Who Watches...?
[2012-09-14 15:30]
Day 2 starts with #4 of things the Courtyard Marriott by Burbank Airport does not have: a free breakfast (not even muffins). They do serve breakfast, but you gotta pay. Thankfully, I had purchased some food from Ralph's the day before, so free coffee in the room + a tub of fruit + Honey Nut Chex Mix = good to go.
Oh, and I guess I should mention that the elevator in the Marriott sounds like it's possessed, but it's not much different from the elevator in my condo so it feels like home.
On to the good stuff:
Google Maps gave the scenic route to Sunset Blvd from the hotel, but it's not too bad of a drive. There's a lot of traffic, but that appears to be normal (it doesn't get any better, according to my cousin). In any event, Hollywood is about 30 minutes away from the hotel. Since the high temperature is about 102 degrees (F) today, I didn't feel like doing much sight-seeing, so just stuck to the plan: Meltdown, then Golden Apple.
Meltdown Comics is on Sunset Blvd and I was able to find street parking very close to the store. It turns out that the parking meters on Sunset Blvd have a 1-hour limit (at least, that block did), however, and if you just start popping in coins (like I did), there's no coin return if you end up putting in too much. Doh. But the meters each have a credit-card reader so they're pretty convenient. And it appeared that meters on the side streets allow for more time. So, moral of the story: park on the side streets.
Meltdown is a pretty large store, but not quite the Mecca I thought it might be (I was envisioning something like Powell's in Portland Oregon, but filled with only comic-related stuff.
It turns out that they were also hosting some film crew from Attack of the Show. There were two or three guys filming some blonde girl (whom I did not recognize) who was doing her news segment for The Program. The first bit I caught was her announcing that AMC, which airs The Walking Dead (which is based on the comic series), has purchased the rights to another work by the same authors/creators, but I didn't catch the name of it. Then came filming of some puff pieces involving the store's ping pong table (which prompted the team to think "viewers are just going to wonder why she's playing ping pong" -- yep) and a pinball machine.
Meltdown's selection was pretty good, but it's been awhile since I've followed comics (the last title I followed was Poison Elves by Drew Hayes, published by Sirius Entertainment, both of whom have passed away, it seems), so I wasn't looking for anything in particular. But I discovered DC Comics' new Before Watchmen series. Being a big fan of Watchmen (the original comics by Alan Moore), I had to pick these up. There's a mini-series for each of the Watchmen, some of which are up to issue #3 now. Meltdown didn't have any of the back issues, except for Minutemen #1, so that's the one I got. Meltdown also has a pretty good selection of self-published small comics, which are the comic version of zines.
It looks like Meltdown has a back room/mini theater as well, where they host special events. The next one is for the release party for Kung-Fu Lesbian, tonight. As tempting as that sounds, I'm not going.
On the way out of the store, I noticed this notice posted on the door, which I didn't notice on the way in (click to enlarge):
So, if I end up on The Program looking stupid, I plead ignorance. Ehrmagherd!
Golden Apple is on Melrose Ave, pretty close to Meltdown, but not really walking distance. So, I drove and parked on the side street nearby. Golden Apple used to have a very large store but that one closed. The other store is in Hollywood and isn't nearly as big, nor as big as Meltdown. But it did have a display with all the issues of the Before Watchmen series, so I dropped a wad... of cash... and picked up the ones I was missing.
On the way back to the car, I noticed this billboard for the Sons of Anarchy, Season 5 Premiere:
It's a pretty cool show (the biker version of Hamlet) and a pretty cool billboard.
After this, I decided to head back to the hotel before meeting up with my cousin. On the drive back, I was cut-off by a buxom blonde in a beemer, near Mullholland Drive. Okay, I made up the buxom part.
Heading out to dinner & meet up w/cousin. More later...
Update (00:00): For dinner, cousin and I grabbed a quick bite at Hugo's in Agoura Hills, sharing an order of green tamales and stuffed portabello mushrooms. With a blended fruit drink, this was very good.
Afterwards, we went to see the movie Robot & Frank, which was quite amusing, followed by dessert at Tifa Chocolate (my cousin is quite the dirt-biking gourmand). The pistachio gelato at Tifa was very good. I also tried one of their truffles filled with a chocolate/whiskey creme (mmmm!) and one filled with chocolate/hot-pepper creme (an odd mix, but also good).
Tomorrow is Comikaze!