a looooong drive, followed by bathroom problems, followed by crashing on a mattress, followed by making fun of people, followed by food court at horton plaza, followed by more making fun of people, followed by collecting of loot, followed by dinner at the wyndham. the day was capped off with a meandering search through the gaslamp quarter for a good bar.

of course, that one simple paragraph doesn't detail the level of snarkery that went on, nor the gush of fanboy excitement upon discovering The Best Loot Ever, and it definitely misses the collective geek amusement at the persistence of that one guy who was so into our private dinner conversation that he just had to join in. lunch with timmah at horton was fun. hugging clone-wars yoda was also pretty ooo-la-la.

those were the highlights. it's been several months, i don't remember it all. i think the pictures speak plenty though. :)

while waiting in line to get my badge, i did discover that i had mahjong on my cell phone. since then, that game's been my lifesaver when in a good-god-this-line-is-moving-so-damn-slowly crisis.

the living accomodations of this trip were generously provided by brian "darth" maul. upset him and he just might unleash solar turbines on your unsuspecting person.

lunch at downtown karl strauss (there is no way in hell i'll be going back to the main restaurant...not for several years anyway). mainly just wandered around for most of the day. i think. (damn the infirm memory capacity of the elderly!!)

there was a lot of wandering around from booth to booth...in search of certain artists (andrew bell!!) or trying to sneak in more freebies than your allotted share. also quite a bit of running around trying to get in line and pick this item up for that person. the battle scene writing panel with robert jordan was this morning and i'd accidentally entered the room early enough to catch the tail end of the margaret weis panel. she's super fab. robert jordan? somewhat full of himself (obviously well-fed ego the man's got there). nevertheless, interesting talks all around. the lady sitting next to me took serious notes during the battle scene panel. sometimes i forget that we're not all attending these cons on a pure fanboy capacity.

accosted andrew bell at the dumbrella booth and got him to draw wrigglies on his new book (which i bought). found some new toy obessions: nanospore (SPORES!! SPORES!!) and unkl brand ning nongs. adorable thingies.

had only two and a half beers for lunch but felt the effects way into the evening. got sick half-way into the dear friends nobuo uematsu concert and had to take a couple aspirin (thanks for always being prepared minru!!). slept through a few songs (dammit!!) but the concert was worth the ticket price and the sitting on cold grass right next to the freezing ocean breezes. uematsu's final fantasy soundtracks are that incredible...a bit of music from practically all the games, a symphonized version of the chocobo song (people sang aloud to that one), and a double encore of one-winged angel (yay!!!).

the con center looked plenty deserted after the concert...i kinda liked that. never saw the place without it being jam-packed so it was nice to actually see the space for itself. there was a still a lot of evening programming going on though (movies and the such) but we were tired kids and decided to go back to brian darth maul's. which was equally all good because then we sat around his garage watching him fix surfboards and talking about this and that and a whole lotta other stuff.

i remember this as the day when we were finally able to rush the official star wars booth without having to suffer through a loooooong line. somewhat surprising since it was friday (usually a big day for comic con) and the doors opened half an hour late (there was a huge crowd outside by the time they let us in). for a while, the dealers' room was pretty empty so i was able to snap pics of bruce campbell and ray park (just slip past them as if you're only walking past...then quick-snap with the camera...instantaneous free celeb pic!).

attended the star wars trivia game...yieah i lost stupendously. it was fun though. i'll probably be doing that again next year. they gave away something like 30 copies of galaxies. i wonder why.

the highlight of the day was the afternoon ray harryhausen king kong panel. an entire hour of The Man himself...witty, smart-ass, and gracious. i don't even know that much about the original king kong movie as i'm more a fan of his sinbad work...yet it was quite an entertaining hour. getting ray's sig afterwards was even better.

at trouz's suggestion, we went to the mira mesa barnes n noble for harry pooter midnight madness. got a free pair of harry glasses (so dorky!) and gaped at the mass of people who'd gathered for the wait. after we'd found a spot, i konked out (tired). we were actually somewhat afraid that there wouldn't be any copies for people who hadn't reserved but that didn't turn out to be a problem. though i didn't have much energy to say much besides looking at the massive crazies, this midnight thing is something i'll definitely have to do again the next time.

the day of OSC. i practically flew to the booth where osc was scheduled to do signings...only to find a massive line in progress. so i waited, willingly, for over an hour. the goal? to ask osc to sign a new copy of ender's game for my, also new!, nephew in colorado (new nephew was actually named after andrew wiggin...how's that for fanboy). the hour spent waiting was fun as i chatted it up with the fans waiting in front and in back of me. blah blah blah. osc was super nice (despite having signed how many books for how long now?) and he gave me a big smile. so kudos to him for that.

revisited osc that afternoon at the science and storytelling panel. all the panelists were fun guys who dealt good writing advice with plenty of wise-assery. a non-stop hour of laughter. these are authors who have their head screwed on right and not floating about in the clouds.

dinner was planned by all to be at anthony's fish grotto. i forgot my cell phone at brian darth maul's house when we left in the morning, then seperated from the rest of the group, so i walked by myself from the con center down harbor drive to the restaurant. san diego's a great city for walking in the summer...i basically saw the ocean go from afternoon sun into waning sunset mode. gorgeous colors and reflections. the beach front street had a gazillion well-manicured spaces and the boardwalk was filled with random sculptures from local artists -- things you normally wouldn't see if you drove down harbor all the time.

dinner itself was fun chaos (more beer? deep fried cthulu? well dammit of course!). after dinner i zonked out at the house while the guys went out to get watered up. since i'd slept off the alcohol, i spent the night zipping through half-blood prince. which wasn't the plan originally...i was just gonna read a couple chapters and fall asleep. apparently the book was that good eh. ;)

sundays are always pretty laid back as far as con going goes but we managed to make an interesting visit out of it nonetheless. met minru at the con center (i forget why), then hung out with ripbobington because we hadn't seen him all throughout this visit (he was volunteering). minru snapped a bajillion pics of cosplayers and we dragged each other around to various booths. i got my super-cute, original creatures cardboard drawing from andrew (thanks andrew!).

we had lunch with minru (in mira mesa?) then spent some time wandering around the mysterious galaxy bookstore (it's smaller than i remember). i accosted the card game store next door for ccg stuff from a game of thrones but they hadn't heard of it (boo!). apparently, it's super rare to get a hold of (why?!).

afterwards, we called it a day and then drove home.