Disclaimer: The views expressed in this web log are the personal opinions of Ian D Smith, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff or members of the Official Lord of the Rings fan club. Trip to San Diego About 9.30am Catherine (Arwen2) and Maureen (Goldilocks Brownlock) collect me from outside the Miyako hotel. I sit in the front and am supposed to be navigating - which, of course, means that Catherine has to do some last minute death-defying turns on a couple of occasions because I am too busy gossiping!

		My hotel, the Holiday Inn "On the Bay" has some spectacular views across the bay, with an old sail ship just across the road. Unfortunately my room looks out the other side onto another hotel's set of balconies. The room is fine but it is disappointing to find that the hotel is more like a building site than anything else as major refurbishment work is being carried out in the lobby.
More worryingly, in the Hotel Services book in my hotel room, the entry under "Laundry" (a large amount of which, I have bought with me) talks only about machines being available on certain floors and detergent available from the gift shop. The Gift Shop, of course, deny all knowledge of selling any detergent! Time to go on a reccie to check out the convention centre and try and find a local store, if I want some clean clothes over the next few days

Comic-Con Preview Night
Comic Con is all about queuing. The show runs from Thursday through Sunday, but those who purchase advance tickets for all 4 days get to go to a special Preview night - recommended because it's much quieter than the rest of the week (60,000 attended last year). Well, that's the theory anyway. I went to scout out the conference centre at 2.30pm, having heard that pre-registered tickets could be collected at 4pm - only to find a LONG queue of people waiting to collect pre-registered tickets. I decided it might be better to just join the queue. One and a half hours later we get our tickets. Then there is another queue - for another hour and a half before the doors open for the preview night! I am told we are lucky and that the situation on Saturday in particular will be MUCH worse. Scary! The queueing is definitely worthwhile though - some of the pictures below would not have been obtained if I'd just rolled up at 4pm because the place got crowded, even on this slimmed-down preview night, VERY quickly. It was great to get some shots of the Weta stuff before the crowds arrived - as they seemed to about 5 minutes after I got in! The Houghton-Mifflen stand was completely deserted so I decided to become a salesman for them and tried to promote Brian Sibley's book (pictured right)! Actors Lawrence Makoare (Lurtz) and Sala Baker (Sauron) hung around the Sideshow stand and happily posed for photo's and signed autographs. I bumped into Lawrence and Gino Acevedi later at the restaurant (see picture below, to the right) and it turned out that Lawrence had just returned from London shooting the new James Bond movie ("I'm so disappointed I didn't get to torture Halle Berry") and Gino was leaving on Saturday for the same destination as me (Phoenix, Arizona). Brian Sibley, if you're reading this, Gino says "Hi". Needless to say, everyone's having a lot of fun. From the boards I've bumped into Colleen (photo tomorrow - she has her own stand), Lithilien Quicksilver, Holbytla and Laurelinda, Sierra and Moochelas' husband and kids (she's at a Marc Antony concert) and Sauron's Truss too. I think Holbytla summed the whole mood up when she said "I'm having so much fun the trip's been worth it already!" We're all having a good time and looking forward to seeing Primula and others in a day or two. So far as the rest of preview night goes, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves! I have some other photos of some really exciting new stuff from Weta - their display really is awesome! But that will have to wait until tomorrow as I'm running late and the Pub Moot photo's below are already making this page take an age to download! For now, hover the mouse over each picture for an explanation of who's being shown! Or click on a picture for a larger version The only other gossip to pass on is the price for the Dominic Monaghan breakfast has been announced at $30 (but see note below about when they went on sale!), and, according to the programme, two "surprise" guests will be making an appearance at the New Line talk in addition to Dom - can't say who or it woodn't be a surprise, and that is obviously something I want to aboyd, even if three different sets of people gave me the same names so that it seems to be common knowledge anyway ;-)

"The Field" Pub Moot

I arrived at the pub moot an hour late, to find things in full swing. Goldilocks Brownlock approached me to tell me she had some good news and some bad news for me. Some background here: Decipher (the fan club company) had announced there would be a chance for 50 people (since increased to 75) to join Dominic Monaghan (the actor who plays the part of Merry in the movie) for breakfast Saturday morning. The tickets were to go on sale Thursday morning (tomorrow), on a first come - first served basis, and could only be purchased by fan club members. The bad news was that, after I'd left, Decipher had started selling the tickets - a day earlier than had been promised! The good news (for me anyway) was that Maureen (Goldilocks Brownlock) and Lynne (Lithilien Quicksilver) had managed to buy a ticket for me in my absence. Yet again, for me, this showed what a great bunch of people the fan club has as members. Somehow it seemed that between themselves they'd managed to sort out tickets for every fan club member who was at the preview, or that they knew were likely to be arriving later. Many fans had also donated the prizes for the free raffle we had at the pub moot. Earlier today, I'd had another example of member generosity when there was a knock on my hotel room door and a vase of flowers and a goody bag containing tram coins, a map, discount vouchers and a guide to San Diego were delivered - a lovely welcoming present from Susan (Moochelas) on the boards.
Susan's family with her friend Peggy (Sierra). Susan (Moochelas) was away at a Marc Antony concert		Angela, Brandon, James, Deb (Primmy B), Eridana (hidden or missing!), Bill (Sauron's Truss) and Josh (Bowl Moot organiser)
Amy (no handle), Linda (Laurelinda), Bernadette (Holbytla), Lynne (Lithilien Quicksilver) and Colleen Doran		Laura, Ruslan, Stewart and Charles (none have board handles)
Alison (Azariel), Carla (Carlita), Maureen (Goldilocks Brownlock), Catherine (Arwen2), Sandra (AMoonGoddess)		Peggy (Sierra) and me
I win a prize (LOTR 1st day cover stamps from New Zealand) in Eridana's raffle		Bill and Cathy (Garfeimao)
Click here for report for August 1st