Dragon*Con
This post is liable to get long, so I'm going to intercut it with pictures and cut tags to help you, my hapless reader, find your way around the post. So without further ado: here goes nothing.
Whenever I am about to go on holiday I loose the ability to sleep. So much so that despite heading to bed reasonably early on the monday night I could only manage three hours of sleep and at three thirty in the AM I decide to get up because I'm not going to be able to sleep anymore. I do strange things like shave my legs and get showered because there is now plenty of time before I have to leave the house.
I even had time to log onto the interwebz and note the surprise from the Moose crew who still being in America were amazed to see me round and about. There was some wailing and gnashing of teeth because James Marsters had cancelled and he was a big draw to the convention for me. I managed to eat something and then at six AM Phil took me to the airport. The drive there was quiet and very pretty in the beautifully misty predawn. Check in was easy as i'd done it online though note for people flying with KLM/DELTA. If you book with KLM you still have to check in on the DELTA website. THIS IS IN NO WAY MADE CLEAR and only a chance attempt by Phil allowed me to print out my boarding card at home.
I noodled round Manchester Terminal 2. Wasn't tempted by anything in duty free. Went and got a sausage bap and a hot chocolate for breakfast and then headed up to the gate and read. We boarded around 9.30 and I got my seat in the middle of the plane but by the aisle and waaay towards the back. Reading on the way I got through Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book and started Charlaine Harris' Grave Sight. The entertainment on the plane was shocking though. No individual screens and even if I wanted to watch the films (The A-team, DAte Night) I really couldn't as the headphones and adapter were crap and didn't work at all.
I even managed a couple of hours sleep! go me!
Then came the TURBULANCE. I'm usually okay with flying for the most part. As far as I understand it Planes fly because people believe that they will take off and land safely. Any lapses in belief and you get turbulance. We must have had a lot of people stop believing because even the air hostesses were looking peaky and we really were juddering in the air for a long time. The pilot apologised and said we'd hit a jetwash from another plane. I guessed that it must have been
buckbeakbabie's and
ginny4harry'S plane as they were about half an hour in front of me flight wise.
We landed to a smattering of applause, I was relieved to get down and in need of getting going on using my legs. Immigration into the US is traumatic. There are many queues and everyone is deathly serious. Biometric data collected. You pass through all that and you think whoopee I can has my luggage now and be on my way. Only hell no, you have to pick your luggage up, take it through security and drop it off again whilst you get scanned for a second time, having already done that dance in Manchester.
Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson airport is also frikking huge, I decided that I wanted to walk for a bit having been cooped up for the previous eight hours. only when I was about 7/8ths of the way there did I text
buckbeakbabie and she told me to get on the train. Yes the airport is big enough to have it's own train. I did for the final two stops and found
buckbeakbabie and
ginny4harry with hugs all round.
We headed to Peachtree area of Atlanta via the MARTA which is the train system and once we'd made it we headed to the days inn hotel to check in and unpack. We then grabbed some chinese foods and then headed down to the olympic park to watch the musical fountains.
From Dragon*Con
From Dragon*Con
From Dragon*Con
BBB and G4H and the fountains.
After that we headed to the CNN building for a poke around and a mango smoothie, in my case. Then back to the hotel and some desperately needed sleep.
Wednesday morning
ginny4harry was feeling sick so
buckbeakbabie and I went and got breakfast after checking on her, she was feeling worse, BBB and I decided to head out and do some exploring since I hadn't been to America before. We went to the world of coca cola which is a bit like being advertised at for two hours.
From Dragon*Con Outside Coca cola world
From Dragon*Con Me and an advertisement ploy.
From Dragon*Con Coke Polar Bear with me and BBB.
The best bit about Coke world is trying the products in their soda bar at the end. This is where I had my first taste of Fresca, which if I'm honest; is okay, but not all that. We had been on a quest for Fresca because G4H loves it so. We were hoping to find some for her and take it back but we had no luck there.
I bought a few little items like cherry coke flavoured lip balm and a pressie for mah philbie.
For luch we went to the Metro Cafe Diner which was right by the Peachtree mall. I had a cheese burger sub for lunch that I couldn't finish. Portions over there are crazy huge, it also came with a nommy chicken noodle soup with saltine crackers.
In the afternoon we headed out to Walmart, and bought a cellphone so I wouldn't go crazy over budget on my phonebill trying to text all these US numbers. Well worth the 20 bucks. We were very silly in the evening,buoyed up by the fact that G4H now had Fresca and excited that mooses would be joining us. We grabbed an early night as we were checking into the Marriot Marquis very early the next morning.
We got up at six and dragged outselves and our gubbins from the Days Inn to the Marriot Marquis which is a hell of a beautiful hotel.
From Dragon*Con The view from our floor.
From Dragon*Con The view from our room.
From Dragon*Con More of the view
From Dragon*Con and the last one of the view from our room.
From Dragon*Con BBB settling into our room.
From Dragon*ConG4H settling in.
We then met up with
ctofine, Jimmy and Tonia to say hey, grab some huggles and let them check in whilst we went to get a late breakfast at the diner again. Pancakes om nom nom. I've learnt my lesson though, and went for a short stack. We decided to go and queue for badegs. OMG Two and a half hours of shuffling up and down the queue like in the post office. BBB evangelised about Sherlock to anyone who would listen and we also learnt to avoid the creepy guy whic has started off as interesting but then rapidly became rather creepy. Also highlights of the queue there was a really scarily good Ewan MacGregor lookalike. If you think our queuing for badges was bad, later on in the day they were queuing outside the hotel and only let in via small batches. EEEP.
From Dragon*Con Badge.
Badges claimed we met up with Moosecrew again at the Diner this time for Dinner, I had a salad so that I would have room for CAKE.
From Dragon*Con BBB and
lurkrealclose pre cake.
From Dragon*Con BBB and CAKE
From Dragon*ConJimmy and CAKE
From Dragon*Con
justascrewup2 and CAKE
From Dragon*Con
utkari02 and CAKE
We headed back to the hotel and even on the Thursday evening there were a few people in constume. I arranged to meet with
ctofine and Jimmy and Tonia for the True Blood panel in the morning.
Met up with C J and T at the Hyatt and amazingly managed to walk straight into the panel. This was a one time thing. Some people were recording the DCTV late show but it was cool because we managed to grab some good seats on an aisle quite close to the front.
The true blood panel was great.
From Dragon*Con Kristin Bauer, Nelsan Ellis and Sam Trammell.
From Dragon*Con Same and Nelsan.
From Dragon*Con all three.
From Dragon*Con
One thing I learned at the panel is that Sam Trammell is much more good looking than you think he should be in True Blood and that his eyes are second only in their blueness tot hat of teh Bamber. Nelsan Ellis used to be in the marines and he attended Julliard he also has a voice that makes my tummy tingle.
Post panel, I went and queued for photos with True Blood people and Warehouse 13 bods.
From Dragon*Con True Blood pic. My gods Sam trammell is so pretty up close.
From Dragon*Con Warehouse 13 picture. OMG This is where I decided that Eddie McClintock was the most awesome person at the con. He was really sweet and they asked where I was from and he said he was going to a con in the uk and I said I knew because he'd tweeted at me and I squeed some and reminded him of my twitter name :D.
I mooched for a bit before heading back to the room. I skyped mah phil and then met up with BBB and G4H. We queued for a lift and who should turn up but Eddie McClintockrom Warehouse 13 he was staying on our floor. I tried to play it cool and explain to BBB who he was, but she couldn't lip read. Luckily the lift was busy and Eddie kept a very low profile. I tweeted about it later and he tweeted me back. Eddie's tweet to me
We headed off to the Buffy Horror Picture show: in which a group of people copyt he action from once more with feeling and doctor Horrible's sing along blog and everyone sang along.
And now some pics from Friday night.
From Dragon*Con C,J and T : We do the weird stuff.
From Dragon*Con Epic Ten and Rose
From Dragon*Con BBB and a Clockwork man.
From Dragon*Con Would you like a cup of tea and a biscuit?
From Dragon*Con Amy Pond.
From Dragon*Con A really good Bill with Sookie, Eric and Sophie-Anne.
From Dragon*Con Elementary!
From Dragon*Con Wonderflonium
From Dragon*Con And my favourites from Friday night: Horny Spartans.
From Dragon*Con I'm sorry Dave.
Was my day for panels I queued with
buckeye94 for the Warehouse 13 crossover panel with Eureka. I think it was my panel of the con. It was hilarious. On the panel were: Rene Auberjonois (Odo from DS9) Tia Carrerre, Saul Rubinek, Eddie McClintock, Erica Cerra, Colin Furguson and Neil Grayston.
From Dragon*Con Rene and Tia.
From Dragon*ConEddie and Saul
From Dragon*Con Colin
From Dragon*Con Neil
From Dragon*Con Eddie and Erica.
Buckeye and I were going to try and get to the Firefly panel and we were joined by
justascrewup2 we couldn't get in, so we decided to queue for Adam Savage instead. Adam SAvage is a great public speaker.
From Dragon*Con
We had to miss the last few minutes of his panel so we could make the bus to the Aquarium. While we were in the Queue, Sean Maher and Morena Baccarin stopped and asked us what we were queueing for.
The Aquarium was beautiful, I came nose to nose with penguins and spent far too long watching seals and the beluga whales. When I got back I just wanted to head to bed, but I ran into BBB who was cosplaying as Joan from madmen.
From Dragon*Con
Sunday I frakking made it to a BSG panel.
From Dragon*Con from L-R Richard Hatch, Aaron Douglas, Dean Stockwell and Edward James Olmos.
It was a weirdly intense panel, very serious in tone and quite depressing. Aaron Douglas ranted about the fact some fans were bitching that he glorifies violence against women and stating the fact that Chief killed Tory as the example. I think most of the people in the room vehemently disagreed with the people who were churning the drama.
Anyhoo a few more pics from the panel.
From Dragon*Con Aaron.
From Dragon*Con Richard Hatch
From Dragon*Con Edward James Olmos.
From Dragon*Con Dean Stockwell.
After the panel, I headed to the photograpgers to book my picture with EJO then to the Hilton for the Walk of fame. At the walk of fame I chatted to Mark Sheppard, who knew where Oswestry was and could tell I was a Jamie fan.
Eddie McClintock who asked if I was going to go to his con in daventry and when I said I couldn't he said we could meet up for coffee in london. Bless his cotton socks I had to explain that London is a fair way from where I live but he should go to Manchester and then he squeed at me about factory records. I got his autograph and his own designed purple goo warehouse 13 t-shirt that I promptly forgot because I was too busy getting a hug.
I headed to get Sam Trammell's autograph and when he asked how I spelled it I said plain Jane and he smiled and said no, really not. Bless him. He also asked where I was from, he'd been in Northampton the week before and I squeed at him because that's where I went to uni.
After that I realised that I had forgot the t-shirt and then headed back to see Eddie, or rather his handler and they had kept my shirt safe and were trying to plan how best to get it back to me.
I then went to talk to Saul Rubinek who was a sweetie. After that I went to get my photo taken with EJO who just glomped me and the Lee bear. was totally awesome. I told him how much I loved the show.
From Dragon*Con
I went and squeed at the moose crew who agreed I'd had an insane day.
The evening was spent taking more pictures of cosplayers and LRC spotted Aaron Douglas who let us get pictures with him.
From Dragon*Con Me and the chief.
Some more costumes.
From Dragon*Con BBB as Betty.
From Dragon*Con Incredibles :D
From Dragon*Con Elphie and Glinda.
From Dragon*Con me and Five.
From Dragon*Con Team Zissou.
From Dragon*Con Moose Crew.
From Dragon*Con two janes in jayne hats.
Well we had a sad face. Final trawl to walk of fame. Got my picture taken with Mark Sheppard.
From Dragon*Con Me and Mark sheppard.
I went up with LRC to talk to Avery Brooks and man, the guy is so cool it hurts. I shook his hand and told him I loved his work in AMerican History X and he was very gracious. So so cool.
So the moose met up for a final lunch.
From Dragon*Con Mooose!
And after that people started heading home. We checked into the Sheraton.
There is more but I'm kind of spent writing this. I'll do the ending tomorrow.
If you want to see all the photos: They are here.
Whenever I am about to go on holiday I loose the ability to sleep. So much so that despite heading to bed reasonably early on the monday night I could only manage three hours of sleep and at three thirty in the AM I decide to get up because I'm not going to be able to sleep anymore. I do strange things like shave my legs and get showered because there is now plenty of time before I have to leave the house.
I even had time to log onto the interwebz and note the surprise from the Moose crew who still being in America were amazed to see me round and about. There was some wailing and gnashing of teeth because James Marsters had cancelled and he was a big draw to the convention for me. I managed to eat something and then at six AM Phil took me to the airport. The drive there was quiet and very pretty in the beautifully misty predawn. Check in was easy as i'd done it online though note for people flying with KLM/DELTA. If you book with KLM you still have to check in on the DELTA website. THIS IS IN NO WAY MADE CLEAR and only a chance attempt by Phil allowed me to print out my boarding card at home.
I noodled round Manchester Terminal 2. Wasn't tempted by anything in duty free. Went and got a sausage bap and a hot chocolate for breakfast and then headed up to the gate and read. We boarded around 9.30 and I got my seat in the middle of the plane but by the aisle and waaay towards the back. Reading on the way I got through Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book and started Charlaine Harris' Grave Sight. The entertainment on the plane was shocking though. No individual screens and even if I wanted to watch the films (The A-team, DAte Night) I really couldn't as the headphones and adapter were crap and didn't work at all.
I even managed a couple of hours sleep! go me!
Then came the TURBULANCE. I'm usually okay with flying for the most part. As far as I understand it Planes fly because people believe that they will take off and land safely. Any lapses in belief and you get turbulance. We must have had a lot of people stop believing because even the air hostesses were looking peaky and we really were juddering in the air for a long time. The pilot apologised and said we'd hit a jetwash from another plane. I guessed that it must have been
buckbeakbabie's and
ginny4harry'S plane as they were about half an hour in front of me flight wise.
We landed to a smattering of applause, I was relieved to get down and in need of getting going on using my legs. Immigration into the US is traumatic. There are many queues and everyone is deathly serious. Biometric data collected. You pass through all that and you think whoopee I can has my luggage now and be on my way. Only hell no, you have to pick your luggage up, take it through security and drop it off again whilst you get scanned for a second time, having already done that dance in Manchester.
Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson airport is also frikking huge, I decided that I wanted to walk for a bit having been cooped up for the previous eight hours. only when I was about 7/8ths of the way there did I text
buckbeakbabie and she told me to get on the train. Yes the airport is big enough to have it's own train. I did for the final two stops and found
buckbeakbabie and
ginny4harry with hugs all round.
We headed to Peachtree area of Atlanta via the MARTA which is the train system and once we'd made it we headed to the days inn hotel to check in and unpack. We then grabbed some chinese foods and then headed down to the olympic park to watch the musical fountains.
From Dragon*Con
From Dragon*Con
From Dragon*Con
BBB and G4H and the fountains.
After that we headed to the CNN building for a poke around and a mango smoothie, in my case. Then back to the hotel and some desperately needed sleep.
Wednesday morning
ginny4harry was feeling sick so
buckbeakbabie and I went and got breakfast after checking on her, she was feeling worse, BBB and I decided to head out and do some exploring since I hadn't been to America before. We went to the world of coca cola which is a bit like being advertised at for two hours.
From Dragon*Con Outside Coca cola world
From Dragon*Con Me and an advertisement ploy.
From Dragon*Con Coke Polar Bear with me and BBB.
The best bit about Coke world is trying the products in their soda bar at the end. This is where I had my first taste of Fresca, which if I'm honest; is okay, but not all that. We had been on a quest for Fresca because G4H loves it so. We were hoping to find some for her and take it back but we had no luck there.
I bought a few little items like cherry coke flavoured lip balm and a pressie for mah philbie.
For luch we went to the Metro Cafe Diner which was right by the Peachtree mall. I had a cheese burger sub for lunch that I couldn't finish. Portions over there are crazy huge, it also came with a nommy chicken noodle soup with saltine crackers.
In the afternoon we headed out to Walmart, and bought a cellphone so I wouldn't go crazy over budget on my phonebill trying to text all these US numbers. Well worth the 20 bucks. We were very silly in the evening,buoyed up by the fact that G4H now had Fresca and excited that mooses would be joining us. We grabbed an early night as we were checking into the Marriot Marquis very early the next morning.
We got up at six and dragged outselves and our gubbins from the Days Inn to the Marriot Marquis which is a hell of a beautiful hotel.
From Dragon*Con The view from our floor.
From Dragon*Con The view from our room.
From Dragon*Con More of the view
From Dragon*Con and the last one of the view from our room.
From Dragon*Con BBB settling into our room.
From Dragon*ConG4H settling in.
We then met up with
ctofine, Jimmy and Tonia to say hey, grab some huggles and let them check in whilst we went to get a late breakfast at the diner again. Pancakes om nom nom. I've learnt my lesson though, and went for a short stack. We decided to go and queue for badegs. OMG Two and a half hours of shuffling up and down the queue like in the post office. BBB evangelised about Sherlock to anyone who would listen and we also learnt to avoid the creepy guy whic has started off as interesting but then rapidly became rather creepy. Also highlights of the queue there was a really scarily good Ewan MacGregor lookalike. If you think our queuing for badges was bad, later on in the day they were queuing outside the hotel and only let in via small batches. EEEP.
From Dragon*Con Badge.
Badges claimed we met up with Moosecrew again at the Diner this time for Dinner, I had a salad so that I would have room for CAKE.
From Dragon*Con BBB and
lurkrealclose pre cake.
From Dragon*Con BBB and CAKE
From Dragon*ConJimmy and CAKE
From Dragon*Con
justascrewup2 and CAKE
From Dragon*Con
utkari02 and CAKE
We headed back to the hotel and even on the Thursday evening there were a few people in constume. I arranged to meet with
ctofine and Jimmy and Tonia for the True Blood panel in the morning.
Met up with C J and T at the Hyatt and amazingly managed to walk straight into the panel. This was a one time thing. Some people were recording the DCTV late show but it was cool because we managed to grab some good seats on an aisle quite close to the front.
The true blood panel was great.
From Dragon*Con Kristin Bauer, Nelsan Ellis and Sam Trammell.
From Dragon*Con Same and Nelsan.
From Dragon*Con all three.
From Dragon*Con
One thing I learned at the panel is that Sam Trammell is much more good looking than you think he should be in True Blood and that his eyes are second only in their blueness tot hat of teh Bamber. Nelsan Ellis used to be in the marines and he attended Julliard he also has a voice that makes my tummy tingle.
Post panel, I went and queued for photos with True Blood people and Warehouse 13 bods.
From Dragon*Con True Blood pic. My gods Sam trammell is so pretty up close.
From Dragon*Con Warehouse 13 picture. OMG This is where I decided that Eddie McClintock was the most awesome person at the con. He was really sweet and they asked where I was from and he said he was going to a con in the uk and I said I knew because he'd tweeted at me and I squeed some and reminded him of my twitter name :D.
I mooched for a bit before heading back to the room. I skyped mah phil and then met up with BBB and G4H. We queued for a lift and who should turn up but Eddie McClintockrom Warehouse 13 he was staying on our floor. I tried to play it cool and explain to BBB who he was, but she couldn't lip read. Luckily the lift was busy and Eddie kept a very low profile. I tweeted about it later and he tweeted me back. Eddie's tweet to me
We headed off to the Buffy Horror Picture show: in which a group of people copyt he action from once more with feeling and doctor Horrible's sing along blog and everyone sang along.
And now some pics from Friday night.
From Dragon*Con C,J and T : We do the weird stuff.
From Dragon*Con Epic Ten and Rose
From Dragon*Con BBB and a Clockwork man.
From Dragon*Con Would you like a cup of tea and a biscuit?
From Dragon*Con Amy Pond.
From Dragon*Con A really good Bill with Sookie, Eric and Sophie-Anne.
From Dragon*Con Elementary!
From Dragon*Con Wonderflonium
From Dragon*Con And my favourites from Friday night: Horny Spartans.
From Dragon*Con I'm sorry Dave.
Was my day for panels I queued with
buckeye94 for the Warehouse 13 crossover panel with Eureka. I think it was my panel of the con. It was hilarious. On the panel were: Rene Auberjonois (Odo from DS9) Tia Carrerre, Saul Rubinek, Eddie McClintock, Erica Cerra, Colin Furguson and Neil Grayston.
From Dragon*Con Rene and Tia.
From Dragon*ConEddie and Saul
From Dragon*Con Colin
From Dragon*Con Neil
From Dragon*Con Eddie and Erica.
Buckeye and I were going to try and get to the Firefly panel and we were joined by
justascrewup2 we couldn't get in, so we decided to queue for Adam Savage instead. Adam SAvage is a great public speaker.
From Dragon*Con
We had to miss the last few minutes of his panel so we could make the bus to the Aquarium. While we were in the Queue, Sean Maher and Morena Baccarin stopped and asked us what we were queueing for.
The Aquarium was beautiful, I came nose to nose with penguins and spent far too long watching seals and the beluga whales. When I got back I just wanted to head to bed, but I ran into BBB who was cosplaying as Joan from madmen.
From Dragon*Con
Sunday I frakking made it to a BSG panel.
From Dragon*Con from L-R Richard Hatch, Aaron Douglas, Dean Stockwell and Edward James Olmos.
It was a weirdly intense panel, very serious in tone and quite depressing. Aaron Douglas ranted about the fact some fans were bitching that he glorifies violence against women and stating the fact that Chief killed Tory as the example. I think most of the people in the room vehemently disagreed with the people who were churning the drama.
Anyhoo a few more pics from the panel.
From Dragon*Con Aaron.
From Dragon*Con Richard Hatch
From Dragon*Con Edward James Olmos.
From Dragon*Con Dean Stockwell.
After the panel, I headed to the photograpgers to book my picture with EJO then to the Hilton for the Walk of fame. At the walk of fame I chatted to Mark Sheppard, who knew where Oswestry was and could tell I was a Jamie fan.
Eddie McClintock who asked if I was going to go to his con in daventry and when I said I couldn't he said we could meet up for coffee in london. Bless his cotton socks I had to explain that London is a fair way from where I live but he should go to Manchester and then he squeed at me about factory records. I got his autograph and his own designed purple goo warehouse 13 t-shirt that I promptly forgot because I was too busy getting a hug.
I headed to get Sam Trammell's autograph and when he asked how I spelled it I said plain Jane and he smiled and said no, really not. Bless him. He also asked where I was from, he'd been in Northampton the week before and I squeed at him because that's where I went to uni.
After that I realised that I had forgot the t-shirt and then headed back to see Eddie, or rather his handler and they had kept my shirt safe and were trying to plan how best to get it back to me.
I then went to talk to Saul Rubinek who was a sweetie. After that I went to get my photo taken with EJO who just glomped me and the Lee bear. was totally awesome. I told him how much I loved the show.
From Dragon*Con
I went and squeed at the moose crew who agreed I'd had an insane day.
The evening was spent taking more pictures of cosplayers and LRC spotted Aaron Douglas who let us get pictures with him.
From Dragon*Con Me and the chief.
Some more costumes.
From Dragon*Con BBB as Betty.
From Dragon*Con Incredibles :D
From Dragon*Con Elphie and Glinda.
From Dragon*Con me and Five.
From Dragon*Con Team Zissou.
From Dragon*Con Moose Crew.
From Dragon*Con two janes in jayne hats.
Well we had a sad face. Final trawl to walk of fame. Got my picture taken with Mark Sheppard.
From Dragon*Con Me and Mark sheppard.
I went up with LRC to talk to Avery Brooks and man, the guy is so cool it hurts. I shook his hand and told him I loved his work in AMerican History X and he was very gracious. So so cool.
So the moose met up for a final lunch.
From Dragon*Con Mooose!
And after that people started heading home. We checked into the Sheraton.
There is more but I'm kind of spent writing this. I'll do the ending tomorrow.
If you want to see all the photos: They are here.