Goat Day 5: Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!!!!
6Good afternoon, goat lovers. I'm back with another rambling tome that you may only get 70% through before you shut it off and let me know about it....
ODDS AND ENDS
Every year for the past 5 years I've planned my trip to San Diego for Comic Con International. You're saying to yourself "Goat, isn't that in July?" Why yes it is, but planning this trip takes a year in preparation, reservations, fingernail biting and worry. 130,000 lucky souls descend upon San Diego every year... But over a million people try for badges. Getting in is not guaranteed.
Here is the process:
There are one of two ways to score a badge as a civilian.
-PRE-REGISTRATION: Pre-Registration is where people who went to the previous year's Comic-Con can buy their badge. There is a better shot to score this badge (About 50/50) because the pool of people eligible to buy is about 10% of the number of people trying for Open Registration. This sale happens before the Open Reg sale, (for 2015, this sale happened in November).
-OPEN REGISTRATION: If you have never been to Comic-Con, this is the "Tear your hair out" portion of booking your journey. This is where ANYONE can get a badge; the big free-for-all. This happens usually in February. You have about a 10% shot of scoring one badge, and less of a shot to score a 4 day badge. For this you have to sign up for a free Member ID, otherwise you're not eligible until next year. You're put in a randomized waiting room, hoping upon hope they pick your number so you can purchase a badge. If you're not chosen, oh well...
So you have your badge! Great! But wait, there's more:
-HOTELPOCALYPSE: A month after the general sale of badges, now you have to prepare to score a hotel room. Comic Con has about 50-60 hotels you can choose from, and you have to be quick. People prefer to be closer to the convention center than Mission Valley, which is a few miles out. There is a free shuttle service that runs, but last year was wholly unreliable and a major pain in the ass. Will you get your selected hotel? If you don't, you might have to suffer miles away from the convention center. Or even pay upwards of $500-$600 a night to stay downtown in another hotel not in the list of discounted Comic Con Hotels.
Great, you have your badge AND hotel. You have 3 months of rest, right? Nope. You still have to book a flight, rent a car, and wait, is your favorite vendor doing exclusives on the convention floor you can pre-order online? MORE STRESS!!!
I'll have more tomorrow because I need to vent about this, but we're hit about 70% of my journal entry.
TODAY'S DEAL
The Goat Bought Something! However, at the time of this writing, the fridge wasn't sold out yet, so no blaming me... yet. My order number is ulterior-understanding-bushbaby... Not sure what to make of that. I bought this because my friend and I own a duplex, and we have a few outdoor parties during the year. An appliance such as this is great for keeping kid and adult beverages cold outdoors. Plus my friend is a sucker for red appliances. It'll go well with her dining room which she's trying to fashion into a 50s diner. I think she'll use the beverage dispenser to keep wine in... Don't quote me on that.
THE FEED BAG
@SIMBM writes:
"(My bet with my friend about Spider-Man in the next Avengers film) may be even worse. The latest promo poster listed Danny Elfman as a late addition for music. Danny Elfman composed the music and musical cues for the Spiderman movies. Yeah."
DON'T REMIND ME!!!!!
TODAY'S QUESTION
I had a good laugh reading about your dumb injury stories yesterday. I especially liked @bluedog's Mom getting stabbed by the Easter Bunny.
Let's change it up a bit: Have you ever obsessively planned a trip or get together to the point where it has taken over your life? This includes camping out for concert or sporting tickets.
Until tomorrow..... BLEAT!!!!!!
- 16 comments, 11 replies
- Comment
No. For me, vacation is a time for relaxation, not planning and stress.
Sorry goat, I skipped straight to the question today. I even re-size my screen so that its all I see. Its funny that part of the forum trash can actually be blamed on the goat, not because he's the goat, but because he is the one actually creating the garbage! Glad to see these are loosing steam though. My comment will kick it to the top but with all this negativity hopefully it will just sail on down the river of neglected posts and forgotten antics.
My wife and I are spending two weeks in Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Parks in the spring. Theres lots of hiking and driving and moving from campsite to campsite and a few kickass hotels in there too. It hell to plan but its going to be amazing.
I used to LOVE SDCC, I went every year for about five years in a row with one of my best friends and his dad (he was a big silver/gold age comic guy) when I was a kid. I looked forward to it so much and it was always a blast. I loved wandering down the huge hallways and browsing the endless longboxes of comics I had never heard of. I was intrigued by the import comics and manga as I'm pretty sure I hadn't really seen much media from another country before (plus they had those 18+ sections that piqued by curiosity even more). There were tons of indie artists with tiny booths giving away free comics and signing them with custom art. There was cosplay, but not much of it which made it even more bizarre and special.
The last time I went with them I was probably 15 or 16 and I didn't got back until I was 22 or 23 and by then everything had changed. I immediately realized it was no longer the small con with the wide open halls. I got inside and immediately had to start shouldering through a screaming throng of people charging the company sponsored booths for promotional swag like posters and buttons. There were huge exhibits crowding the hall (I think they had Night Owl's plane from Watchmen that year) and that combined with absurd lines for every panel really turned me off the entire thing and I haven't been back since. Someday I need to check out one of the smaller cons around here, but I can't do SDCC anymore.
Anyway...HAVE A GREAT TIME, @BillLehecka!
@JonT wonder con is coming up in Anaheim very soon
I plan as little as possible.
My husband planned most of our wedding. Of course, because of that I don't have many photos. Thankfully someone caught the guy on fire on camera though.
Most of my effort was finding a dress (day-of) and picking out which cupcakes my friend should bake. Ugh, that was agonizing.
@katylava You can't just mention a guy on fire and not elaborate or provide said picture...
@JonT
@katylava enough said.
@katylava Was he ok? How did that happen?
@jqubed Yeah he's fine. He's an amateur fire breather. Or maybe professional, I don't know. He does burning man.
@katylava "he does burning man" ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜) ayyyyy
@Lotsofgoats Beat me to it.
@katylava I don't know if it was necessary to qualify him as an "amateur"
Speaking of SDCC and cosplay reminds me one of the worlds largest cowboy cosplay events is in Houston now. It's a big deal here and the cops even shut down some major roads last weekend for the cosplayers.
http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get2/I0000KSC2iWYck4U/fit=1000x750/TXRO1010.jpg
@WTFhqwhgads I think this is the spin off of Walking Dead.
I'm so jealous you're going to be going to SDCC. I love seeing all the great TV show promo cards that they give away there, I collect lots of TV show memorabilia and those cards are a nice fit with my other stuff. Well since you're the Goat (and doing a fine job of it if I may say so) it must be your fault I don't live in San Diego anymore and won't be going to SDCC.
I blame you for SDF.
I'd love to be able to do roller con (roller derby convention) but can't afford it. Instead I get to go to Elks grand lodge. With a 3 year old.
Most all our company trips to Europe take over every aspect of my life until we're all on the charter, in the air and we are over international water - and even then I don't settle down . . . I always intentionally leave at least two people behind. The co-founder of my media firm and I never fly on the same plane nor are we ever in the air at the same time, he usually travels after I am safe on the ground at the destination, and I ALWAYS leave an assistant behind to fly in commercial a day or two later with all the stuff everyone forgot to bring with them.
Once the gal "bringing up the rear" so to speak had to gain entry to a gated community and call a locksmith and an alarm company to turn off an oven that was left on in a cinematographer's home . . . only to find out the oven had an automagic shut-off and it was cold as a nun's tits on Sunday morning when she finally got in. She was tied up with that fiasco for ten hours.
For revenge, she left an open can of sardines in his attic. I wanted to fire her, but the guy said to leave her alone and he ended up marrying her three months later. He said he "liked her Moxie".
They divorced after four months. "Too much Moxie", he said.
True story.
I am still planning my "trip to metropolis" trip and have been for 20 years. Money and colon cancer has and is still getting in the way. But soon I tell you SOON.
i like having an idea for vacations. so i'll troll all sorts of travel sites with things to do. i really like odd things, like in key west, we went to visit perky's bat house
so i'll find a long list of things, more than we could ever see, try and map them so i know which are near each other, and then as the day unfolds we have options to choose from. and it's a vacation, so if w just end up chilling out and having a good meal, that's a win as well.
I don't really like vacation. Certainly not enough to plan obsessively for.
My husband (he was my boyfriend at the time) and I went on a road trip through New England and into Canada. I worry about things in general, and boy oh boy, was I worried about going into French-speaking Canada when I 1) had never been out of the US, and 2) don't speak French. We were also staying in a remote area... We were going for the dark sky park. I had all the food, utensils, bedding, etc we needed and I of course worried about getting into Canada with all of it. At the time I didn't know that I should have been more worried about reentering the US even though we had valid passports, licenses, car registration, etc.
I was lucky enough to get all of the days and preview night during pre-registration and booked a Hostel the same day. I have stayed at the Hostel before and although it is not pretty, it is perfectly fine for what I need. The room is private, has a TV and close to everything. Planning wise, this have been the easiest trip. This will be my fifth year going and can't wait!
What's a vacation and how do I get my hands on one..? I work for an ogre (no, really.. he's an actual ogre) and he keeps telling me I take a vacation every day from 12:00p to 12:30p.. (without pay of course).
My wife and I are INFPs and tend to appreciate flexibility and spontaneity. With me it's not so much that I value spontaneity per se, but I hate being locked in unnecessarily. My wife is more the spontaneous type. We're both procrastinating slackers. My onlyest daughter is an INTJ and an obsessive planner. I mean, it's a beautiful thing and I'm thankful for it and of course more generally for her and it's a part of who she is, but she got it from her mother (deceased).
So . . . most of our vacations in one way or another involve my daughter. We go to Colorado to see her and her husband every year. She (and sometimes he) comes to see us once or twice or thrice a year and I do some degree of staycation. Etc. Anyway, I don't mind having a few things tentatively on the agenda and I like having at least a few times designated for certain people, but otherwise the only planning I insist on is making sure we have funds free to do whatever we decide in the moment. And advance notice to be wherever we need to be when we need to be there (I hate being late and all that that implies). Somehow it all works out and we have a lovely time and there are only a few moments (by my reckoning, but of course I'm not counting) of tension over the planning v. not planning.
My general idea of planning is that if there's something I want to do, I want plenty of time carved out on either side of it so that we do it. But mostly I just look to the women in my life to tell me where to be when.
I hope I'm not driving my daughter to madness.
@joelmw Wow I haven't seen Myers-Briggs in a long time! Always liked using it for my classes. :)