Begin the blog on day 3!  How fitting it is at 3am…

Jon wasn’t up for a second night in a row outside, so he figured getting up at 3am would be a suitable alternative.  Maybe it was for him, but I was of another opinion.  It was lame.  We made it down to the convention center around 3:30, and the line at that point had only wound it’s way through all the ziz-zags under the tents, across the street and down the sidewalk along the grass between the convention center and the marina.

We sit ourselves down on our giant swag bags (which make really good sit-upons, btw) and sleepily say hello to the line-mates near us.  The guy immediately behind us spends some time trying to inflate an air-mattress with a hand-pump, but after he while he gives up.  Apparently he grabbed the wrong pump?  I don’t know, I stopped paying attention because the noise stopped.  One thing I will say about the backside of the convention center was that is was QUIET!  No shuttle, trolly or train sounds whatsoever.  Also there was a bit less lighting, so I took advantage and hunkered down to try and recapture my snoozes.

I did not fall successfully to sleep this time, unfortunately, because around 4am the sprinklers on the grass came on.  They weren’t spraying directly on us, and even the faint mist that made it to us wouldn’t have been so bad but then the water started trickling it’s way across the sidewalk towards us.  Most of us took a few mins to re-adjust our things to places the rivulets weren’t flowing and then it was ok….until the water made it to the dirt on the other side of the sidewalk and the ants came out.  Then there was a lot of standing.  And grumbling.  By this time, the line had gone all around the grass to the sidewalk between the grass and the marina.

Eventually the ant activity subsided enough that I figured I’d deal and laid back down.  There was a light breeze coming off the marina, enough to make me cold, so I put on a couple more t-shirt layers, put my hood on over my face, headphones in and lay there in a sort of fetal position on the cement with my backpack and a pillow for cushion. I’m not knocking the pillow for my head, but curvy hips and laying on the cement do not go well together.  I zoned out for a while.  There MUST have been some actual unconsciousness in there.  I was aware of enough time passing that it can’t have been much though.

Eventually I couldn’t stay in that position any longer (shoulder fell asleep) and had to sit up.  I’m sure I looked awesome.  Right before driving to the convention center, I’d showered, and left without drying or otherwise doing anything to my hair, so I had bed-head from it drying while I lay there.  Also I hadn’t bothered with makeup yet, but the sky was just light enough that I figured it was time (I really don’t consider myself a girly-girl, but I reeeeally don’t like being out in public without the basics on).  As I was doing this, I noticed Jon was talking to the guy behind us, only it was a different guy now.  I guess the one who failed at the mattresses wasn’t doing so well so his friend relieved him and sent him back to sleep for a few hours in an actual bed.  I envied him.

The friends of his who took his place were Phil (an Asian with freckles) and Benal (a really friendly and cool chick).  Phil as an actor who also works at Universal Studios as a character.  He had a lot of interesting stories about various things he’d worked on and famous people he’d worked with.  I guess he’s had a lot of guest spots on soap operas, but not following soaps myself I couldn’t say whether half a dozen appearances on one is a lot?  He did take me and show me the bathroom in the lobby of the Omni hotel so I didn’t have to deal with that bathroom nazi from the previous night so that was really cool.  Apparently there were a lot of guys there in line inside that bathroom at 6am so after I was done and waiting for him, it was like a clown car watching guy after guy come out of there before Phil did.

Upon returning to the line, we discovered they’d begun the condensing process, so Jon and our other line buddies were not where we left them.  We followed the line upwards and Phil had a really accurate guess of where they’d probably end up after the condensing was finished.  There was a little bit of awkward walking through flowers and bushes to get to them but we got there.  Then we all settled down in condensed fashion to wait another few hours.  If you haven’t gotten the theme of comic con yet, it’s a lot of hurry up and wait.  A LOT.  I used this time to load the pics from the previous days onto the netbook, using the pocket-chair as a really handy little desk.

To give a little perspective of the line, here are some shots.  Under EACH row of white tents, the line goes up and down 4 times.

And then to the far left there, where it looks like it ends, the line goes across that street to this…and yes, all those people are in the line.

When we got in line at 3:30, were about the center of this pic, on the sidewalk to the right side of that square of grass.

I think it was around 8am when the people with the signs showed up.  You know, those uber-religious ‘save your soul’ types.  They showed up trying to save some sinful comic-con attendees.  Well, the sign guys typically don’t go out of their way to bother people overmuch, but there was this one guy who showed up with a megaphone and proceeded to preach to those of us in line.  I could only kinda see him through the zig-zag line and not even really hear what he had to say, but some of the guys in line nearer him were getting really agitated and started to hassle the guy.  A lot of people perked up when they thought punches might be thrown.  In the end, no violence happened, but if it had, I wouldn’t have felt bad for the megaphone guy…he really should have some better common sense than to rile up the sleep-deprived nerds.

Eventually we were let into the hall.  Hall H, the biggest hall.  This one even had a bathroom inside, which was good since we were to be spending 10+ hours in there.  We rushed in and found some seats, staying with the group we’d been sitting with in line.  Then it was more waiting for an hour or so and then finally the movie panels started!

First was the new Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained, about a former slave turned bounty hunter in the deep south.  Generally I’m not a Tarantino fan, but this could be interesting,  Then there was End of Watch, a funky-looking cop movie focusing on a lot of POV camerawork, which is not my favorite.  Then a bit on a new Silent Hill, and they had a really creepy mannequin spider.  Here are some pics Jon thought were important to take of directors and such during these…

So…I think we went the 3 blocks in about a half hour.  Luckily there was a wait on the restaurant.  While sitting outside with the other girls for the fan dinner (SDCC Castle Fan Dinner represent! Woot Woot!), we saw this van…