Con Report of Champions, Continued!
(This Is Still Saturday)
Continued from [ here].
Brad and Nat and Mama all went to the Saturday morning I Dream of Jeannie Panel. As I understand it, I Dream of Jeannie is Natalie's one and only/first and best fandom, so it was kind of a big deal for her. Since I didn't go, I have little to say about it, but -- pictures!
These are the main people from Jeannie. They're getting pretty far along in age, but I went to see Dean Stockwell's wrinkled ass in a Friday panel, so I can't really make fun.
Natalie asked the elderly actors a question! This is her in the line.
After the panel, she met up with Sue Sylvester and some Cheerios from Glee. (And this is how Sue C's it.)
Another sneak-attack photo by my mom. I don't know what this is.
Meanwhile: True Blood again
with Sam, Pam, and Maryann! And Lafayette.
Amy and I didn't get to the panel early enough to have a good seat because I was too busy getting paparazzied, but they have big screens to watch the actors on live, and we'd already seen three of them the day before, so it was okay. Michelle Forbes was in the panel this time, along with Kristin Bauer, Sam Trammell, and Nelsan Ellis.
I wrote down in my notes that Nelsan is really smart. I didn't happen to mention why, but I think it's probably because while he was a student at Julliard, he wrote a play, which was then performed, and he won an award for it. It was about a domestic violence situation based on a true life event that happened to his sister. Someone asked where we could read the play, but he told us that since the play was so personal to him, he had not submitted it for publication anywhere. And he's not planning on it.
I also wrote down that I like the way Michelle Forbes so gracefully handles fans. I mentioned earlier that I hate it when people ask the actors to perform something during panels, and of course that happened again here. A girl said she wanted to see Michelle do the Maryann line, "Nobody wanted towels!" Michelle said, I want to see you do that line, so the girl very dramatically delivered the line the way Maryann did in the show, and then Michelle made some remark about it being as good as she could have done. Or something. Anyway, she got out of having to do it without there being any awkwardness, and I respect her for that. Of course, she's probably had a lot of practice.
Kristin said one of the very first scenes she ever filmed for True Blood was the scene in season one where she and Eric fly out of Fangtasia while Bill runs really fast after them carrying Sookie. For that scene, they all had to stand on a little wooden platform and get pulled around, and they did it over and over, trying different little things to make it look like they were flying - like leaning forward. She said she felt ridiculous and wondered what in the world she'd gotten herself into. And meanwhile someone's fanning them to make Eric's wig flutter. Heh.
Nelsan said the worst experience he had with special effects was being tied to the guy who plays Jesus and having a camera strapped to them at the same time for the wonky high-on-V scenes they did. Although it ended up looking pretty good.
Sam said he felt sorry for all the people who had to do the orgy scenes because they were out there filming naked outside in the middle of the night and it was about thirty degrees. But them someone - I think it was Michelle? Or maybe Kristin? - said they'd heard some of the extras had a lot of fun doing those scenes.
Let's see... Kristin said every time she has a line in Swedish, Alex records himself saying the line for her and she listens to it over and over on her ipod to learn it. She did her Alexander Skaarsgard impression again when she told us that. Funny.
I ended up really liking Kristin. Although I was surprised when one of the fan questions made her cry. Someone asked about the family dynamics being examined in season three (there was only one episode left of season three at the time of this panel), specifically about Lafayette and his mother, Sam and his biological family, and Pam and Eric. When it was Kristin's turn to answer, she got all choked up talking about the father/daughter dynamic, which is something she considers very special. She said acting this relationship is even more meaningful because she and Alex are close friends in real life.
They also talked a little bit about sex scenes. Kristin said her one sex scene so far was when she was going down on the new dancer at Fangtasia. She had to pop her head up from between the girl's thighs. When they were about to film it, Kristin was just kind of like, "Are you ready?" Everyone laughed when she said that. And then she said something like, "She's European. They're always ready."
Star Trek Enterprise Panel
more Scott Bakula for Amy.
We got caught in the crowd on the way out of the True Blood panel. They were trying to clear the room in sections, but it quickly turned into a free-for-all. Amy talked to Mama on the phone as we were leaving the room, and then again while we were caught in the body-to-body press of the Hyatt on the way to the outside doors. I think part of the crowdedness problem is that people get scared they'll be separated so they hold hands, and then no one can get around them. There were something like 7 or 8 versions of Lady Gaga (a gaggle of Gagas, if you will) all holding onto each other, creating a sort of blockage near the escalator. Not cool, Gagas. Also, people kept snapping my picture in the crowd.
When we finally made it out of the Hyatt, a couple of guys with a video camera asked if they could interview me. I wasn't sure what that was all about, but I cleverly fielded some questions about my home planet for them. Having not seen Avatar for months, I basically just made a bunch of shit up, but they seemed to like it. Amy said she thought I did well. Then we crossed the street to the Marriott for Scott Bakula's next panel, which is where Mama and Brad and Natalie were. They were saving seats for us, but they didn't really have to since it wasn't very crowded. We actually sat very close to the front of the room.
Scott said something about being in a different room for this panel, but the room looking almost exactly the same as the last room he did a panel in. But it was the same room.
This time, instead of Dean Stockwell, the other person on the panel was Garrett Wang, a cast regular on Star Trek Voyager and new Trek Track director of Dragon*Con. I thought it was kind of funny that Garrett wanted to be director of the Trek Track, as like, his job. But I don't know, maybe he hasn't been getting many acting gigs since Voyager went off the air.
Ensign Harry Kim and Captain Archer.
This was a fun panel, even though I'd only seen the first two episodes of Enterprise. Garrett was really funny. He did this hilarious impression of Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway from Voyager) in a bad mood on the last day of filming the series finale. Apparently, her last line is "It's good to be home," and then there's a reaction shot of each character. In his reaction shot, he wanted to show a little emotion about finally seeing Earth again after so long, so he let himself tear up a little. But during the editing process, the producers felt like he'd given them a little too much emotion for that scene, so they moved his tearful reaction to a scene about another character announcing he had a son. And Garrett was horrified when he saw it. He was like, "I don't give a poop about your kid! I just wanted to go home!" This alone makes me want to watch Voyager.
When someone asked if they stole any props from the set, Scott said that he asked if he could keep one of his uniforms. They have like 15 uniforms in various stages of combat damage, so he figured keeping one would be okay, but they told him no, and he was really disappointed. Later at a convention, while he was doing autograph signing, a fan came up to get him to sign one of the uniforms. And Scott was like, "Where did you get this??" And the fan said, "You want me to get you one?" Pretty funny. I think this shows exactly how dedicated Trek fans are.
After the panel, we stood in the Marriott for a minute talking about what we wanted to do next since we didn't have something scheduled right away. While we were talking, a girl with cat ears and a fox tail came up to me and said, "Congratulations! You're the only Na'vi I've seen." I started to say thank you, but then I stopped because it wasn't really a compliment. So I think I just stared at her. And then she turned around and showed me her tail and said something like, "I have a tail, too," and shook it at me. And I was like, "Yeah, that's cool..." And it was really awkward. And then Amy goes, "ANYway," and kept talking like the girl had never come up to us. And the girl just sort of... wandered away. We were all like, "Amy, that was so rude! ANYway." And Amy goes, "What? She was weird."
ANYway, we decided to go downstairs to pick up Amy and Mama's picture with Scott and Dean, and then we stopped in the bathroom in the Marriott before heading to the Hilton to get Scott's autograph. While we were in the bathroom, I checked my right eye because my yellow contact had been bothering me, and I could see that part of the yellow had started to kind of flake off, and it was shifting over on top of my pupil. But it was just a tiny piece, so I didn't do anything. I touched up my blue a little, and I met a girl who had painted herself white to be a lucky cat. We talked body paint for a bit and then walked outside together. When we got outside, someone wanted our picture with another girl who had painted herself a very light shade of blue. I wasn't sure what she was supposed to be at first.
I figured it out when I saw that she had white dots like me.
When her friend was like, I want a picture of you together, the blue girl said, "Not for comparison, I hope!" She was the only other Na'vi I saw for the whole con, but Mama and Amy saw a couple of really good ones later, and I saw another picture that someone else took of a spectacular girl cosplaying Neytiri. Honestly, I was shocked there weren't more of us. And disappointed that we didn't all find each other on the same day to take a picture.
How to Talk to Famous People, Part 1
First, paint yourself blue.
When we first walked in the Hilton, we stopped at an ATM for Amy to make a transaction. There was a bit of a line, and while we were waiting, some people came up and asked us what the line was for. I mention this because at Dragon*Con, it's common for people to ask what lines are for, but they're always expecting to hear that it's a particular panel or party. It's kind of funny when the answer is something like an ATM. Or if it's not a line at all but just a bunch of people hanging out in single file. People are so anxious that they might miss something, they'll freak out over a line to the bathroom.
A bunch of people took my picture inside the Hilton.
The line for Scott's autograph was pretty long. There were two separate Walk of Fame rooms across from each other this year - a giant one with almost everyone in it, and a smaller room for most of the cast of Stargate, the cast of I Dream of Jeannie, and Brandon Routh. Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell weren't in either of the two Walk of Fame rooms, though; they were located between the rooms, sort of in a booth-type thing that looked like a concession stand window. Like you could walk up and order two autographs and some nachos. But the line to their booth snaked all the way from there to the other side of the lobby area. The idea was you would walk up to a table somewhere in the middle of the room, pay for the autograph(s), and then go get in the superlong line that was sectioned off with waist-high black curtains. Amy decided she only wanted Scott's autograph, not Dean's, so she bought it, and then Mama and I stood in line with her so we could talk to him, too. I think the autograph was $75.
When we finally got to the front, Scott was sitting there behind the window looking, actually, kind of cute. I resisted the temptation to order something from him. Amy did most of the talking, and I'll be honest, I don't remember much of it, but he seemed very nice, and he told me I looked great. I do remember Amy asked him about playing a grandfather (he's Papa Jeff on The New Adventures of Old Christine, which is one of her favorite shows), and he kind of chuckled about it and said he didn't mind and it was such a fun role. I know he's a couple years older than my parents, but he really doesn't seem it when you're talking to him. He seems like at least ten years younger than he is. Pretty sure he shook Amy's hand when we left (and Mama's too, maybe?) but I didn't shake his hand because I didn't want to get him blue. He wrote on Amy's picture, "To Amy, Great Photo!"
After that, we went into the big Walk of Fame room. Of course, I checked immediately to see if Paul McGillion was there, but he wasn't at the time. I think he and Corin Nemec were the only Stargate actors set up in that room, and they weren't sitting anywhere near each other. We did a lap to check everyone out and then got down to business deciding who we wanted to talk to. We finally decided on Luke Perry, because he didn't have a long line and because he was Luke Perry.
When we went up to his table, we didn't buy anything for him to sign. He was talking to someone, but we were next. Amy and Mama were standing closer to him than I was, but I was sort of in the middle. As soon as the other guy walked away, Luke turned to us and said, "That guy was a real talker." Heh.
Amy did most of the talking here again, which was fine with me because what do I have to say to Luke Perry? "I thought you were cool when I was in 7th grade because my older sisters had crushes on you." I think Amy told him about the time we all went to the Augusta Mall and stood in line for hours to meet Jamie Walters (his 90210 castmate). While she was talking to him, though, he interrupted her in mid-sentence to turn to me and tell me I looked great. Then he gestured at me and said to her, "Sorry, we can't just pretend this isn't going on here." Which I interpreted to mean that Luke Perry thinks I have it going on. And rightly so. It's funny to imagine this from his point of view: two regular-looking women and a blue alien walk up to talk to him, and the alien just stands there quietly and listens, nodding when appropriate. It would have been weird if no one acknowledged me the whole time. Although when I was blue, I kept forgetting that I was blue, so I was startled when he mentioned it. Anyway, I thought he was very nice.
The only other celebrity we talked to on Saturday was Sam Trammell. Sam, of course, told me I looked great. (That's right - Scott Bakula, Luke Perry, and Sam Trammell all LOVE me!) I actually talked a little bit this time. I asked him about the difference between Sam on the show and Sam in the books, because isn't book!Sam Cajun? And he looked surprised at first and was like, "Cajun? Really?" and I said that book!Sam calls Sookie "cher." And then he said ahhh, and told me that "cher" was a Louisiana thing, not just a Cajun thing - although it started as a Cajun thing. And then I said that show!Sam only called Sookie cher one time - in the pilot - and did he think he would ever do it again being as how it's a Louisiana thing? And he said, "That's very observant of you!" and kind of laughed and said he didn't know, maybe he'd try to throw it in again sometime if he could remember to do it. So if Sam ever calls Sookie "cher" again, it's because I told him to.
Amy also mentioned to Sam (as an aside, in the middle of saying something else) that she pictures him when she reads the books, and he kind of did this "aw shucks" expression where he looked down, grinning, and it was too cute. I don't know if Amy noticed or not. And somehow we got on the subject of Team Bill v. Team Eric (no idea how we got there) and I think Amy said it ought to be Bill v. Eric v. Sam, and I said it ought to be Eric v. Sam v. Jason, and this seemed to amuse him. I also didn't shake his hand due to blueness, which made him sort of chuckle.
When we were leaving the Walk of Fame, some people stopped me for pictures, and then one girl squealed over the Fangtasia shirt Mama was wearing and asked if she could just take a picture of Mama's stomach. So she let her, but I think she felt pretty awkward about just being the belly in someone's picture.
We walked back to the Marriott for the big SG panel - the one about which I said I would never forgive anyone if I missed it - and there was already a line. We decided to get food before we got in the line, but the Papa John's stand that we'd gotten pizza at the day before only had one slice left. Amy got it. So Mama and I walked over to this little burger booth thing and paid $4 each for a microwaved Bubba burger on a bun and a package of ketchup. Bleh. I wouldn't complain if it had been free, but $4? Really? I can get a dollar cheeseburger at McDonalds, and that at least has cheese. But I guess they know they can jack the tourists during Dragon*Con. I mean, we paid the $4.
When we were walking from the Papa John's stand to the burger place, I happened to glance a few feet to my right at a guy who happened to be looking at me at the same time. As I walked past him, he called out, "I see you!" It took me a second, but when I got it, I thought it was pretty funny. He's the only one who acknowledged my costume without saying "avatar" or "Na'vi." Besides my boyfriends on the Walk of Fame.
The line started out inside, but after it started to get kind of long, they moved part of it out the door. We were right at the beginning of that part of the line, so we had to wait outside. While we were waiting, I saw a person in a wraith costume from SGA that was pretty cool. And people kept taking secret pictures of me. I would turn just in time to see the flash or see someone hurrying away with a camera. It was kind of funny, but I felt like they were probably getting really terrible pictures of me, and I would have been fine with looking at the camera if they asked. This one woman came up to me with her camera though, and said, "Okay, do your favorite pose!" I was just sitting on the ground. I was like, "Um, I don't really have a pose?" So she just took a picture of me sitting there smiling at her.
Amy, of course, made a BFF in the line while we waited. This one told us that she'd attempted to go to the Firefly panel (with Jewel Staite, Morena Baccarin, Sean Maher, and Summer Glau), but the line had wrapped around the Hyatt twice and eventually got cut off because the room couldn't accomodate everyone who wanted to attend.
This was a long wait. I texted a lot. And my right eye kept watering because the yellow paint flaking off of my contact was getting worse. I could actually see a giant yellow blob wherever I looked. But I didn't want to get out of line to go do something about it, and anyway I didn't have a place to put the contacts if I took them out, so I just tried not to blink very much.
Super Stargate SG-1/Atlantis/Universe Panel
You may be on DC*TV right now.
When we got into the room, I sat between Mama and Amy. The Stargate track had its own bumpers to play instead of the regular DC*TV ones, and those were on. They were pretty funny. Amy didn't get most of them because she'd only seen one episode of SG-1 (Window of Opportunity), two episodes of SGA (Duet and Sunday), and no episodes of SGU. So there was a funny little bumper where two people ascended and everyone laughed, and Amy turned to me and asked, "What's was that?" So I said, "They ascended." And she said, "Oh, is that what happens every time someone dies?" And I said, "...No." And she waited, but I couldn't think of any possible way to explain ascension in the 45 seconds before the panel started so I didn't say anything else, and she was like, "Well, if you don't want to talk to me, switch places with Mama!" I didn't end up switching, though. And now Amy is hooked on SGA, so at least I didn't spoil Tao of Rodney for her.
This panel, when it started, was a lot of fun. Right before everyone got introduced, Ben Browder and Jason Momoa came out together carrying a giant bucket of beer and stuck it in the middle of the table before walking out again. I think that sort of set the tone for the whole panel. The people there were Michael Shanks, Lexa Doig, Martin Gero, Ben Browder, Jason Momoa, Alaina Huffman, and Paul McGillion. When Lexa came out, she was carrying a little um. Hamster thing? It played music.
Michael and Lexa. And Lexa's... dancing hamster thing.
After she made it dance, Lexa asked Martin if he wanted to hold it. He said no. Heh. I think everyone up there was drinking except Martin. Or maybe Martin was, too, but he didn't come across that way at all. I would say that he was much more coherent than anyone else onstage, but that may be because he's a writer and not an actor, and he makes a living putting words together. On the other hand, I was also impressed with Ben. He's a good speaker, though I suspect he and Jason consumed the most beer.
Martin and Ben.
Jason flirted with Alaina for the entire duration of the panel. Like, very obviously. She kind of looked embarrassed, like she didn't know how to respond. It was cute. And Paul and Ben joined in the flirting, too. Lucky girl. Alaina didn't actually have many questions to answer about Stargate Universe (that I can remember) so she mostly sat up there being flirted at and looking a little confused.
Jason Momoa. Um. I want to go to there? (And also Alaina Huffman.)
At one point, a girl mentioned that it was her birthday, so Paul got her up on the stage and made everyone give her a birthday hug. Lucky! Actually, first, Paul told her to come up so Jason could give her a hug, which got an incredulous look from Jason that was pretty funny. But he did hug her, and so did everyone else as Paul marched her down the row. What a sweet guy. See, this is why Paul is my boyfriend times a thousand. (Plus he kept doing the Scottish accent. Rawr.)
Alaina and Paul.
Jason cussed a lot. For someone with so little to say, he definitely said more than his fair share of bad words. Every time he said something offensive, Ben grabbed his little nametag thing and waved it in front of Jason's face, because it said on the back something like, "You may be on DC*TV right now." I think my mom was put off a little by Jason's language, but I also think that even though he kept cussing unnecessarily, his demeanor was kind of adorable and sweet. I don't think he's a bad guy, really. But that could just be him fooling me with his prettiness.
Ronan the Barbarian.
Everyone picked on David Hewlett a lot during this panel. They said that he was definitely the most like the character he played, Dr. McKay, who is kind of a jerk. I figured it was all in good fun until Jason started talking about something he did to get back at David for making him feel stupid on set. And then I was like, wow, what a mean thing to do - making someone feel stupid on purpose. Maybe Hewlett really is a jerk? Of course, what Jason did to get back at him (my mom actually shuddered) was pretty mean, too. Still, I think I could probably forgive Jason Momoa anything. He is that pretty.
Someone asked how everyone got into acting - like what their big breakthrough was - and Paul started describing being a bartender... in Hawaii... while doing modeling... and then being cast in Baywatch... and the whole time he was talking, he was looking at Jason, who finally got up and acted like he was going to leave, as we obviously didn't need him to tell his own story. Hee. Paul is funny.
Later (or earlier?) in the panel, Jason was talking about his first scene with Paul (in the episode Runner), and he did a hilariously accurate little impression of Paul. I love it when actors do impressions of each other! It's so funny to me because they're almost always spot-on. Because they're actors and it's what they do. And this one was especially funny because Jason and Paul look absolutely nothing alike, and yet Jason's impression made me see Paul perfectly. (Kind of like Kristin Bauer's impression of Alexander Skaarsgard.)
A couple of fan faux pas: One woman said into the mic (as a preface to her question) that she's from Atlanta and "Every year we tolerate the fanboy presence..." This, in a room full of fanboys? Not cool, dude. Another fan asked what movies, tv shows, or projects the actors regretted doing. I think it was Ben who said something like, "Who actually wants to answer that?" and no one really did. Although Michael Shanks did say something about a sci-fi movie he did called Megasnake.
Dr. Daniel Jackson, role model.
Would you consider yourself an expert on dying?
Michael and Lexa actually made me a little uncomfortable during this panel. I mean, they were funny, but they picked on each other a lot. I guess that's how their relationship works. At one point, she actually got up and crossed to the other end of the table to sit near Paul instead, and Paul grabbed her and pulled her down behind the table and pretended to kiss her as a joke, and Michael said, "I hope your wallet's full." I took it to mean something about money, about Lexa maybe being a golddigger or something, but later Mama told me she thought it was a reference to having condoms. Either way, nice remark to make about your wife in front of a room full of people, huh?
[Edit: I don't think this is the panel that generated such a fuss on Joe Mallozzi's blog. I've since watched a complete video of it again and can't find any evidence of booing or heckling directed at Alaina or SGU.]
After the panel, we decided to go back to the Westin for a little while to catch up with Brad and Nat, who had at this point completely disappeared. We took a couple of pictures on the way back.
I like having a nice warm pig belly for my aching feet.
I could barely keep my eyes open because of that cheapo yellow contact. And the Japanese thing.
My mom is a fangbanger.
The first thing I did when I got back to the Westin was take out my contacts. Actually, I just took one out and was so startled at the difference between the solid yellow and my naturally hazel eyes that I went to show everyone else. They were also like whoa. And then they said that my real eyes made me look like a baby. Which... I disagree. But they are much more attractive than yellow eyes, I think.
Brad and Nat had, this whole time, been taking a nap. They claim.
So I took out my contacts and changed into a t-shirt and jeans and touched up my blue makeup, and then I was ready to leave the hotel again. Saturday night is usually the night that has the most track parties, and I was interested in going to the Star Trek one. Normally we go to the Battlestar party, but this year it wasn't in the program for some reason. I was a little diappointed, but at the same time, it gave us the opportunity to check out some other things we normally wouldn't have gone to, and that was cool.
Baby Na'vi is ready to leave the hotel room already. Although not from a flattering angle.
When we did finally leave again, it was after 8PM. We went to the consuite to see what was for dinner and ended up with - surprise! - chips and salsa. Not that I don't appreciate the consuite. I do, totally. But I'll admit I could do without some of the people who run it. When I went through the line to get my chips, a girl working there looked at me and said in this judgmental voice, "Oh, a short Na'vi." Then she said, "I like the ears, though." The oddest thing was I'm not sure who she was talking to. Was she talking to me? Because who makes comments like that to the person wearing the costume? As though the ears were the only part of it worth looking at, and hello, it took forever to do this makeup! And how am I supposed to make myself nine feet tall and proportional? I so wish people would think before they spoke. I feel sure that if everyone could just take one second before blurting out their thoughts, we'd all get along much better.
While we were sitting in the hallway eating, a guy came over and knelt down near me and wanted to talk about my makeup. He was nice, but we ran out of things to talk about really quickly and, both being complete dorks, began to feel awkward until he went away again.
We people-watched for a long time, which is something you can do for a long time at Dragon*Con without getting tired of it, and then decided to head to the Star Trek party. When we got downstairs, though, I saw the line for the D*C After Dark costume contest, and I suggested the five of us go in there for a few minutes. Just to see what kind of costumes were deemed too innappropriate for the Masquerade. And so we did.
Dragon*Con After Dark Costume Contest
Bring back Business Dragon.
Apparently the idea of a risque costume contest is a big hit among nerds. The room was so packed when we got inside that we actually had to stand up in the back of the room. We didn't mind, though, because we had not planned on staying the entire time. We stood beside another small group like ours, including this girl:
She's Gina from Empire Records. Clever costume. And inexpensive, too, especially if you've already got black underwear. (And who doesn't?)
We didn't take any pictures of other costumes during the contest. There were some good ones, but mostly the idea was to be as least-dressed as possible. There was a chair onstage, and when each sci-fi themed, scantily-clad girl came out, she generally made for the chair and attempted to do something sexy on and/or with it. We had Darth Vader's mistress, a priestess of Anubis, a cowgirl, Poison Ivy (complete with sparkly green pasties), and a couple of drunk girls who came out and pretend-fought with each other before one of them proceeded to fall flat on her face. In the male category, we had C3PO wearing a gold thong along with a white tuxedo jacket with tails, Laurent from Twilight, and... Business Dragon.
We were big fans of Business Dragon, who was essentially a dragon wearing a business suit. He came out and sat on the sexchair and pretended to do business. Like typing. He wasn't too "adult" for the Masquerade - he in fact participated in the Masquerade - and I'm not exactly sure why he decided to do Dragon*Con After Dark, but I liked his style. So did my brother, who kept yelling out things like, "Bring back Business Dragon!" whenever someone else was onstage trying to be sexy. This made the Gina cosplayer start screaming for Business Dragon as well, and soon they were BFFs.
We ended up staying to see all of the costumes, but we slipped out of the room before the judging was over, so I don't know who won. As we were leaving, one of the judges (the singer for Cruxshadows, I believe) was leading the audience through a rousing version of... Mana-mana.
We are weird people, and we do weird things.
Star Trek Party
The Adventures of Captain Boyfriend and First Officer Kilt
The Trek party was in the Sheraton, so we walked there - the creeptastic back way. I mean, one minute you're in the midst of a bunch of nerds who are screaming "Avatar!" at you, and the next you're completely alone in downtown Atlanta after dark looking for a Star Trek party that doesn't appear to be going on anywhere. We kept laughing about it, but I think we were scared. I was scared. But we managed to make it to the Sheraton without getting mugged, yay us.
Just as soon as we walked into the party, which had been going on for quite some time already, a skinny white guy came up to me and threw his arm around my neck. He was holding a drink, and he slurred right into my face, "Hey, you have clothes on! How did that happen?" I just sort of laughed and peeled myself away from him. Because I had no idea what to say.
Amy and I went out into the middle of the dance floor and started shaking our respective groove thangs while Brad and Nat went to get drinks and Mama found a place to sit. While we were dancing, a couple of people wanted my picture. One of them was a girl dressed as R2D2, which was a little odd, considering that most of the people in the party had on Star Trek uniforms (generally from The Next Generation). I talked to the R2D2 girl for several minutes. She had been dragged to the party by some of her friends, who wanted to go to all the parties at the con that night. She said she came as R2 every year, and she was always looking for a C3PO to have her picture made with, but she never saw one. I told her I'd just seen one wearing a thong, and she perked up. She was like, "Maybe he's at The Last Party on Alderaan!" Which was the Star Wars party. And I was like, "Yeah, but. He's wearing a thong."
So of course, Amy and I were checking out all the guys in their Star Fleet uniforms, as you do, and there was one that was actually kind of attractive. In a sweet way. Like, not real hunky or anything, but he looked nice in the uniform. It was one of the TNG uniforms like Captain Picard has, so we dubbed him Captain Boyfriend. And he was with a guy in a kilt whose top half was wearing another TNG uniform, only this time blue instead of red. So he became First Officer Kilt. (I think we started calling him Fok?) And we spent most of the time while we were at the party dancing and watching our Star Fleet boyfriends. That... doesn't make us creepy, does it?
Also, Brad ran into a guy he knew wearing another Star Fleet uniform. Which just further supports my theory that my brother knows at least one person in every room, everywhere.
Amy and I sat down for a minute to rest, and this guy came and stood in front of us and started twirling these, like, glowy ball things. And we were like, okay. There were also a couple of people with glowsticks between their fingers waving their hands around like we were at a rave or something. It was most definitely not a rave, but it was kind of a fun time. Garrett Wang was one of the ones with the glowsticks. At one point, he made this announcement that a couple of the Star Trek actors had shown up at the party, and I went over to hear what he was saying, and I ended up standing right next to Captain Boyfriend and Fok. Amy joined me and was like, "I know why you came over here!" Which of course made me chicken out of speaking to them. Thanks, Amy.
When we started dancing again, this drunk girl came over and grabbed my tail and started dancing around holding it. So I had to dance backward in whatever direction she went. Which was really. inconvenient.
Also, this tall black dude dressed like Picard came over and touched me on the shoulder so I'd turn around, and then he started to laugh. He didn't say this, but I got the overwhelming impression that he really wanted to see if I was black or white, and then he thought it was funny that I was white. He said, "Sorry, I just had to see your face, because I've been watching your tail for the last fifteen minutes." That made me laugh, and then he said, "And what a tail it is!" And that made me dance far, far away from him and his friend, because I have no idea how I'm supposed to respond to comments on my (admittedly) magnificent tail.
Eventually, we decided to leave the party because Mama wanted to show Amy the drum circle (she'd never been to it before) and Captain Boyfriend and Fok had left anyway. Plus we were getting hungry.
We walked back to the Hyatt to visit the consuite, but on the way there, Amy decided she wasn't interested in the drum circle after all and really just wanted to go back to the Westin to get some sleep. So we agreed to go after we got food. Sometimes the consuite pulls out some pretty delicious stuff in the middle of the night, but when we got there, it was just coleslaw, and they also had... rice and beans. But like, green beans. On the rice. With kidney beans and corn, too. It was kind of disgusting. I would have been okay with just plain rice, but the veggie medley on top was off-putting.
Also, there was a woman there who was very rude to me and my brother. I'm not going to describe our respective encounters because I don't feel like remembering this in words right now, but it makes me sad that the best Dragon*Con can do for consuite volunteers is a group of pooheads. I mean, I get it that you are bitter about being stuck in the consuite late at night when you would probably rather be sleeping, but you don't have to take it out on everyone else - especially people who are being polite to you. I have this idea that a lot of people who volunteer at D*C expect to be treated as gods or martyrs for giving up their time to serve others, but nobody forces them to be volunteers. If they can't do it with a good attitude, I wish they'd just not do it.
Oh, and there was a group of teenagers sitting outside the consuite who screamed out, "Avatar!" and when I looked over, they pretended it wasn't them. So when I looked away, they started going, "Avatar! Hey, Avatar girl!" again, but I didn't look at them. They went on like this for several minutes, trying to get me to look at them again, and I just acted like I couldn't hear them until they got frustrated and stopped calling out to me. It's weird how you can be having a great time somewhere and then suddenly hate everyone.
Amy went ahead of us back to the Westin, and we followed her after getting thoroughly PO'd at the consuite pooheads and the stupid teenagers. But we got kind of giggly taking pictures of ourselves when we got back to the room.
After I complained that I was too close to the camera, Brad leaned forward and I leaned back. These are the results.
I can't decide if this is the worst picture ever or the best one.
Also, I think Mama called downstairs for towels or something, and when there was a knock on the door, she told two of us to move out of the eyeline of the doorway because we were only supposed to have three people in the room. So I walked a couple of feet away, where I knew the maid person wouldn't be able to see me. But Brad grabbed a bag of Chex Mix and dove behind the couch.
This was not strictly necessary.
I tried to wash off most of my makeup Saturday night before getting in bed, but I was still stained blue in a couple of places. This made me nervous because, even though I knew I'd be taking a shower in the morning, it was possible that I'd still be slightly blue in my picture with Adrian Pasdar and Sendhil Ramamurthy, and I really didn't want that.
The last note I made in my notebook on Saturday night was that I stayed up until 3:39AM making notes in my notebook.
Sunday
Now with more Nerd Herdery.
I sprang out of bed at 7:50AM on Sunday to get ready for my Heroes picture. I really scrubbed my face in the shower because I was so anxious I'd leave a trace of blue, but when I got out, the only real evidence of my blueness was under and around my fingernails. There was zero I could do about that. I went ahead and put on my Nerd Herd outfit, even though I suppose I could have worn regular clothes for the picture, and I practically pushed Mama out the door because I needed someone to show me how to get to the Marriott from the Westin.
We practically ran to the Marriott. I was wearing these black boots that were ever so slightly too large for my feet, and some very thin tights, so I had definite blisters by the time we got there. Just standing still felt like my feet were on fire. Not a good way to start the day. But at least I didn't miss the picture! I was the last in line, but I made it. One of the photo volunteer people hesitated over the marker scratched-through note on my photo ticket thing, and also over the fact that there was somehow no barcode to scan on my ticket. She was like, "Did they give you anything else?" and I told her no, so she just sort of bit her lip and then nodded like it was okay.
And Sendhil and Adrian were both so nice. When I walked up, I was a little out of breath and embarrassingly sweaty, and my hair was not looking its best since I'd just run two blocks, but Adrian smiled really big and shook my hand and said, "Good morning! How are you?" and Sendhil was like, "It's a pleasure to meet you," and they both generally made me feel like I was the celebrity and they'd come to be in a photo with me. And after it was over, they thanked me before I could thank them!
I practiced being pale all morning before this photo. I think I pulled it off.
When I was leaving the photo area, a woman called out to me, "Excuse me, is that real?" I looked down at myself and couldn't figure out what she was talking about. I said, "Is what real?" And she said, "Your purse." I still had no idea what she meant, because it's clearly a real purse, so I sort of held it out so she could see it and I said, "I guess so. My sister got it for me in New York," and she said, "It's so beautiful!" So I thanked her before I walked away. This was the first time I'd carried that purse anywhere, and it was black and white with colorful little Japanese cartoon characters all over it. I asked Sara about it later, and she said that it was actually a knock-off of some kind of really expensive brand of purse. I'd had no idea, just thought it was cute, but that makes me want to carry it more often.
Here's a picture of my real fake purse.
After the photo, Mama and I went to the consuite for breakfast. It was nice. We had donuts and scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. Not like IHOP hashbrowns - like McDonalds hashbrowns. And we sat down in the little room hooked to the consuite that has real tables and chairs in it, and watched part of Zombieland, which was playing on a tv in there. And I talked on the phone to Sara, who was waiting in line at the Sheraton for her Sunday pass.
Mama and I decided to walk back to the Westin, even though my feet were killing me, to meet back up with everyone. Amy and Nat were getting ready for the day, but Brad wasn't feeling that great and had decided to hang around in the room. And make fun of the way Mama had tied our Nerd Herd ties. We were all planning to wear the ties really loose, and so the knots looked a little too big and the hangy-down part was too short. Mama gave Brad a tie and told him to tie it better.
Smartass.
While we were in the room, I took my boots off and put on four pairs of socks over my tights, then put the boots back on. It helped a little. At least my feet weren't sliding around so much. Also, we made Amy call Sara to tell her that Scott Bakula had left the con Saturday evening, because Sara didn't know and was still excited about meeting him. Amy didn't want to be the one to tell her, but she finally called, and then Sara said that she hadn't come to see Scott Bakula but to hang out with us. And to meet Scott Adsit.
Here we are in the room. With my random jazz hand.
Sara was planning to be part of our Nerd Herd as well, so we had to take her a tie and a Nerd Herd badge. Amy and Mama and Natalie and I all left the Westin together, but when we got to the corner, we split up. Mama and Nat went to wait in line for another Jeannie panel, and Amy and I headed to the Sheraton to meet up with Sara. When we got there, we gave her the tie and badge and decided that our first event of the day should be stalking celebrities. Sara was interested in meeting Scott Adsit, so we headed over to the Walk of Fame in the Hilton to see if he had a table there.
How to Talk to Famous People, Part 2
Stop breaking our hearts, Luke Perry.
We didn't see a table for Scott Adsit in the Walk of Fame, but we did see Luke Perry again. Sara decided it would be fun to buy his autograph for one of her friends, so we went up to talk to him. We walked up before the girl he'd just been talking to had left, and he said to us, "Are you stewardesses?" Then he turned to the other girl and said, "Don't they look like stewardesses?" She looked startled and then went, "Um, I guess so..."
Luke Perry is good at talking. It doesn't feel awkward to talk to him, like it can with other actors. He seems very real. And he also seems very smart. He did Sara's autograph (although he didn't sign exactly what she wanted because he'd never really say that) and then we started talking about teenage crushes and growing out of them and getting married and having children, etc. Sara did most of the talking this time. Luke asked if any of us were married or engaged, and he then he asked us each if we had children. Sara said she was going to wait until she was done with her PhD program, and he said that was a good idea, and then he asked me if I was thinking about kids, and I told him that since I was also in grad school, children were far in the future (if ever). Luke Perry recommends children, though. He has some and likes them.
Luke Perry also thinks education is important and was impressed with us for being educated. He told us that he never went to college and now all he can ever be is an actor, that if he wanted people to really take him seriously, then he would have to go back to school, and then grad school, and possibly get a PhD. My sisters told him that it wasn't too late, but he said he thought it was probably too late for him. Noooo, Luke Perry, don't say that! *clutches heart* But then Sara pointed out that she could never be an actor like him. Which I thought was a good point. But then he sort of waved that away and said, "I could have you acting in an hour." To which Amy responded that he could teach acting if he wanted to, but he balked at that. Kind of funny.
Our conversation with Luke Perry was cut short when his phone rang. It was his son. So we left while he answered it. I suggested going into the other Walk of Fame room to see if Scott Adsit was in there, but really I just wanted to look at some of the Stargate people. I got Amy to take a picture of Ben Browder at his table because I was too chicken to break the rule about not taking photos in the Walk of Fame rooms.
I'm not a stalker. I'm just persistent.
While we were in the autograph room, we saw a George Lucas look-alike and asked if we could take a picture with him. He said not right there, because of the picture rule (wow, someone who actually follows the rules!) but that he would be happy to be in a picture when we came out. So right outside the autograph room, we took a picture with him.
His name is really George!
He actually told us a funny story about the first time he was mistaken for George Lucas at a restaurant and ended up with really good service, although he didn't know why they were treating him so well until halfway through the meal. After he confessed that he wasn't that George, the service went downhill rapidly.
After we talked to George, we were standing there for a minute discussing where we wanted to go next, and Jason Momoa walked by me to go back into the autograph room. I had never swooned before this moment. He was within about a foot and a half of me, close enough that I could have touched him if I'd reached out, and it happened very quickly, but as soon as I saw him I felt all of the energy in my whole body rush out, and I nearly toppled over. I am completely serious. I could barely stand up. I'm sure he didn't even notice me - he walked by real fast and wasn't really looking around or anything - but I couldn't help staring after him while I tried to get my wobbly knees back under control. I was shocked that he didn't leave a trail of women's bodies on the floor behind him.
It's funny to me that this was the first time I'd ever felt that way. I mean, I've met plenty of celebrities in the last few years, and I've been nervous about meeting almost all of them, but never has anyone ever walked by me that came that close to making me faint just by being there. I'm putting it down to the fact that Jason Momoa is in my "top five most beautiful people alive on Earth today" list. And I'm not embarrassed that his beauty physically affected me, but I will admit that this is just proof that I could never meet David Boreanaz in person.
I told my sisters, "OMG... Jason Momoa... just walked by..." And they were just like, "Oh. Neat."
So, after Jason Momoa walked by and changed my life, we decided to go to an information booth in the Hilton to see if we could get a lead on Scott Adsit.
From Sara's con report: At the information both, we asked a skinny guy wearing a kilt if he knew where Scott Adsit would be appearing that day. The guy was very sweet, pulling out his I-phone and googling Adsit to see what he could find out. Nothing. Then the guy asked if he could take our picture, so my sisters and I posed. I asked, "Do you watch Chuck?" and he said "No." I said, "Oh, I thought that's why you asked for our picture, since we're dressed like the Nerd Herd," and he said that if the show had something called the Nerd Herd, then maybe he should watch it! As we walked away, Amy said, "That was weird." And I agreed. Why did he want our picture? Jenny said, "Because we're girls."
From there, we went to the Marriott to pick up my Heroes picture, and then we went to the Adult Swim table and talked to the director of the track it's part of to see if she had any news on Scott Adsit. She was nice enough, but basically wasn't able to help us. He'd signed up for D*C so late that he couldn't be worked into any of the existing programing, so he was just randomly showing up for different panels and sitting in. It was basically going to be hit or miss.
When we met up with Mama in the line at the Hyatt for the Heroes panel, she had been taking sneak-photos again.
Gandalf the White! (I can't see him without thinking "You so crazy.")
I mostly photoshopped away her cameltoe. You're welcome.
Mulder and Scully.
What the hell? (This is my favorite picture of the whole con. Possibly of my whole life.)
Darth Vader doesn't have time for this shit.
We got another person who was standing in the Heroes panel line to take a picture of the four of us together. I was holding my picture with Adrian and Sendhil, and she gasped and said, "You're so lucky!"
Nerd Herd! Complete with scary flesh-colored octopus hand.
Heroes Panel
as intimiate as you can get without taking off your clothes.
Brad and Natalie met up with us again in this line. So many people were joining their friends in the line that we ended up about 30 people back, although Mama was number 5 or 6 when she started placeholding. (Which is her function at conventions.) Not many people actually joined the back of the line, though. In fact: smallest panel ever. When we got in the room and sat down, I was really surprised to see that there weren't more than a couple hundred people in the entire place. Empty chairs make me sad at conventions! However, these were definitely the best seats we had during the whole time we were at D*C. Second row. Made for some pretty good pictures.
Adrian, Sendhil, and... is it bad that I forgot the other guy's name? I think it was Dave.
Since there were so few people attending this panel, there was an awkward pause while we waited for the questions to get going. And for most of the time, there were only one or two people in line to ask questions. I got really anxious that there would be another awkward pause, so while we were sitting there listening to the guys talk, I was also coming up with questions to ask them, just in case I needed to step up and save the panel. I kept thinking I was going to have to do it, but we somehow managed to get through. Which was a relief. I did enjoy hearing what the guys had to say, though. Especially Adrian. Although part of the time I just zoned out while staring at his arms.
He totally saw my mom taking this picture.
Aw, Sendhil's so cute.
I think Adrian Pasdar is super hot. His arms are whoa. So, here are more pictures of him:
Some celebrities don't really look like movie stars. They look like normal people. Adrian is not one of those celebrities. He totally looks like a movie star.
I got the feeling for the whole panel that Adrian is a really calm person all the time. Like, he seems really mellow. That's the word. Sendhil seemed kind of mellow, too, but Adrian was really... like, I think he'd be a good hypnotist. Or surfer. Or beat poet. You know?
Someone asked each of the guys to talk about scenes that were especially meaningful to them. Adrian described a scene where Milo (Peter) was leaning over him - I think Adrian was supposed to be hanging from a building? - and right in the middle of the scene, Milo blinked, and two tears fell out of his eyes, and those two tears fell right into Adrian's eyes. Weeeeeeeird. But kind of cool.
Dave (I think his name was Dave? I'm calling him Dave) said that he found the Paris scene with Greg Grunberg to be really meaningful. He um. He actually cried while he was talking about it. I guess he feels pretty connected to the show. He also admitted to writing fanfic about his character (he was the puppetmaster guy). He said that he wrote a fanfic in which he met up with Nathan Petrelli's wife and used his power to make her walk again. That's kind of a cool idea.
Sendhil at one point started talking about this fanmail stalker he had during season one. He said the show ran on Monday nights, and every Tuesday morning his agent would get these thick packets of research addressed to him that a fan was doing on people with abilities. (Adrian goes, "It was me." Heh.) He said it was mostly gibberish and that he told his agent just to start throwing the stuff away. Then Adrian was like, "No, no, he kept it all," and turned to Sendhil and said, "That guy could be here." Sendhil went on to say that the fan had planned a public demonstration of himself levitating and invited Sendhil to come see it. But he didn't make it.
I can't remember now who told this story (I think it was Adrian), but he said that it was funny working with Zachary Quinto in a scene where he had a gun, because Zach can't not do the gun sound effects. Like, whenever they rehearsed, he would do the gun sounds when he was supposed to shoot it, and that was okay because it was rehearsal, but for actual filming, he still kept doing the sounds and couldn't stop. So when he shoots the gun in that scene, they cut it so you can't see his mouth.
Adrian also told a story about how he'd been off the show for a while but they asked him back to do a brief scene where Sylar becomes him at the carnival. So he was standing there with Zach wearing the same clothes as him, waiting for the filming, and someone on the crew didn't recognize him and told him he needed to go wait with the other extras and doubles in an extra holding area. He and Zach both got a kick out of that, but Adrian went over and waited with the extras anyway. Then the same crew member came back later sheepishly and apologized after she realized who he was. Funny.
All three of the guys had fun stunt stories to tell. And Adrian and Sendhil talked a little bit about Milo and Masi and Zach. It was really interesting to me. I think it's easy to tell that the Heroes cast was close, and I always like hearing that about a show that I like. I'm still bummed that it got cancelled. Now Sendhil's on another show and Dave(?) is auditioning to be the host on The Price Is Right. I'm not sure what Adrian's plans are.
Adrian said the first Heroes panel he ever did was at Comicon, in front of thousands of fans, and it was overwhelming. He said he liked the idea that his last panel - this was the last convention he was planning on doing for a long time - was so intimate. I'm really glad I got the chance to be there. And to meet him. *single tear* He was my favorite character since the very beginning.
Luke Perry's Panel
Choke your dreams.
As soon as we came out of the Heroes panel, we saw the line for the Sean Astin and Luke Perry panel that was supposed to start at 2:30. So me, Mama, Amy, and Sara hopped in line. I had already spoken to Luke Perry twice, but I figured seeing Sean Astin again this year would be kind of cool. As it turns out, Sean Astin had had to leave the con already, so Luke Perry was going to do the panel by himself. I felt sorry for the woman who had to make this announcement. She was like, "Please stay! Luke does a really good panel!" but lots of people got up and left anyway. The room still ended up being mostly full, though, so at least Luke Perry wouldn't feel abandoned. We stayed too.
Cher's saving herself for you, Luke Perry.
Mama and Sara ended up sitting in the center section, but Amy and I sat off to one side. We all had pretty good seats, though. And it turned out to be a really good panel, like the desperate woman at the beginning promised. Luke is so articulate. He's a very good speaker, and a quick thinker. He's also diplomatic without being obviously political, and was generally fun to listen to. Good storyteller. I would go see him again.
Sara is enjoying Luke Perry's panel in a way that has become somewhat creepy.
You can see me and Amy in the background.
I think my favorite part of the panel was when someone asked him about being in the original Buffy movie. He started talking about the way the studio had treated Joss. He was like, "They said, oh, he's just the writer. They didn't know what they had - Joss Whedon! How hard are they kicking themselves in the ass now? I'll tell you. Not as hard as I'm kicking them."
I noticed during this panel that Luke Perry doesn't ever breathe. He talks pretty fast, and I know it all must come from somewhere, but there's no time for him to take a breath. I pointed this out to Amy, and she listened to him for a minute, and then turned back to me with this stunned look and was like, "You're right! When does he breathe?" I've decided he's got gills that are completely unrelated to his ability to speak so his breathing and talking can go on both at once. Which is the only logical explanation.
The first phone call he received on 9-02-10 (a few days earlier) was Jenny Garth. Funny. He said there were banners hanging up in Beverly Hills, and that it was about time. He also talked a little bit about his relationship with Aaron Spelling, which I found much more entertaining than I had expected to. I think it's just the way Luke talks. He's so interesting!
He did a pretty funny impression of Lou Ferrigno, which I will probably never forget.
At one point while he was telling a story, a baby cried in the audience, and he looked at the baby and said the next sentence of the story in a baby-talk voice. It was too cute. I realize it sounds like it would have been annoying, but it was really cute. I mean, Luke Perry talking to a baby! How is that not adorable?
Luke also said that he really enjoyed being on Spin City and what he wants to do now is comedy. So if any of us know anyone producing a comedy that needs another guy...
Some girl got up to ask him a question, and as soon as she started talking into the mic, her voice started trembling so hard that it was almost difficult to make out what she was asking. The people behind us laughed and one of them said simply, "Star struck." It was kind of sad but also kind of sweet. I can't imagine being that nervous around Luke Perry, though. He was totally down-to-earth.
Luke ended the panel with this nugget of wisdom about your goals in life: Don't just chase your dreams. Catch them. And when you catch them, choke them. Choke them down. Choke your dreams. And that way, you own them. I think this is some sage advice. From now on, I will always remember that Luke Perry told me to choke my dreams.
Good God, I'm not Done Yet!
EVEN MOAR D*C reportery is [ here]! If you're into that sort of thing.
Continued from [ here].
Brad and Nat and Mama all went to the Saturday morning I Dream of Jeannie Panel. As I understand it, I Dream of Jeannie is Natalie's one and only/first and best fandom, so it was kind of a big deal for her. Since I didn't go, I have little to say about it, but -- pictures!
These are the main people from Jeannie. They're getting pretty far along in age, but I went to see Dean Stockwell's wrinkled ass in a Friday panel, so I can't really make fun.
Natalie asked the elderly actors a question! This is her in the line.
After the panel, she met up with Sue Sylvester and some Cheerios from Glee. (And this is how Sue C's it.)
Another sneak-attack photo by my mom. I don't know what this is.
Meanwhile: True Blood again
with Sam, Pam, and Maryann! And Lafayette.
Amy and I didn't get to the panel early enough to have a good seat because I was too busy getting paparazzied, but they have big screens to watch the actors on live, and we'd already seen three of them the day before, so it was okay. Michelle Forbes was in the panel this time, along with Kristin Bauer, Sam Trammell, and Nelsan Ellis.
I wrote down in my notes that Nelsan is really smart. I didn't happen to mention why, but I think it's probably because while he was a student at Julliard, he wrote a play, which was then performed, and he won an award for it. It was about a domestic violence situation based on a true life event that happened to his sister. Someone asked where we could read the play, but he told us that since the play was so personal to him, he had not submitted it for publication anywhere. And he's not planning on it.
I also wrote down that I like the way Michelle Forbes so gracefully handles fans. I mentioned earlier that I hate it when people ask the actors to perform something during panels, and of course that happened again here. A girl said she wanted to see Michelle do the Maryann line, "Nobody wanted towels!" Michelle said, I want to see you do that line, so the girl very dramatically delivered the line the way Maryann did in the show, and then Michelle made some remark about it being as good as she could have done. Or something. Anyway, she got out of having to do it without there being any awkwardness, and I respect her for that. Of course, she's probably had a lot of practice.
Kristin said one of the very first scenes she ever filmed for True Blood was the scene in season one where she and Eric fly out of Fangtasia while Bill runs really fast after them carrying Sookie. For that scene, they all had to stand on a little wooden platform and get pulled around, and they did it over and over, trying different little things to make it look like they were flying - like leaning forward. She said she felt ridiculous and wondered what in the world she'd gotten herself into. And meanwhile someone's fanning them to make Eric's wig flutter. Heh.
Nelsan said the worst experience he had with special effects was being tied to the guy who plays Jesus and having a camera strapped to them at the same time for the wonky high-on-V scenes they did. Although it ended up looking pretty good.
Sam said he felt sorry for all the people who had to do the orgy scenes because they were out there filming naked outside in the middle of the night and it was about thirty degrees. But them someone - I think it was Michelle? Or maybe Kristin? - said they'd heard some of the extras had a lot of fun doing those scenes.
Let's see... Kristin said every time she has a line in Swedish, Alex records himself saying the line for her and she listens to it over and over on her ipod to learn it. She did her Alexander Skaarsgard impression again when she told us that. Funny.
I ended up really liking Kristin. Although I was surprised when one of the fan questions made her cry. Someone asked about the family dynamics being examined in season three (there was only one episode left of season three at the time of this panel), specifically about Lafayette and his mother, Sam and his biological family, and Pam and Eric. When it was Kristin's turn to answer, she got all choked up talking about the father/daughter dynamic, which is something she considers very special. She said acting this relationship is even more meaningful because she and Alex are close friends in real life.
They also talked a little bit about sex scenes. Kristin said her one sex scene so far was when she was going down on the new dancer at Fangtasia. She had to pop her head up from between the girl's thighs. When they were about to film it, Kristin was just kind of like, "Are you ready?" Everyone laughed when she said that. And then she said something like, "She's European. They're always ready."
Star Trek Enterprise Panel
more Scott Bakula for Amy.
We got caught in the crowd on the way out of the True Blood panel. They were trying to clear the room in sections, but it quickly turned into a free-for-all. Amy talked to Mama on the phone as we were leaving the room, and then again while we were caught in the body-to-body press of the Hyatt on the way to the outside doors. I think part of the crowdedness problem is that people get scared they'll be separated so they hold hands, and then no one can get around them. There were something like 7 or 8 versions of Lady Gaga (a gaggle of Gagas, if you will) all holding onto each other, creating a sort of blockage near the escalator. Not cool, Gagas. Also, people kept snapping my picture in the crowd.
When we finally made it out of the Hyatt, a couple of guys with a video camera asked if they could interview me. I wasn't sure what that was all about, but I cleverly fielded some questions about my home planet for them. Having not seen Avatar for months, I basically just made a bunch of shit up, but they seemed to like it. Amy said she thought I did well. Then we crossed the street to the Marriott for Scott Bakula's next panel, which is where Mama and Brad and Natalie were. They were saving seats for us, but they didn't really have to since it wasn't very crowded. We actually sat very close to the front of the room.
Scott said something about being in a different room for this panel, but the room looking almost exactly the same as the last room he did a panel in. But it was the same room.
This time, instead of Dean Stockwell, the other person on the panel was Garrett Wang, a cast regular on Star Trek Voyager and new Trek Track director of Dragon*Con. I thought it was kind of funny that Garrett wanted to be director of the Trek Track, as like, his job. But I don't know, maybe he hasn't been getting many acting gigs since Voyager went off the air.
Ensign Harry Kim and Captain Archer.
This was a fun panel, even though I'd only seen the first two episodes of Enterprise. Garrett was really funny. He did this hilarious impression of Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway from Voyager) in a bad mood on the last day of filming the series finale. Apparently, her last line is "It's good to be home," and then there's a reaction shot of each character. In his reaction shot, he wanted to show a little emotion about finally seeing Earth again after so long, so he let himself tear up a little. But during the editing process, the producers felt like he'd given them a little too much emotion for that scene, so they moved his tearful reaction to a scene about another character announcing he had a son. And Garrett was horrified when he saw it. He was like, "I don't give a poop about your kid! I just wanted to go home!" This alone makes me want to watch Voyager.
When someone asked if they stole any props from the set, Scott said that he asked if he could keep one of his uniforms. They have like 15 uniforms in various stages of combat damage, so he figured keeping one would be okay, but they told him no, and he was really disappointed. Later at a convention, while he was doing autograph signing, a fan came up to get him to sign one of the uniforms. And Scott was like, "Where did you get this??" And the fan said, "You want me to get you one?" Pretty funny. I think this shows exactly how dedicated Trek fans are.
After the panel, we stood in the Marriott for a minute talking about what we wanted to do next since we didn't have something scheduled right away. While we were talking, a girl with cat ears and a fox tail came up to me and said, "Congratulations! You're the only Na'vi I've seen." I started to say thank you, but then I stopped because it wasn't really a compliment. So I think I just stared at her. And then she turned around and showed me her tail and said something like, "I have a tail, too," and shook it at me. And I was like, "Yeah, that's cool..." And it was really awkward. And then Amy goes, "ANYway," and kept talking like the girl had never come up to us. And the girl just sort of... wandered away. We were all like, "Amy, that was so rude! ANYway." And Amy goes, "What? She was weird."
ANYway, we decided to go downstairs to pick up Amy and Mama's picture with Scott and Dean, and then we stopped in the bathroom in the Marriott before heading to the Hilton to get Scott's autograph. While we were in the bathroom, I checked my right eye because my yellow contact had been bothering me, and I could see that part of the yellow had started to kind of flake off, and it was shifting over on top of my pupil. But it was just a tiny piece, so I didn't do anything. I touched up my blue a little, and I met a girl who had painted herself white to be a lucky cat. We talked body paint for a bit and then walked outside together. When we got outside, someone wanted our picture with another girl who had painted herself a very light shade of blue. I wasn't sure what she was supposed to be at first.
I figured it out when I saw that she had white dots like me.
When her friend was like, I want a picture of you together, the blue girl said, "Not for comparison, I hope!" She was the only other Na'vi I saw for the whole con, but Mama and Amy saw a couple of really good ones later, and I saw another picture that someone else took of a spectacular girl cosplaying Neytiri. Honestly, I was shocked there weren't more of us. And disappointed that we didn't all find each other on the same day to take a picture.
How to Talk to Famous People, Part 1
First, paint yourself blue.
When we first walked in the Hilton, we stopped at an ATM for Amy to make a transaction. There was a bit of a line, and while we were waiting, some people came up and asked us what the line was for. I mention this because at Dragon*Con, it's common for people to ask what lines are for, but they're always expecting to hear that it's a particular panel or party. It's kind of funny when the answer is something like an ATM. Or if it's not a line at all but just a bunch of people hanging out in single file. People are so anxious that they might miss something, they'll freak out over a line to the bathroom.
A bunch of people took my picture inside the Hilton.
The line for Scott's autograph was pretty long. There were two separate Walk of Fame rooms across from each other this year - a giant one with almost everyone in it, and a smaller room for most of the cast of Stargate, the cast of I Dream of Jeannie, and Brandon Routh. Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell weren't in either of the two Walk of Fame rooms, though; they were located between the rooms, sort of in a booth-type thing that looked like a concession stand window. Like you could walk up and order two autographs and some nachos. But the line to their booth snaked all the way from there to the other side of the lobby area. The idea was you would walk up to a table somewhere in the middle of the room, pay for the autograph(s), and then go get in the superlong line that was sectioned off with waist-high black curtains. Amy decided she only wanted Scott's autograph, not Dean's, so she bought it, and then Mama and I stood in line with her so we could talk to him, too. I think the autograph was $75.
When we finally got to the front, Scott was sitting there behind the window looking, actually, kind of cute. I resisted the temptation to order something from him. Amy did most of the talking, and I'll be honest, I don't remember much of it, but he seemed very nice, and he told me I looked great. I do remember Amy asked him about playing a grandfather (he's Papa Jeff on The New Adventures of Old Christine, which is one of her favorite shows), and he kind of chuckled about it and said he didn't mind and it was such a fun role. I know he's a couple years older than my parents, but he really doesn't seem it when you're talking to him. He seems like at least ten years younger than he is. Pretty sure he shook Amy's hand when we left (and Mama's too, maybe?) but I didn't shake his hand because I didn't want to get him blue. He wrote on Amy's picture, "To Amy, Great Photo!"
After that, we went into the big Walk of Fame room. Of course, I checked immediately to see if Paul McGillion was there, but he wasn't at the time. I think he and Corin Nemec were the only Stargate actors set up in that room, and they weren't sitting anywhere near each other. We did a lap to check everyone out and then got down to business deciding who we wanted to talk to. We finally decided on Luke Perry, because he didn't have a long line and because he was Luke Perry.
When we went up to his table, we didn't buy anything for him to sign. He was talking to someone, but we were next. Amy and Mama were standing closer to him than I was, but I was sort of in the middle. As soon as the other guy walked away, Luke turned to us and said, "That guy was a real talker." Heh.
Amy did most of the talking here again, which was fine with me because what do I have to say to Luke Perry? "I thought you were cool when I was in 7th grade because my older sisters had crushes on you." I think Amy told him about the time we all went to the Augusta Mall and stood in line for hours to meet Jamie Walters (his 90210 castmate). While she was talking to him, though, he interrupted her in mid-sentence to turn to me and tell me I looked great. Then he gestured at me and said to her, "Sorry, we can't just pretend this isn't going on here." Which I interpreted to mean that Luke Perry thinks I have it going on. And rightly so. It's funny to imagine this from his point of view: two regular-looking women and a blue alien walk up to talk to him, and the alien just stands there quietly and listens, nodding when appropriate. It would have been weird if no one acknowledged me the whole time. Although when I was blue, I kept forgetting that I was blue, so I was startled when he mentioned it. Anyway, I thought he was very nice.
The only other celebrity we talked to on Saturday was Sam Trammell. Sam, of course, told me I looked great. (That's right - Scott Bakula, Luke Perry, and Sam Trammell all LOVE me!) I actually talked a little bit this time. I asked him about the difference between Sam on the show and Sam in the books, because isn't book!Sam Cajun? And he looked surprised at first and was like, "Cajun? Really?" and I said that book!Sam calls Sookie "cher." And then he said ahhh, and told me that "cher" was a Louisiana thing, not just a Cajun thing - although it started as a Cajun thing. And then I said that show!Sam only called Sookie cher one time - in the pilot - and did he think he would ever do it again being as how it's a Louisiana thing? And he said, "That's very observant of you!" and kind of laughed and said he didn't know, maybe he'd try to throw it in again sometime if he could remember to do it. So if Sam ever calls Sookie "cher" again, it's because I told him to.
Amy also mentioned to Sam (as an aside, in the middle of saying something else) that she pictures him when she reads the books, and he kind of did this "aw shucks" expression where he looked down, grinning, and it was too cute. I don't know if Amy noticed or not. And somehow we got on the subject of Team Bill v. Team Eric (no idea how we got there) and I think Amy said it ought to be Bill v. Eric v. Sam, and I said it ought to be Eric v. Sam v. Jason, and this seemed to amuse him. I also didn't shake his hand due to blueness, which made him sort of chuckle.
When we were leaving the Walk of Fame, some people stopped me for pictures, and then one girl squealed over the Fangtasia shirt Mama was wearing and asked if she could just take a picture of Mama's stomach. So she let her, but I think she felt pretty awkward about just being the belly in someone's picture.
We walked back to the Marriott for the big SG panel - the one about which I said I would never forgive anyone if I missed it - and there was already a line. We decided to get food before we got in the line, but the Papa John's stand that we'd gotten pizza at the day before only had one slice left. Amy got it. So Mama and I walked over to this little burger booth thing and paid $4 each for a microwaved Bubba burger on a bun and a package of ketchup. Bleh. I wouldn't complain if it had been free, but $4? Really? I can get a dollar cheeseburger at McDonalds, and that at least has cheese. But I guess they know they can jack the tourists during Dragon*Con. I mean, we paid the $4.
When we were walking from the Papa John's stand to the burger place, I happened to glance a few feet to my right at a guy who happened to be looking at me at the same time. As I walked past him, he called out, "I see you!" It took me a second, but when I got it, I thought it was pretty funny. He's the only one who acknowledged my costume without saying "avatar" or "Na'vi." Besides my boyfriends on the Walk of Fame.
The line started out inside, but after it started to get kind of long, they moved part of it out the door. We were right at the beginning of that part of the line, so we had to wait outside. While we were waiting, I saw a person in a wraith costume from SGA that was pretty cool. And people kept taking secret pictures of me. I would turn just in time to see the flash or see someone hurrying away with a camera. It was kind of funny, but I felt like they were probably getting really terrible pictures of me, and I would have been fine with looking at the camera if they asked. This one woman came up to me with her camera though, and said, "Okay, do your favorite pose!" I was just sitting on the ground. I was like, "Um, I don't really have a pose?" So she just took a picture of me sitting there smiling at her.
Amy, of course, made a BFF in the line while we waited. This one told us that she'd attempted to go to the Firefly panel (with Jewel Staite, Morena Baccarin, Sean Maher, and Summer Glau), but the line had wrapped around the Hyatt twice and eventually got cut off because the room couldn't accomodate everyone who wanted to attend.
This was a long wait. I texted a lot. And my right eye kept watering because the yellow paint flaking off of my contact was getting worse. I could actually see a giant yellow blob wherever I looked. But I didn't want to get out of line to go do something about it, and anyway I didn't have a place to put the contacts if I took them out, so I just tried not to blink very much.
Super Stargate SG-1/Atlantis/Universe Panel
You may be on DC*TV right now.
When we got into the room, I sat between Mama and Amy. The Stargate track had its own bumpers to play instead of the regular DC*TV ones, and those were on. They were pretty funny. Amy didn't get most of them because she'd only seen one episode of SG-1 (Window of Opportunity), two episodes of SGA (Duet and Sunday), and no episodes of SGU. So there was a funny little bumper where two people ascended and everyone laughed, and Amy turned to me and asked, "What's was that?" So I said, "They ascended." And she said, "Oh, is that what happens every time someone dies?" And I said, "...No." And she waited, but I couldn't think of any possible way to explain ascension in the 45 seconds before the panel started so I didn't say anything else, and she was like, "Well, if you don't want to talk to me, switch places with Mama!" I didn't end up switching, though. And now Amy is hooked on SGA, so at least I didn't spoil Tao of Rodney for her.
This panel, when it started, was a lot of fun. Right before everyone got introduced, Ben Browder and Jason Momoa came out together carrying a giant bucket of beer and stuck it in the middle of the table before walking out again. I think that sort of set the tone for the whole panel. The people there were Michael Shanks, Lexa Doig, Martin Gero, Ben Browder, Jason Momoa, Alaina Huffman, and Paul McGillion. When Lexa came out, she was carrying a little um. Hamster thing? It played music.
Michael and Lexa. And Lexa's... dancing hamster thing.
After she made it dance, Lexa asked Martin if he wanted to hold it. He said no. Heh. I think everyone up there was drinking except Martin. Or maybe Martin was, too, but he didn't come across that way at all. I would say that he was much more coherent than anyone else onstage, but that may be because he's a writer and not an actor, and he makes a living putting words together. On the other hand, I was also impressed with Ben. He's a good speaker, though I suspect he and Jason consumed the most beer.
Martin and Ben.
Jason flirted with Alaina for the entire duration of the panel. Like, very obviously. She kind of looked embarrassed, like she didn't know how to respond. It was cute. And Paul and Ben joined in the flirting, too. Lucky girl. Alaina didn't actually have many questions to answer about Stargate Universe (that I can remember) so she mostly sat up there being flirted at and looking a little confused.
Jason Momoa. Um. I want to go to there? (And also Alaina Huffman.)
At one point, a girl mentioned that it was her birthday, so Paul got her up on the stage and made everyone give her a birthday hug. Lucky! Actually, first, Paul told her to come up so Jason could give her a hug, which got an incredulous look from Jason that was pretty funny. But he did hug her, and so did everyone else as Paul marched her down the row. What a sweet guy. See, this is why Paul is my boyfriend times a thousand. (Plus he kept doing the Scottish accent. Rawr.)
Alaina and Paul.
Jason cussed a lot. For someone with so little to say, he definitely said more than his fair share of bad words. Every time he said something offensive, Ben grabbed his little nametag thing and waved it in front of Jason's face, because it said on the back something like, "You may be on DC*TV right now." I think my mom was put off a little by Jason's language, but I also think that even though he kept cussing unnecessarily, his demeanor was kind of adorable and sweet. I don't think he's a bad guy, really. But that could just be him fooling me with his prettiness.
Ronan the Barbarian.
Everyone picked on David Hewlett a lot during this panel. They said that he was definitely the most like the character he played, Dr. McKay, who is kind of a jerk. I figured it was all in good fun until Jason started talking about something he did to get back at David for making him feel stupid on set. And then I was like, wow, what a mean thing to do - making someone feel stupid on purpose. Maybe Hewlett really is a jerk? Of course, what Jason did to get back at him (my mom actually shuddered) was pretty mean, too. Still, I think I could probably forgive Jason Momoa anything. He is that pretty.
Someone asked how everyone got into acting - like what their big breakthrough was - and Paul started describing being a bartender... in Hawaii... while doing modeling... and then being cast in Baywatch... and the whole time he was talking, he was looking at Jason, who finally got up and acted like he was going to leave, as we obviously didn't need him to tell his own story. Hee. Paul is funny.
Later (or earlier?) in the panel, Jason was talking about his first scene with Paul (in the episode Runner), and he did a hilariously accurate little impression of Paul. I love it when actors do impressions of each other! It's so funny to me because they're almost always spot-on. Because they're actors and it's what they do. And this one was especially funny because Jason and Paul look absolutely nothing alike, and yet Jason's impression made me see Paul perfectly. (Kind of like Kristin Bauer's impression of Alexander Skaarsgard.)
A couple of fan faux pas: One woman said into the mic (as a preface to her question) that she's from Atlanta and "Every year we tolerate the fanboy presence..." This, in a room full of fanboys? Not cool, dude. Another fan asked what movies, tv shows, or projects the actors regretted doing. I think it was Ben who said something like, "Who actually wants to answer that?" and no one really did. Although Michael Shanks did say something about a sci-fi movie he did called Megasnake.
Dr. Daniel Jackson, role model.
Would you consider yourself an expert on dying?
Michael and Lexa actually made me a little uncomfortable during this panel. I mean, they were funny, but they picked on each other a lot. I guess that's how their relationship works. At one point, she actually got up and crossed to the other end of the table to sit near Paul instead, and Paul grabbed her and pulled her down behind the table and pretended to kiss her as a joke, and Michael said, "I hope your wallet's full." I took it to mean something about money, about Lexa maybe being a golddigger or something, but later Mama told me she thought it was a reference to having condoms. Either way, nice remark to make about your wife in front of a room full of people, huh?
[Edit: I don't think this is the panel that generated such a fuss on Joe Mallozzi's blog. I've since watched a complete video of it again and can't find any evidence of booing or heckling directed at Alaina or SGU.]
After the panel, we decided to go back to the Westin for a little while to catch up with Brad and Nat, who had at this point completely disappeared. We took a couple of pictures on the way back.
I like having a nice warm pig belly for my aching feet.
I could barely keep my eyes open because of that cheapo yellow contact. And the Japanese thing.
My mom is a fangbanger.
The first thing I did when I got back to the Westin was take out my contacts. Actually, I just took one out and was so startled at the difference between the solid yellow and my naturally hazel eyes that I went to show everyone else. They were also like whoa. And then they said that my real eyes made me look like a baby. Which... I disagree. But they are much more attractive than yellow eyes, I think.
Brad and Nat had, this whole time, been taking a nap. They claim.
So I took out my contacts and changed into a t-shirt and jeans and touched up my blue makeup, and then I was ready to leave the hotel again. Saturday night is usually the night that has the most track parties, and I was interested in going to the Star Trek one. Normally we go to the Battlestar party, but this year it wasn't in the program for some reason. I was a little diappointed, but at the same time, it gave us the opportunity to check out some other things we normally wouldn't have gone to, and that was cool.
Baby Na'vi is ready to leave the hotel room already. Although not from a flattering angle.
When we did finally leave again, it was after 8PM. We went to the consuite to see what was for dinner and ended up with - surprise! - chips and salsa. Not that I don't appreciate the consuite. I do, totally. But I'll admit I could do without some of the people who run it. When I went through the line to get my chips, a girl working there looked at me and said in this judgmental voice, "Oh, a short Na'vi." Then she said, "I like the ears, though." The oddest thing was I'm not sure who she was talking to. Was she talking to me? Because who makes comments like that to the person wearing the costume? As though the ears were the only part of it worth looking at, and hello, it took forever to do this makeup! And how am I supposed to make myself nine feet tall and proportional? I so wish people would think before they spoke. I feel sure that if everyone could just take one second before blurting out their thoughts, we'd all get along much better.
While we were sitting in the hallway eating, a guy came over and knelt down near me and wanted to talk about my makeup. He was nice, but we ran out of things to talk about really quickly and, both being complete dorks, began to feel awkward until he went away again.
We people-watched for a long time, which is something you can do for a long time at Dragon*Con without getting tired of it, and then decided to head to the Star Trek party. When we got downstairs, though, I saw the line for the D*C After Dark costume contest, and I suggested the five of us go in there for a few minutes. Just to see what kind of costumes were deemed too innappropriate for the Masquerade. And so we did.
Dragon*Con After Dark Costume Contest
Bring back Business Dragon.
Apparently the idea of a risque costume contest is a big hit among nerds. The room was so packed when we got inside that we actually had to stand up in the back of the room. We didn't mind, though, because we had not planned on staying the entire time. We stood beside another small group like ours, including this girl:
She's Gina from Empire Records. Clever costume. And inexpensive, too, especially if you've already got black underwear. (And who doesn't?)
We didn't take any pictures of other costumes during the contest. There were some good ones, but mostly the idea was to be as least-dressed as possible. There was a chair onstage, and when each sci-fi themed, scantily-clad girl came out, she generally made for the chair and attempted to do something sexy on and/or with it. We had Darth Vader's mistress, a priestess of Anubis, a cowgirl, Poison Ivy (complete with sparkly green pasties), and a couple of drunk girls who came out and pretend-fought with each other before one of them proceeded to fall flat on her face. In the male category, we had C3PO wearing a gold thong along with a white tuxedo jacket with tails, Laurent from Twilight, and... Business Dragon.
We were big fans of Business Dragon, who was essentially a dragon wearing a business suit. He came out and sat on the sexchair and pretended to do business. Like typing. He wasn't too "adult" for the Masquerade - he in fact participated in the Masquerade - and I'm not exactly sure why he decided to do Dragon*Con After Dark, but I liked his style. So did my brother, who kept yelling out things like, "Bring back Business Dragon!" whenever someone else was onstage trying to be sexy. This made the Gina cosplayer start screaming for Business Dragon as well, and soon they were BFFs.
We ended up staying to see all of the costumes, but we slipped out of the room before the judging was over, so I don't know who won. As we were leaving, one of the judges (the singer for Cruxshadows, I believe) was leading the audience through a rousing version of... Mana-mana.
We are weird people, and we do weird things.
Star Trek Party
The Adventures of Captain Boyfriend and First Officer Kilt
The Trek party was in the Sheraton, so we walked there - the creeptastic back way. I mean, one minute you're in the midst of a bunch of nerds who are screaming "Avatar!" at you, and the next you're completely alone in downtown Atlanta after dark looking for a Star Trek party that doesn't appear to be going on anywhere. We kept laughing about it, but I think we were scared. I was scared. But we managed to make it to the Sheraton without getting mugged, yay us.
Just as soon as we walked into the party, which had been going on for quite some time already, a skinny white guy came up to me and threw his arm around my neck. He was holding a drink, and he slurred right into my face, "Hey, you have clothes on! How did that happen?" I just sort of laughed and peeled myself away from him. Because I had no idea what to say.
Amy and I went out into the middle of the dance floor and started shaking our respective groove thangs while Brad and Nat went to get drinks and Mama found a place to sit. While we were dancing, a couple of people wanted my picture. One of them was a girl dressed as R2D2, which was a little odd, considering that most of the people in the party had on Star Trek uniforms (generally from The Next Generation). I talked to the R2D2 girl for several minutes. She had been dragged to the party by some of her friends, who wanted to go to all the parties at the con that night. She said she came as R2 every year, and she was always looking for a C3PO to have her picture made with, but she never saw one. I told her I'd just seen one wearing a thong, and she perked up. She was like, "Maybe he's at The Last Party on Alderaan!" Which was the Star Wars party. And I was like, "Yeah, but. He's wearing a thong."
So of course, Amy and I were checking out all the guys in their Star Fleet uniforms, as you do, and there was one that was actually kind of attractive. In a sweet way. Like, not real hunky or anything, but he looked nice in the uniform. It was one of the TNG uniforms like Captain Picard has, so we dubbed him Captain Boyfriend. And he was with a guy in a kilt whose top half was wearing another TNG uniform, only this time blue instead of red. So he became First Officer Kilt. (I think we started calling him Fok?) And we spent most of the time while we were at the party dancing and watching our Star Fleet boyfriends. That... doesn't make us creepy, does it?
Also, Brad ran into a guy he knew wearing another Star Fleet uniform. Which just further supports my theory that my brother knows at least one person in every room, everywhere.
Amy and I sat down for a minute to rest, and this guy came and stood in front of us and started twirling these, like, glowy ball things. And we were like, okay. There were also a couple of people with glowsticks between their fingers waving their hands around like we were at a rave or something. It was most definitely not a rave, but it was kind of a fun time. Garrett Wang was one of the ones with the glowsticks. At one point, he made this announcement that a couple of the Star Trek actors had shown up at the party, and I went over to hear what he was saying, and I ended up standing right next to Captain Boyfriend and Fok. Amy joined me and was like, "I know why you came over here!" Which of course made me chicken out of speaking to them. Thanks, Amy.
When we started dancing again, this drunk girl came over and grabbed my tail and started dancing around holding it. So I had to dance backward in whatever direction she went. Which was really. inconvenient.
Also, this tall black dude dressed like Picard came over and touched me on the shoulder so I'd turn around, and then he started to laugh. He didn't say this, but I got the overwhelming impression that he really wanted to see if I was black or white, and then he thought it was funny that I was white. He said, "Sorry, I just had to see your face, because I've been watching your tail for the last fifteen minutes." That made me laugh, and then he said, "And what a tail it is!" And that made me dance far, far away from him and his friend, because I have no idea how I'm supposed to respond to comments on my (admittedly) magnificent tail.
Eventually, we decided to leave the party because Mama wanted to show Amy the drum circle (she'd never been to it before) and Captain Boyfriend and Fok had left anyway. Plus we were getting hungry.
We walked back to the Hyatt to visit the consuite, but on the way there, Amy decided she wasn't interested in the drum circle after all and really just wanted to go back to the Westin to get some sleep. So we agreed to go after we got food. Sometimes the consuite pulls out some pretty delicious stuff in the middle of the night, but when we got there, it was just coleslaw, and they also had... rice and beans. But like, green beans. On the rice. With kidney beans and corn, too. It was kind of disgusting. I would have been okay with just plain rice, but the veggie medley on top was off-putting.
Also, there was a woman there who was very rude to me and my brother. I'm not going to describe our respective encounters because I don't feel like remembering this in words right now, but it makes me sad that the best Dragon*Con can do for consuite volunteers is a group of pooheads. I mean, I get it that you are bitter about being stuck in the consuite late at night when you would probably rather be sleeping, but you don't have to take it out on everyone else - especially people who are being polite to you. I have this idea that a lot of people who volunteer at D*C expect to be treated as gods or martyrs for giving up their time to serve others, but nobody forces them to be volunteers. If they can't do it with a good attitude, I wish they'd just not do it.
Oh, and there was a group of teenagers sitting outside the consuite who screamed out, "Avatar!" and when I looked over, they pretended it wasn't them. So when I looked away, they started going, "Avatar! Hey, Avatar girl!" again, but I didn't look at them. They went on like this for several minutes, trying to get me to look at them again, and I just acted like I couldn't hear them until they got frustrated and stopped calling out to me. It's weird how you can be having a great time somewhere and then suddenly hate everyone.
Amy went ahead of us back to the Westin, and we followed her after getting thoroughly PO'd at the consuite pooheads and the stupid teenagers. But we got kind of giggly taking pictures of ourselves when we got back to the room.
After I complained that I was too close to the camera, Brad leaned forward and I leaned back. These are the results.
I can't decide if this is the worst picture ever or the best one.
Also, I think Mama called downstairs for towels or something, and when there was a knock on the door, she told two of us to move out of the eyeline of the doorway because we were only supposed to have three people in the room. So I walked a couple of feet away, where I knew the maid person wouldn't be able to see me. But Brad grabbed a bag of Chex Mix and dove behind the couch.
This was not strictly necessary.
I tried to wash off most of my makeup Saturday night before getting in bed, but I was still stained blue in a couple of places. This made me nervous because, even though I knew I'd be taking a shower in the morning, it was possible that I'd still be slightly blue in my picture with Adrian Pasdar and Sendhil Ramamurthy, and I really didn't want that.
The last note I made in my notebook on Saturday night was that I stayed up until 3:39AM making notes in my notebook.
Sunday
Now with more Nerd Herdery.
I sprang out of bed at 7:50AM on Sunday to get ready for my Heroes picture. I really scrubbed my face in the shower because I was so anxious I'd leave a trace of blue, but when I got out, the only real evidence of my blueness was under and around my fingernails. There was zero I could do about that. I went ahead and put on my Nerd Herd outfit, even though I suppose I could have worn regular clothes for the picture, and I practically pushed Mama out the door because I needed someone to show me how to get to the Marriott from the Westin.
We practically ran to the Marriott. I was wearing these black boots that were ever so slightly too large for my feet, and some very thin tights, so I had definite blisters by the time we got there. Just standing still felt like my feet were on fire. Not a good way to start the day. But at least I didn't miss the picture! I was the last in line, but I made it. One of the photo volunteer people hesitated over the marker scratched-through note on my photo ticket thing, and also over the fact that there was somehow no barcode to scan on my ticket. She was like, "Did they give you anything else?" and I told her no, so she just sort of bit her lip and then nodded like it was okay.
And Sendhil and Adrian were both so nice. When I walked up, I was a little out of breath and embarrassingly sweaty, and my hair was not looking its best since I'd just run two blocks, but Adrian smiled really big and shook my hand and said, "Good morning! How are you?" and Sendhil was like, "It's a pleasure to meet you," and they both generally made me feel like I was the celebrity and they'd come to be in a photo with me. And after it was over, they thanked me before I could thank them!
I practiced being pale all morning before this photo. I think I pulled it off.
When I was leaving the photo area, a woman called out to me, "Excuse me, is that real?" I looked down at myself and couldn't figure out what she was talking about. I said, "Is what real?" And she said, "Your purse." I still had no idea what she meant, because it's clearly a real purse, so I sort of held it out so she could see it and I said, "I guess so. My sister got it for me in New York," and she said, "It's so beautiful!" So I thanked her before I walked away. This was the first time I'd carried that purse anywhere, and it was black and white with colorful little Japanese cartoon characters all over it. I asked Sara about it later, and she said that it was actually a knock-off of some kind of really expensive brand of purse. I'd had no idea, just thought it was cute, but that makes me want to carry it more often.
Here's a picture of my real fake purse.
After the photo, Mama and I went to the consuite for breakfast. It was nice. We had donuts and scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. Not like IHOP hashbrowns - like McDonalds hashbrowns. And we sat down in the little room hooked to the consuite that has real tables and chairs in it, and watched part of Zombieland, which was playing on a tv in there. And I talked on the phone to Sara, who was waiting in line at the Sheraton for her Sunday pass.
Mama and I decided to walk back to the Westin, even though my feet were killing me, to meet back up with everyone. Amy and Nat were getting ready for the day, but Brad wasn't feeling that great and had decided to hang around in the room. And make fun of the way Mama had tied our Nerd Herd ties. We were all planning to wear the ties really loose, and so the knots looked a little too big and the hangy-down part was too short. Mama gave Brad a tie and told him to tie it better.
Smartass.
While we were in the room, I took my boots off and put on four pairs of socks over my tights, then put the boots back on. It helped a little. At least my feet weren't sliding around so much. Also, we made Amy call Sara to tell her that Scott Bakula had left the con Saturday evening, because Sara didn't know and was still excited about meeting him. Amy didn't want to be the one to tell her, but she finally called, and then Sara said that she hadn't come to see Scott Bakula but to hang out with us. And to meet Scott Adsit.
Here we are in the room. With my random jazz hand.
Sara was planning to be part of our Nerd Herd as well, so we had to take her a tie and a Nerd Herd badge. Amy and Mama and Natalie and I all left the Westin together, but when we got to the corner, we split up. Mama and Nat went to wait in line for another Jeannie panel, and Amy and I headed to the Sheraton to meet up with Sara. When we got there, we gave her the tie and badge and decided that our first event of the day should be stalking celebrities. Sara was interested in meeting Scott Adsit, so we headed over to the Walk of Fame in the Hilton to see if he had a table there.
How to Talk to Famous People, Part 2
Stop breaking our hearts, Luke Perry.
We didn't see a table for Scott Adsit in the Walk of Fame, but we did see Luke Perry again. Sara decided it would be fun to buy his autograph for one of her friends, so we went up to talk to him. We walked up before the girl he'd just been talking to had left, and he said to us, "Are you stewardesses?" Then he turned to the other girl and said, "Don't they look like stewardesses?" She looked startled and then went, "Um, I guess so..."
Luke Perry is good at talking. It doesn't feel awkward to talk to him, like it can with other actors. He seems very real. And he also seems very smart. He did Sara's autograph (although he didn't sign exactly what she wanted because he'd never really say that) and then we started talking about teenage crushes and growing out of them and getting married and having children, etc. Sara did most of the talking this time. Luke asked if any of us were married or engaged, and he then he asked us each if we had children. Sara said she was going to wait until she was done with her PhD program, and he said that was a good idea, and then he asked me if I was thinking about kids, and I told him that since I was also in grad school, children were far in the future (if ever). Luke Perry recommends children, though. He has some and likes them.
Luke Perry also thinks education is important and was impressed with us for being educated. He told us that he never went to college and now all he can ever be is an actor, that if he wanted people to really take him seriously, then he would have to go back to school, and then grad school, and possibly get a PhD. My sisters told him that it wasn't too late, but he said he thought it was probably too late for him. Noooo, Luke Perry, don't say that! *clutches heart* But then Sara pointed out that she could never be an actor like him. Which I thought was a good point. But then he sort of waved that away and said, "I could have you acting in an hour." To which Amy responded that he could teach acting if he wanted to, but he balked at that. Kind of funny.
Our conversation with Luke Perry was cut short when his phone rang. It was his son. So we left while he answered it. I suggested going into the other Walk of Fame room to see if Scott Adsit was in there, but really I just wanted to look at some of the Stargate people. I got Amy to take a picture of Ben Browder at his table because I was too chicken to break the rule about not taking photos in the Walk of Fame rooms.
I'm not a stalker. I'm just persistent.
While we were in the autograph room, we saw a George Lucas look-alike and asked if we could take a picture with him. He said not right there, because of the picture rule (wow, someone who actually follows the rules!) but that he would be happy to be in a picture when we came out. So right outside the autograph room, we took a picture with him.
His name is really George!
He actually told us a funny story about the first time he was mistaken for George Lucas at a restaurant and ended up with really good service, although he didn't know why they were treating him so well until halfway through the meal. After he confessed that he wasn't that George, the service went downhill rapidly.
After we talked to George, we were standing there for a minute discussing where we wanted to go next, and Jason Momoa walked by me to go back into the autograph room. I had never swooned before this moment. He was within about a foot and a half of me, close enough that I could have touched him if I'd reached out, and it happened very quickly, but as soon as I saw him I felt all of the energy in my whole body rush out, and I nearly toppled over. I am completely serious. I could barely stand up. I'm sure he didn't even notice me - he walked by real fast and wasn't really looking around or anything - but I couldn't help staring after him while I tried to get my wobbly knees back under control. I was shocked that he didn't leave a trail of women's bodies on the floor behind him.
It's funny to me that this was the first time I'd ever felt that way. I mean, I've met plenty of celebrities in the last few years, and I've been nervous about meeting almost all of them, but never has anyone ever walked by me that came that close to making me faint just by being there. I'm putting it down to the fact that Jason Momoa is in my "top five most beautiful people alive on Earth today" list. And I'm not embarrassed that his beauty physically affected me, but I will admit that this is just proof that I could never meet David Boreanaz in person.
I told my sisters, "OMG... Jason Momoa... just walked by..." And they were just like, "Oh. Neat."
So, after Jason Momoa walked by and changed my life, we decided to go to an information booth in the Hilton to see if we could get a lead on Scott Adsit.
From Sara's con report: At the information both, we asked a skinny guy wearing a kilt if he knew where Scott Adsit would be appearing that day. The guy was very sweet, pulling out his I-phone and googling Adsit to see what he could find out. Nothing. Then the guy asked if he could take our picture, so my sisters and I posed. I asked, "Do you watch Chuck?" and he said "No." I said, "Oh, I thought that's why you asked for our picture, since we're dressed like the Nerd Herd," and he said that if the show had something called the Nerd Herd, then maybe he should watch it! As we walked away, Amy said, "That was weird." And I agreed. Why did he want our picture? Jenny said, "Because we're girls."
From there, we went to the Marriott to pick up my Heroes picture, and then we went to the Adult Swim table and talked to the director of the track it's part of to see if she had any news on Scott Adsit. She was nice enough, but basically wasn't able to help us. He'd signed up for D*C so late that he couldn't be worked into any of the existing programing, so he was just randomly showing up for different panels and sitting in. It was basically going to be hit or miss.
When we met up with Mama in the line at the Hyatt for the Heroes panel, she had been taking sneak-photos again.
Gandalf the White! (I can't see him without thinking "You so crazy.")
I mostly photoshopped away her cameltoe. You're welcome.
Mulder and Scully.
What the hell? (This is my favorite picture of the whole con. Possibly of my whole life.)
Darth Vader doesn't have time for this shit.
We got another person who was standing in the Heroes panel line to take a picture of the four of us together. I was holding my picture with Adrian and Sendhil, and she gasped and said, "You're so lucky!"
Nerd Herd! Complete with scary flesh-colored octopus hand.
Heroes Panel
as intimiate as you can get without taking off your clothes.
Brad and Natalie met up with us again in this line. So many people were joining their friends in the line that we ended up about 30 people back, although Mama was number 5 or 6 when she started placeholding. (Which is her function at conventions.) Not many people actually joined the back of the line, though. In fact: smallest panel ever. When we got in the room and sat down, I was really surprised to see that there weren't more than a couple hundred people in the entire place. Empty chairs make me sad at conventions! However, these were definitely the best seats we had during the whole time we were at D*C. Second row. Made for some pretty good pictures.
Adrian, Sendhil, and... is it bad that I forgot the other guy's name? I think it was Dave.
Since there were so few people attending this panel, there was an awkward pause while we waited for the questions to get going. And for most of the time, there were only one or two people in line to ask questions. I got really anxious that there would be another awkward pause, so while we were sitting there listening to the guys talk, I was also coming up with questions to ask them, just in case I needed to step up and save the panel. I kept thinking I was going to have to do it, but we somehow managed to get through. Which was a relief. I did enjoy hearing what the guys had to say, though. Especially Adrian. Although part of the time I just zoned out while staring at his arms.
He totally saw my mom taking this picture.
Aw, Sendhil's so cute.
I think Adrian Pasdar is super hot. His arms are whoa. So, here are more pictures of him:
Some celebrities don't really look like movie stars. They look like normal people. Adrian is not one of those celebrities. He totally looks like a movie star.
I got the feeling for the whole panel that Adrian is a really calm person all the time. Like, he seems really mellow. That's the word. Sendhil seemed kind of mellow, too, but Adrian was really... like, I think he'd be a good hypnotist. Or surfer. Or beat poet. You know?
Someone asked each of the guys to talk about scenes that were especially meaningful to them. Adrian described a scene where Milo (Peter) was leaning over him - I think Adrian was supposed to be hanging from a building? - and right in the middle of the scene, Milo blinked, and two tears fell out of his eyes, and those two tears fell right into Adrian's eyes. Weeeeeeeird. But kind of cool.
Dave (I think his name was Dave? I'm calling him Dave) said that he found the Paris scene with Greg Grunberg to be really meaningful. He um. He actually cried while he was talking about it. I guess he feels pretty connected to the show. He also admitted to writing fanfic about his character (he was the puppetmaster guy). He said that he wrote a fanfic in which he met up with Nathan Petrelli's wife and used his power to make her walk again. That's kind of a cool idea.
Sendhil at one point started talking about this fanmail stalker he had during season one. He said the show ran on Monday nights, and every Tuesday morning his agent would get these thick packets of research addressed to him that a fan was doing on people with abilities. (Adrian goes, "It was me." Heh.) He said it was mostly gibberish and that he told his agent just to start throwing the stuff away. Then Adrian was like, "No, no, he kept it all," and turned to Sendhil and said, "That guy could be here." Sendhil went on to say that the fan had planned a public demonstration of himself levitating and invited Sendhil to come see it. But he didn't make it.
I can't remember now who told this story (I think it was Adrian), but he said that it was funny working with Zachary Quinto in a scene where he had a gun, because Zach can't not do the gun sound effects. Like, whenever they rehearsed, he would do the gun sounds when he was supposed to shoot it, and that was okay because it was rehearsal, but for actual filming, he still kept doing the sounds and couldn't stop. So when he shoots the gun in that scene, they cut it so you can't see his mouth.
Adrian also told a story about how he'd been off the show for a while but they asked him back to do a brief scene where Sylar becomes him at the carnival. So he was standing there with Zach wearing the same clothes as him, waiting for the filming, and someone on the crew didn't recognize him and told him he needed to go wait with the other extras and doubles in an extra holding area. He and Zach both got a kick out of that, but Adrian went over and waited with the extras anyway. Then the same crew member came back later sheepishly and apologized after she realized who he was. Funny.
All three of the guys had fun stunt stories to tell. And Adrian and Sendhil talked a little bit about Milo and Masi and Zach. It was really interesting to me. I think it's easy to tell that the Heroes cast was close, and I always like hearing that about a show that I like. I'm still bummed that it got cancelled. Now Sendhil's on another show and Dave(?) is auditioning to be the host on The Price Is Right. I'm not sure what Adrian's plans are.
Adrian said the first Heroes panel he ever did was at Comicon, in front of thousands of fans, and it was overwhelming. He said he liked the idea that his last panel - this was the last convention he was planning on doing for a long time - was so intimate. I'm really glad I got the chance to be there. And to meet him. *single tear* He was my favorite character since the very beginning.
Luke Perry's Panel
Choke your dreams.
As soon as we came out of the Heroes panel, we saw the line for the Sean Astin and Luke Perry panel that was supposed to start at 2:30. So me, Mama, Amy, and Sara hopped in line. I had already spoken to Luke Perry twice, but I figured seeing Sean Astin again this year would be kind of cool. As it turns out, Sean Astin had had to leave the con already, so Luke Perry was going to do the panel by himself. I felt sorry for the woman who had to make this announcement. She was like, "Please stay! Luke does a really good panel!" but lots of people got up and left anyway. The room still ended up being mostly full, though, so at least Luke Perry wouldn't feel abandoned. We stayed too.
Cher's saving herself for you, Luke Perry.
Mama and Sara ended up sitting in the center section, but Amy and I sat off to one side. We all had pretty good seats, though. And it turned out to be a really good panel, like the desperate woman at the beginning promised. Luke is so articulate. He's a very good speaker, and a quick thinker. He's also diplomatic without being obviously political, and was generally fun to listen to. Good storyteller. I would go see him again.
Sara is enjoying Luke Perry's panel in a way that has become somewhat creepy.
You can see me and Amy in the background.
I think my favorite part of the panel was when someone asked him about being in the original Buffy movie. He started talking about the way the studio had treated Joss. He was like, "They said, oh, he's just the writer. They didn't know what they had - Joss Whedon! How hard are they kicking themselves in the ass now? I'll tell you. Not as hard as I'm kicking them."
I noticed during this panel that Luke Perry doesn't ever breathe. He talks pretty fast, and I know it all must come from somewhere, but there's no time for him to take a breath. I pointed this out to Amy, and she listened to him for a minute, and then turned back to me with this stunned look and was like, "You're right! When does he breathe?" I've decided he's got gills that are completely unrelated to his ability to speak so his breathing and talking can go on both at once. Which is the only logical explanation.
The first phone call he received on 9-02-10 (a few days earlier) was Jenny Garth. Funny. He said there were banners hanging up in Beverly Hills, and that it was about time. He also talked a little bit about his relationship with Aaron Spelling, which I found much more entertaining than I had expected to. I think it's just the way Luke talks. He's so interesting!
He did a pretty funny impression of Lou Ferrigno, which I will probably never forget.
At one point while he was telling a story, a baby cried in the audience, and he looked at the baby and said the next sentence of the story in a baby-talk voice. It was too cute. I realize it sounds like it would have been annoying, but it was really cute. I mean, Luke Perry talking to a baby! How is that not adorable?
Luke also said that he really enjoyed being on Spin City and what he wants to do now is comedy. So if any of us know anyone producing a comedy that needs another guy...
Some girl got up to ask him a question, and as soon as she started talking into the mic, her voice started trembling so hard that it was almost difficult to make out what she was asking. The people behind us laughed and one of them said simply, "Star struck." It was kind of sad but also kind of sweet. I can't imagine being that nervous around Luke Perry, though. He was totally down-to-earth.
Luke ended the panel with this nugget of wisdom about your goals in life: Don't just chase your dreams. Catch them. And when you catch them, choke them. Choke them down. Choke your dreams. And that way, you own them. I think this is some sage advice. From now on, I will always remember that Luke Perry told me to choke my dreams.
Good God, I'm not Done Yet!
EVEN MOAR D*C reportery is [ here]! If you're into that sort of thing.