The Joe and David Show, part 2 (pics and report) - Chicago Con 2010
Arriving at the United terminal at LAX, I was told to go upstairs to a different security check point because the line behind the TSA agent was too long (I'm looking over her shoulder and I don't see ANYONE). Thinking I might have misheard, I asked her to repeat. Nope, apparently my hearing was fine. So, I follow the previous person who was directed away and we head into the elevator. We both felt weirded out that we had to go to another line when there was no one (visible) at the regular line. "Where are you flying?" he asks me. "Chicago." "Oh, me too. You going for business or family?" Hmm, he didn't look the con type, more like a business person. "Oh, I'm just visiting friends." Yep, I still can't admit it...
So, we get up to this "other" security check point and there's only one x-ray machine... and about 100+ people in line for it. Ugh. BUT, that actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because Maggs (magaday ) was running late. She was racing to get to the airport and hopefully fly out with me on standby. By the time I got to the front of the line, Maggs was just parking the car. I ended up letting some of the people behind me go and in less than a few minutes she found me! Aside from the TSA agent allowing Maggs to cut in line to join me, this particular crew had to be the toughest bunch I've come across in awhile. "You have more than two bags, ma'am. You need to condense them NOW before I let you through." "Shoes must be placed OUTSIDE of the tray. Not inside." Shessh.
After that little drama, everything else went well. Maggs was able to get on my flight and we were off to Chicago! Getting into the hotel close to midnight Chicago time, we met up with roomie vecturist and instead of being wise women, we stayed up chatting away. That turned out to be a mistake because apparently (it must be a sign how much one Mr. Joe Flanigan affects us all) none of us slept well that night. Waking up early, we prepped and got out of our room to meet up with a group of Vec’s friends and headed out to breakfast. Pancakes Eggcetera was within walking distance and affordable. The food was decent but not impressive but we had the place nearly to ourselves.
Back from breakfast, we went to register. Creation, for some strange reason, didn’t have credit card machines and had to take our card numbers down the old fashion way. What??!!! That process took awhile. Shame on Creation! Sometime between, we bumped into rinkrat13 who I haven't seen since VanCon back in April. She's at the con for just the Saturday, spending the rest of her vacation on seeing Chicago sites (I wished I had the extra vacation time for that too).
Joe photo op - This being my 3rd con, I wasn’t sure how I would react to a Joe encounter. I figured I would be mellow. Turned out, I was still nervous, just not insanely nervous. That being said, I still couldn’t say anything outside of my standard, “Hi Joe. How are you?” Gosh, I really need to work on that!! I haven’t worked up the nerve to ask for a hug either. I did my standard one-arm-around-his-waist-from-behind while he had his arm around my shoulder. I remembered my Joe and Michael pic from Van Con - I was a smiling lunatic. So, I tampered my “enthusiasm” and just smiled for the camera. Turned out well, my only satisfying pic to date!
After pictures, we went to the dealers' room. It was not very big unfortunately and so I was again disappointed. I’ve wanted the disappearing puddle jumper mug forever but they keep saying it’s still on backorder. Is that a euphemism for “never in your life time, idiot”?? Found out from Vec that one of the vendors had a region 1 version of Thoughtcrimes. But I guess by Saturday morning, they ran out. Vendor said they will be at the LA Con so I have another chance to get it then.
The Joe and David Panel - we headed into the main auditorium and to our seats. There, I finally met Strey (sterenyk_strey )! We didn’t have much time to chat though ‘cause we found out sgafan won for best Sheppard video (wooot!!!!). We watched her Men in Black video (yum) and before you know it, Joe and David were on stage. Yikes!! I wasn’t quite ready so I might have lost a few seconds of dialogue there. I gave Maggs my point and shoot so that, if she had a chance, she could take better up-close shots of Joe and David. I used my SLR and although I was able to capture pics - they were all ever so slightly fuzzy once I downloaded them. So, I have no pics from that segment to post. I eventually got up and moved over to the wall so that I can get better pics of the two on stage without having heads taking up half my frame. Pics came out better once Creation was kind enough to turn up the house lights too. My point and shoot couldn’t deliver - too many heads in the way, plus the loose dial pulled a fast one on Maggs so she had a hard time figuring out how to reset the settings. But here are pics from the SLR.
Some picture highlights…
Joe’s phone apparently rang (didn’t hear it. Maybe it tickled him??). That’s when Joe told us David pranked him somehow. David got a hold of his iphone sometime backstage and managed to change the settings so that if the phone rang, David’s pic would pop up (he took a self-pic using Joe’s iphone!).
One of the fans asked him to elaborate on why his Twitter account description said “failed model”. Joe did some Zoolander faces but ultimately admitted that he never modeled. He even asked who would hire him to model. One of the fans along the Q&A line yelled, “We would!!”
Here's Joe's Magnum... sexy, yes?
And here's his Blue Steel...
Aside from the Runners Up trophy, David got several gifts from his fans whilst on stage. One of the last ones was from a kid and mom who presented him with a brown paper bag. When he opened it, it contained baggies of fruit loops cereal, all separated by color, in honor of his A Dog’s Breakfast. David totally flaunted to Joe that he has all these gifts while Joe had none.
The autograph session - well, what can I say. Experience from the past cons, especially the very large VanCon, taught me that this takes FOREVER, especially if you’re not in the first few rows or was not VIP. I knew that Joe was pressed for time and I was worried that Creation may make Joe walk the line (that’s what happened at last year’s Chi Con, I heard). Since I was nearer the back, I didn’t want a hurried signature. I ended up sacrificing my “Joe encounter” and gave my items to Maggs since she was up in row G. After that, we retired back to our room. Maggs and I discussed what we wanted to do now that we were free. Maggs had a great chance of flying back home on standby if she left that afternoon. Ultimately, she made the right decision by leaving then. She ended up catching her flight (my Sunday morning plane was jammed packed).
Vecturist and I went down for Michael Shank’s panel. I ended up using Magg’s seat pass so that I can see Michael better. Pictures were still a nightmare because of heads and, in particular, one person’s arms (she kept holding her camera above her head to shoot, which then blocked the line-of-site for people behind her). I eventually gave up and just sat and enjoyed his panel. He’s always very entertaining.
After the panel, I joined Vecturist for dinner. She introduced me to a bunch of writers! It was great meeting the whump writers - Ruffles (wildcat88 ), T’Pring (tepring ), coolbreeze1 , kristen999 and everybetty ! And, I didn’t realize this at the time, but the other ladies in that group who I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself to were none other than titan5 and friendshipper !! At this point, I figure there were probably even more writers at the con and I just didn’t know. Every once in awhile during the David autograph session, I would hear someone say to someone, “are you (insert GW or LJ name)?” “Yes.” “It’s great to finally meet you. I’m such a fan of your work.”
So with that, I regret not meeting more whumpers that were there. I realized I missed out on many! Pocus (abracah ), GateGeek, Knighty, to say the least. And I didn’t even get enough time to properly catch up with RinkRat or get to know Strey either!
Observations about the various Creation Cons…
LA Con was nice and apparently small. It’s a better venue if you want to have a tiny bit more time with Joe. And, the con runs side-by-side with the Farscape Con (and Firefly for the one coming up in Nov) if you're into that.
Van Con was huge. It would have been nice to see the Atlantis set. It’s a great venue to catch as many SG actors possible since it is Stargate Mecca. Apparently you can meet a lot of international fans and fans of SG-1 too.
Chicago Con was also very large (largest Creation Con in the US apparently). This was, in particular, rather disorganized. However, a lot of US-based whumpers (and writers) go to this one. Cool.