My SFX report
Grrr. I had a whole long report typed out and then lj froze and took everything with it, including my copy. Grrr. I'll try to redo it. Stupid lj.
I got home last night at about 5pm after first going to the vet's office where my Nikki cat had been boarded for the past five days. He was very happy to get home. :)
My first thoughts on this weekend... James pretty. Toronto nice. SFX not to my taste. :)
This weekend for me was, of course, all about James. And I'm glad that I bought the VIP ticket because there really wasn't much else I would have liked to do at SFX. It's a huge con with far too many people and not terribly well run, I think. I'm not interested in anime or comic books, but it was fun to see all the kids dressed up in their anime costumes. Some were really quite impressive. I would have liked to have seen Adam Baldwin's Q & A, but it was a) scheduled too closely to James's concert, and b) he was put in a room far too small to accommodate the number of people who wanted to attend the Q & A, and c) the security people hadn't been told that our VIP tickets gave us access to everything except Elisa Wood's activities so they weren't going to let us in anyway. That was remedied the next day after Steve was informed of the snafu. By the way, I found Steve Himber to be a pretty neat guy, friendly and funny and he worked his ass off trying to make everyone happy - not an easy task by any means. If I have a major complaint, it is that there should have been assigned seating so that we didn't have to spend almost the entire weekend hanging about in line hoping for a good seat.
First came the concert which I enjoyed - James was really relaxed and you can tell just how much he loves to sing. He's well aware, I think, that it's an indulgence on his part, but he enjoys it and his fangirls enjoy it, so it's all good. He joked around about the half-dozen guys spread about the audience. Really the room was probably 95% female. He wore the hated pimp shirt, but you know, after seeing it in person, I'm kinda for it. *g* The Q & A session was great, but he really needs to stop encouraging people to ask him anything. It may not bother him, but I personally don't need to know whether or not he shaves his balls. ::eyeroll::
Anyway, after the concert and Q & A, we tromped over to a pub across the street for dinner and close-up time with James. This, unfortunately, didn't quite work out as planned because the pub really wasn't set up for us to sit around tables so James could come up and join us for a bit. It ended up with James sitting at a table by the door and us lining up to get his autograph. The good thing was we got a little extra time to speak with him. The bad thing was, it really wasn't what we expected. But at least while we waited we could drink or get out of line and eat from the buffet (which could have been better) or stand around in back of him and watch him sign autographs and interact with his fans. So while it was disappointing in a way, it wasn't completely horrible either.
When I finally got up to get my copy of Civilized Man autographed, I told him, "You know, you're the only guy that could get me to watch Smallville", and before he could even respond, kellyhk, who was standing behind him leans over and says, "Yeah, she's been saying what a steaming pile it is for weeks!".
::facepalm:: Thanks, Kelly! *g*
But I did have to confess that I do indeed think it's a steaming pile. James said that some guy whose name I can't remember - the creator/producer/writer, I presume - has a very clear plan as to where the story is going and where Prof. Fine fits in. He's very enthusiastic about the role. Of course, he couldn't really say he was just doing the role for the bread, but I really think he was sincere in that he's enjoying the role and working with Michael Rosenbaum. And I get the feeling from the way he was talking about the role that the slash is just going to write itself. ;) Anyway, I said that maybe it's the direction on the show then - I really didn't want to get into the mediocrity of the scripts - because of the long....ponderous....pauses between lines. Well, as can be expected, James pronounced that he's not allowing them to get away with that with him. He's actually making MR react to him without the brain numbing pauses. Hee! And I'm not surprised, for, as I told him, on Cold Mountain he was able to bring some pretty poor actors up several levels just by being in scenes with him. He, of course, got uncomfortable with the compliment, but I actually did get him to acknowledge that he's a good actor. *g*
The next day, I made it up to the dealer's room and autograph area. I managed to get several nice pictures of Adam Baldwin and Kevin Sorbo, and I got Adam to sign my Many Moods of Angel t-shirt. I really didn't get much of a chance to get a feel for Adam's personality, as I always feel like I need to move on and not hog too much time when there's a line. I hope to be able to see him again sometime. I didn't bother to get an autograph from Kevin Sorbo but from just watching him, he seems to be great with his fans, so I was impressed by that.
I was very good and didn't buy any action figures or other souvenirs this con. Well, except for the books on cd I bought from Buzzy Multimedia. I got three books - one read by Michael Shanks, one by Ben Browder (the girls from Buzzy were drooling over Ben *g*) and one read by Jason Carter. They made me a really good deal. I bought two of the books and they threw in the one by Jason for free as well as free shipping if I agreed to allow them to ship. Actually that worked out better for me because then I didn't have to cram them into my already over-filled suitcase.
Sunday was a bit more relaxed since we didn't have to be at the convention until later. We got there about 11 and I went up to the dealer's room again. It was less crowded so I had the opportunity to just take my time and look around. I would maybe have bought a couple comic books if I could have found redeem147 to advise me, but by the time I did see her, I completely forgot about comic books. After the third series of Q & A's and autographs of that weekend I went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with jonesiexxx and manynames. That was really lovely. We dined al fresco at a deli right on Front Street and talked Buffy and other stuff. Jones is a really wonderful lady and it was a pleasure to meet manynames and make a new friend. Making new friends was very much the theme this weekend and is one of the best thing about going to cons. I managed to meet psubrat and rockgoddes and their friend who doesn't post on lj on Thursday evening. We went over to Tim Horton's where I had an iced cappuccino. Yum! Then on Friday, I finally got to meet fraidycatx3 and we hung out together pretty much the rest of the con.
Speaking of Tim Horton's, on Monday I went over there to grab a coffee and bagel before catching the shuttle to the airport. It's a darned good thing I didn't get a cafe mocha before then because ohmigod! I never would have left Tim Horton's the entire weekend. Talk about yummy!
I have to say I was glad to get home yesterday. I went to bed last night at 9:30 and woke up at 9 this morning. :) I'm going to transfer my pictures from my camera to my computer sometime today and post those that don't suck too badly. It was the first time I use my brand-new camera.
Now I need to start thinking about next year's vacation. I'm considering either Toronto Trek or a Stargate thingy in Vancouver next March with a tour of the studio and including both shows. Plus I'll get to see evenstar_estel again, which would be a bonus.
I got home last night at about 5pm after first going to the vet's office where my Nikki cat had been boarded for the past five days. He was very happy to get home. :)
My first thoughts on this weekend... James pretty. Toronto nice. SFX not to my taste. :)
This weekend for me was, of course, all about James. And I'm glad that I bought the VIP ticket because there really wasn't much else I would have liked to do at SFX. It's a huge con with far too many people and not terribly well run, I think. I'm not interested in anime or comic books, but it was fun to see all the kids dressed up in their anime costumes. Some were really quite impressive. I would have liked to have seen Adam Baldwin's Q & A, but it was a) scheduled too closely to James's concert, and b) he was put in a room far too small to accommodate the number of people who wanted to attend the Q & A, and c) the security people hadn't been told that our VIP tickets gave us access to everything except Elisa Wood's activities so they weren't going to let us in anyway. That was remedied the next day after Steve was informed of the snafu. By the way, I found Steve Himber to be a pretty neat guy, friendly and funny and he worked his ass off trying to make everyone happy - not an easy task by any means. If I have a major complaint, it is that there should have been assigned seating so that we didn't have to spend almost the entire weekend hanging about in line hoping for a good seat.
First came the concert which I enjoyed - James was really relaxed and you can tell just how much he loves to sing. He's well aware, I think, that it's an indulgence on his part, but he enjoys it and his fangirls enjoy it, so it's all good. He joked around about the half-dozen guys spread about the audience. Really the room was probably 95% female. He wore the hated pimp shirt, but you know, after seeing it in person, I'm kinda for it. *g* The Q & A session was great, but he really needs to stop encouraging people to ask him anything. It may not bother him, but I personally don't need to know whether or not he shaves his balls. ::eyeroll::
Anyway, after the concert and Q & A, we tromped over to a pub across the street for dinner and close-up time with James. This, unfortunately, didn't quite work out as planned because the pub really wasn't set up for us to sit around tables so James could come up and join us for a bit. It ended up with James sitting at a table by the door and us lining up to get his autograph. The good thing was we got a little extra time to speak with him. The bad thing was, it really wasn't what we expected. But at least while we waited we could drink or get out of line and eat from the buffet (which could have been better) or stand around in back of him and watch him sign autographs and interact with his fans. So while it was disappointing in a way, it wasn't completely horrible either.
When I finally got up to get my copy of Civilized Man autographed, I told him, "You know, you're the only guy that could get me to watch Smallville", and before he could even respond, kellyhk, who was standing behind him leans over and says, "Yeah, she's been saying what a steaming pile it is for weeks!".
::facepalm:: Thanks, Kelly! *g*
But I did have to confess that I do indeed think it's a steaming pile. James said that some guy whose name I can't remember - the creator/producer/writer, I presume - has a very clear plan as to where the story is going and where Prof. Fine fits in. He's very enthusiastic about the role. Of course, he couldn't really say he was just doing the role for the bread, but I really think he was sincere in that he's enjoying the role and working with Michael Rosenbaum. And I get the feeling from the way he was talking about the role that the slash is just going to write itself. ;) Anyway, I said that maybe it's the direction on the show then - I really didn't want to get into the mediocrity of the scripts - because of the long....ponderous....pauses between lines. Well, as can be expected, James pronounced that he's not allowing them to get away with that with him. He's actually making MR react to him without the brain numbing pauses. Hee! And I'm not surprised, for, as I told him, on Cold Mountain he was able to bring some pretty poor actors up several levels just by being in scenes with him. He, of course, got uncomfortable with the compliment, but I actually did get him to acknowledge that he's a good actor. *g*
The next day, I made it up to the dealer's room and autograph area. I managed to get several nice pictures of Adam Baldwin and Kevin Sorbo, and I got Adam to sign my Many Moods of Angel t-shirt. I really didn't get much of a chance to get a feel for Adam's personality, as I always feel like I need to move on and not hog too much time when there's a line. I hope to be able to see him again sometime. I didn't bother to get an autograph from Kevin Sorbo but from just watching him, he seems to be great with his fans, so I was impressed by that.
I was very good and didn't buy any action figures or other souvenirs this con. Well, except for the books on cd I bought from Buzzy Multimedia. I got three books - one read by Michael Shanks, one by Ben Browder (the girls from Buzzy were drooling over Ben *g*) and one read by Jason Carter. They made me a really good deal. I bought two of the books and they threw in the one by Jason for free as well as free shipping if I agreed to allow them to ship. Actually that worked out better for me because then I didn't have to cram them into my already over-filled suitcase.
Sunday was a bit more relaxed since we didn't have to be at the convention until later. We got there about 11 and I went up to the dealer's room again. It was less crowded so I had the opportunity to just take my time and look around. I would maybe have bought a couple comic books if I could have found redeem147 to advise me, but by the time I did see her, I completely forgot about comic books. After the third series of Q & A's and autographs of that weekend I went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with jonesiexxx and manynames. That was really lovely. We dined al fresco at a deli right on Front Street and talked Buffy and other stuff. Jones is a really wonderful lady and it was a pleasure to meet manynames and make a new friend. Making new friends was very much the theme this weekend and is one of the best thing about going to cons. I managed to meet psubrat and rockgoddes and their friend who doesn't post on lj on Thursday evening. We went over to Tim Horton's where I had an iced cappuccino. Yum! Then on Friday, I finally got to meet fraidycatx3 and we hung out together pretty much the rest of the con.
Speaking of Tim Horton's, on Monday I went over there to grab a coffee and bagel before catching the shuttle to the airport. It's a darned good thing I didn't get a cafe mocha before then because ohmigod! I never would have left Tim Horton's the entire weekend. Talk about yummy!
I have to say I was glad to get home yesterday. I went to bed last night at 9:30 and woke up at 9 this morning. :) I'm going to transfer my pictures from my camera to my computer sometime today and post those that don't suck too badly. It was the first time I use my brand-new camera.
Now I need to start thinking about next year's vacation. I'm considering either Toronto Trek or a Stargate thingy in Vancouver next March with a tour of the studio and including both shows. Plus I'll get to see evenstar_estel again, which would be a bonus.