Well, traveling to another country for your birthday sounds like a lot fun, especially St. Petersburg. Lucky, Dan!

As for the Comic-Con absence, I can understand that it was his birthday so it provides a good excuse for not attending, especially since he's worked so hard. However, like he said, if you buy expensive tickets and look forward to the event for ages, and the main attraction they're looking forward to doesn't show up, I'd be pretty upset too. Let's hope in the future nothing like that happens for all the Comic-Con attendees.