Month: July 2007

So another San Diego con is in the books. I’ll be heading home tonight.

Highlights:

The autographing sessions, particularly at Marvel, were well attended and enthusiastic.

The gigantic scale model of the Black Pearl atop the Pirates display.

The presentations for the Hulk and Iron Man films, complete with stars and directors in attendance. Ed Norton looks as if he was born to play Bruce Banner, and the four minutes of footage from “Iron Man” were absolutely fantastic. If nothing else, it reminds you of what a fantastic actor Robert Downey Junior is.

Saw the pilot episode of “Sarah Connor Chronicles.” Absolutely great, although there was faint moaning from the audience when the closing words, “Coming Soon from Fox” appeared on the screen, since Fox’s track record with SF isn’t exactly stellar.

Met Guy Williams, Jr., who–among other things–sells replicas of his father’s Zorro outfit. Pictures of me modeling some of the outfit will go up as soon as I have them in hand.

Bought neat stuff for the family.

Participated in Mark Evanier’s Quick draw panel, once again guessing three words that the artists had to convey via pictures only. Abstract words like “Easy” (which ironically was the hardest). Got all three in a reasonable amount of time. I always love the “Aha” moment when I suddenly realize what the word is. It’s the closest I’ll experience to the kind of moment that Monk has when he solves the case.

The Impact publishing table brought sixty copies of my book on writing comics and by the end of the con had only three left, so that was nice.

PAD

The second annual Marvel vs. DC softball game came to a hard-fought conclusion Thursday as, for the second year in a row, Marvel triumphed over DC in the San Diego softball contest. The prize was the treasured Stan Lee Cup (not to be confused with that two-bit imitator, the Stanley Cup.)

Your humble host pitched the first three innings, allowing one run. I ran into trouble in the fourth, as I got rattled between a couple of walks and some poor fielding by my teammates that caused our 8-1 lead to be trimmed to 8-5. Paul Jenkins came in to pitch and, after allowing DC to take the lead 9-8, got us out of the inning. An Humberto Ramos grand slam followed by a solo shot by Johnny Romita, Jr., put Marvel back on top and we never looked back. Paul volunteered to come back out so I could return to the mound, but he was pitching well and I didn’t want to mess with a good thing, so instead I subbed in as catcher when the player who had been catching asked to be taken out on account of being drunk. All proceeds when to the Hero Initiative.

Several of our players were celebrating with the Stan Lee Cup at the Hyatt bar after midnight. Losing DC player Dan Didio saw the guys and endeavored to snare the cup away from them, perhaps in hope that–since they were drinking–they wouldn’t notice. Unfortunately what Dan was unaware of was that they were, in fact, drinking beer out of the Stan Lee Cup. Consequently, Dan’s abortive attempt to yank the Cup away from its bearer’s grasp resulted in beer spilling out of the cup and down Dan’s crotch. To his credit, Dan was a good sport about it and then drank the remainder of the beer from the cup. And yes, that little incident was captured on video, although not by me, since I was securely asleep in my room by that point.

PAD

So we were at Disney-MGM today (anyone reading Kath’s blog is getting a blow by blow of our vacation) and Ariel was interested in riding “Tower of Terror.” But when we arrived, there was a sign indicating that there would be no Fastpass available: A way of checking in early at a popular ride and getting a set time at which you can return and head straight in, thus enabling you to plan your day more effectively. Without Fastpass, the popular rides are going to have formidable waits.

We decided to check the status board on Main Street, the one that tells you what rides are open and what the projected wait times were. Curiously, there was a little sign blocking the wait time for TOT, and the sign read, “Guess the Wait Time!” Ariel guessed a half hour and the Disney cast member overseeing the board shook his head. He turned to me. I gave it some thought and said “Fifty seven minutes.” He said, “We only go in increments of five.” “Oh. Okay.” I rounded up. “Sixty minutes.” He blinked in surprise and removed the sign to reveal “60 Minutes.” He asked if we were planning to go on (“We” being Ariel, myself, and a friend of ours, Jay, with whom we’d met up at the park.) I said yes. He then gave us Fastpasses for TOT, telling us that today the ONLY way one could get a Fastpass for TOT was to guess the wait time.

We walked over to TOT with the passes and the cast member to whom we presented them said, “These are rare as gold” before waving us past a huge line.

Cool.

PAD

Overall, I liked it a hëll of a lot.

Continue Reading “HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (Spoilers permitted)” →

So there we were at a fairly small airport in Long Island, our preferred means of departing the area by air as opposed to the more busier, more hectic JKF or LaGuardia, as casa David prepared for our annual pilgrimage to Florida (followed by my continuation to the San Diego con.)

We encounter a huge line waiting for curbside check-in, but the line inside seems no shorter, so we wait. And wait. We inch forward. After about fifteen minutes of waiting, some guy steps in back of us. Apparently he doesn’t realize that he’s cutting in line, because there’s ten people behind us. It’s just that the woman behind us hadn’t yet moved forward because she had several suitcases to maneuver. Kathleen points out to him that he’s cutting in line and indicates where the actual end is. His response? He starts cursing at her, telling her to go f*** herself.

Continue Reading “Worst…airport…experience…ever.” →

With Emmy nominations out, there’s apparently some buzz that the inconclusive ending to the series might hurt its chances.

Personally…I thought the ending was brilliant.

Continue Reading “The Sopranos Ending” →

Spoilers for the upcoming last “Harry Potter” novel are starting to spring up like weeds on the internet.

I’ve read none of them, but now seems a good a time as any to post my daughter Ariel’s predictions. Over the past two weeks she’s re-read the previous six books and here’s what she thinks will happen.

(I’m putting them below the cutline since I know there are some strange individuals out there who consider guesses to be spoilers, but I emphasize that in the definition of spoilers that sane people hew to, there are none.)

Real spoilers are NOT to be put onto this thread.

Continue Reading “Ariel’s Harry Potter predictions” →