Dragoncon 2011, part the fifth and sixth
Rose soon enough to catch the free breakfast at the hotel, then off to snatch some vip time at the Armory with Sharon (courtesy of Marissa). Hung out with one of Dockery's minions, talking shop and getting some close-ups of some of the more exotic weapons. Tried not to completely fanboy out on him with terms like "Holy fucking shit you've got a pump-action China Lake!" Mostly succeeded.
Off to the first panel: Filming a fight scene. The panel consisted of two folks I met working on a Star Wars fan film a year ago, and the action film guy I'd met at the meet-n-greet. Pretty entry-level stuff, but I try and watch those from different people whenever possible.
Hung out and people-watched until going to see Lloyd again for the Sell Your Own Damn movie panel. Fun as always from team Troma. Headed back to the room to chill before heading out to the next panel: Assassination. Dockery and an ex-bodyguard friend of his tackling the scenario from both angles. Dockery and his ilk are what I call T-bogs: Technically brilliant old Guys. Crotchety on an epic scale but at such a level of genius I just want to learn Socrates-style until they finally stop talking. Much fun.
More room crashing to avoid the ridiculous crowds. Eventually wandered out, found a drum panel to say hi to Akbar, generally chilled out.
Merry and I suited up for Statler and Waldorf a bit earlier, and much fun was had with the heckling. Headed back and Crashed.
Honestly not much happened Monday. Caught breakfast with Sharon before MARTA'ing up to get the Yukon. Loading it up and checkout in time happened easily enough, but finding a parking space that wouldn't have killed my dwindling wallet was an epic fail, as local lots have finally figured out the concept of event parking.
Throwing up my hands and saying "fuck it," I headed home and Marta'd back for a bit of wandering about and end-of-con goodbyes.
So that was Dragoncon 2011. On the whole, the wierd vibe and bullshit of last year was severely dampened down, which I credit to the epically good gatekeepers. Drama was at a minimum, but I kinda feel like the exuberance was too.
Looking forward to next year.