all righty. my memory's all jumbled up now so i'm trying to remember what happened each day...
Thursday - our first day there. We stayed at Amanda's friend's place in La Jolla. Carolyn drove us there that day and provided us with free parking cuz she worked within walking distance of the convention center. We ran into Laura and Nye in the volunteer line while waiting to register. That was random, but it was pretty cool. Over the course of the convention some of the volunteers and even some convention goers started to become familiar faces. I worked press registration the first day, typing and printing out badges for the media ppl that hadn't preregistered. it was fun, the staff's really nice. afterwards i roamed the exhibit hall, which was enormous - there were so many booths and exhibitors displaying, promoting, and selling all kinds of things - comic books, dvds, posters, collectibles, books, even weapons! there was one booth that was selling swords and other neat looking martial arts weapons. (it's places like this that samurai sword killers get their stuff! watch out irvine! eee!) I saw one panel about Neil Gaiman and his short film, which was odd at first, but i ended up liking it. it was pretty funny. After everyone's shifts were done we (me, amanda, david, inah, carolyn, laura, and nye) walked towards the Gaslamp district for dinner and i ran into Royce. of all people! I hadn't seen him in 3 or so years. it was really random running into him, but i was thinking he might have been at the con b/c he's a big comic book fan. i did think of him when i passed by the TopCow booth earlier that day. So he joined us for dinner, and it was cool to catch up with him.
Friday - I think i went to a couple of panels that day. We did programming in the morning, which was just sitting around cuz they had too many volunteers than those who needed help. Inah and i waited in line forever to get Neil Gaiman's signature for us and Laura. Today was the first day of the Laura Scavenger Hunt. We were unsure that we were gonna even get the signature because time was running out, but we stuck to it and eventually got it. it was kind of exciting when we moved from the "corral line" to the "real line." i think this day we also went to the Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean panel about their upcoming movie, "Mirrormask", which looks really cool and interesting. we got some promotional cards on it and i got them signed on sunday. i went to this Star Wars Clone Wars panel sponsored by the Cartoon Network. That was alot of fun, they were promoting a "microseries" of the Clone Wars, twenty 3-minute animated shorts about things that happen between episodes 2 and 3. it was cool b/c the same ppl that work on Samurai Jack worked on this too. Afterwards we went back to La Jolla cuz we had to get an early start for hell day, Saturday.
Saturday - ppl had started lining up at 4:30 am to get Angelina Jolie's autograph. it was way crazy when we got there at 8. the line was huge already. for us volunteers, we didn't have much of a wait, but we had to wait until 10 to get inside. i knew trying to get her autograph would be futile, so once i got my day badge i ran to the main ballroom to get a seat for the Warner Brothers panel. It was like, movie promotion day, Saturday. I managed to get good seats for the 4 of us and we stayed there till 3:30pm. The Warner Bros. set was good, they showed lots of previews, and Halle Berry showed up. The Paramount panel was primarily just Angelina Jolie answering questions. She's so pretty in person, and really nice. She handled all the questions well, even some of the less professional kind. Then it was Kevin Smith, who just did Q and A for the entire time, but it was so good. he's so funny. and we think his wife and daughter were sitting in the seats across the aisle from us, because at one point, he was talking about his daughter, and then this girl goes to the lady across from us looking embarrassed or pouty and the lady went, "daddy was talking about you again" or something like that. and they were able to walk around and no one stopped them, and it didn't seem like they had convention badges. We were planning to leave after the Kevin Smith panel, but he kept touting the Lord of the Rings panel which was following, so Inah and I decided to stick around and see what it was about. We're glad we did. We got a cool goodie bag and saw lots of cool stuff. The costume designers from the movie were there, they showed clips from the upcoming Two Towers DVD, and then they brought out the actors that played Gollum, Merry, Sam, and Frodo. I totally was not expecting to see Elijah Wood. I've had a crush on him since i first saw him in Huck Finn. he's so cute. Too bad Orlando Bloom wasn't there. but it was cool seeing them in person.
After that i had to go work my shift. i never even stepped into the Exhibit hall that day, i figured it'd be madness there. when inah and i left the ballroom ppl had already lined up for the Masquerade which started 5 hours later. CRAZY. so i worked my shift, Exhibitor Registration. it was pretty light. not much stuff to do. since we were in the same area as the autographs, we heard the screaming of the crowds. i wondered who was there. Hugh Jackman was doing a signing, and i think the hobbits did a signing after their panel as well. i dunno if kevin smith did one. afterwards i checked up on inah, who was working some other programming job in one of the rooms. i got a signed copy of a Matrix Comic from it, and we ended up working the Masquerade that night by sheer luck. It was cool though, even though i was starving. We got to escort the contestants back to the green room after they'd performed on stage and the subsequent photo shoot. that was the funnest job because i got to talk to the people about their costumes and kinda sorta see part of the show because the feed was being shown on a screen in the green room. My favorite costumes were the Spirited Away set and Mad-oo-lah, this cute little creature with its brain sticking out and it had a long neck and it's eyes were like that of a hammerhead shark's neck, and the guy inside it was crawling, or something like that, low to the ground. The guy was going for a more scary appearance. i thought it was the cutest thing on the planet. i also really liked the Evangelion costume, the guy had it connected to him such that when his elbows moved, the creature's elbows moved the same way, etc. it was awesome.
but you know what the sad part was....i'd taken too many pictures of angelina jolie, halle berry, and the hobbits that i ran out of film halfway through the day so i didn't have my camera. =( i think it was a blessing in disguise because i would've gone camera crazy. (i told amanda this later and she was like, What? Naomi without her camera? hehe).
Sunday - i got excused from volunteering today because of the extra shift the day before. woo hoo! so i wandered around the exhibit hall, grabbing more free crap, and when i passed the Lord of the Rings pavilion, there was a flier saying that Sean Astin was doing an autograph signing elsewhere in the hall at that time. I thought, what the heck, let's try, so i joined in the line and paid 20,000 pretty pennies for an autograph. (the rules for autographs in the exhibit hall are different, i guess, than in the regular autograph area) so when it was my turn (and this was a very well controlled autograph line, in my opinion), i said "hi" to him and he smiled and said to me, "pretty smile!"
i proceeded to forget everything i was going to say to him. that made my day. it made the convention for me =)
after that i met up with everyone and we split up. inah and i finished up Laura's Scavenger Hunt in the exhibit hall and then to lunch in Horton Plaza. too bad we didn't get to explore it much, it seemed like an interesting mall. when we got back we met up with amanda and carolyn in the Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean autograph line and i got my movie card signed by both of them. it was also the last stop in Laura's Scavenger Hunt.
So since laura's in Italy, she couldn't come, so she gave us a list of ppl to sign things and take pictures for her. We took pictures of her before she left, in different poses for different people. We blew up the pictures at kinkos and put them on Starbucks Stirrer sticks (like popsicle sticks) so we had 6 or so "Lauras-on-a-stick." it was a little embarrassing. but it was fun. When we got to Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, we asked them to hold up the pictures as we took a picture of them with the Lauras, but when Dave McKean saw them (he was busy signing something beforehand) he gave this "what the hell?!" face. and we got it on camera. YEAH! it's way funny.
After that was done, we walked around the exhibit hall one last time and Brian, David's former CV apartmentmate, showed us where to get some more free stuff. It was random seeing Brian there, but it was cool to see him. We had a good discussion about Harry Potter, stuff around the convention, Bio, and MCATs. As the convention drew to a close, we met up with Laura and Nye and had dinner at the Spaghetti Factory before parting and heading back to irvine.
The drive...hahaha....so we're on the 5 and there's some traffic (whod've thunk...at 9pm on a sunday) so we're bored looking around...adn then we see one car and i think i see arms and legs crawling to one side of the car. Amanda and Inah see the same car. They concur that they saw a naked body in the backseat of that car. it passes us by but we see it again, this time we see two naked bodies sittng up. People having sex in the backseat!!!! We did double takes but the car passes us by and we never see it again. what the hell?! and we were wondering what the driver of that car was thinking...man.
What a way to end a crazy weekend. I'm glad i went, i had fun, but i don't think i'd have the energy to do it again next year. it's way tiring.
Thursday - our first day there. We stayed at Amanda's friend's place in La Jolla. Carolyn drove us there that day and provided us with free parking cuz she worked within walking distance of the convention center. We ran into Laura and Nye in the volunteer line while waiting to register. That was random, but it was pretty cool. Over the course of the convention some of the volunteers and even some convention goers started to become familiar faces. I worked press registration the first day, typing and printing out badges for the media ppl that hadn't preregistered. it was fun, the staff's really nice. afterwards i roamed the exhibit hall, which was enormous - there were so many booths and exhibitors displaying, promoting, and selling all kinds of things - comic books, dvds, posters, collectibles, books, even weapons! there was one booth that was selling swords and other neat looking martial arts weapons. (it's places like this that samurai sword killers get their stuff! watch out irvine! eee!) I saw one panel about Neil Gaiman and his short film, which was odd at first, but i ended up liking it. it was pretty funny. After everyone's shifts were done we (me, amanda, david, inah, carolyn, laura, and nye) walked towards the Gaslamp district for dinner and i ran into Royce. of all people! I hadn't seen him in 3 or so years. it was really random running into him, but i was thinking he might have been at the con b/c he's a big comic book fan. i did think of him when i passed by the TopCow booth earlier that day. So he joined us for dinner, and it was cool to catch up with him.
Friday - I think i went to a couple of panels that day. We did programming in the morning, which was just sitting around cuz they had too many volunteers than those who needed help. Inah and i waited in line forever to get Neil Gaiman's signature for us and Laura. Today was the first day of the Laura Scavenger Hunt. We were unsure that we were gonna even get the signature because time was running out, but we stuck to it and eventually got it. it was kind of exciting when we moved from the "corral line" to the "real line." i think this day we also went to the Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean panel about their upcoming movie, "Mirrormask", which looks really cool and interesting. we got some promotional cards on it and i got them signed on sunday. i went to this Star Wars Clone Wars panel sponsored by the Cartoon Network. That was alot of fun, they were promoting a "microseries" of the Clone Wars, twenty 3-minute animated shorts about things that happen between episodes 2 and 3. it was cool b/c the same ppl that work on Samurai Jack worked on this too. Afterwards we went back to La Jolla cuz we had to get an early start for hell day, Saturday.
Saturday - ppl had started lining up at 4:30 am to get Angelina Jolie's autograph. it was way crazy when we got there at 8. the line was huge already. for us volunteers, we didn't have much of a wait, but we had to wait until 10 to get inside. i knew trying to get her autograph would be futile, so once i got my day badge i ran to the main ballroom to get a seat for the Warner Brothers panel. It was like, movie promotion day, Saturday. I managed to get good seats for the 4 of us and we stayed there till 3:30pm. The Warner Bros. set was good, they showed lots of previews, and Halle Berry showed up. The Paramount panel was primarily just Angelina Jolie answering questions. She's so pretty in person, and really nice. She handled all the questions well, even some of the less professional kind. Then it was Kevin Smith, who just did Q and A for the entire time, but it was so good. he's so funny. and we think his wife and daughter were sitting in the seats across the aisle from us, because at one point, he was talking about his daughter, and then this girl goes to the lady across from us looking embarrassed or pouty and the lady went, "daddy was talking about you again" or something like that. and they were able to walk around and no one stopped them, and it didn't seem like they had convention badges. We were planning to leave after the Kevin Smith panel, but he kept touting the Lord of the Rings panel which was following, so Inah and I decided to stick around and see what it was about. We're glad we did. We got a cool goodie bag and saw lots of cool stuff. The costume designers from the movie were there, they showed clips from the upcoming Two Towers DVD, and then they brought out the actors that played Gollum, Merry, Sam, and Frodo. I totally was not expecting to see Elijah Wood. I've had a crush on him since i first saw him in Huck Finn. he's so cute. Too bad Orlando Bloom wasn't there. but it was cool seeing them in person.
After that i had to go work my shift. i never even stepped into the Exhibit hall that day, i figured it'd be madness there. when inah and i left the ballroom ppl had already lined up for the Masquerade which started 5 hours later. CRAZY. so i worked my shift, Exhibitor Registration. it was pretty light. not much stuff to do. since we were in the same area as the autographs, we heard the screaming of the crowds. i wondered who was there. Hugh Jackman was doing a signing, and i think the hobbits did a signing after their panel as well. i dunno if kevin smith did one. afterwards i checked up on inah, who was working some other programming job in one of the rooms. i got a signed copy of a Matrix Comic from it, and we ended up working the Masquerade that night by sheer luck. It was cool though, even though i was starving. We got to escort the contestants back to the green room after they'd performed on stage and the subsequent photo shoot. that was the funnest job because i got to talk to the people about their costumes and kinda sorta see part of the show because the feed was being shown on a screen in the green room. My favorite costumes were the Spirited Away set and Mad-oo-lah, this cute little creature with its brain sticking out and it had a long neck and it's eyes were like that of a hammerhead shark's neck, and the guy inside it was crawling, or something like that, low to the ground. The guy was going for a more scary appearance. i thought it was the cutest thing on the planet. i also really liked the Evangelion costume, the guy had it connected to him such that when his elbows moved, the creature's elbows moved the same way, etc. it was awesome.
but you know what the sad part was....i'd taken too many pictures of angelina jolie, halle berry, and the hobbits that i ran out of film halfway through the day so i didn't have my camera. =( i think it was a blessing in disguise because i would've gone camera crazy. (i told amanda this later and she was like, What? Naomi without her camera? hehe).
Sunday - i got excused from volunteering today because of the extra shift the day before. woo hoo! so i wandered around the exhibit hall, grabbing more free crap, and when i passed the Lord of the Rings pavilion, there was a flier saying that Sean Astin was doing an autograph signing elsewhere in the hall at that time. I thought, what the heck, let's try, so i joined in the line and paid 20,000 pretty pennies for an autograph. (the rules for autographs in the exhibit hall are different, i guess, than in the regular autograph area) so when it was my turn (and this was a very well controlled autograph line, in my opinion), i said "hi" to him and he smiled and said to me, "pretty smile!"
i proceeded to forget everything i was going to say to him. that made my day. it made the convention for me =)
after that i met up with everyone and we split up. inah and i finished up Laura's Scavenger Hunt in the exhibit hall and then to lunch in Horton Plaza. too bad we didn't get to explore it much, it seemed like an interesting mall. when we got back we met up with amanda and carolyn in the Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean autograph line and i got my movie card signed by both of them. it was also the last stop in Laura's Scavenger Hunt.
So since laura's in Italy, she couldn't come, so she gave us a list of ppl to sign things and take pictures for her. We took pictures of her before she left, in different poses for different people. We blew up the pictures at kinkos and put them on Starbucks Stirrer sticks (like popsicle sticks) so we had 6 or so "Lauras-on-a-stick." it was a little embarrassing. but it was fun. When we got to Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, we asked them to hold up the pictures as we took a picture of them with the Lauras, but when Dave McKean saw them (he was busy signing something beforehand) he gave this "what the hell?!" face. and we got it on camera. YEAH! it's way funny.
After that was done, we walked around the exhibit hall one last time and Brian, David's former CV apartmentmate, showed us where to get some more free stuff. It was random seeing Brian there, but it was cool to see him. We had a good discussion about Harry Potter, stuff around the convention, Bio, and MCATs. As the convention drew to a close, we met up with Laura and Nye and had dinner at the Spaghetti Factory before parting and heading back to irvine.
The drive...hahaha....so we're on the 5 and there's some traffic (whod've thunk...at 9pm on a sunday) so we're bored looking around...adn then we see one car and i think i see arms and legs crawling to one side of the car. Amanda and Inah see the same car. They concur that they saw a naked body in the backseat of that car. it passes us by but we see it again, this time we see two naked bodies sittng up. People having sex in the backseat!!!! We did double takes but the car passes us by and we never see it again. what the hell?! and we were wondering what the driver of that car was thinking...man.
What a way to end a crazy weekend. I'm glad i went, i had fun, but i don't think i'd have the energy to do it again next year. it's way tiring.
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