ComicCon Day 1

We're in San Diego for ComicCon 2008. This is day 1 of 4, and man, it is already packed with geeks, geeks, geeks. Our very first taste was when we walked to the shuttle bus stop from our hotel -- there were about 10 people at the bus stop, including one fully dressed Batman. The bus pulled up right as we arrived, and it was one of those huge charter buses. I just stopped where I was, ready to get on the bus, when a girl standing there said, "Back of the line's that way" -- I was at first aghast and was about to argue that no one lines up for a bus, and even if we did, I was pretty sure all 10 of us would get a decent seat, but then I remembered that you don't argue with geeks about pointless stuff, and just got behind the other people.

On the ride back from the convention center, another geek lecture broke out (fortunately not involving me) about how the Simpsons was to "thank" for all other animated prime-time shows now (as if they are so great). What I couldn't understand was who the geek lecturing about this was talking to, since I'm pretty sure if you're at ComicCon, you're fairly familiar with the Simpsons.

I got a lot of pictures, and of course will take many more, check here for the photoset.

The only real activity today besides picking up our badges was to see my old college friend Kevin Dilmore talk with other Star Trek authors including Wil Wheaton about, well, Star Trek books.

We did a quick sweep through the exhibition hall, where I met Ben and Ralph from the Dharmalars podcast.

At dinner, I wondered how many geek-on-geek love affairs start at ComicCon (I indicated this by putting my arms out as wide as possible and rocking back and forth ... Laurel said, "What's that?" and I said, "Fat people hugging."), where so many people finally feel like they can finally be themselves, probably leading some of the mostly-male attendees to come out of the closet. I started writing a musical about it -- one of the songs is called "You're the Only Man I'd Let Open the Mylar Bag Protecting My Heart."

(I'll just point out for the record that I'm here with my wife of 10 happily married straight-as-can-be years.)