Sunday, July 19, 2009

Sunny Days

The weather forecast for San Diego during the con is trending a few degrees warmer than what I posted a week ago here. Click here for the latest info.

And it's still going to be 108° in Las Vegas.

• Posted at 6:55 PM · LINK

Getting Around Outside

If'n you're in San Diego and you need to get to the Convention Center, you have a number of options. Walking ain't bad. Driving and expecting to find a place to park is.

The convention has set up a series of shuttle bus runs from many of the major hotels. This page (a PDF file) will show you where they run and how often. Also, I know people who drive but don't even try to park at or around the Convention Center. They try to park at or near some hotel on the shuttle route.

(If one is hungry and low on cash, the Blue line can take you over to Broadway, where there seems to be one of almost every fast food restaurant in the world...though not In-and-Out. The nearest In-and-Out Burger is four miles from the Convention Center and probably not worth the trip. By the way, two Five Guys outlets are soon to open in San Diego but sadly, not in time for this convention.)

The taxi service in San Diego is pretty decent...and maybe this won't particularly amuse you but I love that almost every cab is from a different "company," most of which only have the one taxi. They have some very colorful names. My friend Jake finds it cheaper to stay at a fairly remote hotel and pay for a taxi each day to take him to and fro, as opposed to paying for a hotel close to the festivities.

They also have these things called "pedal cabs," where a sweaty teenager on a bicycle carts one or two passengers around for what are sometimes rather bumpy, inertia-challenging rides. These are not necessarily dangerous but I take a hard look at the driver before I commit and give him or her a kind of mental field sobriety test. You also need to negotiate the fee up front...which will usually be a bit higher than a car-style cab. And the drivers of the pedal cabs work so hard and seem so needy that I usually feel it appropriate to tip big.

If you're coming in via choo-choo to the Amtrak Station, you could hike to the Convention Center. It's about three-quarters of a mile. Then again, you'll be doing tons of walking once you get inside so maybe you'd like to save your feet for that.

Lastly, San Diego has an excellent trolley line that can pick up or deposit you right across the street from the Convention Center. This page will show you where it goes. The Convention Center is near one end of the Orange Line.

One last tip and this really doesn't go under this topic but I have no place else to put it: Go outside. The Convention Center is built on a harbor and if you go out the back way, out onto one of the terraces, there's a spectacular view and there's real air, as opposed to whatever that gaseous substance is they recycle inside. The con can easily get to you with the noise and the excitement and the women walking around in Red Sonja costumes and especially the noise of folks with sound systems trying to attract people to their booths. People think I have a lot of clout with this convention. I don't...and I offer as proof that I don't that there are still exhibits with microphones and amplifiers and obnoxious pitchmen trying to lure you to their displays. If I did have any clout, those people would all be sharing a room with Phil Spector, mumbling about their Walls of Sound.

You may enhance your convention experience, as great as the hall can be, to every so often venture outside and look at a seagull...although when I tried it last year, the gull was wearing a badge and he asked me if I could help him get Neil Gaiman's autograph.

• Posted at 1:12 PM · LINK

Gene Splicing

The great comic book illustrator Gene Colan has found it necessary to cancel his appearance at the Comic-Con International this year. As I understand it, it's for medical reasons but not necessarily serious ones. Gene merely needs some tests which have to be performed next week and his doctors have advised him not to subject himself to the strenuous trip at this time. We'll miss seeing him and his lovely mate Adrienne at the convention and will assume he'll be fine for it next year.

This means that the Spotlight on Gene Colan, which was scheduled for Friday at Noon, will not take place. Drat. Gene was also to appear on the Golden Age Panel on Thursday but that will go on without him. Matter of fact, I shrewdly scheduled seven panelists instead of the usual six because I sensed this might happen. So we'll proceed with Ramona Fradon, Jerry Robinson, Russ Heath, Jack Katz, Leonard Starr and Murphy Anderson, and though we'll miss Gene, we'll have a fine time.

• Posted at 11:01 AM · LINK

Today's Bonus Video Link

Here, people, is the proper way to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Or at least, it is according to this person...

• Posted at 9:57 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

I should have linked to this when Karl Malden left us. It's a deleted number from the movie Gypsy and it contains Rosalind Russell's unredubbed vocals, and I think that's Malden's actual voice, too. His character didn't have a lot of vocalizing to do because the role was originated on Broadway by Jack Klugman, and Klugman wasn't much of a singer. So his solo was cut and was never heard again, and they wrote the guy out of most of the musical numbers.

Oddly enough, I think I like Ms. Russell a little better in the film when her vocals aren't redubbed. My main complaint with her performance, you may recall, is that she comes off as a successful woman with star qualities...and that ain't Mama Rose. I guess this is kind of an insult and I apologize if it comes off as nasty...but she seems less a movie star when it's her singing. And of course, there isn't that disconnect I feel in the film as released, where the singing voice doesn't precisely link up with the actress mouthing the words.

• Posted at 12:13 AM · LINK

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