Nerd Prom 2008: Beachhead and Warning Shots

“I just now remembered I stole ketchup,” my girl just said, “What the hell happened yesterday?”

“This happened,” I said, showing her the playback screen on the digital camera. “And I remember seeing more than one flash, which means that I am on every geek blog in the world now, and somewhere some Bear enthusiast with a Star Wars fetish is jacking off to my picture. So I don’t want to hear about your petty condiment crimes.

“Today, I want you to quit flirting with the Goddamned bartender wherever we end up. Free shots are always welcome, but clearly they’re not worth it.”

(Before you snidely ask: yes; I’m the fat one. Ha ha. Everyone’s a fucking comedian.)

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The program said that they would begin distributing admission laminates at 3 p.m., so we arrived at 3:15 to a blessed lack of a line. The shuttle dropped us off at the end of the Convention Center, which meant I had ninety seconds until I got to the door, so I lit a cigarette for the long walk. As I approached the door, I was rudely corralled by a red-shirted security guard, who growled, “You can’t smoke here, buddy!”

“On the fucking sidewalk? Are you kidding?”

“We have laws here, amigo,” he said.

“At Comic Con? Are you new here, chief?” He pointed to a big “No Smoking” sign, and began to usher me to a ghetto behind a jersey barrier. “You have to be kidding me,” I said, “Don’t you understand that you’re at the biggest geek festival in the world, and you’re wearing a red shirt? If I sound the alarm, forty Klingons’ll show up, and no one will care what happens to you.”

Alas, he would not be deterred. In the offical Comic Con 2008 program, it states that No Smoking rules will be strictly enforced due to the impolite actions of some people last year (I’m looking at you, Ellis. You ruined it for the rest of us!). And I wish them luck in enforcing this policy when 125,000 people are wandering around, and when 100,000 of them have Klingon weapons.

So I finished my smoke and we went inside, and got our laminates in record time, so we went toward the doors to hit the floor, only to run into a gigantic line already snaking around the arena, as well as a bunch of red shirts blocking the door. We were informed that, while they were giving out passes at 3 p.m., they weren’t opening the floor until 6. Meaning that the only reasonable course of action was to kill that time in a bar.

So after many beers and one or two Cocktail-style acrobatically created custom shots (Note to convention goers: tipping 100% sounds crazy, and make sure to remind me of that when I’m getting free drinks ahead of you in line), we returned to the Convention Center.

A bit of history: Preview Night was originally conceived of as a courtesy for the few die-hard convention goers who were there to purchase something specific. That was when the average daily attendance was around 40,000. However, this is 2008, meaning that this intimate little event now looks like this:

This is not a crowd that you want to be a part of when you’ve spent three hours alternating between Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale and sugary chick shots because they’re free. The good news is that nobody notices you staggering around drunkenly because everyone else is goggling at the sights and staggering themselves. The bad news is that being staggered into will fill you with a low-level, constant rage if you’re legitimately drunk.

“Where are the Goddamned freaks?” my girl asked querulously, “If I need to get my feet stepped on this often, I want to to be by fucking hobbits!”

“There’s Bouncing Boy, from the Legion of Super Heroes,” I exclaimed, “Go demand he let you take his picture while I get the first honest to Christ American Jerk scoop of the Convention!”

She toddled off while I got a picture of this: The fucking Owlship from Watchmen, big as life and twice as fucking cool. They were letting people actually go into it, but I didn’t bother, since I could still smell the Peach Schnapps from the free Sex on the Beach shot, and I didn’t think it would mix well with the cologne of BO and geek adrenaline.

My girl returned, and said, “You lied to me! That wasn’t Bouncing Boy; it was a morbidly obese fanboy on a Little Rascal scooter! He threatened to call a Red Shirt on me and burst into snotty tears!”

“Shit, we’d better get out of here. If they find cigarettes on me, we’re doomed.”

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Thanks to a shitty Internet connection and impending doors open at the convention center, I have no time for more pictures right now. I’ll be posting photos at the American Jerk Photo Dump later this evening.

In the meantime, it’s the first full day of Comic Con, and I have freaks to hunt.

[tags]San Diego Comic Con 2008, Nerd Prom[/tags]