..stupid ideals..

Well, I just got home a while ago, and of course... my goldfish was dead. When I left the house this afternoon, I knew he was gonna die, but he was still responding to the other fish, so I couldn't take him out. When I got here, half his scales had already been chewed off by the many scavengers of the tank. He was pretty old. I've had him since before I graduated from college -- which was 2 years ago this month. So yeah, that's pretty old for a plain ol' goldfish, right? ::sigh:: Well, I still miss him.

My sister's pet rat Templeton died in his sleep this morning too. It's weird because he's very young. He can't be more than a year old. But he's gone now too. Ironically, this morning, I dreamt that I had died. In my dream, I'd fallen asleep at my gramma's house and woke up to death... Yeah, it's creepy. I just knew that I was dead. I would go by people and yell at them. They'd look around like they'd heard something, but thought it was prolly just the wind. I remember also thinking... This is it. It isn't a dream. I'm really dead, and I'm not waking up. Needless to say, I was wrong... but that just goes to show how convincing the dream was.

I had another dream which prolly stems from the people on my website's forums. There's been some talk of albinism and photophobia. In this other dream, I was removing a contact lens. Well, more than just my contact came out... the color of my iris also came out, and my eye was left clear.... hard to imagine, but just think of a crystal clear iris... complete with pupil and all. There was a tiny bit of color in the iris, but it was a blurry greenish-brown. The same thing happened with my other eye. In the dream, I asked my mom what was wrong with my eyes. She explained to me that when I was born, I had a condition in my eyes -- I had clear irises, and they were really sensitive to light. So the doctors put some solution in my eyes to form a protective layer over my eyes. With just enough exposure to sun, my eyes would adjust and the solution, over time, would turn dark brown and act like sunglasses to my irises. I felt really bad cuz I missed the brown of my eyes. But anyway, I spoke to a doctor about my condition, and he explained that around the same time, he had several other patients with the same thing. He also placed the solution in their eyes, but it caused them to have serious mental problems... He showed me each of their files, with drawings they'd done or criminal records.... then my phone rang, and I woke up. Hmm I wonder what it meant :\

Well, I got my blog's links to work properly. This time I relied on good ol' html and gave up on the stupid css.... Damm stuff makes me upset. I guess I should mention that wooo.... I was in San Diego, CA for 9 days ... I should also mention that I've been back since the 7th :P Okay, I just didn't feel like writing much. I still haven't sent a convention report to the various mailing lists I'm on. But that can wait. I really wanna see the pics that I took, but stupid idiot me, I lost the USB cable, so I can't connect the camera to the comp. :(

Anyway, I guess I'll try to relay my little vacation to yall...

Lessee... It started on July 30. We left very early that morning from HRL. We took the 5:45 am flight from here to Houston IAH. We left there at about 9:30 am, and flew the 3 hours across two time zones. We landed at SAN at 10:30 am PDT. Ermm... I think that's how it worked. I can't remember that far back JEEZE! Anyway, we took the shuttle from the airport to our hotel (Whyndam Emerald). There, we decided to unpack and bum around all day in the room. My sister Julie and I went for lunch down the street at Wendy's while my other sister Kat napped in the room.

Lemme comment a little about the weather in SoCal... Grrrrrrr for one. It is sooo damm frickin' beautiful there. It was 75 degrees every single day, cool at night, not a cloud in the sky, and even though we were about two minutes from the harbor, there was NO humidity in the air. Compare that to Deep SoTex... We've got triple digit temps everyday, 90s at night, and high humidity always... It frustrates me so much!!

Anyway, we spent the next few days going to San Diego Comic-Con International 2002. This was my third year at the con and my sisters' first. We met up with my TMNT buddies on Wednesday did lotsa stuff together. Sadly, on Friday evening we got word that our good friend Dawn (one of my closest friends) had to leave the convention. Her husband showed up and gave her some really bad news... her mom had passed away. It was pretty surreal. I found out just as we were meeting at the Heavy Metal booth to meet up with Kevin (Eastman).

We had a good time hanging out and having drinks with Kevin. There was much laughing and conversation going on, but I think all of us felt a sadness around. My heart goes out to Dawn and Anthony and her whole family. Since Dawn and I were planning to cosplay as Harry Potter and Hermione again this year, I asked the others if I should go ahead as planned. Finally, they convinced me that it would be a good idea. So when I got back to the hotel, I tried on the costume. As I was tying my neck tie, I felt even more sadness... Dawn's mom was the one who made that tie. :(

Well, on Saturday, my sister Julie and I decided to go to the con together, leaving the others to do what they wanted. My other sister decided not to go so she could make reservations at another hotel for the next few days. So, we only walked around the convention for a little while before heading to the panel that was supposed to have some Harry Potter previews. Well, that panel had nothing but the same trailer we saw online...

But there were quite a few other previews, and guest speakers, and celebrities... When we arrived, Marina Sirtis was speaking about the new Trek movie. Afterwards, we saw a few trailers to cool upcoming movies, then came a bunch of panel speakers for the various previews we saw.... Lucy Lui and Ray Park came up to speak about their new movie Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever with director Kaos. Then Jason Lee and Timothy Olyphant came out to speak about Stephen King's Dreamcatcher movie. Next was a preview for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines... presented by Arnold Schwartzenegger. There was also a preview for Solaris (starring George Clooney) presented by James Cameron who produced the movie, and a preview of X-Men 2 with director Brian Singer. Also, there were previews of Daredevil (with Mark Steven Johnson and Ben Affleck on hand) and The Hulk with director Ang Lee.

There was also a major panel for the special effects team WETA (from Lord of the Rings). Two-time Oscar winner Richard Baker, who heads the WETA team, Lawerence Makoare who plays Lurtz in the Fellowship of the Rings and Sauron player Sala Baker were also joined by three of four of the Hobbits... Elijah Wood, Dominic Monoghan, and Billy Boyd.

There was a lot of Q&A for everything, laughs, and just cool stuff all around. I bet I'm forgetting some stuff that went on there in Ballroom 20, but I'm not sure right now... too tired to think. On Friday morning, I got to meet Dominic Monoghan (he was the hobbit Merry), and have my pic taken with him. I also met Stan Sakai and got several books signed by the Usagi Yojimbo creator, and Brian, Wendy, and Toby Froud... probably the most brilliant family around. In addition to hanging around with Kevin Eastman (he created the Ninja Turtles and is editor of Heavy Metal Magazine), I got to meet Simon Bisley (another awesome artist), who I got to sign my Melting Pot book. I also met Emma Caulfield (Anya on Buffy), Lou Ferrigno (the original Hulk), Cassandra Petersen (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark), and even got glimpses of Sean William Scott, Otho from Beetlejuice, and several other celebs. There was tons of stuff going on at the convention.... including the filming of a movie set at a comic convention starring Mark Hamill (didn't see him though).

After Comic-con was over, I bid adeiu to my good TMNT buddies and set off for the new hotel. We found a great Mexican restaurant that made us feel a little more at home (if you're in the area check out Tio Carlos Restaurant on Rosecrans St.) We also got to check out the San Diego Zoo. I always thought our local zoo was pretty good -- decent... But the SD Zoo... hoo boy!! It is awesome. We were there from 9 am until 4:30 and I know we didn't get to see everything. Luckily, we did check out the Pandas... Hua Mei was sooo awesome!! I've never seen a Panda in person before!! The rest of the zoo was totally cool as well, and that was pretty much our last adventure.

All in all, it was a great trip. I still feel terrible about Dawn's loss, though. Still it was great to get away from the confines of this small space (and you thought everything was big in Texas!) of a home, and out into a big city. I love it. After visiting San Diego three times now, I really feel I could live there. Who knows, maybe one day I will!