In a word: overwhelming
When I stepped into the Convention center on Friday... part of me wanted to run away from the huge masses that engulfed me. It was crazy. Seriously. A convention of 125,000 people is insane. However, this isn't to say that I didn't have fun. Cause I did. I'm just glad that Dragon*Con isn't as big and personlly, I hope it stays kinda small.
After 6 hours of travel I arrived at the convention center and met up with Christy (shuya) and Rebecca (Deej) who were in a panel for the Hobbit movie. Which I had hoped to make, but didn't. We discussed the plans for today and I decide to venture out to the exhibt floor. Where you find all the major movie/TV networks, and all the dealers. It's huge.
My main reason for heading there was rumors that John Barrowman was supposed to be signing sometime that day. So I set out to discover him...
And I did!
Sadly, I couldn't get my picture with him. Oh, and in that second picture, the dude in the background with the fairy wings is Gareth David-Lloyd. They both had them on originally, but I couldn't dig my camera out fast enough for that... It was awesome.
After that it was time for the Joss Whedon panel which ended up being a Doctor Horrible panel. Which worked out fine because not only did I get to see Joss, but Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion as well. After waiting in line for an hour or more I think. Christy came with me to this panel. (a room of 2,000 people I think!!) I wish I could remember everything that was said. It was a really great panel. With most people asking questions directly of Joss.
Plus, NPH and Nathan were hysterical together. Especially Nathan. He was great.
Joss looking totally nerdy -
I was actually quite far away, so sometimes I took pictures of the large screens -
When they first sat down, Nathan pulled out the chair for NPH and he "fell" off. It was great! Then later NPH did the same to Nathan -
Then more wandering around and back for the Bones panel. Emily D. was supposed to be there, but wasn't. I wish she had been because I would have loved to see the interaction between her and David in real life as opposed to on screen. David was hilarious. I lurve him so much!! It is so funny to think back on Angel and realize that's the same person!!
Sweets and Angela
Then I went back to the hotel to get some rest for the next couple of hours before dinner. I didn't actually fall asleep, but it was good to be away from the crowds and I took a nice hot shower. I seemed to take two showers a day while I was there. It wasn't really hot (in fact it felt very nice) but sometimes I'd end up walking a lot more than I expected too!
Veiws from hotel room - we were on the 19th floor.
The Pacific!
Monday morning I was up bright and early for the Heores panel. Though I was barely early enough. A large number of people spent the night and another large number had gotten there around 6am or so. The line was HUGE! I think it neared a mile long because it took me 10 mins to walk to the end. It was crazy. I didn't get a pic because I was to hot and tired.
But amazingly enough, I got it! Yay for a room that holds 6,500 people! Yeah.
The cast -
Tim Kring with a special surprise -
The first episode for season 3 of Heroes!!! (it was so totally, totally awesome!!!)
Sylar Love -
Cast -
After the Heroes panel I stayed in Hall H for the Lost panel with the creators and surprise guest Matthew Fox -
That was a fun panel. Didn't get a whole lot of info...but it was interesting. What bit (for you Losties) - rember Daniel Faraday and his journal? Turns out not only does it have stuff from the past...but the future as well. From things seen at the panel, it seems possible that Daniel might have been on the Island 30 years ago with that Asian dude from all the Dharma videos.
The rest of the day was spent in missing the Pushing Daises panel, wandering around the exhibt floor and going back to the hotel room about 5ish.
Crowds on the way back -
Rebecca and I were meeting up with different TheOneRing.Net (TORn) for dinner and left the hotel about 7. (after a rest, swim, and shower for me)
On our way there is when I saw Ron Perlman. Total shock.
Pub we had dinner at was nice, but REALLY loud. I think we all went deaf that night. It was good food, but it was nearly impossible to hear each other and it was a large group. Another bad thing was the fact that a band was also playing that night. Not so good... but it was still fun!
Our surprise guest that evening was Richard Taylor. The brilliant mind behind Weta Workshop. He's won 5 Academy Awards for his work for LOTR. And he did a bunch of Narnia stuff. It was such a shock to see him! But so totally cool. And he was really nice too! Although we saw him the next morning and he'd lost his voice due to having to talk so loudly in the pub!
We were at the pub for awhile then Rebecca (deej), Alex (CAhobbit), Larry (MrCere) and myself went back to the hotel and talked awhile. But then everyone was practically falling asleep while talking and Alex and Larry headed out.
Sunday morning was not as early of a start as Saturday, but close. Rebecca and I had been debating what to do about the Supernatural panel as there was a free signing with Jensen Ackles right after the panel. So we were trying to figure out if we'd rather do panel or singing because it would be impossible to do both.
In the end we decided to try fot the signing since Rebecca hadn't seen most of season 3 and didn't want to be spoiled.
So the singing wasn't till 12:30 or 1 and the line wasn't going to start till 12 so we decided to walk around the Con floor for awhile. And I pulled out my camera to finally take pics of everything.
We discoverd a Dalek -
And lots and lots of people...
Joelle was at the convention at this point but had decided to try for the Supernatural panel so we just kept sending text messages back and forth... heehee
So finally we decided to try and see what was going on at the WB booth and what to do about the signing. There was still no line allowed (about 11 or 11:30) but we hoped we could still find the righ place despite the vast amounts of people surrounding the ever popular area.
Looking toward the WB booth (but not there yet) -
Lots 'o people
And in the end, we didn't make it. The line opened on the opposite side of the booth we were on and close seemingly 5 seconds later. So that was a bust. The WB people seemed to have no idea what they were doing. Rebecca and I agree they should have made that a ticketed event.
After that it was more walking around while waiting for Joelle to make her way through the vast amounts of people to us. Rebecca and I went over to the Sideshow booth which was where Alex was working to say hey and make it hopefully easier for Joelle to find us.
She finally did! Yay! It was funny because she remarked on how tall I was and later on so did her sister. It's funny because ever so many years ago when I first meet Bethany, she did too! (though she was more along the lines of "oh good! you're tall!) where are Joelle and her sister are shorter. (I'm a little over 5'8 BTW - almost 5'9 in my shoes)
So then it was discuss what to do next. Rebecca and I were hungry by this point so we went for lunch and Joelle and her friend went to some panels.
The rest of Sunday was rather un-eventful. Sunday isn't a big day for the convention (like Monday for D*Con). Rebecca and I did want to catch the Buffy Musical that was closing out the day so in order to not miss it as well as have a chance to take a break, we went and sat down in the large ballroom that was hosting it and listened to the panel before it. Okay, I didn't. I had part two of the Buffy season 8 comic book collection and was reading those. I think the lady who runs the Stargate track at Dragon*Con was sitting behind us.
It was so nice to sit in a comfortable cool room! I could have fallen asleep! Then the panel wrapped up and Buffy started.
We had good seats -
Then of course we all sang along, clapped, cheered, and booed togheter. (shut up Dawn!)
And that was that. The Convention was over and it was time for everyone to go home. Here are some parting shots I took -
The letters here go all the way to H. So it was really long...
Rebecca and I then met up again with Joelle and her friend Amber and set off to find dinner. We finally decided on a nice Italian pizza place. It was fun talking with everyone and enjoying the Convention atmosphere what we saw etc. And of course finally getting to meet Joelle after... 4 years of knowing her I think... Crazy! We got along really well I believe. :-D
I should have taken a picture of our dessert at the restaurant because it was amazing. A huge ice cream sunday! So so good. Then it was time to part ways with Rebecca. I was heading home with Joelle and Amber for the night.
The trip back was long, and I fell asleep. I was so worn out from the long weekend and I tried very much to stay apart of the conversation, but after awhile, I gave up. Though I did hang on for a lot longer than I expected. But finally I began nodding off sitting up and just laid down on top of my stuff in the back. I was out cold for a solid hour. And by that time we were almost at Joelle's. (which took us about 3 or 4 hours!)
Joelle's family was really nice and very welcoming. Her little sister Nikki attacked me with a hug. :-) She also commented on my height. Which I found amusing. I wish I could have spent more time with both of them, but it was midnight when we got to the house and we had an early morning because we had to drive back to San Diego for my flight. I did get to meet Joelle's cat who evidently is a pshyco cat but liked me. So yays! She let me pet her and everything. Joelle was stunned.
The next morning we set off for the airport but not before stopping by Joelle's favorite coffee shop, The Coffee Bean -
Sadly, that is the only pic we have together! We were both so tired that pics really weren't the first things on our mind!
It took about 3 hours to get to back to the airport. But it was nice visiting with Joelle and her Mum on the way down. We got to the airport, I got my ticket and we had lunch and visited some more before I got in the line for security.
And as it turned out we could have stayed together even longer because my flight was delayed by an hour. Oh well. That's the way it goes sometimes.
So my flight was delayed but thankfully, unlike 90% of the other people I did not have a connecting flight in Dallas. The plane I was on was going to Atlanta from Dallas. It sounded like a lot of people around me either missed there flights or where very close to it. Not good!
I got back to Atlanta and home around midnight. So it had been a very long day. And it was so good to finally get home! Then of course I got sick. I had a sore throat on Tuesday and it got worse. Though it never got as bad as it usually does. Possibly due to the Emergen-C vitamen supplement I was taking.
I worked early Wed then had to study that day and had a final on Thursday. No idea how that went as I was still sick and not feeling so great. Stupid Con crud!
And then for a final picture... this is most of the stuff I brought back. The Supernatural bag is as big as the Pushing Daisies one. It has Sam and Dean on one side and Smallville on the other. Those were give aways from WB. They had different bags for each day. They are HUGE but actually pretty neat.
FOX was giving away the poster tubes. I was really glad to have that on the way home. I brought home a TON of Twilight mini posters and two HUGE posters that I wasn't sure how I would have gotten home otherwise!
The Entertainment Weekly mags were freebies. One for Watchmen the other for Twilight. I've tagged a bunch of stuff in the pic at Flickr -
And that's that folks! I know it is really long. But there was so much to do!
Sorry it took so long to post!!
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