Basic summary of the trip
BlizzCon was awesome.  It was definitely better when you can spend two full days there.  There is just much to see and try out that I can’t even explain it all here.

The Annabella Hotel was the best choice for a hotel as you can literally walk over to Disney Land or to the Anaheim Convention Center.

Car rental places are pretty much all the same.  So far we haven’t had any really terrible experiences from them.


DAY ONE: Picking up the BlizzCon Badges on Thursday

The Flight
I’ll begin with the flight into Los Angeles, California (LAX) since it was an interesting experience for me as it was on Virgin America and less than 5 hour trip.  First off, I’ve never flown on VA.  It was a great experience.  The seats were all leather-like with little flat-screen monitors with an operation system they call RED, which was behind everyone’s seats.  Initially RED was not activated even though it was turned on.  Once everyone was settled in and buckled up, RED was activated and you had the ability to browse through movies, TV stations, music stations (both via satellite), some old-looking games (like DOOM) and music videos. RED also has the ability to order food and check out where you are on the map like a GPS, which tells you how many miles you are above ground and how many miles are left till your destination.  Once the stewards on the plane begins to serve drinks, then the food menu options on RED are activated.  They do not accept cash, only credit cards that you swipe either under the screen or on the remote control.  Needless to say, I was not bored on the trip one bit with the options and able to take a nice nap without Gimel complaining that there isn’t enough legroom.  Although he is tall, his knees were not the back of the seat until the person in front of him pulled his chair back.  It still wasn’t that bad nor was it directly on his knees and this wasn’t even an upgraded flight.  We even got to LAX early by 40 minutes.




Weirdness
I called one of our guild members (FaytsBlade or Fay) to leave him a message that we got to LAX early but as I did, Gimel also got a message from another guild member (Korentul) saying that Fay isn’t going to make it because his brother got into a car accident.  I felt so bad!  We had tried so hard to get these BlizzCon tickets for him and he couldn’t make it anyway.

So I called the other guild member (Decklan or Deck) and told him about it.  Luckily for us, the ticket wouldn’t go to waste as we decided Deck’s girlfriend, Wendy, should fill in for Fay if she would be so kind as to come along.

The Car Rental
We didn’t have a long time to get our luggage.  I mean, you can’t miss mine with all the anime patches all over it but even so, the luggage came quick.  When we got to the shuttle bus to go to Payless Car Rental, it was also nice and quick.  We got a free upgrade to an SUV because we were from NYC (don’t ask … maybe people are finally taking pity on us) and I was able to use my iPhone’s Google Maps/GPS to guide us on the way.  Don’t know why the car wouldn’t accept the car charger for our GPS but it was ok so long as I had my laptop plugged into my iPhone to keep it charged up while he was driving and I was navigating.

The Hotel
After an hour ride, we arrived at the hotel.  We stayed at the Annabella Hotel, which is the closest hotel to the Convention Center.  It was less than a 10-minute walk.  It also had a cute little restaurant, called Tangerine, in it with outrageous prices but the happy hour prices for sliders, (2 pieces of) chicken fingers and fries was not so bad.  We were just a little shocked at only getting 2 chicken fingers but it had a side of fries to fill the plate.



Picking up the badges on Thursday
There was a huge line when we had passed the convention center on our way to the hotel but after we ate, the line was gone and all we had to do was pick up the badges at the booths that had the corresponding letters to our last names.  

Luckily for us, we only needed to show ID for the credit cards and not the badges.  So although we called Deck to come pick up the badges, they drove an hour over for nothing.  But we did make the best of it by hanging out and having a great time at Downtown Disney.

Oddly for us, when I picked up the badges for my guildmates, their real names and screennames are supposed to be on the badges but weren’t.  Instead, we saw these names with their actual screennames:

Boris Tubak Bulletdodger
FaytsBlade

Adam Feasby Mastrbutcher
Decklan

I sent a text to both of them asking what it was all about because the BlizzCon employee said that those were the names they had for their accounts.  However, when I got responses from them, they had no idea where those names came from.

Back to the Hotel
We went back to the hotel and checked out the swag bags.  We got a lot of goodies, mostly flyers but some interesting items like a QQ tissue box and a human paladin in a bubble.  

Then we watched some TV while waited for Decklan and his girlfriend.

Downtown Disney
Should have taken pictures… it was pretty neat.  It was nighttime and all the stores was lit up.  It wasn’t overwhelming like NYC is either.  It was actually pleasant and pretty.  It was also just a walk away from the hotel and we had much fun.  Our first stop was the Lego store.  We all checked out some cool toys but then Wendy wanted to go to Sephora so I decided to go with her and check it out.  Yes, even I like a little Sephora.  After that, we went to the ESPN restaurant and hung out there.  Had a little food and drinks.  It was all good.  Lots of laughs.




DAY TWO: BlizzCon 2008 begins!

Mmmm… Breakfast
Woke up and walked over to IHOP.  It was only a block and a half away but the wait was a little annoying mainly because the hostess had thought they called us and didn’t.  There was even another couple there that had a number right after us and they skipped them as well.  So we had a 2-minute argument with them for waiting but everything seemed fine.  The food is the same as all the IHOP’s I’ve ever been to as well as the service.



BlizzCon 2008 – GO!
We found Decklan and Wendy waiting by the information booth and scoped out the place.  The new statue that we found this year was an [I wanna say spider-queen from StarCraft but I can’t remember her name] awesome statue from StarCraft.  I think each year, those statues get better and better.





We simply went to whatever was the best eye-candy first before we actually went to anything meaningful.  I think we mainly did this because Wendy is not a gamer and we wanted to introduce her to a little piece of our world before we go all hardcore WoW on her.  She did have fun and actually picked up a few things we didn’t expect her to.  For example, she got a swag bag with a *signed* polar bear/beta code card in it.  The way she did it was she asked for the swag bag first and then spoke to one of the BlizzCon employees that happened to be one of the designers of the game and got her to sign it.  Now, we weren’t with her when she had disappeared to complete this magical act but holy cow.  It’s bad enough those things sell for hundreds to thousands of dollars to get the card alone.  She got both the swag bag and a signed promo card!



So basically we scoped out all the booths, got some more swag, played some random games and then Gimel and I headed for the Blizzard store while Deck and Wendy scoped out whatever else.  Let me just say that standing on line for the store was both an act of extreme patience and tolerance.  The line was so long that by the time we got to the clerk, 6 hours had passed and the steins were all sold out.  We did make some friends along the way on the line.  Everyone around us seemed to be very nice and we were lucky for that because I don’t think the 80-year-old security guards would be able to handle any real life ganking.



We did get a couple of t-shirts and a few other nifty items for our friends and ourselves.  I got myself an awesome WoW lunchbox.  Now, although it’s a WoW lunchbox, there is something really cool about it.  It comes with a matching thermo.  Most lunchboxes don’t do that anymore so imagine my surprise when I saw this.  I was a very happy camper.

After that, we had some food at the concessions stands, checked out our $300+ purchases [sigh] and relaxed a bit.  Then we met up with Deck and Wendy again and took a bunch of funny pictures.



As we were leaving the place, Deck met up with a bunch of people he knew that happened to be at the con.  We went back towards Downtown Disney but stopped off by a hotel just before it.  It was a pretty fancy hotel with a medieval look to it.  It was great.  Everyone just chatted and drank their alcohol while I sat by giggling with my cup of chocolate milk.  It was about beyond that time for me to go to bed.  

DAY THREE: Last day of BlizzCon 2008

Breakfast time again!
This time we went back to Tangerine to get breakfast.  It was continental style so we were about to pick out whatever we wanted to eat all for $30.  The food was okay and it was a hell of a lot quicker than walking and waiting to be seated at IHOP.

Back to BlizzCon
Deck and Wendy decided not to go to the BlizzCon this time.  I was kind of disappointed but we still had fun.  We did the Brady quest and it was much better than last year.  Although I still got a green gem (lowest level prize), the prize was 3 booster packs and not some shitty bookmark.  We also took some pictures, played some WoW TCG and Gimel played the new WoW miniatures game.  We also got to play Diablo 3. Muahahahahaha!  It is rocked.  We are definitely getting that game.




Also, The Guild had a booth set up and I was able to purchase a copy of their DVD and get it signed for Crystal.  Happy Birthday!!!!

Damn Jinx…
Shortly after that, Gimel went on line to get some autographs from the creators of the WoW cinematic and I was on the Jinx line to try and get a talking murloc plush.  Unfortunately, after an hour of waiting on line, they were all sold out.  While I was about to pay the clerk for my purchase, we saw a guy returning a murloc and since I saw it, I asked if I could by it.  A different Jinx employee took the plush and told me that it was broken and that they had to see what was wrong with it so they took it behind the booth.  I told them I’d buy the murloc from them anyway.  I just wanted to get it.  But when the guy came back from behind the booth, he told me they had sold the damn thing and I was pissed!  I told them that that was unfair!  How could they do such a thing?  So the guy apologized and told me that he would give us two free t-shirts or whatever they had that would be the equivalent of that item ($40) for free.  Disappointed, I let Gimel pick out what he wanted.  I had all the t-shirts from Jinx that I wanted already so there was no point.  When our clerk ran us up, he told us that I should watch out for the plush because they would be selling them online through their official website.  Another employee had said the same thing while we were about the back of the line but had said that there would be a limited amount of them so we’ll see.



On with the show!
After all that walking and standing on lines, we decided to take a break and chill out with some Dip n’ Dots and watch the Elite Tauren Chieftain Death Knight sing some rockin’ songs.  It was great and before we knew it, it was 8:30pm.  We called Decklan to hang out but eventually didn’t get a chance to do it because it was getting too late.  We even ordered McD’s for a quick dinner and they took forever so … we owe them a visit to Hollywood and they owe us one to NYC!

DAY FOUR: Back to NYC (today)

Virgin America
We woke up pretty early in anticipation of our flight.  We knew we had a bunch of things to do so we packed up everything the night before, returned the car this morning with a little stupidity (see next paragraph) and took the shuttle back to the airport with 3 hours to spare.

Car rental stupidity
When we went to return the car, there was this one guy that is supposed to take the payments of the returned car except if it’s cash.  He had directed us to the cash booth where we met up with the same nice woman who gave us the rental the first day.  We were going to pay via credit card and the woman asked us why he had sent us over.  Well, maybe it was because he’s a lazy bastard?  No one the others in front of us were pissed off at him.

Before that though… a guy and his female companion (I just know that they were together in the car), pulled up next to our car and we all noticed we were from WoW.  He was nice enough to give me a business card (which I think I lost now) but remembered he was from WCRadio.com.  Nice guy.  Also a little interesting was that when we spent 6 hours on a line to the Blizzard store, we had spoken with one of his co-workers a lot of the time.  I thought that was an interesting coincidence.

Enjoying my MacBook Air
While we were at the airport, we had a lot of time to kill.  We stopped by a candy store and then I began writing this blog about my experiences at BlizzCon and elsewhere.  We went to a little place an hour before the board time to grab some food and have a couple of drinks and then went to our gate.  Luckily for me, Gimel was listening to the announcements while I was absorbed in my storytelling because our gate had changed!  It was originally 67B and turned into gate 69.  It was nice and close so no worries.  I had also purchased upgraded seats for us so that Gimel could get more legroom and boy is he happy!  It’s right behind first class and we can peek into first class to see what they’re up to.

Things to be aware of with your laptop…
I don’t know if it’s a Mac thing but in our prior flight, there was a guy complaining about how his mouse pad wasn’t working properly.  He never used a USB mouse before with his Mac so he didn’t own one and he was asking everyone in his row and in front of him and no one had a clue.  I just figured it out because my Air had 30 minutes left on it and so I decided to plug it in to charge it up.  The mouse didn’t stop moving completely but would jump from on area to another.  As soon as I unplugged it, it worked fine.  At least I got it charged up to about an hour and a half before I realized it and it didn’t take that long either.

Random opinions
I think Virgin Airlines has been the best airlines I have ever been on.  They have some bugs with Red and their power outlets but otherwise, these are options other airlines do not have.  The service appears a little slow when you purchase your items but when they bring it, they bring it with a smile and have not messed up my order yet so service has been fine and coach is great.  Some advice, pay the extra $50 for the upgraded seats.  It’s worth it if you like some additional space on your trip.  Also bring a credit card with you.  They don’t accept cash when buying your items.  Bring headsets or pay $2 for one of their 3 choices of headsets (pink, grey and I think blue).

Purchase your merchandise as soon as you get into BlizzCon or beware the epic lines.  Rolling a 1 on the murloc plush was not a pleasant experience… let me tell you!

To see the entire album, click here.