Asylum 2009 Report Part Three - Saturday Afternoon
Good God almighty... 4,148 words! And I didn't get past dinner! No wonder my hand/wrist hurts so much (although, strangely, only the right one, and considering I type more with my left than my right, that seems odd...)
Anyhoo, where were we?
So. Lunch was a teeny bit traumatic - the restaurants were all closed (the hotel was wonderful for the most part, but when you have 1500 captive people who are gonna want to eat, surely you'd make sure all your restaurants are open as long as possible?), anyhoo, L has to eat properly cause of having a mini-person taking up all the good stuff, and what with being diabetic and stuff, so she got a little bit upset and I really couldn't offer any suggestions more helpful than 'calm down'.
For future reference, if you're ever faced with a tired, hot, hungry, possibly sugar deprived, heavily pregnant woman - DO NOT TELL HER TO ‘CALM DOWN’. That is all.
We eventually sat down in the bar area and I explained the situation to one of the bar managers who told me she'd make sure the kitchen prepared some soup and salad in a way that would be suitable. About 2 minutes later one of the receptionists (who had seen how upset L was about the restaurants being closed) came and found us and said she'd checked with the kitchen and they'd be OK to prepare whatever she needed. I've said it before, I'll say it again, the staff at the hotel were GREAT.
Anyhoo, we had lunch and spotted Fred and Matt both wandering around (Matt stopped to talk to a couple of people and, in case I didn't mention it before, he is GORGEOUS.
We were guessing things would still be an hour late and so were in no hurry, but then realised that actually things were only running about 30 minutes late! Lucky I checked or we might have missed Sam, Amy and Matt!
We got back in the room and made our way to the front (having been told earlier in the day that it was OK for us to sit in that same section all weekend), sat down in (I think) the exact same seats as before, and who should pop up a few minutes later? C, J & C2 (henceforth to be known as Cassie, J and Claire cause Cassie said I could say her name in public and I'd feel bad saying 'Cassie' and 'C2' - might make Claire sound like an android assassin or something...). Aaaaaanyway, they managed to get seats on the same row as us (\o/) and it was thus for the rest of the weekend!
Turned out they'd missed Gabe and Charles's talk due to having their Jensen photo-ops (I hope I'm getting this all the right way round); BUT, don't feel sorry for them cause Cassie also won a seat at one of Misha's Coffee Lounges!!!!! I was very happy for her, while at the same time kinda wishing I hadn't assumed buying those raffle tickets would be a pointless waste of time :o)
I forgot to tell you about the CRAZY GIRL from Friday night!!!! I'm not going to go into too much detail (in case anyone knows her ;D) but suffice to say - she was a LOON. While we were in the Friday Auto Queue, this girl kept getting into L's personal space and talking to us in a slightly odd fashion, and talking about DEATH (at one point she apparently asked where L was, J answered in a 'why are you asking' kind of way and told her she'd gone to the loo, and she [i.e. Crazy Girl] said something along the lines of 'oh, she's not dead then.' What. The. FUCK?)
She ALSO, took a picture of L's funny T-Shirt WITHOUT ASKING (a couple of people asked, and of course L said yes). ALSO, when I mentioned that to L yesterday (I wasn't there at the time, J told me about it)(I feel like I should ask Carol for a vowel), anyway, turns out L hadn't even realised The Crazy Girl had taken a picture!!!!
And THEN, another crazy girl started talking to us and it turned out they were together!
Actually, now that I've re-read all that, I feel a bit bad for calling her Crazy so many times... she really was bloody odd though. Anyhoo, the reason I'm telling you this now is that she was sitting in the front row about 5 feet away from us after the lunch break! Don't think she spotted us though, or maybe she just didn't find us interesting any more...
Where was I? Ah yes, Sam, Amy and Matt. Did I mention Matt is gorgeous? I think I did... well, turns out he's also ADORABLE. And is a bit in awe of Jeffery Dean Morgan. And likes to make jokes about Jensen (along the lines of "he asked me out on a date, but I'm not sure if he was serious...").
The reason I say he's adorable? The three of them were all asked if they'd ever been star struck (the way we are when we meet the likes of them) and he said...
He was star struck by US! He said he hadn't stopped grinning since Friday night and he was basically in awe of us all! (I'm paraphrasing, but there's probably vid somewhere if you want the exact comment). Suffice to say he absolutely KILLED US ALL with that comment. And then he got all shy and embarrassed about it, and put his head down until the next question was under way! Mind you, he had to wait for Sam and Amy to both agree with him while giving him 'oh my god, how cute are YOU?' looks :o)
Actually, Sam and Amy both said how cool they think it is that we're so dedicated - and they sounded 100% genuine when they said it.
During the lunch break (right before the 'L turns into the kid out of The Exorcist' moment *G*) I bought a Mary Bracelet from the woman who makes them (you've probably seen the website?), anyhoo, she was one of the last in line for questions and told the guys how she made these bracelets and had just got the license to make them officially (um, I didn't actually listen to the beginning bit properly I'm afraid) and THEN she said "I have a couple of bracelets for each of the Mary's if that OK?" And I SWEAR TO GOD I thought Amy was going to burst into tears! She looked SO MOVED!!!! She was very enthusiastic about saying thank you ("thank you SOOOO much!") and then made a little crack about it being better quality than the one she wore on the show! It was a very touching moment.
And then Matt asked how come he didn't get one *G*
Strange moment... Someone asked Amy if she'd been worried about coming onto the show, knowing how some female characters had been received before, and she said she hadn't been aware of it, so wasn't worried, but that she was glad she HAD been received so well. And then Sam said "this isn't going to be a popular thing to say, but I actually quite liked the first Ruby." The crowd all cheered lots and she looked very surprised and said "wow..." and then she said "of course I liked the second one too" and a LOT less people cheered (although, thank god, no-one actually booed or anything). Sam didn't react, but Amy made a bit of an 'ooooh! What's THAT about?' kind of face. It was weird and a teeny bit uncomfortable, but I was REALLY glad no-one booed, or said anything mean.
Amy and Matt both had very nice things to say about Mitch Pileggi, and I think Matt might have a bit of a hero-worship thing going on with Jeffery Dean Morgan, but other than that all I remember is that all three of them were really good guests - very friendly and trying to give as full and honest an answer to everything as they could. Amy and Matt didn't stop smiling the whole time (it was the first time for both of them, so I'm really glad it went well for them!) and Sam was just as funny and charming as I've heard she is.
Actually, I do remember her telling us how the 'burning on the ceiling' thing was done, but I'm not 100% sure if that was Saturday or Sunday. Either way, it turns out there really was fire (although obviously she wasn't actually ON FIRE *G*) and it was very hot work! She made a number of cracks about the nightgown over the course of the weekend (along the lines of 'when they want me back they break out the nightgown!) and she seems to genuinely enjoy being a part of the supernatural Family (they got asked a question about that on Sunday. But since we're talking about Saturday, I'm not saying any more on the subject... ;D).
Now; Sam, Amy and Matt had been due to be on at the same time as Jared's photo-ops, which had annoyed me cause I didn't want to miss them (and no WAY I was missing my photo-op with Jared!) but because of all the timing SNAFU's I ended up not having my number called until during Misha's talk (which, yes, I could have done without, but I just REALLY wanted to see Sam, Amy and Matt).
In case you don't know, or hadn't guessed, I am a Jared Girl. If there was an official club, with membership cards, then I would be a Card Carrying Jared Girl. So you can probably imagine how I felt while standing in that line... It is actually the only queue from the whole weekend that I couldn't tell you a THING about. All I remember is getting up and walking towards the hallway... everything after that is a bit of a blur... up until I got into the room. I am actually surprised I didn't trip over my own feet, what with not looking where I was going, and I was so nervous I thought my heart was gonna go flying out of my chest! And this wasn't even the first time I'd met him! It was the FOURTH!
If you've never met him, or been in a room with him, I'll say this to try to explain just what it's like... you know how a black hole pulls everything towards it and nothing can escape and it has its own gravitational pull and what-not? Well, that's what Jared does too. I've NEVER seen anyone so mesmerising in my life (apart from Jared, on three previous occasions *G*) and I am AMAZED I managed to stay sane enough to say 'hello' and 'thank you' and 'have a nice afternoon'. For the record - he made lots of eye contact, said 'hi' and 'how are ya?' and 'thanks! you too!' and smiled. Lots. His smile is just so... you know what? If I don't change the subject right now it'll be time to go to work tomorrow before I finish typing this. So let me just say -
Jared is AWESOME. End of.
You know what? Now I'm typing this, I remember Cassie and Claire both telling me they might have been converted to Jared!Girls thanks to their photo-op so I'm suddenly not sure now if they turned up BEFORE or AFTER Sam, Amy and Matt... (Cassie? Do you remember? Not that it matters in the general scheme of things, but I'm kinda anal about getting the details right!).
Where was I? Oh yes, Jared is AWESOME.
By the time I got back in the room, most of Misha's talk was done, I only really caught the end - although I was there for the (sadly, inevitable) fanfiction question (which everyone booed as soon as it became clear what she was gonna say), Misha said something along the lines of 'uh oh, they don't like this question!'. He made a VERY good analogy - slash being talked about at cons is uncomfortable for us (i.e. the fans) because it's sort of like our 'dirty little secret' kinda like finding your parent's porn - you know it's probably there, but you REALLY don't want to think about it. He said he found it intriguing and then went on to say a few more things but my lack of sleep was catching up with me and I don't really remember it all that well. The lack of sleep also caused problems at dinner - although I'd like to point out the Great Pudding Robbery of 2009 was NOT my fault. Neither was the Vodka Incident. Although, I will admit to telling the waitress she was great at being Stealthy... but we'll get to all that later...
OK. The last thing on Saturday was Jared's talk. As you can imagine, my mind went a bit fuzzy for the duration so I'm BOUND to mix up things from Saturday and Sunday.
You know how I mentioned (as has everyone else I'd imagine) how Jared was having trouble understanding everyone? Well... he had even more trouble in the afternoon! Mind you, he was MUCH more awake and bouncy, but he kept laughing his head off when he couldn't figure out what he was being asked! He was almost falling of his chair laughing at one point (laughing at himself, you understand? Not us...). Someone asked him the coolest question I've ever heard at a convention - "If you were going to steal an elephant, how would you do it, and where would you hide it?" Just the question had him (and us) cracking up!
I can't remember HOW he said he'd do it, but he said he'd need to hide it somewhere with plenty of space, so he'd hide it in the crotch of Jensen's pants!!!! And then he looked around really quickly saying "he can't hear me can he?" and then assured us he was kidding!
Someone asked him about his dogs, and referred to them as 'Rescue Dogs' and, god bless him, he misunderstood and thought she meant they literally RESCUED PEOPLE! Like those St Bernard's with the brandy, or Lassie or something! But he was answering really seriously, like 'Oh no, they don't do that' and then he said 'although I did rescue THEM' (I'm paraphrasing, he was saying they had been rescued and that he got them from a shelter, or something along those lines, I was too busy cracking up at him thinking she'd asked him if his dogs rescue people...). He talked about a charity he's involved with and very much showed his Dog Lover side!
He mentioned he has a gut feeling there'll be a season 6 and he seemed perfectly happy with that idea, he definitely gives off the impression he loves the show, and the characters, and will be happy to do it as long as he feels it's worth it).
He thinks Sam has killed more demons than Dean and (while that IS true) I kept wanting to point out that all the demons he referred to killing while Dean was away, he actually sent back to hell - he didn't kill em. He seemed to think Jensen would say Sam too, but I doubted that (and I was right. But we don't find that out until Sunday, so...)
He couldn't remember the exorcism chant (which I was a teeny bit gutted about cause I would have LOVED to have heard that live! Maybe he'll remember it in time for Vancouver?), he did mention studying Latin in school though... Beauty, Charisma, Sex Appeal AND Brains? Doesn't really give the other men of the world much of a chance, does he?
When asked what the hardest episode he's filmed was, he referred to When The Levee Breaks, while somehow managing to not spoil all of the people who hadn't seen it yet (they asked during the J2 talk which episode we were up to, and they were both very good about avoiding spoilers, as were most of the people asking questions).
Anyhoo, he said the scenes in the Panic Room were the most intense, draining and difficult ones he'd ever filmed. It took three days, and on the mornings of the second and third days all he could think was 'oh god, I can't DO that again!'. The person who asked the question (I think it was her anyway) said "It was worth it" and there was a LOT of LOUD agreement to that! He seemed very glad to hear we'd liked the episode.
He said something quite cute about how he spends his (rare) days off... basically he doesn't do much, and he and Jensen rarely get the same day off, but while they were filming The Rapture he and Jensen both had a day off and didn't know what to do with themselves! Apparently Jensen said to him at one point "should we go to the set, see what's going on?" I nearly died from the absolute ADORABLENESS of that!
And then!!!! Claire got to the front of the queue and got to ask the question she'd queued up to ask both of them in the morning but hadn't been able to. "What prop, other than the Impala, would you like to nick when the show's over?"
They had a funny little bit of banter when Jared said (something along the lines of) “why can't I take the Impala? I'm going to take the Impala” and Claire asked how he'd get it off the set, so he (sarky bugger that he is) explained putting the car into drive and putting your foot on the gas... he even mimed it too!!! She pointed out he couldn't do it inconspicuously, so he conceded and told us about a prop he's ALREADY stolen!
While they were filming the crash scene at the end of Devil's Trap, he was sitting in the driver’s seat and looked at the Impala emblem on the steering wheel and thought to himself 'we might not get a second season. I'm having that!' and pulled it off the steering wheel and took it home! He still has it and may very well auction it off for charity one day.
Overall? He was GORGEOUS. I was SO SO SO SO happy to be sitting somewhere with such a good view. He was funny and charming and witty and interesting and in a very good mood and just... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah, AWESOME.
*sigh*
I think the group photo-shoots were after Jared's talk (the Sam, Amy & Matt photo shoot had been cancelled due to time problems), and none of us had that one, so we decided to go for a spot of dinner...
We went to the pub-type restaurant and proceeded to confuse the fuck out of the poor waitress... L has pretty strict dietary requirements and Cassie is deathly allergic to Bell Peppers (I SO nearly typed 'lemons' then! *G*) and I am just plain awkward... we all decided on the burger, L just in theory since she couldn't really have it... so anyway, the waitress came over and asked for our orders... J asked for a burger, Claire asked for a burger, Cassie asked for a burger but asked the waitress to make sure there were no "Peppers, Bell Peppers", in there cause she's allergic (to which I felt the need to add 'deathly allergic, She'll DIE!' - My tiredness was at pretty impressive levels by this point so I was being kinda silly :D). And then it was my turn so I asked for a burger but with no tomato, and then it was L's turn and J pointed out to Claire that they were the only two ordering off the menu in a non-fussy kinda way *G*
Once we'd all managed the apparently very complicated matter of ordering food, we got to chatting and had a most pleasant evening. One of the main topics of conversation came about due to something Jared said I have completely forgotten to mention so, if you’ll permit me, I'll go back in time for a sec to Jared's talk...
He was asked if, since HE'D been asked so many questions by us over the course of all the cons he's done, if there was a question he'd like to ask US. I (and my fellow con goers) all thought that was a very interesting question... he said he did have a question, but that it was one we wouldn't be able to answer all at once since our answers would most likely vary a lot - "I know why WE do it, why I do it, but I'd like to know why YOU GUYS go to conventions?" (he elaborated a bit but that was the main point of the question).
It's actually a subject I've discussed with everyone I've ever met at a con, to some degree or another, and my dinner companions and I all agreed that the social aspect (meeting fellow fans, meeting people you have this cool thing in common with) was a VERY big and important part of it, and we then got to chatting about what made us go to our FIRST convention (before we KNEW about meeting other fans) this one was actually Claire's first one so went went around the table talking about how we got into it all and our first experiences etc. It was a very interesting chat and I found myself wishing we had a way to actually answer Jared's (very cool) question in a way he'd actually see (or hear) it.
So... while we were talking a waiter (or possibly manager of some kind) came over and told Cassie she couldn't have the burger because the pepper was in the burger itself. Which seemed fair enough to me since that's how I make burgers too - except when the food arrived it became clear there WERE NOT any peppers in the burgers - we think he thought she said she was allergic to pepper (as in black pepper rather than bell peppers). Ooops!
Oh, I remembered an hilarious moment from earlier on - a waiter (or manager?) was walking towards the table just as my sister was saying I can't have fat or white flour or sugar or a bunch of other things and he said 'well you definitely can't have the fish and chips then' and for some unknown reason I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard and didn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes!!! I think it was just the WAY he said it...
So then we ordered dessert... L decided she might be able to risk a cheesecake (since she hadn't eaten all that much of her dinner) and asked the waitress what was in it, the waitress said she wasn't sure so she'd let her have a look at one to see if it looked OK (not sure why she thought L would be able to figure out the ingredients just by looking, but it's the thought that counts). So... she came back about 2 minutes later with 2 cheesecakes on big fancy plates - she held one out in front of L and said "this is it, what do you think?" and L said (cause it looked GREAT) "oh yeah, I'm sure that'll be fine!" and held her hand out... now, I'm pretty sure there was a moment of hesitation before the waitress put the plate down, and then put the other one down in from of J (J and Claire had already ordered the Cheesecake and Cassie and I ordered the Chocolate Tart), but as she walked away it occurred to me - she hadn't really been gone long enough to have ordered and picked up our desserts, and she only actually said she was going to SHOW L the cheesecake... so we came to the conclusion L had accidentally stolen someone else's pudding! This theory was backed up by the fact the rest of our puds took quite a bit longer to get to us... oops!
Oh well. That was, without a doubt, the most DELICOUS Chocolate Tart IN THE WORLD, so I don't really care all that much :o)
And now it is half past midnight and my wrist HURTS from all the typing, so I'm going to leave this post as Saturday Afternoon, and do Saturday Night as a separate post tomorrow. So...
End of Saturday Part Two (time to settle the bill - which turns out to be almost as complicated as ordering... *G*)(they couldn't split the bill, so we had to try to work out how much we all owed, it took us longer than I'm proud of to realise we could just divide the total by 5... ;D)
Coming up in Part Three...
My niece freaks me out and embarrasses me in public, BEFORE SHE'S EVEN BEEN BORN! I assure J her can won't explode if I tap the lid before opening it for her... as my jeans can attest to - that trick doesn't work EVERY time... Genevieve is very nice and friendly and Danneel is the most beautiful woman ON THE PLANET.
Anyhoo, where were we?
So. Lunch was a teeny bit traumatic - the restaurants were all closed (the hotel was wonderful for the most part, but when you have 1500 captive people who are gonna want to eat, surely you'd make sure all your restaurants are open as long as possible?), anyhoo, L has to eat properly cause of having a mini-person taking up all the good stuff, and what with being diabetic and stuff, so she got a little bit upset and I really couldn't offer any suggestions more helpful than 'calm down'.
For future reference, if you're ever faced with a tired, hot, hungry, possibly sugar deprived, heavily pregnant woman - DO NOT TELL HER TO ‘CALM DOWN’. That is all.
We eventually sat down in the bar area and I explained the situation to one of the bar managers who told me she'd make sure the kitchen prepared some soup and salad in a way that would be suitable. About 2 minutes later one of the receptionists (who had seen how upset L was about the restaurants being closed) came and found us and said she'd checked with the kitchen and they'd be OK to prepare whatever she needed. I've said it before, I'll say it again, the staff at the hotel were GREAT.
Anyhoo, we had lunch and spotted Fred and Matt both wandering around (Matt stopped to talk to a couple of people and, in case I didn't mention it before, he is GORGEOUS.
We were guessing things would still be an hour late and so were in no hurry, but then realised that actually things were only running about 30 minutes late! Lucky I checked or we might have missed Sam, Amy and Matt!
We got back in the room and made our way to the front (having been told earlier in the day that it was OK for us to sit in that same section all weekend), sat down in (I think) the exact same seats as before, and who should pop up a few minutes later? C, J & C2 (henceforth to be known as Cassie, J and Claire cause Cassie said I could say her name in public and I'd feel bad saying 'Cassie' and 'C2' - might make Claire sound like an android assassin or something...). Aaaaaanyway, they managed to get seats on the same row as us (\o/) and it was thus for the rest of the weekend!
Turned out they'd missed Gabe and Charles's talk due to having their Jensen photo-ops (I hope I'm getting this all the right way round); BUT, don't feel sorry for them cause Cassie also won a seat at one of Misha's Coffee Lounges!!!!! I was very happy for her, while at the same time kinda wishing I hadn't assumed buying those raffle tickets would be a pointless waste of time :o)
I forgot to tell you about the CRAZY GIRL from Friday night!!!! I'm not going to go into too much detail (in case anyone knows her ;D) but suffice to say - she was a LOON. While we were in the Friday Auto Queue, this girl kept getting into L's personal space and talking to us in a slightly odd fashion, and talking about DEATH (at one point she apparently asked where L was, J answered in a 'why are you asking' kind of way and told her she'd gone to the loo, and she [i.e. Crazy Girl] said something along the lines of 'oh, she's not dead then.' What. The. FUCK?)
She ALSO, took a picture of L's funny T-Shirt WITHOUT ASKING (a couple of people asked, and of course L said yes). ALSO, when I mentioned that to L yesterday (I wasn't there at the time, J told me about it)(I feel like I should ask Carol for a vowel), anyway, turns out L hadn't even realised The Crazy Girl had taken a picture!!!!
And THEN, another crazy girl started talking to us and it turned out they were together!
Actually, now that I've re-read all that, I feel a bit bad for calling her Crazy so many times... she really was bloody odd though. Anyhoo, the reason I'm telling you this now is that she was sitting in the front row about 5 feet away from us after the lunch break! Don't think she spotted us though, or maybe she just didn't find us interesting any more...
Where was I? Ah yes, Sam, Amy and Matt. Did I mention Matt is gorgeous? I think I did... well, turns out he's also ADORABLE. And is a bit in awe of Jeffery Dean Morgan. And likes to make jokes about Jensen (along the lines of "he asked me out on a date, but I'm not sure if he was serious...").
The reason I say he's adorable? The three of them were all asked if they'd ever been star struck (the way we are when we meet the likes of them) and he said...
He was star struck by US! He said he hadn't stopped grinning since Friday night and he was basically in awe of us all! (I'm paraphrasing, but there's probably vid somewhere if you want the exact comment). Suffice to say he absolutely KILLED US ALL with that comment. And then he got all shy and embarrassed about it, and put his head down until the next question was under way! Mind you, he had to wait for Sam and Amy to both agree with him while giving him 'oh my god, how cute are YOU?' looks :o)
Actually, Sam and Amy both said how cool they think it is that we're so dedicated - and they sounded 100% genuine when they said it.
During the lunch break (right before the 'L turns into the kid out of The Exorcist' moment *G*) I bought a Mary Bracelet from the woman who makes them (you've probably seen the website?), anyhoo, she was one of the last in line for questions and told the guys how she made these bracelets and had just got the license to make them officially (um, I didn't actually listen to the beginning bit properly I'm afraid) and THEN she said "I have a couple of bracelets for each of the Mary's if that OK?" And I SWEAR TO GOD I thought Amy was going to burst into tears! She looked SO MOVED!!!! She was very enthusiastic about saying thank you ("thank you SOOOO much!") and then made a little crack about it being better quality than the one she wore on the show! It was a very touching moment.
And then Matt asked how come he didn't get one *G*
Strange moment... Someone asked Amy if she'd been worried about coming onto the show, knowing how some female characters had been received before, and she said she hadn't been aware of it, so wasn't worried, but that she was glad she HAD been received so well. And then Sam said "this isn't going to be a popular thing to say, but I actually quite liked the first Ruby." The crowd all cheered lots and she looked very surprised and said "wow..." and then she said "of course I liked the second one too" and a LOT less people cheered (although, thank god, no-one actually booed or anything). Sam didn't react, but Amy made a bit of an 'ooooh! What's THAT about?' kind of face. It was weird and a teeny bit uncomfortable, but I was REALLY glad no-one booed, or said anything mean.
Amy and Matt both had very nice things to say about Mitch Pileggi, and I think Matt might have a bit of a hero-worship thing going on with Jeffery Dean Morgan, but other than that all I remember is that all three of them were really good guests - very friendly and trying to give as full and honest an answer to everything as they could. Amy and Matt didn't stop smiling the whole time (it was the first time for both of them, so I'm really glad it went well for them!) and Sam was just as funny and charming as I've heard she is.
Actually, I do remember her telling us how the 'burning on the ceiling' thing was done, but I'm not 100% sure if that was Saturday or Sunday. Either way, it turns out there really was fire (although obviously she wasn't actually ON FIRE *G*) and it was very hot work! She made a number of cracks about the nightgown over the course of the weekend (along the lines of 'when they want me back they break out the nightgown!) and she seems to genuinely enjoy being a part of the supernatural Family (they got asked a question about that on Sunday. But since we're talking about Saturday, I'm not saying any more on the subject... ;D).
Now; Sam, Amy and Matt had been due to be on at the same time as Jared's photo-ops, which had annoyed me cause I didn't want to miss them (and no WAY I was missing my photo-op with Jared!) but because of all the timing SNAFU's I ended up not having my number called until during Misha's talk (which, yes, I could have done without, but I just REALLY wanted to see Sam, Amy and Matt).
In case you don't know, or hadn't guessed, I am a Jared Girl. If there was an official club, with membership cards, then I would be a Card Carrying Jared Girl. So you can probably imagine how I felt while standing in that line... It is actually the only queue from the whole weekend that I couldn't tell you a THING about. All I remember is getting up and walking towards the hallway... everything after that is a bit of a blur... up until I got into the room. I am actually surprised I didn't trip over my own feet, what with not looking where I was going, and I was so nervous I thought my heart was gonna go flying out of my chest! And this wasn't even the first time I'd met him! It was the FOURTH!
If you've never met him, or been in a room with him, I'll say this to try to explain just what it's like... you know how a black hole pulls everything towards it and nothing can escape and it has its own gravitational pull and what-not? Well, that's what Jared does too. I've NEVER seen anyone so mesmerising in my life (apart from Jared, on three previous occasions *G*) and I am AMAZED I managed to stay sane enough to say 'hello' and 'thank you' and 'have a nice afternoon'. For the record - he made lots of eye contact, said 'hi' and 'how are ya?' and 'thanks! you too!' and smiled. Lots. His smile is just so... you know what? If I don't change the subject right now it'll be time to go to work tomorrow before I finish typing this. So let me just say -
Jared is AWESOME. End of.
You know what? Now I'm typing this, I remember Cassie and Claire both telling me they might have been converted to Jared!Girls thanks to their photo-op so I'm suddenly not sure now if they turned up BEFORE or AFTER Sam, Amy and Matt... (Cassie? Do you remember? Not that it matters in the general scheme of things, but I'm kinda anal about getting the details right!).
Where was I? Oh yes, Jared is AWESOME.
By the time I got back in the room, most of Misha's talk was done, I only really caught the end - although I was there for the (sadly, inevitable) fanfiction question (which everyone booed as soon as it became clear what she was gonna say), Misha said something along the lines of 'uh oh, they don't like this question!'. He made a VERY good analogy - slash being talked about at cons is uncomfortable for us (i.e. the fans) because it's sort of like our 'dirty little secret' kinda like finding your parent's porn - you know it's probably there, but you REALLY don't want to think about it. He said he found it intriguing and then went on to say a few more things but my lack of sleep was catching up with me and I don't really remember it all that well. The lack of sleep also caused problems at dinner - although I'd like to point out the Great Pudding Robbery of 2009 was NOT my fault. Neither was the Vodka Incident. Although, I will admit to telling the waitress she was great at being Stealthy... but we'll get to all that later...
OK. The last thing on Saturday was Jared's talk. As you can imagine, my mind went a bit fuzzy for the duration so I'm BOUND to mix up things from Saturday and Sunday.
You know how I mentioned (as has everyone else I'd imagine) how Jared was having trouble understanding everyone? Well... he had even more trouble in the afternoon! Mind you, he was MUCH more awake and bouncy, but he kept laughing his head off when he couldn't figure out what he was being asked! He was almost falling of his chair laughing at one point (laughing at himself, you understand? Not us...). Someone asked him the coolest question I've ever heard at a convention - "If you were going to steal an elephant, how would you do it, and where would you hide it?" Just the question had him (and us) cracking up!
I can't remember HOW he said he'd do it, but he said he'd need to hide it somewhere with plenty of space, so he'd hide it in the crotch of Jensen's pants!!!! And then he looked around really quickly saying "he can't hear me can he?" and then assured us he was kidding!
Someone asked him about his dogs, and referred to them as 'Rescue Dogs' and, god bless him, he misunderstood and thought she meant they literally RESCUED PEOPLE! Like those St Bernard's with the brandy, or Lassie or something! But he was answering really seriously, like 'Oh no, they don't do that' and then he said 'although I did rescue THEM' (I'm paraphrasing, he was saying they had been rescued and that he got them from a shelter, or something along those lines, I was too busy cracking up at him thinking she'd asked him if his dogs rescue people...). He talked about a charity he's involved with and very much showed his Dog Lover side!
He mentioned he has a gut feeling there'll be a season 6 and he seemed perfectly happy with that idea, he definitely gives off the impression he loves the show, and the characters, and will be happy to do it as long as he feels it's worth it).
He thinks Sam has killed more demons than Dean and (while that IS true) I kept wanting to point out that all the demons he referred to killing while Dean was away, he actually sent back to hell - he didn't kill em. He seemed to think Jensen would say Sam too, but I doubted that (and I was right. But we don't find that out until Sunday, so...)
He couldn't remember the exorcism chant (which I was a teeny bit gutted about cause I would have LOVED to have heard that live! Maybe he'll remember it in time for Vancouver?), he did mention studying Latin in school though... Beauty, Charisma, Sex Appeal AND Brains? Doesn't really give the other men of the world much of a chance, does he?
When asked what the hardest episode he's filmed was, he referred to When The Levee Breaks, while somehow managing to not spoil all of the people who hadn't seen it yet (they asked during the J2 talk which episode we were up to, and they were both very good about avoiding spoilers, as were most of the people asking questions).
Anyhoo, he said the scenes in the Panic Room were the most intense, draining and difficult ones he'd ever filmed. It took three days, and on the mornings of the second and third days all he could think was 'oh god, I can't DO that again!'. The person who asked the question (I think it was her anyway) said "It was worth it" and there was a LOT of LOUD agreement to that! He seemed very glad to hear we'd liked the episode.
He said something quite cute about how he spends his (rare) days off... basically he doesn't do much, and he and Jensen rarely get the same day off, but while they were filming The Rapture he and Jensen both had a day off and didn't know what to do with themselves! Apparently Jensen said to him at one point "should we go to the set, see what's going on?" I nearly died from the absolute ADORABLENESS of that!
And then!!!! Claire got to the front of the queue and got to ask the question she'd queued up to ask both of them in the morning but hadn't been able to. "What prop, other than the Impala, would you like to nick when the show's over?"
They had a funny little bit of banter when Jared said (something along the lines of) “why can't I take the Impala? I'm going to take the Impala” and Claire asked how he'd get it off the set, so he (sarky bugger that he is) explained putting the car into drive and putting your foot on the gas... he even mimed it too!!! She pointed out he couldn't do it inconspicuously, so he conceded and told us about a prop he's ALREADY stolen!
While they were filming the crash scene at the end of Devil's Trap, he was sitting in the driver’s seat and looked at the Impala emblem on the steering wheel and thought to himself 'we might not get a second season. I'm having that!' and pulled it off the steering wheel and took it home! He still has it and may very well auction it off for charity one day.
Overall? He was GORGEOUS. I was SO SO SO SO happy to be sitting somewhere with such a good view. He was funny and charming and witty and interesting and in a very good mood and just... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah, AWESOME.
*sigh*
I think the group photo-shoots were after Jared's talk (the Sam, Amy & Matt photo shoot had been cancelled due to time problems), and none of us had that one, so we decided to go for a spot of dinner...
We went to the pub-type restaurant and proceeded to confuse the fuck out of the poor waitress... L has pretty strict dietary requirements and Cassie is deathly allergic to Bell Peppers (I SO nearly typed 'lemons' then! *G*) and I am just plain awkward... we all decided on the burger, L just in theory since she couldn't really have it... so anyway, the waitress came over and asked for our orders... J asked for a burger, Claire asked for a burger, Cassie asked for a burger but asked the waitress to make sure there were no "Peppers, Bell Peppers", in there cause she's allergic (to which I felt the need to add 'deathly allergic, She'll DIE!' - My tiredness was at pretty impressive levels by this point so I was being kinda silly :D). And then it was my turn so I asked for a burger but with no tomato, and then it was L's turn and J pointed out to Claire that they were the only two ordering off the menu in a non-fussy kinda way *G*
Once we'd all managed the apparently very complicated matter of ordering food, we got to chatting and had a most pleasant evening. One of the main topics of conversation came about due to something Jared said I have completely forgotten to mention so, if you’ll permit me, I'll go back in time for a sec to Jared's talk...
He was asked if, since HE'D been asked so many questions by us over the course of all the cons he's done, if there was a question he'd like to ask US. I (and my fellow con goers) all thought that was a very interesting question... he said he did have a question, but that it was one we wouldn't be able to answer all at once since our answers would most likely vary a lot - "I know why WE do it, why I do it, but I'd like to know why YOU GUYS go to conventions?" (he elaborated a bit but that was the main point of the question).
It's actually a subject I've discussed with everyone I've ever met at a con, to some degree or another, and my dinner companions and I all agreed that the social aspect (meeting fellow fans, meeting people you have this cool thing in common with) was a VERY big and important part of it, and we then got to chatting about what made us go to our FIRST convention (before we KNEW about meeting other fans) this one was actually Claire's first one so went went around the table talking about how we got into it all and our first experiences etc. It was a very interesting chat and I found myself wishing we had a way to actually answer Jared's (very cool) question in a way he'd actually see (or hear) it.
So... while we were talking a waiter (or possibly manager of some kind) came over and told Cassie she couldn't have the burger because the pepper was in the burger itself. Which seemed fair enough to me since that's how I make burgers too - except when the food arrived it became clear there WERE NOT any peppers in the burgers - we think he thought she said she was allergic to pepper (as in black pepper rather than bell peppers). Ooops!
Oh, I remembered an hilarious moment from earlier on - a waiter (or manager?) was walking towards the table just as my sister was saying I can't have fat or white flour or sugar or a bunch of other things and he said 'well you definitely can't have the fish and chips then' and for some unknown reason I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard and didn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes!!! I think it was just the WAY he said it...
So then we ordered dessert... L decided she might be able to risk a cheesecake (since she hadn't eaten all that much of her dinner) and asked the waitress what was in it, the waitress said she wasn't sure so she'd let her have a look at one to see if it looked OK (not sure why she thought L would be able to figure out the ingredients just by looking, but it's the thought that counts). So... she came back about 2 minutes later with 2 cheesecakes on big fancy plates - she held one out in front of L and said "this is it, what do you think?" and L said (cause it looked GREAT) "oh yeah, I'm sure that'll be fine!" and held her hand out... now, I'm pretty sure there was a moment of hesitation before the waitress put the plate down, and then put the other one down in from of J (J and Claire had already ordered the Cheesecake and Cassie and I ordered the Chocolate Tart), but as she walked away it occurred to me - she hadn't really been gone long enough to have ordered and picked up our desserts, and she only actually said she was going to SHOW L the cheesecake... so we came to the conclusion L had accidentally stolen someone else's pudding! This theory was backed up by the fact the rest of our puds took quite a bit longer to get to us... oops!
Oh well. That was, without a doubt, the most DELICOUS Chocolate Tart IN THE WORLD, so I don't really care all that much :o)
And now it is half past midnight and my wrist HURTS from all the typing, so I'm going to leave this post as Saturday Afternoon, and do Saturday Night as a separate post tomorrow. So...
End of Saturday Part Two (time to settle the bill - which turns out to be almost as complicated as ordering... *G*)(they couldn't split the bill, so we had to try to work out how much we all owed, it took us longer than I'm proud of to realise we could just divide the total by 5... ;D)
Coming up in Part Three...
My niece freaks me out and embarrasses me in public, BEFORE SHE'S EVEN BEEN BORN! I assure J her can won't explode if I tap the lid before opening it for her... as my jeans can attest to - that trick doesn't work EVERY time... Genevieve is very nice and friendly and Danneel is the most beautiful woman ON THE PLANET.