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adelagiaPART I | PART II
DAY 5: I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE WORD STRATEGY MEANS, BRYANT GUMBEL
We weren't able to get Saturday tickets, and although we were missing several things we would have loved to see, like Dylan O'Brien's face at the Scorch Trials panel, having a day's reprieve from the nonstop madness of Comic Con was quite nice. Instead,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jade_okelani and ropo drove down from LA to pick us up and ferry us all to more spa goodness. Sarea went back to Cascade, and the rest of us carried on to Karma. We all met up afterward at Oscar's, because those octopus tacos deserve to be eaten more than once. A girl in line behind me asked for a recommendation; obviously the immediate answer was the octopus taco, but she was not about that business, so I recced the surf and turf instead. Her grave loss.
Not for the first time, we lamented the lack of such good stuff in Seattle. We're a seafood town, too; why can't we accomplish the same standards?
Speaking of Seattle, the San Diego weather was so much nicer in comparison. And not in the way that you'd think, either. We were in the balmy 70s every day in San Diego, having left the hellish heatwave that had overtaken Seattle the week before, with highs hitting the 90s on a daily, horrible basis.
Back to the hotel to change, and then shuttle downtown to the Omni Hotel, where the Game of Thrones: Experience the Realm event was held. So much fun! We have video of Sarea, Jade, and me getting torched by dragonfire (Ropo didn't want any part of this action) and pictures of us as White Walkers. While in line for sitting in the Iron Throne, the people around us engaged us and the two gentlemen ahead of us in a debate about what the bastards' last name would be if they were born in King’s Landing. The answer, with which Sarea and Jade were spot-on, is Waters.
Costumes from the show were displayed all around the hall:
We all got to sit on the Iron Throne! This was the penultimate part of the experience; last up was doing Arya's water dancing, where they take a picture of you, put it up on a screen, and you're given a wooden sword with which to virtually break targets on the screen, and the way you swing and break the targets (described by one of the gentlemen ahead of us as "balls on your face," which was not untrue) determines the pattern that unfolds. It was very cool. If I were less stringent about never posting my face online, I'd totally post my face from this.
Here is Krang from the Ninja Turtles demonstrating. (Unfortunately, no picture, but just a few feet away at the other sword stand was his friend Shredder.)
While we were in line for this, though, Sarea was desperately wanting to get a photo of an amazing Cersei cosplay on the Iron Throne, so she disappeared for a little bit, which nearly cost her a meeting with Ser Davos himself (or Liam Cunningham, whatever). Ropo tried to get pictures for her, Jade hurried to fetch her, and Sarea got a photo with him that she didn't like because the camera, initially not quite working because of the long lens, caught Sarea just as she was telling Jade to back up a bit, but it was righted later on when Sarea darted across the water dancing stage for another try as Ser Davos hung around the Iron Throne. We thought Sarea would be in so much trouble because a staff member immediately followed her, but as it turned out, the staff person just wanted pictures of Ser Davos too. Hee.
We then picked up free GoT t-shirts, and went on our merry way back to the hotel and dinner at Buon Appetito, where, amazingly, our server had an Italian accent. Jade suspected some of them, at least, were working actors hired for their abilities to do whatever accent was required by the establishment. Sarea and I both had the linguine boscomare, Jade had the osso bucco, and Ropo a simple farfalle with vodka tomato sauce.
Plan A for dessert was Pappalecco, but someone spotted an ice-cream-looking place just across the street called iDessert, so we decided to check it out. It was fancy. You build your own dessert at iPad stations, with choices for a meringue crust, cream, gelato, cake, toppings, and sauce. Very involved. I went with just plain old gelato, which was terrible. It wasn't real gelato, for one; it was soft serve. Also the coconut gelato was disgusting; it was so full of coconut shreds that every mouthful was gritty. The other girls made better choices than I did, though.
After dinner, Jade and Ropo drove back home. Because of her harrowing experience on Thursday in the Next Day Line, Sarea decided to skip Hall H altogether for Sunday -- especially as The Vampire Diaries panel was the only one she was really interested in anyway, so we were able to watch HBO's 7 Days in Hell together, starring Andy Samberg and Kit Harington. Days later, we still find ourselves giggling out of nowhere on recollection of the line "according to Swedish law, by escaping, he is now a free man" and the sight of Kit Harington facing a wall.
Indubitably.
DAY 6: THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER
The final day of SDCC! It seemed both so long and so short at the same time. Despite the craziness, there's a real sense of "only at Comic Con," where you feel like these are your people, and it's more than okay to dress up as your favourite character, and when you make a reference, no matter how obscure, somebody's there to get it. Like when someone tried to cut in the Hall H line on the GoT day, and everyone started chanting, "Shame! Shame! Shame!"
The first panel of the day was a quandary for me; I wanted to go to both the Phineas & Ferb one and No Cape Required: Modern Day Superheroes, with Pierce Brown and James Dashner among the authors on the panel. Sarea went to the latter and took much video for me while I attended P&F, their last one ever, most likely, as they just finished their final season. The creators cried a little bit at the end; the whole thing was so sweet and already nostalgic.
Thomas Brodie Sangster didn't attend (though I hear he was at the Scorch Trials one the day before), so Vincent Martella was able to answer questions like this:
Audience question: "Why is it always Phineas that talks and not Ferb?"
Vincent: "Because I'm more important."
It was probably a good thing Thomas wasn't there, otherwise I might have been way more tempted to go to the P&F signing immediately after and once again directly clashing with the No Cape Required signing on the schedule. I met Sarea in the No Cape Required line, and watched wistfully from the middle of the pack as Pierce Brown ate peanuts and took pictures and chatted with fans at the outer edges of the line. There may or may not have also been some seething with jealousy sprinkled in with the wistful watching from afar.
A word about Pierce Brown: super cute and super talented. I'd picked up a copy of his first book Red Rising for free at the Emerald City Comic Con, and when I finished reading it, wanted to immediately buy the second in the trilogy. It's such a compelling story and well-written as hell. I'd finished Red Rising just before heading out to another trip prior to the San Diego one, so had been planning to purchase it when I got back, but then found out he'd be at SDCC so put it off again with the hopes they'd be selling Golden Son at the con. They were! Right at the signing, too.
I bought a paperback of Golden Son, and Sarea bought practically the entire stock of whatever was available -- three of Pierce Brown's books, a James Dashner, The Young Elite by Marie Lu (as well as the “Legend” graphic novel), Superheroes Anonymous by Lexie Dunne -- which sounds a lot more interesting than its crappy cover art would have you believe, and Nimona by Noelle Stevenson.
Pierce Brown signed our stuff and we chatted a bit; he'd done the Assassin's Creed run outside the day before -- a sort of obstacle course where you climb things and fall from other things, which he described as "exhilarating"; he saw my badge that said I was from Washington and told us he used to live in Seattle. Sarea made sure to find out if he was still a Seahawks fan (he is), and took a picture of me with him. Eee.
Later, far out of earshot...
Sarea: "The picture of the two of you together is so cute. I wish he was your boyfriend!"
You and me both, lady.
Sarea got her books signed by the various other authors and I took a picture of her with James Dashner first, and then everyone else down the line, because if she ends up really liking their stuff, then she'll have a photo of herself with an awesome author she loves. She'll thank me later. Also, Lexie Dunne said that Sarea was the first person to ask for a photo with her, which made her day, so everyone wins.
We went for lunch at Spike Africa's Fresh Fish Grill, several blocks away from the convention center and far enough out of the zone of crazy con goings-on. We elected to sit outside, but not immediately adjacent to the sidewalk, which turned out to be a brilliant idea, because it gave us more space between us and the creepy vagrant who kept whistling and catcalling at us for at least two or three consecutive minutes, despite our resolute refusal to acknowledge him. I don't understand what he thought would happen, or what exactly he expected, or what any man expects when he acts a fool like this. Seriously, why do men do this?
And while I'm on this roll -- at the P&F panel, because I have short legs and do not take up all the space in front of me, this dude next to me decided he could just annex that space in the name of his monster feet. Excuse you, sir. At least have the courtesy of asking first or even acknowledging that your douchey foot is a direct arm's length in front of my face, you overweening swine.
More importantly, food. Sarea ordered a Caesar salad (made with anchovies, as any self-respecting Caesar salad would be) and a lobster roll, after confirming with the waiter that it contained actual chunks of lobster. I got the tuna poke wrap and a red sangria. Delight.
Once more into the breach, dodging evangelical Christians with signs and bullhorns yelling at all the con attendees about what terrible and stupid people we all were for wasting our time and money believing in superheroes and the like. Here's another thing I don't get -- what is it about shaming people for liking things that these "Christians" think is going to get them on their side? Like, "Oh, this guy on the street is shouting at me about what a shitty excuse for a human being I am; I think we should be friends. Best friends!"
Positioned amongst the sea of unwelcome evangelists...
Guy handing out gaming cards: "Free stuff that's not bad."
(Sarea and I heard this differently; I heard him say "Free stuff that's not that," but either way, it's funny. Good job, guy.)
The Christian group (I hesitate to call them Christians, even; real ones don't go around being dicks in the name of God) was out there every day of the con. Sarea managed to get a bit of video one day when the Damien promo people -- carrying signs and chanting "It's all for him," “My blood for him!” and other such creepy slogans and handing out 'propaganda' as if they were actual followers of the son of the devil -- decided to march right next to them. The juxtaposition was simply beautiful.
We had some time before Sarea's last author panel of the day, and wanted to visit the Exhibit Hall, especially the ABC booth, where they were doing virtual pictures with the Muppets (i.e., Muppets not actually present in the flesh -- fur? -- but superimposed onto a photo next to you). One of her wristband line friends had gone earlier and had gotten a picture with Animal, which of course we both needed in our lives. The line wrapped around the booth, and various people stopped by to ask what the line was for. Reactions slotted neatly into one of two columns: pleasantly surprised or straight up confounded.
While in line one of the staff came by to inform us that they'd run out of Muppets buttons (booo) and that the way the pictures worked was random -- you'd either get Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Animal, or the Evil Queen from Once Upon A Time, which... what?? Who in the world would get in line at a Muppets booth for a picture with Regina? Who, I ask you. You and the genius who made the decision to splice her in with the Muppets. We were ready to pitch monstrous fits if either of us got her. Luckily, for us and the beleaguered staff, we both ended up with Fozzie. Bullets dodged all around!
The Muppets thing took longer than we thought, so Sarea missed her last panel. We then considered wandering the Exhibit Hall, but it was so crowded and large and overwhelming we navigated ourselves to the nearest exit instead. Back to the hotel to drop off Sarea's twelve thousand new books, and then we hopped on the shuttle again to get to a Harmontown show at Tin Roof. We got there over an hour early, but there was already a line out the door. Even though we were relatively early we had to sit in the third row, as the first two were reserved with people's names on them -- how this option was possible we didn't know. As is always and forever the case, the World's Largest Man sat in front of us. I was there to see Jeff Davis as much as Dan Harmon, but WLM's head obscured my view of Jeff for most of the show, damn his large man head.
Tin Roof is a bar and live music venue, and in keeping with the necessity to cater to the kind of crowd who goes to bars and live music shows, blasted horrible, bass-thumping, cymbal-clanging, this-will-give-you-vocal-nodules-screaming music from its accursed speakers throughout the entire wait to the start of the show. Sarea had to plug her ears; I was seconds away from razing the place to the ground. Bars suck so much; I don't understand why people like them. Also we are old, old, cranky women.
The very first thing Dan Harmon did was to send up Chris Pratt/Jurassic World, hilariously continuing a theme established in Community S6. He ranted about people having favourite colours, people in bands who were not lead singers all secretly wanting to be lead singers, Tom Petty, and the "Bloody Mary Arms Race," in which Bloody Marys, according to Jeff, ought to be served in a highball glass, not a full pint with nineteen different foods arranged on top of it. The bartenders then served Dan a Bloody Mary with a hamburger on it, on which he choked.
Afterwards I managed to get a photo taken with Jeff, who was incredibly nice and accommodating and so, so tall. I didn't even come up to his shoulder, and Sarea couldn't fit all of his head into the frame.
Starving and desperately needing to visit the restroom, Sarea and I headed straight back to Spike Africa's for a late dinner at 9:30. She got clam chowder (after confirming with the server that there were actual clams in it and not just potato chunks masquerading as clams; she received reassurances of clams in the multitudes, but this turned out to be somewhat of a lie) and fish and chips; I got a seared tuna nicoise.
After that, a Lyft back to the hotel, packing up, and resting our weary heads with the lovely thought of being able to sleep in the following morning.
DAY 7: BYE BYE,LIL SEBASTIAN SAN DIEGO
A glorious, comparatively late start to the day with nowhere to be until our early evening flight. Nevertheless, we checked out by noon and asked the hotel to hold our things until we were good and ready to leave.
Shino was closed, which we weren't aware of, no thanks to their negligence in posting business hours anywhere on their doors, so we walked some more to Little Italy. Choices were a return to Davanti Enoteca or PrepKitchen; we rolled the dice on Sarea's dice-rolling app, downloaded for just such occasions (it comes up more often than you'd think) and they landed in favour of PrepKitchen, where we got a Cubano Torta for Sarea (better than ones she'd had in Miami) and a Spinach Naan for me, accompanied by kettle chips. We each saved half of our sandwiches for the flight home.
Overflowing with time to waste, we then made a return visit to Pappalecco. Stracciatella gelato for me, and a lemon tart, cookie, and prosciutto/mozzarella sandwich for Sarea. What can she say; she really likes prosciutto. And it turned out to be an even better sandwich than the cubano.
Shuttle to the airport, uneventful security check (Sarea's light saber surprisingly was not flagged as a weapon), three hours of sitting and waiting, actual flight, Shuttle Express that upgraded us at no extra cost to a town car.
Adelagia: "Do we have to tip him more?"
Sarea: "No!"
Adelagia: "But he's wearing a suit!"
And thus marks the end of our Comic Con adventures. See you next year, hopefully, by which time maybe all those pointless queuing issues will be resolved. Haha. Ha. Sigh.
In the meantime, enjoy these excellent cosplays:
DAY 5: I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE WORD STRATEGY MEANS, BRYANT GUMBEL
We weren't able to get Saturday tickets, and although we were missing several things we would have loved to see, like Dylan O'Brien's face at the Scorch Trials panel, having a day's reprieve from the nonstop madness of Comic Con was quite nice. Instead,
jade_okelani and ropo drove down from LA to pick us up and ferry us all to more spa goodness. Sarea went back to Cascade, and the rest of us carried on to Karma. We all met up afterward at Oscar's, because those octopus tacos deserve to be eaten more than once. A girl in line behind me asked for a recommendation; obviously the immediate answer was the octopus taco, but she was not about that business, so I recced the surf and turf instead. Her grave loss. Not for the first time, we lamented the lack of such good stuff in Seattle. We're a seafood town, too; why can't we accomplish the same standards?
Speaking of Seattle, the San Diego weather was so much nicer in comparison. And not in the way that you'd think, either. We were in the balmy 70s every day in San Diego, having left the hellish heatwave that had overtaken Seattle the week before, with highs hitting the 90s on a daily, horrible basis.
Back to the hotel to change, and then shuttle downtown to the Omni Hotel, where the Game of Thrones: Experience the Realm event was held. So much fun! We have video of Sarea, Jade, and me getting torched by dragonfire (Ropo didn't want any part of this action) and pictures of us as White Walkers. While in line for sitting in the Iron Throne, the people around us engaged us and the two gentlemen ahead of us in a debate about what the bastards' last name would be if they were born in King’s Landing. The answer, with which Sarea and Jade were spot-on, is Waters.
Costumes from the show were displayed all around the hall:
We all got to sit on the Iron Throne! This was the penultimate part of the experience; last up was doing Arya's water dancing, where they take a picture of you, put it up on a screen, and you're given a wooden sword with which to virtually break targets on the screen, and the way you swing and break the targets (described by one of the gentlemen ahead of us as "balls on your face," which was not untrue) determines the pattern that unfolds. It was very cool. If I were less stringent about never posting my face online, I'd totally post my face from this.
Here is Krang from the Ninja Turtles demonstrating. (Unfortunately, no picture, but just a few feet away at the other sword stand was his friend Shredder.)
While we were in line for this, though, Sarea was desperately wanting to get a photo of an amazing Cersei cosplay on the Iron Throne, so she disappeared for a little bit, which nearly cost her a meeting with Ser Davos himself (or Liam Cunningham, whatever). Ropo tried to get pictures for her, Jade hurried to fetch her, and Sarea got a photo with him that she didn't like because the camera, initially not quite working because of the long lens, caught Sarea just as she was telling Jade to back up a bit, but it was righted later on when Sarea darted across the water dancing stage for another try as Ser Davos hung around the Iron Throne. We thought Sarea would be in so much trouble because a staff member immediately followed her, but as it turned out, the staff person just wanted pictures of Ser Davos too. Hee.
We then picked up free GoT t-shirts, and went on our merry way back to the hotel and dinner at Buon Appetito, where, amazingly, our server had an Italian accent. Jade suspected some of them, at least, were working actors hired for their abilities to do whatever accent was required by the establishment. Sarea and I both had the linguine boscomare, Jade had the osso bucco, and Ropo a simple farfalle with vodka tomato sauce.
Plan A for dessert was Pappalecco, but someone spotted an ice-cream-looking place just across the street called iDessert, so we decided to check it out. It was fancy. You build your own dessert at iPad stations, with choices for a meringue crust, cream, gelato, cake, toppings, and sauce. Very involved. I went with just plain old gelato, which was terrible. It wasn't real gelato, for one; it was soft serve. Also the coconut gelato was disgusting; it was so full of coconut shreds that every mouthful was gritty. The other girls made better choices than I did, though.
After dinner, Jade and Ropo drove back home. Because of her harrowing experience on Thursday in the Next Day Line, Sarea decided to skip Hall H altogether for Sunday -- especially as The Vampire Diaries panel was the only one she was really interested in anyway, so we were able to watch HBO's 7 Days in Hell together, starring Andy Samberg and Kit Harington. Days later, we still find ourselves giggling out of nowhere on recollection of the line "according to Swedish law, by escaping, he is now a free man" and the sight of Kit Harington facing a wall.
Indubitably.
DAY 6: THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER
The final day of SDCC! It seemed both so long and so short at the same time. Despite the craziness, there's a real sense of "only at Comic Con," where you feel like these are your people, and it's more than okay to dress up as your favourite character, and when you make a reference, no matter how obscure, somebody's there to get it. Like when someone tried to cut in the Hall H line on the GoT day, and everyone started chanting, "Shame! Shame! Shame!"
The first panel of the day was a quandary for me; I wanted to go to both the Phineas & Ferb one and No Cape Required: Modern Day Superheroes, with Pierce Brown and James Dashner among the authors on the panel. Sarea went to the latter and took much video for me while I attended P&F, their last one ever, most likely, as they just finished their final season. The creators cried a little bit at the end; the whole thing was so sweet and already nostalgic.
Thomas Brodie Sangster didn't attend (though I hear he was at the Scorch Trials one the day before), so Vincent Martella was able to answer questions like this:
Audience question: "Why is it always Phineas that talks and not Ferb?"
Vincent: "Because I'm more important."
It was probably a good thing Thomas wasn't there, otherwise I might have been way more tempted to go to the P&F signing immediately after and once again directly clashing with the No Cape Required signing on the schedule. I met Sarea in the No Cape Required line, and watched wistfully from the middle of the pack as Pierce Brown ate peanuts and took pictures and chatted with fans at the outer edges of the line. There may or may not have also been some seething with jealousy sprinkled in with the wistful watching from afar.
A word about Pierce Brown: super cute and super talented. I'd picked up a copy of his first book Red Rising for free at the Emerald City Comic Con, and when I finished reading it, wanted to immediately buy the second in the trilogy. It's such a compelling story and well-written as hell. I'd finished Red Rising just before heading out to another trip prior to the San Diego one, so had been planning to purchase it when I got back, but then found out he'd be at SDCC so put it off again with the hopes they'd be selling Golden Son at the con. They were! Right at the signing, too.
I bought a paperback of Golden Son, and Sarea bought practically the entire stock of whatever was available -- three of Pierce Brown's books, a James Dashner, The Young Elite by Marie Lu (as well as the “Legend” graphic novel), Superheroes Anonymous by Lexie Dunne -- which sounds a lot more interesting than its crappy cover art would have you believe, and Nimona by Noelle Stevenson.
Pierce Brown signed our stuff and we chatted a bit; he'd done the Assassin's Creed run outside the day before -- a sort of obstacle course where you climb things and fall from other things, which he described as "exhilarating"; he saw my badge that said I was from Washington and told us he used to live in Seattle. Sarea made sure to find out if he was still a Seahawks fan (he is), and took a picture of me with him. Eee.
Later, far out of earshot...
Sarea: "The picture of the two of you together is so cute. I wish he was your boyfriend!"
You and me both, lady.
Sarea got her books signed by the various other authors and I took a picture of her with James Dashner first, and then everyone else down the line, because if she ends up really liking their stuff, then she'll have a photo of herself with an awesome author she loves. She'll thank me later. Also, Lexie Dunne said that Sarea was the first person to ask for a photo with her, which made her day, so everyone wins.
We went for lunch at Spike Africa's Fresh Fish Grill, several blocks away from the convention center and far enough out of the zone of crazy con goings-on. We elected to sit outside, but not immediately adjacent to the sidewalk, which turned out to be a brilliant idea, because it gave us more space between us and the creepy vagrant who kept whistling and catcalling at us for at least two or three consecutive minutes, despite our resolute refusal to acknowledge him. I don't understand what he thought would happen, or what exactly he expected, or what any man expects when he acts a fool like this. Seriously, why do men do this?
And while I'm on this roll -- at the P&F panel, because I have short legs and do not take up all the space in front of me, this dude next to me decided he could just annex that space in the name of his monster feet. Excuse you, sir. At least have the courtesy of asking first or even acknowledging that your douchey foot is a direct arm's length in front of my face, you overweening swine.
More importantly, food. Sarea ordered a Caesar salad (made with anchovies, as any self-respecting Caesar salad would be) and a lobster roll, after confirming with the waiter that it contained actual chunks of lobster. I got the tuna poke wrap and a red sangria. Delight.
Once more into the breach, dodging evangelical Christians with signs and bullhorns yelling at all the con attendees about what terrible and stupid people we all were for wasting our time and money believing in superheroes and the like. Here's another thing I don't get -- what is it about shaming people for liking things that these "Christians" think is going to get them on their side? Like, "Oh, this guy on the street is shouting at me about what a shitty excuse for a human being I am; I think we should be friends. Best friends!"
Positioned amongst the sea of unwelcome evangelists...
Guy handing out gaming cards: "Free stuff that's not bad."
(Sarea and I heard this differently; I heard him say "Free stuff that's not that," but either way, it's funny. Good job, guy.)
The Christian group (I hesitate to call them Christians, even; real ones don't go around being dicks in the name of God) was out there every day of the con. Sarea managed to get a bit of video one day when the Damien promo people -- carrying signs and chanting "It's all for him," “My blood for him!” and other such creepy slogans and handing out 'propaganda' as if they were actual followers of the son of the devil -- decided to march right next to them. The juxtaposition was simply beautiful.
We had some time before Sarea's last author panel of the day, and wanted to visit the Exhibit Hall, especially the ABC booth, where they were doing virtual pictures with the Muppets (i.e., Muppets not actually present in the flesh -- fur? -- but superimposed onto a photo next to you). One of her wristband line friends had gone earlier and had gotten a picture with Animal, which of course we both needed in our lives. The line wrapped around the booth, and various people stopped by to ask what the line was for. Reactions slotted neatly into one of two columns: pleasantly surprised or straight up confounded.
While in line one of the staff came by to inform us that they'd run out of Muppets buttons (booo) and that the way the pictures worked was random -- you'd either get Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Animal, or the Evil Queen from Once Upon A Time, which... what?? Who in the world would get in line at a Muppets booth for a picture with Regina? Who, I ask you. You and the genius who made the decision to splice her in with the Muppets. We were ready to pitch monstrous fits if either of us got her. Luckily, for us and the beleaguered staff, we both ended up with Fozzie. Bullets dodged all around!
The Muppets thing took longer than we thought, so Sarea missed her last panel. We then considered wandering the Exhibit Hall, but it was so crowded and large and overwhelming we navigated ourselves to the nearest exit instead. Back to the hotel to drop off Sarea's twelve thousand new books, and then we hopped on the shuttle again to get to a Harmontown show at Tin Roof. We got there over an hour early, but there was already a line out the door. Even though we were relatively early we had to sit in the third row, as the first two were reserved with people's names on them -- how this option was possible we didn't know. As is always and forever the case, the World's Largest Man sat in front of us. I was there to see Jeff Davis as much as Dan Harmon, but WLM's head obscured my view of Jeff for most of the show, damn his large man head.
Tin Roof is a bar and live music venue, and in keeping with the necessity to cater to the kind of crowd who goes to bars and live music shows, blasted horrible, bass-thumping, cymbal-clanging, this-will-give-you-vocal-nodules-screaming music from its accursed speakers throughout the entire wait to the start of the show. Sarea had to plug her ears; I was seconds away from razing the place to the ground. Bars suck so much; I don't understand why people like them. Also we are old, old, cranky women.
The very first thing Dan Harmon did was to send up Chris Pratt/Jurassic World, hilariously continuing a theme established in Community S6. He ranted about people having favourite colours, people in bands who were not lead singers all secretly wanting to be lead singers, Tom Petty, and the "Bloody Mary Arms Race," in which Bloody Marys, according to Jeff, ought to be served in a highball glass, not a full pint with nineteen different foods arranged on top of it. The bartenders then served Dan a Bloody Mary with a hamburger on it, on which he choked.
Afterwards I managed to get a photo taken with Jeff, who was incredibly nice and accommodating and so, so tall. I didn't even come up to his shoulder, and Sarea couldn't fit all of his head into the frame.
Starving and desperately needing to visit the restroom, Sarea and I headed straight back to Spike Africa's for a late dinner at 9:30. She got clam chowder (after confirming with the server that there were actual clams in it and not just potato chunks masquerading as clams; she received reassurances of clams in the multitudes, but this turned out to be somewhat of a lie) and fish and chips; I got a seared tuna nicoise.
After that, a Lyft back to the hotel, packing up, and resting our weary heads with the lovely thought of being able to sleep in the following morning.
DAY 7: BYE BYE,
A glorious, comparatively late start to the day with nowhere to be until our early evening flight. Nevertheless, we checked out by noon and asked the hotel to hold our things until we were good and ready to leave.
Shino was closed, which we weren't aware of, no thanks to their negligence in posting business hours anywhere on their doors, so we walked some more to Little Italy. Choices were a return to Davanti Enoteca or PrepKitchen; we rolled the dice on Sarea's dice-rolling app, downloaded for just such occasions (it comes up more often than you'd think) and they landed in favour of PrepKitchen, where we got a Cubano Torta for Sarea (better than ones she'd had in Miami) and a Spinach Naan for me, accompanied by kettle chips. We each saved half of our sandwiches for the flight home.
Overflowing with time to waste, we then made a return visit to Pappalecco. Stracciatella gelato for me, and a lemon tart, cookie, and prosciutto/mozzarella sandwich for Sarea. What can she say; she really likes prosciutto. And it turned out to be an even better sandwich than the cubano.
Shuttle to the airport, uneventful security check (Sarea's light saber surprisingly was not flagged as a weapon), three hours of sitting and waiting, actual flight, Shuttle Express that upgraded us at no extra cost to a town car.
Adelagia: "Do we have to tip him more?"
Sarea: "No!"
Adelagia: "But he's wearing a suit!"
And thus marks the end of our Comic Con adventures. See you next year, hopefully, by which time maybe all those pointless queuing issues will be resolved. Haha. Ha. Sigh.
In the meantime, enjoy these excellent cosplays:
