The excursion to the LA Auto Show was somewhat unexpected. We knew and talked about it for weeks, but nothing came of it. I never made mention of it again. So when yesterday, Saturday, came along, I didn’t hear of anyone wanted to go. I wanted to just to get out of the house, so I called up Tim. Cool, we’re going. After getting ready and running a short errand at my parents, I headed off to Tim’s where we waited for Susan and Andy.

After picking up Lawrence, the usual, we were on our way. Good thing that traffic wasn’t bad westbound on the 60. We made it there in no time. Once we got there, by chance, we did the same exact thing; looking for parking, missed the parking entrance, made the wrong turn, went back around. The only difference this time, on the way back to the parking structure, the right turn lane was blocked. We went left and around LA Live back to parking.

I could say that there was nothing much to see at the Auto Show. What I wanted to see were the new concept cars. As far as the production cars, I could wait for them in upcoming commercials and on the road. But on the other hand, it was good to see them before all that. We started off at South Hall. After walking around a bit, I realized that we were taking a little too long at South Hall. By chance, our group split. One was Tim, Susan and Andy. And it was just Lawrence and I.

In order to try see everything and not dwell in one area too long, Lawrence and I decided to go to West Hall. On the way there, though the “batcave” way, we got sidetracked at the Concourse area to see the ultra high end exotic cars like Rolls Royce, Lotus and Ashton Martin.

At West Hall, I was enthralled with the Dodge Viper. Why? I don’t know myself. We were tired now. We sat at and waited for Tim’s group. It’s already about 5 now and we’ve finished three-quarters of the show. Most of West Hall was American cars. Honda and Jeep were the only ones with concept cars. There was also Smart with their line of Smart Cars. Did I mention the Dodge Viper? On the way out, Lawrence and I got separated again from everyone. We passed by the Ford section and I got my pic taken with the firetruck. They though I looked like a fireman. Yeah right! I played along. I thought that was cool. It was gay, but cool. I’ll try to download the pic from their site as soon as I can. Next was the Porche section at Petree Hall. As you would’ve guessed...Porche cars. I’m a 80s 911 man myself, but the rest of the models are okay. There are new 911 models as well as the Boxter Spyder. It was a quick tour.

Lawrence and I stepped out to get some cool night fresh air. In the distance, there was music coming from the direction of the Nokia. We went to go check it out. Once there, there was the KIIS-FM Jingle Ball going on. This was unexpected. We walked around to check out the sights, the skating ring and “the sights.” On the way back to meet up with everyone, we stopped to enjoy a couple songs at a live open concert.

By the time I called up Tim to check up what they’re doing, they were already in Kenta Hall, where all the after-market merchandise is sold. We headed there. Of all the auto show, the pimped up cars from Galpin, V-DUB and others were the best. Sure the main floors were cool. But down below is the liveliest part of the show. The only thing I would’ve liked to see is more custom and classic cars, just like the OC Auto show.

On the way home, we were hungry because we all had nothing to eat all day. Time for the Curry House. Again, just like last year...the same seats. Like last year at the Curry House, there was cutie that I couldn’t keep my eyes off. I wasn’t staring obtusely, but try to be very discreet about it. Megane! In the classic sense, too! Totally my type. Last year, there were two, but they were the gal types. So aside from friends and the most excellent food, there were the sights. Big surprise, Nijiya Market closes at 8 PM. If I knew that, I would’ve bought my winter supplies before we ate dinner. I guess no takoyaki and special curry this winter season. After all this, we dropped off Susan at her work.



While waiting for Tim to come back, Andy got a call from his buddy which invited up to join him and his girlfriend at the Mission. It’s was Tim’s call to go. So we went. It was my first time at the Mission Inn during the Christmas Season. It was totally awesome. We walked around and took pictures, went in the Mission Inn lobby, walked Main St., chick watching, watched a concert and skating ring. It was the Riverside Festival of Lights.

As with any convention day, we started out early in the morning. We didn’t take a chance on being late. But then again, this is the first of its kind in Long Beach. As usual, I met the Brillo’s at their place. I didn’t know at the time that Lawrence was still home and we had to pick him up. I thought he was already at Long Beach and attended the first day, yesterday. So we went to pick him up. On a tangent, this was the first time in a long time that I actually watched the moon set. It was an amazing sight as I drove west on Alessandro Boulevard.

The drive to Long Beach was a smooth one. We were totally early, about 7:30. When I pulled up to park at the convention center, the attendant told me that the convention started at 10. I think we didn’t know what time it actually started, or at least I didn’t know. But anyway, we thought there would be line already. When we walked up to the convention center, it was empty. I noticed people lining up at the entrance of the Hyatt. Then some guy carrying a box of comics came up to us to ask for info. We didn’t know what was going on, yet where the registration lines were going to be. So out of curiosity, we went over to the people in line at the Hyatt to ask what they were in line for. It was a line for a book signing for some author. It wasn’t for comiccon, so we left to find someplace to eat breakfast.

We walked over to the pier area where all the restaurants were, once called Shoreline Park. It was a nice, cool morning to walk around. This was a nice added change to the heat we’ve had in the Inland Empire during the summer. I was actually chilly. I guess I was already used to the heat. Now I have to adjust for the cooler weather coming up. We decided to take a short break near the Aquarium of the Pacific to snack on some cereal bars and cashews I brought along for such an occasion like this. I miss breathing in the ocean air, since I always had lived within 10 miles of the ocean half my life. A short while later, we continued our quest to look for breakfast. Nothing was going to open until 10. At one time, there was a woman who walked past us with a coffee and danish in hand. I remembered that there was a Starbucks nearby, but when we got to the place where I thought it was...nothing. It was a Seattle’s Beast inside Borders which was closed. Failure.

As we walked up to the convention center, the doors were already open. There were already a few people around, but nothing was still going on. Registration was already open so we got our “badges.” Samantha and Lawrence got real badges. The remaining three of us got these gay-looking red wristbands that had “LBCC Saturday” printed on them. Oh well, it can’t be helped. We still had almost a two hour wait before the con opened. So to kill time, we found some chairs, waited and made plans on what panels to attend. Like the plans we make always worked out!? More and more people started to show up. From the vantage point where I sat, I couldn’t see that there was already a long line to get into the exhibit hall.

Ten finally arrived and the doors were open to the exhibit hall. The exhibit hall was different from when Anime Expo was held there. The main differences are that there were hardly any cosplayers and nothing anime-related in sight. What a change...I guess. Samantha and I split from everyone else. We all had different agendas. Luckily we were early. It gave us enough time to check out the entire hall for what the dealers and retailers had to offer as well as for prices before the crowd grew. I’m glad I brought my iPod Touch with my comic database. It gave me a good idea what to look for to “rebuild” my collection. My age really shows when I realize I had no interest in buying any of the “newer” late 90s+ comics. All I was interested in was buying comics from the late Silver Age, Bronze Age and early Modern Age. I found a few places that had one dollar comics, which were mostly good to fair condition comics. People were already hoarding those places. There was also this vendor was selling comics for half off, so I decided to look. I found a few that I wanted and bought those. Samantha also wanted some manga (Japanese comics), so we went to this vendor that I found that sold used manga...for a bit cheaper than new ones. By this time, it was almost lunch. We went back to the main lobby to get away from it all. The guys met us with us soon after.

On our way to lunch, we dropped our stash in the car. We had lunch at Island’s, which was across the street from the convention center. This was a most excellent junk food laden lunch. Nothing of healthy value worth noting. After having lunch, a la cardiac arrest on a plate, we took a side trip to the bank. I was also refreshing to walk along Ocean Blvd. again after a couple years. It was good that it was such a cool day and the ocean breeze coming in. Back at the convention center, we all went back into the exhibit hall. Round 2. Samantha and I again walked around and took some pictures. As I walked around, I took notice of all the some of the guest appearances of some actors and actresses that were signing autographs. I saw Lou Ferrigno (the O.G. Incredible Hulk) and Richard Hatch (the O.G. Battlestar Galactica). Also not knowing by name, I also saw the guy to play Captain Christopher Pike in the O.G. Star Trek, Ms. Limelight on Who Wants to be a Superhero, the blue alien on Farscape and a few others. Samantha and I decided to take a break from it all again. We went to Borders, which was across the street, to look for some book Samantha wants. Well, they didn’t have it. Adrian and the guys took a break too and gave me a call. We met up with them again.

After relaxing for about half an hour, Round 3 of the exhibit hall. All the plans we made about what panels we wanted to go to were thrown out the window. The good thing is that the panels were all comic related, unlike San Diego’s comic convention. Tim mentioned that this convention in Long Beach is all comic related. San Diego’s has been completely taken over by Hollywood. I guess this could be a good thing to most people, but in my opinion, it takes away the real purpose of having a “comic” convention. This is another case of Hollywood forcing itself into a niche genre and taking it over. Has anyone noticed all the “comic” related movies that come out in the past decade?

Walking around the hall had become boring a tiring...seeing the same things over and over again. By this time of day, it was really crowded in the hall. The Nintendo area was interesting. Only that...interesting. There were a lot more autograph signings and more long lines of people waiting for them. It became like the 405 or 91 freeways during rush hour(s). We picked up a couple more things and waited for guys out in the lobby again. Samantha fell asleep because she was really tired from walking around and from having to wake up so early. I was beginning to fall asleep too, but for different reasons–boredom from this point on. But to keep myself from falling asleep, I kept looking around–hint, hint, hint–to see what was going on. I’ll remind myself about the couple who sat down in front of us.

The guys showed up again. We were contemplating whether to leave or stick around. I did have one more reason to check out the hall one more time. So...Round 4. After picking up the last few things I wanted, we happened across a wrestling match that was about to begin. We stuck around to watch. I was kind of worried that Samantha was with me for this. But my worries soon faded away after watching this staged wrestling match. It was so staged that it was comedy. That’s it. We’re all tired so we went home, but....

There was a damn accident on the 91 and 241 that made the 91 into a parking lot!

As for the first comic convention held at Long Beach, it was very, very good. It wasn’t very, very bad either. It stayed true to what a comic convention was about. It wasn’t overly crowded unlike the other one–based on my one time experience. Comiccon was a success for it’s first time. Let’s hope it continues the way it is.