Tag: Los Angeles

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Wizard World Los Angeles 2008Wizard World Los Angeles turned out to be a surprisingly good con. Originally I was planning to go on my own, but when they announced the addition of Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli) to the Heroes panel, Katie decided to go as well. So we drove into LA Saturday morning, and arrived at the con around 11:00 AM. I was expecting a much sparser crowd based on my experience last year, but that had been a Sunday. This Saturday was a full-fledged con.

Update: The photo gallery is up!

The Floor

I put on my robe and wizard hat.I spent most of the time on the main floor, hunting down back-issues, bargains and autographs. A lot of dealers had brought their bargain bins (some of them, thankfully, alphabetized!), and a lot of them had trades and hardcovers for half-off or close to it. There were also the booths selling high-grade Silver-Age and Golden-Age books, toys and collectibles, and at least two booths selling swords. Yes, swords.

At one point, I overheard two comic-book dealers discussing whether the show was worth it. One of them said that people here tended to be looking for bargains, so it was hard to sell anything else. They agreed San Diego was a better bet.

Marvel Cars: Iron Man and Punisher SUVsI’ve been joking that the logo design for this year’s con (see above) was inspired by the gigantic auto show that shared the convention center witl last year’s con. So I was surprised to find a mini-auto show here: Marvel-themed cars, including Iron Man and Punisher SUVs.

There was a stage set up for Guitar Hero. At one point, I noticed the music was Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” It seemed appropriate.

Costuming

Darth Vader and his entourage march though the food court.There weren’t quite as many people in costume as I saw at WonderCon last month (also a Saturday). But there was a large contingent of people in Jedi costumes, some of whom seemed to be sparring with lightsabers every time I walked down the right edge of the dealers’ room. And there were Imperial Stormtroopers directing traffic, making sure people could find the one large panel room that was half-way to the other end of the convention center.

Continue reading →

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We went to The District on Saturday afternoon to catch Cloverfield and check out the Auld Dubliner. I took the Warner exit to go in the back way, and noticed someone standing out on the shoulder of the ramp, taking photos. I looked out past the wide expanse of empty fields and was astonished to see the entire San Gabriel mountain range covered with snow!

Not just the tops of the mountains on the eastern half of the range, but everything, even the lower parts you can just barely see by the Cajon pass, and this huge expanse north of Los Angeles that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen covered.

San Gabriels (mid-range) covered with snow

I pulled over as soon as I found a spot I considered safe, then walked back up to the top of the ramp. I talked briefly with the man I’d seen taking photos, and he said he’d lived in the area for 50 years and had never seen the mountains like this. He also mentioned he had a friend who had served at the base*, and he was going to send him the pictures.

I ended up taking a 12-photo panorama (zoomed) spanning at least 120° from the blimp hangar on the left, across the San Gabriels, past the hills above Orange and Tustin, the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, on to Saddleback, which had a few bits of snow clinging to the mountainside.

San Gabriel Snow Panorama
Click to view panorama (424 KB 6648×500 JPEG)

*This is the location of the former MCAS Tustin. The Marine base was closed in the mid-1990s, and the land is only just starting to be developed—notably The District in one corner, which is what brought us to the area yesterday.

Update December 18, 2008: This post is getting a lot of traffic today, but it’s from last winter. If you want to see photos from this week’s snow, check out Misty Mountains: Another San Gabriel Snow Panorama from the same spot on Tuesday, December 16, and my Snowline photoset on Flickr, for those pictures and several of Saddleback and the Santa Ana Mountains today.

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Warning sign by road: Icy. Everything’s green.

I rediscovered this photo while looking for the UCI Student Center pic. One of us took it on the way back from a camping trip with UCI’s Campuswide Honors Program in the Angeles National Forest in April 2000. IIRC it was along Angeles Crest Highway.

A permanent sign isn’t necessarily the best way to indicate a transitory condition.

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[Logo: Wizard World Los Angeles]I went to Wizard World Los Angeles today. I almost went last year, and decided not to—and regretted it when I learned that Sunday (the day I almost went) was sparsely attended. So not only would I have had no problem getting in, but it should be a low-stress experience overall, rather than the insane crowds of San Diego.

The convention itself did turn out to be a nice, low-key experience, and I found some interesting stuff, but getting to the convention was a bit of an adventure. Continue reading →

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It seems fitting that I’d eventually write a post with this title, seeing as how the regular LA Times column is where I got the name for the Only in San Diego series.

We were up in Los Angeles for a wedding on Wednesday and Thursday. Since we were both involved, we stayed in a hotel instead of driving up and back two days in a row. (I’ve made that drive in 40 minutes. It took us nearly two hours on Wednesday.)

First up: the hotel. You may recall we found an interesting combination in the nightstand drawer the last time we stayed in Las Vegas. Here we found another combination, somehow appropriate for LA:

Hotel bedside drawer: Gideon Bible and The Teaching of Buddha

The Bible, of course, had been provided by the Gideons. The name plate on The Teaching of Buddha indicated it had been placed there by the Society for Buddhist Understanding.

Then, of course, there’s this place. We’ve been told that “Happy cows come from California,” but they never tell you where they go…

Happy Cow Diner

I had a few hours free the morning of the wedding (the bridesmaids had an earlier call time), so I walked around downtown Los Angeles a bit. The Disney Concert Hall is weird, of course, but it’s well-known weird.

Now, to a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, the name “Angelus” has a somewhat sinister connotation:

The Angelus Plaza: a Retirement Housing Foundation Community

Finally, you may think you’ve seen truckloads of FUD coming from places like Microsoft, but we actually saw a literal truckful of FUD.

FUD!

It turns out to be a Mexican company that sells meats, playing on the pronunciation (“fud” in Spanish would sound like “food” in English). They’ve recently licensed the brand in the US, focusing on “areas of heavy Mexican immigration where the brand name is already well known”—in other words, areas like Southern California.

That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll post some of my sightseeing photos next year (i.e. tomorrow).