Well, I’ve got a hotel room for Comic-Con International. It wasn’t one of my first few choices — it wasn’t even one of the 12 I submitted — but it’s at least in the downtown area, which is better than a lot of people got.

I’ve written up the whole thing at K-Squared Ramblings, but here’s the capsule summary: The initial process of submitting a request through the website went amazingly smoothly. I was done in five minutes. Then it was eight hours of waiting, wondering whether they’d lost the request, or I’d mistyped my email address, or it had gotten blocked as spam, or something.

• Pre-Game Thoughts on the New Procedure – based on how they described it and how the old procedure worked (and didn’t).
• Reviewing the Reservation Form – How the new design made it possible to finish in only five minutes. (Slightly technical, from a web developer’s perspective.)
• The Reservation Experience – the day of frustration, speculation on what went on behind the scenes, and thoughts on the impact of the new system.

The one thing that I really wish I’d gotten was a confirmation for the request itself. Even if it was just “You’re number 4,321 in line,” at least I could have been sure that I was in line. That would have saved a lot of anxiety. And a record of exactly what I’d submitted wouldn’t have hurt, either. (Next time I may take a screenshot.)