Dragon*Con '08, Part 4
Continued from [ here].
Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade!
The line for the Masquerade was already wrapping its way around the Hyatt when Mama and I met up with Amy, Brad, and Natalie. They were talking to a puppeteer named Kirk (I think?) and his puppet Cakey, who looks like... a cake. Cakey is a cake from outer space, who also has a Myspace. Check it out [here].
Brad: I guess Cakey can't really look nervous.
Kirk: Yeah, he's a bad actor.
The Masquerade started at 8:00. It took forever to get everyone loaded into the Centennial ballroom in the Hyatt. As we walked into the room, I noticed that there was even a crowd of people waiting to come in after the line finished moving inside. We got seats that were not quite halfway back, with a pretty good view of the stage but excellent views of the screens on either side of the stage. The Masquerade was also broadcast live on D*CTV, which was available in all four of the con hotels.
The MC for the event was [Ethan Philips], who is pretty much the nicest guy in the entire world. You may recognize him from such shows as Star Trek: Voyager, Boston Legal, Bones, and every single other show that has ever been aired on any network since 1983. (He's that guy who's been in everything but you still don't know his name.) Ethan was the perfect MC: extremely nice, funny, entertaining, and animated. He was a little cheesy at a couple of points, but it was appropriate for the feel of the event.
They started, as always, with my favorite part of the show - the children's competition. There was an adorable little boy dressed as Sweeney Todd. The kid who completely stole the show, though, was dressed as a Transformer. An adult came out on stage with him and took off the kid's mask, and then the kid dropped down onto all fours on the stage and became a cardboard tank! It was awesome. We were all like, holy crap! Tell me that kid didn't just become a tank! When he stood back up, his little head popped through a cardboard flap and he gave us this proud, macho look before the adult stuck the kid's mask back on. Everybody cheered like crazy for him, and of course he won first place for the category.
The adult category began with a woman whose costume was something like "Everything you see at Dragon*Con condensed into 90 seconds." They played music, which was a bunch of Sci-Fi television show themes mashed together, and for each theme, she took off one layer of her costume and was a character from that fandom underneath it. It was an interesting idea, but then she got stuck on some buttons, and the music just kept going, so she ended up stripping off like three costumes in a frenzy while trying to keep up. Heh.
A group of people dressed as soldiers from Battlefield 2142 came out all very solemnly to slow music, then suddenly burst into a rendition of the [Soulja Boy] dance. It was kind of funny, but I thought it went on for a little too long. Part of the rules of the show was that if your presentation went on for longer than the allotted time, a couple of Storm Troopers would come out with brooms to sweep you off the stage. It happened a couple of times, but not to these guys.
A guy and two girls came out dressed as the Saturday Night Live Spartan Cheerleaders and did a funny skit. There were also breakdancing Thundercats, a guy who could balance swords on his head and feet and roll over without dropping them, and my favorite costume: the head of Starch Enterprises, Iron Man. Guess what he looks like.
At one point, a person dressed as Santa Claus came out to the song "Here Comes Santa Claus." Santa had a sack of toys and threw a couple of them out to the audience. I kept expecting the music to change to something Sci-Fi, or for Santa to strip off and be Jack Skellington underneath or something, but... no. It was just Santa.
This guy was in it near the beginning. His wings were retractable.
There was a guy who came out from behind a little curtain that he carried on stage with him and lipsynced to "Welcome to the Jungle" while dressed as Axl Rose. He looked a lot like Axl! This is the same guy who was Freddie Mercury during the Masquerade a couple of years ago. The problem with his act, though, is that he did a couple of costume changes during it - once into a kilt and then once into some American flag underwear - which is why he brought the little curtain onstage with him. Well, there was a camera in front of the stage, but there was also a camera in the wings that could film the stage from the side, so every time Axl went behind his curtain to change, they switched to the wings camera and broadcast on the giant screens (and presumably in all the hotel rooms where D*CTV was on) video footage of this guy changing clothes behind his curtain.
Yeah. I'm thinking when he signed up for the Masquerade, he didn't realize he was signing up for that.
After all 42 of the adult contestants had gone, they reintroduced an act that had been swept off the stage for exceeding their allotted time. They said this act wasn't supposed to be swept off, but I'm not sure why. I mean, they'd been pretty terrible and long. As soon as they started performing again, people started booing and getting up to leave. About half of the room cleared out during this act instead of waiting for the results of the judging, and everybody else was yelling "Troopers, troopers!" It was kind of sad.
Following that last performance, Ethan came back out and announced that the judges were tied, so we had to do a clapping meter vote between a guy dressed as a dragonrider (in an awesome half-dragon costume) and a group of girls dressed as Marvel characters who had done some synchronized dancing. Then they showed on the screens pictures of costumes at the con that had not all been entered in the Masquerade contest but had been voted on by con-goers over the past couple of days. When the little boy in the tank Transformer costume appeared on the screen, everyone cheered again.
During the rest of the judging period, they played "Duck Dodgers of the 24th and a Half Century!" on the screens. From what I understand, this is a tradition during the Masquerade. It's the cartoon with Daffy Duck and Marvin Martian where they fight over Planet X. It's really cute, and I think almost everyone in there had all the lines memorized. Every time Daffy said, "Duck Dodgers of the 24th and a Half Century!" everyone yelled it out and cheered. The best part, though, was that at a particular moment in the cartoon, Daffy was looking at a television screen to see what Marvin was up to, but instead of showing what was really supposed to be on the screen, we got Rick rolled! Those rascals at D*CTV. [Here]'s a video of the Masquerade audience's reaction to being Rick rolled at Dragon*Con.
I didn't write down the winners for all the categories, but I know that Smorgasborg, Iron Man, and Yip Yip Yaley from Sesame Street all won awards. The Best in Show award went to the sword balancing dude. He was definitely the most talented, but... I thought it was a costume contest? He was just wearing black pants.
Not sure who these guys are, but they won Best Humor for the hall contest.
...How did bevander manage to sneak into another one of our pictures?
After the Masquerade was over, Mama went with Brad and Nat to go get something to eat, but Amy and I decided to just go back to the Sheraton for the night. We hadn't even done that much on Sunday, but we were still pooped! There was a small convenience store at the bottom of the Sheraton where Amy and I stopped for supper. When I say supper, what I mean is a Crunch icecream bar, snack-sized Pringles, and a Sprite Zero. While I was picking out what I wanted, Amy held my scythe for me, and a guy walking past saw her and called out, "Buffy!" Heh.
I got stopped for a picture on the way to the elevator by a woman pushing two dolls around in a stroller. She was very polite. "Excuse me, Fray? May I please take your picture?" After she took the picture, she looked at Amy and said, "And is this Buffy?" It's funny because Amy was only mythtaken for Buffy twice during the whole weekend, and it happened within a span of ten minutes. Mama and I decided Amy should have actually dressed as Buffy for at least one day, but Amy said she would have felt like a poser.
When we got to the room, we ate and then watched the third act of Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, followed by a highly intellectual discussion (led by me) about stylistic elements in the production and why the ending packs such an emotional punch to the gut. I think that's when we both fell asleep. After a while, Brad and Nat showed up with Mama. At least, they say they did. I think I remember them being there for a minute or so, but I couldn't say for sure since I was pretty much down for the count.
Monday
Last chance to waste money!
Monday morning, the Sheraton staff slipped a bill under our door for four beers from the minifridge. These would be the beers my mom moved around in order to fit some of our stuff inside. (Each thing in the fridge has a little sensor underneath it that gets activated when you move it. For six dollars.)
After a breakfast consisting of one Twizzler and a Toblerone from the convenience store downstairs, I managed to stuff all of my Fray clothes and accessories back into my suitcase - although I'm still not sure how. My mom cleverly disguised my scythe as a guitar again, and then we went downstairs to check out. They didn't give us any trouble about taking the beers off our bill, which was a relief. As a thank you, I'm pretty sure we left them a chicken finger and a biscuit in the minifridge.
Since we had to go ahead and check out but we weren't ready to leave yet, we checked our bags at the bell station. The man counted them and said, "Just three?" But I hurriedly took my scythe off my shoulder and told him, "And I have... a guitar!" The guy looked a little skeptically at the gig bag, which was lumpy with pillows stuffed into it, but he didn't say anything about it and checked all four of our bags.
I have to say, it was nice being able to walk around not in a costume anymore. I hadn't realized how preoccupied I'd been with what my hair looked like and the state of my lipstick and whether or not my nosering was positioned in the right place after I scratched my nose until I didn't have to worry about that stuff anymore. Not to mention carrying around a scythe that weighed about fifteen pounds and a laser gun that kept falling out of its holster. And it was good wearing sneakers instead of boots.
The first thing we decided to do was go pick up my James and Gareth picture, which never got put out on Sunday.
Amy: So... to the Marriott?
Mama: And beyond!
We picked up my photo in the Hilton and looked at some of the other photos they were putting out. I like my photo, but every time I look at it, I wish you could see what Gareth's doing with his leg.
The inside of his knee is pressing against my hip! IT IS! I've got my hand on his thigh near his butt! sigh.
Since it was right there, we decided to also step inside the Walk of Fame because Amy was contemplating meeting Nathan Fillion. Nathan wasn't there, but Tahmoh was, so we decided to go speak to him instead.
Tahmoh Penikett
(squee!)
There wasn't much of a line, but there was a guy with two little boys there ahead of us to see Tahmoh. One of the little boys was in a wheelchair. I think this was the same kid from the Dollhouse panel who asked if the dolls were like cylons, but I could be wrong. They wanted a picture with Tahmoh, so he hopped up and ran around the line of tables to the front so he could kneel down next to the kids and be in the picture. The dad knelt down next to Tahmoh, and they asked Amy to take the picture for them, which she did. Then the dad used his digital camera to film Tahmoh saying hello to his wife, because she couldn't be there. I thought it was really sweet of Tahmoh to do that.
I also really like the name Tahmoh. Just realized because I typed it several times. Tahmoh. Tahmoh. It's pretty, isn't it?
When it was our turn, I bought an autograph. There were some good closeup shots of him as Helo, but I wanted something Dollhouse-themed, so I got the only Dollhouse picture he had out. It's a group shot with Eliza Dushku standing in front. I told him I knew he was only three weeks into filming, but I wanted to know if his character had any lines so far that really struck him as interesting or funny that he could write on the picture for me. He thought of something immediately and was like, "Ohhhh, yeah. Yeah, definitely." He said that Paul has "a real dry sense of humor." But then he was reluctant to write the line he'd thought of, because he didn't want to ruin the joke for me. I told him I really didn't mind, and he started like he was going to write it, then stopped, and we actually went back and forth several times like this because he was conflicted about it, having this great line and really wanting to write it for me but also not wanting to spoil me for the show. Then he was like, "No, I can't do it. I'd get in trouble. Joss would kill me." And I was like, "How would Joss know what you wrote?" and he goes, "You would put it on the Internet!"
Damn. Tahmoh Penikett knows me too well.
So then he was like, "Okay, you want something funny? How about... were you in the panel yesterday?" And I said yes, and he said, "Do you remember what I said when I messed up that line...?" So I said, "Wallhouse?" He sighed heavily and closed his eyes like just hearing someone say it was embarrassing all over again, which was really funny. He said, "That's the one." Then he said, "I'll write 'Welcome to the wallhouse.' Do you want me to personalize it to you?" Of course I said yes.
To Jenny, "Welcome to the Wallhouse"! Tahmoh "Paul Ballard"
I think it's funny that he doesn't sign his last name. Not even a squiggle.
After that, my sister and I asked if we could take pictures with him. He said yes, and explained that they were asking for a charitable donation of $5 for each picture. Amy asked if he was giving to the same charity as James Callis, and he said yes. He didn't really know any charities but that one had sounded like a good one. Heh.
Mama: You're a nut.
Tahmoh: What?
Me: She means because I looked at you instead of the camera.
Tahmoh: Oh. *laughs* That's the way to do it.
We actually had to take two pictures of me with Tahmoh because the flash was crazy in one of them. He said to do another "just to be safe," and I'm really glad we did because I have my eyes shut in the other one.
Wait, why's Tahmoh leaning closer to Amy than he did to me? :(
Tahmoh. Tahmoh. It just sounds good. Tahmoh.
We thanked Tahmoh, and then Mama and Amy waited for me while I went to speak to fenderlove and Sarah, two of the girls I met at D*C last year. They were standing in the line to get James Marsters' autograph again, and Fender (Savannah) told me all about giving James the Spike comic she'd drawn for him. You can see a video of that at her journal [ here]. I also got to see Sarah's photo with James and Gareth, which was a hoot. You can read all about Savannah and Sarah's D*C experience [ here].
There was another BSG panel starting at 11:00 at the Marriott, so we headed there next. The first thing that struck me as we came in was all the luggage piled up everywhere. It was checkout day for most con attendees, and since so many of them were staying at the Marriott but hadn't wanted to go home yet, row after row of their checked bags were just sitting in any available space. I'm really protective of my stuff, so I'm glad the Sheraton had a luggage room big enough to hold all of our things.
It's called "Honor Among Geeks." I won't touch your Batman standee if you don't touch my light saber collection.
Battlestar Galactica Panel
OR More Fun with Tahmoh Penikett and Friends!
There was a long line already for the BSG panel, but when we got inside, the room didn't get full. I think it was because so many people had already gone home. Also, Gustav had just hit that morning, which was the reason given for why so many of the panelists weren't going to be there. It ended up only being Richard Hatch and Tahmoh, with Tahmoh having to leave early to get back to his Walk of Fame line.
The first guy that came out on stage was the blood drive guy. He said that we were only 30 or 40 units of blood away from beating the Comicon blood drive. Yay? And you get a free t-shirt for donating. I heard him make three different blood drive announcements over the course of the weekend, and he ended all of them with, "Remember, save a t-shirt, and get a life!"
After that, Tahmoh and Richard came out. I think Richard Hatch gives good panel. I didn't really see any celebrities who did a bad panel, but Richard Hatch in particular did a good job. He's very attentive and interested in answering all parts of the question in the most complete way that he can, and he seems to really enjoy interacting with the fans. He's also really polite and tells everyone, "That's a good question." He's funny when appropriate and serious when appropriate, and he doesn't hog the mic... just a good panelist in general. It's really too bad that I have zero interest in Tom Zarek or 1980's!Apollo.
Both Tahmoh and Richard talked a little bit about personal issues when it comes to their characters. They love doing the very personal scenes, making the characters really come to life in a human way.
Someone asked about Zarek's storylines being cut from the last ten episodes, and Richard explained that Battlestar episodes are always overshot by quite a lot, and then they have to get cut down to 42 minutes each, so quite a few of every character's lines get cut, and some of the minor storylines do, too. Tahmoh added in that he would get so excited about being in a really long scene, but then the scene would get cut down more and more. Richard said sometimes you have a lot of lines in a scene but when you go back and watch it, you're only there for reaction shots to other characters' lines.
Tahmoh said when he first read the BSG series finale, he cried. He cried more than once and was really surprised about it. He said, "It's so good, man; it's so, so good." He also said that everyone else loved it and everyone was completely on board with what happens, that it's perfect and no one had anything bad to say about it.
Richard said it was painful to say goodbye after filming was over, that when you have a family like this for any length of time, it's a rarity in the business. Tahmoh added that he had to keep telling himself stuff like, "It's fine, we still have three weeks of shooting left, don't break down yet."
Richard mentioned that the song "All Along the Watchtower" was used because... well, for a number of reasons, but one is because Ron Moore loved it and had wanted to use it at some point in Roswell and never got the chance. So he used it in BSG instead.
Someone mentioned that Helo was the most moral character on the show and asked how it was possible for him to maintain his morality. Tahmoh said, "It's not easy for Helo; he just doesn't know how not to do the right thing. But the conflict is always there." He said it was very difficult, and he hoped that he was able to show the character's inner conflict in his performances. Then he added that he loved playing that character.
Tahmoh said, "Jamie [Bamber] and I are always taking shit out of each other." He said Jamie would call him stuff like "cylon lover" and he would reply, "You're just scared I'm gonna take over your job. And your daddy loves me more!" He also said that Aaron Douglas picked on him a lot for being a toaster lover, and then when Chief was revealed as a cylon, Aaron was grumpy for days. But Tahmoh was like, "Ahhhh, hahaha."
Someone commented that we had the most moral and least moral characters (Helo and Zarek) sitting side by side up there, and Tahmoh started clapping. Richard was like, "First of all, frak you, and frak you again." He was very good natured about it, but he also defended his character, saying that Zarek had been in prison for twenty years for standing up for what he believed in, and he as Richard Hatch would get pissed off on behalf of Tom Zarek whenever people ragged on the character. Tahmoh added that as an actor, you should never lose the integrity of your character - that even if you're playing a serial killer, you have to find a way to believe in what you're doing so that your performance can be more real.
Someone asked about the Galactica set, and Tahmoh said that for a long time he was "just running around a planet, man" so when he first had to start shooting on the Galactica, he kept getting lost. He said they were always looking for Helo, and he'd be trapped somewhere on set, tapping on the pipes, trying to find his way out. He said it's huge. He also said that he and Grace Park (Athena) added little things to their set so it would feel more like a home. Pictures and stuff.
When a guy asked about the way the series ends, Tahmoh and Richard sort of looked at each other, and Tahmoh said, "Well, I'm not going to give you anything. That's asking a lot, man. I've never been known to give spoilers, and I'm not going to start now."
Tahmoh was in a PS3 video game called Need for Speed: Carbon. It's a racing game, and he played a character named Darius. He said as soon as the game came out, he went and bought a PS3 so he could play it and spent about three hours one night at it, but he wasn't actually very good and didn't have any tips to give out. He said he felt guilty cracking out in front of a video game for three hours, that he should be spending time outside or exercising or being around people instead. Then he told us that the way they filmed him for this game was they put him in a very brightly lit booth for about four hours and had him doing the lines. He said the first hour went okay, but after a while he felt like his eyeballs were being burned out of his head, and they were giving him eyedrops every five minutes. He said the computer was too slow to read some of his movements, so he could only turn his head a little bit, and if he smiled too big they would say, "Oh, too much! Slow down."
Richard said that BSG is the kind of show that really keeps the actors on their toes. Every time they got a new script, he would hurry through to the end to see which characters were going out of the airlock. He also said they were frequently given massive scene changes at the last minute. One of the most terrifying moments he experienced was finishing filming a scene at 11 at night and then having to get up at 5 the next morning to learn a 4-page scene with massive dialogue. But he said if you know you have to do something, anything's possible.
Tahmoh said that he and Grace went to the same acting school, so they have a lot of the same techniques. They met each other while filming the miniseries and became friends very quickly. "I love the girl so much, man. I'm so blessed. She's an incredible creature." He said a lot of their story was the C story line and so it kept being written as though it weren't very important - only a few scenes and with forgettable dialogue, but he and Grace really worked to find levels in their scenes that hadn't been written in, and that made the writers start paying attention to them and writing deeper levels specifically for their story.
At this point, Tahmoh had to leave the panel to get back to the Walk of Fame. I was sad to see him go, but Richard Hatch was continuing on with the panel, and he was a good speaker. He's very coherent. Doesn't ramble.
Someone asked what his favorite scenes were that he's not in. Richard said the love scenes between Adama and Roslin. Heh. Then he said he'd like for his character to make love to anyone on the show.
There was a lull in the question asking, so Richard assured us that he'd be happy to answer any question - any question at all. He said if we had the courage to ask, then he'd definitely answer.
I'm not sure what the next question was, but Richard started talking about when he first met Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck). He said he was running late at the airport and some woman with a kind face let him get in line ahead of her through the security check point. "She was so kind!" When they got off the plane later, that's when he realized it was her. She introduced him to the rest of the cast and made him not feel awkward for being "that other guy."
About Grace Park, he said, "She's so... my God, she's so hot!"
Richard loves the opportunity to go to conventions and get actual face time with the fans. He said he liked watching Edward James Olmos walking around the lobby, the joy on his face at doing this for the first time. I loved that, too.
Richard had brought a couple of videos with him to show us, which I thought was supercool of him. The first one was a BSG video to "All Along the Watchtower." It was really neat, better than most fanvids that I've seen. And the other one was the blooper reel they showed at the BSG cast party. It was about 15 minutes long, and we didn't actually have time for it, but they decided to show it anyway. It was funny!
After the BSG panel, we decided to go meet Brad and Nat in Peachtree Center for lunch. We got pizza at Roman Delight Pizza, where they charge by the slice - and they charged me an extra dollar because the slice they gave me happened to be kinda big. Is that lame, or what? I bet they didn't knock off a dollar for the person who got a skinny slice from that same pizza. They made an extra dollar off that pizza! Not that it actually matters at all. But still!
Cheeeeeeeeeese! Or in my case, pepperoniiiiiiii and bacon!
For dessert, we stopped by Dairy Queen. Amy refused to get another blizzard, but they did have these ingenius little things they were calling cupcakes. It's like an icecream cake, but one serving. Brilliant!
I'll take three cupcakes and one blizzard, hold the hair. Or just put it on the side.
We went back to the Marriott after that to visit the dealer rooms. Originally, we had planned to go to a Whedonverse track end panel, but I think it got canceled. Which is a shame, because I had really been looking forward to seeing Nathan Fillion and James Marsters on the same panel, just because I'm curious who would win if they slugged it out in a battle for the most attention. But I still hadn't spent enough money, so shopping was fine. It's always best to go to the dealers on the last day of a convention, near the end, because that's when they start marking things down. They want to get rid of everything so they don't have to pack it up and take it with them again.
It's just money.
...right?
Why are corsets such a big deal at Dragon*Con? There were tons of corset booths, and they were always doing fittings... I see this every year. And usually, if you can tell someone's wearing a costume but you can't tell what it's from? It's somehow got a corset incorporated into it. What's the deal?
One of many gratuitous corset booths.
While we were in the dealer rooms, Brad bought the TPB of the second set of Buffy Season 8 comics. Amy bought a Carcassonne expansion pack (what a dork), and they both bought t-shirts. I think Brad bought Nat a t-shirt as well. I went in search of Angel merchandise but didn't find any, which was weird, so of course I had to spend my money on something completely random and useless. Of course.
I bought a fox tail.
I know, I know! What the heck do you do with one of these things for the 361 days of the year that aren't Dragon*Con? Turn it into a keychain, maybe? Bookmark? It's not like there are other places to wear it. But I couldn't help myself. It was on sale.
Yeah. *sigh*
They actually had whole animal skins for sale at the booth where I got it. I saw a little fox skin with slits for his eyes and all, and I said to my mom, "Oh, that's kinda sad." A girl working the booth heard me say that and came over and gave me a whole speech about how it was actually a mercy because of the overpopulation of foxes in some states and how some foxes can produce up to 60 pups in their lifetimes and all that. But I was looking at its little face skin with its nose all squashed to one side and said, "Well, it may be a mercy killing, but it's still kind of pathetic and dead, isn't it?" She rolled her eyes at me.
While we were in there, they made an announcement that everything at one particular booth was free, so I looked, but it was all gaming guides and stuff. So I didn't take anything.
I wandered around a booth that had some Buffy and Firefly comics, so I decided to buy them. I didn't have the Firefly comics at all, and my first two issues of Buffy Season 8 were from the 2nd and 3rd printings, so that's what I bought.
Would you believe I still haven't read these?
I love these covers.
While I was at that booth, Scott Allie was also at the booth looking at some of the same things. He kept glancing over at me to see what I was picking up, and I kept glancing over at him because I recognized him, and we made eye contact a couple of times, which I found kind of awkward. I should've just spoken to him. But it was weird, so I didn't.
Also in the dealer rooms: I saw a man in jean shorts leading a woman with incredibly short hair around by a leash. She had a collar and wrist and ankle cuffs with D-rings on them. I've seen that sort of thing at cons before, but this was particularly peculiar because I saw him lead her over to a corner and er... park her there on her knees while he walked off to do something else. She stayed perfectly still.
When we were done wasting money, we sat down for a few minutes to regroup.
This is us waiting for our fifth wind. so... tired...
Me: What wind are you on?
Natalie: I think this is my third. Well, it depends. Do winds start over every morning?
While we sat, which we did for quite a long time, I made a list. It's actually kind of short this year. It's a little thing I like to call:
Overheard at Dragon*Con '08
These are things I actually heard people say.
1. Girl dressed as a cat: Ow ow ow owwwww! You're stepping on my tail!
2. My mom: Do you want to get your picture made with... that... uh, thing?
3. Woman trying to take a picture: I can't see... That guy's in my way. Stupid pirates!
4. Girl in line: You know, no matter how you dress up a Superman costume... it's still pretty gay.
5. Guy walking past me: Hey, nice skythe!
6. Prostitute we passed on the way to our hotel, talking on her cell: I don't know what the fuck is going on! All these crazy-ass white folks dressed like Batman and shit...
Here are a few more things I thought it worthwhile to point out:
1. I love it when someone is completely different from the way you expect them to be when you see them. I saw this very severe-looking goth chick covered in spikes and shiny leather in the bathroom, and she very sweetly came up and asked me if I was waiting in line, because if I was, there was a stall at the far end of the bathroom that was available. She had kind of a high voice and a pleasant smile.
2. At one point I went in the bathroom to reapply my purple lipstick, and there were three other girls doing exactly the same thing - with blue, black, and red.
3. It's funny to me that there's a standard uniform for Dragon*Con. Anyone who's not wearing a costume or a Firfely t-shirt is wearing a black t-shirt with a white slogan on the front that says something like "Avoid Direct Sunlight" or "I'm a ninja. You can't see me." (Mine says, "Save the cheerleader.")
4. We heard somewhere that there were over 1,500 volunteers working the con this year. To this I say, whoa.
5. Any time Gareth David Lloyd's name was anywhere - in the program, on the photo op list, etc. - it was written as David Gareth Lloyd. Weird.
6. There are thousands of con attendees. Thousands. Sometimes it feels like millions. And yet, you tend to see the same few people over and over. I know I must have run into that thirteen-year-old from the Buffy Comics panel twenty times.
7. These hotels are big. The Marriott in particular is enormous.
See?
When my family had gotten their wind(s) back, we finally decided to leave - but Mama and I ran by the Dragon*Con Store first to buy our tickets for next year at a reduced price. Hurray! This means I know I'm going back no matter what!
We walked back to the Sheraton and said goodbye to Brad and Nat before getting our bags. ("Here's your... guitar.") Then Mama and Amy went to find an ATM while I waited in the lobby. I saw a woman on the computer in there whom I recognized from all the James Marsters pictures she'd been in this year (I saw at least five of the two of them together), so I went to speak to her. She was very nice. She said her con report was probably going to be the length of a novella, but I have no idea what that's like. Her many D*C photos of James are linked from her photobucket account [here].
So Long, and Thanks For All the Squee
...and then I passed out from exhaustion.
The rest of the story, if this is actually a story, is somewhat boring and irrelevant, and to be honest, I'm wiped. Just typing about all of this was like reliving it. It's like I went to Dragon*Con twice in one week! Just know that we survived the MARTA back to the car, and the car trip back to my apartment, and so far I've survived this recounting of my Dragon*Con 2008 experience. (Except I still can't feel my thumb.) I know I must be the slowest person on earth to post a con report, but hey, at least I'm thorough. :)
I've got two more links to share before I hit the Post button. For some good pictures of around the con in general, check out Patcave's flickr account [here], and to read more reviews of this year's D*C, scroll through the responses to [ this entry] in the Dragon*Con livejournal community.
I hope you enjoyed reading my report - for those of you who stuck it out until the end - and I'll see you all next year!
Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade!
The line for the Masquerade was already wrapping its way around the Hyatt when Mama and I met up with Amy, Brad, and Natalie. They were talking to a puppeteer named Kirk (I think?) and his puppet Cakey, who looks like... a cake. Cakey is a cake from outer space, who also has a Myspace. Check it out [here].
Brad: I guess Cakey can't really look nervous.
Kirk: Yeah, he's a bad actor.
The Masquerade started at 8:00. It took forever to get everyone loaded into the Centennial ballroom in the Hyatt. As we walked into the room, I noticed that there was even a crowd of people waiting to come in after the line finished moving inside. We got seats that were not quite halfway back, with a pretty good view of the stage but excellent views of the screens on either side of the stage. The Masquerade was also broadcast live on D*CTV, which was available in all four of the con hotels.
The MC for the event was [Ethan Philips], who is pretty much the nicest guy in the entire world. You may recognize him from such shows as Star Trek: Voyager, Boston Legal, Bones, and every single other show that has ever been aired on any network since 1983. (He's that guy who's been in everything but you still don't know his name.) Ethan was the perfect MC: extremely nice, funny, entertaining, and animated. He was a little cheesy at a couple of points, but it was appropriate for the feel of the event.
They started, as always, with my favorite part of the show - the children's competition. There was an adorable little boy dressed as Sweeney Todd. The kid who completely stole the show, though, was dressed as a Transformer. An adult came out on stage with him and took off the kid's mask, and then the kid dropped down onto all fours on the stage and became a cardboard tank! It was awesome. We were all like, holy crap! Tell me that kid didn't just become a tank! When he stood back up, his little head popped through a cardboard flap and he gave us this proud, macho look before the adult stuck the kid's mask back on. Everybody cheered like crazy for him, and of course he won first place for the category.
The adult category began with a woman whose costume was something like "Everything you see at Dragon*Con condensed into 90 seconds." They played music, which was a bunch of Sci-Fi television show themes mashed together, and for each theme, she took off one layer of her costume and was a character from that fandom underneath it. It was an interesting idea, but then she got stuck on some buttons, and the music just kept going, so she ended up stripping off like three costumes in a frenzy while trying to keep up. Heh.
A group of people dressed as soldiers from Battlefield 2142 came out all very solemnly to slow music, then suddenly burst into a rendition of the [Soulja Boy] dance. It was kind of funny, but I thought it went on for a little too long. Part of the rules of the show was that if your presentation went on for longer than the allotted time, a couple of Storm Troopers would come out with brooms to sweep you off the stage. It happened a couple of times, but not to these guys.
A guy and two girls came out dressed as the Saturday Night Live Spartan Cheerleaders and did a funny skit. There were also breakdancing Thundercats, a guy who could balance swords on his head and feet and roll over without dropping them, and my favorite costume: the head of Starch Enterprises, Iron Man. Guess what he looks like.
At one point, a person dressed as Santa Claus came out to the song "Here Comes Santa Claus." Santa had a sack of toys and threw a couple of them out to the audience. I kept expecting the music to change to something Sci-Fi, or for Santa to strip off and be Jack Skellington underneath or something, but... no. It was just Santa.
This guy was in it near the beginning. His wings were retractable.
There was a guy who came out from behind a little curtain that he carried on stage with him and lipsynced to "Welcome to the Jungle" while dressed as Axl Rose. He looked a lot like Axl! This is the same guy who was Freddie Mercury during the Masquerade a couple of years ago. The problem with his act, though, is that he did a couple of costume changes during it - once into a kilt and then once into some American flag underwear - which is why he brought the little curtain onstage with him. Well, there was a camera in front of the stage, but there was also a camera in the wings that could film the stage from the side, so every time Axl went behind his curtain to change, they switched to the wings camera and broadcast on the giant screens (and presumably in all the hotel rooms where D*CTV was on) video footage of this guy changing clothes behind his curtain.
Yeah. I'm thinking when he signed up for the Masquerade, he didn't realize he was signing up for that.
After all 42 of the adult contestants had gone, they reintroduced an act that had been swept off the stage for exceeding their allotted time. They said this act wasn't supposed to be swept off, but I'm not sure why. I mean, they'd been pretty terrible and long. As soon as they started performing again, people started booing and getting up to leave. About half of the room cleared out during this act instead of waiting for the results of the judging, and everybody else was yelling "Troopers, troopers!" It was kind of sad.
Following that last performance, Ethan came back out and announced that the judges were tied, so we had to do a clapping meter vote between a guy dressed as a dragonrider (in an awesome half-dragon costume) and a group of girls dressed as Marvel characters who had done some synchronized dancing. Then they showed on the screens pictures of costumes at the con that had not all been entered in the Masquerade contest but had been voted on by con-goers over the past couple of days. When the little boy in the tank Transformer costume appeared on the screen, everyone cheered again.
During the rest of the judging period, they played "Duck Dodgers of the 24th and a Half Century!" on the screens. From what I understand, this is a tradition during the Masquerade. It's the cartoon with Daffy Duck and Marvin Martian where they fight over Planet X. It's really cute, and I think almost everyone in there had all the lines memorized. Every time Daffy said, "Duck Dodgers of the 24th and a Half Century!" everyone yelled it out and cheered. The best part, though, was that at a particular moment in the cartoon, Daffy was looking at a television screen to see what Marvin was up to, but instead of showing what was really supposed to be on the screen, we got Rick rolled! Those rascals at D*CTV. [Here]'s a video of the Masquerade audience's reaction to being Rick rolled at Dragon*Con.
I didn't write down the winners for all the categories, but I know that Smorgasborg, Iron Man, and Yip Yip Yaley from Sesame Street all won awards. The Best in Show award went to the sword balancing dude. He was definitely the most talented, but... I thought it was a costume contest? He was just wearing black pants.
Not sure who these guys are, but they won Best Humor for the hall contest.
...How did bevander manage to sneak into another one of our pictures?
After the Masquerade was over, Mama went with Brad and Nat to go get something to eat, but Amy and I decided to just go back to the Sheraton for the night. We hadn't even done that much on Sunday, but we were still pooped! There was a small convenience store at the bottom of the Sheraton where Amy and I stopped for supper. When I say supper, what I mean is a Crunch icecream bar, snack-sized Pringles, and a Sprite Zero. While I was picking out what I wanted, Amy held my scythe for me, and a guy walking past saw her and called out, "Buffy!" Heh.
I got stopped for a picture on the way to the elevator by a woman pushing two dolls around in a stroller. She was very polite. "Excuse me, Fray? May I please take your picture?" After she took the picture, she looked at Amy and said, "And is this Buffy?" It's funny because Amy was only mythtaken for Buffy twice during the whole weekend, and it happened within a span of ten minutes. Mama and I decided Amy should have actually dressed as Buffy for at least one day, but Amy said she would have felt like a poser.
When we got to the room, we ate and then watched the third act of Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, followed by a highly intellectual discussion (led by me) about stylistic elements in the production and why the ending packs such an emotional punch to the gut. I think that's when we both fell asleep. After a while, Brad and Nat showed up with Mama. At least, they say they did. I think I remember them being there for a minute or so, but I couldn't say for sure since I was pretty much down for the count.
Monday
Last chance to waste money!
Monday morning, the Sheraton staff slipped a bill under our door for four beers from the minifridge. These would be the beers my mom moved around in order to fit some of our stuff inside. (Each thing in the fridge has a little sensor underneath it that gets activated when you move it. For six dollars.)
After a breakfast consisting of one Twizzler and a Toblerone from the convenience store downstairs, I managed to stuff all of my Fray clothes and accessories back into my suitcase - although I'm still not sure how. My mom cleverly disguised my scythe as a guitar again, and then we went downstairs to check out. They didn't give us any trouble about taking the beers off our bill, which was a relief. As a thank you, I'm pretty sure we left them a chicken finger and a biscuit in the minifridge.
Since we had to go ahead and check out but we weren't ready to leave yet, we checked our bags at the bell station. The man counted them and said, "Just three?" But I hurriedly took my scythe off my shoulder and told him, "And I have... a guitar!" The guy looked a little skeptically at the gig bag, which was lumpy with pillows stuffed into it, but he didn't say anything about it and checked all four of our bags.
I have to say, it was nice being able to walk around not in a costume anymore. I hadn't realized how preoccupied I'd been with what my hair looked like and the state of my lipstick and whether or not my nosering was positioned in the right place after I scratched my nose until I didn't have to worry about that stuff anymore. Not to mention carrying around a scythe that weighed about fifteen pounds and a laser gun that kept falling out of its holster. And it was good wearing sneakers instead of boots.
The first thing we decided to do was go pick up my James and Gareth picture, which never got put out on Sunday.
Amy: So... to the Marriott?
Mama: And beyond!
We picked up my photo in the Hilton and looked at some of the other photos they were putting out. I like my photo, but every time I look at it, I wish you could see what Gareth's doing with his leg.
The inside of his knee is pressing against my hip! IT IS! I've got my hand on his thigh near his butt! sigh.
Since it was right there, we decided to also step inside the Walk of Fame because Amy was contemplating meeting Nathan Fillion. Nathan wasn't there, but Tahmoh was, so we decided to go speak to him instead.
Tahmoh Penikett
(squee!)
There wasn't much of a line, but there was a guy with two little boys there ahead of us to see Tahmoh. One of the little boys was in a wheelchair. I think this was the same kid from the Dollhouse panel who asked if the dolls were like cylons, but I could be wrong. They wanted a picture with Tahmoh, so he hopped up and ran around the line of tables to the front so he could kneel down next to the kids and be in the picture. The dad knelt down next to Tahmoh, and they asked Amy to take the picture for them, which she did. Then the dad used his digital camera to film Tahmoh saying hello to his wife, because she couldn't be there. I thought it was really sweet of Tahmoh to do that.
I also really like the name Tahmoh. Just realized because I typed it several times. Tahmoh. Tahmoh. It's pretty, isn't it?
When it was our turn, I bought an autograph. There were some good closeup shots of him as Helo, but I wanted something Dollhouse-themed, so I got the only Dollhouse picture he had out. It's a group shot with Eliza Dushku standing in front. I told him I knew he was only three weeks into filming, but I wanted to know if his character had any lines so far that really struck him as interesting or funny that he could write on the picture for me. He thought of something immediately and was like, "Ohhhh, yeah. Yeah, definitely." He said that Paul has "a real dry sense of humor." But then he was reluctant to write the line he'd thought of, because he didn't want to ruin the joke for me. I told him I really didn't mind, and he started like he was going to write it, then stopped, and we actually went back and forth several times like this because he was conflicted about it, having this great line and really wanting to write it for me but also not wanting to spoil me for the show. Then he was like, "No, I can't do it. I'd get in trouble. Joss would kill me." And I was like, "How would Joss know what you wrote?" and he goes, "You would put it on the Internet!"
Damn. Tahmoh Penikett knows me too well.
So then he was like, "Okay, you want something funny? How about... were you in the panel yesterday?" And I said yes, and he said, "Do you remember what I said when I messed up that line...?" So I said, "Wallhouse?" He sighed heavily and closed his eyes like just hearing someone say it was embarrassing all over again, which was really funny. He said, "That's the one." Then he said, "I'll write 'Welcome to the wallhouse.' Do you want me to personalize it to you?" Of course I said yes.
To Jenny, "Welcome to the Wallhouse"! Tahmoh "Paul Ballard"
I think it's funny that he doesn't sign his last name. Not even a squiggle.
After that, my sister and I asked if we could take pictures with him. He said yes, and explained that they were asking for a charitable donation of $5 for each picture. Amy asked if he was giving to the same charity as James Callis, and he said yes. He didn't really know any charities but that one had sounded like a good one. Heh.
Mama: You're a nut.
Tahmoh: What?
Me: She means because I looked at you instead of the camera.
Tahmoh: Oh. *laughs* That's the way to do it.
We actually had to take two pictures of me with Tahmoh because the flash was crazy in one of them. He said to do another "just to be safe," and I'm really glad we did because I have my eyes shut in the other one.
Wait, why's Tahmoh leaning closer to Amy than he did to me? :(
Tahmoh. Tahmoh. It just sounds good. Tahmoh.
We thanked Tahmoh, and then Mama and Amy waited for me while I went to speak to fenderlove and Sarah, two of the girls I met at D*C last year. They were standing in the line to get James Marsters' autograph again, and Fender (Savannah) told me all about giving James the Spike comic she'd drawn for him. You can see a video of that at her journal [ here]. I also got to see Sarah's photo with James and Gareth, which was a hoot. You can read all about Savannah and Sarah's D*C experience [ here].
There was another BSG panel starting at 11:00 at the Marriott, so we headed there next. The first thing that struck me as we came in was all the luggage piled up everywhere. It was checkout day for most con attendees, and since so many of them were staying at the Marriott but hadn't wanted to go home yet, row after row of their checked bags were just sitting in any available space. I'm really protective of my stuff, so I'm glad the Sheraton had a luggage room big enough to hold all of our things.
It's called "Honor Among Geeks." I won't touch your Batman standee if you don't touch my light saber collection.
Battlestar Galactica Panel
OR More Fun with Tahmoh Penikett and Friends!
There was a long line already for the BSG panel, but when we got inside, the room didn't get full. I think it was because so many people had already gone home. Also, Gustav had just hit that morning, which was the reason given for why so many of the panelists weren't going to be there. It ended up only being Richard Hatch and Tahmoh, with Tahmoh having to leave early to get back to his Walk of Fame line.
The first guy that came out on stage was the blood drive guy. He said that we were only 30 or 40 units of blood away from beating the Comicon blood drive. Yay? And you get a free t-shirt for donating. I heard him make three different blood drive announcements over the course of the weekend, and he ended all of them with, "Remember, save a t-shirt, and get a life!"
After that, Tahmoh and Richard came out. I think Richard Hatch gives good panel. I didn't really see any celebrities who did a bad panel, but Richard Hatch in particular did a good job. He's very attentive and interested in answering all parts of the question in the most complete way that he can, and he seems to really enjoy interacting with the fans. He's also really polite and tells everyone, "That's a good question." He's funny when appropriate and serious when appropriate, and he doesn't hog the mic... just a good panelist in general. It's really too bad that I have zero interest in Tom Zarek or 1980's!Apollo.
Both Tahmoh and Richard talked a little bit about personal issues when it comes to their characters. They love doing the very personal scenes, making the characters really come to life in a human way.
Someone asked about Zarek's storylines being cut from the last ten episodes, and Richard explained that Battlestar episodes are always overshot by quite a lot, and then they have to get cut down to 42 minutes each, so quite a few of every character's lines get cut, and some of the minor storylines do, too. Tahmoh added in that he would get so excited about being in a really long scene, but then the scene would get cut down more and more. Richard said sometimes you have a lot of lines in a scene but when you go back and watch it, you're only there for reaction shots to other characters' lines.
Tahmoh said when he first read the BSG series finale, he cried. He cried more than once and was really surprised about it. He said, "It's so good, man; it's so, so good." He also said that everyone else loved it and everyone was completely on board with what happens, that it's perfect and no one had anything bad to say about it.
Richard said it was painful to say goodbye after filming was over, that when you have a family like this for any length of time, it's a rarity in the business. Tahmoh added that he had to keep telling himself stuff like, "It's fine, we still have three weeks of shooting left, don't break down yet."
Richard mentioned that the song "All Along the Watchtower" was used because... well, for a number of reasons, but one is because Ron Moore loved it and had wanted to use it at some point in Roswell and never got the chance. So he used it in BSG instead.
Someone mentioned that Helo was the most moral character on the show and asked how it was possible for him to maintain his morality. Tahmoh said, "It's not easy for Helo; he just doesn't know how not to do the right thing. But the conflict is always there." He said it was very difficult, and he hoped that he was able to show the character's inner conflict in his performances. Then he added that he loved playing that character.
Tahmoh said, "Jamie [Bamber] and I are always taking shit out of each other." He said Jamie would call him stuff like "cylon lover" and he would reply, "You're just scared I'm gonna take over your job. And your daddy loves me more!" He also said that Aaron Douglas picked on him a lot for being a toaster lover, and then when Chief was revealed as a cylon, Aaron was grumpy for days. But Tahmoh was like, "Ahhhh, hahaha."
Someone commented that we had the most moral and least moral characters (Helo and Zarek) sitting side by side up there, and Tahmoh started clapping. Richard was like, "First of all, frak you, and frak you again." He was very good natured about it, but he also defended his character, saying that Zarek had been in prison for twenty years for standing up for what he believed in, and he as Richard Hatch would get pissed off on behalf of Tom Zarek whenever people ragged on the character. Tahmoh added that as an actor, you should never lose the integrity of your character - that even if you're playing a serial killer, you have to find a way to believe in what you're doing so that your performance can be more real.
Someone asked about the Galactica set, and Tahmoh said that for a long time he was "just running around a planet, man" so when he first had to start shooting on the Galactica, he kept getting lost. He said they were always looking for Helo, and he'd be trapped somewhere on set, tapping on the pipes, trying to find his way out. He said it's huge. He also said that he and Grace Park (Athena) added little things to their set so it would feel more like a home. Pictures and stuff.
When a guy asked about the way the series ends, Tahmoh and Richard sort of looked at each other, and Tahmoh said, "Well, I'm not going to give you anything. That's asking a lot, man. I've never been known to give spoilers, and I'm not going to start now."
Tahmoh was in a PS3 video game called Need for Speed: Carbon. It's a racing game, and he played a character named Darius. He said as soon as the game came out, he went and bought a PS3 so he could play it and spent about three hours one night at it, but he wasn't actually very good and didn't have any tips to give out. He said he felt guilty cracking out in front of a video game for three hours, that he should be spending time outside or exercising or being around people instead. Then he told us that the way they filmed him for this game was they put him in a very brightly lit booth for about four hours and had him doing the lines. He said the first hour went okay, but after a while he felt like his eyeballs were being burned out of his head, and they were giving him eyedrops every five minutes. He said the computer was too slow to read some of his movements, so he could only turn his head a little bit, and if he smiled too big they would say, "Oh, too much! Slow down."
Richard said that BSG is the kind of show that really keeps the actors on their toes. Every time they got a new script, he would hurry through to the end to see which characters were going out of the airlock. He also said they were frequently given massive scene changes at the last minute. One of the most terrifying moments he experienced was finishing filming a scene at 11 at night and then having to get up at 5 the next morning to learn a 4-page scene with massive dialogue. But he said if you know you have to do something, anything's possible.
Tahmoh said that he and Grace went to the same acting school, so they have a lot of the same techniques. They met each other while filming the miniseries and became friends very quickly. "I love the girl so much, man. I'm so blessed. She's an incredible creature." He said a lot of their story was the C story line and so it kept being written as though it weren't very important - only a few scenes and with forgettable dialogue, but he and Grace really worked to find levels in their scenes that hadn't been written in, and that made the writers start paying attention to them and writing deeper levels specifically for their story.
At this point, Tahmoh had to leave the panel to get back to the Walk of Fame. I was sad to see him go, but Richard Hatch was continuing on with the panel, and he was a good speaker. He's very coherent. Doesn't ramble.
Someone asked what his favorite scenes were that he's not in. Richard said the love scenes between Adama and Roslin. Heh. Then he said he'd like for his character to make love to anyone on the show.
There was a lull in the question asking, so Richard assured us that he'd be happy to answer any question - any question at all. He said if we had the courage to ask, then he'd definitely answer.
I'm not sure what the next question was, but Richard started talking about when he first met Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck). He said he was running late at the airport and some woman with a kind face let him get in line ahead of her through the security check point. "She was so kind!" When they got off the plane later, that's when he realized it was her. She introduced him to the rest of the cast and made him not feel awkward for being "that other guy."
About Grace Park, he said, "She's so... my God, she's so hot!"
Richard loves the opportunity to go to conventions and get actual face time with the fans. He said he liked watching Edward James Olmos walking around the lobby, the joy on his face at doing this for the first time. I loved that, too.
Richard had brought a couple of videos with him to show us, which I thought was supercool of him. The first one was a BSG video to "All Along the Watchtower." It was really neat, better than most fanvids that I've seen. And the other one was the blooper reel they showed at the BSG cast party. It was about 15 minutes long, and we didn't actually have time for it, but they decided to show it anyway. It was funny!
After the BSG panel, we decided to go meet Brad and Nat in Peachtree Center for lunch. We got pizza at Roman Delight Pizza, where they charge by the slice - and they charged me an extra dollar because the slice they gave me happened to be kinda big. Is that lame, or what? I bet they didn't knock off a dollar for the person who got a skinny slice from that same pizza. They made an extra dollar off that pizza! Not that it actually matters at all. But still!
Cheeeeeeeeeese! Or in my case, pepperoniiiiiiii and bacon!
For dessert, we stopped by Dairy Queen. Amy refused to get another blizzard, but they did have these ingenius little things they were calling cupcakes. It's like an icecream cake, but one serving. Brilliant!
I'll take three cupcakes and one blizzard, hold the hair. Or just put it on the side.
We went back to the Marriott after that to visit the dealer rooms. Originally, we had planned to go to a Whedonverse track end panel, but I think it got canceled. Which is a shame, because I had really been looking forward to seeing Nathan Fillion and James Marsters on the same panel, just because I'm curious who would win if they slugged it out in a battle for the most attention. But I still hadn't spent enough money, so shopping was fine. It's always best to go to the dealers on the last day of a convention, near the end, because that's when they start marking things down. They want to get rid of everything so they don't have to pack it up and take it with them again.
It's just money.
...right?
Why are corsets such a big deal at Dragon*Con? There were tons of corset booths, and they were always doing fittings... I see this every year. And usually, if you can tell someone's wearing a costume but you can't tell what it's from? It's somehow got a corset incorporated into it. What's the deal?
One of many gratuitous corset booths.
While we were in the dealer rooms, Brad bought the TPB of the second set of Buffy Season 8 comics. Amy bought a Carcassonne expansion pack (what a dork), and they both bought t-shirts. I think Brad bought Nat a t-shirt as well. I went in search of Angel merchandise but didn't find any, which was weird, so of course I had to spend my money on something completely random and useless. Of course.
I bought a fox tail.
I know, I know! What the heck do you do with one of these things for the 361 days of the year that aren't Dragon*Con? Turn it into a keychain, maybe? Bookmark? It's not like there are other places to wear it. But I couldn't help myself. It was on sale.
Yeah. *sigh*
They actually had whole animal skins for sale at the booth where I got it. I saw a little fox skin with slits for his eyes and all, and I said to my mom, "Oh, that's kinda sad." A girl working the booth heard me say that and came over and gave me a whole speech about how it was actually a mercy because of the overpopulation of foxes in some states and how some foxes can produce up to 60 pups in their lifetimes and all that. But I was looking at its little face skin with its nose all squashed to one side and said, "Well, it may be a mercy killing, but it's still kind of pathetic and dead, isn't it?" She rolled her eyes at me.
While we were in there, they made an announcement that everything at one particular booth was free, so I looked, but it was all gaming guides and stuff. So I didn't take anything.
I wandered around a booth that had some Buffy and Firefly comics, so I decided to buy them. I didn't have the Firefly comics at all, and my first two issues of Buffy Season 8 were from the 2nd and 3rd printings, so that's what I bought.
Would you believe I still haven't read these?
I love these covers.
While I was at that booth, Scott Allie was also at the booth looking at some of the same things. He kept glancing over at me to see what I was picking up, and I kept glancing over at him because I recognized him, and we made eye contact a couple of times, which I found kind of awkward. I should've just spoken to him. But it was weird, so I didn't.
Also in the dealer rooms: I saw a man in jean shorts leading a woman with incredibly short hair around by a leash. She had a collar and wrist and ankle cuffs with D-rings on them. I've seen that sort of thing at cons before, but this was particularly peculiar because I saw him lead her over to a corner and er... park her there on her knees while he walked off to do something else. She stayed perfectly still.
When we were done wasting money, we sat down for a few minutes to regroup.
This is us waiting for our fifth wind. so... tired...
Me: What wind are you on?
Natalie: I think this is my third. Well, it depends. Do winds start over every morning?
While we sat, which we did for quite a long time, I made a list. It's actually kind of short this year. It's a little thing I like to call:
Overheard at Dragon*Con '08
These are things I actually heard people say.
1. Girl dressed as a cat: Ow ow ow owwwww! You're stepping on my tail!
2. My mom: Do you want to get your picture made with... that... uh, thing?
3. Woman trying to take a picture: I can't see... That guy's in my way. Stupid pirates!
4. Girl in line: You know, no matter how you dress up a Superman costume... it's still pretty gay.
5. Guy walking past me: Hey, nice skythe!
6. Prostitute we passed on the way to our hotel, talking on her cell: I don't know what the fuck is going on! All these crazy-ass white folks dressed like Batman and shit...
Here are a few more things I thought it worthwhile to point out:
1. I love it when someone is completely different from the way you expect them to be when you see them. I saw this very severe-looking goth chick covered in spikes and shiny leather in the bathroom, and she very sweetly came up and asked me if I was waiting in line, because if I was, there was a stall at the far end of the bathroom that was available. She had kind of a high voice and a pleasant smile.
2. At one point I went in the bathroom to reapply my purple lipstick, and there were three other girls doing exactly the same thing - with blue, black, and red.
3. It's funny to me that there's a standard uniform for Dragon*Con. Anyone who's not wearing a costume or a Firfely t-shirt is wearing a black t-shirt with a white slogan on the front that says something like "Avoid Direct Sunlight" or "I'm a ninja. You can't see me." (Mine says, "Save the cheerleader.")
4. We heard somewhere that there were over 1,500 volunteers working the con this year. To this I say, whoa.
5. Any time Gareth David Lloyd's name was anywhere - in the program, on the photo op list, etc. - it was written as David Gareth Lloyd. Weird.
6. There are thousands of con attendees. Thousands. Sometimes it feels like millions. And yet, you tend to see the same few people over and over. I know I must have run into that thirteen-year-old from the Buffy Comics panel twenty times.
7. These hotels are big. The Marriott in particular is enormous.
See?
When my family had gotten their wind(s) back, we finally decided to leave - but Mama and I ran by the Dragon*Con Store first to buy our tickets for next year at a reduced price. Hurray! This means I know I'm going back no matter what!
We walked back to the Sheraton and said goodbye to Brad and Nat before getting our bags. ("Here's your... guitar.") Then Mama and Amy went to find an ATM while I waited in the lobby. I saw a woman on the computer in there whom I recognized from all the James Marsters pictures she'd been in this year (I saw at least five of the two of them together), so I went to speak to her. She was very nice. She said her con report was probably going to be the length of a novella, but I have no idea what that's like. Her many D*C photos of James are linked from her photobucket account [here].
So Long, and Thanks For All the Squee
...and then I passed out from exhaustion.
The rest of the story, if this is actually a story, is somewhat boring and irrelevant, and to be honest, I'm wiped. Just typing about all of this was like reliving it. It's like I went to Dragon*Con twice in one week! Just know that we survived the MARTA back to the car, and the car trip back to my apartment, and so far I've survived this recounting of my Dragon*Con 2008 experience. (Except I still can't feel my thumb.) I know I must be the slowest person on earth to post a con report, but hey, at least I'm thorough. :)
I've got two more links to share before I hit the Post button. For some good pictures of around the con in general, check out Patcave's flickr account [here], and to read more reviews of this year's D*C, scroll through the responses to [ this entry] in the Dragon*Con livejournal community.
I hope you enjoyed reading my report - for those of you who stuck it out until the end - and I'll see you all next year!