First, I have to get there... (day 1)
It starts, as such nightmares seem to, at LAX. Why this creaking, smelly old thing disguised as an airport is still around astounds me. Anyway, it wasn't the getting there that was the problem. Thanks to my previous post on San Francisco, I followed the advice and used the bus. Not only did I avoid the traffic jams, but I spent only $0.50 on a 30 minute ride. Naw, the problem was once inside.
The queues at American Airlines was slow-going, and the self-printing machine couldn't find my reservation. With three people serving the customers, I gather it took more than 20 minutes just to print a ticket. The only funny business was when the lady in charge of the line mistook myself and the Australian bloke behind me as a couple, and I just gawped at her while the bloke denied any connection. Wow, I had no idea I merited that vehement a denial.
Part 2, the gates. Sigh. Long story short, there was one very long byzantine queue to the screening area and one very short one to which no one knew what it was for. I ran for the latter and was rewarded by a quick pass-through, while I'm sure the people stuck in the long queue were forced to wait half an hour. It was a horrible mess, with a line of more than 100 people waiting to take off their shoes and place their belongings on the conveyer belt. No one manning the security seemed interested in shortening the wait time. The couple ahead of me tried to stop a LAX worker and ask about the shorter queue, but were brusquely told he was on break. I had to push aside any hometown pride and agree with the French guy fuming this was indeed the worst airport yet.
Once through though, I was willing to sit myself down and enjoy an hour and change of zoning out. I took this picture whilst drinking my coffee and was tickled to think maybe it was a fantastic coincidence, with Wondercon and all.
Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier and Will Eisner's The Spirit.
About an hour into this blissful zone, I get a sudden call on my phone. It's the American Airlines flight alert, informing me the flight's been delayed two hours and in a different gate. I manage to wrangle a seat on an earlier flight about 20 minutes away, and find myself sitting next the same Aussie bloke at the gate. I get up and walk around, trying to avoid feeling dread about this trip. So the weather's crap and the planes are all delayed. Things will get better, right?
I start to believe this on the flight. It's packed and everyone seems a little tensed up, even though me and the old guy across the aisle are grinning and trying to unravel the stitching on the headrest. We run into a little turbulence, but we land well and there's an audible sigh of relief. A quick Bart ride to Powell station later, and I'm on top of the world ready to tackle the night. Except... I create a traffic jam when I stick my ticket in the turnstile and stand stupidly, wondering why I can't get through. A lady from behind me kindly lend her daughter's ticket to get through the correct entrance of the turnstile, and I hear someone sigh audibly. I turn red and feel like such a rube. Good thing the hotel's only a few minutes walk away, because the first thing I do after checking in is bury my head in the pillows.
The Mosser is where I stayed, off a block from 4th and Market. The room is quite small, the size of half a college dorm room. The size wasn't a big deal in itself, it's just that I was disappointed the bed looked like my Ikea sofa bed.
The room had a sink, but no bathroom. There's a separate men's and women's bathroom outside, and a shared shower as well. I started thinking I might as well have gone to a hostel, but it wasn't that bad. Sure the room smelled a little funny and was a little cramped, but the hotel's in a great area. There's cable, something I found out I really missed, and access to Internet (at $10 a night). Every morning there's a newspaper, hot drinks, and muffins for breakfast at the lobby. And for the price I paid per night ($89), this was pretty damn good.
After getting myself together, I headed out to pick up my Wondercon badge. The Moscone convention center is only a few blocks away, and a quick 5 minute walk. I passed a lot of people just leaving the Game Developers Conference, whose last day would be the first day of Wondercon. There were a lot of French guys (Ubisoft cronies?) smoking like chimneys, hipster types talking into their iPhones, and a few from Nintendo promoting the DS game Professor Layton. I passed crowds playing games, suits with EA bags milling about in the lobby, and more game industry types smoking. In contrast, I was probably the third person in Moscone south picking up a badge.
There's a bridge that connects the building to the Yerba Buena gardens, and I climbed up hoping to pick up a free wi-fi signal. No luck, but I did find a romantic image ahead: a young man and woman sitting with their legs beside the waterfall, intensely in conversation. There was a spark there, but it seemed that the two were still in the first blush of romance. Maybe they weren't aware of the attraction just yet? It felt weird to take such an intimate picture, so I took one of this instead.
Hee, it looks like boobies.
Anyway, life continued to bite me in the arse later that night as I lost my hotel keycard at an Indian restaurant. The owner was not too happy to unseat the new customers so I can look for it and tried to get me to leave, but I stood my ground. Didn't help though, cos it wasn't there. Stomping through the dark and cold night back to the hotel I passed the same Australian bloke, and wished the ground would swallow me there and then.
Man, I couldn't wait for the convention to start.
The queues at American Airlines was slow-going, and the self-printing machine couldn't find my reservation. With three people serving the customers, I gather it took more than 20 minutes just to print a ticket. The only funny business was when the lady in charge of the line mistook myself and the Australian bloke behind me as a couple, and I just gawped at her while the bloke denied any connection. Wow, I had no idea I merited that vehement a denial.
Part 2, the gates. Sigh. Long story short, there was one very long byzantine queue to the screening area and one very short one to which no one knew what it was for. I ran for the latter and was rewarded by a quick pass-through, while I'm sure the people stuck in the long queue were forced to wait half an hour. It was a horrible mess, with a line of more than 100 people waiting to take off their shoes and place their belongings on the conveyer belt. No one manning the security seemed interested in shortening the wait time. The couple ahead of me tried to stop a LAX worker and ask about the shorter queue, but were brusquely told he was on break. I had to push aside any hometown pride and agree with the French guy fuming this was indeed the worst airport yet.
Once through though, I was willing to sit myself down and enjoy an hour and change of zoning out. I took this picture whilst drinking my coffee and was tickled to think maybe it was a fantastic coincidence, with Wondercon and all.
Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier and Will Eisner's The Spirit.
About an hour into this blissful zone, I get a sudden call on my phone. It's the American Airlines flight alert, informing me the flight's been delayed two hours and in a different gate. I manage to wrangle a seat on an earlier flight about 20 minutes away, and find myself sitting next the same Aussie bloke at the gate. I get up and walk around, trying to avoid feeling dread about this trip. So the weather's crap and the planes are all delayed. Things will get better, right?
I start to believe this on the flight. It's packed and everyone seems a little tensed up, even though me and the old guy across the aisle are grinning and trying to unravel the stitching on the headrest. We run into a little turbulence, but we land well and there's an audible sigh of relief. A quick Bart ride to Powell station later, and I'm on top of the world ready to tackle the night. Except... I create a traffic jam when I stick my ticket in the turnstile and stand stupidly, wondering why I can't get through. A lady from behind me kindly lend her daughter's ticket to get through the correct entrance of the turnstile, and I hear someone sigh audibly. I turn red and feel like such a rube. Good thing the hotel's only a few minutes walk away, because the first thing I do after checking in is bury my head in the pillows.
The Mosser is where I stayed, off a block from 4th and Market. The room is quite small, the size of half a college dorm room. The size wasn't a big deal in itself, it's just that I was disappointed the bed looked like my Ikea sofa bed.
The room had a sink, but no bathroom. There's a separate men's and women's bathroom outside, and a shared shower as well. I started thinking I might as well have gone to a hostel, but it wasn't that bad. Sure the room smelled a little funny and was a little cramped, but the hotel's in a great area. There's cable, something I found out I really missed, and access to Internet (at $10 a night). Every morning there's a newspaper, hot drinks, and muffins for breakfast at the lobby. And for the price I paid per night ($89), this was pretty damn good.
After getting myself together, I headed out to pick up my Wondercon badge. The Moscone convention center is only a few blocks away, and a quick 5 minute walk. I passed a lot of people just leaving the Game Developers Conference, whose last day would be the first day of Wondercon. There were a lot of French guys (Ubisoft cronies?) smoking like chimneys, hipster types talking into their iPhones, and a few from Nintendo promoting the DS game Professor Layton. I passed crowds playing games, suits with EA bags milling about in the lobby, and more game industry types smoking. In contrast, I was probably the third person in Moscone south picking up a badge.
There's a bridge that connects the building to the Yerba Buena gardens, and I climbed up hoping to pick up a free wi-fi signal. No luck, but I did find a romantic image ahead: a young man and woman sitting with their legs beside the waterfall, intensely in conversation. There was a spark there, but it seemed that the two were still in the first blush of romance. Maybe they weren't aware of the attraction just yet? It felt weird to take such an intimate picture, so I took one of this instead.
Hee, it looks like boobies.
Anyway, life continued to bite me in the arse later that night as I lost my hotel keycard at an Indian restaurant. The owner was not too happy to unseat the new customers so I can look for it and tried to get me to leave, but I stood my ground. Didn't help though, cos it wasn't there. Stomping through the dark and cold night back to the hotel I passed the same Australian bloke, and wished the ground would swallow me there and then.
Man, I couldn't wait for the convention to start.