APE CATORCE
On my way to the Staples, I saw this sign
and took a picture after the show. Prospects Delivered! AT&T owes the Suaveys a chance to sell out and provide music for that commercial. Seriously.
Saturday was very slow. It was the first nice, sunny day SF had had in weeks, and many people were probably out frolicing when they might have otherwise been at the nerd zoo. I think we each sold a couple of books, but the whole atmosphere was strange. Even the people who were there didn't seem to be buying much. Not just from us, but from anyone. There were very few people even passing us by with books in hand. There was also a lot less of the usual reactions to our books. Kenny got a lot of people to check out his Fomori stuffed toys, but Marcos and I both noticed a lot less people even commenting on our books' respective titles. I'd say that we and the tables around us had much less casual browsing as well. We're used to a lot of people passing us by, or looking without buying, but we were going significant stretches of time without even that.
We left the show Saturday evening with about one of each item sold. I don't usually harp on sales, but I thought this year would be either the same or better than last.
Exhaustion and foot pain set in and we joined up with some friends for dinner and chilling out. We didn't do many APE-related events, just the Last Gasp party for an hour or two on Friday (this was cool, as the party is in the warehouse, filled with all the items in their catalog to browse). We wanted to hang with our Bay friends, Johnso and Dot as well as new San Diegoians, Carrie and Chris (who are crazy and awesome for driving up to see us after only about a week in SD).
After a very pleasant evening and plans to have a great Sunday, Marcos and I returned to the motel to learn we'd been kicked out. Apparently, we weren't booked for Saturday night. Except we were, but they gave the room to someone else because we weren't. I suspect that some John was willing to cough up some under-the-table money to change our reservation into his name. This was really putting the stamp on the whole weekend. Most of the area hotels were booked (after midnight, most get booked for the hooking purposes). We finally found a room the loudest street in the world, complete with a crackhead who ranted for five hours straight.
In my anger with the original motel manager, I dropped my credit card in my bag and couldn't find it to book the new room. Marcos did, and I went back to the Days Inn to see if I left the card there. On the way, two wonderful business women wanted to know if they could do anything for Papi. I was so frustrated with the poor preparation on my part, the empty convention hall, the awful sales, the foot and leg pain and the motel situation that I came this close to bringing them both back.
I thought better of it, though. Here's the place we spent our last night:
and took a picture after the show. Prospects Delivered! AT&T owes the Suaveys a chance to sell out and provide music for that commercial. Seriously.Saturday was very slow. It was the first nice, sunny day SF had had in weeks, and many people were probably out frolicing when they might have otherwise been at the nerd zoo. I think we each sold a couple of books, but the whole atmosphere was strange. Even the people who were there didn't seem to be buying much. Not just from us, but from anyone. There were very few people even passing us by with books in hand. There was also a lot less of the usual reactions to our books. Kenny got a lot of people to check out his Fomori stuffed toys, but Marcos and I both noticed a lot less people even commenting on our books' respective titles. I'd say that we and the tables around us had much less casual browsing as well. We're used to a lot of people passing us by, or looking without buying, but we were going significant stretches of time without even that.
We left the show Saturday evening with about one of each item sold. I don't usually harp on sales, but I thought this year would be either the same or better than last.
Exhaustion and foot pain set in and we joined up with some friends for dinner and chilling out. We didn't do many APE-related events, just the Last Gasp party for an hour or two on Friday (this was cool, as the party is in the warehouse, filled with all the items in their catalog to browse). We wanted to hang with our Bay friends, Johnso and Dot as well as new San Diegoians, Carrie and Chris (who are crazy and awesome for driving up to see us after only about a week in SD).
After a very pleasant evening and plans to have a great Sunday, Marcos and I returned to the motel to learn we'd been kicked out. Apparently, we weren't booked for Saturday night. Except we were, but they gave the room to someone else because we weren't. I suspect that some John was willing to cough up some under-the-table money to change our reservation into his name. This was really putting the stamp on the whole weekend. Most of the area hotels were booked (after midnight, most get booked for the hooking purposes). We finally found a room the loudest street in the world, complete with a crackhead who ranted for five hours straight.
In my anger with the original motel manager, I dropped my credit card in my bag and couldn't find it to book the new room. Marcos did, and I went back to the Days Inn to see if I left the card there. On the way, two wonderful business women wanted to know if they could do anything for Papi. I was so frustrated with the poor preparation on my part, the empty convention hall, the awful sales, the foot and leg pain and the motel situation that I came this close to bringing them both back.
I thought better of it, though. Here's the place we spent our last night:
posted by Justin Fox at Monday, April 10, 2006
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