Twas The Night Before Con Tickets...

Twas The Night Before Con Tickets...

Twas the night before Con tickets and all through the basement
Not a geek or nerd tweeting, not even a text sent

Their browsers were pointed to the homepage with care
In hopes that con's registration wouldn't leave them with sad stares

The fanboys were nestled all snug in tuantuan sleeping beds
While visions of slave Leia's danced in their heads.

When out on the net arose screams spreading
I sprang from the bed to see what was trending

Away to the net I flew like a bat-mite
Flipped open my laptop and logged on to con's site

When what to my wondering fears should appear
But 404 Epic site failure, oh dear!
Come on back up server kick in full gear.

Fifteen minutes to fill out the application form
If I can't get a ticket, Con committee I will scorn!

Paying one hundred and five, with no preview night attached
Damn, looks like I'll be in line at con for next year's first ticket batch.

Finally tickets were had and dreaming can start
For February and July were not that far apart



Thoughts of con's jammed pack potential filled this Cylon slipper wearer's mind!
What's in store for this year? Excitement in all shapes and kinds

With a con book in hand and a watch on my handle
I'll get ground floor info racing from panel to panel.

But more distracting than Lantern chicks, the cosplay will be
So many dorks and freaks, dressed up in neat things to see!

Now Doctor! now, Jedi! now Disco-Boba! now, creepy tight pants tron dude
Can I snap a picture. Another, another! Maybe one not so lewd?

Half off trades and artist sketches for dollars and dollars
Famous comic writers and artist, it'll make this fan holler

Oh, Baronesses! what fat darth! nice hats worn by brown coats-o-many!
So many storm troopers, But no time to chat, I got to get to ballroom twenty!

Gas lamp district will be there to reap the post evening enjoyment
With after party and festivities, I'll surly need more employment

So much fun to be had at comic con this year
And con's staying in San Diego, so nothing to fear
Except for the nightmare of getting tickets to next years...



Here it is, all you nerds. It's the night that you need to be tucking yourself in with your Chewie stuffed doll early tonight in your Battlestar Galactica sheets and turning off your green lantern night light off a bit early. Tomorrow morning is the big day!

Now I know what you're thinking. "Well, isn't that every Friday night for a nerd?". While I'm not going to judge if someone of the geek variety was staying home for the sake of making sure that Fringe got it's ratings up, there's another reason why the nerd community will be getting sleep early tonight. Tomorrow morning is when tickets finally go on sale for San Diego Comic Con

I know, it feels like its been forever since they were originally going to be sold but then come system error after system error. All this after a long drawn out fear that comic con wasn't going to be in San Diego and was potentially moving to L.A. or Vegas in the years to come.



According to the Comic con website, they did do the test a couple of weeks back to see if this new system would work for them. Not sure what was so wrong with the one from last year where they just opened tickets up and allowed them to sell out without creating some huge hype behind it. But they tell us that it shouldn't crash...

Let's just say that I still have my doubts. I mean, what was up with that one attempt to just move it to 6am PST in hopes that a lack of West Coast people wouldn't be awake to help control traffic to the site? Really?! REALLY?!!?



But hopefully that nightmare can be over and you can at least sleep comfortable knowing that you got yourself tickets to get into the show. At that point it's time to move to the next nightmare in trying to book a hotel room.. Dun dun DUN!

Last year the booking system was awful. It didn't help that the Hyatt seemed to be in favor of screwing out comic con folks to appeal to Al Gore's little shindig. Now I'll be honest, I love the Hyatt. It's not as close as the Marriott, but man does that downstairs bar attract the big names



What can I say, I love going to comic con. Such fun time even with all the crowds and madness behind it. Hell, I need to take off my socks to count the times I've been and even though I question my willingness to do it again the next year while I'm at con faced with the insanity, I'm always still going back for more.

So best of luck to one and all in getting tickets tomorrow. I'm sure there's going to be plenty of passes.. just not sure how badly SDCC will mess up some companies' server center.

The Socialist Convention

The Socialist Convention Comes To Town

Given the fact that I write in So Cal, I have to wonder if there's any good reason why I shouldn't go to the Socialist Convention happening this weekend in L.A. I know what you're thinking, organizing with other Marxist? How stupid can you be.

I once talked to someone from ISO and they were talking about how the soviet union was bad and criminal and you know what, I stopped them right there and did not buy his pamphlet or signed up to his mailing list. No sir, not for this socialist!

It's probably the least I could do to help push the cause for the evil socialism. Especially since this convention is put together by the PSL, a fairly decent socialist group with good ideas but is entirely ineffective at just about everything. It's what you come to expect from a socialist organization in today's America.

Now, here's the real kicker. It's typically $80 to get in, but you can pay $40 if you say you're destitute and they won't check. But it seems like you won't get turned away for lack of funds so your cheap capitalist pansies can pay. So when I say you wont be turned away for lack of funds I'm saying you can go in for free because of the level of your poorness. Because I know you're a broke ass mother fucker.

I guess it just comes down to the ability of getting a press pass cause I'm with you on that one. $80 dollars, what the fuck?! There's not even going to be any cool panels or a masquerad. I'm thinking of cosplaying as a zombie Trotsky, but I'm sure that costume is being done to death.
Maybe I should play to my strength and go as Che Guevara. Given the whole idea that I rarely bath, groom myself or even have any capitalistic form of money. Will they at least have booth babes? You know, who seize the means of their reproduction!

The real question is, is it worth even an accepted donation of nothing? For that we have to look to see if anyone speaking in this gathering is even worth listening to. Check out the schedule here:

Building a new workers' movement
Organized labor and the challenges ahead
Organized labor is under attack by Wall Street, corporate giants and capitalist politicians. This panel will feature labor leaders and workers who resist and organize to stop these anti-worker policies. Topics include the dynamics of the labor movement today, organizing the unorganized and the prospects for a class-wide fight back.

Fighting racism and the expanding police state
What role do the police play in society? Why do they target and kill Black and Latino people more than anyone else? This panel includes lawyers and activists from across the country involved in the movement against racist police violence, terror and repression. Strategies will be discussed and victories will be shared, with the goal of building a more effective struggle against the expanding police state.

Revolutionary writers’ clinic
Hone your skills as a revolutionary writer and learn new ones in the Revolutionary writers’ clinic. One of the PSL’s top editors will lead this session about how to write articles, frame slogans and draft flyers to forward the class struggle.

So to answer your question. No. No one of interest is saying anything remotely interesting there.There's not even a propaganda class so that you can improve your on-message-per-word ratio on your internet postings.

It boils down to it looking fairly bad. There's a lot better and more productive ways to get involved with organizing than spending a lot of cash on some weak ass gathering held by the PSL and all you'll get from going is hearing them talk about Venezuela and running protest candidates in elections for hours.

You could, in theory, sit at home and clip your toenails all weekend and make a greater impact and accomplishment for the world than you would by going to a socialist convention in the U.S. today.

Then there's always the problem that you're more than likely going to get blacklisted for taking part in such an enemy of the state organized gathering. This is not worth the risk in the event that Arabs stop being a good boogeyman for white America and socialist regain that lovely mantle.

It wasn't even 50 years ago that people would be rounded up for being affiliated and even slightly associated with socialist organizations. Many claim they should have never stopped. Hell, it may have not even been that long since the last time someone's been black listed.

There you go, reason enough not to go to a socialist convention. But keep wearing your official 2010 PSL Socialist Con official Che shirt.