FX Show 2007 (waaaaay after the fact)
Okay, I went to a convention a couple of weeks ago (January 26-28) and have just now gotten around to doing a con report. Why? Because I am lame. So although I'm sure no one is interested this long afterwards, here is my report for the 2007 FX Show in Orlando, Florida.
This is the second year that I've attended this particular convention, and I gotta say, I had a lot of fun. More fun than last year, even. So dialers-up, beware. There are pictures and videos like whoa beneath the cut - as well as mild spoilers if you haven't seen Eureka or Heroes. And a big spoiler if you haven't seen Serenity. But if you haven't seen Serenity, what are you doing reading this? Get yourself to a TV, stat! Also, all the videos are embedded from Youtube, but for some reason I'm having trouble playing them. (It could just be my computer.) If you have trouble playing them from this post, just click on the player and it will take you to the Youtube page where you can watch it, and they all play just fine from there.
Here we go. :)
Orlando is slightly less than 500 miles from my hometown of Thomson, Georgia. My parents and I left on Friday around 4:00PM (since I had to work) and drove to Macon to pick up my sister Sara and her husband Scott before heading down to Florida. On the way down, the five of us stopped at a Chick-Fil-A in Tifton for supper. The total drive down took about nine hours but seemed a lot longer considering that there were three adults crammed in the back seat. We arrived at the Fantasy World Resort just after 1:30 in the morning.
Scott and Sara waiting to go inside... Sara looking kinda scary.
Since I paid for the condo, I got to have the master bedroom to myself. Even though I was traveling with two married couples, who had to sleep in twin beds or on the fold-out couch. heh.
I took this picture pretty much as soon as we got there, so I'd remember what time it was.
I called spankspike to tell her that we'd arrived okay and that I would let her know the next day when a good time would be to meet up. And so I could complain about the place being much smaller and pinker than it looked online. (I find real life often tends to be smaller and pinker. What's with that?)
We didn't stay up long after we got there because the convention began again on Saturday at 10:00AM, and we wanted to get there fairly early so we'd have time to meet everyone. Of course, we still overslept a little bit and didn't actually get to the convention center until a couple of minutes before noon. But that always happens, so it's not like any of us were surprised.
View from the car. Check out the palm trees.
Last year the FX Show was at the fairgrounds. This was MUCH better. In fact, I'd say the Convention Center was actually a little bit too big for the amount of people that were there, but it was nice being able to wander around without actually bumping into people. I'm hoping this convention becomes popular enough to fill the venue in the next couple of years, though.
I think we drove at least two complete circles around the building before we figured out where we were supposed to park.
View from the parking lot.
It cost $6 to park. Lame. Our first celebrity sighting: one of the cars in the parking lot had a cardboard cutout of Sarah Michelle Gellar sitting in the front passenger seat. The car also had a vanity plate on the front that said, "Slayer." I wish I had taken a picture.
As soon as we got inside, we went up to a booth to get our tickets. We'd reserved our passes online, but you have to show your printed receipt to actually get them.
Scott, Sara, and Mama getting our tickets.
While we were standing at the booth, I heard someone ask a volunteer what room the Fanboys celebrity panel was going to be in. Bzuh? I had no idea there were going to be panels this year because they didn't have any last year, so I got really excited and ran over to the volunteer guy to re-ask the question - since, in my excitement, I didn't hear what he said the first time. He told us the room number and said we'd better hurry because the room was filling up. Now, this wasn't actually the case, because the room was about three times bigger than it needed to be. But we still ran along to the room as soon as we got our passes because, hello, Kristen Bell.
From left to right: Chris Marquette, Sam Huntington, Kristen Bell, Jaime King, and... three... other guys.
They began the panel by showing a longish preview for the movie [Fanboys]. I think it looks like a fun movie, and I'd like to see it when it comes out. The basic premise is this: a boy who is a big Star Wars fan is going to die before Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace is released in theaters, so his friends help him break into Lucas Ranch so he can see it before he dies. Okay, so maybe that doesn't sound like a fun movie... but the preview made it look pretty funny, and I can indentify with a lot of the things that they talk about since I'm a squeeing fangirl myself. (Not of Star Wars, but geek culture tends to span fandoms.)
Kristen said that during one scene, she had to wear a Princess Leia gold bikini, and it started snowing. And they shot like 15 takes. Here are a couple of other things from the panel that my sister happened to catch on film:
I think Kristen's so cute. The girl sitting next to her said exactly zero words during the whole panel.
After the Fanboys panel ended, Sara, Mama, and Scott went to the bathroom while Daddy and I waited for them. When they came back, Sara had this little story to tell: Kristen Bell was in the bathroom at the same time, and peed in the stall next to her. Like, she actually heard Kristen Bell peeing. I can't decide whether I think it's neat or just weird. On the one hand, how many people can say they listened to Veronica Mars tinkle? But on the other hand... how many people would actually want to?
Don't answer that.
According to Scott, Chris Marquette peed next to him as well. Yay?
Following the severe invasion of privacy, Sara went out to get her jacket from the car while Mama and I went in search of a list of the rest of the panels that were being offered. We actually had to go in and out of the dealer room a couple of times, and we had to get our hands temporarily tattooed so we could come back inside. The tattoos looked like this:
Earth! Wind! Fire! Water! HEART! (photo by spankspike.)
We asked some volunteers about the panel list, but the first two didn't know what we were talking about. We did end up with a little bag containing several different fliers, though. Which was... nice. Finally, the third volunteer told us where we could get a list.
This is what the ticket looked like, and the list of the other panels.
The first thing I did when we finally got the chance to look around was go in search of Angel action figures. I was missing three of the six-inch figures, and I managed to find all of them at one booth. It was the [Buffy Collector Club] booth, and I got all three figures for $50. I was pretty shocked considering that I expected one of them to be at least that much by itself. (I'm still wondering if there was some kind of mistake.)
These are all my Angel figures hanging up on the wall in my room. I circled the ones I got at the FX Show - Vamped Season One Angel with a leather jacket, Pylean Demon Angel, and Vamped Season Three Angel with Baby Connor.
Whenever you bought something from that particular booth, they also gave you a ticket, and you were supposed to take your ticket over to this girl who was dressed as an elf and standing in front of a color-coded spinny-wheel thing. Sort of like the [Wheel of Fortune wheel]. There was a prize board set up next to the wheel with different color-coded prizes you could win, and the elf girl would spin the wheel for you to see which color prize you would get. My prize was actually supposed to be lego!Angel, but the girl said I could pick whichever thing I wanted. I already had lego!Angel (see above picture), and the only other Angel figure you could win was Pylean Demon Angel, which I had just bought, so I chose the Buffybot action figure to give to my brother. (He's not a collector, but he's told me several times that he'd like a Buffybot of his very own.) Now Brad has two action figures, the Buffybot and Once More With Feeling Buffy, both of which I got for him at conventions. My mom said he's only going to collect Buffy figures as long as I keep giving them to him. :/
The actors were all set up at two rows of back to back tables in about the middle of the gigantic room we were in, and there were red and blue curtains running between the tables to separate the two rows and provide a convenient backdrop for pictures. When we saw where the actors were set up, we did that really cool thing you do where you walk up and down the row checking everyone out before you stop in front of the table of the person you wanna meet and talk about them for a few minutes before actually walking up and getting in the line. The first person we met was Ron Glass.
Too much snow on the roof!
I don't really remember the conversation we had with him, except that my sister talked to him first and then introduced me as Jenny, after which the three of us had a friendly chat about different spellings and pronunciations of my name. Apparently, I've been mispronouncing it for nearly 24 years... although my sister got it right. He asked if it was Ginny or Jenny, and I think I told him it was both, because I pronounce them the same way. (FYI: It's actually Jen (Gin), but my family still calls me Jenny. Although they mostly say it like Ginny. Which looks funny to me when it's written down.)
Anyway, even though the name thing is really all I remember about Ron, I got the impression that he is a very, very nice guy, and I enjoyed talking to him. Oh, and I complimented his shirt.
Serenity now.
What else...? Oh, my sister mentioned that she'd seen him on an episode of Friends, and he seemed pleased. And about conventions in general, he smiled and said, "There are worse ways to spend a Saturday." :)
I got Ron to sign the cover of the Firefly disk with his picture on it. (When I met Alan Tudyk and Summer Glau, I had them sign the box the disks go in, but that's because they didn't have their own disks.) I didn't have anything in particular I wanted him to write, so he just wrote what I assume he writes on everyone's autographs, which is a line from Serenity.
Jenny, just believe it!
Afterwards, he blew on the ink and then insisted that he put the cover back in the case himself. :) We asked if we could have a couple of pictures with him, but his assistant/volunteer person told us we couldn't because he was actually supposed to have a photo shoot and you could buy pictures with him for like $30. (We didn't.) Later on, after his photo op thing was over, we saw him posing with other fans at his table, and my mom was disappointed. I thought it was sweet, though. Like, he was only following the rules until he didn't have to anymore.
Andy Hallett was sitting at the table beside Ron, so we decided to meet him next. I had met Andy at [ Dragon*Con] in September, so I wasn't actually planning to meet him again, but my sister really wanted to. She's never watched Angel, but my brother Brad once did a video called [Karaoke Tips with Lorne] that we joke about a lot, and she thought it would be funny to get his autograph for him - even though Brad's not really a big Lorne fan either.
So... anyone else notice that Andy smelled like alcohol at around 2:00 in the afternoon?
When we talked to him, Sara started going on about how Brad was such a huge fan and would just love to get Andy's autograph, how he was just going to be so happy, and she wanted him to write, "Just remember, be yourself." Then she turned to me and asked if it should be "Just remember" or "Here's a tip," and Andy and I agreed that it should be "Here's a tip." Because in the video, the number one tip is to be yourself.
See, okay, it's really funny to us, but it doesn't sound funny at all the way I'm talking about it. And yes, the yellow blob in the corner is my boob.
To Brad, Here's a tip... Be Yourself!
While he was signing, Sara and I were both sort of giggling and going, "Brad's gonna love this! He's just gonna die when he sees it," and stuff like that. And afterwards, my mom told us that we had made Brad sound like he was gay, and Lorne was his hero, and that Lorne's advice was just to be his gay self and not worry about it... hehehe. We haven't given the autograph to Brad yet because Sara wants to put it in a frame first, but I think when we do we'll leave out the part about him coming across as a big gay Lorne fanboy. :)
I think Andy was really nice, but my mom sort of wrinkled her nose and said he smelled too much like booze, which would have been okay if it had been the party that night, but not so much okay during the autograph signing. He wasn't like, plastered or anything. Just comfortable. Like, you wouldn't really have been able to tell at all. He was very friendly and polite, and he admired my shirt, which had a picture of a dragon eating ice cream and some chinese writing. He also admired Sara's video camera, so she did a commercial for it, and also took the opportunity to film him very close up. My mom was also filming, and I cut the two clips together.
"You don't look that bad." Heh! I can't believe she said that. :D Also, Andy accuses my sister of porning with her camera.
The next person we met was Colin Ferguson, who is absolutely dreamy. He plays Sheriff Jack Carter on [Eureka], and is definitely the whole reason my mom and I even watch the show - although the show is very good, don't get me wrong! But he really makes it, you know?
*sigh*
Colin is just about the friendliest guy you could ever meet. Even though he's from Canada. :)
If you look very closely in this picture, you can actually see how much he's in love with me.
Also, you can see the gum I'm chewing.
I tend to do this thing when I'm talking to people - I say stuff that ends the flow of conversation. I don't do it on purpose; it just happens. Like, someone will say something, and I'll say, "Yeah..." And then it's awkward silence. I've tried adding stuff to that, like, "Yeah, I know what you mean," or "Yeah, me too," but it still effectively shuts the other person up. I have no idea why this happens or how I can correct it... which is pretty much why I like having my sister with me when we meet someone - so she can do all the talking and I can just stand there and grin. Which is what I'm good at.
When we met Colin, Sara spoke to him first and then introduced me. Sara has only seen the first episode of Eureka, so she didn't actually have anything to say to him, but I'd only seen like the first six episodes, so I didn't have much to say either. She ended up asking him what his favorite line of dialogue was from Eureka, because that's the line I wanted written on the autograph. He said no one had ever asked him that before, and he talked about a couple of different scenes he liked from the show - but neither of us had actually seen the things he mentioned! So we were just smiling and nodding and pretending to understand what he was saying. But then, to prove I really am a fan of the show, I told him I liked the "death ray" exchange (from the last episode I saw, right before going to the con). And then he sorta laughed and reached out like he was going to touch me! And I squeed silently.
He asked me how to spell my name, and I told him, and he said, "Okay, normally." Which I thought was funny considering the conversation we had just had with Ron Glass a few minutes earlier.
This is part of our conversation. Look, he sort of reaches for me! Also, he mentions the line "You overestimate me" and something about a generic mannaquin? About which I had no clue. But he reaches!
Sara had mentioned that he had neat handwriting, and we watched him write on his picture, and then at the end, he was like, "How'd I do?" And smiled. And it was so cute! He wrote the death ray line for me.
For Jenny, Thanks so much for watching... why don't they just call it a death ray?
Gee, Colin, I have no idea. But they ought to! Stupid scientists.
*admires picture*
Wait a second... is that... in the background... what is that??
You gotta wonder why they would put that back there on the picture he's signing for fans, you know?
After he did my autograph, Sara told him that a woman she works with named Deborah absolutely loves Eureka - it's her favorite show. She had made a sign that said, "Deborah, Thanks for watching!" and wanted to know if he would hold it in a photo for her. He was like, "Sure!"
Sarah framed this picture and gave it to Deborah, who was apparently superexcited. I wish I had been able to see her reaction.
After Colin took that picture, he wrote on the sign, "Thanks, Deborah!" Isn't that sweet? He didn't sign his name, though, because he wasn't allowed to actually autograph something if we didn't pay for it, and we had only paid for one autograph.
The Firefly panel was at 3:00, but we still had about an hour. We went to Kristen Bell's line, but it was really long, so we just got little numbered tickets, and they told us we could come back after our numbers had been called. Then we went to the food court place to have lunch. My mom and I split a little pepperoni pizza that cost $8. Sara and Scott had something with gigantic meatballs.
His face got stuck that way for like three hours.
We rushed to the Firefly panel, thinking there wouldn't be many seats, but there were fewer people there than at the Fanboys panel earlier. It was nice though. It felt kind of intimate. I just sort of feel bad because the room was SO big and we were all scrunched at one end... Like, Adam Baldwin looked out at the audience and said, "We're five years into this phenomenon..." and it didn't seem very phenomenal at all if you looked at all the empty seats. I enjoyed the panel though.
From left to right: Ron Glass, Adam Baldwin, Christina Hendricks (Saffron).
Someone in the audience referenced the Buffy episode "Once More with Feeling" and asked what Ron, Adam, and Christina thought their characters would have sung if there were a Firefly musical episode. Adam sang (in a very flat Jayne voice) "Feelings, nothing more than feelings..." He also, for some reason that I've forgotten now, sang the first few words of "Viva Las Vegas" during the panel, which he reprised for us later when we met him, because I am a big Elvis fan. Here are some things from the panel that my sister recorded with her camera:
In which the following things are discussed: [Qwisp], Razor phones, pasties, Rebecca Gayheart, Book's untimely death, and the end of Firefly.
Daddy seemed to really enjoy the Firefly panel, which made me happy because I was worried he wouldn't have a good time since he's not a big fan of... anything. But he liked Ron Glass because he used to watch Barney Miller back in the day. (My dad is 50.) Ron was so cute with his cell phone. He got all excited that it rang during the panel. Also, Adam texted Nathan Fillion while we were all there, which was kind of neat.
After the panel was over, we went back to the main room to shop some more and meet more guests. As soon as we went in, I started looking at action figures again and Sara and Scott found a booth full of stuffed animals. Sara, for whatever reason, has a thing about penguins, and Scott said that he turned his back for about a minute and when he turned back to her, she had her arms around about 20 stuffed penguins and a blissful expression on her face. She only bought one, though.
Sara's penguin. Also, she bought a pig for our other sister Amy, who has a thing about pigs.
After that, we went to meet Kristen Bell because our numbers had already been called.
She is so cute! And very little.
My sister with my hero.
Even though Sara has seen every episode of Veronica Mars, she couldn't really think of anything from the show that she wanted Kristen to sign on her picture. She told her so, and Kristen said, "What's your name? Sara? I'll think of something for ya."
For Sara - Be cool Soda Pop!
I think Veronica says that to Wallace in Season One.
OMG BFF!
I told Kristen that I did have something specific I wanted for her to write on my autograph - "Boom goes the dynamite." (Veronica says that to Piz in the season premiere of season three, I think.) As soon as I told her that's what I wanted, she got all excited and was like, "Yes!" and wrote it in all capital letters.
For Jenny - BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!
Heh, she asked me how to spell dynamite. :D
As she was writing it, she said something like, "That kid is so funny," and I was like, what kid? And she goes, "You know, that kid that says 'Boom goes the dynamite.'" And I didn't know what she was talking about, and she was all, OMG, you haven't seen that video?? And I said that I hadn't, and she goes, "Jenny," and gives me this look like she can't even believe I don't know what she's talking about. And then she started telling me about this video that I absolutely have to see on Youtube. My mom recorded her telling me about it.
Kristen was so excited about the "Boom goes the dynamite!" kid. It's pretty funny.
The video she's talking about is [here]. I think I had actually seen it before and just repressed it because it's so sad.
We walked around for a few minutes after that, looking at booths and stuff. There was one booth set up where people were actually getting tattoos. Would you ever get a tattoo in the middle of a dealer room at a convention? I mean good grief, there were only two other people in the room with me when I got my tattoo, and it still felt too public. And those two were the tattooer and my best friend! Of course I did get mine in a sort of private place...
Last year, there were a lot of people in costume walking around the convention, but this year, there were very few. In fact, I think I only actually saw maybe five. Sara saw this girl walking around on stilts, and she thought the costume was pretty funny, so she wanted a picture with her:
Butchiest angel I've ever seen. Also, tallest. Is she supposed to be standing on a cloud?
Sara eventually worked up the nerve to meet Adam Baldwin. It was about 4:30, and there was a Eureka panel at 5:00 that we didn't want to miss, so we contemplated saving Adam for the next day because there was a line and we knew we were coming back, but my sister suddenly got irrationally worried that maybe he wouldn't be there the next day or something, so we went ahead and did it.
Sara and the Hero of Canton.
Sara actually told Adam that he was one of her two biggest crushes. (This is something I think I would never be able to tell a famous person.) She mentioned that the first time she'd ever seen him was on [Radio Flyer], which came out 15 years ago, and she was a little kid and had been completely scared of him. (He played a frightening and abusive step-father called "The King.") She said she'd actually been scared of him until she'd seen him in Firefly. He just sort of listened and nodded about all of this, and she told him she'd originally wanted him to sign his autograph as The King because her other big crush is Bruce Springsteen, and it would be kind of neat to have autographs from The King and The Boss. Then she mentioned that I associate "The King" with Elvis, and he said, "Well he's a better King than I was," and I said, "I have to agree," and he sort of laughed and was like, "I do, too - I said it first!" And I told him that he did a good "Viva Las Vegas" during the panel, so he sang a few words from it again while we were standing there. :) I don't know why I just described all of this, since it's in the little video below.
At the end, Sara asks if she can have a picture with him, and he says, "Sure, where's the camera?" And my mom had been filming them with the camera and had to hurry and switch it to the photo option.
Sara/Jayne OTP! (He was smiling on the inside.)
Sara asked what his favorite line from Firefly was so he could write it on the picture. I think he made a very good choice. :)
For Sara, Serenity always, "I'll be in my bunk."
To Jenny!!!
Sara told Adam that his autograph to me looked pretty excited, and he said really loud, "JENNY!" and then he said, "Like, STELLA!" Heh. Also, my sister told me that Adam had held out his hand to shake mine, but I totally left him hanging. But I didn't notice! *headdesk*
Adam, I hope you don't think I'm stuck-up.
The Eureka panel was right after that. We got there about 5 minutes before it was supposed to start and, counting us, there were a total of maybe 15 people in the room. I was so scared we'd be the only ones in there! More people came in about a minute before it started, though, so there were probably about 35 or 40 altogether. Which still kinda sucks, but at least there weren't any awkward silences. I kind of don't know why everyone isn't watching Eureka.
Colin Ferguson and Jordan Hinson. They play father and daughter on the show, although Colin isn't really old enough to be Jordan's father in real life. Well, I mean, maybe, but... he'd have been about 19. Which is young.
I really enjoyed this panel. I can't get over how friendly and sweet Colin is. He just seemed like such a great guy. At one point, Jordan told us that she had to watch out for him because he sometimes did dumb things, like giving out his phone number to someone he met on myspace. He was like, "She seemed like a nice person!" So... who else wants to go join myspace right away after hearing that? (My sister actually friended him on myspace after the con and he friended her back. His myspace page is [here].)
Things we know about Colin from attending the panel:
1. He's the first person in his family who wasn't born in Scotland. Someone mentioned the sarcasm of his character when dealing with his daughter on the show, and he said that he loved that relationship because it was so much like his own family - calling each other names but doing it with love. He did an impression of his grandparents arguing, and he did it with a Scottish accent, which was pretty funny.
2. He likes Heroes and Top Chef, but he said his girlfriend Claire mainly chooses what they're going to watch, so he doesn't know what he's going to be seeing on TV until that day. (When he mentioned having a girlfriend, there were disappointed looks all around.)
3. He likes playing street hockey with the other Eureka people during lunch breaks. He said they have to split the Russian guys up, though, because they're too good. heh.
4. Colin is from Canada, but he recently became an American citizen, so we forgive him. :D He did an impression of a guy with a French accent, which I remember finding hilarious at the time but now I can't remember why he did it...
5. People kept referencing other things that Colin has done, but I'm not familiar with his career. This is what I gathered in the panel: he got his start in improvisational comedy. How cool is that? And so appropriate, I think. The boy is funny.
Some things Sara filmed:
This is a little spoilery for Eureka, but it's worth watching just for the dreamy Colin factor. He talks about the premiere of season two, the bubble girl from the pilot, the dirty hotel where they stay during filming in Chilliwack, and a funny blooper.
This didn't get on film, but some guy in the panel raised his hand to ask a question and Colin called on him, and the guy started his question with, "I haven't actually watched any episodes of Eureka, but..." And it sort of irritated me that he would do that - admit that he'd never watched the show but try to ask a question anyway like he had any clue what he was talking about, which he obviously didn't because his question had to do with spaceships and aliens, which Eureka doesn't have anything to do with at all. He pretty much just made himself look like an ass. "Hey everyone, I don't actually belong here in any way, but I want you all to look at me and listen to what I have to say even though it's totally irrelevant, makes little sense, and there's absolutely no reason for you to be interested!" Jerk. But Colin was still very friendly and polite and answered the question the best way he could, which I thought was decent of him.
Colin has recorded a podcast for every episode of Eureka. You can download them from the [Eureka website] and play them as you watch the show, and it's just like having a dvd with commentary. I listened to a few of these, and just really enjoyed the pants off them. (I know I don't have room in my life for another celebrity crush, but... *sigh*) If anyone is interested in watching Eureka but don't know where you can get the episodes, drop me a comment and I'll see what I can do to illegally provide them for you. :)
The panel (and pretty much everything else) ended a few minutes before 6. I called spankspike as we were leaving to let her know we were done and to give her the address where we were staying so she and spundone would know where to find us. We got back to the condo thingy in enough time for me to change clothes before they got there, because I wasn't sure if we were going out or not.
Tisa called when they were close, so I went and stood outside the door of the place so they'd see which one was ours. And of course, I accidentally locked myself out, which I didn't realize until after they had arrived and I tried to let us all in and the door wouldn't open. *blush* Good thing my family hadn't left for supper yet.
We all hung out together for a few minutes (Sara hooked up her camera to the TV and played some of what she'd filmed at the convention center... and then Tisa and my dad talked about Lawrence Welk, whom I had believed to be a woman - despite the name - for low these many years) before my family left for Chilis.
As soon as they were gone, I made Tisa and Arianna promise they wouldn't axe-murder me. It was a little disconcerting that Arianna seemed disappointed...
Arianna is so pretty!
So is Tisa! But she doesn't like pictures.
Sparkly makeup!
What's kind of funny about meeting Tisa is that I felt sure we would talk about fandom stuff. But. We didn't. Well, I think it might have come up once or twice, but mostly Arianna and Tisa talked about each other and I just listened. And tried to throw in a comment here and there when I could sneak one in between them. :D They're pretty much hilarious together.
My family came back after supper and asked if I wanted to go to the party/costume contest thing that night, but I was enjoying spending time with Tisa and Arianna, so I said no. When they left again, I asked Tisa if they wanted to go get something to eat, and she said yes, but then we realized I didn't have a key to get back in if I left. So I waited at the condo for the two of them to pick something up and bring it back - and my mom had brought me some food already, so it was all good. We ate and hung out again until my family came back, and then Tisa led me to believe that they were going home, so I walked them out... and we stood outside and kept on talking, even though it started raining on our heads. But eventually the rain was too much, so we said goodbye.
We am so smexy.
Sara and Mama told me all about the party, very little of which I remember now. It was at the DoubleTree Inn near Universal, and there was a live band. Apparently the room it was in was sectioned off, and most of the celebrities were on one side, and you could only go on that side if you had a VIP ticket - although a couple of the celebs had come over to the other side to mingle. Colin Ferguson and Jordan Hinson were on the costume contest celebrity judges panel, along with Christina Hendricks and two others.
This costume won. She and her friend went as... some kind of punk dragons? The whole thing was handmade, and they incorporated their real hair as well.
When Mama and Sara saw Colin talking to some of the fans, they went over to speak to him again too and to get a picture. When they walked over, Zachary Quinto (Sylar - the bad guy - from Heroes) was standing nearby and thought they were coming to speak to him, so Sara took a picture with him first. She had never seen Heroes at the time, but I just found out yesterday that she's gotten caught up on every episode now. Yay!
I can't help but find him a little creepy. Isn't that sad? Occupational hazard, I guess. I'm sure he's a very nice person.
When they came back to the condo, Mama showed me this picture and said they'd hung out with him allllllll night. The sluts.
That pretty much did it for day one. We stayed up talking for a little while, but still tried to get to sleep in a timely manner (read: 2AM) because we had to check out by 10.
I woke up in the morning in time to hear my mom telling my sister about how she'd dreamed about Colin Ferguson all night. She dreamed they were best friends and that he was a famous horticulturalist (wtf?) and for some reason, they were hanging out with the king of some unknown country... and then later they illegally copied some classified government video tapes... She said it was all really exciting, and I've decided to take her word for it. I can't help but think, though, how unfair it is that my mom has this great Colin Ferguson dream and that night I dreamed about eating a raw steak.
Anyway, there were only two showers in the place where we stayed, so Mama and Sara took showers and then Daddy and Scott took showers, and then they were all ready to go by the time I had mine. It was already 10, so they went to officially check out while I was still running around trying to get ready - and a maid came by twice to try to clean up before I was even dressed. To this I say, lame.
The Heroes panel that we wanted to go to didn't begin until 1:00, so when we finally got out of the condo, we went to get breakfast at IHOP.
Are there IHOPs in England? I know it stands for International House of Pancakes, but I ask because I read a post one time where some English people were talking about having never eaten at an American-style diner, of which IHOP is one.
IHOP was supercrowded because it was a late Sunday morning, so there was a bit of a wait. While we waited, Sara and Mama and I walked over to the little souvenir shop next door and saw something that I found pretty horrifying.
*shakes head sadly*
For breakfast, I got the banana walnut pancakes sans nuts and with extra whipped cream. (ReadyWhip = my favorite food.) After we ordered, Sara played the peg game on the table and got down to one peg on the first try.
The scoring for getting down to one peg is 50 points: "Very Smart."
So of course I had to show her up and do the hardest level.
The scoring for getting down to eight pegs with no remaining jumps is 200 points: "Genius."
We got back to the Convention Center about noon and shopped a little bit first. We went to a jewelry booth where the people were dressed in medieval clothes and trying to sell multicolored hairnets. Which a lot of people were wearing, by the way. Honestly, I hadn't seen so many hairnets since before I started bringing a sack lunch when I was in high school. The man was affecting an Irish accent, and the woman called my sister m'lady. It was... weird.
Anyway, Hayden Panettiere. I have no idea how to say her last name, but she plays the Cheerleader from Heroes and she'd had a really long line the day before, but this time there were only a few people waiting. There was a table halfway through the line with a volunteer sitting there, where you paid your $25 and picked out whichever picture you wanted her to sign. After I paid, the volunteer wrote my name down on a little slip of paper because apparently Hayden had asked her to start doing that so she could see how everything was spelled. We were also told not to ask Hayden for any pictures because she didn't have time.
In between fans, Hayden was trying to autograph a stack of pictures to be sold after the con was over, so she was in big hurry. When we walked up, she read my name off the slip of paper and said, "Hey Jenny, how are you?" and I said, "I'm great, how are you?" and she said, "My hand hurts!" and I said, "Yeah, I bet," and she said, "Carpal tunnel, carpal tunnel, carpal tunnel."
I felt really rushed since she looked like she was in such a hurry, and I didn't get a chance to ask her to write "Save me, save the world," on my picture like I'd wanted to. (Scott came up with that. Heh.) She was already done with my autograph before I could ask her. She seemed pretty nice, but... I guess I wouldn't really know. I thanked her and shook hands with her and then we were being shooed off.
Jenny, XOXO
Zachary Quinto was sitting at the table right next to Hayden, and I had wanted to meet him as well, but I didn't even notice that he was sitting there, so when we got shooed away, we went right by him without stopping. Which was a shame, because he didn't have a line at all. But when I realized we'd given him the brush-off, I felt too silly to turn around and go right back up to him, so I ended up not officially meeting him at all. *sigh*
Before the Heroes panel started, we stopped at a few more booths. The same vendor that I always see everywhere had his BtVS/AtS stuff there, so I stopped to speak and to look at the action figures - even though I'd gotten the Angel figures I was missing already. He had a sale on. Three figures for $25, which is pretty much a great deal. So I decided to start collecting Spike as well, which was probably a mistake since I doubt I'll be into collecting him as much as I was into collecting Angel, which means I'll get half a collection and stop and then not know what to do with them. (I should have gotten the 12-inch Angels instead, but I didn't think about that.)
My vendor's booth. I should probably learn his name, eh? Notice I was wearing my "Save the cheerleader, save the world" shirt on the day I met Hayden Panettiere. I'm such a dork.
Anyway, I got three Spikes for $25, but there was another Spike on the sale rack too, and I asked if I could get the sale price for him as well or if I'd have to buy two other figures to go with him before I could get a discount, and the vendor told me that if I chose two other Spikes that were not on sale, then he'd give me a good deal on them because I always buy from him. So of course I chose the two rarest ones (read: most expensive) and I did get a deal on them, but it was still way more than I had been planning to spend on action figures, considering that I hadn't even thought I'd be buying any Spikes to begin with.
My seven Spikes (I already had the one on the red card), a Tootsie Roll pillow, and Annie the cat, who wouldn't move.
After I bought my Spikes, we had to run to get to the Heroes panel before it started. There were more people in that panel than in any of the other ones we'd gone to, but the room was still only half full. (Kind of like the glass.)
The villain and the cheerleader.
Zachary Quinto fielded most of the questions. He was also the one who called on different people to ask the questions, since there weren't any volunteers working the panels, as far as I could tell. Hayden's whole family had shown up, and a couple of the questions came from her cousins, which I thought was funny. Someone asked Hayden who her inspiration was, and she pointed over to her family and was like, "She's sitting on the seventh row back, third seat over. My mom." And then her mom got all teary. It was cute.
Someone asked about all the makeup and prosthetics that Hayden had to have because her character gets these gruesome injuries all the time, and she said that before the series started, she had to have a full body cast made so that all the prosthetics would be the right size and be able to fit onto her body and look real. She said she'd had to lie down on this cold metal table in just a bra and panties and this huge scary-looking guy with a ponytail came in and poured plaster all over her and she thought she was going to die. Heh.
During the panel, Colin Ferguson came in and sat in the row behind us. I thought it was really funny because, even though he had said he liked Heroes, I hadn't really thought of him as being a fan like me. But you know, the more I meet famous people, the more I'm sort of realizing that they're just people with jobs.
Zachary said that casting for the part of Sylar didn't actually take place until after the pilot had been filmed, but if he had known about the show before then, he would have auditioned for the part of Peter. Then Hayden said that everyone had auditioned for Peter - even the guy who plays Matt Parkman. I've tried to picture that guy being Peter and I can't. But it's funny to think about. :)
Sara didn't film any in the Heroes panel, which is kind of disappointing because it's the only panel where I actually asked a question. Yes, that's right, shy!Jen spoke during a celebrity panel! When Zachary called on me, I turned and looked behind me, and then he was like, "No, you. Yeah. You." And then I said something like, "So what does Sylar do with the brains after he takes them? Like... does he eat them?" And everyone laughed, and for a horrible moment I thought I had asked something that was really obvious and made me look really stupid. But then he kind of laughed too and said that everyone had a different theory about what he was doing with them, and that was kind of the fun of it, like, he could be eating them or he could... and then he turned to Hayden and said, "What else could he possibly be doing with them?" and she was like, "I think he like, wrings them out and drinks the juice." And then he laughed again and said he had his own little theory about what Sylar was doing with the brains, and then, OUT OF NOWHERE, he goes, "What do you think he does with them?" And he was talking to me! And I had no idea what to say, so I was just like, "Oh, I don't know, I just assumed he ate them." And he sort of nodded. And then I was mad, because I have about a million different ideas about what's really going on with the brains, but I had to be lame and repeat myself when put on the spot in front of everyone. *sigh*
But I was still proud that I had asked a question. :)
The Heroes panel ended it for us even though it was only 2:00, because we had a 9-hour drive back. Nine hours! I still can't believe I was crammed in the back of a Buick with my sister and her husband for about 18 hours that weekend. But you know, the drive back seemed much shorter than the drive there. Probably because we spent it talking about how much we enjoyed ourselves. (That and sleeping.) I really had fun at this convention, and now, even though September is still very far away, I'm excited like whoa about going to Dragon*Con again. (I think at these conventions, they ought to stop selling tickets with the name of the con on them. They should just give you a badge that says DORK really big, and everyone would know immediately why you were there.)
Just for reference, this is how much I spent on the FX Show this year:
$180.92 for two nights at Fantasy World Resort
$30 for a two-day FX Show pass
$195 for action figures
$20 to meet Ron Glass
$20 to meet Colin Ferguson
$25 to meet Kristen Bell
$20 to meet Adam Baldwin
$25 to meet Hayden Panettiere
+ however much I spent on food. (My parents paid for the gas.)
Hmm, that's more than I thought I spent... yeesh. Good thing I have no actual bill-type things every month like real people do.
So. Who else is going to D*C? Besides me and Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff? *nudges flist* I'll meet anyone who swears not to kill me. :)
This is the second year that I've attended this particular convention, and I gotta say, I had a lot of fun. More fun than last year, even. So dialers-up, beware. There are pictures and videos like whoa beneath the cut - as well as mild spoilers if you haven't seen Eureka or Heroes. And a big spoiler if you haven't seen Serenity. But if you haven't seen Serenity, what are you doing reading this? Get yourself to a TV, stat! Also, all the videos are embedded from Youtube, but for some reason I'm having trouble playing them. (It could just be my computer.) If you have trouble playing them from this post, just click on the player and it will take you to the Youtube page where you can watch it, and they all play just fine from there.
Here we go. :)
Orlando is slightly less than 500 miles from my hometown of Thomson, Georgia. My parents and I left on Friday around 4:00PM (since I had to work) and drove to Macon to pick up my sister Sara and her husband Scott before heading down to Florida. On the way down, the five of us stopped at a Chick-Fil-A in Tifton for supper. The total drive down took about nine hours but seemed a lot longer considering that there were three adults crammed in the back seat. We arrived at the Fantasy World Resort just after 1:30 in the morning.
Scott and Sara waiting to go inside... Sara looking kinda scary.
Since I paid for the condo, I got to have the master bedroom to myself. Even though I was traveling with two married couples, who had to sleep in twin beds or on the fold-out couch. heh.
I took this picture pretty much as soon as we got there, so I'd remember what time it was.
I called spankspike to tell her that we'd arrived okay and that I would let her know the next day when a good time would be to meet up. And so I could complain about the place being much smaller and pinker than it looked online. (I find real life often tends to be smaller and pinker. What's with that?)
We didn't stay up long after we got there because the convention began again on Saturday at 10:00AM, and we wanted to get there fairly early so we'd have time to meet everyone. Of course, we still overslept a little bit and didn't actually get to the convention center until a couple of minutes before noon. But that always happens, so it's not like any of us were surprised.
View from the car. Check out the palm trees.
Last year the FX Show was at the fairgrounds. This was MUCH better. In fact, I'd say the Convention Center was actually a little bit too big for the amount of people that were there, but it was nice being able to wander around without actually bumping into people. I'm hoping this convention becomes popular enough to fill the venue in the next couple of years, though.
I think we drove at least two complete circles around the building before we figured out where we were supposed to park.
View from the parking lot.
It cost $6 to park. Lame. Our first celebrity sighting: one of the cars in the parking lot had a cardboard cutout of Sarah Michelle Gellar sitting in the front passenger seat. The car also had a vanity plate on the front that said, "Slayer." I wish I had taken a picture.
As soon as we got inside, we went up to a booth to get our tickets. We'd reserved our passes online, but you have to show your printed receipt to actually get them.
Scott, Sara, and Mama getting our tickets.
While we were standing at the booth, I heard someone ask a volunteer what room the Fanboys celebrity panel was going to be in. Bzuh? I had no idea there were going to be panels this year because they didn't have any last year, so I got really excited and ran over to the volunteer guy to re-ask the question - since, in my excitement, I didn't hear what he said the first time. He told us the room number and said we'd better hurry because the room was filling up. Now, this wasn't actually the case, because the room was about three times bigger than it needed to be. But we still ran along to the room as soon as we got our passes because, hello, Kristen Bell.
From left to right: Chris Marquette, Sam Huntington, Kristen Bell, Jaime King, and... three... other guys.
They began the panel by showing a longish preview for the movie [Fanboys]. I think it looks like a fun movie, and I'd like to see it when it comes out. The basic premise is this: a boy who is a big Star Wars fan is going to die before Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace is released in theaters, so his friends help him break into Lucas Ranch so he can see it before he dies. Okay, so maybe that doesn't sound like a fun movie... but the preview made it look pretty funny, and I can indentify with a lot of the things that they talk about since I'm a squeeing fangirl myself. (Not of Star Wars, but geek culture tends to span fandoms.)
Kristen said that during one scene, she had to wear a Princess Leia gold bikini, and it started snowing. And they shot like 15 takes. Here are a couple of other things from the panel that my sister happened to catch on film:
Click to viewI think Kristen's so cute. The girl sitting next to her said exactly zero words during the whole panel.
After the Fanboys panel ended, Sara, Mama, and Scott went to the bathroom while Daddy and I waited for them. When they came back, Sara had this little story to tell: Kristen Bell was in the bathroom at the same time, and peed in the stall next to her. Like, she actually heard Kristen Bell peeing. I can't decide whether I think it's neat or just weird. On the one hand, how many people can say they listened to Veronica Mars tinkle? But on the other hand... how many people would actually want to?
Don't answer that.
According to Scott, Chris Marquette peed next to him as well. Yay?
Following the severe invasion of privacy, Sara went out to get her jacket from the car while Mama and I went in search of a list of the rest of the panels that were being offered. We actually had to go in and out of the dealer room a couple of times, and we had to get our hands temporarily tattooed so we could come back inside. The tattoos looked like this:
Earth! Wind! Fire! Water! HEART! (photo by spankspike.)
We asked some volunteers about the panel list, but the first two didn't know what we were talking about. We did end up with a little bag containing several different fliers, though. Which was... nice. Finally, the third volunteer told us where we could get a list.
This is what the ticket looked like, and the list of the other panels.
The first thing I did when we finally got the chance to look around was go in search of Angel action figures. I was missing three of the six-inch figures, and I managed to find all of them at one booth. It was the [Buffy Collector Club] booth, and I got all three figures for $50. I was pretty shocked considering that I expected one of them to be at least that much by itself. (I'm still wondering if there was some kind of mistake.)
These are all my Angel figures hanging up on the wall in my room. I circled the ones I got at the FX Show - Vamped Season One Angel with a leather jacket, Pylean Demon Angel, and Vamped Season Three Angel with Baby Connor.
Whenever you bought something from that particular booth, they also gave you a ticket, and you were supposed to take your ticket over to this girl who was dressed as an elf and standing in front of a color-coded spinny-wheel thing. Sort of like the [Wheel of Fortune wheel]. There was a prize board set up next to the wheel with different color-coded prizes you could win, and the elf girl would spin the wheel for you to see which color prize you would get. My prize was actually supposed to be lego!Angel, but the girl said I could pick whichever thing I wanted. I already had lego!Angel (see above picture), and the only other Angel figure you could win was Pylean Demon Angel, which I had just bought, so I chose the Buffybot action figure to give to my brother. (He's not a collector, but he's told me several times that he'd like a Buffybot of his very own.) Now Brad has two action figures, the Buffybot and Once More With Feeling Buffy, both of which I got for him at conventions. My mom said he's only going to collect Buffy figures as long as I keep giving them to him. :/
The actors were all set up at two rows of back to back tables in about the middle of the gigantic room we were in, and there were red and blue curtains running between the tables to separate the two rows and provide a convenient backdrop for pictures. When we saw where the actors were set up, we did that really cool thing you do where you walk up and down the row checking everyone out before you stop in front of the table of the person you wanna meet and talk about them for a few minutes before actually walking up and getting in the line. The first person we met was Ron Glass.
Too much snow on the roof!
I don't really remember the conversation we had with him, except that my sister talked to him first and then introduced me as Jenny, after which the three of us had a friendly chat about different spellings and pronunciations of my name. Apparently, I've been mispronouncing it for nearly 24 years... although my sister got it right. He asked if it was Ginny or Jenny, and I think I told him it was both, because I pronounce them the same way. (FYI: It's actually Jen (Gin), but my family still calls me Jenny. Although they mostly say it like Ginny. Which looks funny to me when it's written down.)
Anyway, even though the name thing is really all I remember about Ron, I got the impression that he is a very, very nice guy, and I enjoyed talking to him. Oh, and I complimented his shirt.
Serenity now.
What else...? Oh, my sister mentioned that she'd seen him on an episode of Friends, and he seemed pleased. And about conventions in general, he smiled and said, "There are worse ways to spend a Saturday." :)
I got Ron to sign the cover of the Firefly disk with his picture on it. (When I met Alan Tudyk and Summer Glau, I had them sign the box the disks go in, but that's because they didn't have their own disks.) I didn't have anything in particular I wanted him to write, so he just wrote what I assume he writes on everyone's autographs, which is a line from Serenity.
Jenny, just believe it!
Afterwards, he blew on the ink and then insisted that he put the cover back in the case himself. :) We asked if we could have a couple of pictures with him, but his assistant/volunteer person told us we couldn't because he was actually supposed to have a photo shoot and you could buy pictures with him for like $30. (We didn't.) Later on, after his photo op thing was over, we saw him posing with other fans at his table, and my mom was disappointed. I thought it was sweet, though. Like, he was only following the rules until he didn't have to anymore.
Andy Hallett was sitting at the table beside Ron, so we decided to meet him next. I had met Andy at [ Dragon*Con] in September, so I wasn't actually planning to meet him again, but my sister really wanted to. She's never watched Angel, but my brother Brad once did a video called [Karaoke Tips with Lorne] that we joke about a lot, and she thought it would be funny to get his autograph for him - even though Brad's not really a big Lorne fan either.
So... anyone else notice that Andy smelled like alcohol at around 2:00 in the afternoon?
When we talked to him, Sara started going on about how Brad was such a huge fan and would just love to get Andy's autograph, how he was just going to be so happy, and she wanted him to write, "Just remember, be yourself." Then she turned to me and asked if it should be "Just remember" or "Here's a tip," and Andy and I agreed that it should be "Here's a tip." Because in the video, the number one tip is to be yourself.
See, okay, it's really funny to us, but it doesn't sound funny at all the way I'm talking about it. And yes, the yellow blob in the corner is my boob.
To Brad, Here's a tip... Be Yourself!
While he was signing, Sara and I were both sort of giggling and going, "Brad's gonna love this! He's just gonna die when he sees it," and stuff like that. And afterwards, my mom told us that we had made Brad sound like he was gay, and Lorne was his hero, and that Lorne's advice was just to be his gay self and not worry about it... hehehe. We haven't given the autograph to Brad yet because Sara wants to put it in a frame first, but I think when we do we'll leave out the part about him coming across as a big gay Lorne fanboy. :)
I think Andy was really nice, but my mom sort of wrinkled her nose and said he smelled too much like booze, which would have been okay if it had been the party that night, but not so much okay during the autograph signing. He wasn't like, plastered or anything. Just comfortable. Like, you wouldn't really have been able to tell at all. He was very friendly and polite, and he admired my shirt, which had a picture of a dragon eating ice cream and some chinese writing. He also admired Sara's video camera, so she did a commercial for it, and also took the opportunity to film him very close up. My mom was also filming, and I cut the two clips together.
"You don't look that bad." Heh! I can't believe she said that. :D Also, Andy accuses my sister of porning with her camera.
The next person we met was Colin Ferguson, who is absolutely dreamy. He plays Sheriff Jack Carter on [Eureka], and is definitely the whole reason my mom and I even watch the show - although the show is very good, don't get me wrong! But he really makes it, you know?
*sigh*
Colin is just about the friendliest guy you could ever meet. Even though he's from Canada. :)
If you look very closely in this picture, you can actually see how much he's in love with me.
Also, you can see the gum I'm chewing.
I tend to do this thing when I'm talking to people - I say stuff that ends the flow of conversation. I don't do it on purpose; it just happens. Like, someone will say something, and I'll say, "Yeah..." And then it's awkward silence. I've tried adding stuff to that, like, "Yeah, I know what you mean," or "Yeah, me too," but it still effectively shuts the other person up. I have no idea why this happens or how I can correct it... which is pretty much why I like having my sister with me when we meet someone - so she can do all the talking and I can just stand there and grin. Which is what I'm good at.
When we met Colin, Sara spoke to him first and then introduced me. Sara has only seen the first episode of Eureka, so she didn't actually have anything to say to him, but I'd only seen like the first six episodes, so I didn't have much to say either. She ended up asking him what his favorite line of dialogue was from Eureka, because that's the line I wanted written on the autograph. He said no one had ever asked him that before, and he talked about a couple of different scenes he liked from the show - but neither of us had actually seen the things he mentioned! So we were just smiling and nodding and pretending to understand what he was saying. But then, to prove I really am a fan of the show, I told him I liked the "death ray" exchange (from the last episode I saw, right before going to the con). And then he sorta laughed and reached out like he was going to touch me! And I squeed silently.
He asked me how to spell my name, and I told him, and he said, "Okay, normally." Which I thought was funny considering the conversation we had just had with Ron Glass a few minutes earlier.
This is part of our conversation. Look, he sort of reaches for me! Also, he mentions the line "You overestimate me" and something about a generic mannaquin? About which I had no clue. But he reaches!
Sara had mentioned that he had neat handwriting, and we watched him write on his picture, and then at the end, he was like, "How'd I do?" And smiled. And it was so cute! He wrote the death ray line for me.
For Jenny, Thanks so much for watching... why don't they just call it a death ray?
Gee, Colin, I have no idea. But they ought to! Stupid scientists.
*admires picture*
Wait a second... is that... in the background... what is that??
You gotta wonder why they would put that back there on the picture he's signing for fans, you know?
After he did my autograph, Sara told him that a woman she works with named Deborah absolutely loves Eureka - it's her favorite show. She had made a sign that said, "Deborah, Thanks for watching!" and wanted to know if he would hold it in a photo for her. He was like, "Sure!"
Sarah framed this picture and gave it to Deborah, who was apparently superexcited. I wish I had been able to see her reaction.
After Colin took that picture, he wrote on the sign, "Thanks, Deborah!" Isn't that sweet? He didn't sign his name, though, because he wasn't allowed to actually autograph something if we didn't pay for it, and we had only paid for one autograph.
The Firefly panel was at 3:00, but we still had about an hour. We went to Kristen Bell's line, but it was really long, so we just got little numbered tickets, and they told us we could come back after our numbers had been called. Then we went to the food court place to have lunch. My mom and I split a little pepperoni pizza that cost $8. Sara and Scott had something with gigantic meatballs.
His face got stuck that way for like three hours.
We rushed to the Firefly panel, thinking there wouldn't be many seats, but there were fewer people there than at the Fanboys panel earlier. It was nice though. It felt kind of intimate. I just sort of feel bad because the room was SO big and we were all scrunched at one end... Like, Adam Baldwin looked out at the audience and said, "We're five years into this phenomenon..." and it didn't seem very phenomenal at all if you looked at all the empty seats. I enjoyed the panel though.
From left to right: Ron Glass, Adam Baldwin, Christina Hendricks (Saffron).
Someone in the audience referenced the Buffy episode "Once More with Feeling" and asked what Ron, Adam, and Christina thought their characters would have sung if there were a Firefly musical episode. Adam sang (in a very flat Jayne voice) "Feelings, nothing more than feelings..." He also, for some reason that I've forgotten now, sang the first few words of "Viva Las Vegas" during the panel, which he reprised for us later when we met him, because I am a big Elvis fan. Here are some things from the panel that my sister recorded with her camera:
In which the following things are discussed: [Qwisp], Razor phones, pasties, Rebecca Gayheart, Book's untimely death, and the end of Firefly.
Daddy seemed to really enjoy the Firefly panel, which made me happy because I was worried he wouldn't have a good time since he's not a big fan of... anything. But he liked Ron Glass because he used to watch Barney Miller back in the day. (My dad is 50.) Ron was so cute with his cell phone. He got all excited that it rang during the panel. Also, Adam texted Nathan Fillion while we were all there, which was kind of neat.
After the panel was over, we went back to the main room to shop some more and meet more guests. As soon as we went in, I started looking at action figures again and Sara and Scott found a booth full of stuffed animals. Sara, for whatever reason, has a thing about penguins, and Scott said that he turned his back for about a minute and when he turned back to her, she had her arms around about 20 stuffed penguins and a blissful expression on her face. She only bought one, though.
Sara's penguin. Also, she bought a pig for our other sister Amy, who has a thing about pigs.
After that, we went to meet Kristen Bell because our numbers had already been called.
She is so cute! And very little.
My sister with my hero.
Even though Sara has seen every episode of Veronica Mars, she couldn't really think of anything from the show that she wanted Kristen to sign on her picture. She told her so, and Kristen said, "What's your name? Sara? I'll think of something for ya."
For Sara - Be cool Soda Pop!
I think Veronica says that to Wallace in Season One.
OMG BFF!
I told Kristen that I did have something specific I wanted for her to write on my autograph - "Boom goes the dynamite." (Veronica says that to Piz in the season premiere of season three, I think.) As soon as I told her that's what I wanted, she got all excited and was like, "Yes!" and wrote it in all capital letters.
For Jenny - BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!
Heh, she asked me how to spell dynamite. :D
As she was writing it, she said something like, "That kid is so funny," and I was like, what kid? And she goes, "You know, that kid that says 'Boom goes the dynamite.'" And I didn't know what she was talking about, and she was all, OMG, you haven't seen that video?? And I said that I hadn't, and she goes, "Jenny," and gives me this look like she can't even believe I don't know what she's talking about. And then she started telling me about this video that I absolutely have to see on Youtube. My mom recorded her telling me about it.
Kristen was so excited about the "Boom goes the dynamite!" kid. It's pretty funny.
The video she's talking about is [here]. I think I had actually seen it before and just repressed it because it's so sad.
We walked around for a few minutes after that, looking at booths and stuff. There was one booth set up where people were actually getting tattoos. Would you ever get a tattoo in the middle of a dealer room at a convention? I mean good grief, there were only two other people in the room with me when I got my tattoo, and it still felt too public. And those two were the tattooer and my best friend! Of course I did get mine in a sort of private place...
Last year, there were a lot of people in costume walking around the convention, but this year, there were very few. In fact, I think I only actually saw maybe five. Sara saw this girl walking around on stilts, and she thought the costume was pretty funny, so she wanted a picture with her:
Butchiest angel I've ever seen. Also, tallest. Is she supposed to be standing on a cloud?
Sara eventually worked up the nerve to meet Adam Baldwin. It was about 4:30, and there was a Eureka panel at 5:00 that we didn't want to miss, so we contemplated saving Adam for the next day because there was a line and we knew we were coming back, but my sister suddenly got irrationally worried that maybe he wouldn't be there the next day or something, so we went ahead and did it.
Sara and the Hero of Canton.
Sara actually told Adam that he was one of her two biggest crushes. (This is something I think I would never be able to tell a famous person.) She mentioned that the first time she'd ever seen him was on [Radio Flyer], which came out 15 years ago, and she was a little kid and had been completely scared of him. (He played a frightening and abusive step-father called "The King.") She said she'd actually been scared of him until she'd seen him in Firefly. He just sort of listened and nodded about all of this, and she told him she'd originally wanted him to sign his autograph as The King because her other big crush is Bruce Springsteen, and it would be kind of neat to have autographs from The King and The Boss. Then she mentioned that I associate "The King" with Elvis, and he said, "Well he's a better King than I was," and I said, "I have to agree," and he sort of laughed and was like, "I do, too - I said it first!" And I told him that he did a good "Viva Las Vegas" during the panel, so he sang a few words from it again while we were standing there. :) I don't know why I just described all of this, since it's in the little video below.
At the end, Sara asks if she can have a picture with him, and he says, "Sure, where's the camera?" And my mom had been filming them with the camera and had to hurry and switch it to the photo option.
Sara/Jayne OTP! (He was smiling on the inside.)
Sara asked what his favorite line from Firefly was so he could write it on the picture. I think he made a very good choice. :)
For Sara, Serenity always, "I'll be in my bunk."
To Jenny!!!
Sara told Adam that his autograph to me looked pretty excited, and he said really loud, "JENNY!" and then he said, "Like, STELLA!" Heh. Also, my sister told me that Adam had held out his hand to shake mine, but I totally left him hanging. But I didn't notice! *headdesk*
Adam, I hope you don't think I'm stuck-up.
The Eureka panel was right after that. We got there about 5 minutes before it was supposed to start and, counting us, there were a total of maybe 15 people in the room. I was so scared we'd be the only ones in there! More people came in about a minute before it started, though, so there were probably about 35 or 40 altogether. Which still kinda sucks, but at least there weren't any awkward silences. I kind of don't know why everyone isn't watching Eureka.
Colin Ferguson and Jordan Hinson. They play father and daughter on the show, although Colin isn't really old enough to be Jordan's father in real life. Well, I mean, maybe, but... he'd have been about 19. Which is young.
I really enjoyed this panel. I can't get over how friendly and sweet Colin is. He just seemed like such a great guy. At one point, Jordan told us that she had to watch out for him because he sometimes did dumb things, like giving out his phone number to someone he met on myspace. He was like, "She seemed like a nice person!" So... who else wants to go join myspace right away after hearing that? (My sister actually friended him on myspace after the con and he friended her back. His myspace page is [here].)
Things we know about Colin from attending the panel:
1. He's the first person in his family who wasn't born in Scotland. Someone mentioned the sarcasm of his character when dealing with his daughter on the show, and he said that he loved that relationship because it was so much like his own family - calling each other names but doing it with love. He did an impression of his grandparents arguing, and he did it with a Scottish accent, which was pretty funny.
2. He likes Heroes and Top Chef, but he said his girlfriend Claire mainly chooses what they're going to watch, so he doesn't know what he's going to be seeing on TV until that day. (When he mentioned having a girlfriend, there were disappointed looks all around.)
3. He likes playing street hockey with the other Eureka people during lunch breaks. He said they have to split the Russian guys up, though, because they're too good. heh.
4. Colin is from Canada, but he recently became an American citizen, so we forgive him. :D He did an impression of a guy with a French accent, which I remember finding hilarious at the time but now I can't remember why he did it...
5. People kept referencing other things that Colin has done, but I'm not familiar with his career. This is what I gathered in the panel: he got his start in improvisational comedy. How cool is that? And so appropriate, I think. The boy is funny.
Some things Sara filmed:
This is a little spoilery for Eureka, but it's worth watching just for the dreamy Colin factor. He talks about the premiere of season two, the bubble girl from the pilot, the dirty hotel where they stay during filming in Chilliwack, and a funny blooper.
This didn't get on film, but some guy in the panel raised his hand to ask a question and Colin called on him, and the guy started his question with, "I haven't actually watched any episodes of Eureka, but..." And it sort of irritated me that he would do that - admit that he'd never watched the show but try to ask a question anyway like he had any clue what he was talking about, which he obviously didn't because his question had to do with spaceships and aliens, which Eureka doesn't have anything to do with at all. He pretty much just made himself look like an ass. "Hey everyone, I don't actually belong here in any way, but I want you all to look at me and listen to what I have to say even though it's totally irrelevant, makes little sense, and there's absolutely no reason for you to be interested!" Jerk. But Colin was still very friendly and polite and answered the question the best way he could, which I thought was decent of him.
Colin has recorded a podcast for every episode of Eureka. You can download them from the [Eureka website] and play them as you watch the show, and it's just like having a dvd with commentary. I listened to a few of these, and just really enjoyed the pants off them. (I know I don't have room in my life for another celebrity crush, but... *sigh*) If anyone is interested in watching Eureka but don't know where you can get the episodes, drop me a comment and I'll see what I can do to illegally provide them for you. :)
The panel (and pretty much everything else) ended a few minutes before 6. I called spankspike as we were leaving to let her know we were done and to give her the address where we were staying so she and spundone would know where to find us. We got back to the condo thingy in enough time for me to change clothes before they got there, because I wasn't sure if we were going out or not.
Tisa called when they were close, so I went and stood outside the door of the place so they'd see which one was ours. And of course, I accidentally locked myself out, which I didn't realize until after they had arrived and I tried to let us all in and the door wouldn't open. *blush* Good thing my family hadn't left for supper yet.
We all hung out together for a few minutes (Sara hooked up her camera to the TV and played some of what she'd filmed at the convention center... and then Tisa and my dad talked about Lawrence Welk, whom I had believed to be a woman - despite the name - for low these many years) before my family left for Chilis.
As soon as they were gone, I made Tisa and Arianna promise they wouldn't axe-murder me. It was a little disconcerting that Arianna seemed disappointed...
Arianna is so pretty!
So is Tisa! But she doesn't like pictures.
Sparkly makeup!
What's kind of funny about meeting Tisa is that I felt sure we would talk about fandom stuff. But. We didn't. Well, I think it might have come up once or twice, but mostly Arianna and Tisa talked about each other and I just listened. And tried to throw in a comment here and there when I could sneak one in between them. :D They're pretty much hilarious together.
My family came back after supper and asked if I wanted to go to the party/costume contest thing that night, but I was enjoying spending time with Tisa and Arianna, so I said no. When they left again, I asked Tisa if they wanted to go get something to eat, and she said yes, but then we realized I didn't have a key to get back in if I left. So I waited at the condo for the two of them to pick something up and bring it back - and my mom had brought me some food already, so it was all good. We ate and hung out again until my family came back, and then Tisa led me to believe that they were going home, so I walked them out... and we stood outside and kept on talking, even though it started raining on our heads. But eventually the rain was too much, so we said goodbye.
We am so smexy.
Sara and Mama told me all about the party, very little of which I remember now. It was at the DoubleTree Inn near Universal, and there was a live band. Apparently the room it was in was sectioned off, and most of the celebrities were on one side, and you could only go on that side if you had a VIP ticket - although a couple of the celebs had come over to the other side to mingle. Colin Ferguson and Jordan Hinson were on the costume contest celebrity judges panel, along with Christina Hendricks and two others.
This costume won. She and her friend went as... some kind of punk dragons? The whole thing was handmade, and they incorporated their real hair as well.
When Mama and Sara saw Colin talking to some of the fans, they went over to speak to him again too and to get a picture. When they walked over, Zachary Quinto (Sylar - the bad guy - from Heroes) was standing nearby and thought they were coming to speak to him, so Sara took a picture with him first. She had never seen Heroes at the time, but I just found out yesterday that she's gotten caught up on every episode now. Yay!
I can't help but find him a little creepy. Isn't that sad? Occupational hazard, I guess. I'm sure he's a very nice person.
When they came back to the condo, Mama showed me this picture and said they'd hung out with him allllllll night. The sluts.
That pretty much did it for day one. We stayed up talking for a little while, but still tried to get to sleep in a timely manner (read: 2AM) because we had to check out by 10.
I woke up in the morning in time to hear my mom telling my sister about how she'd dreamed about Colin Ferguson all night. She dreamed they were best friends and that he was a famous horticulturalist (wtf?) and for some reason, they were hanging out with the king of some unknown country... and then later they illegally copied some classified government video tapes... She said it was all really exciting, and I've decided to take her word for it. I can't help but think, though, how unfair it is that my mom has this great Colin Ferguson dream and that night I dreamed about eating a raw steak.
Anyway, there were only two showers in the place where we stayed, so Mama and Sara took showers and then Daddy and Scott took showers, and then they were all ready to go by the time I had mine. It was already 10, so they went to officially check out while I was still running around trying to get ready - and a maid came by twice to try to clean up before I was even dressed. To this I say, lame.
The Heroes panel that we wanted to go to didn't begin until 1:00, so when we finally got out of the condo, we went to get breakfast at IHOP.
Are there IHOPs in England? I know it stands for International House of Pancakes, but I ask because I read a post one time where some English people were talking about having never eaten at an American-style diner, of which IHOP is one.
IHOP was supercrowded because it was a late Sunday morning, so there was a bit of a wait. While we waited, Sara and Mama and I walked over to the little souvenir shop next door and saw something that I found pretty horrifying.
*shakes head sadly*
For breakfast, I got the banana walnut pancakes sans nuts and with extra whipped cream. (ReadyWhip = my favorite food.) After we ordered, Sara played the peg game on the table and got down to one peg on the first try.
The scoring for getting down to one peg is 50 points: "Very Smart."
So of course I had to show her up and do the hardest level.
The scoring for getting down to eight pegs with no remaining jumps is 200 points: "Genius."
We got back to the Convention Center about noon and shopped a little bit first. We went to a jewelry booth where the people were dressed in medieval clothes and trying to sell multicolored hairnets. Which a lot of people were wearing, by the way. Honestly, I hadn't seen so many hairnets since before I started bringing a sack lunch when I was in high school. The man was affecting an Irish accent, and the woman called my sister m'lady. It was... weird.
Anyway, Hayden Panettiere. I have no idea how to say her last name, but she plays the Cheerleader from Heroes and she'd had a really long line the day before, but this time there were only a few people waiting. There was a table halfway through the line with a volunteer sitting there, where you paid your $25 and picked out whichever picture you wanted her to sign. After I paid, the volunteer wrote my name down on a little slip of paper because apparently Hayden had asked her to start doing that so she could see how everything was spelled. We were also told not to ask Hayden for any pictures because she didn't have time.
In between fans, Hayden was trying to autograph a stack of pictures to be sold after the con was over, so she was in big hurry. When we walked up, she read my name off the slip of paper and said, "Hey Jenny, how are you?" and I said, "I'm great, how are you?" and she said, "My hand hurts!" and I said, "Yeah, I bet," and she said, "Carpal tunnel, carpal tunnel, carpal tunnel."
I felt really rushed since she looked like she was in such a hurry, and I didn't get a chance to ask her to write "Save me, save the world," on my picture like I'd wanted to. (Scott came up with that. Heh.) She was already done with my autograph before I could ask her. She seemed pretty nice, but... I guess I wouldn't really know. I thanked her and shook hands with her and then we were being shooed off.
Jenny, XOXO
Zachary Quinto was sitting at the table right next to Hayden, and I had wanted to meet him as well, but I didn't even notice that he was sitting there, so when we got shooed away, we went right by him without stopping. Which was a shame, because he didn't have a line at all. But when I realized we'd given him the brush-off, I felt too silly to turn around and go right back up to him, so I ended up not officially meeting him at all. *sigh*
Before the Heroes panel started, we stopped at a few more booths. The same vendor that I always see everywhere had his BtVS/AtS stuff there, so I stopped to speak and to look at the action figures - even though I'd gotten the Angel figures I was missing already. He had a sale on. Three figures for $25, which is pretty much a great deal. So I decided to start collecting Spike as well, which was probably a mistake since I doubt I'll be into collecting him as much as I was into collecting Angel, which means I'll get half a collection and stop and then not know what to do with them. (I should have gotten the 12-inch Angels instead, but I didn't think about that.)
My vendor's booth. I should probably learn his name, eh? Notice I was wearing my "Save the cheerleader, save the world" shirt on the day I met Hayden Panettiere. I'm such a dork.
Anyway, I got three Spikes for $25, but there was another Spike on the sale rack too, and I asked if I could get the sale price for him as well or if I'd have to buy two other figures to go with him before I could get a discount, and the vendor told me that if I chose two other Spikes that were not on sale, then he'd give me a good deal on them because I always buy from him. So of course I chose the two rarest ones (read: most expensive) and I did get a deal on them, but it was still way more than I had been planning to spend on action figures, considering that I hadn't even thought I'd be buying any Spikes to begin with.
My seven Spikes (I already had the one on the red card), a Tootsie Roll pillow, and Annie the cat, who wouldn't move.
After I bought my Spikes, we had to run to get to the Heroes panel before it started. There were more people in that panel than in any of the other ones we'd gone to, but the room was still only half full. (Kind of like the glass.)
The villain and the cheerleader.
Zachary Quinto fielded most of the questions. He was also the one who called on different people to ask the questions, since there weren't any volunteers working the panels, as far as I could tell. Hayden's whole family had shown up, and a couple of the questions came from her cousins, which I thought was funny. Someone asked Hayden who her inspiration was, and she pointed over to her family and was like, "She's sitting on the seventh row back, third seat over. My mom." And then her mom got all teary. It was cute.
Someone asked about all the makeup and prosthetics that Hayden had to have because her character gets these gruesome injuries all the time, and she said that before the series started, she had to have a full body cast made so that all the prosthetics would be the right size and be able to fit onto her body and look real. She said she'd had to lie down on this cold metal table in just a bra and panties and this huge scary-looking guy with a ponytail came in and poured plaster all over her and she thought she was going to die. Heh.
During the panel, Colin Ferguson came in and sat in the row behind us. I thought it was really funny because, even though he had said he liked Heroes, I hadn't really thought of him as being a fan like me. But you know, the more I meet famous people, the more I'm sort of realizing that they're just people with jobs.
Zachary said that casting for the part of Sylar didn't actually take place until after the pilot had been filmed, but if he had known about the show before then, he would have auditioned for the part of Peter. Then Hayden said that everyone had auditioned for Peter - even the guy who plays Matt Parkman. I've tried to picture that guy being Peter and I can't. But it's funny to think about. :)
Sara didn't film any in the Heroes panel, which is kind of disappointing because it's the only panel where I actually asked a question. Yes, that's right, shy!Jen spoke during a celebrity panel! When Zachary called on me, I turned and looked behind me, and then he was like, "No, you. Yeah. You." And then I said something like, "So what does Sylar do with the brains after he takes them? Like... does he eat them?" And everyone laughed, and for a horrible moment I thought I had asked something that was really obvious and made me look really stupid. But then he kind of laughed too and said that everyone had a different theory about what he was doing with them, and that was kind of the fun of it, like, he could be eating them or he could... and then he turned to Hayden and said, "What else could he possibly be doing with them?" and she was like, "I think he like, wrings them out and drinks the juice." And then he laughed again and said he had his own little theory about what Sylar was doing with the brains, and then, OUT OF NOWHERE, he goes, "What do you think he does with them?" And he was talking to me! And I had no idea what to say, so I was just like, "Oh, I don't know, I just assumed he ate them." And he sort of nodded. And then I was mad, because I have about a million different ideas about what's really going on with the brains, but I had to be lame and repeat myself when put on the spot in front of everyone. *sigh*
But I was still proud that I had asked a question. :)
The Heroes panel ended it for us even though it was only 2:00, because we had a 9-hour drive back. Nine hours! I still can't believe I was crammed in the back of a Buick with my sister and her husband for about 18 hours that weekend. But you know, the drive back seemed much shorter than the drive there. Probably because we spent it talking about how much we enjoyed ourselves. (That and sleeping.) I really had fun at this convention, and now, even though September is still very far away, I'm excited like whoa about going to Dragon*Con again. (I think at these conventions, they ought to stop selling tickets with the name of the con on them. They should just give you a badge that says DORK really big, and everyone would know immediately why you were there.)
Just for reference, this is how much I spent on the FX Show this year:
$180.92 for two nights at Fantasy World Resort
$30 for a two-day FX Show pass
$195 for action figures
$20 to meet Ron Glass
$20 to meet Colin Ferguson
$25 to meet Kristen Bell
$20 to meet Adam Baldwin
$25 to meet Hayden Panettiere
+ however much I spent on food. (My parents paid for the gas.)
Hmm, that's more than I thought I spent... yeesh. Good thing I have no actual bill-type things every month like real people do.
So. Who else is going to D*C? Besides me and Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff? *nudges flist* I'll meet anyone who swears not to kill me. :)