Not much to add to the San Diego signing information, except that yes, GRRM is very tired. I got him to laugh by asking if I could scold the BwB on this board for keeping him up late (as he cited the partying until 2am as one of the contributing factors to his fatigue), but as I kept him up 'til midnight talking about the new Battlestar Galactica vs. the old, and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger when he had a 6am wakeup time for an 8am flight to Seattle, that would probably be hypocritical. smiley2.gif Mostly, dinner conversation was centered about the antics of the BwB during various Worldcons past, as he attempted to convince me I really really really needed to go to LACon.
I think one of the other reasons contributing to the fatigue is that he's used to smaller crowds showing up for his signings. My impression is that it's only now starting to dawn upon him that he's a superstar, and he's rather surprised and amused by total strangers in Italy giving him gifts (and bottles of wine) and asking to get a picture taken with him. It doesn't seem to have changed him any, though.
BTW, how I got invited to dinner essentially goes back to Wild Card days, when I gave him a folded Montroll turtle at Comic-Con, and then showing up at every SoIaF signing at the same store, and handing him an origami three-headed dragon and the like, culminating in one year giving him a boxful of origami house-sigil-animals and an origami chess set. This year, I bought my way in with this. Instructions here.
He did confirm that, yes, those shields were indeed superhero comics references. And that one of the things he regrets losing from the POV split is that he was doing point and counterpoint with the Dany and Cersei scenes--showing how each was ruling in their turn. He also seemed happy that someone out there recognized Bakkalon.
