The Characterization Quandary

I’ve spent the last few days catching up on the most recent season of The Big Bang Theory.  When this show started 7 years ago I loved it. Finally there was a mainstream network show that represented nerds like me.  It was like Friends but nerdy. Perfect.  But as the years went on I started to lose interest in the show.  But how could that be? The characters were becoming more fleshed out and were actually growing as people; even to the point of marriage. Now I think I’ve figured it out.

The Big Bang Theory has a simple premise: nerdy guys meet hot dumb blond chick – hilarity ensues.  That joke worked for a few seasons, and then as audiences actually became invested in these characters, they needed to grow. And so they did. Except they don’t really grow all that much, with a few exceptions. The characters are stuck somewhere between stereotypes and fully fleshed out.

In the first few seasons, the main focus was on Leonard, seemingly the most level headed of the nerdy group, Sheldon, the outlandishly socially inept roommate, Howard, the hopeless and creepy guy, Raj, the ultimate shy guy, and Penny, the “bimbo”.  They each filled a stereotypical “nerd world” role, and played their parts like clockwork.  So the joke still worked.  Another reason the joke still worked, in my opinion, was because the novelty of having a show “for us, about us” on primetime network TV was still fairly new.  But slowly things began to change. Characters who had been perfect puzzle pieces started to suddenly do things and want things that they hadn’t before, and it broke the pattern.  Leonard gets the girl (Penny) and now the focus is not on how the nerd guy would never be with a girl like that but on how they make a relationship work.  Fair enough, that makes for really interesting stories.  Howard, who saw women as objects to be won and defeated suddenly is in love and changes his ways. That was actually really beautifully done. Sheldon, against all probability, finds himself with a girlfriend and slowly starts to adapt to caring about someone besides himself. These things have all the earmarks of plot and character growth, but here’s the problem: While the characters may be growing and changing, the show that houses them does not.

With the addition of Howard’s wife Bernadette and Sheldon’s girlfriend Amy, the show could now say that it was representing women, and not just a bunch of nerdy guys.  But the women on the show are far from fleshed out. They are even more stereotypical than the men were in the first seasons.  It’s seen as perfectly acceptable for geeky smart men to spend their time on fiction, games, toys, comics, etc., but not one girl on the show has ever been shown to also enjoy those things.  While on the surface the show may be saying ‘Look! We have smart women! Yay women! Girl power! Women scientists! , in reality, those woman are still being used as the butt of a joke, as if to say those women just don’t understand what us nerds enjoy. 

Why is it so infeasible for a woman to enjoy Star Wars, for instance, just as much as a man?  Almost every episode features the guys talking about the girls or vice versa as if they could never be on the same page. Comics and movies and toys are for boys, yet all the women enjoy doing is getting together to drink and make jewelry (yes that actually happened.)  

 "It sucks being a woman, unless you're making a gay joke."

There are general women stereotypes, and then there’s specifics.  For instance, I feel like the show missed a great opportunity with the character of Amy.  I like Amy. Of all the women on the show, I think she’s the most interesting and real, but she could have been much more.  She is painfully lonely and isolated but wishes for the opposite, and yet finds comfort in Sheldon, someone more isolated from social norms than anyone.  She is the show’s main representation for nerdy women. (I find that Bernadette, while a scientist, doesn’t usually identify as a nerd)  Instead of giving this nerdy girl interesting quirks and personality, she is more often than not used as the butt of overused jokes.  Her self-proclaimed interests are harps, Little House on the Prairie, and Medieval poetry (immediately played as boring and uninteresting for a laugh, of course).  Instead of taking the chance to have a smart girl actually enjoy the same nerdy things as the guys in the show, they made her purposefully dull and uninteresting.  Because who would ever believe that a girl could be just as fun as a guy? Talk about fantasy worlds!

The character of Bernadette suffers from a similar problem.  As the catalyst for Howard’s 180 degree attitude change towards women, she would have to be a pretty strong willed character, and she is.  The problem is, this strength is portrayed as “bitchy for no reason” more often than not and results in countless situations for “poor Howard” to now be henpecked at every turn (to replace all the rejections he used to get from all those mean women who didn’t like being disrespected. What bitches.)

I still like certain aspects and characters in this show. It’s not devoid of humor, though I do believe it was much funnier in earlier seasons.  I feel it could be a lot funnier if it dropped some of the stereotypes that it fights so hard to hammer into our brains. One character that comes to mind is Stuart, the helplessly lonely comic book shop owner.  I would love to learn more about this character, but unfortunately every time I see him on screen I’m supposed to be laughing at how pathetic and lonely he is. Except we never really learn enough about him besides being socially awkward to explain where that loneliness comes from.  Raj’s loneliness comes from blatant character quirks that the show has delved into and pulled apart; even resolved in an attempt to further his character’s story.  But Stuart, after seven seasons, is still the butt of the same joke every time we see him. “Nerds are pathetic and lonely, don’t be a nerd.”  Wrong. THAT nerd is lonely and has low self-esteem. Guess what, lots of nerds do.  But it’s not what defines them as a person.  Those traits are parts of a larger whole, only a small part of what makes up a well-defined, real human being.

 Seriously, show writers, you're just going to ignore the kickass 

cosplay and make another 'Lonely and pathetic' joke?

And that is where my problem with this show stems from.  It started out by filling in stereotypical silhouettes that the average Joe on the street could identify as “nerdy”.  But when you find an actual nerd on the street and actually begin talking to them, 9 times out of 10, you will realize after 5 minutes that that person is so much more than just one thing. Just like you would if you went up to a sports jock, or a business executive, or a busy mother of six.  This show started with cookie cutter people, and as it tried to fill them in, realized they were losing the easily recognizable “nerd” shape they started with, so reverted to the same cookie cutter jokes.  The world, apparently, is not ready to see fully fleshed out human beings with hopes and dreams in cosplay without being given permission to laugh at them (as opposed to with them) and call them inferior or “other”.

Am I saying that no one can laugh at a nerd? Of course not. I am one, and I do it all the time. Hell, usually at myself.  But there’s a difference between having a sense of humor about your and others’ quirks and only showing one side of a group of people and making it the butt of a joke.  To go back to a comparison I made earlier, the show Friends was about six friends with different personalities facing the world with six different points of view and coming together despite those differences. The Big Bang Theory comes pretty close to doing the same thing. But instead of telling a story about a group of friends facing the world with all their quirks and differences who happen to be nerds, it is a show about nerds who attempt to be part of the everyday world but they’re nerds so that can’t be allowed to happen. There will always be something about these characters that keeps them from fitting in except with other nerds (Penny being the exception).  It paints a picture of nerd culture that is unfair and inaccurate. Nerds are part of every corner of society and believe it or not, can lead perfectly normal lives without that aspect of their personalities taking over their lives completely. 

I'm glad this show exists and I hope it gets better, but it has a long way to go in regards to accurately representing the group of people it capitalizes on.

The Great Comic Con Adventure of 2012

If you are a fan of anything in the realms of sci-fi, fantasy, anime, comic books, superheroes, cartoons, TV, movies, or just general awesomeness, then you are probably aware of conventions that celebrate these things.  And the granddaddy of them all is San Diego Comic Con.  The legendary place where once a year, fans can journey to be in the same place as the best of the best in comics, movies, TV, cartoons, art, and tons of other mediums.  After watching videos of last year’s con in awe and jealousy, three of my friends and I decided that we wanted to go this year, and promptly began planning a trip around it.  If we were traveling all the way to the West coast from the East coast, why not see some other sights while we were there?  Being a huge Disney geek, how could I not travel 2 measly hours from San Diego to Anaheim to see mecca, or as most people call it, Disneyland? And what’s right near Disneyland? Los Angeles! City of Angels, and Hollywood! San Francisco was another big contender, but being an eight hour drive from Anaheim and Los Angeles, we decided San Fran and Tony Bennett’s heart would have to wait for another time. (I was especially crushed to find out that the Pixar Studios were near San Francisco, and not near LA like I had originally thought).  

Downtown San Diego is beautiful, especially with 160,000 

people with over-sized swag bags swarming its streets.

Once we decided where we wanted to go, it was time to make sure we could even get tickets to the convention.  We registered on the Comic Con website in January, six months before the convention in July.  Soon after we received emails telling us that tickets would go on sale in early March.  On the day of the ticket sales, we all met up on Skype, since we all live in different states, and prepared to hurry up and wait on a line longer than I can accurately picture.  At the exact moment the clock struck the hour, we all clicked the button to get tickets, along with over 300,000 people around the world.  This was THE MOST STRESSFUL PART of the entire trip, four months before we would even get there.  After a few nail biting seconds (it felt like years), one of us actually got through, and were pleased to announce that they were only 22,000^th in line. You didn’t read that wrong.  Then the second of us got in about 10 seconds later, and were 45,000^th in line.  Luckily once you’re in you can buy up to 6 tickets, but the rest of us still tried and tried to get our places in line, disconcertingly high numbered as they might be.  Eventually, our places in line got lower and lower, until the first of us got in and we gave him our credit card info over Skype one by one until we all got our tickets.  The sigh of relief mixed with the spasm of excitement I felt as the last ticket was confirmed is not one I will soon forget.  After the shouts of triumph and victory we all sat silent for a moment, separated by hundreds of miles, but connected by technology that would not be possible if not for the nerds that came before us, and let it sink in.  We were going to Comic Con.  We had gotten in. All that planning and waiting and hoping had paid off.  Fantastic!

And that's just the line for the bathroom.

 Now that we were sure we were going, we hustled to find a good hotel, which is the second most stressful part of a Comic Con trip.  Over 160,000 people squeeze into downtown San Diego for four days every year, and the city knows they’re coming.  Finding a balance between a price that hasn’t been hiked up to astronomical proportions and a hotel that is not too far away from the convention center was a definite challenge.  On the upside, I now have a complete map of Downtown San Diego in my head for future reference along with a comprehensive knowledge of how long it takes to get around in it.  Weeks of searching and cross referencing before the day of ticket sales was definitely a smart move, because that night, as the shock and excitement of acquiring tickets to Nerd Heaven was still fresh, we made reservations at a lovely little hotel we had found called The King’s Inn.  To be honest, more than 50% of what made us choose the hotel was the restaurant attached to it, The Waffle Spot.  The menu online had such charming and memorable cartoon characters on it as “Sir Wafflelot”, “Sir Robin of Flapjack”, “Sir Up”, and my personal favorite, “The Banger Family.”  Seriously, it was a no brainer.  The weeks that followed consisted of airline tickets, rental car reservations, theme park hours and prices, itineraries, maps, and the all important question of “Am I going to dress up?”  We decided that as this was our first time and were weren’t entirely sure what to expect, that we would not cosplay, but I still planned out my nerdy t-shirts according to what panels I was going to each day anyway. (You have to have SOME nerd pride.) Allons-y!

I had been to much smaller conventions before going to Comic Con but I knew nothing would prepare me for what I was getting into.  You have to be a certain kind of person to even attempt going to San Diego Comic Con.  You must be willing to wait in lines that would put the bread line during the Great Depression to shame.  You must be a meticulous planner (if you want to get the most out of it, that is).  You must be able to think on your feet, be OK in huge crowds, be willing to choose between which childhood idol you want to see and which will have to wait (possibly until never).  You must be able to go on almost no sleep, crappy food, minimal comforts, and constant over-stimulation for 4 days.  Oh yea, and you must be a nerd. A big one.

 Luckily that's not a problem for me.

The day before the convention we all flew in from our respective cities and met up in San Diego.  A full day of airplane travel is enough to wear out even the most seasoned traveler (we are not), and that night, as we walked back to our hotel from picking up our convention badges (and enormous swag bags!!) we were all giddy with exhaustion.  Some of us hadn’t seen each other in years, and the joy of seeing old friends and being in a city that was buzzing with anticipation was palpable.  Dinner at the hotel’s other restaurant, The Amigo Spot, (I don’t know, just go with it) proved to be hilarious since none of us could form a complete thought without another cracking up or making some comment that would set us all off again.  As the four of us laid in the dark of the tiny hotel room, praying for sleep, titters and jokes could be heard into the wee hours.  The excitement and exhaustion were already affecting us, and we hadn’t even seen the convention center yet.  Geronimo!

Jess and the awesome Brits.

Day 1

What could be a more appropriate start to the most fun and nerdy experience I’ve ever had than meeting two Brits in Firefly and Dr. Horrible costumes at a bus stop?  My friend Jess wore her “Hammer” shirt that day and it started up a friendship that lasted not only the duration of the bus ride to the convention center, but the entirety of the convention! But more on that later.  After we waited on a short line (shocker) to get into the con, we were immediately turned around, lost, and otherwise overwhelmed by the immensity of the building itself.  Not to mention the hoards of people who were already swarming inside, most of them in costume.  We decided to split up.  Jess and I headed to the main exhibit hall, about the size of 2 football fields, which housed all the artist tables, merchandise vendors, and studio booths.  Pedro and Stephen headed upstairs to submit their art portfolios for review and possible job placement.  

No amount of description can explain the enormity and cacophony of the exhibit hall.  Even early on the first day, there were so many people that you could not walk anywhere without some part of you touching a stranger, and the volume in the hall (I hesitate to call it a room because of its sheer size) was so loud you could barely hear someone talking five feet from you.  I loved it.  Sensory overload is the only way I can think to describe it.  It was like a collage of all the things you would expect to see at a convention in little paper cutouts, all overlapping each other, except it was real.  The booth for Warner Brothers studio plastered in huge stills from The Hobbit was right next to the one for Iron Man, which housed every single Iron Man suit, right there in the flesh.  Turn around and there’s your favorite cartoon voice actor signing autographs.  Ooo ooo! And look over there! No even further, it’s really tiny but if you squint- Yes, there! That’s that actor you’ve recognized since you were 2.  God he got old!  Next to him is a vendor selling every toy from Doctor Who you could imagine (How do I choose!?) There’s a row of comic book artists’ tables, and the images plastered behind each one blows my mind more than the last as I walk the aisles.  Dear God this is heaven! This is what it’s like to feel like I’m home!  I love all you nerds! Hey, there’s a booth from my old art college, and I remember that professor! What the heck- Wow! They’re playing previews of that new video game coming out next year! And be still my heart, it’s the actual swords for Lord of the Rings! I need a moment. (These 5 seconds of internal monologue were brought to you by Nerddom. Yes Nerddom, the only state of being that allows you to achieve Zen while wearing fake Hobbit feet. Offer not valid in Utah.)

 Holy Shit it's Geordi and Data!

After a short hour in the exhibit hall Jess and I headed to a rather boring panel that I can’t even remember about books and movies or something.  Then I headed to meet Pedro for the panel on Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph.  The panel was in the largest hall, Hall H, which holds over 6,500 people.  So to ensure we got into the panel, we decided to stay for the panel before it.  Let’s see, what is-OH MY GOD IT’S TWILIGHT. I can’t. I can’t I don’t wanna you can’t make me. It’s the only way I’m gonna see Tim Burton? FINE. I’ll sit through the Twilight panel. (Skipping through the most painful hour of my life wherein I wanted to murder everyone in the room, none less than the people on stage, MOVING ON.)  Tim Burton was AWESOME. He was just so… Tim Burton-y.  Frankenweenie looks like it’s going to be wonderful, but to be honest I’m more excited about Wreck-It Ralph.  We saw about 10 minutes of footage from it and I haven’t been this excited for an animated movie in a while. Check out the trailer if you haven’t already.

I was really excited about the next panel on my list, called “Time Travel: Science Fiction or Science Fact”, which I would have gotten into if Stephanie %^#$-ing Meyer hadn’t made her panel run long by being an idiot and waiting until the last minute as people were standing up to show a new trailer for some new BS, which made Wreck-It Ralph run long, which made me get to the line for the Time Travel panel late and miss getting in by about 50 people.  Twilight bag-of-crap lady, I blame YOU for this.  After accepting my fate of not seeing probably a really cool panel for a time travel geek, I returned to the exhibit hall with Stephen for a while and went to see the Batmobile exhibit outside until it was time to line up for the Rifftrax: Live panel.  While Jess went to see something else, Pedro, Stephen and I (huge MST3K fans, dontchaknow) saw Mike, Kevin, and Bill tear it up and it was awesome.  

 

 No, they're not really robots, although they'd probably love that.

There is one thing that bothered me about the convention.  There were literally 19 panels going on at any given time for four days straight.  That’s incredible and I commend them for getting that much content into the con.  BUT.  There is no way to see everything you want to see.  This year I ended up sticking pretty much to the big stuff; major shows and movies that were in the bigger panel rooms.  But that meant that I missed a lot of the smaller ones; really cool sounding panels like “The Character of Music”, or “Cartoon Voices”, in which the best of the voice acting world get together in one panel and show off their amazing talents.  This isn’t really a complaint, since I don’t see how they could fix it without making the con longer, but more a regret of having to choose between two awesomes. 

Day 2

The main focus of Friday was the Firefly 10^th Anniversary Reunion panel.  Jess and I desperately wanted to get into it, but it being our first time at the con, didn’t know the ins and outs and little secrets of how to do things.  That’s where providence stepped in.  As Jess and I got to the bus stop at the hotel, who was waiting there but Captain Mal himself, the one we had met on the bus the day before.  He and his friend had taken turns sleeping in line for the Firefly panel all night and he was now returning to the line to enter the hall.  Thank god for Jess, because I never would have had the balls to wheedle our way into joining him in line.  He said if we could keep up with him, then we could join him in line.  As soon as we got off the bus, I realized just how long his legs were as he took off in what must have been a mile walk from the bus stop to the line where his friend was waiting at top human speed.  After 30 seconds I felt like that out of shape rhino at the end of the stampede in Jumanji, and after 3 minutes, I was pretty sure I was going to die.  But we made it, and as I struggled for breath with my head between my knees, he explained to his friend that we would be joining them.  After I regained color in my face and air in my lungs, Jess and I bought them breakfast in return for the gesture.  Shortly after, we were ushered- well I say ushered, it was more like herded- into the ballroom, which held about 4,000 people.  We would sit through 2 other panels before the Firefly panel, so after an hour of card games, the Community panel, and The Legend of Korra panel, (which I was actually really looking forward to) it was time.  I won’t go into the panel at length but I will say it was a very emotional hour.  Every fan in the room was super-enthusiastic, and the cast on stage was so appreciative.  There were tears, not only from Jess and I, but from Nathan Fillion, Joss Whedon, and others in the cast.  I am so thankful I got to experience it, and I will never forget it.

I was part of an audience that made these men cry, and I'm proud of that.

 One thing I absolutely loved about the con was all the amazing cosplay.  I will definitely be dressing up next year.  The creativity and originality of some of these people blew my mind and made me proud to call myself a fan of all things nerdy.  Pedro and Stephen spent the day doing portfolio things, so after Firefly, Jess and I wandered for a bit and then went to another short panel on Wreck-It Ralph, which I promptly passed out during.  Oops. That evening we headed to downtown San Diego, just across the street from the convention center, for dinner.  We stopped into the Chuck Jones Gallery on the way, mostly because I forced everyone to, which was really cool to see.  Then we gorged ourselves on Japanese food and headed to the hotel to pass out.

Day 3

This was my favorite day of the con.  The biggest thing on my list was today.  The Hobbit.  I won’t even attempt to express to you my excitement to see the Hobbit panel.  Now that we had learned our lesson about just how ridiculously long the lines were for the big panels, Jess decided to leave at around 3 or 4 AM to camp out for the next day.  It’s a good thing she did.  When I met up with her in line at 8 AM, Captain Mal and Dr. Horrible in tow after meeting them at the bus stop for a third day unplanned, I could not believe the amount of people who were already in front of her.  We sat through many panels before the Hobbit started; Quentin Tarantino’s new movie Django Unchained, some Silent Hill crap, and some movie trailers.  The Warner Bros. panel is always a huge deal at Comic Con, I learned, and lasts hours as the biggest films of the next year, along with some surprises thrown in, are showcased.  The panel started with Guillermo Del Toro’s film Pacific Rim.  EPIC. Giant robots fighting giant monsters except not at all stupid like that sounds. And I totally want to party with Guillermo, he seemed rad.  Next was a surprise visit from Will Ferrell and Zach Galifinakis to promote their movie The Campaign. Meh.  Then came Man of Steel, which looks pretty promising.   

Then a teaser trailer for a movie that no one had ever seen was played with no introduction.  I’m smiling as I think back on the moment when 6,500 people, silent with anticipation, watching a trailer for a movie they didn’t know, simultaneously cheered when they heard the famous Godzilla scream halfway through the trailer, suddenly realizing what they were watching.  THAT is what you’re paying for when you go to Comic Con; the shared experience of all those people who are just like you getting to see things before anyone else; being able to express their enthusiasm for those things in a way that they may not be able to in their everyday lives.  Being in a room that size full of people who completely understand if you, like one man did, burst into tears of excitement while asking a question to the director of the new Superman movie that you’ve been waiting for for 2 decades.  Or burst into tears, like I did, while watching 12 minutes of footage from the Hobbit 6 months before it would be released; in fact, before it was even decided that there would be 3 movies instead of 2. ( A decision I still don’t fully understand, but that’s for another day)

  

Both of these things happened. I will grasp that concept someday.

And that brings me to the Hobbit panel.  Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman, Ian McClellan, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, all in the same room as me.  Everyone else in that hall disappeared for me during that panel.  As soon as the lights went down and that absolutely breathtaking footage started on those humongous screens, I was riveted, tears and all.  I can’t wait, plain and simple.  It was such a thrill to see them and hear them talk about the films, which look like they will rival the LotR trilogy in beauty.  After the Hobbit panel came the Iron Man 3 panel, the other thing that made this my favorite day of the con.  Still coming down from the high of the 3 hour long Warner Brothers panel, we were all whipped into a frenzy once again as an unexpected Robert Downey Jr. emerged from behind a curtain and danced up the aisle to the stage. Here, just watch the video, nothing I say will do it justice.

 Iron Man 3, starring Tony Stark as Robert Downey Jr.

Needless to say, the man knows how to work a room.  Exhausted but grinning like an idiot, I watched as RDJ promptly took over the stadium sized room with less than a dozen words and a shit-eating grin.  As far as the movie goes, the trailer looks amazing and I’m looking forward to that one as well.

Emotionally and physically exhausted at the end of a long day of sitting in one spot, Jess, the Brits, and I, met up with Stephen and Pedro and had dinner downtown.  Ahh, real food. Real Italian food. The soul is cleansed.  The odd bittersweet that comes on the night before your last day of a trip tried to come over me, but my exhaustion drowned it out and begged for sleep.  We still had a long way to go.

Day 4

Jess, like the go-getter that she is, took turns with the Brits in line overnight so that we could get into the Supernatural (for her) and Doctor Who (for me and Stephen) panels on Sunday morning.  The last day of the con was upon us and I was excited through a fog of over-stimulation mixed with ‘I didn’t know I could function on no sleep and crappy food for 4 days”.  We all met Jess in line, once again for the big hall, which this morning wrapped around not only the building but made it’s way for at least a mile down the boardwalk behind the convention center.  Thank you Jess, for sleeping outside.  We got much closer to the stage for these panels than we had on the previous days, and could actually see the faces of the people in the panels without the use of the gigantic screens placed around the room.  The Fringe panel came first, which I have never seen but the Brits were excited about.  Then came Supernatural, which Jess was very excited about; she even got up and asked a question.  Then came (Ok, everybody! OOO-WEEE-OOOO!) Doctor Who!  Right before the panel came another little example of why I want to go to Comic Con every year I can for the rest of my life.  Only those who have seen the show will know what I mean when I mention the Master’s drumbeat, but can you imagine the sound of 6,500 people simultaneously clapping it? Surreal and magical.  Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it was cool.  The panel was even more magical, as we, before anyone else, got to see the Doctor say those wonderful words “Dinosaurs! On a spaceship!!” with a face that only Matt Smith and 4 year olds can pull off convincingly.  

 Chris Hardwick as the 10th Doctor and Matt Smith. Best picture ever?

After that, we all went our own ways and wandered the exhibit floor until the end of the day, when, happy for having been there but sad to have to leave, we slowly made our way to the bus stop to go back to the hotel.  It was kind of cool to watch all the vendors and company reps breaking down their stands as soon as the clock hit 5 PM.  This huge room suddenly started to have big empty spots and as all the guests were gone (I stuck around longer than I was supposed to but the sight was worth it) it was just cardboard boxes and empty metal racks.  I was sad as I wandered the aisles, but I promised myself I’d be back next year.  Tired but too wired to sleep at 6 PM, we joined the Brits at the infamous Amigo Spot, where we ate, drank, and laughed for hours, until we realized they were trying to close for the night.  We then took our Comic Con after party to our hotel room for a rousing game of drunk Apples to Apples. As fitting an end to a wonderful adventure as I can imagine.  The Brits were off to rent a caravan and drive to the Grand Canyon the next day, and Stephen, Pedro, and I still had many adventures to come as well.

 Always bring a Timelord to a convention.

The next day we went to the San Diego Zoo, tired as we were.  It was a beautiful zoo, and if we hadn't all been more tired than we had ever been I'm sure it would have seemed even more so.  Later, Jess left for the airport to go home, and the rest of us boarded a train to Anaheim.  We got to our hotel room and the tiredness started to hit us hard.  We were 6 days into the trip at this point and it wasn't even half over.  But my inner 5 year old would not let me rest, as I could see part of Disneyland from our hotel room window.  When we got to Disneyland the following morning, I couldn't contain my excitement, and it became a trend for me to walk ahead of the others as I took as much as I could into memory to comb over later.  The park was open late that night, so while Stephen decided to head back to the room early in the evening, Pedro and I stayed and got in every last thing we could before heading back to the hotel to collapse.  The next morning we went to California Adventure and met up with a friend of mine from college.  That day went pretty similarly to the one before, and we left that night drained but happy.

I could spend an entire day just riding Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean. Breathtaking.

 Here’s a tip if you go to Comic Con.  Try to ONLY go to Comic Con.  We bit off way more than we could chew and by the time to go to LA came around were all so tired we couldn’t fully enjoy it.  We spent the day after California Adventure on a little side trip that we had all been looking forward to.  We went to see the Cabazon Dinosaurs.  The giant dinosaur statues that you can walk through, featured in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and that crappy movie The Wizard from the 80’s.  Let’s just say, a roadside attraction is still just a roadside attraction, even if it's in an awesome movie.  When we got there, the childhood dream was lost, as everything around them had been built up, so much so that we could see them up close from the window of the Burger King we stopped for lunch at.  The clincher was yet to come however, as once we entered, we realized that they were built as a monument to creationism, or the people that don’t believe in evolution. *Price is Right fail horn*  We got a good laugh, though, when we entered the gift shop with the robotic dinosaur “exhibit” that included Cavemen riding dinosaurs and a raptor who seemed to have severe neck problems when trying to raise his head, erm, menacingly, I guess.  Being as tired as we were and as disappointed as we were, we didn’t care that the person at the counter heard us cackling from the back of the shop as we made our way through the displays.  We still enjoyed the day though, in a way that only those who have come through extreme duress and overwhelming joy can manage. We had been through both.

 Trips to the dino's mouth come with free concussions and sprained ankles.

The next day we headed to LA and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  It could be that I grew up near NYC, it could be because I was tired, but I didn’t like LA.  Maybe it was just the part we saw, but it came off as cheap, dirty, and unfriendly to me.  Not my kind of city.  So after we did the stars walk and saw Graumann’s Chinese Theater, we headed to see the Hollywood sign and then called it a day.  I think by that point all of us were so DONE that anything new we saw that day was going to be unimpressive and a hassle. I repeat, ONLY do Comic Con. It’s just too much otherwise.

 The next few days we wandered around, hung out, and met up with some friends.  We visited Santa Monica (hated it, too fake) and Venice Beach (what an acid trip!), saw the Spiderman movie, and ate lots of good food. On our last day we drove Stephen to the airport and then Pedro and I went to Universal Studios.  Still tired, yes, but we had rested up a bit and really didn’t want to wander LA aimlessly for the 12 hours until our flights.  Universal was fun, and we took our time in the park, not really needing to see everything but just waste a day.  The backlot tour was fun, and we ended the day with it.  We drove to the airport, dropped off the rental car, and went our separate ways. Pedro home to Puerto Rico, and I to NJ to visit family for a week.  Yes, for me, the traveling STILL wasn’t over.  I took a redeye, which I will try to never do again. 

The trip was amazing, and the most fun I’ve ever had.  I would do some things differently, but all in all I say this to you: If you are a nerd like me and enjoy the above-mentioned things: GO TO COMIC CON.  Don’t go back and forth trying to decide whether to go for it, JUST GO.   It’s such a cool experience and one that I’ll never forget and will go back to every year.   

 Best cosplay I saw, also winner of things that 

would make you pee if you saw them in an alley.

With that said, here are a few tips from someone who’s been there:

Bring your own food: The food at Comic Con sucks. It’s expensive, there’s not a lot of it, and it’s unhealthy. Make sandwiches, bring water bottles, and lots of snacks. Trust me.  I’m not exaggerating. You will be in that building, and most likely ONLY that building, for 4 days, and while we were lucky and had a hotel with awesome breakfast (Thank you Sir Wafflot), the rest of the day is still long and tiring.  Keep up your energy and bring good food for yourself.

Give yourself a day to rest beforehand: I wish we had arrived in San Diego 2 days before the Con instead of the night before.  Sure it’s one more night of hotel to pay for, but you’re going to need that rest and relaxation for a few reasons.  It will give you time to get some food supplies.  It will give you time to sightsee San Diego a bit before things get crazy, something that I wish we had had more time for.  And it will let you recuperate from a hard day of travel before one of the most grueling experiences of your life.

Get sleep whenever you can: Sleep during panels you don’t care about if you’re waiting through them for something else. Sleep on the bus.  I know I’m talking crazy now, but go to sleep early if you’re not crazy like we are and sleeping outside in a line.  Not only will you enjoy the con better but you’ll have more energy.

Don’t plan a crazy long trip right after Comic Con: Or right before I suppose.  If I haven’t mentioned this, IT’S TIRING.  If we had cut it off right after Disneyland and California Adventure, I think we would have been a lot better off.  Or at least had a day or two in-between to recover.

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN: The Comic Con schedule is insane. Like I said earlier, there are 19 panels going on at all times for 4 days straight.  The big panels require lots of planning and you have to be in line hours if not a whole night ahead of time.  That means you’re going to miss all the little ones.  If there are two panels right after each other but on opposite sides of the ginormous building, you might not make it to the second one before it fills up. PLAN. We had all four days of the schedule marked with what we wanted to see and where it was, and we STILL missed stuff (Thank you Miss Twilight).  

Bring stuff to keep you occupied: Books, card games, knitting, iPod, whatever you like, but you will be waiting in long lines and unless you’re one of those people that talks to everyone around them (it’s a convention full of nerd though, so that’s unlikely) you’re going to want something to do.

Put some money aside for swag:  Make sure you have enough money after paying $3 for a cookie or bottle of water for four days that you have enough left over for what you want to buy yourself at the con.  I didn’t go crazy, I got a few t shirts and a toy, but if I hadn’t spent so much on shitty food, I may have felt ok about buying more.

Comfortable Shoes: That’s it, just wear them.

Shower: Please for the love of god, shower and wear deodorant. I don’t want your stank.

Build up your immune system: Ok this one is more a reminder for myself, but I got really sick after Comic Con.  Whether it was because I was so tired, or the unhealthy food, or just the sheer amount of people there, it’s a rough place for being healthy.  I hardly ever get sick, and I had a cough for 3 weeks after.  So next year I will be boosting my system with lots of Vitamin C, etc beforehand and during.

That’s pretty much it, really.  It was wonderful and I hope some of you get to experience it someday.  It was one of my bucket list things, and it has now become a yearly must-do.  If you’re on the fence about going, I hope this helped you decide.  If I took away nothing else from it, it was that there are lots of amazing people out there just like me.  And if life was more like Comic Con every day then it would be a happier, more peaceful, more fun world to live in.

  

 Like a big ol' Ewok party where Jar Jar's not invited.