Dragon*con 09.... The Recap
Oh yeah, Dragon*con 09 totally rocked... Thanks to wheezinggirl, I'm already planning my costume for next year. It will involve me getting much more serious about my time at the gym & watching what I eat, but that's ok. D*C is a good motivation.
I briefly thought about not doing the recap because Wheezinggirl did a great one over on her lj, but since not everyone reads hers I figured what the hell.... Here goes...
Thursday night I flew out to Atlanta and met up with Wheezinggirl. She took me back to her & Matt's house where I *finally* got to meet radiantbaby and mtn_hermit (**waves virtual hi**) and have a fantastic dinner out in their gazebo. After dinner we watched a few episodes of the live action version of The Tick, something I had not previously seen, but enjoyed. Then it was time for bed.
Friday morning Wheezinggirl had to go to work for a while so Matt and I headed to Dragon*con to check into the hotel, lug large quantities of luggage up and down stairs and through mazes to get to the room, and pick up our D*C badges. Once all that was squared away we met up with thunder24 for a few pre-lunch cocktails while we waited for wheezingirl and lerg to show up (they were inadvertently heading down to meet us together). Once the whole gang met up, we headed to the food court for lunch. After that I decided I needed to be wearing my costume. Thunder24 was already in his Ultimate Thor costume, so I decided he needed to be joined by Xena and Gabrielle. So Wheezinggirl and I got changed. We made a fabulous Xena and Gabrielle! It was great to have my sidekick with me this year instead of wandering alone like last year! It was a blast and we both looked great (thanks mom!).
We ended up seeing 2 panels on Friday. The first was with author Charlene Harris, which was great. I am a fan of her books and the Tru Blood tv show that's based on them, so it was fun to hear her talk about what she had in mind versus how things are progressing in the series (she seems pretty happy with it so far). The second panel we saw was about Warrior Women in YA fiction. We chose to go because Wheezinggirl's friend dancingwriter was part of the panel. It was fun and interesting and we're still dressed as Xena & Gabrielle, which made that specific panel even more fun.
In between the panels we walked around a bit, including my only trip through the Walk of Fame. for those who remember last year, I ended up somewhat stalking a celebrity (not on purpose). This year I had no such encounters (boo!). We did run into one celebrity - Felicia Day. We saw her standing outside the walk of fame. We wanted to take a picture with her, but didn't really want to intrude. Fortunately for us, she spotted us and wanted her picture taken with us! Yay Xena & Gabrielle! Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of her with any of our cameras, but we're hoping she posts it on flickr. Also, in the walk of fame, I was told Richard Hatch was checking me out. lol...
Back to the timeline, after the second panel we had dinner at one of the hotel restaurants and then walked around the lobby to pose for pictures. That was Friday.
Saturday almost deserves a post all to itself. It ended up being sort of the epic fun day that involved a whole lot of alcohol and partying. We started off the day fairly casual. We skipped watching the D*C parade in favor of standing in line for the BSG panel featuring Mary McDonnell, Alessandro Juliani, Michael Trucco, Kate Vernon, Michael Hogan, and Luciano Carro. Midway through the panel they were joined by Aaron Douglas. He got a lot of attention for that because no one noticed he came in until he took one of the microphones in the audience and asked the panel a question about his own character. It was funny. The panel was great fun, but frakking cold!!! All the panel rooms seemed to be set at a freezing temperature.
After the BSG panel we walked through the dealer's hall, got lunch at a deli at our hotel, and changed into our costumes. Wheezinggirl and I dressed as Xena & Gabrielle again. Matt went as a Star Trek captain and Thunder24 went as death-scene Comedian from the Watchmen (I do have pictures of all this that will be on flickr eventually). Thunder24 wanted to go to a Watchmen meet-up for photo ops at one of the hotel bars, so we headed over there and ended up staying there for several hours. This specific bar was at the Marriott, which had the best view for people-watching and being seen for pictures. We were joined by several of wheezinggirl & Matt's friends while there. All around it was a lot of fun and a whole lot of drinking.
At some point we realized we needed to leave and headed to The Shindig, which was a Firefly-themed party. The party was crazy fun, mostly due to the high-energy level of the band Emerald Rose and the crowd who thoroughly enjoyed being there. I could have stayed there all night, but we had more fun to do. We went back to the hotel room so wheezinggirl and Matt could get out of their costumes and back into real clothes. Thunder24 and I kept ours on. We ended up having a minor room party. Somehow we ended up with a few random strangers in the room and we did have a cooler of beer. It was fun. Matt got us an invite to an exclusive invite-only after hours party at one of the suites in a different hotel. It was the type of party you needed the password to get into, had security outside and had color-coded wrist bands. We had the VIP bands, although I'm not sure what the difference was. We spent most of the time on the balcony talking to other people and drinking really nasty home-brewed beer. I think it was about 3 or 4am when we finally called it a night and went to bed.
Sunday started a wee bit rough. After only 4 hours sleep and 3 times as many drinks as hours (at least) most of us were not feeling our best on Sunday. I rallied just long enough to eat half of the world's most expensive grilled ham & cheese sandwich before deciding I needed to crash for a while. Wheezinggirl and Matt headed to another panel and more looking around. I went back to the room to go back to sleep. Thunder24 had never left the room and was watching D*C tv. So I ended up watching parts of about 4 different panels (Heroes, Buffy, Leonard Nimoy, and part of a Patrick Stewart panel) all the while trying to feel human again. Sometime after 4pm wheezinggirl and Matt came back to the room to take naps. Both Thunder24 and I were awake and human again by then, so we left them alone and headed to the art show. After that I met up with Wheezinggirl to go to the YA fiction costume contest where 4 of her friends were dressed as characters from The Last Unicorn (they looked great!). We ended up killing time at the Marriott bar after that while the guys went to a few gaming panels. We (that being me, Wheezinggirl, Matt, Thunder24 and Lerg) all met up again for a tasty dinner at Trader Vic's. We then had to rally to go see the band I Fight Dragons, who didn't come on until after midnight. I could barely keep my eyes open, but made it through. The band was good, I was just tired.
Monday we packed up, checked out, and lugged the large amount of luggage up and down stairs and through mazes back to the car. Then we went to our last panel of D*C, which was a Q&A with Felicia Day. She was a hoot, so the panel was a lot of fun. Then Wheezinggirl, Matt and I had lunch at a Mexican place at the CNN tower. They dropped me off at the airport and I had a surprisingly on-time flight home.
That was Dragon*Con!
Ok, LJ is giving me a hard time about tagging other lj users in this post. I've tried several times and I give up....