The Man in the High Castle cast signing SDCC 2015

I forget why no one was in line but I was about 30 people back for the line that was going to pull for the raffles on the Sails Pavilion floor.  I had expected hundreds of people in line by this time. These raffles are separate from the WB and the Fox drawings.  These drawing have their own line and are for different events.

This morning, everyone was ignoring this line, which I had no problems with. I had already gone through the WB line and I skipped the Fox line. I was focused on the show, The Man in the High Castle.  It was another series produced by Amazon and only seen on their site.  I had read the book as a kid.  It was good. It was an alternate history book and written long before alternate history books became a genre.

After waiting about 45 minutes, a group of people that were in front of me and behind me found out they were in the wrong line. After the panicked mass exodus, I was about 10 people from the front and the line behind me was only 30 people long.  This is unheard of at SDCC.  The ATM line is longer than that.

While I was sympathetic to their misery, it increased my odds of getting a winning ticket so I quietly and selfish rejoiced. I knew if I needed to go through the line several times to pull a winning ticket, I didn’t need to worry about the tickets being done.  A lot of times at SDCC ‘stick to it-ness’ pays off. If you can get more than one chance, you can succeed.  No guarantees.  Remember how successful I was with Dr Who.

The line was so small; the raffle people didn’t even make you draw. They stood at the front of the line and asked what you wanted. Even better.  As the short line was about to move, the people in front of me asked what I getting and I told them.  They told me the wanted some boring panel. Yawn. A panel?  To each their own. They thought the same about my decision.

Then one of the guys Googled my choice. Obviously, he didn’t know of Philip K Dick. He never heard of the book. What got him interested was the show was on Amazon.  Amazon was the selling point of him. Really, what is America coming to?

Again, since the line was so short, the raffle people were allowing people to pick two items.  The guy in front of me with his friends all picked Man in a High Castle and their boring panel.  I was irritated. The young ‘20 somethings’ were riding my coat tails. If I’m this easily irked, I obviously need more sleep and Pepsi.

When I picked, I asked if I could pull for my other friends, who were in another line. I was told no.  That irritated me as they were letting people pick 2 things and I couldn’t get an extra.  While there was all said in my mind, I restated my request thinking the guy misunderstood.  And the answer was the same. Ugh.

I picked my ticket and got my wristband. I texted my friends and they hurried over.  This wasn’t high on their list but why turn down an easy pickup?

Several hours later, I’m in line to for the signing. It’s one of those in the back of the convention center. As I’m standing in line, I overhear some people stating they gave out wristbands to people in the audience.  Obviously they didn’t give all of the winning tickets in the morning.  I could have gotten my 2 extra wristbands for my friends and they would still have had spares.  Enough of that.  It was months ago. Get over it.

When the signing started, the first person at the table is Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa. I’m sure the name doesn’t ring a bell but you have seen his face dozens of  times.  He’s in a Kimono and wearing getas (wooden clogs), and a fedora.  I’m excited. I’m going to brush off my Japanese. As he signed I start to say thank you and stop. He nods. But I blanked. Aphasia. All I said was ‘Domo’ which is very informal and impolite. I tried again and still failed. I sounded like such a tourist.  He was polite and I move on.

While I recognized a few of the people signing, I couldn’t put names to faces and shows they were in…except for Rufus Sewell. He was in A Knight’s Tale which is a stop down movie every time the wife or I see it. I told him that. He gave an unenthused thank you.  Unabashed, I continued (I’m sure he gets this all of the time and I really do know better than to beat a dead horse) with a comment about the music/soundtrack  in the movie.  That caught his interest.  He told me that the script writer actually picked out the music and put it in the script so there was no question what was wanted.  I thanked him and moved on.

I left with a nice mini poster signed and with a nice factoid about one of my favorite movies.

Also at the signing:

Frank Spotnitz, David Zucker, Isa Dick Hackett, Alexa Davalos, Luke Kleintank, and Rupert Evans

AH