(Originally posted on MySpace on 08.01.06)
So, this past weekend I was invited to attend Comicon in San Diego by Chip and his team at Mattel. This was a very big weekend for Mattel as they were unveiling their new Hyperscan gaming system. I have heard a ton about this system over the last handful of months, so I was completely thrilled at the opportunity to go to Comicon and see for myself and to work the Mattel booth and demo the system as well. What more could a girl ask for?
So, all week I'm looking forward to this convention. And all week, Chip is telling me what a dork-fest it is. I figured, since I experienced my first E3 this year, it couldn't be that bad right? Chip continued his attempts to prepare me over the next week so I wasn't shell-shocked when I walked into the convention...
So finally, Friday is here! I jump in my car, go and get some gas and after a quick phone call with my sexay man, I'm off. It's 6:34pm and I'm hittin' the road. The drive to San Diego was pretty good. The hotel was exactly 75 miles from our home and I made it in 1 hour and 15 minutes. The highlight of the drive down was the Cassidy Street exit. Put a smile on my face and I'm certain that every time I see that exit, the reaction will be the same.
Anyhoo. After an hour and 15 minutes, I am finally upon the Front Street exit. Chip has already given me explicit directions on how to get to the hotel as he patiently awaits my arrival. Now mind you, I have never been to downtown San Diego nor the Gaslamp District. Chip informs me of some landmarks, the Hustler store in particular which leads to another story entirely of which I am not prepared nor willing to go into at this particular moment in time.
At any rate...by the time I realize that the hotel is right in front of me, I also realize that the valet parking is on the street. Weird. I mean literally, it's right on the street in front of the hotel. No fancy driveway, no nothing. It was like a bus stop. Very cool. I get out of my car and they valet park it for me. I'm feeling pretty special now. So, I walk inside the hotel and go straight up to our room. Only Chip is not there. :( So I call him and as it turns out he is in a co-workers room instead. So, I head down there, we chat for a bit and then head back to our room, drop my stuff off and then, go figure...we're off to the bar to meet everyone else before dinner. I'm IN!!!
By this point, I am about spilling out of my skin from the sheer excitement of being in downtown San Diego (since I've never been), for the Comicon convention (which I've never been to), and heading out for dinner and drinks with just the most incredible people one could ever hope to work for. I have to say, hat's off to the whole group because they truly are amazing. Everyone enjoys one round of drinks before heading off to dinner.
We walk several blocks before arriving at an Italian restaurant called Acqua Al 2. We get seated at our table and just about the time we actually sit down, Chip and I both look at each other, noses scrunched and say, "What the fuck is that smell? It smells like puke!". We look over to the next table and discover that a small child has puked on the floor and all over herself while the parents are content not cleaning it up and continuing to eat their dinner. Gross. We stand up ready to move our seats when we realize that there is no where else to sit. There are 20 of us and everyone is seated. Great. Hope this isn't a sign of things to come.
The dinner was fantastic. I have never seen so many dishes of pasta served to one table in my lifetime. I swear we could have fed a French Army with the amount of food we had. It was ridiculous! We drank some of the best red wine I have ever tasted. Chip ordered the filet with a balsamic vinegar sauce and I ordered the filet with a blueberry sauce. Sounds gross, I know, but in all honestly, it was actually very good. The meat was like butter and the blueberries really added an interesting touch to it. However, I would be lying if I didn't say that Chip's filet was better than mine, because it was! Either way, I was just happy to be there! I'm pretty easy to please and the fact that I was even there to begin with was enough to make me smile!
So, we finish dinner and the group decides they want to go to some club and drink and dance. Chip and I need to go back to the hotel room to grab some stuff. We get back to the hotel and once we are in the room, we're so exhausted we just go right to bed. (Yes, this is a lie, but I cannot reveal what took place that night without compromising my secret identity....)
Rise and shine, a 7:00am wake up call and we are up and getting ready for Comicon! The view from the hotel is amazing. We are on the 5th floor in room 507 which also happened to be the number of the place Chip used to live in Newport. Sweet.
From the room, we have a perfect view of the Hustler store. The architecture of the buildings is PHENOMINAL!!! Every building had it's own distinct character and attention to detail. This one building, when you walked by it, if you looked up, you could see this crazy array of tiles underneath the eaves of the roof. CRAZY!
We then decide that we must go to the roof to absorb the view from there. After some crafty planning and activating our cloaking device so we aren't detected, we are able to gain access to the rooftop. The view was amazing!
Alas, it's time to go. We take the short hop to the convention which turns out to be about 7 blocks in the scorching heat at 9:30am. It feels like it's about 100 degrees outside and we are both sweating like nuns in a porn shop. I am just fascinated by the buildings and feel of the city.
We finally arrive at the convention. Holy Sheet!! There are a ton of people. Unbelievable!!! I take a couple of random pics and we head on into the convention; it's on at Comicon!!!
We walk through the mass of people and alas, we arrive at the Mattel booth which is smack dab in the middle of the hall. Awesome! There it is...the Hyperscan system.
I'm so excited and thrilled to be there. It's truly all I can do to contain myself. Chip tells me to just listen to what he says about the system, memorize it and then give my shpeal to those who walk into the booth. So, I listen intently to Chip while he delivers the demo of the Hyperscan system to a dad and his two kids. The dad, clearly impressed by Chip's super genious and charming personality, turns to his children and says, "Play this, this is what you are getting for Christmas this year...". Wow! Impressive. So, I turn to Bob, one of the guys on his team, and say, "hey, what exactly would you like me to do? I'm here to do whatever." So, he explains Hyperscan to me, what it does, the concept, the games, when it's launching, etc. etc. Great. I got it. I'm in and I'm ready to roll.
People are walking into the Mattel booth with wreckless abandon to check out the new Hyperscan system. Everyone is excited, demoing the system. Then it starts to slow down a little bit. During this time, Bob, the Marketing Manager for Hyperscan, decides to have a short "pow wow" with us. Bob, Chip and I are standing there chit chatting. He's obviously extrememly excited about what he is witnessing with regards to the new system, as he should be. It was very exciting. At any rate, he turns to me and says, verbatim I might add, "ok, Kelly, so you are the hooker to get them in the..." Meanwhile, Chip and I are shaking our heads in agreement, when Bob turns ghost white...puts his hand to his mouf in shock and awe, and looks at me...then at Chip, then at me again and shakes his head. Chip and I are a little confused, before it dawns on us right at the time that Bob started apologizing....Bob just called me a hooker. The irony of this whole thing and the sheer comedy in all of it is that Bob is one of those guys that wouldn't say such a thing to his most hated worst enemy. Chip and I BOTH knew what he meant (i.e., hook people in, get them interested in the system and draw them into the booth), but Bob was purely horrified that he uttered such a comment. It was hilarious. Chip and I start laughing, because we know Bob didn't mean what he said. Bob, being the incredible guy he is, starts to and continues to apologize profusely to Chip and myself for his "unfortunate" comment. We both laugh because we know the context in which he meant. Either way, Bob still, to this day, feels terribly for this comment. I believe Chip finally told him, after hours of apologizing, that he would GET pissed off and stab him in the neck if he DIDN'T stop apologizing. The jury is still out on this one though...
So, I see a family walk into the booth with a perplexed look upon their face. They have never seen such as system and curiosity has gotten the best of them. Lucky for them, I'm there to eliminate their confusion. So, I go into my whole demo and (as Chip would tell me later), Bob stands there with his arms crossed shaking his head and smiling. Chip walks up and says, "hey dude, what's up?" Bob replies, "look at her go!!! That's awesome!!". Shortly thereafter, Chip informs me that he is going to walk the convention and give out Hyperscan t-shirts to little kids. He asks if I would like to join him, and of course, I say "sure!". So, off we go, he with about 20 t-shirts in hand and me with a bunch of limited edition Hyperscan gaming cards for the X-men game that will be released with the system in October. We stop some people and hand out shirts and continue walking the convention. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the entire aura of the convention changes. It gets eerily quiet and I notice that the other attendees are walking around aimlessly, literally, and not talking much at all. We walk down one of the aisles and about 20 feet in front of us is this woman who is literally staring right at me while walking with her hands up near her face and saying, "Aaaa....aaaa...aaaa". I look at Chip like, "WTF?!" as we both witness her walk 20 feet right into me while staring right at me. I look at her with utter confusion and can only say, "right on....." She bumps into me and then just goes on her merry way without saying a single word to me! How bizarre!!! I look at Chip again, "WTF?!" He smiles and shrugs his shoulders and merely says, "I told you!".
For the next hour or so, I am completely blown away by what appears to be a complete lack of social skills among such a large population of people. I mean, people were walking in every different direction with no semblance of order. At one point, we stopped to look at a glass case full of these figures from Legend. Chip is leaning down to look while pointing and saying, "look how bad-ass that is!". I am looking on when suddenly, out of nowhere, this 40 year oldish man comes up behind Chip, SNEEZES on his neck without covering his mouf and sprays all over him! Chip, in complete horror, turns around and says, "what are you...6?!?!?!". I look at the guy and can only manage a look of disgust and say, "wwwhhhaaattt?!?!?!" The 40 year oldish snot factory looks at both of us, doesn't say a word, wipes his nose with the back of his hand, and plainly walks away as if it was completely normal behavior. By this point we are completely grossed out! We go back to the Mattel booth, grab the hand sanitizer and unleash 1/2 the bottle on Chipper's neck. Ick. So gross!!!
Since we are such good sports, we refuse to let the germ factory ruin our good time. So we continue to walk the convention. We see things from storm troopers, to a superman sporting an afro while talking on his cell phone and flipping his cape back, to Predator, to Darth Maul, to a storm trooper who was sporting side burns, big sunglasses and a white cape so he looked like a hybrid of Elvis and storm trooper. Really cool! I said to Chip, "I gotta have my pic taken with that dude later!" Of course, we never did see him again. But I did get some cool pics...
So, we continue on passing out t-shirts and Hyperscan cards (Lady Deathstrike to be exact...exclusive to Comicon). It was really cool to see the look on the faces of kids that we handed out shirts to. Of course, with the exception of this one kid. Here we are, Chip and I, walking down an aisle in the comic book portion of the convention. Now mind you, the atmosphere of this part of the convention is considerably different than the rest of the convention. It literally went from mass chaos and noise to almost complete silence. Strange, I think, but hey, I've never been to Comicon before, I could be wrong (of course, it would be a first...but that's beside the point). At any rate, we're walking and Chipper says to me, "hey, baby, give that kid a shirt..." as he points to a little boy who looks to be about 8 years old. I think to myself, "we are going to make this kids day...". So I walk up the kid, and say to him, "Here buddy...Have a shirt, exclusive to this convention!". The kid turns, then looks at me with a face of utter disdain and steps back as if I'm handing him a bag of poo. I can't believe it!!! I say to him again (thinking, maybe in all the silence he really didn't hear me at all), "here you go...have Hyperscan t-shirt". The confused child still looks at me like I'm new to planet Earf, he shakes his head in a fashion that appears to me to be the universal sign for, "get the fuck away from me you crazy bitch" and walks away. I stand there with a look of complete confusion on my face as Chip walks back up to me and says, "you okay baby?". I proceed to tell him about the freak-a-zoid child who, apparently, has never had contact with another human before. We both shake our heads and proceed on to our true destination which is the Planetwide Games booth to holla at Ning and Damien.
After dodging the quasi-autistic Comicon attendees, we finally arrive at the Planetwide booth. Damien is demo'ing Comic Book Creator as spectators look on in awe and fascination. Meanwhile, Chip says his "hello's" and is even super cordial to Kevin who deserved to get his ass beat. Chip, being the amazing human that he is, takes the high road and restrains himself. I was so proud of him!!! I have the most incredible boyfriend this planet has ever seen. Truly. Try to argue this point with me and you will lose, because that's how I roll...
So we hang out in her booth for a short period of time before moving along collecting button pins and mindless stuff along the way. We work our way back to the Mattel booth to work for a couple more hours.
Much to our surprise, we get a visit from Ben, a friend of Chip's! YAY! It was great seeing Ben again! We chat for awhile and then continue working the booth.
By this time we are starving. We haven't eaten lunch and it's about 3 o'clock. We demo the new Hyperscan system again for a couple of hours before we finally head out for lunch. Chip, me, Jonathan and Cythia out of the convention center on a hunting and gathering expedition to find some grub. We settle on Baja Rockin' Lobster which Chip and I have eaten in Newport before. It's about 1,000 degrees outside and we are all about to suffer from heat stroke. Cure? Pacifico's of course. We order a bucket and share in the refreshment of this particular beverage on such a scorching hot day. We're finally seated hoping upon all hope that the inside will be air conditioned. No such luck, we're cursed. We end up eating the most amazing seafood ever before heading back to the convention.
Back to the convention we go. Still wall to all people. Crazy. We go on to the Mattel booth to work the reaminder of the convention which ends promptly at 7pm. We mingle and chat it up with nearby booths. What an incredible day. Just an amazing experience for me. I was fortunate enough to not only attend the convention, but to take part and share in the enthusiasm and excitement that Mattel's new gaming system, Hyperscan, is eliciting. It was, by far, the most amazing experience I have ever had. It was truly an honor and a privilige for me to be able to partake in such an amazing experience. Thank you to everyone at Mattel who, 1-invited me to be a part of such a spectacular event, 2-made me feel so welcome and part of the group. This was an amazing weekend for me to share with Chip.
With the convention over for the day, the whole team is forced to trek the 8 blocks back to the hotel in the scorching heat and humidity coupled with the foul stench of the sweat and body odor of some of the Comicon attendees. We finally arrive at the hotel only to immediately jump into the shower to get ready for the evening's festivities. We meet everyone down at the hotel bar for a drink before walking 6 blocks to the Blue Point Restaurant. While waiting for our table, we head to the bar (big shock I know...). We all order a variety of drinks. We are seated at our table and settle in for dinner. The food was awesome. Neither one of us had ever eaten lobster bisque before and Bob decided we needed to try his because it was, "the best ever". We each take a taste and Bob is right, it is really good. Bob then says, "I've ruined you both now. You'll never have lobster bisque anywhere else that is this good.". He may be right, but that theory has yet to be proven.
Dinner is over, everyone is ready to party it up. The group heads over to Martini Ranch for drinks and dancing. Chip and I decide we would rather hit the Hustler store which is caddy corner to our hotel. How convenient. We browse, we shop, we purchase, we leave. We go back to the hotel to put our stuff away and head back out when we run into Bob and his wife, Tina in the lobby. They are headed in for the night, and Chip and I really don't feel like clubbing. It's Bob and Tina's 2 year wedding anniversary so we decide we are going to take them out for a drink to celebrate. We walk a block to a quiet little sushi restaurant, and on the way, we come across these police officers who were standing over someone. I thought maybe someone got hit by a car and initially thought, "cool!". Well, turns out, as we slowly walk by, there is this chick that is so hammered that she is literally passed out on the corner in the fetal position with two guys staggering over her arguing about who did what to who and how they ended up in their condition to begin with. Mildly interesting, but we move along. We order our drinks and sit down, chatting it up about anything and everything. I'm looking out the window and I see this girl sitting on the base of this gaslamp. Chip sees her too. She's kinda wobbly on the base and is swaying to and fro like a swing. Both Chip and I are discreetly watching her when all of the sudden, she falls flat on her ass!!! It was fucking hilarious!!! Chip and I start laughing our asses off. We look back up at her and she has managed to get herself off the ground and back onto the base of this gaslamp. She's looking right at us at this point and sees us laughing at her expense. We give her the "two thumbs up" and she returns them, giggles and off she goes into the night never to be seen again.
We finish up our drinks, head back to the hotel and the rest is super secret so I could tell you, but then I would be risking some covert type operation that we're working on for later. Denied. Oh well.
Bottom line to the weekend at Comicon, is this. I coouldn't be prouder of Chip and his team. I think he's amazing and the people he works with are incredible. We had an awesome time in San Diego and are certainly looking forward to next year!!!
As a side note, something really cool that I found fascinating about the Gaslamp quarter is the diagonal crossing!!! Really neat to see and even fun to do! Dorky, I know, but oh well.
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