Babysitter of the Year 667

My nephew (the one year old) wanted a drink, so I got him a little cup (apparently, it's called a "sippy cup," though I feel a bit inane referring to it that way, similar to how I do when I catch myself saying "potty" instead of bathroom) of water.  I figured I'd only put a tiny bit of water in it, knowing he tends to spill if I give him too much. 

Then I left him alone, as I am wont to do (some folks never learn), but came back in when I heard a splash.

He had pushed a chair up to the fishtank, climbed up, and was using the cup to scoop water out to pour on himself, the chair, and the floor.  As I watched in mounting horror, he took a big drink of the fishwater.

I did not tell his mother.

Unrelated.

But it could've been worse, right?  Could've been the toilet.

Babysitter of the Year Part 666

September 13, 2012

My sister got a new job this week, so I've been taking care of the monsters during the mornings.  The four year old just started preschool, so I dropped him off and was alone with the one year old.  We went out to eat at Wendy's, and I was impressed with his ability to actually eat the food placed before him, instead of make up excuses why he wouldn't eat. 

Before...

Unfortunately, once I got him home, I trusted him to just play without much supervision.  Almost immediately, the one year old somehow got hold of the food coloring, and thought it was .  . what, food?  Soda?  Poison?  I'm not sure, but he managed to get the lid off one (blue) when I saw him playing with something.  I did nothing for a minute or so, but when I looked in on him again, he had gotten the lid off the green, and poured it all over himself. 

He enjoyed my frantic attempts to clean it off his fingers, clothes, and face, but in trying to help, it got on my clothes, hands, the sink, bathtub, and floor.  The carpet has seen better days.

The only thing I did right was think to take a picture before attempting to remove it all.

...After

Choose Life?

I first saw TRAINSPOTTING in 1995.  I remember the experience fairly well.  First off, I couldn't understand a darn word being said, and it was the very first time I ever used the Closed Caption option on a television to read the dialogue in a programme.  Secondly, the poor sod who soils his girlfriend's bed?  The lesson I took from that scene was that if you didn't have sex for an extended period of time, that would happen.

The third thing was this sense of superiority I felt, thinking I was so much better than these people, with their disgusting habits and laundry list of sinful activities.  I could look down on them in 1995, and I would look down on them when the trump blew and they all burned in ever-lasting hellfire.*  Sickening junkie pervert losers.

Well, here it is 2012, and I just watched TRAINSPOTTING for the second time.  And it was a remarkably different experience for me.    First off, I understood everything, even the slang, and even Robert Carlysle's crazy rants.  My constant exposure to BBC television and the Scottish movies Jeff has made me watch has opened up my ears to various previously-foreign dialects.**  Heck, I believe the VHS version was even the American dub, where they attempted to make the dialogue more palatable for folks in Lawrence and Des Moines.

Secondly, well, yeah, I've had it explained to me.

Thirdly, though, was what a remarkable change in attitude I've had over the past near two decades.  In watching it again, I actually found myself envying Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, and the others.

Yes, they are heroin-addicts, but they have drive, they live for something, they wake up in the morning with a goal, a tangible, real goal.  And it's something they can achieve.  They live for something, have an obsession that they'll do anything for, which I really don't have.  The lifestyle seemed kind of romantic, worst toilet in Scotland notwithstanding.

Plus, I really responded to the soundtrack this time, and didn't even notice it back then.

I'd be crazy if I said the dead baby scene still didn't bother me, but I still thought, "Heroin.  That's something I never considered.  But I should."  Why not?  Could it possibly screw up my life any more than it already is?  And hey, maybe I'd have something exciting to look forward to every morning (or more likely, afternoon) when I woke up.

Rish "Spraintotter" Outfield

*Okay, this is a huge exaggeration.  I may have been a different type of person in those days, but I was never a fucking asshole.

**All those faces were so new to me when the movie was new (or "new," since I saw it on video), but so many of them are familiar now.

August 29th again

Today is 8-29.  If the date, August 29th, 1997 doesn't have any significance to you . . . thank Sarah, John, and "Uncle Bob."

Neil Armstrong R.I.P.

On Monday, Big and I recorded an episode of the Dunesteef to accompany a story by Michael Anthony called "Remember Mars," in which an elderly ex-astronaut is spending his twilight years in a facility in which nobody recognizes that he landed on Mars. In fact, the people around him don't believe that America even actually landed on Mars. It's a sad, melancholy, depressing, but ultimately uplifting little tale, and afterward, Big and I talked a bit about the space program, the space shuttle and Apollo missions, and how nobody really cares about that sort of thing anymore (Curiosity notwithstanding).

We talked briefly about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and what it must have been like to watch the moon mission, then decided to halt all that and go look at the stars (Big lives in the end area of his town, with much land undeveloped, so you can usually see quite a few stars and clear sky, and we tend to do a mile and a half walk every Monday, just for fun).
Well, yesterday, I saw the announcement that Neil Armstrong had died. He was 82, and I responded to the sad news, but my niece had no idea who he was, and my uncle thought it was Lance Armstrong I was talking about.

I often think about the space race, and what it would have been like to be a kid when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and what an experience that might have been. What do I have that is equal to that? Baby Jessica being rescued? When Haley's Comet went overhead and I couldn't see it from my front yard? The release of the Michael Keaton Batman film? The year that dead guy won the election over the actual, living candidate?
 

I don't know, really.  But Neil Armstrong (as a concept more than as a man) is really fascinating to me.  That a man, at thirty-eight years of age, would accomplish something no one had ever done before (and only a half-dozen would ever do) . . . where do you go from there?

 

It's kind of like Harry Potter defeating the forces of evil when he was only, what, eighteen?

  Not that I'll ever achieve something comparable, but it is a question.  Maybe there's a story in that.

Walk of the Living Dead

My friend Big works in the news, and he mentioned to me a couple of years ago that there had been a zombie walk in the state capitol.  A zombie walk is a strange sort of gathering where strangers dress as the undead and have a kind of parade for no real reason I can think of.  He and I thought it would be fun to participate in the next zombie walk, then forgot about it until the following year, when Big found out about it on the news just as he had the year before.  We had missed that one too.  So, when 2012 came along, we became a bit more careful, vowing we'd go to it this year.

I had spoken about it with my eleven year old niece, and she was excited about the prospect.  My four year old nephew was timid at first, but then became thrilled with the idea of going.  In fact, when I got to work on that zombie movie earlier this summer, and came home to show off my makeup, he was disappointed that I hadn't taken him along, thinking it had been that zombie walk I had promised him.

Well, if you know me at all, you know that I wanted to dress the kids up as zombies and take them along more than I even wanted to go myself.  We went to thrift stores, and picked out clothes we could tear up and soil for this outing, and I went to the party supply store to get makeup for us and Big's children.  I was even tempted to dress up the one year old, but that probably wouldn't have been wise.  We tested the makeup on him last week, and he wouldn't stand still and rubbed off what little I got on him.  Ah well, next year.

I was pretty disappointed and upset today when Big told me his kids no longer wanted to go, and very nearly told him to force them to participate and get a divorce.  In the end, though, his youngest daughter changed her mind, and rose in my estimation tenfold.  My niece did her own makeup, my sister made up my nephew, and I did what I could to create a unique zombie look for myself.  It felt a great deal like Halloween a couple of months early.

An army of zombies gathered in the city park, some with only minor ornamentation, and some with amazing, disgusting, or darned attractive costumes.  Weirdly, the split between male and female zombies was way off, and not in the way I would have anticipated.  And many of those undead girls were young and attractive.

We began in the park, the made a procession down the sidewalk, looping around downtown streets, amusing many, making some uncomfortable, then finally crossing in front of the capitol building and back to the park.  My nephew really got into it, reaching for onlookers and moaning, and though there were a couple of babies spattered with fake blood in strollers, I'm certain he was the cutest kid there.

There were hundreds of photographers and many journalists there tonight, so I went to one of the newspaper websites to see if any of our group got in the shots they used (we didn't).  Unfortunately, I also made the (oft-made) mistake of reading the comments at the bottom of the story.  The second one down read, "It disgusts me that in this difficult time of recession and hardship that so many would choose to waste their time on this worthless endeavor."  Because all of the words were spelled correctly, I can't rule out the possibility that it was my father who wrote the comment.

Now, my first inclination was to yell "Oh, eff you" at the computer.  Actually, my first inclination was to chastise myself for having read the story comments, because that never ceases to bum me out, shock my senses, or piss me off.  But my second thought was to close the website and go onto Facebook, where people who had participated were commenting on how much fun they had.  They shared their pictures, and I found myself, my nephew, and Big's daughter in some of them. 

I took a long shower, managing to get nearly all of the makeup and blood off of me, tried to get a bit of work done, then decided to go to bed a bit early (for some crazy reason, I couldn't go to sleep until after five last night).  I turned out the light and closed my eyes, and suddenly remembered the criticism of that one comment on the Tribune website.  And I had to consider his words (or her words, I suppose assholes can be female too).  We are in a time of hardship and recession, and I could have been spending my evening either making some money, writing (I have a handful of stories still in progress that need constant care, or they'll die on the vine), or editing my podcast.  Instead, I spent quite a bit of money (what with the makeup, the costumes, the gas spent, and the meal afterward), and have little to show for my August 12th but an expanding waistline and a handful of photographs.

But you know, who cares what some troll on the internet thinks?  I went somewhere with my friend, and made a memory (hopefully a good one) with my nephew and niece.  I actually exercised, carrying the lad until my back started to bug me, and enjoyed the fresh air of a warm summer evening.  I had had a good time, and I had shared it with people that mean something to me.  One man's "waste of time" is another man's "new positive experience."

Glass half full, boys and girls.  Half full.

Rish "of the Living Dead" Outfield

Comic-Con Picture Game (belated)

Wow, I can't believe I forgot to post this. It's sort of a tradition to post some of my terrible SDCC photos, and see how recognizable celebrities are. I had the pics, but never stuck them on here. So, see how many you can identify.

1.

2.

3.

 4.

 5.

 6.

 7.

 8.

9.

 10.

11.

Comic-Con Day 4 (Hall H Part Three)

It's been really slow-going getting these Hall H pages published, partly because as the day went on, I typed less and less, and partly because I took so many pictures, it's hard to wade through them, finding one or two that doesn't suck.

Then, it was THE HOBBIT.  It turns out, I ain’t so jaded after all, kids.  I cried through half of that.  There was lots of magic in what they showed, both literally and figuratively.  We saw some specially-produced behind-the-scenes footage for us, then Peter Jackson came out, then they showed eleven minutes (I believe they said) of the movie (with a tiny bit from movie two sprinkled in*).  It was really great.  Emotional.  Then out came Phillipa Boyens (writer/producer), Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins), Andy Serkis (Gollum/2nd Unit Director), Richard Armitidge (Thorin), and Sir Ian McKellan (You shall not pass).  It turns out Elijah Wood was in the audience, so they had him come up and join the panel.

    Dang, this new movie looks like such an experience.  I really loved the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, coming to them as a non-Tolkien fan (still am), but now, my expectations and emotions will put me in a totally different place than I was in 2001 (I was so unfamiliar with the book that I believed Gandalf was truly dead).  Maybe it’ll be like the (first two) Star Wars prequels, and my love for the franchise will enable me to enjoy them.  Or heck, maybe it’ll just be that good, and I won’t have to strain myself internally.

Hey, it worked for AVENGERS.

Unfortunately, my battery is almost dead.  I have tried, though, to keep up with the panels and keep writing in this (though I’ll admit I become paranoid when the lights dim that this screen will do to me what cellphones in movie theaters do to me, so I stash it as fast as I can).

The Marvel Studios panel ended the day.  The footage for IRON MAN 3 looks good, but it’s hard to say whether it’ll be a good movie or not.  Did you know that when AVENGERS came out and made so much money, that Marvel raised the budget for IM3, just because they could?  To me, this was a head-scratcher.  Having twenty-five extra million dollars doesn’t make a movie better.  Six months extra to work on the script, sure.  An inspired screenplay and a really visionary director, definitely.  But just throwing money at a film isn’t a way to improve it.  For example, the 1997 STAR WARS cost exactly twice what the 1977 STAR WARS cost (twenty million versus ten million).  How much better was the Special Edition than the original?

When AVENGERS made a buttload of money, some of that money should have gone to bankrolling a future film (or films), and some probably should have gone to the people who made it such a success.  But I’m no businessman; it’s possible that most of that money was already spent when it came in, and they’re just now making a profit, which will be spent on real estate, narcotics, and underage prostitutes.

Speaking of which, Robert Downey Junior is really, really gung-ho about the Tony Stark character.  He has so much charm and coolness, as well as arrogance, playfulness, and a healthy irreverence, he seems as much that character in real life as Christopher Reeve did as Superman.

Ugh, now I’m thinking of MAN OF STEEL again.

The end of the Saturday night always brings us a panel with Kevin Smith.  He is a vulgar dude, but he’s not at all full of himself, and is so passionate that I’ve never once been bored listening to him talk.  And oh, he loves to talk.  He weaves a tapestry of colorful language that is merely talk of penises and obesity and love of bottoms when you look at it up close, but when you step back, seems to be a work of unique art.  And just between you and me, that is exactly what art is.

Smith had no projects to promote this year.  He has his TV show and his podcast, and another podcast (Hollywood Babble-on) is soon to be a TV show as well, but he seems to have retired from the movie- and comic-making business, and is all about selling what he does best: talk.  It’s inspiration, boys and girls.  Because I’m a podcaster too, and I always seem to be able to put out way more episodes of just me talking than the ones of stories and music and sound effects and acting.

Gasp. It’s like the difference between scripted television and reality TV. I guess that makes me a whore too. Sorry, Mom. Please donate via the PayPal button on your right.

Kevin Smith inspired the heck out of me last year, telling us how he was no longer surrounding himself by people who criticize his stupid ideas (I think the head of The Weinstein Company was very high on that list), but choosing instead to spend his time with people who encourage him to do what he wants. Eww, writing that, it sounds like I was inspired to surround myself with yes-men. But he basically was saying that there are too many people who bring you back down to earth, and few who will encourage you to soar.

 
That's what I chose to take from it, and it helped me accomplish one or two things last year, before I eventually reverted to my regular, miserable self. Which reminds me, I was going to produce a really horrible little audio drama on the show, and I never did. Hmmm. The problem with that is, if I know it's stupid, do I want to waste my time on it? Not without a guarantee of some sort, either that people WILL like it, or that huge piles of money will come of it. See, that's what a whore is, son.

Also, Kevin Smith talked about being in his forties, and that there are fewer days ahead than behind.  He inspired me last year by talking about choosing to be around people who say “Why not?” when he pitches them an idea rather than the ones who say “Why would you want to do that?”  Evidently, Harvey Weinstein was either THE person he was talking about, or one of the people who would ask him why, and he hasn’t talked to Harvey in a couple of years.

 
What Kevin really ought to do is hire somebody to direct something he wrote, where he can concentrate fully on his writing, and that person (preferably someone young and hungry) can concentrate on turning the words into interesting visuals, but if Kevin is making good money just putting out podcasts, I can totally understand him doing only that.  I had a conversation with Big once about making money with our podcast, that if we were making enough money with it that he could quit his day job, would podcasting start to feel like work instead of play.  He said, “Of course it would.  It already feels like work instead of play.  But not as much work as what I’m doing now.”

It would be pretty great to get paid to tell stories, or write them, or just to complain about things on the internet.  But I don’t have the ambition to do what is necessary to make that happen.  Heck, I could barely tell people to go out and vote for the story I have in that Masters of the Macabre contest.  And maybe the squeaky wheel gets to win that contest, just like the many Oscars that Harvey Weinstein has won/bought by his constant jockeying for awards and politics.

Heck, maybe I’ll still win that contest (since the deadline for voting is still out there**) because my story is the best.  I don’t know, I haven’t listened to the other contestants.  If it does, I’ll know that it was because people liked it better than the other four, and not because I brow-beat people (friends and strangers) into voting for me.

I did recently win a writing contest, and I’m terrified that people will think I cheated to get there.  I’d like to think that the story speaks for itself, and when they read it, they say, “Well, okay, that was a pretty great piece of work there,” instead of saying, “That Outfield douche bought the election, ‘cause so-and-so story was way better than his.”

You know what, fuck those guys.  I know I won fair and square, and that really should be the most important thing at the end of the day.

Man, I need to grow a pair.  That I could have lived this long with such a thin skin is appalling to me.  I need to grow a Piotr Rasputin-like shell around me so I can send stories anywhere, and not care if someone thinks they’re weak, and ask any gal to the malt shoppe, and not care if they say they’re washing their beehive hairdos that night.

The only way I can see to do that is to continue to send my work in, and do whatever I can to make this year’s stories better than last year’s.

Or to get a personality transplant.  Maybe with Robert Downey Junior.  That would be nice.

Rish “Rambling Man” Outfield

*Now there's three films, but who knows how they managed to decide that, and where to split things.

**At the time I wrote this, the contest was still going.  By the time I published this blog post, the contest had ended, and I had indeed lost.

Comic-Con Day 4 (Hall H Part 2)

I’m now sitting in a seat.  I was talking with a dude in the line about STAR WARS, and suddenly, an hour had passed.  The line started to move, and I was so caught up in our conversation that I hadn’t even gotten my badge out when I got to the door.  So I had to stop and let twenty or so people through ahead, and never saw that guy again. 

Ah well.

I got a fairly good seat, and am doing what I can to make myself comfortable.  I finally have a Wi-Fi signal, but I haven’t been able to get online yet.  I didn’t call this a "craptop" two Comic-Cons ago for nada. My cousin keeps telling me I need to get an I-phone, but I am hesitant.  Sure, I’ve seen the fun he’s had with it, but his work paid for his data plan, and even if it didn’t, he has a lot more money coming in than I do.

Still, it would be nice to just be able to look things up on the internet anywhere I go.  Instead, for example, of having to write or read when I go somewhere.  Who needs that?

To be honest, I’m not very excited about most of the panels today.  Last year, I was pretty disgusted with the schedule, and only stayed because I really wanted to see some late panel (I can’t even remember what it was for now).  Today, there’s not much I care about early on (DJANGO UNCHAINED doesn’t appeal to me, I loathe everything about END OF WATCH, and there are two hours of trailers to kill time in between studio panels (what, did SKYFALL cancel at the last minute?), but there is HOBBIT, MAN OF STEEL, and IRON MAN 3 to hope for.

So, the first panel I saw was for DJANGO UNCHAINED.  I realize I’m the only person in America who responded poorly to INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, so it might explain why I was wary of Quentin Tarantino’s new film.  But he’s so personable, and seems to have such a unique perspective and story he wants to tell that I couldn’t help but be sucked into it all.  I sort of want to see the movie now.

And Christoph Waltz is impressively cool, with an unplaceable accent (he's from Austria, but sounds more like James Spader than Schwarzenegger).

Afterward, there was a panel for END OF WATCH.

It’s a Los Angeles-set police drama that would normally appeal to me, except for it’s shot found-footage style.  Except for when it isn’t.  That pretty much guarantees I’m not ever going to see it, but the director came out and he talked about his vision for the movie, and that they shot it really cheaply in exchange for more creative freedom, and I had to respect that.  When somebody makes a movie responsibly, I feel they should be rewarded, even if the odd style they’ve chosen to make it in is repellent to me.

A couple of years ago, I thought ahead, and made myself sandwiches the night before Hall H, then had them in my backpack for when I got hungry (they ended up truly, horribly smashed, but I didn't care by that point).  Unfortunately, I hadn't thought to do so this trip.  I don't know if I mentioned it, but my sister decided to follow me to San Diego with her family, so she could take her boys to the beach, and we could all go to Sea World together.  They ended up staying at the same motel I got reservations for, and since I booked a double room when I made my plans, I ended up staying in their single room and they stayed in mine.  That's a round-about way of saying that I was even more distracted than usual this trip, trying to hang out with my nephews in the little time I wasn't at the convention, soaking my feet, or sleeping.

So, like I started to say, I hadn't thought to bring food with me, so I had the choice of either eating nothing, or eating what they were offering in the lobby (there was technically a third option, which was to give up my space, go grab lunch, then get back in line for Hall H again, and hope I made it back in somehow).  I took the opportunity, about halfway through END OF WATCH, to get up to grab food during the panel, and the food line was so long, that I missed the SILENT HILL 2 panel, or nearly all of it.  I quite liked the first SILENT HILL movie, even though I choose to blame it for the downfall of my horror movie review website.  Plus, it had Sean Bean in it, so that's a point in anything's favor.

Except for EQUILIBRIUM, that is. 

So, I got a pizza and a hot dog, choosing the latter over a soda.  One of the girls in front of me in our morning line brought me a Pepsi from their Starbucks run at 6:00am, and I might have had difficulty justifying four dollars for a Coke anyway.  The food is legitimately awful, but it’s the only show in town.  It was either that, or starvation, but I’m not sure I made the right choice.

Somebody in the SILENT HILL asked about elements from the game ported over into the movie.  That's got to be one of the hardest things about adapting a game for a film, and there's got to be pressure from the fans to include as much as possible, which seems like it would hamper your storytelling ability.  Of course, somebody who doesn't care about comic books but was writing a comic book movie might feel the same way about supporting characters or colorful costumes. 

That panel ended, and the girl sitting next to me had to take off.  They told the audience to let the ushers know if there was an empty seat next to us, so that one of the people in the line outside could come forward.  I‘ve been that guy in the line not getting into panels before, so I keep trying to get the attention of the usher nearest me.  This guy, however, is a huge jagoff, and actually looked at me waving my hand, then turned to look the other way.  I wonder how much I need to beat myself up to fill this seat.  I will try one more time.

A different usher gave me a thumbs up, and I wonder what he thought I was trying to say.  I pointed at the seat and smiled.  He shook his head at me.  Sigh.

So, the next panels were supposed to be us watching trailers, but they were running so late, they just went ahead with the Warner Bros. panels.  First up was PACIFIC RIM, which Guillermo Del Toro directs, that is a giant piloted robots versus giant monster flick.  I like Del Toro a lot, but it was strange to hear him talk without referring to ejaculate or vaginas.  Maybe next time. 

Then they showed some GODZILLA teases, for an upcoming feature directed by Gareth Edwards, who did the low-budget monster flick MONSTERS.  I’m not a fan, so I can’t say how that will go. 

There was also a panel for THE CAMPAIGN, with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifinakas.  It was interesting to see the two of them try to be funny in answering their questions, since they have different comic styles and timing.  A fan asked them to give a campaign speech in character, which totally flummoxed Zach.  He did it, after some hemming and hawing, and then Ferrell did his, building on what Zach had said.  My buddy Big hates Will Ferrell, so I was impressed by his improv skills.

After that, I was excited to see the MAN OF STEEL presentation.  They showed the teaser (they claimed it had extra stuff in it for us, so I’ll see next week**), and the audience seemed to eat it up, but I couldn’t tell for sure.  I was just reeling from how cold it left me.  There was pretty much nothing I responded to, whereas the SUPERMAN RETURNS footage I saw years ago left me weeping.  Everybody loves Nolan’s Batman films, and I understand that, but to take that sensibility and put Superman through it totally doesn’t work for me.  I guess that makes me a douche, but the only thing I liked about the trailer was the really phony-looking computer-generated flying effects.

No, wait, not that either.  What I responded to was seeing Amy Adams as Lois kissing Superman.  And I’m no Amy Adams fan.

Zack Snyder, the director, came out, and talked for a minute.  Then Henry Cavill, who plays Superman, came out.  I was impressed by him, since he was so darn handsome--I mean, he looked like Superman--so I guess I’m willing to give him a chance, but my guess is, I feel about MAN OF STEEL the way most people will feel about the next, post-Nolan iteration of Batman.

The highlight of that panel for me was when a guy stood up to ask a question, but just started crying.  It wasn't just a bit of emotion, but some kind of flood of tears and gibberish that had me looking away uncomfortably.  Finally, the moderator came down and hugged him, and though he was sort of laughing at him and not with him, he helped him get his question out.  We at least clapped for the guy.

Superman means a great deal to people (though the weeping fan may represent the extreme), and he means a lot to me.  By my count, he has one fewer bad movies under his belt than does Batman, so I hope I end up wrong about MAN OF STEEL, and the numbers don't even out.

Even though I typed up some of this on the day, it has taken me a long time to get it posted, so I think I'll quit here, and work on getting the rest out later.  That way, at least one of my posts makes it up before August.

Rish Outfield

*That reminds me, when I saw all the sleeping forms on the sidewalk as I got out of my car, I thought, "Oh no, how can the line possibly stretch all the way out here?"  It didn't occur to me that there might be that many homeless people on the street, and that they'd choose to sleep in such close proximity to one another.  A community, I suppose.

**Turns out the teaser before DARK KNIGHT had almost nothing in it.  Just a couple of seemingly-unrelated images, voice-over, and then a reveal of Superman and his new logo at the end.

Comic-Con Day 3 (Hall H Part 1)

July 14, 2012

So, after the grand disappointment that was yesterday, I was determined to make it into the Hall H panels on Saturday, which I have managed to get into the last two years.  Last year, if I recall, I depended on the motel to wake me up, and they didn’t call me, so I only managed to wake myself up out of worry, and barely made it in time.  The year before, I had thought to bring an alarm clock.  This year, no such luck, but I did program my phone to awaken me, and had, as stupid as this sounds, an egg timer as a backup.  The damn thing went off every ninety-nine minutes (which is its maximum), and I would awaken, look at the time on my phone, and then start it over.

I needn’t have bothered, because nerves kept waking me up to check the time, and I was already awake and waiting to see if my alarm clock went off when it finally sounded.  I chose to err on the side of caution, so set my alarm for 3:30am, two hours or so earlier than the last time. 

I got up, and got going, only a bit groggy, getting to an excellent parking spot and on my way by four.  It’s dark and humid as he--actually, I don’t imagine Hell (the location) will be this humid.  It was surprisingly quiet, with almost no vehicles on the street, and only the homeless around to remind me that life (or “life,” if you prefer) goes on.*



Convention Center around 4:00am.

I walked across the bridge to the Convention Center, and there the masses were.  Hundreds of people, nearly all of them sleeping, could be seen, on the sidewalk, on the grass . . . and snaking off into the distance. 

Unlike the last two years, they didn’t allow people to pack in like sardines in the queue for Hall H.  Amusingly, because of fire laws, they spread people out so greatly that the end of the line wasn’t near the Convention Center, but down the sidewalk blocks away, right (literally) alongside the ocean. 

It’s pretty daunting, but having seen the front of the line, I understand that once people awaken and start lining up proper, I’ll move up at least a block. 

So, I sat down and fired up ye olde craptop.  There are hundreds in line ahead of me, and in the few minutes I’ve been sititng here, another hundred have lined up behind.  There is a faint, pleasant breeze blowing onto me off the water, and the dudes next to me have all gone to sleep.  I chuckled to discover that the battery on my craptop, if I sit here and type constantly (it doesn’t pick up the wi-fi signal way over here), won’t even make it until the doors open.  I bought this one specifically because it had such a long-life battery (or maybe I just bought it because I'm cheap).  Sigh.

So, I can come up with something to write, or I too can go to sleep.  Not sure which to choose.  Maybe both, since I’m stuck here a long time.

I laid back for a few minutes, and the breeze blowing was really, really nice.  Some are complaining that it’s cold, but I think it’s pretty much perfect.  I might have been able to sleep, except the group I’m sitting with are pretty chatty, and there are a couple of loud talkers among them.  I’m not complaining, they seem like cool folks.  They were going through the schedule, mocking the panels that sound stupidest.  Some of the ones I’ll be sitting through to get to IRON MAN were among them.

A few minutes after that, the sprinklers on the grass near us went off, spraying several of those who were sleeping, so it was fortunate I hadn’t let myself get too comfortable. 

Not long after, the sun started to come up, and it was pretty.  Now the sky is the same color as the water, a sort of combination of grey and white. Of course, I could be an idiot and the water is just reflecting the sky.  Sorry.

As it got lighter, I discovered that I'm near the marina, and that there are several boats moored right behind the Convention Center.  One is a huge yacht with a helicopter on a pad, and the folks ahead of me joked that it either belongs to Tony Stark or Robert Downey Junior, whichever one is real.

I’ve seen two middle-aged women dressed as Merida from BRAVE this morning.  One might have actually been old, not middle-aged.  That amuses me.

It is now nearly six am.  I’m not tired, and not cold, and am in high spirits.  If you know me at all, I tend to be either really up or really down, and apparently, the roller coaster as gone up the ridge again.  I just saw a legitimately-attractive girl go by, dressed as Silk Spectre.  Miraculously, that did not push me into the realms of despair.

Now, it’s later, and amazingly, the people keep on lining up.  I do not exaggerate when I say that the line now goes off into the horizon.  The girl next to me joked that eventually, they’ll be wading, and only people with kayaks will be in line.

The very small people are at the tail end of the queue.

More time passed.  I wrote a sketch for the Dunesteef.  I tried to get online and couldn’t. I turned this off and talked with the people around me. The guys behind me said that they don’t even go onto the show floor, or buy anything from vendors, but merely sit in panels all day (which seems pretty fun).  I listened to the girls ahead talking about tampons and womens’ restrooms.  One of their friends "rage quit" the convention after seeing the lines on Thursday.  Funny, the only other time I'd ever heard that term was regarding my podcast. 

Right before eight o’clock, the people with sleeping bags were forced to line up (taking their bedding back to their cars, or motel rooms, or simply tossing it into the Pacific), and we moved forward for twenty minutes or so, filling the tents more than three blocks away.  Now I am under the second tent, surprisingly close to the front of the line.  It’s possible that people that showed up an hour or three after I did will actually get in.  And good for them; it sucks that anybody today would get turned away like I did yesterday.

Unfortunately, the grass below me is wet and disgusting.  I can’t figure out how the grass could get this mashed down and muddy unless people urinated on it day after day.  I also smell tuna fish.  At least that’s what I think it is.

Not having a blanket, I ended up tearing about twenty pages out of my program and sitting on them, eagerly awaiting the moment that the wetness soaked through and I felt it on my pants.  But I lucked out, and it only soaked partway through by the time it was time to stand.

I’ve seen a lot of cool costumes.  I saw a Judy Jetson and Rosie the Robot.  Several Poison Ivys, Katniss Everdeens, and Meridas.  A remarkably gorgeous girl in a simple Batgirl costume.  Lots of Jokers and Batmans and Thors (including at least three lady Thors).  Way too many zombies.  A guy just walked by with a faded Captain America shield t-shirt.  Wow.  A handful of Marios and Luigis.  A couple of Mal Reynoldses, Doctor Horrible, Stormtroopers, Master Chief, Star Trek uniforms, Sailor Moons, and one of those “I’m Sexy and I Know It” Rapebots.  I saw a really impressive He-Man yesterday (it was real muscle, but he was only half the size of the cartoon He-man).  There was a two year old dressed as Snow White walking with her mom in the main hall, which surprised me because there’s no way a child can walk in there and not get stepped on. 

Last year, those manatee-fuckers from the Westboro Baptist Church were out picketing the show, telling us who was going to burn in eternal hellfire and who really pisses God off.  This year, they have been replaced by a bunch of more non-descript Christians with signs and megaphones, apparently (at least from their words and tone of voice) trying to save our souls and let us know the Good News.  You know, I don’t really appreciate them being here, but they’re so much less caustic and hate-dripping that I don’t wish them ill at all.  I do wonder why they chose to come here:  because they are seeking publicity (which the Westboro defecants also sought), because they think we’re doing something wrong, or because they know there will be crowds and they think some of us may listen to what they have to say?  I’m not really complaining about them, mind you, and I guess it beats going door to door, I don’t know.

Oh, I was going to mention, though, that last year there were counter-protesters at the Westboro thing (people holding up signs that said “God Hates Vampires” and “Odin Hates Straights” and such), but that I did see a couple of similar signs this year, one of which read “GALACTUS IS COMING.  Are you prepared?”  There might have been a scripture too, like FF Vol 1:49.

This Beta Ray Bill costume was one of the most-impressive of the con.  Unfortunately, he wouldn't stop moving for anyone to take his picture, and this was the best I could get.

Big sent me a message yesterday, wishing me a happy birthday, and declaring that I was at the place where I am happiest.  I don’t know about that (I could be in Malibu right now, trying to help Anne Hathaway grow her hair back), but I do feel like there are more people who are like me in this crowd than anywhere else.  You see some real psychos, don’t get me wrong, but I genuinely think that most of these are good people (or at least decent people, in the upper fiftieth percentile as opposed to the other half).  They’re passionate about something (many somethings, in many cases), and willing to sweat and strain and spend their money to express it (or be around those that do).

I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’d try to bring them to stuff like this (though maybe not the SDCC, since it’s just too darn big and too darn difficult), to show them the sights and the passion, and let them know that if there’s something they enjoy, they can explore it as deeply as they like.  I think it would be wise to help them express why they enjoy something, and be able to defend it to somebody who doesn’t.  ‘Cause that’s the thing: any kid who had me as a parent would be bound to get picked on or mistreated in some way, and it might be good for him/her to know how to react to that.

Maybe he'd have to get some hand-to-hand combat lessons somewhere in there too.

There was a really impressive Beta Ray Bill costume walking around that I tried hard to get a photo of, but he wouldn’t stop for pictures.  I’m not saying he was a jerk or anything, but if you put in a lot of work on a costume, you want people to notice you, right?   It’s like a woman who gets breast impla--

Well, maybe not.

I did turn this off for a while and attempted to write something in my program, writing in the margins like a notebook.  I hate many things about myself, but one of the big winners is that, when I am someplace I cannot write, my mind goes to a creative place, coming up with stuff I would write if I could.  But once I’m in front of a computer or notebook, my brain empties like a waterballoon with holes in it.  I wrote for ten or fifteen minutes, never with a goal, or even a good idea.  I think I’ll have to throw away everything I wrote on those pages.

Of course, I might forget I wrote them, throw it away, and forever wonder what great stuff was in there, lost forever.

. . . To Be Continued . . .