Zub Tales

In Los Angeles now… tired, way too warm but overall okay.

I am looking forward to E3, but I admit that coming here straight from Calgary without heading home for a bit first is wearing me out.

The Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo was an amazing success, as I said briefly in my previous post. The whole show was smooth, the audience was enthusiastic and overall experience was fun. I’ve always assumed that the bigger the show, the better the experience, but this really flew in the face of that. Being one of the medium-big guests at the show, we had a fantastic response from the fans. Breaking their expectations by quite a margin, the show brought in (at current estimates) over 4000 people, a really impressive amount for a first-time show in a city not known for its love of comics. Some shows seem to have people who want to wander, other shows have people who want to buy – this was definitely a buying type of con.

I had a fantastically geeky moment on Sunday. Peter Mayhew (the 7’3″ actor who played Chewbacca) and his wife were taking the shuttle over to the con and I jumped in to share the ride with them. They’re both wonderfully nice people and I’d met them briefly the day before – Anyways, we’re in the van getting ready to go over. Peter was in the passenger side crammed in and the driver started up the van, at which point I couldn’t help myself and said aloud –

“Punch it, Chewy.”

Peter reached back laughing and gave me a quick noogie with his baseball-glove-sized hand. It rocked.

The flight to LA was okay. The woman to my left was from Red Deer and had never even taken a plane before or left her home town. It was interesting to see her reaction to every aspect of it – I’d forgotten how amazing it was when I first got on an airplane.

The hotel I’m at is in Korea-town (if that’s what you’d call it). The air conditioning is spotty, the wireless only works in the lobby and the hallways smell kinda strange – I think that’s adding to my reservation at being here. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly thankful I found somewhere to stay here in LA and that I’m going to the show, I’m just feeling a bit rundown. My friend Shawn (who stepped up to bat with an offer of lodging) and his buddies are hilarious to hang out with so far, but we’re all sapped by the heat and exhausted after maneuvering through the insane traffic.

Anyways, gonna crash here. Photos and other E3 stuff hopefully by tomorrow night.