So part two picks up on the day before New York Comicon (NYCC). Excited, I’m packing my bags, checking the list of things to bring, MANY times and pumping myself up for what I expect to be a fun, though exhausting experience. I’m on a shoestring budget though. So I had to plan accordingly. Tickets were $85 for 4 days. So how to get there? Airfare was out of the question, just too expensive, plus then there would have been an expensive cab ride from there into Manhattan. Train? Hmm, maybe. Ultimately I decided on going “Greyhound.” I haven’t been on a travel bus in a LONG time. Let me say, chances are it will be a LONG time again before I do so.

My bus is to leave at 10:30 Wednesday night. It’s an express from Pittsburgh to New York and will get there approximate at 6am. My wife takes me to the bus station, we say our ” I love yous” and I’m off to catch my bus.

I’m the first to board, yippee! I get to pick anywhere to sit. So I promptly go to the back. I figure I’ll be next to the bathroom, you know, just in case. Plus I won’t have anyone kicking my seat behind me. Okay, not too bad. Everyone else boards and we get going. Almost immediately I realize my mistake. I’m sitting on top of the rear wheels. Jes..Chr..jiminy cricket, holy freakin’ sh*( can I feel every bump in the road. I’m getting tossed around like a salad on a cooking show. It does settle down a little though once we get on the highway.

Now I recalled from years ago that the back seats were the ones to take because they used to be three seats next to each other thereby making it possible to sleep on your side with cushions underneath. Hmm, someone decided in the two decades or so since I had ridden a travel bus to change that. Now the window seat sat higher by about 3 inches, the middle seat was normal, and the third seat…NON EXISTENT! Damn. there was just a flat hard surface there. Somehow though, I make due. I prop my head and upper body on the window seat, have the seat belt buckle pushing into my side with most of my lower body and legs on the second chair. My lower legs and feet get to rest on the hard surface. This last for oh about two minutes as someone has to use the bathroom and my feet were resting on the door.

Yikes, this is going to be a painful trip in to New York. So I reposition myself to be on my back. I’m a big guy, so between that and the fact of the seat belts/buckles gouging me in my back, I’m having to lay halfway on/off the seats. This isn’t working so I try my side again. and then….yep another bathroom visit by someone else. Am I ever going to get some sleep on the bus?

Well, as it turns out I get maybe an hour’s worth during the 8 or so hour trip. We arrive on time, in fact a little early. So I step out onto the streets of New York. It’s the third time I’ve been here. I LOVE the city. It’s full of life even at just before 6am on Thursday. AS I round a corner I see on some buildings this:

Yes, I’m a Halo fan for life, however, there is the occasional other game I’ll play. Borderlands is one of them and yes, I’ve played B2. So I had to take that picture. Larger than life, but that is New York!

I seek out a Starbucks to settle in for a little bit and get adjusted. A pumpkin spice latte and blueberry scone later and I’m feeling okay. Who, wait a second who is that? Ed Begley Jr. walks into Starbucks. Wait, really? Yes indeed. Okay cool, I’m in New York less than a half hour and already I see a celebrity. Yep, I am indeed in New York.

My cell phone needs charged so I plug in at the convenient outlet next to my table, tweet a little and just people watch for a bit. I’ve got nothing to do for a few hours, so this little bit of time at Starbucks helped to kill it. So I’m looking out the window and I see this:

What the hell is a “Vactor 2100?” Turns out it is some kind of industrial sized street cleaner. Damn, I’ll say.

Now it’s a little before 7am, so what to do? I saunter on over (yeah, it’s better than shuffling…LOL) to Good Morning America at Times Square. Along the way I see these sights.

This is not the PAX I was looking for. (That was a few weeks ago and I couldn’t make it, dang.)

Times Square from one side.

And from the other side.

 

I’m in the audience at street side.

I see Laura Spencer in the window:

That’s George Stephanopoulos seated next to her and yeah, he really is that short.

It’s apparently KISS day at GMA as people are getting their faces painted like the members of the band KISS. I was asked to do so but politely declined. (I think I made the wrong decision there now in hindsight, but eh, fugedaboudit!)

Right across the street is Toys R Us Times Square, THE flagship store for TRU.

Star Wars Angry Birds. Really? Okay, I love both franchise separately but together?

It should be mentioned here that I wanted for nearly 2 1/2 hours for the store to open. Really 10am? Come on TRU, get your crap together. Open this store earlier. THere was a line of people waiting to get in. So I head right for the Mega Bloks area.

NO freakin’ single minifigure packs for Halo. Wait seriously? This is the flagship store and there is a deal going on currently that is buy either $30 or $50 worth of Mega Bloks and you get a free figure. How can that be if there are no figures in the store. I ask the manager this. They say the run out of things all the time. Um, hello, flagship store…should NEVER run out of things. Yeah, it’s New York, and there are a lot of people to buy stuff, however you’d think that this store should practically have it’s own warehouse to replenish items, especially sale items as needed.

Oy vey! Well that’s the end of this part.

Next part I finally get into Comicon…Part 3: The Thursday War