Armageddon 2009 - Sunday, Part 1
Sunday 18th October - Day 2
Okay, so I should have done this yesterday while I remembered more, but I didn’t get home until midnight, and I was completely stuffed!
Here goes what I do remember, which are probably the highlights for me anyway.
We didn’t start the day as early as some - one of the advantages of having a gold pass. I wanted to get there between 9.30 and 10, so I could get my photos signed during the gold pass only signing session. We got there at 10; I wasn’t too worried about being there at 9.30 on the dot, because on Sat the guests didn’t get there until 10 anyway! So got there at 10, and decided to catch Paul’s Q & A rather than autos. So popped in and stood up the back, since it started and was already rather full.
Paul McGillion Panel
Dana, Randall, Pauline and I went over to the corner opposite the door, where it was quieter. Watched Paul do his talk, honestly don’t remember a great deal about the start, and can’t for the life of me remember what he was discussing when we entered. What we did notice, as we settled in, was Janelle smiling to us and pointing at the seat next to her. A moment for some necessary background info. Janelle (Smilie Gidget), GW chickybabe and all round lovely girl, is one of the regular volunteers at the con, and this weekend she was placed in the main auditorium (well, sectioned off area of the floor this year >:) and was busy running the mic to those asking questions and generally keeping the peace. The quiet corner in which we had innocently placed ourselves turned out to be the gap between the partition and the guests signing area. A picture is starting to form, no? At her gesture, we looked at the chair next to her, where Jason Momoa was attempting to crouch unobtrusively. I say attempting, because obviously it is very difficult to stuff 6’4 of Jason in anywhere unobtrusively, what’s less in a row of plastic chairs in a manner leaving him unseen from the stage. He was kind of lying over two chairs, with his head resting on the arm of the guy in the third chair. Just watching him trying to hide with the mic in his hand and a cheeky grin on his face (and yes, his eyes do sparkle gleefully just like they do on the tele) was rather amusing in itself.
So Paul ended his answer to the previous question, and looked around for where the next question was coming from. Jason put on this deep(er), drunk sounding voice and started asking really silly, slurred questions - “Yeah, ..mumble mumble..who are you? What character do you play?” Paul’s still trying to see where the question came from, because everyone else stood up when they had the mic. So he’s trying to be polite, and asking who was asking the question. Jason’s continued, “Umm, err, yeah, what’s your favourite colour?” Paul’s started laughing at this point, as the rest of us are trying to stifle our own laughter. Paul’s saying “It’s either Joe or Jason - where is he?” So Jason stood up as we all started cracking up. As everything settled in, the Q & A got back on track, and Jason popped back another time, just to sit and watch Paul’s talk. He stayed for a few minutes then went back to his auto queue seat. He must have got another quiet moment, because he ducked back out and instead of sitting down, he stood right next to me! Yes, I mean next to, not in the general vicinity. I mean next to, as in right beside. Yay! I smiled, and he nodded back, but didn’t say anything because he obviously wanted to listen to Paul, not chat to me. I scowled a couple of times at my daughter, who was sitting a foot away against the wall with the camera, blissfully ignoring this wonderful photo op! We did talk about that later. So for a few minutes, I really didn’t take in a bloody word that Paul said - I was kind of just enjoying Jason standing so close to me. Unfortunately some others weren’t quite as willing to respect Jason’s obvious desire to listen, not talk, so after two others had chatted to him for as long as they could before he could politely shake them (again, meaning I couldn’t get much of Paul’s talk) he gave up and went back to the signing area. Poo. Speaking of poor con etiquette, we had one or two people who would get the mic and instead of (or as well as) asking a question, would ask for a hug, putting the poor guest on the spot. I’m really sorry if I offend anyone here, but in my opinion that is really selfish and rude. It’s not the time, it’s not the place, and it shows little consideration for an actor who is trying to make the session pleasant and fun for the fans. It’s not funny, it’s not cute, it’s just plain rude.
I did manage to catch some of Paul’s talk throughout this! He said that when he plays Carson, he’s basically playing his dad. Aww. That was really sweet, ‘cos Carson is an awfully sweet person.
Someone asked him which of the female cast members he’d most like to ‘get it on’ with, and he said that while they were very good looking women, the cast were more like family, so it would simply be all wrong. Not a supporter of such questions, but he answered it gently and gracefully.
One girl said she wanted to be an actor, and asked him for acting tips, so he brought her up onto the stage. He said, “She’s got the first thing covered, she’s not shy!” And then got her to say something utterly ridiculous in a Scottish accent, which was rather amusing.
As his talk was ending at 11, and Joe’s photo session was beginning at 11, Joe had a moment to pop his head around the gap behind us and heckle Paul as well. Poor Paul!!
Christopher Heyerdahl Auto
After Paul’s talk, they had a Robot Chicken panel, which while I’m not overly interested in it, they started with a screening of their Star Wars parody. Funny stuff! I have seen it before, however, and Chris was due back for autos, so off we went. The squirt and I jumped in his and Gigi’s auto queues, which were quite small at that time of the day, so good for us.
Christopher Heyerdahl - this man impressed me. He’s softly spoken, and seems to be a gentle person with a great sense of humour. I had a brief chat to him at the cocktail party, and had seen him the previous day wondering around the convention floor chatting to people. I’ve not met a guest that I’ve not thought was a lovely person, to be honest, but some more than others simply radiate genuine (rather than polite) interest in what you are saying, and kindness and intelligence are very hard to disguise (if you would even want to). I’ll get to that later. We had our pictures signed. I thanked him for the photo op, and said how I really loved the photo. I have to confess here, I wish he had written something else on the darned thing. What he wrote was innocuous enough. He wrote “what a shot” and signed it. Unfortunately, due to his handwriting style, it looks like something a lot less flattering. :0 Ah well. Such is life, I guess. As I said, the queues were small at this stage, and we had a chance to have a chat. Due to my inability to count, I had an extra auto ticket for Chris. We decided to get a pic signed for the Squirt’s cousin (who is also bff and another die-hard Twilight fan). I had thought of asking him to sign one for my brother. My bro is an equally big sci-fi fan, but has different fave shows, and isn’t familiar with Chris. So at the cocktail party, he had thought that Chris was James Cromwell, because he reminded him of James’ roll in Star Trek:TNG First Contact. So when we asked Chris to do the extra auto, I mentioned that I had been thinking of asking him to write one for bro saying “I am not the Star Trek guy!”, and why. His face lit up and he said “That’s cool! I love Jamie’s work. He’s a fantastic guy and a talented actor.” Phew, I had the too-late thought that I hoped him being mistaken for someone else wasn’t offensive. As I said, he’s such a lovely natured person, and I’m glad he took that as a compliment. I certainly think it is, because I agree with him on James Cromwell’s acting - he’s a very talented man, as is Chris.
Gigi Edgely Auto
Gigi is an absolutely adorable person. She is really tiny!! She is also really sweet. She took the time to chat to us for a few minutes, and was very encouraging to the Squirt who, regardless of me calling her a squirt, is fourteen and taller than Gigi. The Squirt was having a shy moment, so I told Gigi that she absolutely loves Farscape - so much so that instead of having her photo with Gigi signed, she asked for one of the pictures of Gigi as Chianna to sign instead, because she loved the picture. That led us into me explaining that the Squirt had only actually been allowed to watch the first season, because of the higher horroresque level in the latter seasons. For a young girl who still doesn’t particularly enjoy Jurassic Park because of what I gleefully call the “munchity crunchity scenes”, the torture and abuse that Scorpy puts poor Creighton through is a little much. She said has a cringe at a few of those scenes as well. J So she was very encouraging to Pauline to be happy with herself and comfortable with who she is, rather than feeling the need to watch (or do) stuff she’s not comfortable with, and not to be shy. As a parent, I can’t say enough how wonderful it was to have someone that my daughter looks up to like that to encourage her to be herself and become comfortable with who she is. It’s something that teens especially need to hear, and to hear it from someone they respect and admire has an immeasurably higher impact. She signed the pic with a bunch of hearts and things, and wrote on it for Pauline to “dream to live, live the dream”. We also bumped into her out in the foyer a little later, as she had asked be in a group photo with all the stormtroopers floating around (the 501st Legion was back in force). So while she was waiting, Gigi had another chat to the Squirt, which she loved.
