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“Preview Night” is about as accurate as “Comic-Con” these days.  They might as well call it a 4½-day convention. Wednesday night was surprisingly crowded (though it’ll get a lot worse by Saturday), and it started from the moment we arrived at the convention center.

It took an hour and a half on the freeway to come within sight of the buildings of Downtown San Diego, and possibly another half hour to make it to our hotel.  Once we checked in, we set about unpacking for our 4-day stay, then headed over to Dussini for dinner.  Afterward, we went straight to the convention.

This is the first year we’ve stayed somewhere close enough to the convention center to walk, and it was very nice not to have to wait for a shuttle or a trolley — either going to the con or coming back to the hotel.  Of course, since you can only cross the tracks at either end of the convention center, that means you need to walk at least half the length.

Our first hint of con culture came on the walk from the hotel to the restaurant.  Someone dressed as a giant donut in a sombrero was walking the streets as part of a promotion for some movie.  [Edit: apparently the movie was Sex Drive.] A little boy of around 5 or so turned to his mother and said, “I don’t like him.”  Kid, you’ve got the right idea.

We arrived at the convention center around 7:45 and discovered two disturbing things:

  • The line to get in and pick up badges went all the way down to the end of the center, then looped around in the sculpture garden.  (At least it moved fast.)
  • People were camping out for Hall H.  Which doesn’t open until tomorrow.

The big usable promo items this year seem to be the giant Wonder Woman bags (following up on the Superman: Doomsday/Smallville bags from last year, which makes me wonder how long it’ll be before we see them converted into aprons, dresses, etc.) and the giant “Big Frakkin Bag” — which is a big purple bag with the words “Big Frakkin Bag” on the side.

Katie noticed that it seems to be all about buying stuff today — being the first to get some item, etc. Partly because everything’s discounted, and partly because there’s essentially nothing else to do until programming starts tomorrow.

I went straight to the Image booth to see what I could find out about the Tori Amos signing — it turns out there was a snafu with getting the books, and the organizer of the event was really annoyed that several boxes had gone missing.  The first however-many people in line, after the one box ran out, got vouchers instead.

I also went over to Colleen Doran’s table, talked with her briefly, and bought a set of Reign of the Zodiac, which she signed for me.  I’d brought Orbiter and A Distant Soil, vol.1, but managed to leave them in the hotel.

I didn’t spot the DC booth until right before closing, but I noticed something interesting: all the staff were wearing Flash symbol T-shirts. (This probably doesn’t mean anything — they’ll probably all be in GL shirts tomorrow, Wonder Woman on Friday, Superman on Saturday, and Batman on Sunday. But I found it interesting.) I also spotted Ethan van Sciver as he drew a sketch for the last person in the line.

Overheard through the window just now: “Don’t get run over, people!” Always good advice!

Edit: In the time it took me to write this, Katie crocheted herself a lanyard for her badge.

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On the subject of filk, and trying to define it, there’s a whole subset of songs by professional musicians that just rides the edge. (Half of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s repertoire, for instance.) Twice in the last week I’ve heard Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On,” which is apparently about Aragorn and Arwen from Lord of the Rings. It even makes references to Mordor and Gollum in the lyrics.

I’m not sure I’d ever heard it before, but Train covered it at the concert we went to last Friday (we went for the Wallflowers, who played after the intermission), and I just heard it on the radio this morning.

Talk about timing.

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Musician Tom Smith (author of the Talk Like a Pirate Day theme song and Girl Genius’ Transylvania Polygnostic University Fight Song, and a.k.a. filkertom on LiveJournal) is in the hospital after a nasty injury, facing expensive surgery and months of hospital bills…without insurance. And of course he can’t work while he’s in the hospital.

A bunch of other musicians in the filk community have put together a benefit album, “Mr. Smith Goes to the Hospital,” and are providing it as a download for people who donate to help him cover the bills.

What is filk music? There’s no solid consensus, but I think the simplest answer is: music about other media, by its fans. Songs about Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings, for instance. Sometimes with original music, often setting new lyrics to other people’s songs (“piggyback filk”). Most filkers just do it as a hobby (I’ve written a few filksongs myself, mostly back in high school and college), but some manage to eke out a living — or supplement one — by performing and selling recordings.

We’ve picked up a couple of his albums since we heard “Five Years” — a Babylon 5 filk to the tune of Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week” — at a Loscon a few years ago (back when we still went to Loscon).

(News found via Girl Genius.)

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Interesting if true: the rumor column Lying in the Gutters reports that one of the bones of contention at the Warner Bros/DC Comics film summit was not just the “I’m a Marvel, and I’m a DC” comparison of movie slates, but Elfquest.

Wendy and Richard Pini made their deal with DC not just to hand publishing duties over to someone else, but to expand into other media — like the long-discussed Elfquest movie that never got off the ground. And what happened just months after the Pinis ended their arrangement with DC? Warner Bros. bought the movie rights.

So while DC had those rights, it didn’t do anything with them…but their parent company wanted to. Rich Johnston points out that it would have been a lot cheaper for Warner Bros. to develop the film through DC.

(Hmm, that reminds me, I’d better check their CafePress store before it closes due to the movie deal. If it hasn’t already.)

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A couple of years ago, Starbucks bought all 30 or so company-owned Diedrich Coffee stores.  There were a couple of franchise locations left (well, kiosks, really) in Orange County, and one of the Texas stores, but that was it.  Most of them were converted or shut down, with only two keeping the Diedrich name and menu (both in Irvine, oddly enough).  The one across from UCI eventually got converted.

The Diedrich nearest where we live was always busy.  After it had been assimilated, though, we never saw it full.  People didn’t go there just because of the location, they went there because it was a Diedrich.

Now it’s on the list of stores that Starbucks is closing, along with a newer one that opened about a quarter-mile away.  (They haven’t updated the web page yet, but it’s on the PDF.)

In essence, Starbucks bought an (apparently) successful business and ran it into the ground.  I really hate when that happens.

Obviously the place, when it was a Diedrich, wasn’t taking money that would have gone to Starbucks, since their customers didn’t stick around when it was converted.  And the one store that does still have the Diedrich name and menu always has customers whenever I end up in the area — so it’s not just people avoiding the parent company. It’s people who don’t like the Starbucks coffee and atmosphere.  (And possibly the name.)

I have to wonder how that other store would have done if they’d kept it intact instead of homogenizing it.

Update: Martin Diedrich picked up the empty storefront after Starbucks left, and opened his second Kéan Coffee in March 2009. Once again, it’s always busy. Funny, that!

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I mentioned a few weeks ago that I want some sort of mobile internet access for San Diego Comic-Con so that I can post at least some stuff from the convention itself, instead of waiting until I get back to the hotel. Since the con has never offered wi-fi (except, IIRC, in the press room — which I just realized I could have used last year, since I got a press badge for CBR/Comics Should Be Good), I was looking into phone-based solutions.

Phoning it In

I experimented with post-by-email (not sufficient), with post-through-Flickr (slightly better, but only really suitable for image posts and still missing things like, oh, titles), and with using WPhone to provide a stripped-down admin interface in the hopes that my phone’s built-in browser could handle it (no such luck). No, I was clearly going to need a better web browser — one way or another.

Yesterday I went into a T-Mobile store, partly to look at the smartphones they had, and partly to ask about what data plan would allow me to use Opera Mini on my current phone. The guy tried to sell me a Blackberry, but I have to admit the Wing looked really nice, if expensive.

Opera Mini - The free Web browser for nearly any phoneI asked about getting the Internet plan, and while the sales clerk was familiar with Opera Mini (he uses it on his own Blackberry), he was convinced it wouldn’t run on my RAZR V3t. I’d used an early version of it during a brief window in which T-Mobile allowed access even for phones with the T-Zones plan.  But he seemed convinced there would be no point, so I walked out without having changed anything.  30 seconds of Internet searching reveals that yes, Opera Mini is in fact known to work on the RAZR V3t.

Free WiFi

Today, the news started making the rounds that the con will have free wi-fi everywhere except the exhibit hall itself, sponsored by the film, Eagle Eye. (Which, now that I think about it, is oddly appropriate and somewhat disturbing.)   This is a huge relief, and makes the phone access much less critical. Though it would still be nice…

Sure, it’s going to be a very busy network. But I figure I’ll type things up in TextWrangler and load up the web just long enough to post. Gears will cut down on the amount of bandwidth needed for the admin interface.  And I’ll save any serious emailing or forum visits for the hotel room.  Actually, I’ll probably stay off the forums during most of the con, unless I have the opportunity to post “Hey, look what I just found out!”

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At lunch today, I saw a woman, probably in her 50s, wearing a fitted black T-shirt that said, in sparkly letters, “BOTOX”. Srsly. I couldn’t find any pictures of the design, but a commenter here says it’s a promo handed out to staff at plastic surgery clinics.

Comic-Con has completely sold out. Hmm, let me rephrase that. There are no more memberships available for this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego.

Spam Karma has gone GPL — After years of support Dr. Dave has decided to stop maintaining his spam plugin and turn it over to the open-source community. The project is now on Google Code. Update 2015: And now it’s on GitHub.