SDCC Tango, part 2

[furtech]

(Jack & son: *kssht* The fries are strong in this one! )

Saturday
•Up-and-at'em: got to con and met up with Roz: she showed me stuff (giant, limited edition Warg&Rider w/giant pricetag) and as well as where Donna Barr and Roberta Gregory were. Bought Roberta's cat-medical-bill-fund-raiser and chatted about old and/or sick pets. Roberta gave me a copy of one of her Bitchy Bitch collections: I cannot recommend these highly enough: hurt-yourself-funny.

•Talked with Anthony Waters and Cara Mitten...ended up having lunch (excellent fish place across the street from the con). Long, engaging conversation about art directors/portfolio-checkers at the convention and how to get freelance work. Their friend (Anthony and Cara as well) looked pretty depressed by the end of lunch. Wiser, but not happier. Fascinating insight about both sides of the table (portfolio critique'ers and artists).

•Even as I hate the blockage hall costumes create, some are just so cool !

•Rest of afternoon: zooming through rest of dealer's room. My Gohd there were a lot of people. Martes sums up what SDCC has become better than I can. I had 300,000 square feet of dealer's room left to see: If it didn't have a werewolf in it, *zoompast*. With exceptions, of course: Sideshow's LotR figures, including the Warg Rider and a Mumakal.

•Finished room just with ten minutes to spare...pooped. Limped over to the Anthony Waters/Cara Mitten table to see about food.

•Trudging back to AW's hotel...found Italian on the way. Decent food, huge prices, small portions.
--Restaurant stupid: couldn't slap a half order of spaghetti w/meat sauce together without putting it at the end of the serving line...and this after forgetting one person's meal (after about forty minutes he mentions not having food yet...after we all nearly finished our dinners. Maitre d' goes into kitchen and comes out with it in two minutes: apparently it was just sitting there for over a half-hour. No apologies or comps. Stupid restaurantX2). Seated right away, but service was lousy...two+ hours to end of meal and no apologies or excuses.
--Apparently we irritated Vantid (teasing about Harry Potter)...but if you bring out the book and start reading during a dinner with a bunch of smart-aleck artistic-types, what do you expect? Still, we were sorry.

•Separated after dinner: AW&CM&friends to hotel, me to masquerade.

•Masquerade: unexpectedly fantastic! Terrific Orc, unbelievable Doc Oc, hilarious "Disney Princess" sketch, a number of *HUGE* creatures/robots and things. Watched it in the big open room with the sail-ceiling; free nachos and good chips and pretzels and popcorn. No problem with seating and a better view than inside! SDCC got the crowd problem licked in style! (Nachos!)

•Dashed out to shuttle after masquerade...read Roberta Gregory's "Bitchy Bitch" comic. New people think I'm some sort of lunatic: her strip is a peculiar mixture of extreme bitterness and ironic humor. Hurtyourselfhumor! Do -not- read this any place where you can't laugh out loud (or while drinking any beverage! Spewage!).

Monday
•Packing to leave...realizing I should have given loot to Roz to drive back up...anticipate piano-wire bags cutting through finger tendons.

•Make it to train station in plenty of time (thanks to Mighty Zor): good thing-- train's packed.
--Huge line...
--No purpose to line; even station master suggests waiting inside. When train opens, people inside just walk in along with people waiting in long, pointless line.
--Got sandwiches and snax at station.
--Snag good seat w/view out ocean side of train. Love train.

•Discover why L.A.-ers will never completely give up cars: train breaks down in middle of nowhere. Engine dead.
Comedy ensues:
--(conductor): "The engineer is going to look at the engine to see if he can fix it."
----(conductor again): "The engineer is speaking to techs at the company who made engine."
------So...the engineer is on the phone with tech support. I imagine the conversation: (tech support line): "If you have a 7-thousand horse power General Electric diesel engine, please press 2...if you have a 9.6-thousand horsepower GE turbo-diesel, please press 3..."

•Train engine dies.

•Train stranded a few miles outside Irvine. Delightful view of low-income housing and mosquito pool.

•Train towed by next train (how humiliating in a "Starligh Express" kind of way). Arrive at Union Station @ 5PM, only two hours late...

• ...unfortunately, I had tickets to a Taiko Drum concert at 3:30PM. I catch the last half hour, but have missed seeing pikacello and her Stanford Taiko group play! Very unhappy (but other people on train were worse off, with connections and such, and over the weekend there was an accident on the same route where an Amtrack employee was killed! So...I'm good.)

•Missed seeing pikacello in a fundoshi...later meet her backstage and discover they wore cute happi coats instead. Probably for the best.

•Apologize profusely for missing their act! In love with O-daiko)!

•Picked up pooped husky from the Dog Gulag and went over to Zor's place for walk.
--massive power outage closed Pollo Loco (and half of Valencia), so it was KFC for Frieda and I.

•Three exhausted creatures shamble along trail.

•Home. Bed.