Fresh Fish Served Daily

Well, it's time for the yearly Dragoncon rundown post! It's much later than usual because I came down with some form of con crud this year despite my best efforts. I blame the AC and dry air in our hotel room for my massive head cold.

Follow up:

So! This year we went straight to the hotel from the airport on Thursday afternoon, checked in, and went to get our badges. I really hate going to get my badge on Thurs because the pre-reg line is always so long, but with the only panel that Shatner is doing on Friday morning before registration opens I really have no choice. Registration was in the Sheraton this year (UUUUGH). Things started out badly when I saw a couple of line jumpers before we even got into the building. Once inside there were no ropes to separate the multi-phased line, so it was just a big blob. At least once we hit the ballroom they had the cattle lines set up. After waiting about twenty minutes one of the staffers announces that people whose last names start with P-Z should go on up to the front of the line. Uhm, ok. Feeling incredibly awkward I hop out of line and head to the front. They've got the lines separated out by last names at the front like they do every year, but I see that there's currently no one waiting in the lines for P-Z. (It makes sense that they would take us out of line, I suppose, but I wish that they'd just extend the name lines instead. Then you could see what line you needed to be in and hop in right away at the beginning.) I get my badge another ten minutes after that, but Dane is still in line. I wait around a bit assuming that it won't take much longer, but eventually I head to the grocery store for supplies when it becomes clear that he is in the line of extreme waiting. I think his final time was 2.5 hours, whereas mine was probably 45 min. I have no idea why, as there were only about two dozen people in front of him when I left. I suppose the upside for him is that he didn't have to go to the store. :)

Once we've got our badges it's time to start the party. Dane and Scott get merrily drunk while I hang out with Holly and fail to get drunk. We do some people watching in front of the M and suddenly I see Doc Hammer walking into the hotel. I convince Holly we should go ask to take pictures with him, and not only does he do that but he also chats with us for a bit about knitting and Terry Gilliam. Sweet! After a bit longer I head to bed, since I need to get up early to see the Shat.

Friday:

8:00 am: Get my happy ass out of bed and shower. Consider getting a coffee on the way to the Hyatt, but of course the line at the Sbucks in the M is epically long. COFFEE FAIL.

8:30 am: Walk around the outside of the Hyatt, looking for what I was sure would be a massive line. Get all the way to the the front of the hotel without seeing a line. Whu? A security guard points me down those hidden side stairs, and I get to the Centennial Ballrooms without encountering a line. They send me right in, and I see why there's no line. They've already let everyone in to the ballroom. Also, I am shocked to discover that the ballroom is barely even half full at this point in time. Either everyone else thought the line would be too long to even try or it was just too early for a lot of people. Either way I get to waste an hour and a half waiting for the panel to start. At least the lady next to me was friendly and was knitting.

10:00 am: Shatner/Nimoy panel of epic win. The back and forth banter in this one was just hilarious. Also I learned that Shatner was in the only all-Esperanto movie ever made.

11:30 am: After practically RUNNING to the Sheraton I see that Holly has saved me a front row seat for the Torchwood panel (James Marsters and Gareth David-Lloyd). Woo!

1:00 pm: Farscape panel with Virginia Hey and Lani Tupu.

2:00 pm: Finally have time to get some lunch.

4:00 pm: Draco Malfoy panel with Tom Felton. He was so charming and sweet to everyone that I would definitely recommend seeing him speak if you get a chance.

5:00 pm: Holly and I make a speed run through the dealer's rooms (all three of them). I pick up a leather underbust corset with a front busk from the Timeless Trends booth, since it's more accurate for my Blind Mag costume than the longer-waisted buskless underbust I brought with me. It turned out to be a great purchase, as I think that it looked perfect with the costume.

7:00 pm: Back to the room for food, shower and getting into the Mag costume for the 9pm Repo photoshoot. Dane was away at some film festival stuff, so I had to get into everything on my own. I've gotten decent at lacing myself into a corset but it was still a bit of a challenge.

9:00 pm: Repo photoshoot! Lots of great costumes, and it was nice to see a presence for Repo at the con. After that I met up with Holly, Jamie, and Beth and wandered around taking pictures for a few hours. Ended up going back to the room around midnight to change because the costume was pretty uncomfortable.

Saturday:

11:30 am: BSG panel. Even with how disappointed I was with the ending, it's still interesting to see the actors.

12:45 pm: Attempt to get into the Venture Bros. panel, and am denied. We saw Doc and Jackson about to walk in to the hotel and stop to shake their hands, so I suppose it's not a total loss. Resolve to come back after some lunch for the signing session.

2:15 pm: Are told that the signing is full and that we need to leave. But...it's a signing, right? People will leave once their stuff is signed? Well, no, they gave out postcards in the room (while the panel was going on in a different room, oddly enough) and if you didn't get one you won't be able to get in. That whole setup was a terrible idea, plus the security people were very short with us. Bleh. Decide to head to the Sheraton way early to get in line for the Monty Python panel.

4:00 pm: Monty Python panel with Terry Gilliam and Neil Innes. Very cool and very funny. Neil told a great story about touring with his band in the US (sometime in the mid 70's I believe). Unfortunately I can't find a video of it, but the gist was this: imagine a band of rockers from the UK getting stopped by a cop somewhere in smalltown USA. The cop is convinced that they have some kind of contraband in the car, and finally asks "do you have any guns or knives?" The band members are shocked and say "of course not!" Cop: "Well, how do you defend yourselves?" Band: "With good manners!"

5:30 pm: Farscape 10th anniversary panel, with Claudia Black, Ben Browder, Virginia Hey, and Lani Tupu. Virginia had the best answer ever to the question "what was your favorite episode": "any episode where Ben wore those tight little pants." I believe there was also mention of a butt like two freshly baked loaves of bread.

7:00 pm: Dinner. I wore a club-style version of a kimono that I made with my PVC corset. It was a great outfit but of course I didn't get any pictures, and somehow managed to tear the back seam later on in the evening. I also drank WAY too much and ended up sick, though I was having a great time up until that point. I just cannot manage to maintain a pleasant buzz while drinking. I either end up sober or sick. Ugh.

Sunday:

I was too hungover to do anything all day. I missed seeing Patrick Stewart and also going to the LSG knitters dinner. Extremely disappointing. I did feel well enough by 8pm to get up and about, and then hung around the front of the M taking pictures as usual. We tried to get into the Mad Scientist's ball around 10pm but of course the room was way too small for the amount of people wanting to get in, so we just hung out until I went to mc chris at 1:30. One neat thing was that we saw Doc Hammer as we were leaving the Hyatt, and he signed Quani's DVDs for us. He remembered me from Thurs mentioning that I had a friend who couldn't make it this year, which was really cool.

Monday:

Take it easy and sleep in a bit. I went off to wander the dealer rooms for a bit until Scott and Amy got in, then we registered for next year and got some lunch. Once Dane was up we all went over to the film festival room to see some of the award winning shorts, and that was it for us.

I think one of the biggest things that worked this year was staying until Tues. Sure you have to take another day off of work, but you don't have the mad rush to check out while the con is still going on. And getting an elevator on Tues was EASY.