The Wonders Of Comic-Con

It was right around the time when the yeti slammed down his copy of Twilight: Eclipse and stormed out of the room that I realized it had been a bit of an unusual week.
As odd as that scene may seem to most of you, I assure you that it was just one of the many fantastic sights from this year’s annual gathering of nerds, known far and wide as San Diego Comic-Con 2010.
Last year was my first time going to The Con, so I had no idea what to expect. This year was interesting because I knew what it would be like, but I still was not fully prepared for the grandeur and sheer size of the massive event.
I went in more prepared. I had my list of panels I wanted to see. I scoped out the floor on Wednesday night (I get to go on the preview night because I’m a member of the media—and also because I’m quite awesome) to get the lay of the land and feel out the booths that would be best to visit again and again for all kinds of swag.
But I still missed out on a lot of stuff. People who weren’t even there asked me afterwards, “Did you see Angelina Jolie?” or “Did you find out if Mark Ruffalo was confirmed as the new Hulk?” or “Did you get stabbed in the eye with a pen by a kid wearing a Harry Potter shirt?” (which actually happened to someone, by the way). I saw a lot of stuff, but I still came away feeling like I missed a lot as well. I suppose that’s part of the genius of The Con; even after an intense week of nerdery, you still walk away wanting more.
But getting back to the things I did experience, it wasn’t quite as awe-inspiring for me as it was last year. I guess I’ll never really recapture that childlike wonderment that comes along with the maiden voyage to Comic-Con, which is a little bit sad. But there was still lots to see, and I will do my best to recount some of the amazing sights, sounds and experiences I encountered.

The bike from the upcoming Tron movie:


Wednesday Night
I used a summer camp analogy to describe last year’s Comic-Con, and if you’ll forgive the duplication, I have just one more comparison to make—the first night of The Con is a lot like the first day at camp. You don’t really know your way around yet, the kids who got their first already called the cool cabin, and nothing’s really going full swing just yet. It’s a good night to just wander the floor aimlessly, as I did for the better part of two hours, seeing what booths are giving out good stuff (that would be the Columbia Pictures booth, featuring the movie Salt, The Green Hornet and a sequel to the movie 30 Days Of Night) and what booths are going to be lame and stingy. (Seriously, G4? You only have buttons this year, and you expect us to pay for t-shirts? Not cool.)
But one of the most amusing moments for me (I’m a word nerd, so you may not find this funny at all) was on the trolley down to the convention center. The trolley driver, explaining that this was the red line special event service train, said that we could exit the trolley at one of three stops if we were attending “The Comic-Con.” I had to Tweet about that when it happened, because (as all nerds know), it’s not “The” Comic-Con, it’s just Comic-Con. So I went about calling it The Comic-Con for the rest of the week. And I considered this to be hilarious.
The rest of Wednesday night at The Comic-Con was spent watching part of a sneak-peek at the upcoming CW network series Nikita, about an assassin who is trying to… um…assassinate people.

I couldn’t really get into it at all because the characters kept just saying what they were feeling or describing what was happening. For example, a scene in which the show’s star, Nikita, is escaping from a secure location. She gets followed to an alley behind the building and caught by a member of the security team, who also (apparently) used to know this girl and/or have a relationship with her. Anyway, the dialogue was so elementary, they were actually saying things like “You know I can’t shoot you…not after all we’ve been through…” instead of, you know, letting the flashbacks we saw tell the story about how they went through things together. I’m not saying I could do it any better, but I can at least recognize when it’s not exactly Tolkien-esque. I’ll get down off my writer’s soapbox now.

Friday Night
I skipped Thursday this year, partly to save on gas money, and partly because I am married now, and I should probably pay at least a cursory amount of attention to my bride of just over two months. Love you, sweetheart!
Anyway, I went back down on Friday night, and I could immediately tell the difference between the weekend and the earlier mid-week days. It was pretty packed, and the costumes were starting to be much more numerous (and detailed). I saw some princesses (who explicitly said, “We’re not representing Disney!” to avoid any potential lawsuits):

...as well as some interesting takes on classic characters, such as Nintendo’s Mario looked a tad suspicious with his flashy suit, big hat and stylish cane:

...and some good, homemade group costumes (the cast of Pokemon, as worn by four girls who really did a great job with the costumes):
It's hard to see this girl with the camouflage on, except that it barely covers her:

I always forget about the autograph area until the end of the day, so by the time I got up there, not very many celebrities were still around. Olivia Munn was there signing copies of her book, Suck It, Wonder Woman: The Misadventures Of A Hollywood Geek, but I missed the ticket giveaway earlier that morning, so I just snapped a photo and moved along:

Not much happened Friday night, so I went home a little early and got ready for The Comic-Con’s big day.

It's Scott Wolf! From Party Of Five! AAAHHHH!!!!

Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility:

Saturday
Let me start off the story of my Comic-Con Saturday with a little shout out to the event staff—I almost missed out on the craziness of the day, but the sympathy and kind heart of one particular staff member made it possible.
Basically, I forgot my press pass when I drove down to meet the trolley to the convention center. As I mentioned, the need to save on gas money is a priority when you get married, so there was not enough fuel to get me home again, then back down to the trolley. So I embarked for the convention center, hoping that my press confirmation letter and photo ID would be enough.
The official policy of Comic-Con is that they don’t reissue press passes. To replace a lost attendee badge costs $100. I talked to four different people at three different locations, and there appeared to be nothing they could do.
Well, after talking with one of the supervisors, and assuring them that I had not sold my pass or anything like that, she took pity on me and issued me a one-day press pass for no charge. I won’t mention her name, just in case there would be any trouble she could get into, but I thanked her profusely and headed off to the exhibit hall once again.
Saturday at The Comic-Con is a new world full of bright colors, loud, random sounds and a whirlwind of activity that will turn your brain upside-down. It reminds me of the time I accidentally took too much Benadryl (and by too much, I mean I took one pill—I’m apparently a wimp when it comes to medicine) and ended up feeling loopy and unsure of spatial stimuli and tactile input for an entire evening.
But instead of feeling out of it, the excitement of the exhibition floor gets you pumped up for a day of costumes, celebrities and… well, waiting in line for upwards of two hours just to see something worth seeing. Woo hoo!

Batman gets interviewed...because he's always so available, after all:

Yes, there was some Twilight gear there.

At least it didn't ruin Comic-Con this year, like it did last year, apparently.

Celebrities were everywhere, from Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving (from the new Captain America movie) at the Marvel booth...

...to Michael Chiklis (who played The Thing in the Fantastic Four movies)...

to Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy and The Cleveland Show)...
No, I didn’t see Angelina Jolie, or Will Ferrell, or Chevy Chase. Oh wait, I did see Chevy Chase.

And I totally nodded my head in his general direction as he walked by. We’re pretty much best friends now.
The costumes were amazing, from (my personal favorite) Colonel Sanders...

...to Gandalf...

to Voltron...
...to whatever this is...

...and that’s before the Masquerade even began. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
I had to go to the Attack Of The Show (AOTS) panel, mostly because it’s a hilarious show on G4 that shows the latest internet video sensations, gadget reviews, movie news and general awesomeness. Also, the hosts, Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn, are really funny. I pretty much stalked Miss Munn last year at The Con, even participating in the now-famous Running Of The Munns that took place when one of her autograph sessions had to be moved at the last minute. I'm sure she's used to it.
Anyway, the AOTS panel brought the goods, as it does every year, with a contest to see which nerd could best imitate the now-famous “Double Rainbow” video clip that’s been circling the Web. They also had a bingo contest regarding the things that would happen during the panel. Some of the possible goings-on included “Sexy Yeti Sighting,” “AOTS Batman Surprises Kevin,” and “Zombie Apocalypse.” I did not win the bingo, but whoever had “Yeti Gets Upset With The Ending To The Twilight Series” got some fabulous prizes.
I got a couple autographs...

...took a photo with Pereira...

and boogied out to see what else was happening.
Turns out they close the exhibition hall at 7 p.m., but there was still plenty to see. In my wanderings, I happened upon the line for the Masquerade, an event I missed last year. They still had tickets, so I grabbed one and wondered (with some trepidation) if I would be forced to slow dance.
To my great relief, I did not. From the comfort of my seat, I was able to watch what was essentially a fashion show combined with an improv class, all featuring some awesome costumes.
Some were marvels of engineering, like the Amp suit from the movie Avatar:

...or the entirely-homemade minotaur:

...or the crowd-favorite Puff The Magic Dragon:

Others were great because of the presentation, such as the Xavier School Musical (the X-Men cartoon characters singing and dancing, like in that series of teen song-and-dance movies that shall not be named):

and the mish-mash of time-traveling heroes that included Bill & Ted, Dr. Who, Sam Beckett and Ziggy (from Quantum Leap) and, of course, Doc Brown and Marty McFly:

And some were just plain awesome, like the kid with the War Machine (from Iron Man 2) costume:

...or the Avatar vs. Avatar showdown (between the main characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender and James Cameron’s Avatar):

...or the winner of Best In Show, a group called Viva Las Villains that featured some famous comic book villains as they might appear in their own series of casinos:

The costumes were amazing, the presentation varied from uncomfortable to genuinely clever and funny, and the atmosphere was electric. Nerds love their cosplay, I suppose.
All told, it was a great week. I even had a few observations gathered over the course of The Comic-Con this year.
—There was a tremendous amount of diversity in the crowd, which shouldn’t really be a surprise in 2010, but was still noteworthy in a socially positive sense. From the black guy dressed as Batman Beyond:

...to the Asian kid dressed as “super” hero Kick-A**:

...to the Hispanic Jedi warrior I waited in line with to get a tin of red hots from the WB booth.
The world of the nerd apparently knows no boundaries, and The Comic-Con was a perfect example.
—The best swag (which stands for Stuff We All Get) came from the aforementioned Columbia Pictures booth, where they handed out three different free t-shirts, posters, buttons, and, on occasion, packages of microwave popcorn. They did it right—sometimes they weren’t handing out anything, sometimes you got a bunch of stuff. You had to check back at random times to see if you could score something cool.
The booth that was so close to getting it right was the booth for Millenium Films, featuring upcoming releases Red, Drive Angry and The Expendables. They gave out free t-shirts, but with a catch—you had to go to a different part of the exhibition hall to wait in line, and they only gave out a limited number, so the line was immediately full as soon as it opened. They gave away a lot of other stuff, including refrigerator magnets and keychains, but it mostly cluttered up my backpack and after the second day of it, nobody really wanted another cord organizer from the upcoming movie Sourcecode.
I was pretty disappointed with the G4 booth, which gave away lots of stuff last year, but insisted on selling stuff this year. They handed out buttons this year, but compared to last year’s giveaways of shirts, rub-on tattoos, photos, posters and even green plastic visors, it was just sad. Same with the WB booth, which clearly had enough foot traffic to justify some cool handouts, but only passed out little red hots in a Vampire Diaries tin, a free Harry Potter broomstick for your character on Xbox Live, some little buttons, and a card to go to another booth to get a Big Bang Theory button. For one thing, don’t make me stand in line all that time just to send me on an errand. And for another thing, come on folks, it’s The Comic-Con. This is not the time to skimp.
—As always, there was a lot I kind of saw but didn’t get to investigate. There is apparently a new Medal Of Honor video game coming out (I was a HUGE fan of the MOH series when it was on Playstation 1 & 2, when it was about World War II, but this one looks like it involves modern wars), and I didn’t really get down to the Marvel booth that often (they didn’t hand out much, and it was a little ways away from the main booths congregated in the center of the exhibition hall). I heard a lot about different panels, but you can pretty much only see one panel a day (unless you stay for back-to-back panels in the same room) because the lines get so long so quickly.
I wish I’d had a little more time to check out the autograph area as well; I did take some photos of the scattered celebrities who were left on Saturday night (including the voice cast of Futurama:

...as well as the guy who played The Soup Nazi on Seinfeld):

but I didn’t get any sweet autographs this year.
But there were a couple of random sightings that made my week, in a weird way. I checked out last year’s Comic-Con photos, and found this picture of a nerdy kid with big white shoes riding the trolley the first day:

Well, I saw him on the trolley again this year, but in a much bigger crowd, so I couldn’t get a shot of him. I saw another guy, also from last year’s trolley ride (this nerdy guy, who was thoroughly engrossed in his bag of goodies):

...on the trolley ride home on Saturday. In a weird way, it was a cool way to end my Comic-Con experience this year, as if seeing those guys brought it all around, full-circle.
And it reminded me that no matter how cool I get, or how many times I see an angry yeti storm off a stage, I’m just a big, nerdy kid inside.
Be sure to write in if you have any thoughts about Comic-Con, or if you have any photos from The Con that you'd like to share.

Comic Con Day 5: The Last Day At Summer Camp

Sorry for the lateness of this entry, but after such a full week at the Con, I'm still trying to catch up. I'm worn out to my very bones, but it's the kind of exhaustion you only get from meeting gorgeous celebrities and having them profess their love to you... via an autographed photo. It's quite a satisfying feeling.

But now that I've had a few days to process it all, I wanted to take a quick look back at Sunday. The final day of Comic Con 2009 was a lot like that final day at summer camp -- those of us who have been there the whole time are walking around just a little more slowly, remembering all the fun things we did, all the cool people we met, and just soaking it all in one last time.

"Oh look, there's the Playmate from 1998! She's so sad...we're going to miss you, lady trying desperately not to age!"

"There's the Twilight booth, where I nearly got decapitated by a 14 year old girl grabbing a poster!"

"The Star Wars booth! I can still smell the nerd sweat from all the chubby Jedi-wannabes permanently soaked into the carpet after they stood there for three hours watching clips from the movies up on that big screen."

"The G4 booth, my home away from home this week, and the site of me becoming even more famous than I was before! I'm going to miss you, and miss being on live television..."

...that's literally me in the center, with the green hat on, showing off my rub-on tattoo of Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn. And so my already considerable fame grows.

It was a bittersweet day; a lot of kids were there because it was some kind of family day or something, so a lot of the booths had giveaways targeted to the youngest fans. Basically, that translated into "stay away from the WB booth or you'll get run over by 400 strollers."

But it was still Comic Con, and plenty of people were there for the first day all week (clearly not the most dedicated Con-goers, since even I knew that you can't wait until the last minute to register or you'll be out of luck). It was kind of sad seeing the costumes on Sunday, because those of us who had been there all week knew that we'd seen the best of the best on Saturday, and that the Sunday cosplayers were just a day late and a dollar (or more) short.

Since Saturday is essentially the thrilling climax of the Comic Con story, Sunday felt kind of like those nine different endings from The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (which I heard mentioned at least three times during the week). Not that the endings were bad, it's comparable in that, just when you think it's all over, it's still going. So it was with the Con; I kept thinking that the floor would be empty when I turned around, but every time I circled back to the main area (around the movie/TV booths), there were still plenty of people.

I did catch a few photo gems that I missed earlier, including the best statue ever:

...a sign that drew a lot of agreement, in both scream and non-scream form:

...Princess Leia, in the only costume truly recognized by the nerd community:

...the pope (Wait, the pope? Really? Does he have a comic book coming out?):

...me with Blair Herter, correspondent for G4 and apparently a former contestant on Road Rules back in the day:

...movie expert Chris Gore in a pink baby T-shirt:

...and, just to round things out, the G4 International Sexy Ladies Show girl, still somehow in that bathing suit and still somehow able to smile about it:

All in all, Sunday at the Con was fun; I watched a trivia contest hosted my Mr. Herter in the G4 booth (the winner got some really cool stuff, including a life-size replica storm trooper helmet... goodness sakes, I think I need to get away from all the nerds before I become any more like them), I picked up some more swag, I bought myself a Guy Fawkes mask (from V For Vendetta, of course) and just took it all in one final time.

If we're going to use the camp analogy, let's take it a step further and identify some of my favorite things from the week, using camp terms to complete the thought:

Camp Counselor: Olivia Munn, who was clearly the person I was there to see, and she did not disappoint. From the Running Of The Munns (I hope I don't have to pay royalties to use that) to the autograph session and everything in between, she helped make Comic Con '09 the highlight of my year so far. I think it's too late, I'm already a nerd.

Camp Song: The Attack Of The Show theme, which a room full of nerds hummed on kazoos for the AOTS panel. Also, the Star Wars theme, which can make an entire convention hall of nerds freeze in their tracks and look heavenward to find the source of their greatest dreams come to life.

Coolest Cabin: For me, it was the G4 booth, not only because of Miss Munn and the live coverage of the Con, but because they made their celebrities accessible, they gave away a lot of free stuff (I have an AOTS T-shirt, a handful of buttons, a stack of rub-on tattoos, a green poker visor, and an autographed picture of Olivia Munn given to me after one of the handlers saw that I had Olivia and Kevin's signatures on my forearm), and they always had something going on worth checking out. As I chatted briefly with the handler who gave me the autographed Munn photo, I mentioned how much I loved their booth, and I literally said, "See you next year!" like every kid at camp does. Otherwise, I enjoyed the Iron Man booth (with the four Iron Man suits), the Twilight booth (for giving away sooooooo much), and the Hasbro booth with the G.I. Joe suits.

Lamest Cabin: clearly the WB/CW/whatever that network's called booth. For one thing, it was massive, it was right in the middle row, and it was horribly designed in terms of accessibility. Whenever they had celebrities, they were tucked away under the second story where you couldn't see them. When they didn't, they had some Rock Band thing in one of the corners, but it was always packed and you couldn't really see what was going on. They didn't hand out swag; you had to wait in a line and circle around the booth a couple times before you got to the counter and they handed stuff to you. If the Con was indeed summer camp, the WB booth was the cabin full of kids who had poison oak.

Mess Hall: I didn't actually buy anything to eat there, although they have a few concessions areas, as well as some Starbucks locations, inside the convention center. More little snack carts were positioned here and there, but none of it looked all that good, and was pretty expensive (like, movie theater expensive), so I settled for some homemade sandwiches. Peanut butter, honey and cinnamon sure hit the spot though, and you need a good source of energy like that to survive the Con floor for five days.

Favorite Camp Activity: Going to my first panel was lots of fun, and the gang from AOTS put on a great show. Along with the clip they showed us:



...they really brought us all together with the kazoos and the nerd rave. If they had had a Con-wide softball game, that might have trumped the panel... but it still would have been close.

Hope To See You Next Year: Obviously I'll be hanging around the G4 booth again next July, getting on live TV and having gorgeous starlets falling in love with me... again. But I really just want to see the things that make Comic Con so special -- the costumes, the crowds, the larger-than-life booths and the general craziness. And if the International Sexy Ladies Show girl is there again, that wouldn't hurt either.

So with a full Comic Con experience under my belt, I feel like I learned a lot; not only about comics, movies and television, but about myself and my fellow nerds. This whirlwind adventure got me pumped up, took my breath away and left me pretty exhausted, but most of all, really showed me a great time.

Next year, I'm going to see what I can accomplish with my press pass, maybe set up some pre-scheduled interview time, and hopefully try to stay more informed about the new releases and accompanying celebrities that will be there.

And maybe over the winter, I'll write a letter to some of the new friends I made, remembering all the fun we had this summer at Comic Con.

Comic Con Day 3: Munn-day on Friday!

The pinnacle of my life thus far...and I'm only exaggerating a little bit...

Ah yes, Comic Con Friday.

Like a circus without a ringmaster, the Con hits another gear on Friday with a influx of new arrivals who aren't dedicated enough to take off of work on a Thursday, or who aren't dedicated to just not have a job in the first place. What a bunch of corporate sellouts.

I, on the other hand, claim the good fortune of a job that allows a trip to Comic Con to be classified as "work," with only a near-constant stream of professional e-mails blowing up my phone every 17 seconds as a downside.

My press pass came in extra handy this morning, because (as I'm sure we all knew), today was Olivia Munn day! Everyone's favorite sexy Asian tech show hostess (if you've never heard of her, rest assured -- you will, and soon) had a full schedule, beginning with a meet and greet with her exclusive fan club at 1o am. Those of us in the OMFG (Olivia Munn Fan Group) received a clandestine e-mail from some sort of intern signing Olivia's name this week, and there were a lot of fans wating outside the Atom.com booth, where Miss Munn was announcing her partnership with the company in producing some Star Wars-related Webisodes that will debut soon.

The thing is, the Con doesn't officially open until 9:30 am, so the people with the non-famous person badges had to wander helplessly outside, while a quick flash of the press designation (and, I'm sure, the recognition factor reserved for those of us in the upper echelons of celebrity) quickly allowed me entrance to the nearly-deserted floor.

There were still about 20 fans already there, lining up in an orderly fashion (which I'm getting better at) and alternating between quasi-awkward chatting with their neighbors and anxiously checking the doorway for signs of Olivia. But within seconds of my arrival, the floodgates were opened and the steaming mass of humanity known as Comic Con surged into the main hall. It took under a minute for the line to wrap completely around the booth, and still people came. By the time Olivia showed (at about 10:15), a horde of people converged on the site like zombies to a sorority girl. She managed to get into the booth and say a quick hello to the group before starting the individual photo/autograph sessions, but the crowd was still growing dangerously.



I managed to get her attention with the pie I brought for her (yes, I bought her a pie; she's a well-known pie aficionado, and she mentioned in a recent article that she especially likes the quality offerings of the Julian Pie Co., so I figured it was a no-brainer). Sadly, I have no video evidence of what transpired (I think I hit the wrong button...grr), but here's a basic synopsis of what the "conversation" was like:

Me: (gesturing towards pie and smiling, saying nothing)
Olivia: (smiling) You brought me a pie?!? That's great!
Me: Yes, I did, because I know you like them, and I am not desperate and creepy, I promise.
Olivia: Oooh, what kind is it? (Not seeing the label on the box she is holding in her hands at this point)
Me: I think it's apple mountain berry...did I mention the not-creepy thing already? Just want to make sure we get that across.
Olivia: (Thinking for a second) You know, with all these costumes I'm wearing for the show [Attack Of The Show's live broadcast on Saturday], most of them are pretty skimpy, so I'm on a diet. And you bring me pie? F*** YOU!
Me: (still silently holding onto one end of the pie box, wondering if I should offer to split it with her)
Olivia: I'm just kidding, I love it! Thank you so much! (Puts it down with her stuff to turn her attention elsewhere)
Me: (as she's walking away, trying to be kind of loud but actually speaking in almost a whisper) Hey, that's...yeah...I'm not...creepy...

And...*scene*.

Well, it wasn't exactly that, but it was close. She literally did say the line about the skimpy costumes and she did also say "F*** YOU!" right to my face -- but we get each other's sense of humor that way, so everybody laughed. It was the coolest cussing out I've ever been a part of. If I can manage to get in to the AOTS autograph session on Saturday, I think I'm going to ask her to help me re-create that moment on video -- complete with awkward line delivery and a turn-to-the-camera-thumbs-up finish. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Anyway, before my part of the line could even get inside the Atom.com booth, some killjoy from Comic Con came in and said that there were way too many people in that area and that the whole thing had to move outside. Olivia and her entourage made a break for the front doors, but she didn't get 20 feet before the crowd closed in around her:

She signed a few autographs, took a few photos, but about 45 seconds later, the security team was plowing her through the crowd towards the rear entrance. Wow that sentence sounds dirty...purely unintentional...my apologies. But a pretty accurate visual of what followed would be that of an old-fashioned fox hunt, only instead of English horseman chasing a helpless woodland animal, substitute in a chubby, hustling horde of nerds trying not to obliterate the other innocent convention-goers in a mad dash down a back hallway, up some stairs, and out onto the steps at the rear of the convention hall overlooking the harbor. And I'm quite proud to say that my level of fitness is such that I easily kept pace with Miss Munn and her security goons, even up the stairs (two at a time, thank you very much), while the rest of the geeks were sucking on their inhalers and cowering away from the sun like it was an attacking dragon.

But the now-infamous Munn Run '09 soon concluded, and the business of once again forming an orderly line was underway. I will say this, for as much as lining up is hardwired into the DNA of the Con veteran, it took a rather stern warning from the security officials to finally get the crowd to stop pushing. Once the excitement of the chase died down, the crowd (herd?) settled back into its normal state of calmly waiting in line:


Olivia took time with everybody, including yours truly (as you see in the photo at the top), to sign autographs, take pictures, chat briefly about anything and everything, and even to accommodate some of the more... original requests:

...or offer some of her own suggestions, for some reason:

She was gracious, despite the inconvenience of having to change the location; she was warm and friendly, she was genuinely excited to be there, and none of it came across as false or contrived in any way. That seems to be the hallmark of Olivia Munn -- the best of both worlds. She's gorgeous, but approachable. She's smart, funny, and engaging, while also being real and not above dropping an occasional f-bomb or talking about poo (which we'll mention more on later, if that's any incentive to keep reading). She's a celebrity, but she still very much considers herself a regular person with the outstanding fortune of being able to essentially be wacky for a living (and have people virtually worship her all the while).

The people around her seem to feed off this attitude, and we, the fans, got to see some of how that works in the Attack Of The Show (AOTS) panel.

For starters, this was my first panel, so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. I'd hear stories and seen clips from previous years, so I knew what the format would be like -- but I had no idea what was going to happen with the lines, the seating, the cooperation of the fans, etc. So I headed up to the meeting room about an hour and a half before the 1:15 pm scheduled start time, since I was told that popular panels like AOTS typically have people "squatting" in prior panels to save seats. This I found to be more than true, and with a sly bit of sidling into the middle of a moving line, I managed to get into the room and into an empty seat about ten rows back. I did, however, have to sit through the panel for Nickelodeon's The Fairly Oddparents, which included some cartoons that I thought were written by middle schoolers, but somehow drew uproarious laughter from most of the grown-ups in the room. I spent some time checking my phone and uploading photos. That was much more entertaining than that cartoon.

But, after a program change during which only a handful of people abandoned their seats, the AOTS panel began in all it's glory. The show's hosts, Munn and Kevin Pereira, were joined by special correspondent/writer Blair Butler and two producers or something that nobody really cared about. They began with an introduction from Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs, or at least somebody with a turtleneck and glasses, and we all got to hum the AOTS theme on kazoos that were handed out before the panel. It's a tough theme to hum on a kazoo, mostly because the actual theme music is kind of electronic and drum driven, and doesn't really have a melody as much as a computerized, robot-esque rap of the show's name. Butler said it best when she said it sounded like "we're being attacked by thousands of bees!"

The panel itself was great; they talked about how they come up with the most popular segment on the show, which is "Around The Net." Basically, they have interns sift through the billions of internet videos out there to come up with 20 potentially show-worthy clips. The hosts and writers debate and come up with the top five, and rank them accordingly. Since the No. 1 video usually leads to some kind of stunt or skit or various other hijinks, they're usually pretty awesome. The recent example they showed us was a video of a little kid trying hot sauce and freaking out, which led to the hosts having a shot-for-shot competition to see who could drink more tabasco. For the record, Kevin "won" with 11 shots, but both he and Olivia went into pretty graphic detail about how awful the next few days were for them as the hot sauce made its fiery exit. And Olivia unabashedly discussed the topic, an unusual move for someone of her sex appeal status, but somehow she pulled it off, like she always does. Bravo.

Another highlight was a clip they put together of a trailer for a new (and fake, for the record) live-action Inspector Gadget movie that seemed inspired by the movie Taken, about a man who rescues his kidnapped daughter. I'm sure it'll be on the internet soon enough...if it isn't already. Since Olivia has a part in the upcoming Iron Man sequel, she talked about that until Kevin revealed that he, too, had a part in the movie, and that he had brought a clip. I won't spoil it for you, but... OK I'll spoil it, it's just him, waving in front of a green screen, dubbed into a clip from the first Iron Man. Classic setup, great acting, punch line... punched.

Oh, and then the panel ended with one of Kevin's dreams coming true: a nerd rave.



If you pause the clip at about 4 seconds in, and look to the left of the screen for a red dot in the middle of yellow, green and white lights... that's me. I had a red glow stick for the nerd rave. And I rocked that red glow stick's face.

After that, I have to be honest... I was pretty much done. I managed to find a quiet little corner to have a quick bite to eat and write down some notes, then I walked the floor for a while before deciding to call it a day (at about 4:30). Olivia still had her Star Wars-related duties to attend to, but I was led to understand that the only way to get access to a Star Wars event at the Con is to have been born in the room where it was scheduled to take place, otherwise it was already full.

Not that I didn't have a few more random sightings, including Danny DeVito:

...some goth cheerleaders...? (That seems contradictory...)

...the coolest and simultaneously nerdiest kid ever (aka Master Chief Jr.):

...a walking, talking car named Bumblebee:

...a "Twilight is gay" t-shirt:

...G4 TV personality and comedian Chris Hardwick:

...and whatever this is...?

By the time I got home, I was pretty pooped -- not quite like what was described in the hot sauce aftermath, but probably just as sore and confused -- and ready to just sit and relax...

...and gather my strength for tomorrow, when AOTS shoots a live show from their two-story stage on the floor at the Con. If you get G4, make sure to watch the show, which starts at 1 pm Saturday, to see if your favorite reporter/blogger makes it into the background on live television.

Whatever goes down, you know I'll be right back here to tell you about, so check back in to see what kind of trouble I get myself into next...