Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

Comic Con 2008 is July 24-17. I have been wanting to go since my first con experience at Wizard World Philly in 2003 (hey, I was a late con bloomer, okay?).

[Also because of Comic Book: The Movie, starring Mark Hamill. It's my favorite mockumentary. Netflix has it, but if you're any sort of comics fan, you probably should just go ahead and buy it. Make sure to watch all of the extras, which mostly consist of  documentary footage of the mockumentary.]

Now that I live in Utah, a mere 10 hour drive from San Diego, my desire to attend Comic Con has grown stronger. The hardest part is justifying the expense of the trip, because to stay anywhere in proximity of the convention center means shelling out a couple hundred bucks a night.

The second hardest part is to convince Ben that the cost is worth it and that he needs to come along. He’s not into comics or the whole geeky convention scene as much as I am, so that has been a little bit of a challenge. The San Diego Padres will be playing a home game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday, though… and a baseball games always a way to draw him toward my side.

But regardless of what the final outcome of my wishing and hoping and planning may be, yesterday I took a solid step forward.

I have a hotel reservation in San Diego! It’s 5 blocks away from the trolley line, which will drop us off right in front of the convention center. And it has free breakfast and free internet access. I was able to get a (relatively) good rate, even though it’s still waaaay more than I’m used to paying for a hotel room. Then again, I used to work for a hotel and got insanely cheap rates at any chain hotel in the family.

The next major decision (after Ben says yes to going) will be whether to fly or drive. With the cost of gas creeping toward $4 a gallon, it might be worth a little extra money to NOT spend 10-12 hours in the car together and opt instead for a 2 hour flight.

Anyway, I’m totally stoked and will probably be very, very crushed if it turns out that I don’t (finally) go this year. Ben, are you reading? CRUSHED.

Spoiler Alert: I definitely cover what happened at the end of the Kids in the Hall tour performance in this post.

One thing I forgot to mention in Part 1 of my recap of the KITH Salt Lake City show: though some of characters in their sketches were originally from the TV show, the tour’s material and a lot of the characters were all new.  And after watching a few clips from other live shows on YouTube, it seems that the premise of a lot of the sketches was consistent but, like any good improv, the majority of it was deliciously unique.

The last sketch of the show had all five of the Kids in it, and I guessed it was the end of the show when they came together for a company bow and the theme song started blaring again over the clapping and cheering of the audience, who stood up for an exuberant (though not rowdy) standing ovation.

They thanked the audience and said something about how excited they were for the 13 hour bus ride to Seattle that lay ahead of them. And that they loved their SLC fans so much, they were going to keep the show going for just a little longer. Encore! Hooray! Everyone sat back down.

And then Mark McKinney came out with a handheld video camera pointed toward the audience, dressed as his head-crushing character. The footage was shown on the big screen behind him, and the crowd was very, very happy with this little surprise.

He ripped on a few people in the audience, and used that criticism as justification for crushing their heads. I was too far back for him to focus on me, but I was sitting in the center and think I saw my hands waving on the big screen a couple times. Thrilling!

Mark also panned around the entire theater (which is not a really huge venue, btw). There were a smattering of people in the balcony, which was otherwise very empty. That raised a big (and hilarious) WTF reaction from Mark, as you might imagine. It made me a little embarrassed for the lame Salt Lake City crowd… why wasn’t the theater packed? Then again, I’m not actually from here, so I didn’t stay embarrassed for too long.

The final, final feature of the performance was when Mark (still as the Head Crusher) lined up the other 4 guys and individually called them out on their “crimes” before crushing their heads. Kevin got really close to the camera, a la Blair Witch Project, and Mark started patting his face. That led to Kevin sucking on Mark’s fingers… which led to Mark sticking a wet finger up Kevin’s nostril… which led to the total gross-out of Kevin sucking on that same finger again. Blarghblecch!!!!

I leave you with a YouTube clip of the 5 Kids in the Hall taking a final bow as the theme song plays. It is not from the show I saw, even though I filmed something similar, because my memory card went kaput after I opened up a couple of the photos. Sad. It would have been a tragedy if I had been able to take my picture with any of the Kids, but we didn’t stick around long enough after the show to see them come out (if they did at all).