Let's take another shot at that...

Our lovely model is wearing the shirt that I made as a gift for all the folks I'm meeting in San Diego that have had a hand in 100 Girls success. The shirts also come in black with white type. They are a wonder to behold. No, I won't be making any more, than you for your interest.

OK, Let me try this again. Even getting about five hours of sleep makes the world a little more understandable. And here's the thing: half the decisions about what movies will get made and eventually show up in your local cine-plex, they get made here in San Diego during the con. That means that the American entertainment industry is running on four hours of sleep and is fueled by over-priced alcohol. Think about that the next time you're plunking down ten dollars to watch a movie.

Anyway, I'm going to try to do this as linearly as possible so as not to get derailed. Again, the atmosphere at the show seems to prohibit clear thought. I can only write this because I'm outside the one-mile wide zone of influence.

Tuesday saw me get into town a little late. The plan sat on the tarmac for around an hour. This was a cause for much complaining until I started to hear other folks' travel horror stories. All one needs to stop whining is a little perspective. I will complain about my poor planning, however. Once in town, I went to the hotel, checked in, freshened up, then went and retrieved the boxes I'd shipped to myself. More than fifty pounds of awkward boxes, my backpack, and me. I hit several people in the head with the box containing the banner as I walked along and get apologizing. I thought one mom was going to rip my throat out when I pumped her girl. Thankfully the crowds that already clogged the sidewalks made pursuit difficult.

A security guard let me set the boxes down near him while I negotiated the check-in process. This process was time-consuming, but seamless. Then on to the convention floor and my first crisis. You see, I had gone along planning that the table we'd be at was eight feet long. I designed out banner to be that long, had ordered a backing that length to go behind us (for the banner). Problem was, the table is only six feet long. So we nixed the backing (and got a complete refund, thanks Freeman!), and the folks behind us let us hang the banner off their steel pipe display. You can't see the whole banner, but the logo is prominently displayed. See photo.

Set up was easy. Mostly just me and Todd throwing things on the table and moving them around until they had some sort of pleasing semblance of order. We got done pretty much right when the doors for Preview night opened. So then all we had to do was sit back and try to give off the whiff of desperation. That first night, we made a few sales and talked to a few people, but the crowd on Wednesday night is a different animal than the crowd on other days. You can only get in on Wednesday night if you've bought a pass for the entire four days of the convention. If you are that hard core, then ou have planned your visit. You know exactly what booths are giving away exactly what exclusives. And you are making a bee-line for those locales/events/items. Folks like Todd and me, and nearly everyone else in the small press area, have no con exclusives that got listed in the program, so we just get those few folks who want to meander through the hall when it is relatively free of crowds.

After the show, a large group of us went to dinner. Todd's and my friends, Will and Kristin Miller joined us, which was nice. The Miller's are some of those friends that I see only at the show and they are truly one of the reasons I come down. I felt a little bad because for a while, Todd and I got caught up in conversation with Sean, our publisher about this thing. About which I can't talk yet. So we spent a few minutes having this cryptic talk that excluded the two of them and we couldn't really explain it to them. Other than that, the dinner was great. And we were in bed fairly early.

That catches us up to the first day and seems a good place to stop. More later.