Life as we know it is going back to normal next year as the dates for SDCC ’16 have been revealed and it’s back to the normal third week dates of July 21-14. Thank god. None of this post Fourth of July hell.
In even better news that will shock everyone, it looks like Con will be staying in San Diego, at least through 2018. It seems SD mayor Kevin Faulconer has been meeting with CCI peeps and hotel owners to personally make sure they can stay. The biggest issue was getting hotels to agree to setting aside large room blocks at discounted rates.
Comic-Con International and the San Diego Tourism Authority, which oversees convention center bookings, declined to comment this week on when a new two-year contract would be inked. Hoteliers, however, confirmed that they have been responding to a recent request from Comic-Con organizers that they write up addendums to their 2016 room block contracts committing to not raise their rates for 2017 and 2018 and to maintain the same number of discounted hotel rooms for the convention.
“We support the mayor’s efforts to keep Comic-Con in San Diego and have worked cooperatively with our hotel members to come to a reasonable agreement between the city and Comic-Con,” said Namara Mercer, executive director of the San Diego County Hotel-Motel Association. “By and large, the majority of the hotels are on board, and the only delays were with a few hotels that were evaluating the proposal.
According to Hilton sales and marketing dude Donovan Henson, “We feel like we’re in a very good place with Comic-Con on the hotel side for ‘17 and ‘18. And we know that in their hearts they want to stay so we have to work together to extend out as long as we can.”
Ya hear that Las Vegas? In their hearts, they want to stay!
I should note here that these “discounted rates” are sort of discounts. For instance, at the Hilton Bayfront, the con rate is is $299 a night. I did a random check of Hilton rates and found this on their own website for dates later in the summer:
However, to be fair, when I checked other rates at other hotels, they were all around $300 a night for summer weekends, which is a high demand time for what is, after all, a popular travel destination even without Trigun cosplayers and Travis Fimmel. When you add in supply and demand, $300 a night isn’t cheap but it is well within the market price. Keeping these rates for the next few years is definitely a good deal for the CCI folks and hotels, and by 2019 I’ll be too old to go so I won’t care.
As for other convention data, the Unofficial SDCC blog has news that last year’s wristband system will most likely be in place this year. This new policy was instituted to cut down on “line jumpers” who send a pal to camp out and fight off zombies during the long, hard night, and waltzed in as a gang of 12 or so to get in line for The Walking Dead panel as dawn breaks. Once again, I an by nature unable to understand this line waiting impulse, but the comments on the USDCCB post are full of complaints that the system made lines longer…why, yes. That was their intent. Some people also complain that the new system is dangerous because now children have to sleep outside in line instead of having dad wait for them, and the children are hungry and oh, papa why? My question is, WHY ARE YOU MAKING YOUR CHILDREN CAMP OUT TO SEE SOME DUMB PANEL ANYWAY?
Once again, I’m sure the kids are excited to see the cast of Kiss Meets Scooby Doo, so I’m not accusing anyone of bad parenting. The comments indicate that there was actually quite a bit of confusion over last year’s wristband system, so I’m not sure if these are just comment complainers or a general sentiment. Peanut gallery what say you?
While I worked, Puppicasso partied.
He became Puppi Hilton.
These are the Pupparazzi Pics.
- Puppi found under the table.
- How did he get here?
Little did I know, that he was up to some wild table-dancing…
- Table Dance.
- Puppi Sundialing.
- Puppi-Go-Round
Despite his heavy partying, he decides to leave his wild ways behind
and find a great cause to fill the void that any period of excess can create.
- Leaving his debauchery behind.
He goes from being a Hilton to being a Good Samaritan.
Puppicasso sees this post, and gets the word out:
- Poor Pali.
He is a stranger to Pali, but he hopes that posting this pole-post in this blog-post –
Pali’s family will find their lost friend.
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Lauren, Publicity Assistant
For years, the public has not been able to get enough of Paris Hilton. She’s famous as a socialite, heiress, model, and now for joining the likes of Socrates and Mark Twain on the pages of the 
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. No, she’s not quoted for saying, “That’s hot.” Ms. Hilton is instead immortalized for her advice, “Dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.”
But Paris’s entry is only one of more than 20,000 new quotations added to 7th edition. Other notable inclusions come from Sarah Palin, Stephen Hawking, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Philip Pullman. Here, Oxford Dictionary of Quotations editor Elizabeth Knowles reflects on the history of the almost 70-year-old treasury, and how new entries are chosen. To learn more check out the companion site here.
A classic reference book like this has to be regularly remade, without compromising its essential identity. Can we in fact have the modern and frivolous without damaging our book? I would say most definitely yes, where usage so dictates, and adduce in support two luminaries of the Oxford University Press of over sixty years ago. In 1931, planning the book, Kenneth Sisam, who identified an “intelligent elasticity” as an essential editorial quality, wrote to a colleague, “We shall have to guard against things quotable, as apart from things commonly quoted.” And in 1949, when the second edition was being planned, Humphrey Milford (formerly Publisher to OUP) commented, “I think the levity—comparative—of ODQ is partly the reason for its success.” In other words, the diversity of the book, and its mixture of the deeply serious and the frivolous, based on what people are quoting, is part of its essential nature.
Quotations are part of the fabric of the language: we use, and meet them, every day. We quote when we find that the words of another person, in another time and place, express exactly what we want to say. Or, events bring certain quotations to prominence, as the last year has given new relevance to Thomas Jefferson’s comment that, “Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”
A dictionary of quotations is not a roll-call of the great and the good, nor a listing of an editor’s favorite passages. Although having said that, of course we all do have items in which we take a particular pleasure. I was especially pleased that the formulation, “We must guard even our enemies against injustice” (attributed to the radical Tom Paine) was revealed as the writer Graham Greene’s paraphrase of Paine’s more formal eighteenth-century diction. The history of this misquotation—linking two significant figures across the centuries, and coming to light through its resonance today—was very satisfying to explore.
At Oxford, we track language to ensure that we have the quotations people are most likely to look up, so that the next time a half-remembered quotation is on the tip of your tongue, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is ready with the answer. Inclusion is based on usage: evidence that a spoken comment or written passage is being quoted by others. And while there is a common quotations stock (Shakespeare, the Bible), we all have our own quotations vocabulary, that which we remember and quote because we encountered them at a time when they were particularly significant. The antique and serious often rubs shoulders with popular culture. The same newspaper column, for example, may quote from both the Book of Common Prayer and the Rolling Stones. The result is marvelously diverse, and properly so.
I actually thought the wristband system was a much-needed improvement last year. They were distributed around 9AM on Thursday and 7AM on Friday. The color coding gave you peace of mind that you would get in. I didn’t camp out for either day, but managed to have thoroughly pleasant line experiences because the wristbands cut a lot of the tension people have about getting in. I fail to see how it forces children to sleep in the cold or go hungry. The only thing forcing that are people with misguided priorities.
I’m not surprised.
CCI has a great relationship with the City of San Diego.
They get a 63% discount on convention center rent this year, and next year, that discount will be 67%.
Local hotels are eager to give them meeting space and rooms, as this is one of the few annual opportunities hotels have to charge the legal rack rate, as rooms are scarce during the Con.
(Guys… when you check in, take a look at the emergency instructions on your room door. It should include the maximum rate the hotel can charge for your room.)
I’m certain that CCI will re-up for a few more years, and give the city time to refinance the convention center expansion.
Meanwhile CCI is testing both Anaheim and Los Angeles, either as a replacement city, or as a means of flipping a smaller but growing WonderCon to San Diego and Comic-Con to Orange County.
BTW, the Westin has a room for Thursday: $739.
Hotel Indigo: $933.
Travelodge (!): $600
My recommendation has alway been the AYH Hostel. Rent a private room (still available, $260), or get a group of friends together and take over a dorm room (with the bath down the hall). There’s a kitchen, so you can save on food. And you’ll meet some cool people.
Heidi, I’m pretty sure that you will also be there for the convention in 2019 (as will I), as it is the conventions 50th anniversary!
Then a break might be in order!