10 Days in California Part 2: San Diego Comic Con Begins

Tuesday morning I boarded the train with some podcasts, an iPod of music, a book and a mindful of excitement for the week that laid ahead of me. The train ride to San Diego is a beautiful one. I recommend everyone do it. I can’t promise you’ll see amazing sights but it’s a really cool ride and I definitely want to ride on more trains. It’s a great way to travel.

Finally at noon I arrived at San Diego. In my headphones Freddie Mercury was asking if any one could find him somebody to love and I stepped off the training feeling like I was returning to my second home. 

San Diego is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been too. The Train station was a quick 10 minute walk to the hotel. I Checked my bags and met up with Rudy.

Rudy (for those wondering) is a listener of Horror Movie Night who lives in California. He drove down to San Diego for the chance to meet me. Now I’m no one special but it was really humbling to meet someone who was a fan and wanted to meet me. Rudy and I went and got some Jack in the Box to eat and then waited for Courtney (of Geekscape Games) to arrive.

Courtney was the person I was most excited to meet. Almost everyone on this trip I had met at least once before, but Courtney was a new writer/podcaster. We had developed a friendship online and I was excited to finally talk face to face. Courtney is just as cool in person as she seems on the podcast. Her, Rudy and I walked/drove around San Diego waiting for Jon and Gui to arrive so we could set up the booth.

We got some Temporarily helper passes for Courtney and Rudy to come and see the inside of the convention center. We decided to put off building the booth until the next day and left for dinner (Rocking Baha) where we laughed, sang and got acquainted. Afterwards Rudy left, Courtney got a ride to her friends house where she would be staying and Jon and I checked into the hotel to wait on Derek’s arrival.

Derek arrived around 11pm understandably hungry with intentions to get Subway. I didn’t want to let him walk alone so I got up and joined him. This was the first night we realized that neither him nor I have any sense of direction. We wandered the streets trying to follow a cell phone GPS eventually finding the Subway that was a 5 minute walk from the hotel … after approximately 20 minutes of walking. I was dizzy as fuck and needed a water badly.

I was excited to see and sit with Derek. I hadn’t heard from him much the last year but it was nice to be able to check in on him and talk wrestling. After Derek finished his subway we called it a night. Tomorrow when we woke up … it would officially be comic con.

Wednesday morning after sleeping in briefly Derek and I walked to find a breakfast spot. We ate and continued the previous nights conversation. In Derek’s article he claims I tried to pick up the cashier … in this case I must refute and say that I was advertising Geekscape to the woman working (who was dressed in cosplay).

We returned to the hotel and watched the film Serial which starred our mutual friend Heidi. It was one of the worst horror films I’ve ever seen. If you listen to Horror Movie Night … you realize that’s really saying something. Immediately after the film we walked to the convention center to begin building.

After Derek and I completed the build Jonathan went to pick up some additional supplies. Lunch time had rolled around and I decided to introduce Derek to the joys of Panda Express Orange Chicken before we ran to our appointment at The Tick interactive event. In Derek’s article he claims I was flirting with the guide. This time he’s correct. I absolutely was.

Immediately following this interactive event (which was super fun) I returned to the convention center to prepare for Preview night.

So the reality of this write up is that I didn’t see much on my trip. I don’t like crowds and I came to do what I do best. Talk about Geekscape and Horror Movie Night. That’s what I did for 3 hours. After the event completed we grabbed Lolita’s. I had never had this on previous trips but now it’s going to be a must visit dinner location. We returned to our hotels and crashed. The week truly begins tomorrow.

I woke up Thursday morning and walked to the convention center with Zach. We set up shop and prepared for the week to begin. I started handing out postcards, we talked to fans. At one point the team behind the comic book Powerless showed up and in 20 minutes ran out of the books they brought to hand out. The only other highlight was meeting two female fans and friends of Rudy.

Derek once again implies that I was flirting with these girls but I was strictly being friendly to fans of the show. Derek’s been in a relationship for far too long I think. We ran to the mall for a quick dinner (I got Panda but they were out of Orange Chicken) and then went to the rooftop for the hotel hot tub. It was there we met some kids from Denver (Yoshi, Sebastian and Daniel) as well as Jim who worked for Mattel and told us about some new RC cars we can expect in stores this Christmas. I returned to bed after this relaxing dip.

Friday we had a few more signees at the booth. To make this quick and easy:
Yehudi Mercado – Author of Hero Hotel is awesome. The book is awesome as well.
Fredrick Schroeder – Director of the documentary Stripped. He was the guest on Saint Mort Show years ago and it was awesome to finally meet. He also was awesome.
John Morrison/Johnny Mundo – The Lucha Underground superstar is incredible friendly. The catchphrase of the week was “Ripped like Dicks” which is how one very excited man described Johnny.

The other major highlight of the day was Kevin Nez who was another Horror Movie Night fan. He recognized my voice and ran up to hug me and get a selfie and record an interview for his own podcast.

That night I attended the Scream Factory panel and recorded a quick bonus episode of the podcast with Scream Factory Founder Jeff Nelson. I ended the night with Subway and calling it an early night.

It was originally my intentions to make this the final part of this series but it’s incredibly long as it is. If anyone is reading … you need to find out what happened for Saturday – Monday … tomorrow.