One-Two Punch: SDCC Hotels On Sale 2/26

Now that was fast: just a few days after selling out passes to San Diego Comic-Con 2013, the convention has announced that hotels in the downtown area will be going on sale Tuesday, February 26th at noon Eastern Time. This is fully a month earlier on the calendar than last year, when there was almost a month in between when passes went on sale and the opening of hotel reservations. So I don’t know if the people at SDCC are hoping that forcing people to fork out for passes and a couple of days worth of hotels all at once will help deter the bubblegummers who aren’t really serious about attending Comic-Con… or if they’re treating the preliminaries like a Band-Aid: just rip the damn thing off all at once and just get the pain over with.

Well, whatever the reason, here’s the deal. At some point in the 72 hours before Magic Hour, SDCC will be sending an email with a link to the sales site to badge holders. The site won’t go live until noon Eastern Time on the dot, and when it does, once you get in, you will need to pick six hotels from the list: no more and no less. This is different from previous years, when you could pick one hotel or all of them. And it is certainly different from, say, 2006, when I read the list, thought it over, went to lunch, came back, thought it over some more, and then booked a room with no trouble at about 4 p.m.

Stan Lee Explains How Popular Movies Should Have Ended, Avoids Telling Kids To Get Off His Lawn

Good news, everyone! Stan Lee is feeling better – so much so that he’s teamed up with the crew at How It Should Have Ended to let us all know how some of the most popular movies should have actually ended. Check out his take on Inception, Batman Begins, Star Wars, and its prequels, explained to us as only Stan can. Welcome back, man!

Via The Mary Sue

Bodies On The Road To San Diego: SDCC 2013 Tickets Sell Out In About 90 Minutes

So, you thinking about going to San Diego Comic-Con this year? Yeah, well, you can stop. Because it’s sold out.

Tickets went on sale via a specific Comic-Con Web site that they only publicized to those with Comic-Con member IDs who were eligible to take part in the general sales – those who got tickets via the early sale open to those who attended SDCC 2012, for example, were unable to get in on this to maybe get tickets for friends, loved ones, or anyone they’d like to drive into a forced geek march for four to five days.

Now, as we tried to establish in our report on how we proceeded in the early sale back in August, it is best to approach any Web-based sales event related to Comic-Con as if you are attempting to use the Internet to complete a transaction required to ransom your child, and that you are doing it from a location prone to network outages, power failures, and pre-nuclear electromagnetic pulse attacks. Comic-Con makes it a point to learn lessons from where their online sales and registration procedures fall down each year and plug those holes… only to find brand new holes that need plugging the next year.

Long story short: not everyone can get tickets, and sometimes the system to sell the tickets that are available falls down.

The sales Web site opened at noon. And we soon started seeing Tweets expressing… shall we say, displeasure. Apparently the waiting room went into overflow within a minute or so, and, unlike prior years when people complained that the URL to the sales site was bad and the server threw rampant 500 errors, this time around, it was complaints that the waiting room didn’t refresh,

I’ve seen reports from the well-prepared that the waiting room “line” hit over 6,000 people within three minutes. As for the less prepared and / or lucky?

Well…

A Flanking Maneuver Into The Killbox: A Valentine’s Tactical Assessment of The Battle of Hoth

It is Valentine’s Day, which means that couples everywhere are discussing matters of the heart. They are having heart-to-hearts about their relationships. Their futures. Their dreams. And, if that couple has been together for a while and know each other in a truly intimate manner, they discuss things that truly matter. Things such as the shortsighted and deeply flawed attack plan that Darth Vader launched following Admiral Ozzel’s clumsy and stupid drop from hyperspace into Hoth orbit, where he used overwhelming armored forces to achieve exactly fuckall, due to his apparent belief that a “flanking maneuver” is a Correllian sexual position, and that a “killbox” is a derogatory euphemism for a skilled laboress who trades in the Correllian Flanking Maneuver.

Well, it’s a good thing that, earlier this week, Wired Magazine published a lengthy article by defense blogger Spencer Ackerman discussing, in fairly low-level detail, the tactics used by Darth Vader and his attack fleet during the Battle of Hoth, a battle that only a week ago I would have sworn under oath that I knew more about than not only any American military battle, but also knew better than any of my childhood fistfights.

Turns out? Yeah, not so much. It turns out that the heroic escape of the Rebels in the face of overwhelming evil and incredible odds was, instead, the military equivalent of suckerpunching a kid in a helmet who drew up his battle plan with Crayolas.

How About A Little DC For VD?

Over at The Mary Sue they’ve posted a gallery of DC New 52 themed Valentine’s Day Cards so you can wear your geek on your sleeve as you profess your love to that special girl or guy that you may or may not be stalking. For example:

“I get a side-kick out of you”? Really? We here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office think these can be improved so that you can say what you really feel.

New and improved and totally within Fair Use boundaries, after the jump.

Digital Rioting: San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Tickets On Sale February 16th

As we speak, we are watching the Super Bowl, taking place at the Super Dome in New Orleans and packed with people who spent a great deal of money and endured extreme personal hardship to attend in person.

Those poor dupes are rank amateurs. As anyone who had ever tried to attend San Diego Comic-Con knows. And will soon relearn. Because the sales of passes to the general public for SDCC 2013 starts at noon Eastern Time on Saturday, February 16th…

…and if history is any guide, will be sold out by 2 p.m. on February 16th.

Get Well, Stan – Stan Lee Will Miss Amazing Arizona Comic Con Due To Illness

The Amazing Arizona Comic Convention has sadly announced the following:

We here at Amazing Arizona Comic Con regret to announce that we have been informed by Mr. Stan Lee’s representatives that he is physically unable to travel and appear for this weekend’s events due to illness. Fortunately, we have a full weekend of great programming, over hundred of comic creators coming to the convention, and nearly 300 exhibitors on the main floor. Further headline guest Jim Lee, the Best Selling comic artist of all time, will be on hand at the event to meet with attendees, sign FREE autographs, and share in the spirit of comics and pop culture. Amazing Arizona Comic Con apologizes for the inconvenience and wishes Mr. Stan Lee a speedy recovery.

For those attendees who purchased Stan Lee Photo Ops or Stan Lee Packages, you may contact INFO@AmazingArizonaComicCon.com to inquire about refund eligibility. Please contact us no later than Friday, January 25, 2013 for more information. Amazing Arizona Comic Con reserves the right to process and issue refunds for eligible and qualified attendees, which will be dispersed from February 18 through 28.

Oh no! Stan!

Stan, get lots of bed rest and clear liquids! We here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office also wish you a speedy recovery. We are confident that your mutant power is immortality and that you will be up and around the convention circuit in no time. If all else fails, we hear that gamma radiation is good for toughening a guy up. Get well soon, sir.

Via Bleeding Cool.

Able To Cripple Grown Men With A Single Step: Man of Steel Trailer Recreated With Legos

I’m not gonna lie to you: I’ve been on a diet for about a week, which means I am sitting at this keyboard with a low blood sugar headache and not a drop of booze here in the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office.

This means that I don’t have a lot of energy to think too critically of any given comic book beyond, “Lookit the pretty colors. Ooh! That nice horsey got punched in the face!” And while I am counting on the precedent that a good night’s sleep, or at least a good night of thrashing uncontrollably while quietly whimpering for even a Goddamned shot of NyQuil, will set me right again by the first thing in the morning, just in time to talk comics like an adult again.

But in the meantime, I need childish things, and light entertainment. And in that spirit, a nice man named Antonio Toscano has taken the trailer for Man of Steel and recreated it. With Legos. And considering the time and effort it must have taken, he is clearly a creative and dedicated man… or else he’s a kindred spirit trying like hell to distract himself from the fact that there’s no booze in his fucking house.

Regardless, it’s pretty cool, and you can check it out after the jump.

Brain Bleach – Gary Busey Says “Pray For The Best. Prepare For The Worst. Here Come The Hobbits.”

Gary Busey has put the word out: he is interested in anyone who may have “had past life regressions and been a hobbit in a past life” to let him know, because he would like to discuss Hobbitism ^TM with you. He is under the impression that the males and females can’t tell each other apart…until they get a chance to hook up and do a package check, “which must make it exciting for them!”. Also, hobbits really enjoy using dead cockroaches for all game playing, jewelry, and hair accessory needs. I had no idea.

Check out Gary’s other deep, hobbit-y musings, after the jump.

No One Can Find Weapons of Mass Destruction: White House Denies Death Star Petition

Hey, didja know that, if you’re an American citizen, you can go the the White House Web site and set up a petition to the President of The United States? And if enough people sign it, the White House will issue an official response? What a nice way to make the people feel involved in the process of government, and to make it seem like we, the people, have the ability to request that our government consider the thing we want most.

Important things that could affect every American. Like the construction of a technological terror capable of destroying an entire planet.

You read right: someone started a petition to the President of The United States to begin the construction of a Death Star. And around 25,000 of my fellow Americans signed their names to this pursuit – heroes all! – telling their elected officials that their highest priority is, above health care and deficit control and environmental concerns and the squashing of foreign enemies, the creation of a battle station capable of solving all of these problems by rendering them into a meteor shower, or perhaps some kind of asteroid collision that’s not on any of the charts.

And more importantly? The White House has issued an official response. A taxpayer-funded official response. To a request made by 0.008 percent of the population of the United States.

That we build a fucking Death Star.