wandering about normally, whether DS Lite, iPod, or whatever. And eventually it all wrapped up..and it was time to trudge back to the hotel and crash and get some sleep before having to get up way to early for the flight home.
And....the trip home...
We did get up horridly early to get to the air port...first class again, woo! Which this time we even had our own ticket line and own line for security. Once we got through it all, went and got some scones from their little cafe there, and avoided the huge line at the McDonald...egads! Before settling in to wait for boarding time. Ended up chatting with a few others who'd been at BlizzCon...and was just fun to watch all the people who were coming through security who had attended...easily spotted by their shirts, or the poster tubes they carried!
Eventually, time to board....which got breakfast served on the plane again...cheesy omelets this time around. The only annoying bit about the layover in Fort Worth this time was that they changed our boarding gate without much of an announcement. Just good that we noticed in plenty of time. There was some delay in boarding, and many an annoyed person when they allowed first class to board first and didn't include the preferred customers and some of those others until a bit after. It'd been interesting to continue to see various BlizzCon-ers moving about the airport, certainly not near as many as had been in Cali.
Of course...there was some more picture taking from the plane again...
Though the first leg they had played Sherk III...So had watched that. Entertaining enough. Still think the first one was the best. But then it set the ground work for II and III.
Arrival back home went smoothly, luggage retrieved and headed to the tram to get to the parking lot. Which was a touch amusing, as there was a couple across from us just getting back forma wedding, noticed my BlizzCon shirt and asked if we'd gone...and of course said we were just getting back actually (they'd not known exactly when it was going on) and they were most jealous! See...WoW people are just everywhere (not surprising since some 9 million people have active accounts!) Which was just kind of cool. Of course, once we got home, and somewhat settled...we both went to turn in our murlock costume codes to get those...and promptly ran around the game in them...getting many a comment, some demanding that we give them the code (rather rude, since only reason they'd want it is to try and randomize one the worked and steal a costume from someone who 'earned' it), other wanting to know where we got them....and going What's BlizzCon? when the answer was given....Which was just a bit mind boggling....as the login screen has had stuff about BlizzCon for several months....and frankly, even now still has some links for it. Just...mind boggling.
And amusingly...probably the shortest trip taken...and yet the most pictures and longest post. We did reflect upon the trips we'd taken this year and just amazed at having been able to actually take the three we've done...given the caliber of the trip...and the fact that just a few years back we'd not have been able to take any one of the trips in a given year, let alone all three in one!
oh..and yes...while there were a ton of pictures posted here.....it's like a fraction of what I actually took!!!
Ok...so this first picture actually has nothing to do with the trip...but actually a wedding gone to...and in seeing birdie...made me think of Jinx....as had just gotten white peacock pet cause of her. And then..was seeing white peacock! So...this picture is for Jinxie mostly.
Ok...now tripness...So on the first of August we set off for California...Because earlier in the year we, the hubby and I, had tossed around the idea of going to BlizzCon this year (it only occurring every two years, and this actually only being the second BlizzCon ever)...And then about a month before, the hubby was on their page and asked if we really wante dto go cause tickets were for sale...and I said sure..He got two tickets..and then a couple days later, we learned that tickets basically sold out within 36-48 hours..So it was all a matter of timing and dumb luck that we got tickets...and were set to be taking this venture....For the hubby, a chance to show me some of the stuff he'd gone to and seen on his various business trips out there...for me..the first time out to the west coast...And of course...BlizzCon! Though, we also decided that we'd go a day earlier with the convention center being not far from DisneyLand.....and also decided to go all out and do the tr!
ip in style. So our hotel was in the middle, one block from the convention center, two blocks from Disneyland. And flying first class all the way, another thing I'd never actually done.
So...come August 1st, we got up and made our way to the airport....After parking the truck, the tram ride from the parking lot to the airport was...interesting...For at the last stop, there was this woman with two stroller, one a double stroller, and the three kids to go with it. The tram was already packed...and she had already passed up one of the trams, and so had to get on...She was good humored about the situation and tried to make light of it, apologizing. Though really...why pick the very last area to park in when you need to haul so much stuff upon the bus? It was amusing, but some better pre-planning on her part could have made it a little less stressful for her.
But we were there with plenty of time anyways, so not to stressful on us, just vaguely entertaining to watch. Got all checked in and through security, well nabbed some breakfast before going through..and then onto planness....very nice to also be able to get onto the plane first! Which...first class was a sweet experience....Drink service while the other people were getting on, plus omelets and fruit and basically breakfast served...while everyone else got snacks. Oh yes.....and the massive leg room....
We had layover in Fort Worth, which was a rather nice airport, and the second leg, they served us lunch. (Everyone else only getting their snack, one again!) Which, the last time I'd had an airplane meal was when I was in junior high, and it'd been nasty. But both were really quite good. And this lunch one even baked cookies, so we had fresh cookies. It's proof, people in first class really do get all the good stuff! They had some shows playing for the second leg, no movies. So I mostly entertained myself with checking out the windows, thus...you all are stuck with more sky pictures...but from a different perspective this time!
Getting luggage and the rental car once we landed in Santa Ana (or which ever of the five zillion names it is referred to by you prefer) went fairly smoothly. And since we got in fairly early in the day, plus all our flights were on time if not early (I know, shocking), we went ahead and headed up the coast to have dinner at this place that was a favorite of the hubby's when he's out there at the one base in the area.
General shoreline picture for everyone (yeah, I've seen the oceans on both coast now!)
The restaurant picture...
The food was rather good as well. Very simple, though mostly seafood stuff (since the ocean is right across the street)...So probably not a place for everyone.
Which, as I said, right across was the street...a beach for the surfers. So we wandered over after we ate to just kind of sit a moment and watch the surfers bob around on their boards and enjoy the ocean....and there was one heck of a surprise after a little bit...A pod of dolphins showed up and came swimming through the area! A thing that just cannot be planned or scheduled, so was really cool to see. I did try to nab some pictures, but was a bit hard to get any really good ones, all a matter of timing and well they weren't doing leaps and jumps. So I ended up with a number that were just dorsal fins, could have been a shark or dolphin at that point in the picture if you didn't know otherwise. But here are a couple of the better ones I did manage to get....
After that there was just some more driving along the coastal highway and the hubby pointing out some of the other things from her work travels, the base, the agricultural fields and other little odds and ends before we made our way to the hotel and crashed for the night. As it ended up being a long day, travel always causes that...but the three hour time zone difference between home and destination added to it.
Though...I have to say, overall I wasn't horridly impressed with the look and feel of California as a whole..Very dirty and dusty, granted I know is in part to the fact they don't get much in the way of rain. But there was also tons of litter everywhere, and lots of suvs and hummers...which just totally didn't go with the whole Go Green and Environmental friendly type image that they always seem to want to sell. So from that side of things, was a touch disappointed and not horridly impressed....After all...I didn't get to see the Hollywood sign cause there was to much smog that day!
The next day.....
That time change did sort of go in our favor in the morning since we got to sleep in and it was only like 7 or so local time. And of course no kitty to pester and wake me up and force me out of bed before I wanted to get there. We got around and had breakfast at the hotel before striking out towards Disneyland! Eeyore here I come!!
We got tickets and into the park we went, with much thanks to foxmagic for a this of ideas of what to see and were to go, as that was in hand as well as the park map to figure ot where to wander first. Which, after taking a picture or to in the entrance area and taking some pictures for a family or two (this would be a reoccurring theme for me all day! I got asked to take so many pictures!) it was time to venture forth....Which ended up being shopping first. The first stop ended up being the Mad Hatter's store, tons of mouse ears everywhere. And some rather cool varieties actually. But I found this little section with 'other' ears as well..and that led to the first of many Eeyore related purchases...Eeyore Ears! Which, I proudly wore for the rest of the day (well for a short span, but I'll get to that later). Through the day i would get many odd looks for wearing them as well, save from the one person who's path a crossed, who happened to be sporting Tigger ears! Most everyone else either not having ears or having the more popular mouse ears, in which ever flavor they preferred. Though I did see a couple sets of goofy ears, but the mouse were by far the most popular.
Ear purchases and worn, then there was much wandering through the various shops and purchasing of many Eeyore things. Which, foxmagic, I did end up getting many an Eeyore pin...plus some Stitch ones as well...though those more so in other areas of the park itself...No pin trading occurred though, as I didn't actually open any of them til I got home, they were buried within all the other stuff.
Eventually, did get through the main street shopping, very good placement of having it as the main area in and out of the park...
The first ride we did hit was the Jungle Ride with it's silly and punny humor. Cute and very enjoyable, though the boat was a bit jerky. It was definitely good for a laugh. And certainly a few things that were rather cool to have pulled off.
One of the many scenes to be found about the jungle.....something about not wanting to be the low man on the totem pole....
The one thing I did find to be rather neat as we wandered about the park was the fact that they did have fruit as snack options and several other healthy selections, rather than that standard 'amusement park' food, which granted they had a selection of that as well. And was also nice to have bottled water instead of pop, even if that is a common thing these days. Hey, it's been a horridly long time since I've been to any sort of amusement like part.
Anyways, to the next ride, which was Pirate of the Caribbean! Wooo!! very enjoyable, and had a lot of fun on this ride, granted it helps that I am a huge fan of the movies. The only down side to this was the moron in our little boat that couldn't understand the concept of NO FLASH PICTURES!!! Even when someone came on in the middle of the ride over the speaker and said for the bazillionth time, no flash pictures!!
But here are some of the pictures I managed....without a flash...
We did wonder afterwards about what modifications and updates had been made and added in due to the movies. There were a few obvious ones like having the likeness of Jack Sparrow in several places, and an end area with him about. But since neither of us had been before, we hadn't a clue..Still fun to think about.
Next we wandered into the Haunted Mansion, which was amusing and cute...Granted, I am sure I wasn't supposed to laugh as much as I did...since it is all ghosty and ghoulish, and certainly younger folks would likely be a touch more frightened with everything. A good time all the same. It was after coming out of this ride that we noticed a trend, as near all the rides so far we'd gone in with the signs saying 5-10 minute wait, and after we'd leave, it'd be up to a 20-30 minute wait. We were hitting things just right...Granted, we'd not rushed off to the more popular roller coastery rides either. Which, I don't like...I am not a roller coaster person...I have issues with heights.
Next it was time to round about to....
Mostly to see if Eeyore was out to get some pictures...Which he wasn't yet, just Pooh...So we went ahead and hitched a ride on the Winnie the Pooh Ride, again just a fun little thing. Scenes from some of the books and different cartoon features that exist. Very colorful and everything flowed nicely....And as with most things, geared more towards the little, young people.
The ride.....
...and into the ride..
We did go ahead and get some photos taken with Pooh while we were around and got an idea of when Eeyore would be out, so I could swing back or wait for him to get pictures. And hit up the Pooh Corner's store, which is where I nabbed the Winnie the Pooh pin collector's starter kit, again didn't open it until I actually got home...cause there was just so much going on! Did find out it'd be another hour or so before Eeoyre would be appear....So we wandered off...Which took us back around by Pirates...and just look how insane the line had gotten!!
We'd practically walked right in when we'd hit it earlier on. Well we wandered over and went on Mark Twain's river ride, nice slow little thing, but they had a good story to go with all the indian villages and other scenes they'd set up. And was a relaxing way to pass some time. We decided to nab lunch after that, ended up eating in the French Quarter...Which paid about what one would figure for eating in a park..But food was far better than we figured from past experiences with park related food..As I ended up with fried chicken and red beans and rice, the hubby had this stew in a bread bowl and a side salad. Really quite good and I didn't manage to finish all of mine.
Then it was back down to critter country to catch up to Eeyore...and he seemed to be out early, so hopped into line to get pictures. And like within a minute, they were taking him on back! So..I had to ask the character helper person about it cause she was the same one who'd told me in the morning what time Eeyore would be out, she apologized, of course. And gave a time frame of like 20 minutes and he'd be back. So we got out of line, hubby called his parents...I called my dad and ended up leaving him a voice mail...As I'd not really told him all what we were going out to Cali to do and he of all people would appreciate me and the Eeyore-ness. In watching the turn over in the picture taking and line, it was decided that it would be best just to get in line, cause by the time we actually got up near the front, Eeyore would be back out and if we got in line once Eeyore was out, but the time we got round to the front...he'd be going back. Granted, can't blame the high rotation!
with the heat and of course needing to add back in more fluff for it surely melting away all to quickly. So hopped in line...and I was right! Got up to the front (they had several characters for you to get your pictures taken with), by Pooh, (they always had a version of him out, but were rotating Tigger and Eeyore), we let a few extra people by, which the character handler saw what we were doing and thought it was great...but...by that time, they were doing another rotation...and since we'd already done the Pooh photos earlier on....she went ahead and let us go to the second area where they'd be bringing Eeyore to....and thus....
Unfortunately, the best parts didn't get snapped to put to film, as Eeyore and I spent a bit of time comparing Eeyore. ~coughs~ I'm sure people thought me odd. But Eeyore-ness was achieved!
And it had been fun to watch some of the little kids in line, cause several couldn't wait and would try to run up to Pooh or Tigger or Eeyore...And it was just to cute.
After we managed that, we figured it was time for a bit of a break and also not long til we could pick up our badges for BlizzCon...Being the reason we'd come out to Cali to begin with....though as the hubby put it, there was no way he was getting me out there and that close to Disneyland and not have to let me go. So we made our way back to the hotel (getting the handy hand stamp in exiting the park as that in combination with the ticket being required to get back in.) A brief break at the hotel and the dropping off of the Eeyore loot I'd amassed...we wandered on over to the convention center....
Which we ended up being more than a bit early (this being that time frame in which I went without the Eeyore ears)..>As the hubby had gotten the time wrong, recalled the time from a few years prior...though when we checked the info in getting back to the hotel....they'd changed it from what had been sent out..So they should have started earlier then they did.....So with being early, this is what the line and gathering looked like...
Waiting in line was kind of interesting since people would just startup conversations about what server people played on and get into conversations like they were old chums...Plus of course, seeing the various geeks was amusing...the majority being male..of course. But eventually they got around to the whole opening up (when all the Blizzard People arrived from their regularly scheduled day of work) and started giving out the goody bags and convention badges....And wooo! We were among the first handful of people to get them (there being like 13,000 or so people to attend this 'little' event). Of course...the line had changed just a wee bit between the time we showed up and the time we got our badge and were making to head back towards the park....
It actually goes out the doors and extends to 5-10 people deep once out the door. So...yeah...a few people.
But it was time to dump the goody bags back at the hotel...ok...we poked through them a little first. they included a t-shirt, special hardware to be sold during the convention, special discounts on stuff during the convention from some of the hardware companies that would be there and J!NX (gaming/t-shit company, not to be confused with Jinxie!), plus codes to get the WoW in-game murloc costume and a key to their next beta test (still up in the air on whether it will bet Starcraft II or the next WoW expansion), drink coasters, Blizzard hand sanitizer hookthingy (with the sanitizer), some special packs for the Warcraft board game, stickers, buttons, and some WoW themed Tattoos from J!NX..and some other odds and ends...
But time to get back to the park, since only having a day to spend there! It was amusing to walk back to, cause we were picking out which people were also around for BlizzCon. Once back into the magical world of Disney-ness....We hit up the all so classic ride...It's a small world.... Which, while I don't think I could stand having to actually work the ride itself...I thought it was rather neat, there was tons of detail to all the different sections and egads, the number of outfits and cultural costumes to work onto the gobs of little puppet figures. I just can't imagine the oodles of work that had to go into this thing....
Some of the pictures that came out alright (again, that no flash and movement thing factors into it all)
Though this room just had to make me wonder....pink kangaroos and blue koala bears? Really..Charmer...Jinx....You don't dye the poor things on a reuglar basis do you? (;
Oddly, I think the favorite part of the ride for me wasn't even within the ride itself, but all the intricate sculptured hedges they had on the outside. Done in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Another job I cannot imagine having to tackle, as along with all the animals, like the one pictured below...they had just geometric shapes and designs on some of the border ones about the ride...just insane detail and design going on.
Then we wandered a little, looked at the carousal...before deciding to actually get in the insanely long line for the Finding Nemo subs....The wait was noted as something like two hours, which we did manage to get on through in about an hour. I think most others that we went upon were at worst 15-20 minutes, if that. But very cute ride, the way they had video going in certain areas and it seemed like the nemo characters truly were about was rather neat...they did something similar in Pirate, but were projecting onto smoke/fog...neat effects. But a few pictures from the subs...
..the subs themselves and the seagulls...who did go off with the 'mine mine mine' ever now and again...
And they had the various characters down in the lagoon area, hidden here and there..before going into the deep tunnel thing where they had the animated story line for the ride.
After that we hit Mr. Toad's Wild ride....Short but amusing little ride. And then there was just random wandering about the park before hitting the shopping area between the two parks...We never did get over to California Adventure, just didn't have the time and by that time between all the walking and the time change, we were getting tuckered. The hubby jokingly complained about how he couldn't keep up with me, as really outside of lunch and the badge pickup, we never really stopped to rest...and were walking here or there...Well and of course the sitting during the rides.... but we weren't done walking yet! I'd seen there was a Lego shop in the shopping plaza between the two parks and wanted to check it out...So it was off to find that..which annoyingly it was all the way at the other end and of course all the shops were pretty much in a straight line...So we hiked on down....Rather neat Lego sculptures were to be seen...though I really didn't find any Lego sets I had to !
have...I imagine if we'd had the time to actually go to LegoLand, might have found something....thus just some nifty pictures...over all there was a giraffe (as you can see below), this snake that popped in out of the wall - very neat, and a number of Starwars characters. I can't imagine how long any of the actually took to make.
Then we made the hike on back to the hotel (noting the various geeky BlizzCon people that were heading towards Disneyland). We grabbed some food in the little bar place attached to the hotel. Which we both realized how hungry we were once we got the food...and then crashed...far to tired to stay up for the fireworks and attempt to hang out for that part of Disneyland.
Moving on to the next day....
It was breakfast again at the hotel, tons more geekyness in there this time...and then the short stroll over towards the convention center....some protesting to be had by leg muscles. I was faintly amused by that since I do the step aerobics regularly during the week....so thus really must have been quite the walk..but hadn't noticed so much since we were doing so much. Anyways...
Blizz Con! Wooo!!
We got there a bit early and joined into the rest of the crowd....just a whole lot of gammery-geeks sorts milling about and waiting for the thing to get going. Lots of 'For the Horde' (the Alliance just don't have a catchy phrase to shout, or chant) and other comments shouted about, the tv crews trying to get footage and of course also some of the more web based reporting peeps trying to get footage.
But then it was into the fray once the doors were opened! I managed to pick a good door for us to line up outside, as we were able to jump straight into line for the BlizzCon store, which was setup kind of like the lines for a ride at a park...with the back and forth maze thing...Which we managed to get into that part...the line would stretch round the convention center soon....As the common thing was get your stuff early as they run out fast. Which there was a limit of 5 per any item. The baby murlocs however were held up in custom yet at this point and time, which was disappointing as I was quite excited to see them on the order form. Which, they did a good job of trying to process the line quickly, had a bunch of registers and passed out order forms for people to have marked up what they wanted before they got to the counter (with display cases outside the line to see what things looked like)...The one down was that fact the lights went out shortly after the start, least in the area...Power didn't go as everything else was still working...Which made things slow going, but people pulled out cell phones and other such things to help keep things moving somewhat. And eventually the lights came back and the line moved along better...And we got a couple of posters, t-shirts, they had night elf and blood elf magnet sets - got some of those, got a mouse pad for the hubby, and I got a shaman black light keychain. Hmmm..I think that was it.
After going through that all...still had a bit of time before the opening ceremony.....So checked out the sculpturey guy they'd revealed last time...
Scary dude...One of the main bad guys...which name would likely mean nothing unless of course you play Warcraft or World of Warcraft...in which case...you'd probably already know the name...who doesn't look near as neat if you use a flash...was so hard to get a picture with everyone else using flash..as they have special lights on him....
Opening ceremony was cool; they announced the new expansion pack for WoW, Wrath of the Liche King, and just general Blizzard topics. Which, the opening ceremony and pretty much every panel can be found online by now...video and transcripts...in case anyone is actually truly interested. We hit several of the different discussion panels during the day, the main one being the more detailed going into the expansion pack and what was going to be in it...least current plans since it is likely a year and a half to two years out yet. We also went and played the newly announced expansion, as they had a bank of computer setup so people could get a glimpse of the new content. Least a bit of it, as you only got about 30 minutes to play around in it...which isn't very much once you pick a char, set up your action bars...and then try to find something - along with the other people doing the same exact thing. But it looked really cool and had a nice feel to it...definitely a good continuation with the game.
Amusingly...between Disneyland and BlizzCon...all the long lines we ended up having to wait in...were at BlizzCon!
There was wandering about after that...well lunch in there some where...Went back to the hotel for that...Bunch of other people went there as well...and there was only one guy working..he was busting tail..Though some people were still getting ticked. We ended up giving him a rather nice tip cause he was doing a good job for what he was having to do.
We just wandered about and checked out the different art and booths when we weren't in one of the lines or at one of the panel discussions.
Here being some of the concept art, that looked neat...and the pictures actually turned out for.....all for the expansion...
Eventually we just grabbed a spot to settle for the vening events, sound alike contest, dance contest, and costume contest. And they got Jay here as the MC for the events...
He did an awesome job and I have to say we gamers are a tough crowd. All rather hard to describe, was just lots of laughs and fun and I think I was near hoarse by the time it was over with. At one point and time he even came out and was recording the audience! So...think he was having a time with it as well...Between the crowd and the contests and...the people jousting off to the side....as they had one of those padded jousting things that people could do.
The sound alike contest was cool, lots of good sound alikes...the winner did a little speech thing from Warcraft III...and the crowd favorites were the WoW clips from YouTube that got spoofed...And while they were doing the judging, the real Leroy Jenkins came out to help Jay with passing the time and did his rather famous lines......The dance contest was amusing, not quite so much as the sound...way to many girls doing the night and blood elf dances...But some rather good renditions of the troll dance by some of the guys. Then came out some awesome costumes, also some rather lame ones..
Here is the overall grand winner...
Then this one won for the Warcraft division..
There were winners for Starcraft and Diablo as well...Just didn't manage to get good pictures (again do imagine there are ones to be found all over the internet by now). This one was a winner from the event they had in Korea...
A WoW costume, but there is actually this huge following in Korea for Starcraft...which is actually where they made the announcement for Starcraft II like the month before...Which they also had a bank of computers setup so you could play that a bit....So basically cracks at playing two things not even released...and likely not to be for least a year or two....
Eventually the night wrapped up and there was tromping on back to the hotel.... Random tidbits....The hubby wore his EVE shirt and actually had one of the Blizzard employees comment about it, seems they played the game...which caused the two employees on either side of him to give odd looks.....Hmmmm...and then there was the one dev who made mention that he'd tried rolling a hunter...but then wanted to kill himself. XD Oh and more amusing statement during question and answer period was how one guy was saying that there was this urgent need, explained..then ended with and my girlfiend is of this class, if she doesn't play, I don't play. Yup, urgent need there!
But sleep was had, after watching a bit of Shark week....got to have Discovery channel!!! Oh and the hotel's internet rather didn't work, so never got on line from there like we'd figured would be possible...got sign of a connection the first night just to see if it was around, but then the other nights when we actually wanted to use it...signal was basically non-existent.
Oh!! And the baby murlocs escaped customs and appeared in the store during the afternoon, so waited back through the store line to nab up some of them. Go murlocs!!!
Anyways...onto the next day....
Since there wasn't anything we wanted to really check out or attend until like...noon. We decided to wonder up the street to the IHOP.....so this one is for you Bri!
It's the hubby's cup...since I don't drink coffee. :P Of course, was a number of people there, and a bunch of WoW folk, easy to spot since most people had gotten t-shirts the day before and were wearing them (me included!!) Was amusing to hear some of the conversations, plus rather cool yet in being able to strike up conversations and in general the gaming group as a whole is fairly friendly (just don't say gnomes suck unless you know the person is Horde and will agree!) So...nice leisurely breakfast...
The one panel we did want to get to was the one where they were going to cover their plans for a Warcraft movie. It'll be live action and done by Legendary Pictures (the same people who did 300! Also did Sin City, I believe)...So here is quite a picture...
That'd be the top people from each of the companies...Ceos and head creative peoples.... It was amusing when they got around to the question and answer portion and someone inquired about from which perspective the movie would be told..and of course the answer was Alliance (rather obvious for marketing purposes), and there was this resounding boo from the crowd...Which is funny when one considers that server wise...we Horde folks are in the minority...big time. But Con wise...we seemed to do a good showing....back to it...To which the head Blizzard guy responded with saying and showing how he had a Horde belt buckle on and how his heart ws with the Horde but marking wise....people just wouldn't warm up to some big green guy....And of course, someone in the audience shouted, 'What about Shrek?' Just all rather amusing...more so in being there...and of course in being part of the game. And then they closed out the panel with the piece of concept art for the movie below...alo!
ng with a rather nice 'For the Horde' from the top Blizzard folk.
Which over all....it was rather amusing to listen to most of the devs, since it was obvious that most tended to play upon the Horde side....quite a few sessions ended up with 'For the Horde!' Though again...Alliance really don't have any good battle cry like that. Afterwards, there was just more wandering around the convention center and checking stuff out....
Some random pictures...
Here is the bank of computers that were setup for people to have a chance at paying the expansion...
True geekness...the professional gaming tournament that they had going on...
They had several different levels and types of gaming tournaments for the various games. And then also ones for the WoW trading card game that exists out there. We ended up back at the hotel for a bit, got pizza from the hotel bar place as lunch/dinner....and also took a bit of a swim to just relax and take a break...since we'd been wandering and running for spot to spot (or line to line, as the case may be).
Then...was back off to the convention center to hop in the line for the closing ceremonies....which one huge line....but then, I think there were like only 9,000 seats for it in their dome, stadium thing and well...there being that 13,000 number of attendees.....Amusing thing while standing in line, we were wrapping the line around the last panel discussion, and it closed with the 'For the Horde' (was the head creative dude again) and the people in front of us commented about how everyone cheers for that but how every one plays Alliance....I had to speak up and say..Well I play Horde...they back tracked and started talking server population split. I found it rather amusing.
Pictures to help give some idea of just the massive amount of people all brought together over a handful of games (mostly Starcraft and WoW really, Warcraft and Diablo didn't get as much attention)....
Jay was the opening act....again...gamers...tough crowd. He did great with rolling with most things, though there was one bit that we obviously threw him...As he started in with how...wouldn't it be easier to learn how to type if the keyboard had been laid out in alphabetical order....and he got a resounding no...He totally wasn't figuring that would be our answer...But hello...room full fo geeks...we know why the keyboard is laid out the way it is. Just a really good comedian....even if most people likely are more familiar with him from movies...He's been doing stand up for like 19 years.
After Jay was Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain....basically a developer band (though one of the head guys and co-founder plays bass)...Rather a bit of a metal band, all songs are of course game related....And they are Horde based (the name says it all there)....And thus there was lost of jokes about the Alliance.....Best thing about Starcraft? there are no gnomes in space! Related pictures :
Then...it was time for Video Games Live...a full blown orchestra that goes around doing performances of all game music! Their list of performances seemed to be mostly over seas. But they were there..and gong to be dong all Blizzard related music (sort of a given really). It was really cool, as they'd be playing the music and have the various scenes from the games up on the back there....~points to the pictures below~ And they had smaller groups playing music, listing out all the grammys they'd won and who they'd play with...Lots of names thrown out then.
Again...tough crowd...as when the announcer pronounced one of the Starcraft races wrong, someone yelled out the correction within the phrase 'It's Terran, jerk!' Just rough...granted, if your job (he was also the founder of Video Games live!) you should know the games a bit. He did get the crowd doing the Alliance, Horde shouting match.... And at one point, there was the talk about how back in the day they used to pull the lighters out for certain songs at crowd....but this day and age, people don't have lighters so........he had everyone pull out their cell phones and DS Lites...and anything else that would light up...looked hilarious! Of course there was a crack about, waiting a minute as someones PSP was still booting up. It had been amusing, since most people had some bit with them when wandering about normally, whether DS Lite, iPod, or whatever. And eventually it all wrapped up..and it was time to trudge back to the hotel and crash and get some sleep before having to get up way to early for the flight home.
And....the trip home...
We did get up horridly early to get to the air port...first class again, woo! Which this time we even had our own ticket line and own line for security. Once we got through it all, went and got some scones from their little cafe there, and avoided the huge line at the McDonald...egads! Before settling in to wait for boarding time. Ended up chatting with a few others who'd been at BlizzCon...and was just fun to watch all the people who were coming through security who had attended...easily spotted by their shirts, or the poster tubes they carried!
Eventually, time to board....which got breakfast served on the plane again...cheesy omelets this time around. The only annoying bit about the layover in Fort Worth this time was that they changed our boarding gate without much of an announcement. Just good that we noticed in plenty of time. There was some delay in boarding, and many an annoyed person when they allowed first class to board first and didn't include the preferred customers and some of those others until a bit after. It'd been interesting to continue to see various BlizzCon-ers moving about the airport, certainly not near as many as had been in Cali.
Of course...there was some more picture taking from the plane again...
Though the first leg they had played Sherk III...So had watched that. Entertaining enough. Still think the first one was the best. But then it set the ground work for II and III.
Arrival back home went smoothly, luggage retrieved and headed to the tram to get to the parking lot. Which was a touch amusing, as there was a couple across from us just getting back forma wedding, noticed my BlizzCon shirt and asked if we'd gone...and of course said we were just getting back actually (they'd not known exactly when it was going on) and they were most jealous! See...WoW people are just everywhere (not surprising since some 9 million people have active accounts!) Which was just kind of cool. Of course, once we got home, and somewhat settled...we both went to turn in our murlock costume codes to get those...and promptly ran around the game in them...getting many a comment, some demanding that we give them the code (rather rude, since only reason they'd want it is to try and randomize one the worked and steal a costume from someone who 'earned' it), other wanting to know where we got them....and going What's BlizzCon? when the answer was given....Which was just a bit mind boggling....as the login screen has had stuff about BlizzCon for several months....and frankly, even now still has some links for it. Just...mind boggling.
And amusingly...probably the shortest trip taken...and yet the most pictures and longest post. We did reflect upon the trips we'd taken this year and just amazed at having been able to actually take the three we've done...given the caliber of the trip...and the fact that just a few years back we'd not have been able to take any one of the trips in a given year, let alone all three in one!
oh..and yes...while there were a ton of pictures posted here.....it's like a fraction of what I actually took!!!