Thursday, July 21, 2005

San Diego Comic Con adventures - 2005

Some of you might have wondered if I'd disappeared.
Indeed, to some (most) I may have, but for a short while only.

I had gone to the San Diego Comic Con International for about a week. And what did I get upon my return? Ill. Nice.

What was once a comic book geek-fest, is now the world's largest comic / film / literary / fine arts / pop-culture convention. I've been attending it for 15 years now, and just gets bigger and better. What makes this trip more worthwhile is the group of people I go with.

This year was a good batch of friends for sure. Some are even on MySpace. Of course, when you get any number of people crammed into a hotel room - to keep costs lower - you find out quickly about everyone's quirks, habits, and opinions. But, that's what keeps it all interesting.

What was I doing there? Different things, mostly networking. I went down with a couple of friends, and several models to help promote a T-shirt company named Dirty Little Tees. The girls dressed up in the hottie-wear and walked around the (almost 1/8 mile long) convention center filled with what seemed to be around 150,000 people, getting everyone to come to the booth and spend money.

Why girls? Simple. Never underestimate the financial power of a horny 14-year-old boy with allowance money in his pocket... especially when a pretty girl smiles at him.

The booth aside, we all networked with several companies, artists, and film-makers for future possible jobs. I apparently had earned a friendly reputation with the catch-phrase "Hey folks, it's that guy with all the girls! Give him a big hand and follow him around." Well, I could think of worse things said in passing.

The convention itself was fun, albeit a bit mellower than usual.

So... the Good News / Bad News portion of my trip...

Positives -
* Stayed at Embassy Suites - 2 room suites with all the amenities (kitchenette, fridge, microwave, 3 beds, and more). Free breakfasts cooked to order, and all the booze you can drink (FREE!) during a 2-hour happy hour.
* Staying in a suite with a couple of friends, and a variety of models. Yeah, don't that suck. HA HA!! OK, granted, most had serious boyfriends... but a guy can embellish on the settings, can't he?
* Meeting more celebs and fantastically creative, artistic, and ambitious people in one area than one could imagine.
* Getting paid to be there. (Always nice, even if it wasn't much.)

Negatives -
* Apparently I got sick with a sore throat from the second day I got there. I also don't usually sleep much, and even less during this trip... so the equivalence was almost 4 days with no sleep, on a potential illness brewing.
* Hearing flapping noises from the front tire on the way home (with a 500 mile drive coming up) - luckily only one mile away from home. Finding out that my front tire was about to blow. Took that bad boy off immediately.
* Adventure-Man Phil, puts on the donut spare tire and drives back almost 500 miles. But wait... this is the second time that I have driven that distance on the same donut tire (this happened 2 years ago also). AND I was doing about 70 - 80 mph (yeah, yeah, I'm a bit nuts).
* Upon getting home, and feeling like absolute crap, finding out that I have pharyngitis and possible strep throat (and somehow no one else got sick). So, I've been back for a few days, feeling like crap, wishing I would feel better so that I can go through my bags of new stuff, and contact information.
Bold
Alrighty... there was the extended version of my last couple of weeks. Stay tuned for more tales later.