Wondercon 2010 Wrapup

Posted on Monday, April 12 @ 16:09:02 Eastern by Blake_Morse

Day 1

I would describe this day as uneventful for the most part. Bill and I spent most of our time wandering the floor looking for cool shit to dick around with. If you've watched our video coverage than you've already seen pretty much the best of what we could find going on. For the last two years, vendor attendance has been mediocre at best with this year being a low point. Normally there's some piece of schwag or at least one shiny object that attracts my attention, but I couldn't find a damn thing beyond a FLCL shirt that was too small.

Which leads me to my next point: How the hell do you not carry t-shirts in XXL at comic book convention?!?! Do you know who your target audience is? Sheesh!

While the day was a bit of wash, the night had a much more enticing conflict to offer. First. there was the 2-hour Kevin Smith talks about whatever the hell he wants panel. I missed him speaking at MacWorld earlier this year due to my X10 coverage, so I was hell bent and determined not to miss him a second time. But there was a catch: At the same time that he was talking, there was an event being held for Tron 2 at Justin Herman Plaza.

To a nerd, this is like having to choose which of your children lives and which one dies. What was I to do? As tempting as the allure of a “Flynn Lives” T-shirt was, I chose to stick with the talk and held out hope that the event would still be going afterward.

It turned out to be the right decision as Mr. Smith is one funny motherfucker. I couldn't help but snicker at all the folks there with kids as Kevin went off about having the greatest sex of his life with his wife and the aid of an adult novelty known as the “Fleshlight” right before leaving for the Con. But he didn't stop there. Nothing is off limits with this guy. The one story that stuck out most was his tale of becoming a stoner.

If you're familiar with his catalog of work, you'll know that he has a penchant for pothead humor. But surprisingly it wasn't until right before he shot Zack and Miri Make a Porno that he really started to indulge in the wacky tobaccy. He explained that him and his wife had been given a couple of joints by a family friend. They smoked one, then without realizing that it takes a minute to kick in, he smoked the second one as well. After that, his face turned green and they started to panic. The solution they came up with was to get some food in his system. And no fat man is going to argue against that.

This lead to a thirty-minute call with a grocery store delivery service, in which he proceeded to order forty-seven bags worth of groceries, including seven pints of Ben and Jerry's that he told the clerk to pick out randomly.

While waiting for the delivery, he thought he could flush his system out with a nice long dump. He described the experience in graphic detail that I'll spare you here, except for a few facts: 1) He thought he was taking the most epic shit ever but it was only a rabbit turd, and 2) He said it felt “ropey".

Two hours later he emerged from the loo to find his wife wide-eyed and surrounded by the aforementioned forty-seven bags of groceries and melted ice cream. Then he started to badger her for not checking on him during his two-hour sabbatical. Only she had checked on him and his only response to her inquiries into his well being were, “It's ropey.”

Hilarious, right? Okay. Maybe you had to be there. But still... aren't you glad that you just read about Kevin Smith pooping while high?

As soon as he'd left the stage, Bill and I were off on a twenty-minute street hike to Justin Herman in a desperate attempt to save our other child at the last minute. But much to our dismay we'd arrived too late. The stages were being taken down and the crowds had dispersed. We found one nice gentleman hanging around who had been there for the whole thing, though, and he filled us in on what we'd missed, which apparently wasn't much.

Earlier in the day Tron 2 promoters had handed out Encom (the evil guys from Tron 1) security badges to random attendees outside of the convention halls. Those who had gotten badges met at a local hotel before the scheduled press conference for a briefing on what they were to do during the actual event. They then made their way to the plaza where everyone was encouraged to make a big ruckus and demand the truth about Flynn's existence. Then after a bit of rallying, the helicopter with the neon lights, that anyone who fights for the users will remember, showed up and someone parachuted out of it into the crowd.

But one might ask what the point of all that was? Well, it turns out that there were signs posted all over the event's gates that informed entrants that they were giving Disney permission to film them while they were there. So basically me and my trusty side-kick missed out on not getting paid to be extras in a Tron 2 crowd scene. Which I think I can live with.

Bill's heart was heavy from not getting in on the oh-so-sweet Tron schwag, but then the most epic thing ever happened. The same guy that had filled us in on what we missed also happened to know exactly where we should go to attempt to get said schwag!

Luck was on our side that night as we stepped into the hotel meeting room and were greeted with T-shirts, posters, Space Paranoids lapel pins and info on where to score our very own custom Encom security badges (hopefully the promo is still running).

After that it was back to the East Bay for a little R&R. I headed down to my local dive bar, The Stork Club, to check out what was going on for Oakland's first Fridays, which is a big open art gallery event held every month in the city's downtown area. Much to my surprise I ran into some Trekkies hanging out at the bar. Turns out they were in a band called The Final Frontiersmen and I'd just missed their set. I watched and snickered as my friend made a vain attempt to put the moves on Uhuru before calling it a night (it was so obvious that she was there with Spock anyways).