I got a late start on Thursday. All of those little details like getting to the airport, getting the car, finding your friend's sister's house, finding the trolley car station, finding a printer to print your stupid registration code because you left it on your desk at work... My first impressions of the whole event were "wow, that's a whole lotta people" and "does this building ever end?" In other words: big! At the very minimum, there were 135,000 people there. Some reports claim that there were 200,000. Even at the lower end, that's more than the entire population of the city in which I live. It's even more than Gorilla City (not the city in which I live)!

My first stop was the Octagon Global Recruiting booth. Of course, there was no chance of getting "tested" this late in the day. I was told to come back earlier in the day. Which was either a hint at the time travel aspects of the show, or a suggestion that I return tomorrow. I assumed it was the time travel, but I left my flux capacitor at home, so...

Basically, I just explored the exhibition floor (about 616,000 square feet of space dedicated to advertising and comic art) and was overwhelmed with swag of the... unremarkable... type. I got to see Mike Nelson (of MST3K fame) and Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica- both incarnations) on the autograph floor (no cameras). The biggest surprise of the day was coming face-to-face with Lou Ferrigno (TV's Incredible Hulk), just... hanging out on the exhibition floor. The guy is huge:

(bad picture, I know, but I feel strange taking people's pictures- is it just me, or does he look a little green and morphing in this photo?)

I pretty much spent the rest of the day figuring out what I was going to do with the rest of my time there and eating salad at the California Pizza Kitchen. Remarkable, I know. Hey, it was my first Comic-Con. Looking back, I realize how much I missed out on, but it takes a lot to orient oneself. Especially traveling alone.