So, as I write this day's journal, I'm sitting in a chair of my hotel room. My hotel room has Wifi. I am most impressed. However, this wifi has allowed me to see that I have had over forty emails this day alone. And nearly all of them are cell numbers and arrangements to meet up over the next few days. But enough about the upcoming day...

My day started at 5am when I got up, had a quick shower and, grabbing my rucksack mad my way down to the car. I was expecting my usual pre-flight OCD to kick in, so had cleverly placed my check in bags in the car the previous night. Clever me. So, I drive down to London, parking at my Dad's place, grabbing the key from my neighbour and calling a cab. Getting to Heathrow at 8am, I found that I was through check in and security withing half an hour, usually unheard of - the only thing close to a blip was when I placed my camping bed (in it's bag) on the check in conveyor, and the lady behind the counter demanded to know what it was. I resisted the urge to say 'bazooka'.

So a breakfast at O'Neills later, I boarded my flight to LA, it took off on time (which was very good considering my usual luck) at 11.25am and, once we had settled out, I took half a sleeping pill to give me 6-8 hours sleep and settled down. Unfortunately I found myself repeatedly waking every hour or so and after about four hours gave up. Still, it was four hours sleep. Last year I managed the first 48 without a single nap.

Now awake, I caught an episode I'd already seen of BBC's Hustle (the only thing I wanted to watch), then pulled out the PSP and watched the first two episodes of Season 2 Dexter and the movie Hackers. God, I love that film. :-)

I was just about to start on Bones Season 2 when we started to land.

Arriving on time, I had allowed myself four hours to get through immigration, customs and security at LAX - last year at JFK I had given myself three, and following over two hours at immigration followed by a frantic rush to the check in, missing it and having to drag my suitcase on as 'carry on' - do this year I realised that three may be pushing it a little, especially as the American Eagle terminus was a bus ride away.

As it was, I got through immigration in twenty minutes (our plane being the first of the rush to land) and customs was a doddle as I was putting my baggage straight onto the transfer flight belt.

There was one concern while I was in customs - when asked why I was there, I explained that I was going to the San Diego Comic Con, no, I mean superheroes, not comedians - and the customs officer goes 'You know about solvent abuse?'

Now, what the hell am I supposed to say here? Did I look like some kind of deviant comic professional? Should I reply with 'I'm from London, mate - we invented glue sniffing'?

I make a vague agreeing motion, wondeing what the hell I've brought into the country in my luggage - am I about to be deported back? But no. The customs guard wants to inform me that one of the current 'trends' in California is that when people who have severe solvent abuse addiction well, die - their possessions are put up for public auction, and many of them have boxes of comic books, usually sold off at a dollar a box. I tried to sound vaguely interested in this (as opposed to horrified) and escaped into the terminal where I had a burger. Of course, it's now 4.30pm LA time - which is about 12.30am GMT. And already my body clock is starting to twitch.

And so I now sit in this 'hanger', waiting for a plane that looks like a reject from Raiders Of The Lost Ark to start it's propellors up.  In two hours I'll be in San Diego. In three, four hours I'll be in the Hyatt Bar, having a relaxing drink and trying to forget that in reality it's 5am.

Which of course, is when I started this whole damned journey.

So the plane was incredibly loud, small, but suprisingly fun. And I managed to make it to San Diego airport by 7.15pm with all luggage intact. After the shuttle bus to the hotel eventually arrived, I finally made it to the fifteenth floor where I saw two of my roomates for the week - Sean Dulaney and Barry Buchanan (Chris Kirby turns up Wednesday). A shower, setting of the bed up and we're ready for stage two, the arrival at Redfields at the Hyatt for a drink, where we catch up with Maddie and Rachel (from the ENGINE) and Maddie's friend Alex, who have managed a hotel about a mile north of the Tijuana border. Other Enginee Mark Sweeney also appears and we have a few drinks. But at about 12.30am (8.30am GMT) we decide that sleep beckons. Surprisingly enough, I slept like a baby, albeit one with big bioware earplugs in to avoid Dulaney's sleeping...

So. It's 9am. And the Convention is about to start...