Geekfest 2012 - wish I could come up with an awesome quote but I am made of fail
Ok so this is getting written a whole lot later than expected - screw you work and your soul crushing hours of late. I hope that I am able to remember the event in all of its awesome detail.
This was my first Melbourne geekfest and it is possible that part of my enjoyment of the weekend was due to being away from home and partaking in some of the things that Melbourne has to offer. On that topic, and before I get to the gushing about all things geek, I feel the need to pimp Dracula’s theatre restaurant. This was my first trip to Dracula’s (despite there being one much closer to home) and it will not be my last. The show was great (I particularly appreciate the fact that the female members of the cast seemed to enjoy our drunken but enthusiastic singing along to many (and by many I may mean all) of the numbers - especially the moment where one of them had to stop singing because she was laughing so hard at us) and the food was good but the most awesome part of the night was the fact that Dracula’s staff do not at all seem to care about the responsible service of alcohol. Bless them!!!! So, so, so, so many tasty cocktails and shots and syringes full of jelly shots. It’s a little tacky but it’s oh so excellent and I highly, highly recommend it. the_girl_20 if you ever manage to brave the animals and the weather and make it to my shores we are so going.
Onto the actual reason for the trip…….Supanova number one of 2012 (I would like it to be one of three but I fear that my chances of going to the Syndey/Perth Supanova are extraordinarily thin - I only mention this information because at the moment one of the confirmed guests (although this is always subject to availability - see below) is Mercedes McNabb and I will be gutted if she is there and I can’t go. I do love me some Harmony). We will not go into details about the ridiculous amount of money that I spent on merchandise other than to say that I don’t think my fridge is big enough to house all the Game of Thrones magnets that I brought. Therefore, even though I complained above, I’m glad last week was shit because I will need the overtime to get me out of geek related debt.
I’ll quickly touch on the Q&As I went to because my friends wanted to see them before I do my own fangirl gushing. I attended the Oliver and James Phelps session and I say that like I would have known them by name but I so would not have. For those, like me, who need more information they played the Weasley twins. I am pleased to say that the Potter fans seem to be growing up a little and they were nowhere near as inappropriate or annoying as they have been in the past. They still asked for kisses, hugs and marriage but at least it wasn’t every second question.
I also went to the Rooster Teeth session. I have to confess that I had no idea who they were and have not played a single second of Halo in my life. I may never get around to playing Halo but as a result of that panel I sure as hell am going to be watching Red vs Blue. Kudos boys, that was some impressive charisma you had in that small window of time to have managed to sway me to your show.
Richard was just as crazy as he was last year but the audience were a bit of a failure and the Q&A was nowhere near as good. I like it much better when he is just asked to quote things and essentially turned into a hyperactive human jukebox. I do not at all approve of the creepy guy coming in to ask “So you must really like beavers?” and then glancing inappropriately around the room to see if everyone got his ‘clever’ single entendre before skulking away.
I did however approve of Richard repeatedly making sarcastic comments about the fact that you could not find asian food or alcohol in this town. The sarcastic factor was lost on a large part of the audience who kept trying to give him directions to Little Bourke St. The locals don’t seem to appreciate that there are parts of the world where you can’t get alcohol at the supermarket or convenience store and where there are no bottles shops open at 2AM.
There was something about the males at this con (Richard excluded) that meant they would only sign their names on my things rather than personalise them and I feel the need to say -
Dear Edward,
I am aware that you signing your name may actually increase the value of my ridiculously expensive collector’s edition Blade Runner and that writing my name on it may make it almost worthless but this is actually my decision to make.
That said I am happy that you were happy to sign the other side of the picture of you and Mary McDonnell and that you showed your entourage what she had written.
Regards
faithinthepoor
His Q&A was great. He has definite gravitas and there is something commanding about him. He is very proud of each and every thing he has done and talked a lot about his reasons for choosing or declining certain projects. I admire that but I also feel like you have to have the right kind of career and the right kind of luck to get to stand on your principles. When people talk about only being able to play roles that speak to them (Morena mentioned this too) I understand that as an artist this is the goal and the way you hone your craft and get fulfilment out of what you do but it always makes me think of an interview with Stephanie Beacham where she was being criticised or at least questioned about the calibre of some of the things she had been in and she replied, “all the integrity in the world would not have fed my children.”
He spoke a lot about a film that he is trying to get off the ground which he says is about the truth about people and how we really relate to one another. It was described as uncomfortable, unflinching and real - something that you are going to wish you had been taught a long time ago and something you are going to want to show your children. I am very intrigued but I really hope it lives up to this description now.
Oh Wil I loved when you were Wesley Crusher. I know you are meant to be the most hateful character in the next generation universe but I always liked you (and your mother) but I don’t feel I could say that I was a true Wil Wheaton fan. Although I did love the self-depreciating work you had done on both The Big Bang Theory and The Guild. As a result of this Supanova, however, I completely adore you. The adoration is now so high that I can almost overlook your facial hair.
You may not have signed my name on anything but you get major points for wanting to check every detail of the Australian packaging of my season one TNG (for those that care the first lot of TNG boxsets that came out - ludicrously expensive (and much more than anyone would ever dream of paying nowadays for a single season) and essentially devoid of special features) and then not being sure where the best spot to sign was and therefore signing twice. I appreciate you going against the wrath of the organisers who do not want you giving signatures away for free when they could be squeezing more money out of me.
Wil’s Q&A was the highlight of the weekend. He was witty, intelligent, thoughtful and oh so proudly a geek who lived to infect his love of all things geeky onto others. There was a really annoying part where the moderator kept telling him to make his answers shorter but bless him he just ignored that. I would much rather hear Wil ramble on about what was his favourite edition of D&D in great detail than have the same people ask him the same questions that they do of everyone. On that note the people who asked “If you could go back to any period in time when would it be?” and “Which would you rather fight one horse sized duck or 10 [it may not be 10 it could be 100 - even though I heard this at many panels and heard Cassidy Freeman be asked it last year I can’t seem to remember] duck sized horses?” had better sleep with one eye open and watch yourselves in dark alleys. One of the girls I went with was not at all impressed with your questions and I feel if she heard them one more time she would have gotten up and stabbed you in the eye.
There was a point where I thought of you the_girl_20 because he was ranting about drop bears - “I know they are not real. Why do you make up fake animals to try and scare people? You’ve got spiders the size of cars. You’re real animals are enough to terrify every single American you don’t need to make up drop bears.”
Best story for me (other than when he felt he was unable to do the Australian accent of the penguin he had met) was when he was discussing being offered the appearance on The Big Bang Theory and not wanting to do it as he wanted to play an actual role and not himself. I like that the creators where telling him that he was welcome to come in and audition for any suitable role in the future but that there was only one Wil Wheaton and that role was his right now. He reported that he had rung up a friend in the business to discuss the dilemma he was having, “And I asked him - what do I say? He said - you say yes and then you say thank you. But I told him that I wanted to play a real role and not this and he said - the highest rated show last week was a rerun of The Big Bang Theory. A rerun Wil! You say yes and you say thank you and then you go and count your money.”
During his Q&A I learnt about Sparks McGee (and I now follow his craziness on tumblr) but more importantly I learnt about the awesomeness that is Tabletop. As someone who loves board games but can’t get anyone to play them with me - I have a beautiful cupboard full of beautiful games that just sit there - I could not be more excited about this show. My friends who came to the convention with me (and have never wanted to play any of my games) are now agreeing to regular games nights and I actually got to take my Settlers of Catan out of the plastic wrap. Thank you Wil. Thank you. To anyone that is actually reading this I say get yourself on Felicia Day’s youTube channel and watch Tabletop because I wish to help Wil show the world the wonders of gaming.
Summer’s Q&A was a little disappointing. She was sweet and lovely, as she always is, but her answers were in general way too brief. I’m sure she was just doing as she was told and I get the feeling she is actually inherently shy and not the kind of girl who can just work a room the way Wil can but it would have been nice to have her talk more.
I did like her response to learning that Community had had the six seasons and a movie push for The Cape. At first she didn’t hear properly (and was clearly unaware Community had ever even mentioned The Cape) and just assumed they were being made fun of but then she when she realised what had happened she was flattered and went “awhhhhhhhh but nooooooooooo.” It was rather adorable.
The most animated she got was when she was asked what she thought of the dancing in Black Swan and she went on to talk about how much she loved that movie. It was very clear that while she is now an actor, dancing is the thing that is truly special to her. Although I liked her talking about one of the things that makes her glad that she is not a professional dancer anymore is that she doesn’t have to be hungry all the time.
She was, as usual, awesome in the signing line. She saw that my Dollhouse season two had been signed by Amy Acker and talked about how lovely she is and then she got very excited about the fact that I had brought along The Cape for her to sign. Apparently it was her first one and after she signed it she asked if she could take a picture of it (I believe I may have said something along the lines of you are Summer Glau you can do whatever you want). She took said picture and then texted it to people - I have to admit that fucking love that Summer sent stuff through cyber space that has my name on it!
Morena wins my all rounder award as she was great at both the Q&A and in the signing line.
Like Wil, she was interested in the Australian packaging of things - namely my Stargate season 10 (as she did not realise that her picture was on it) and my Serenity cover (the dust jacket cover available when it first came out that has the Joss Whedon signature on it). I had a picture of her and Nathan to sign and she talked about how young he looked in it (which is what I thought when I got it). I loved that she signed my V on the back because that is where the picture of her was but that she checked with me if that was ok before she did it.
As my time in the signing was ending her assistant person handed me back the piece of paper with my name on it in case I needed it later and I asked if the assistant was worried that I might get a head injury and forget my own name. Morena laughed and said that conventions were dangerous and a head injury was entirely possible. I said that at least if that happened I didn’t need to worry about getting on the plane and going back to work. Morena said that in that case I should come back at the end of the convention and she’d give me a head injury so I didn’t have to go to work. It was kind of awesome but if I had have known just how horrible my week at work was going to be I would have taken her up on the offer.
I should have mentioned before now that she is sickeningly gorgeous. For her Q&A, which was the last thing I attended at the con, she came out in a simple dress, with her sunglasses on top of her head and with no shoes (because she said it was too hot) and she look completely stunning.
She was charming at her Q&A and made it look effortless. I enjoyed her talking about Homeland and now I can’t wait for season two. I particularly like that she gets through the highly emotional scenes that she has to shoot by drinking a lot of wine with Claire Danes. I love everybody in that bar and I want to go to there!!!
Unlike Jewel Staite she did not mention any subtext between Kaylee and Inara but she did talk about Jewel and their twitter wars. She also talked about Jewel getting her own back for all the times Nathan had pranked her by getting a whole Q&A audience to flip him off at once at Dragoncon. Jewel Staite sometimes I love you.
I couldn’t believe she had finally made it to Supanova (having cancelled twice before when she got her roles on V and Homeland) and it turns out that she nearly didn’t make it this time. She discussed how she had been called for jury duty and had to present the day before she was due to leave for Australia. She had deferred several times in the past due to work and had not been allowed to defer again. She said she had gone the first day and “I tried to be as offensive as humanly possible. I was all I hate this because of this and I hate that because of that but they sent other people away and kept me.” She kept trying to tell people that she had a commitment but it was of no use. On the second day when other potential jurors kept being sent home and she was still there she interrupted proceedings and appealed to the judge directly. She told him she had a flight to Australia that evening, that lots of people had brought tickets to see her and that she really couldn’t let them down. She was basically told that wasn’t his problem and “so I burst into tears. Half an hour later I was out of there and that ladies and gentlemen is how you get out of jury duty.” Morena Baccain I think I love you!!!!
This was my first Melbourne geekfest and it is possible that part of my enjoyment of the weekend was due to being away from home and partaking in some of the things that Melbourne has to offer. On that topic, and before I get to the gushing about all things geek, I feel the need to pimp Dracula’s theatre restaurant. This was my first trip to Dracula’s (despite there being one much closer to home) and it will not be my last. The show was great (I particularly appreciate the fact that the female members of the cast seemed to enjoy our drunken but enthusiastic singing along to many (and by many I may mean all) of the numbers - especially the moment where one of them had to stop singing because she was laughing so hard at us) and the food was good but the most awesome part of the night was the fact that Dracula’s staff do not at all seem to care about the responsible service of alcohol. Bless them!!!! So, so, so, so many tasty cocktails and shots and syringes full of jelly shots. It’s a little tacky but it’s oh so excellent and I highly, highly recommend it. the_girl_20 if you ever manage to brave the animals and the weather and make it to my shores we are so going.
Onto the actual reason for the trip…….Supanova number one of 2012 (I would like it to be one of three but I fear that my chances of going to the Syndey/Perth Supanova are extraordinarily thin - I only mention this information because at the moment one of the confirmed guests (although this is always subject to availability - see below) is Mercedes McNabb and I will be gutted if she is there and I can’t go. I do love me some Harmony). We will not go into details about the ridiculous amount of money that I spent on merchandise other than to say that I don’t think my fridge is big enough to house all the Game of Thrones magnets that I brought. Therefore, even though I complained above, I’m glad last week was shit because I will need the overtime to get me out of geek related debt.
I’ll quickly touch on the Q&As I went to because my friends wanted to see them before I do my own fangirl gushing. I attended the Oliver and James Phelps session and I say that like I would have known them by name but I so would not have. For those, like me, who need more information they played the Weasley twins. I am pleased to say that the Potter fans seem to be growing up a little and they were nowhere near as inappropriate or annoying as they have been in the past. They still asked for kisses, hugs and marriage but at least it wasn’t every second question.
I also went to the Rooster Teeth session. I have to confess that I had no idea who they were and have not played a single second of Halo in my life. I may never get around to playing Halo but as a result of that panel I sure as hell am going to be watching Red vs Blue. Kudos boys, that was some impressive charisma you had in that small window of time to have managed to sway me to your show.
Richard was just as crazy as he was last year but the audience were a bit of a failure and the Q&A was nowhere near as good. I like it much better when he is just asked to quote things and essentially turned into a hyperactive human jukebox. I do not at all approve of the creepy guy coming in to ask “So you must really like beavers?” and then glancing inappropriately around the room to see if everyone got his ‘clever’ single entendre before skulking away.
I did however approve of Richard repeatedly making sarcastic comments about the fact that you could not find asian food or alcohol in this town. The sarcastic factor was lost on a large part of the audience who kept trying to give him directions to Little Bourke St. The locals don’t seem to appreciate that there are parts of the world where you can’t get alcohol at the supermarket or convenience store and where there are no bottles shops open at 2AM.
There was something about the males at this con (Richard excluded) that meant they would only sign their names on my things rather than personalise them and I feel the need to say -
Dear Edward,
I am aware that you signing your name may actually increase the value of my ridiculously expensive collector’s edition Blade Runner and that writing my name on it may make it almost worthless but this is actually my decision to make.
That said I am happy that you were happy to sign the other side of the picture of you and Mary McDonnell and that you showed your entourage what she had written.
Regards
faithinthepoor
His Q&A was great. He has definite gravitas and there is something commanding about him. He is very proud of each and every thing he has done and talked a lot about his reasons for choosing or declining certain projects. I admire that but I also feel like you have to have the right kind of career and the right kind of luck to get to stand on your principles. When people talk about only being able to play roles that speak to them (Morena mentioned this too) I understand that as an artist this is the goal and the way you hone your craft and get fulfilment out of what you do but it always makes me think of an interview with Stephanie Beacham where she was being criticised or at least questioned about the calibre of some of the things she had been in and she replied, “all the integrity in the world would not have fed my children.”
He spoke a lot about a film that he is trying to get off the ground which he says is about the truth about people and how we really relate to one another. It was described as uncomfortable, unflinching and real - something that you are going to wish you had been taught a long time ago and something you are going to want to show your children. I am very intrigued but I really hope it lives up to this description now.
Oh Wil I loved when you were Wesley Crusher. I know you are meant to be the most hateful character in the next generation universe but I always liked you (and your mother) but I don’t feel I could say that I was a true Wil Wheaton fan. Although I did love the self-depreciating work you had done on both The Big Bang Theory and The Guild. As a result of this Supanova, however, I completely adore you. The adoration is now so high that I can almost overlook your facial hair.
You may not have signed my name on anything but you get major points for wanting to check every detail of the Australian packaging of my season one TNG (for those that care the first lot of TNG boxsets that came out - ludicrously expensive (and much more than anyone would ever dream of paying nowadays for a single season) and essentially devoid of special features) and then not being sure where the best spot to sign was and therefore signing twice. I appreciate you going against the wrath of the organisers who do not want you giving signatures away for free when they could be squeezing more money out of me.
Wil’s Q&A was the highlight of the weekend. He was witty, intelligent, thoughtful and oh so proudly a geek who lived to infect his love of all things geeky onto others. There was a really annoying part where the moderator kept telling him to make his answers shorter but bless him he just ignored that. I would much rather hear Wil ramble on about what was his favourite edition of D&D in great detail than have the same people ask him the same questions that they do of everyone. On that note the people who asked “If you could go back to any period in time when would it be?” and “Which would you rather fight one horse sized duck or 10 [it may not be 10 it could be 100 - even though I heard this at many panels and heard Cassidy Freeman be asked it last year I can’t seem to remember] duck sized horses?” had better sleep with one eye open and watch yourselves in dark alleys. One of the girls I went with was not at all impressed with your questions and I feel if she heard them one more time she would have gotten up and stabbed you in the eye.
There was a point where I thought of you the_girl_20 because he was ranting about drop bears - “I know they are not real. Why do you make up fake animals to try and scare people? You’ve got spiders the size of cars. You’re real animals are enough to terrify every single American you don’t need to make up drop bears.”
Best story for me (other than when he felt he was unable to do the Australian accent of the penguin he had met) was when he was discussing being offered the appearance on The Big Bang Theory and not wanting to do it as he wanted to play an actual role and not himself. I like that the creators where telling him that he was welcome to come in and audition for any suitable role in the future but that there was only one Wil Wheaton and that role was his right now. He reported that he had rung up a friend in the business to discuss the dilemma he was having, “And I asked him - what do I say? He said - you say yes and then you say thank you. But I told him that I wanted to play a real role and not this and he said - the highest rated show last week was a rerun of The Big Bang Theory. A rerun Wil! You say yes and you say thank you and then you go and count your money.”
During his Q&A I learnt about Sparks McGee (and I now follow his craziness on tumblr) but more importantly I learnt about the awesomeness that is Tabletop. As someone who loves board games but can’t get anyone to play them with me - I have a beautiful cupboard full of beautiful games that just sit there - I could not be more excited about this show. My friends who came to the convention with me (and have never wanted to play any of my games) are now agreeing to regular games nights and I actually got to take my Settlers of Catan out of the plastic wrap. Thank you Wil. Thank you. To anyone that is actually reading this I say get yourself on Felicia Day’s youTube channel and watch Tabletop because I wish to help Wil show the world the wonders of gaming.
Summer’s Q&A was a little disappointing. She was sweet and lovely, as she always is, but her answers were in general way too brief. I’m sure she was just doing as she was told and I get the feeling she is actually inherently shy and not the kind of girl who can just work a room the way Wil can but it would have been nice to have her talk more.
I did like her response to learning that Community had had the six seasons and a movie push for The Cape. At first she didn’t hear properly (and was clearly unaware Community had ever even mentioned The Cape) and just assumed they were being made fun of but then she when she realised what had happened she was flattered and went “awhhhhhhhh but nooooooooooo.” It was rather adorable.
The most animated she got was when she was asked what she thought of the dancing in Black Swan and she went on to talk about how much she loved that movie. It was very clear that while she is now an actor, dancing is the thing that is truly special to her. Although I liked her talking about one of the things that makes her glad that she is not a professional dancer anymore is that she doesn’t have to be hungry all the time.
She was, as usual, awesome in the signing line. She saw that my Dollhouse season two had been signed by Amy Acker and talked about how lovely she is and then she got very excited about the fact that I had brought along The Cape for her to sign. Apparently it was her first one and after she signed it she asked if she could take a picture of it (I believe I may have said something along the lines of you are Summer Glau you can do whatever you want). She took said picture and then texted it to people - I have to admit that fucking love that Summer sent stuff through cyber space that has my name on it!
Morena wins my all rounder award as she was great at both the Q&A and in the signing line.
Like Wil, she was interested in the Australian packaging of things - namely my Stargate season 10 (as she did not realise that her picture was on it) and my Serenity cover (the dust jacket cover available when it first came out that has the Joss Whedon signature on it). I had a picture of her and Nathan to sign and she talked about how young he looked in it (which is what I thought when I got it). I loved that she signed my V on the back because that is where the picture of her was but that she checked with me if that was ok before she did it.
As my time in the signing was ending her assistant person handed me back the piece of paper with my name on it in case I needed it later and I asked if the assistant was worried that I might get a head injury and forget my own name. Morena laughed and said that conventions were dangerous and a head injury was entirely possible. I said that at least if that happened I didn’t need to worry about getting on the plane and going back to work. Morena said that in that case I should come back at the end of the convention and she’d give me a head injury so I didn’t have to go to work. It was kind of awesome but if I had have known just how horrible my week at work was going to be I would have taken her up on the offer.
I should have mentioned before now that she is sickeningly gorgeous. For her Q&A, which was the last thing I attended at the con, she came out in a simple dress, with her sunglasses on top of her head and with no shoes (because she said it was too hot) and she look completely stunning.
She was charming at her Q&A and made it look effortless. I enjoyed her talking about Homeland and now I can’t wait for season two. I particularly like that she gets through the highly emotional scenes that she has to shoot by drinking a lot of wine with Claire Danes. I love everybody in that bar and I want to go to there!!!
Unlike Jewel Staite she did not mention any subtext between Kaylee and Inara but she did talk about Jewel and their twitter wars. She also talked about Jewel getting her own back for all the times Nathan had pranked her by getting a whole Q&A audience to flip him off at once at Dragoncon. Jewel Staite sometimes I love you.
I couldn’t believe she had finally made it to Supanova (having cancelled twice before when she got her roles on V and Homeland) and it turns out that she nearly didn’t make it this time. She discussed how she had been called for jury duty and had to present the day before she was due to leave for Australia. She had deferred several times in the past due to work and had not been allowed to defer again. She said she had gone the first day and “I tried to be as offensive as humanly possible. I was all I hate this because of this and I hate that because of that but they sent other people away and kept me.” She kept trying to tell people that she had a commitment but it was of no use. On the second day when other potential jurors kept being sent home and she was still there she interrupted proceedings and appealed to the judge directly. She told him she had a flight to Australia that evening, that lots of people had brought tickets to see her and that she really couldn’t let them down. She was basically told that wasn’t his problem and “so I burst into tears. Half an hour later I was out of there and that ladies and gentlemen is how you get out of jury duty.” Morena Baccain I think I love you!!!!