con report: dragoncon 2012
Sep. 10th, 2012 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amezriDragonCon 2012: August 30 - September 3, 2012
A lot of this switches tenses, but I'm too lazy to rewrite everything. This year I tried to keep track of things with the iPod using Nebulous, which was much easier than using a notebook. Except I sort of miss the physical notes. Oh well.
Not noted in my trip journal are the handful of times I kept passing Spat and James Hsiao in the hallway (though I was able to chat with James a little). Also saw Will & Kristin Sirota a few times. I never did find Gareth, but I saw a bunch of Xenos that were not Abe.
Thursday, August 30
Woke up at 3 am and, having slept only three hours, that kind of sucked. Showered, got dressed, and even had time to eat breakfast. Mom drove me to the airport and I got checked in without too much hassle. Flight was on time and I actually arrived in BWI early. Freezing though...why the heck is the airport so cold?! Used the free wifi while waiting for my connecting flight. I was sort of worried about the storm but it was all good and my flight was on time. Arrived in ATL at 11:45am and met with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
athenaktt at baggage claim.
Got on the train to Peachtree and walked on the street to the Marriott - it was kind of weird not being able to just walk into the Peachtree Center. When I checked in, the lady at the desk asked ifathenaktt was arysani... I said no, which was the wrong answer. She said there was a charge for 3 people and added $10 per night to my room. Ergh. Frak you Marriott. Whatever. At least we got two doubles! That was kind of up in the air for a bit.
After putting our stuff in the room, we had lunch at the food court. Met up with Dean & Carlos there and just chatted for a bit. Good times. Everyone seemed to get along; they bonded over living in California. Not that I doubted that, but after last year's debacle, I had some (not serious) paranoia. Yay! Since we all still needed to get badges, we headed to registration in the Sheraton.
Omg fast badging like you wouldn't believe. Honestly, just walked in and there was no line. Amazing!!athenaktt and I headed back to the food court so athenaktt could look at hats for a costume she had. Stopped in CVS and saw they a 24 case of water for $3!! But she needed her Extra card, so back to the room! Well, actually we then stopped at FedEx to get a package. Then to the room... Puttered around and then back downstairs. Empty elevators ftw! Met up with tirgaya at Pulse. Chatted a bit before heading to CVS to buy water. tirgaya grabbed a case too, so we went our separate ways back to our rooms.
After doing some organizing in the room, Joel invited us to his room to hang.athenaktt and I were only watching Operation: Dumbo Drop so... we went and hung out for awhile. Chatted, Joel made drinks. It was a good time! arysani arrived and we gave her keys so she and ainulindale could get in our room. They were off to do things, so we hung out with Joel for awhile. arysani & ainulindale came back later and hung out for a while before we went to find food at about 6pm.
We actually found a table and sat there for awhile, taking turns to get food so someone was always at the table, defending it from The Others. Matt Hudson met up with us and we sat and chatted for awhile. Good times.
After that, we headed to the room to change for the night. Got into my Merlotte's costume and we headed to the Pulse area. Did some people watching while waiting for Joel and friends. Then we walked around and got lots of pictures taken in our outfits. I've never roamed around with a large group in matching costumes before. It was pretty fun!
Ran intotirgaya, Paula, and Carl. Chatted a bit but it was getting too loud for me and I was just so fraking tired. arysani, athenaktt, ainulindale, and I tried to find Kris' New Year Party. But... Pulse Loft was full of uh...not them. So we headed to the food court to sit and chat for awhile.
Finally decided to call it a night. I did something and effed up my neck. Hopefully it's better in the morning, otherwise I need a Salonpas patch from the CVS. Argh. Also my legs are tingly from bad circulation or something. Blah. Stop ruining my fun, body!
Friday, August 31
Oh man what a day! Got up in the morning about 9:30am. Showered and dressed in my Captain America tunic dress.arysani, ainulindale, athenaktt and I went to the food court. I got pancakes from Jack's... and saw John Barrowman & his boyfriend, Scott there. No one bothered them, which was cool. Anyway, that was probably the closest I will get to Barrowman all weekend. Hahah.
Dean and Carlos met up with us there - Dean was dressed as Steve Austin the Six Million Dollar Man. Carlos was in an Atlantis uniform. Dean ran off a few minutes later to do a group costume thing, though. I think we ended up leaving the food court before Carlos? I don't remember.
After food, we went back to the room and when the girls decided to get dressed in costumes. I sort of hemmed and hawed, but I decided put on my arc reactor rig with my Threadless Decay shirt. It was actually pretty fun to wear and ended up getting some attention. Unfortunately I don't have photos of this.
athenaktt and I went and checked out Artist Alley. They had some cool stuff, but didn't see much I wanted. I might go back to the art show and get a polymer clay TARDIS iPod case. It's kind of expensive, but it's neat. We were headed to the Hilton then to check out the Walk of Fame, but athenaktt wanted to change her shoes, so I waited by Pulse while she went to do that. While there, I ran into Norman and his friend Aaron. Norman was here because his short film is in the festival; it's his first con so he and his friend were kind of lost.
They came with us to the Walk of Fame to look around. It was kind of downtime, so there wasn't anyone really around. Instead, we headed back to the Marriott to check out a dealer's room before heading back up to Pulse to people watch. We ended up there for quite a while.tirgaya and Paula met us there and everyone started chatting. It was about 5pm by then, so I sent Dani a text to see if she was in the Walk of Fame so I could at least say hi. She was... I made my excuses and left with athenaktt.
Walk of Fame wasn't too crowded. Longest lines were for Jamie Bamber and Adam Baldwin. Niall Matter's line was pretty short, so I got a signed photo... and a picture with him wherein I am looking like a goon because I was turned weird and trying not to fall down. Blah. I should have gotten it taken again. Gave him a matted print of Diabolical, but didn't really have much to say. I started asking about Primeval and if they were still shooting or something else, but he messed up the autograph and threw it out and I made some comment to which he replied "I do that all the time." So I then kind of felt like I shouldn't interrupt him. He did mention he liked the arc reactor, though!
Said hi to Colin Ferguson. He also was a fan of the arc reactor. Lol Chatted with him a bit and had him pick a print. He was surprised and said, "Oh I get to pick?" andathenaktt asked if he was so cool he got to pick and I said yep, because he is that cool. Rambled about him having gotten one last year and he said, "oh, I'd know which one" and he pointed out Diabolical. He looked at the other 4 and chose Prospective. Chatted about nothing and I said I hoped he had a fun time at con and shook his hand.
Stopped by to see Torri Higginson and babbled about having met her at the ScifiHero dinner a few years ago and having sent art work and she seemed like she remembered. I gave her a postcard of Diabolical and we chatted a bit about it. I said I missed seeing her on TV and she said she missed us seeing her on TV. She asked if I was doing any art shows and I told her briefly about my small coffee house shows, but nothing really sold because of the poor economy. Asked what she was up to. She mentioned she's writing and got some things in the works. I wished her luck and a good weekend. Oh, Torri also like the reactor. Haha!
Michael Dorn's line was totally empty. Had him sign my Gargoyles cover but he was kind of unengaging. Meh. Still awesome to have it signed though! One day I will have...most of the cast's signatures.
After the Walk of Fame,athenaktt and I decided we needed some food. We had shawarma at the GLC Cafe, which would be the location of the Avengers invasion on Sunday. It was pretty good! I'd eat there again. I also stopped in CVS and got Salonpas for my neck. Ugh.
After food, I wanted to go back to the graphic novel stand and get Nextwave... which they didn't have. It was Tales of Wonder actually, who I've gotten stuff from before through eBay. I ended up getting another book by Matt Fraction.
On the way out of the dealer's room, I saw a guy who looked just like RDJ. Not like Stark, but Downey with a day or two of stubble. It was insane. I looked like four times. He could have been Downey if he wasn't so tall! Never did run into him again that weekend.
Went back to the room to change into Hawkeye.arysani put on her Nostromo uniform and athenaktt wore a vintage dress. Headed to the Pulse to find people to hang out with. That was sort of a bust.
Needed to get food.tirgaya had a table at the food court with a bunch of people and we ended up adding another table and some chairs. We all just hung out for a bit, but finally Carl went to change, Paula left, then Norman & his friend left. The rest of us went to Pulse and hung out for a while. Ran into Joel and Chas and Bryan. I also ran into a group of girls doing the fancy dress Avengers and they looked pretty great! They didn't have a Hawkeye in their group, so they asked me to be in some photos with them. :D
After loitering a bit, we decided to find a spot to play Sopio. Marquis level seemed like a good idea.tirgaya, athenaktt, arysani and I got three games in before we called it a night because we were getting up to go to the parade.
Easier said than done. Apparently the elevators were all fraked. Half didn't work and the other ones were overloaded. Maintenance was there telling people to get off if they could walk. After 20 min we decided to just walk to the 10th floor. Holy hell. That sucked. Waited forever.athenaktt decided to walk the remaining 10 floors. I resisted....but after another 10 min, arysani and I sucked it up and walked it. It was awful. But we got to the room. I sorted some stuff, got a quick shower and made it to bed at around 2am.
I really wish people who were trying to go up/down two or three floors used the damned escalators or the stairs. There were hardly ever people on the stairs because they were all jammed in the elevators. Marriott should really post an employee in there... but then I'd feel kind of bad for whoever got crammed into the those bays with us. I found out the next day that like 30 people got stuck in elevators and that in one there was a guy cosplaying Jesus and people started confessing to him. LOL
Saturday, September 1
Woke up at 8am and sort of slowly got dressed for going to the parade. We didn't leave until after 9am. Oops.ainulindale and I went ahead to find a place to stand and basically ended up at Woodruff Park. arysani & athenaktt met up with us a little before the parade started. It was pretty cool but felt like some of the groups were sort of small this year.
After the parade we went to Peachtree and got lunch from Jack's and went to the Marriott Atrium to eat while waiting for the Vampire Diaries line. I wanted to get some stuff from the room before the line started and when I got up, I realized I had sat in some sticky crap stuck to my pants. Ugh. So while back in the room, I changed my clothes and grabbed my stuff before getting an elevator back down to meet witharysani.
The line for Vampire Diaries was already out the door and around the corner. Blah. But standing and just chilling it wasn't too terrible though. The panel was pretty hilarious. It was Nathaniel Buzolic, Sebastian Roche, Joseph Morgan, Ian Somerhalder, and Paul Wesley. The guys are all snappy and witty and also people need to stop asking them about other fandoms. During the panel, someone asked what characters other than theirs they would want to be and Joseph Morgan said he'd like to be Katherine. Ian said he'd like to be Stefan because he gets all the girl, to which Paul basically replied that all Stefan does is cry all the time. Ha! There were a lot of dumb questions like what Hogwarts house would they be in and what Hunger Games character would they be...wtf seriously people?
After the panel,arysani and I headed to the Walk of Fame. Waited in line to see Eddie McClintock, but right as I was next they said he had to go and wouldn't let me just say hi. Ugh. Instead went and got Jonathan Frakes to sign my Gargoyles DVD. He said "hi Captain America" and I laughed and said, yeah sort of. Then he asked if I was a Gargoyles fan and I said yes, it was my favorite show. Doork. But at least he seemed more excited to see the DVD than Michael Dorn, geez.
arysani was going to go wait in line for the Stargate panel, but I had told Ken I'd help spot his vendor table for him, so I headed to the pit. It was about an hour before I could leave. Booked it over to the Westin and sat I the back of the ballroom at the Stargate panel. Joe Flanigan, Torri Higginson, Jason Momoa, Jewel Staite, Peter Kelamis, and Cliff Simon were pretty hilarious. Poor Jewel just seemed to be constantly ashamed of the guys. Meanwhile, Joe was pretty chatty and witty. Overall it was a good panel and I actually heard some stories I hadn't before. Like how Momoa managed to arrange it so he became Flanigan's roommate.
After the panel, I foundarysani and athenaktt as people left the ballroom. We tried to get food at Corner Bakery, but they were closed. On a Saturday afternoon. Wut. Ended up getting food at Cafe Momo instead, but that worked out okay. Took food back to the room to eat. Tried to find something to watch on tv...but there is crap all on. Changed into my Marceline, but actually didn't feel much like costuming. Like... I sort of felt like bailing on Rogue altogether.
Went down to the Pulse area withathenaktt and arysani to people watch. Ended up in a nice spot under the Pulse Loft with a view of the escalators so we got to see lots of costumes. Finally saw a Hawkeye. She had her guard & glove on the wrong sides and her vest was weird, but still! arysani declared it was time for ice cream, so we headed to the Dairy Queen. I just got a slushy drink. We found a table and chatted for a while before deciding to head back up to the room.
Indecisively decided to put on my arc reactor with sweat pants and Stark Industries Tshirt. Tony Stark on his day off! Yiss. Actually some people thought it was pretty cool, so I'd probably wear this combo again.
Dean texted us and asked us to go to a TCF party in the Hilton.athenaktt and Paula came with me. We just sort of hung around and watched shenanigans but seriously at like 2am it was time for bed.
Sunday, September 2
Woke up at 9am. Showered. Got all geared up in Hawkeye, which took about an hour for some reason. Went to the food court and grabbed some food from Cafe Momo. While looking at the buffet, a guy saw me and got excited that I was in a Hawkeye costume and said he wanted to take a photo but didn't want to bother me as I was trying to do something normal. I didn't have any food yet and the place was sort of empty so I was going to tell him it was okay, but he said maybe he'd get a picture of me later and moved along. I never did see him again.
Decided to hit the Walk of Fame. Said hello to Eddie finally. He picked a Module postcard and asked if I was going to NYCC. I said I wasn't because I was going to see Zoe. He asked about her music then suggested some artists for me to check out. As I was leaving, he said to stop by and see him again.
Nothing else to do, I headed to the dealers room in the pit. Stopped and said hello to Ken. I was sorry I missed his Spike costume - his first con costume! He said it was well-received, though, so that's good. Got myself a B-Mo figure! On the way out, I ran intoathenaktt & ainulindale.
ainulindale had to go somewhere, but athenaktt and I headed to Peachtree Center because...it was time for Shawarma! The gathering of people in plastic & paper Iron Man masks was hilarious. We took some photos. Security came and moved us along, but it was fun! Also, I believe for the rest of the weekend, the GLC Cafe was using out shoddy Avengers sign and promoting shawarma as Tony Stark's favorite food.
Leaving the food court, I finally ran into Essay. I apologized for missing the shoot - I had no idea where it was and the awful cell & wifi signals didn't help. We chatted a little about mostly nothing. She said she had seen my post about wearing my Hawkeye costume and was hoping to run into me. When I asked, she told me she was kind of behind on her Rose costume rotation. I didn't recognize the one she was wearing. *facepalm* Oops. She gave me a Ryan's Army ribbon for my badge, which I was happy to have.
athenaktt and I headed back to the dealer's rooms for more shopping! Ran in to Hudson and his fiance, but we totally lost him. I ended up buying a few more things including a welovefine shirt for my brother and one for myself. Got clockwork pendants for me, mom, and a gift. Also got zombie Adventure Time figures and a Warehouse 13 Phoenix necklace.
After the dealer's rooms,athenaktt and I headed back to the Walk of Fame. athenaktt got a picture with Eddie McClintock. athenaktt said "since you're friends with Cynthia, does that mean we're friends now" (hehehe) and I said well I see him at con - we're con friends - and Eddie was all "no we're friends, we talk!" Awww. Then I checked and saw Sylvester McCoy was at his table, so I had him record a little message for my friend Matt. I wish I'd sorted my camera properly but I kind of rushed it. It came out all right though.
We went back to the room to repack all our luggage and hang out a little. I was getting texts from Dean to meet up. I was going to eat, soathenaktt and I met up with Dean and Carlos and Dan at the food court. tirgaya and Paula showed up after I'd eaten. And then....I got birthday surprises!! Pano called Dean's phone to wish me a happy birthday. Liz said hello and then Pano sang me happy birthday and then the gang gave me my birthday cookie. And presents! Dean gave me a Hawkeye fig, an Alice minimate, and a full set of Lego Avengers!!! And Paula and tirgaya got me a signed David Morrisey autograph and a Lego Loki keychain. So nice! Pano had been texting me all day to see if I got my surprise and I was a little scared. Lol But it was a good surprise. I feel bad that I didn't let them come up to the room so arysani could join in. It wasn't on purpose - Dean and Pano were being kind of weird and sketch and I hate embarrassing surprises so I had no idea what was up. Anyway, they had originally talked about meeting up later so I had no idea.
Dean and Carlos had to go to a couple of parties and Paula had to get dressed for the Archer costuming group she was in, so they left.arysani came and met us at the food court and then the rest of us went to tirgaya's room to play Sopio. Carl won his first game...which was ridiculously long. The four of us almost made it through two decks before the end! athenaktt joined us for the second round. She won the game with kind of a vicious 4 card smackdown. :P
arysani left at about 10pm, but athenaktt and I stayed to chat. athenaktt got tired not too long after and headed back to the room. Carl and tirgaya and I went to the end of David Gerrold's panel and stayed to chat with him. Afterward, we went back to tirgaya's room to chat some more. It was kind of weird seeing David again since the last time I'd seen him we were working on set and while it went okay, I wouldn't call it fun. Paula came back with Joel and the Archer group. They hung out for awhile before going to the drum circle. At that point it was like 3am and I had to go to bed.
Monday, September 3
arysani and ainulindale left at 8am. Booo! Wish we got to hang out longer. athenaktt and I got up about 9am and started getting ready to go. By 10am, we were ready to roll out, but it took half an hour to get an elevators down. An employee took pity on us and let us use the service elevator. Checked out and put our luggage in storage so we could walk around some more.
Went to the dealer's room and found that BPAL was there. Ahhh! Bought two bottles! Hee. I wanted to smell all the things! They'll be at NYCC which I'm not going to. Boo.athenaktt had to go once we were done shopping there, so I said goodbye.
I headed back to the Walk of Fame for one last look. Gave Sylvester McCoy a matted print of Diabolical. He thanked me. Totally didn't remember recording a thing for Matt. Oh well. I stopped and chatted with Dani for a bit. Hopefully I get to see her more next year.
Headed to Artist Alley and checked out the jewelry. Bought mom a pendant. I was going to meet Dean at the food court, but first I stopped at the Walk of Fame again. Ran into Alec and said happy birthday. We called Doc John and left a voice mail saying happy birthday to him. In the Walk of Fame, I saw Eddie's line was a little nuts and I had to go to the food court, so I just turned back around.
Met with Dean and Carlos and Dan for food.tirgaya and Paula showed up too. Chatted a little bit with them about random things before heading out. Honestly I'm feeling a bit over people. Omg. It's a good thing it was the last day of con.
Headed back to the Walk of Fame withtirgaya. Stopped and said finally got to say goodbye to Eddie. He always looks pretty happy to see me and stands up to give me a hug so that's cool. I don't feel like some weird fan stalker - which I am trying not to be! He asked me again if I was going to NYCC and I reminded him I was going to see Zoe. Saw Craig Parker at his table talking to people but didn't feel like getting anything signed.
Went back to the Marriott to grab my bags from the check andtirgaya waited with me for Joel and his friends - we were all going to head to the airport together. While we were waiting, I gave tirgaya a choice of postcards since I apparently hadn't given him my artwork before. He took a print of Atene. Paula came to say goodbye. I thanked her for the birthday gifts again. Once everyone gathered, we headed out.
Got to the MARTA station and grabbed a train to the airport. Check in was easy once I walked all the way across the terminal to the Southwest counter. Uhm, and also the lady forgot to give me my boarding pass so I had to go back. Thankfully it was before I got too far from the ticketing counters.
Was able to meet up with Joel, Bryan, and Chas while waiting for the Terminal shuttle. I had a little time to kill so I went to Concourse D with them. They ended up grabbing a drink at a bar and I got some over-priced nachos. On the plus side, I had a much shorter wait when I got to my gate area.
I slept most of the way through the flight from Atlanta to Baltimore. On arrival, they said they needed to take the plane out of service for about 30 min to fix the broken toilet. Ugh. Instead of getting out and maybe finding food, I opted to just stay on board. Except then I suddenly had a craving for a deli sandwich. That really should have been my last meal from Jack's instead of random buffet from Cafe Momo.
About a half hour later, the captain came through and told us they were taking the plane out of service and we'd need to board another one at a different gate, so we all hustled over. Once on board, it was a quick flight to Albany and finally my traveling was done for the day!
My mom picked me up. Once we got home, I pulled out the gifts I had gotten my mom and my brother. As usual, my brother didn't thank me and acted like I just handed him a piece of junk mail. A thanks for the shirt he's been wanting to get would nice. Ugh.
Anyway, it was still officially my birthday at 11pm, so we had cake! Black forest cake, my favorite! Om nom. I didn't stay up much longer before just going to bed.
Additional links and media:
+ all my photos are here
+ daily tweets: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5a, day 5b
+ Richard Dean Anderson
+ John Barrowman & Kai Owen on Friday (5 parts)
+ Saturday Vampire Diaries Panel (not awesome quality) part 1, part 2, part 3
+ Saturday Vampire Diaries panel (better quality) - part 1, part 2
+ John Barrowman & Scott Gill Saturday Panel (5 parts)
And that is the end of DragonCon 2012! I believe people are already planning for next year as some hotels opened reservations already. I bought my pass, so I've got that at least!
A lot of this switches tenses, but I'm too lazy to rewrite everything. This year I tried to keep track of things with the iPod using Nebulous, which was much easier than using a notebook. Except I sort of miss the physical notes. Oh well.
Not noted in my trip journal are the handful of times I kept passing Spat and James Hsiao in the hallway (though I was able to chat with James a little). Also saw Will & Kristin Sirota a few times. I never did find Gareth, but I saw a bunch of Xenos that were not Abe.
Thursday, August 30
Woke up at 3 am and, having slept only three hours, that kind of sucked. Showered, got dressed, and even had time to eat breakfast. Mom drove me to the airport and I got checked in without too much hassle. Flight was on time and I actually arrived in BWI early. Freezing though...why the heck is the airport so cold?! Used the free wifi while waiting for my connecting flight. I was sort of worried about the storm but it was all good and my flight was on time. Arrived in ATL at 11:45am and met with
athenaktt at baggage claim.Got on the train to Peachtree and walked on the street to the Marriott - it was kind of weird not being able to just walk into the Peachtree Center. When I checked in, the lady at the desk asked if
athenaktt was arysani... I said no, which was the wrong answer. She said there was a charge for 3 people and added $10 per night to my room. Ergh. Frak you Marriott. Whatever. At least we got two doubles! That was kind of up in the air for a bit.After putting our stuff in the room, we had lunch at the food court. Met up with Dean & Carlos there and just chatted for a bit. Good times. Everyone seemed to get along; they bonded over living in California. Not that I doubted that, but after last year's debacle, I had some (not serious) paranoia. Yay! Since we all still needed to get badges, we headed to registration in the Sheraton.
Omg fast badging like you wouldn't believe. Honestly, just walked in and there was no line. Amazing!!
athenaktt and I headed back to the food court so athenaktt could look at hats for a costume she had. Stopped in CVS and saw they a 24 case of water for $3!! But she needed her Extra card, so back to the room! Well, actually we then stopped at FedEx to get a package. Then to the room... Puttered around and then back downstairs. Empty elevators ftw! Met up with tirgaya at Pulse. Chatted a bit before heading to CVS to buy water. tirgaya grabbed a case too, so we went our separate ways back to our rooms.After doing some organizing in the room, Joel invited us to his room to hang.
athenaktt and I were only watching Operation: Dumbo Drop so... we went and hung out for awhile. Chatted, Joel made drinks. It was a good time! arysani arrived and we gave her keys so she and ainulindale could get in our room. They were off to do things, so we hung out with Joel for awhile. arysani & ainulindale came back later and hung out for a while before we went to find food at about 6pm. We actually found a table and sat there for awhile, taking turns to get food so someone was always at the table, defending it from The Others. Matt Hudson met up with us and we sat and chatted for awhile. Good times.
After that, we headed to the room to change for the night. Got into my Merlotte's costume and we headed to the Pulse area. Did some people watching while waiting for Joel and friends. Then we walked around and got lots of pictures taken in our outfits. I've never roamed around with a large group in matching costumes before. It was pretty fun!
Ran into
tirgaya, Paula, and Carl. Chatted a bit but it was getting too loud for me and I was just so fraking tired. arysani, athenaktt, ainulindale, and I tried to find Kris' New Year Party. But... Pulse Loft was full of uh...not them. So we headed to the food court to sit and chat for awhile.Finally decided to call it a night. I did something and effed up my neck. Hopefully it's better in the morning, otherwise I need a Salonpas patch from the CVS. Argh. Also my legs are tingly from bad circulation or something. Blah. Stop ruining my fun, body!
Friday, August 31
Oh man what a day! Got up in the morning about 9:30am. Showered and dressed in my Captain America tunic dress.
arysani, ainulindale, athenaktt and I went to the food court. I got pancakes from Jack's... and saw John Barrowman & his boyfriend, Scott there. No one bothered them, which was cool. Anyway, that was probably the closest I will get to Barrowman all weekend. Hahah.Dean and Carlos met up with us there - Dean was dressed as Steve Austin the Six Million Dollar Man. Carlos was in an Atlantis uniform. Dean ran off a few minutes later to do a group costume thing, though. I think we ended up leaving the food court before Carlos? I don't remember.
After food, we went back to the room and when the girls decided to get dressed in costumes. I sort of hemmed and hawed, but I decided put on my arc reactor rig with my Threadless Decay shirt. It was actually pretty fun to wear and ended up getting some attention. Unfortunately I don't have photos of this.
athenaktt and I went and checked out Artist Alley. They had some cool stuff, but didn't see much I wanted. I might go back to the art show and get a polymer clay TARDIS iPod case. It's kind of expensive, but it's neat. We were headed to the Hilton then to check out the Walk of Fame, but athenaktt wanted to change her shoes, so I waited by Pulse while she went to do that. While there, I ran into Norman and his friend Aaron. Norman was here because his short film is in the festival; it's his first con so he and his friend were kind of lost.They came with us to the Walk of Fame to look around. It was kind of downtime, so there wasn't anyone really around. Instead, we headed back to the Marriott to check out a dealer's room before heading back up to Pulse to people watch. We ended up there for quite a while.
tirgaya and Paula met us there and everyone started chatting. It was about 5pm by then, so I sent Dani a text to see if she was in the Walk of Fame so I could at least say hi. She was... I made my excuses and left with athenaktt.Walk of Fame wasn't too crowded. Longest lines were for Jamie Bamber and Adam Baldwin. Niall Matter's line was pretty short, so I got a signed photo... and a picture with him wherein I am looking like a goon because I was turned weird and trying not to fall down. Blah. I should have gotten it taken again. Gave him a matted print of Diabolical, but didn't really have much to say. I started asking about Primeval and if they were still shooting or something else, but he messed up the autograph and threw it out and I made some comment to which he replied "I do that all the time." So I then kind of felt like I shouldn't interrupt him. He did mention he liked the arc reactor, though!
Said hi to Colin Ferguson. He also was a fan of the arc reactor. Lol Chatted with him a bit and had him pick a print. He was surprised and said, "Oh I get to pick?" and
athenaktt asked if he was so cool he got to pick and I said yep, because he is that cool. Rambled about him having gotten one last year and he said, "oh, I'd know which one" and he pointed out Diabolical. He looked at the other 4 and chose Prospective. Chatted about nothing and I said I hoped he had a fun time at con and shook his hand.Stopped by to see Torri Higginson and babbled about having met her at the ScifiHero dinner a few years ago and having sent art work and she seemed like she remembered. I gave her a postcard of Diabolical and we chatted a bit about it. I said I missed seeing her on TV and she said she missed us seeing her on TV. She asked if I was doing any art shows and I told her briefly about my small coffee house shows, but nothing really sold because of the poor economy. Asked what she was up to. She mentioned she's writing and got some things in the works. I wished her luck and a good weekend. Oh, Torri also like the reactor. Haha!
Michael Dorn's line was totally empty. Had him sign my Gargoyles cover but he was kind of unengaging. Meh. Still awesome to have it signed though! One day I will have...most of the cast's signatures.
After the Walk of Fame,
athenaktt and I decided we needed some food. We had shawarma at the GLC Cafe, which would be the location of the Avengers invasion on Sunday. It was pretty good! I'd eat there again. I also stopped in CVS and got Salonpas for my neck. Ugh.After food, I wanted to go back to the graphic novel stand and get Nextwave... which they didn't have. It was Tales of Wonder actually, who I've gotten stuff from before through eBay. I ended up getting another book by Matt Fraction.
On the way out of the dealer's room, I saw a guy who looked just like RDJ. Not like Stark, but Downey with a day or two of stubble. It was insane. I looked like four times. He could have been Downey if he wasn't so tall! Never did run into him again that weekend.
Went back to the room to change into Hawkeye.
arysani put on her Nostromo uniform and athenaktt wore a vintage dress. Headed to the Pulse to find people to hang out with. That was sort of a bust.Needed to get food.
tirgaya had a table at the food court with a bunch of people and we ended up adding another table and some chairs. We all just hung out for a bit, but finally Carl went to change, Paula left, then Norman & his friend left. The rest of us went to Pulse and hung out for a while. Ran into Joel and Chas and Bryan. I also ran into a group of girls doing the fancy dress Avengers and they looked pretty great! They didn't have a Hawkeye in their group, so they asked me to be in some photos with them. :DAfter loitering a bit, we decided to find a spot to play Sopio. Marquis level seemed like a good idea.
tirgaya, athenaktt, arysani and I got three games in before we called it a night because we were getting up to go to the parade.Easier said than done. Apparently the elevators were all fraked. Half didn't work and the other ones were overloaded. Maintenance was there telling people to get off if they could walk. After 20 min we decided to just walk to the 10th floor. Holy hell. That sucked. Waited forever.
athenaktt decided to walk the remaining 10 floors. I resisted....but after another 10 min, arysani and I sucked it up and walked it. It was awful. But we got to the room. I sorted some stuff, got a quick shower and made it to bed at around 2am.I really wish people who were trying to go up/down two or three floors used the damned escalators or the stairs. There were hardly ever people on the stairs because they were all jammed in the elevators. Marriott should really post an employee in there... but then I'd feel kind of bad for whoever got crammed into the those bays with us. I found out the next day that like 30 people got stuck in elevators and that in one there was a guy cosplaying Jesus and people started confessing to him. LOL
Saturday, September 1
Woke up at 8am and sort of slowly got dressed for going to the parade. We didn't leave until after 9am. Oops.
ainulindale and I went ahead to find a place to stand and basically ended up at Woodruff Park. arysani & athenaktt met up with us a little before the parade started. It was pretty cool but felt like some of the groups were sort of small this year.After the parade we went to Peachtree and got lunch from Jack's and went to the Marriott Atrium to eat while waiting for the Vampire Diaries line. I wanted to get some stuff from the room before the line started and when I got up, I realized I had sat in some sticky crap stuck to my pants. Ugh. So while back in the room, I changed my clothes and grabbed my stuff before getting an elevator back down to meet with
arysani.The line for Vampire Diaries was already out the door and around the corner. Blah. But standing and just chilling it wasn't too terrible though. The panel was pretty hilarious. It was Nathaniel Buzolic, Sebastian Roche, Joseph Morgan, Ian Somerhalder, and Paul Wesley. The guys are all snappy and witty and also people need to stop asking them about other fandoms. During the panel, someone asked what characters other than theirs they would want to be and Joseph Morgan said he'd like to be Katherine. Ian said he'd like to be Stefan because he gets all the girl, to which Paul basically replied that all Stefan does is cry all the time. Ha! There were a lot of dumb questions like what Hogwarts house would they be in and what Hunger Games character would they be...wtf seriously people?
After the panel,
arysani and I headed to the Walk of Fame. Waited in line to see Eddie McClintock, but right as I was next they said he had to go and wouldn't let me just say hi. Ugh. Instead went and got Jonathan Frakes to sign my Gargoyles DVD. He said "hi Captain America" and I laughed and said, yeah sort of. Then he asked if I was a Gargoyles fan and I said yes, it was my favorite show. Doork. But at least he seemed more excited to see the DVD than Michael Dorn, geez.arysani was going to go wait in line for the Stargate panel, but I had told Ken I'd help spot his vendor table for him, so I headed to the pit. It was about an hour before I could leave. Booked it over to the Westin and sat I the back of the ballroom at the Stargate panel. Joe Flanigan, Torri Higginson, Jason Momoa, Jewel Staite, Peter Kelamis, and Cliff Simon were pretty hilarious. Poor Jewel just seemed to be constantly ashamed of the guys. Meanwhile, Joe was pretty chatty and witty. Overall it was a good panel and I actually heard some stories I hadn't before. Like how Momoa managed to arrange it so he became Flanigan's roommate.After the panel, I found
arysani and athenaktt as people left the ballroom. We tried to get food at Corner Bakery, but they were closed. On a Saturday afternoon. Wut. Ended up getting food at Cafe Momo instead, but that worked out okay. Took food back to the room to eat. Tried to find something to watch on tv...but there is crap all on. Changed into my Marceline, but actually didn't feel much like costuming. Like... I sort of felt like bailing on Rogue altogether.Went down to the Pulse area with
athenaktt and arysani to people watch. Ended up in a nice spot under the Pulse Loft with a view of the escalators so we got to see lots of costumes. Finally saw a Hawkeye. She had her guard & glove on the wrong sides and her vest was weird, but still! arysani declared it was time for ice cream, so we headed to the Dairy Queen. I just got a slushy drink. We found a table and chatted for a while before deciding to head back up to the room.Indecisively decided to put on my arc reactor with sweat pants and Stark Industries Tshirt. Tony Stark on his day off! Yiss. Actually some people thought it was pretty cool, so I'd probably wear this combo again.
Dean texted us and asked us to go to a TCF party in the Hilton.
athenaktt and Paula came with me. We just sort of hung around and watched shenanigans but seriously at like 2am it was time for bed. Sunday, September 2
Woke up at 9am. Showered. Got all geared up in Hawkeye, which took about an hour for some reason. Went to the food court and grabbed some food from Cafe Momo. While looking at the buffet, a guy saw me and got excited that I was in a Hawkeye costume and said he wanted to take a photo but didn't want to bother me as I was trying to do something normal. I didn't have any food yet and the place was sort of empty so I was going to tell him it was okay, but he said maybe he'd get a picture of me later and moved along. I never did see him again.
Decided to hit the Walk of Fame. Said hello to Eddie finally. He picked a Module postcard and asked if I was going to NYCC. I said I wasn't because I was going to see Zoe. He asked about her music then suggested some artists for me to check out. As I was leaving, he said to stop by and see him again.
Nothing else to do, I headed to the dealers room in the pit. Stopped and said hello to Ken. I was sorry I missed his Spike costume - his first con costume! He said it was well-received, though, so that's good. Got myself a B-Mo figure! On the way out, I ran into
athenaktt & ainulindale.ainulindale had to go somewhere, but athenaktt and I headed to Peachtree Center because...it was time for Shawarma! The gathering of people in plastic & paper Iron Man masks was hilarious. We took some photos. Security came and moved us along, but it was fun! Also, I believe for the rest of the weekend, the GLC Cafe was using out shoddy Avengers sign and promoting shawarma as Tony Stark's favorite food.Leaving the food court, I finally ran into Essay. I apologized for missing the shoot - I had no idea where it was and the awful cell & wifi signals didn't help. We chatted a little about mostly nothing. She said she had seen my post about wearing my Hawkeye costume and was hoping to run into me. When I asked, she told me she was kind of behind on her Rose costume rotation. I didn't recognize the one she was wearing. *facepalm* Oops. She gave me a Ryan's Army ribbon for my badge, which I was happy to have.
athenaktt and I headed back to the dealer's rooms for more shopping! Ran in to Hudson and his fiance, but we totally lost him. I ended up buying a few more things including a welovefine shirt for my brother and one for myself. Got clockwork pendants for me, mom, and a gift. Also got zombie Adventure Time figures and a Warehouse 13 Phoenix necklace.After the dealer's rooms,
athenaktt and I headed back to the Walk of Fame. athenaktt got a picture with Eddie McClintock. athenaktt said "since you're friends with Cynthia, does that mean we're friends now" (hehehe) and I said well I see him at con - we're con friends - and Eddie was all "no we're friends, we talk!" Awww. Then I checked and saw Sylvester McCoy was at his table, so I had him record a little message for my friend Matt. I wish I'd sorted my camera properly but I kind of rushed it. It came out all right though.We went back to the room to repack all our luggage and hang out a little. I was getting texts from Dean to meet up. I was going to eat, so
athenaktt and I met up with Dean and Carlos and Dan at the food court. tirgaya and Paula showed up after I'd eaten. And then....I got birthday surprises!! Pano called Dean's phone to wish me a happy birthday. Liz said hello and then Pano sang me happy birthday and then the gang gave me my birthday cookie. And presents! Dean gave me a Hawkeye fig, an Alice minimate, and a full set of Lego Avengers!!! And Paula and tirgaya got me a signed David Morrisey autograph and a Lego Loki keychain. So nice! Pano had been texting me all day to see if I got my surprise and I was a little scared. Lol But it was a good surprise. I feel bad that I didn't let them come up to the room so arysani could join in. It wasn't on purpose - Dean and Pano were being kind of weird and sketch and I hate embarrassing surprises so I had no idea what was up. Anyway, they had originally talked about meeting up later so I had no idea.Dean and Carlos had to go to a couple of parties and Paula had to get dressed for the Archer costuming group she was in, so they left.
arysani came and met us at the food court and then the rest of us went to tirgaya's room to play Sopio. Carl won his first game...which was ridiculously long. The four of us almost made it through two decks before the end! athenaktt joined us for the second round. She won the game with kind of a vicious 4 card smackdown. :Parysani left at about 10pm, but athenaktt and I stayed to chat. athenaktt got tired not too long after and headed back to the room. Carl and tirgaya and I went to the end of David Gerrold's panel and stayed to chat with him. Afterward, we went back to tirgaya's room to chat some more. It was kind of weird seeing David again since the last time I'd seen him we were working on set and while it went okay, I wouldn't call it fun. Paula came back with Joel and the Archer group. They hung out for awhile before going to the drum circle. At that point it was like 3am and I had to go to bed. Monday, September 3
arysani and ainulindale left at 8am. Booo! Wish we got to hang out longer. athenaktt and I got up about 9am and started getting ready to go. By 10am, we were ready to roll out, but it took half an hour to get an elevators down. An employee took pity on us and let us use the service elevator. Checked out and put our luggage in storage so we could walk around some more.Went to the dealer's room and found that BPAL was there. Ahhh! Bought two bottles! Hee. I wanted to smell all the things! They'll be at NYCC which I'm not going to. Boo.
athenaktt had to go once we were done shopping there, so I said goodbye. I headed back to the Walk of Fame for one last look. Gave Sylvester McCoy a matted print of Diabolical. He thanked me. Totally didn't remember recording a thing for Matt. Oh well. I stopped and chatted with Dani for a bit. Hopefully I get to see her more next year.
Headed to Artist Alley and checked out the jewelry. Bought mom a pendant. I was going to meet Dean at the food court, but first I stopped at the Walk of Fame again. Ran into Alec and said happy birthday. We called Doc John and left a voice mail saying happy birthday to him. In the Walk of Fame, I saw Eddie's line was a little nuts and I had to go to the food court, so I just turned back around.
Met with Dean and Carlos and Dan for food.
tirgaya and Paula showed up too. Chatted a little bit with them about random things before heading out. Honestly I'm feeling a bit over people. Omg. It's a good thing it was the last day of con.Headed back to the Walk of Fame with
tirgaya. Stopped and said finally got to say goodbye to Eddie. He always looks pretty happy to see me and stands up to give me a hug so that's cool. I don't feel like some weird fan stalker - which I am trying not to be! He asked me again if I was going to NYCC and I reminded him I was going to see Zoe. Saw Craig Parker at his table talking to people but didn't feel like getting anything signed. Went back to the Marriott to grab my bags from the check and
tirgaya waited with me for Joel and his friends - we were all going to head to the airport together. While we were waiting, I gave tirgaya a choice of postcards since I apparently hadn't given him my artwork before. He took a print of Atene. Paula came to say goodbye. I thanked her for the birthday gifts again. Once everyone gathered, we headed out.Got to the MARTA station and grabbed a train to the airport. Check in was easy once I walked all the way across the terminal to the Southwest counter. Uhm, and also the lady forgot to give me my boarding pass so I had to go back. Thankfully it was before I got too far from the ticketing counters.
Was able to meet up with Joel, Bryan, and Chas while waiting for the Terminal shuttle. I had a little time to kill so I went to Concourse D with them. They ended up grabbing a drink at a bar and I got some over-priced nachos. On the plus side, I had a much shorter wait when I got to my gate area.
I slept most of the way through the flight from Atlanta to Baltimore. On arrival, they said they needed to take the plane out of service for about 30 min to fix the broken toilet. Ugh. Instead of getting out and maybe finding food, I opted to just stay on board. Except then I suddenly had a craving for a deli sandwich. That really should have been my last meal from Jack's instead of random buffet from Cafe Momo.
About a half hour later, the captain came through and told us they were taking the plane out of service and we'd need to board another one at a different gate, so we all hustled over. Once on board, it was a quick flight to Albany and finally my traveling was done for the day!
My mom picked me up. Once we got home, I pulled out the gifts I had gotten my mom and my brother. As usual, my brother didn't thank me and acted like I just handed him a piece of junk mail. A thanks for the shirt he's been wanting to get would nice. Ugh.
Anyway, it was still officially my birthday at 11pm, so we had cake! Black forest cake, my favorite! Om nom. I didn't stay up much longer before just going to bed.
Additional links and media:
+ all my photos are here
+ daily tweets: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5a, day 5b
+ Richard Dean Anderson
+ John Barrowman & Kai Owen on Friday (5 parts)
+ Saturday Vampire Diaries Panel (not awesome quality) part 1, part 2, part 3
+ Saturday Vampire Diaries panel (better quality) - part 1, part 2
+ John Barrowman & Scott Gill Saturday Panel (5 parts)
And that is the end of DragonCon 2012! I believe people are already planning for next year as some hotels opened reservations already. I bought my pass, so I've got that at least!
