Man in the High Castle SDCC 2018 (or no Parrots were killied in the making of this signing…)

Parrots? Did I have a stroke? No, I don’t smell burnt toast...

The signing itself was straight forward. I think a lot of people were expecting Stephen Root. He was not at the signing. This signing did allow a personal item to be signed.  A few people took advantage of that. I wish I knew. I would have loved to have gotten a photo signed by each of the actors. Oh well.

The signing had 3 actors and 2 producers. One of them is Phillip K Dick’s daughter.

Rufus Sewell top right, Dan Percival right center (silver), Isa Dick Hackett top left, Jason O’Mara Bottom Left, and Alexa Davalos bottom Right

Okay, okay, The Parrot.

As we were waiting for the signing to start, I heard a shout in the Sail Pavilion.  As I turned, I noticed a bird flying inside. Okay, no big deal. It’s a pigeon that was inside and woke and decided to stretch its wings. However, it didn’t fly like a pigeon. It was totally grey except for a red tail. 

The shouting got closer and you can now hear a command: Close the doors! Close the doors!

 No one was moving to the doors.  The bird was doing a big circle in the pavilion. The Sail Pavilion is rather large and is mostly clear glass. While there are lots of places for this bird (now identified as a parrot) to land, it was not happy and it was lost. Nothing was familiar. It wanted to escape this strange place.

I have seen this before. I knew the parrot would get tired and panic and rush to the nearest window thinking it was an opening to freedom. Then as expected, the parrot flew with a thud into the window not far from me. With the crash, the bird stopped moving and fell 15 feet to the floor with a muted thud.

The cries to close the doors stopped as the owner rushed over in tears. She sat with the bird as the crowd quickly discussed this.  After a few minutes. The owner stood and stroked the birds head. It had survived the window and fall.

So, this Parrot’s not dead. He was only resting. He was pining for the Norwegian fjords…

AH

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?