Month: February 2006

New York Comic Con

I’m kind of glad I didn’t go to the NY Con last weekend, since reports are indicating that it was a zoo. Most NYC conventions seem to face problems with overcrowding. I remember some big problems with the last Big Apple Anime Fest, for instance, and the Big Apple Con tends to have overcrowding problems too. I guess I’ll stick with Wondercon and San Diego, for now! Even though they’re on the other side of the country, and even though San Diego attracts over 100,000 people, both are very well organized and always fun.

Lisa Furukawa Ray

I heard an interview with Lisa Ray on a podcast a few days ago. They played a couple of oddball tracks from her, “Tennessee Waltz” and Tori Amos’ “Winter”, both translated into Japanese. They were both pretty cool. I just got around to checking out her web site and listening to some of her original music. It’s really good. “Girl in a Bubble”, in particular, sounds a lot like vintage Kate Bush to me.

San Diego hotel stuff

Well, I decided to take a chance and book a hotel for San Diego through Hotwire. I got a room at the Sheraton Suites San Diego for less than the con rate, so that’s good. It’s farther away from the convention center than I’ve ever been though, so that’s not so good. It’s on the con shuttle route, and it looks like it should still be OK walking distance (ten blocks), though a bit too far if I just wanted to make a quick trip back during the day to drop stuff off.
Hotwire doesn’t tell you which hotel you’re in until you’ve paid for the room, and their “downtown” area extends all the way out to the far end of Harbor Island, so I could have wound up quite far away.

Comic-Con 2006 – Hotels

Today is the first day that you can make hotel reservations for Comic-Con. And maybe the last day. I just went on-line to check availability, and there’s NOTHING open whatsoever. I remember from last year that a few of the hotels were all booked up on the first day, but not ALL of them! Hopefully, this is a temporary glitch of some kind, or some hotels will block out more rooms for the con. Otherwise, I’m either not going, or sleeping in a cardboard box on the street.

WonderCon aftermath

There’s an interesting Wondercon aftermath story up on Newsarama. They mention that the fire marshall closed down the show floor for a little while on Saturday afternoon. I managed to miss that entirely. I was upstairs at panels most of the day Saturday, so I guess that happened while I was listening to Kevin Smith or Grant Morrison or whatever.

yet more Wondercon stuff

Well, I’m pretty much done with the con now, back in my hotel room resting. The stack of comics I bought over the last few days is only about eight inches high, and largely consists of trade paperbacks bought at a discount, so it wasn’t a really expensive con for me.
For some local SF con coverage, look at the SFGate Culture Blog or this page at the Mercury News.