Overall General Synopsis: DragonCon is FUN, FUN, FUN! Did you expect anything else? Come, you’ll see. DragonCon never fails to impress me at how well-run it is, considering that most of the staff are volunteers, and how well mannered, accepting, and polite everyone is. There are lines. There are always lines. There are crowds, and sometimes it’s hard to just get a bite to eat for all the people, but you can meet some really nice people in those lines and as long as everyone’s being nice to each other, it doesn’t seem to matter how long the queue is for an event.
Day One, Friday:
Jokers Spotted: At least 10
Jokers in Nurse’s Costume: 3-4, mostly girls
Creepily real, male, in-character Joker in Nurse’s costume with detonator: 1
Batmen: 1
….Things aren’t looking good for the Bat. He’s outnumbered.
4:00 PM: We went to the Battlestar Gallactica panel. Almost the whole crew was there, and though I’ve never seen the show, I had a lot of fun. Edward James Olmos, in particular, was hilarious. It was really nice to see the comraderie of the cast toward each other.
7:00 PM: Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog Of course, I cheered like the Joss Whedon fangirl I am, and sang along with more than 500 other folks to every song in the show. The shadow-cast did really well. The picture cut out a couple of times, but they got it fixed quickly enough, and the shadow-cast kept the show going perfectly.
10:00: The Brobdingnagian Bards Concert: There was a little confusion as they weren’t actually listed on the schedule, but we made it only a few minutes late. I love these guys. I have pretty much all of their cds and am an avid listener to their podcast. They never fail to make me laugh, and they wear kilts. There is no bad in this.
11:30: Abney Park Concert: The first not-so-great thing at DragonCon…the sound system simply wasn’t equipped to handle them, and there was so much reverb that it was difficult to make out the music. I’ve loved everything that I’ve heard of theirs, it’s a pity that, at least where I was seated in the audience, I couldn’t hear what they were playing and pretty much just got…indistinguishable white noise.
Day Two, Saturday:
10:00: The Parade, started with bagpipes and men in kilts. This, I think, is a good start for anything. Batman appears to have gotten reinforcements, there’s three of them now, as well as Robin, and Adam West in the Batmobile. He’s flanked by superheroes of both the DC and Marvel universes. The Jokers better watch out! Unfortunately, the parade was the place where we encountered our first (and only!) rude person of the Con. In a convention that has always amazed me by the courtesy of the people who attend it, her behavior rather stood out in comparison. Nonetheless, we found a good spot on the corner and got some good pictures, and I think the parade caught some Geek converts – a badgeless little girl who was Ooohing and Aaahing over the costumes, particularly the Star Wars people.
2:30: Living in Smallville – Michael Rosenbaum was absolutely hilarious. He didn’t really want to talk much about Smallville, he was more interested in discussing his newer projects, and he was a bit dismayed by people who insisted on calling him Lex, but he was extremely appreciative of the fans and played along with them to great effect. He even got down in the audience (much to the chagrin of the DC*TV folks who had to shoot him in the dark). The highlight, I think, was the fellow dressed as Zod in a handmade coat, who asked Mr. Rosenbaum to repeat his line: K
NEEL BEFORE ZOD! – said line became a running joke throughout the whole panel.
THEN WE WENT SHOPPING. I got a corset from the wonderful folks at Brute Force Leather. They had some nice steampunky looking corsets, goggles, weapons, gears…. I’m not really into the goth stuff right now (I have been before!) so I get tired of corsetiers who come to cons with nothing but black…black….black….and the occasional blood red with black accents. Sometimes you want variety, you know? The Brute Force folks had some absolutely phenomenal fabrics I didn’t see anywhere else during the whole con. Maps, clocks, parchment, playing cards. I ended up settling on a canvas map fabric that had black lining.
Dinner: On my mom’s recommendation, we tried Daily’s, but, unfortunately, weren’t that impressed. The desert bar was something to see, though, and the key lime mousse we got for desert was phenomenal, but the actual entrees didn’t seem to be as good as you would expect for the price. Compared to similar higher-priced eating places we’re familiar with, the food just wasn’t as good.
10:00 The Shindig: I was rather shocked to arrive and find that I was the only person in the Giant Pink Fluffy Thing. There were tons of other Casual Kaylees there, and tons of pictures were taken, which I never, ever expected. I’m usually the one behind the camera, not in front of it. It was a wonderful party, but we ended up leaving fairly early in an attempt to get to the Vaudeville/Burlesque show. Unfortunately, we fell into the trap of Trying to Do Too Much At Con, and by the time we got changed into an outfit I could actually sit down in and got down to the show, it was full and had been closed. Probably would’ve been better to just stay at the Shindig, but by that point my feet were two giant pain-generating devices and we decided to head back to the hotel to rest up. Along the way, we ended up walking to our hotel beside James Callis, Edward James Olmos, and Michael Hogan…and despite me poking him discreetly in the side for several minutes, the SO didn’t even notice that he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people he idolizes. Meanwhile, it was all I could do to “act cool” and not go rabid fangirl, no matter how much my feet hurt.
Turns out they all were headed to the Colonial Fleet party, where they…partied with their fans. How awesome is that?
Day Three, Sunday:
11:00: Sean Astin, Remembering the Taste of Strawberries. This panel was, by far, the most touching of all of them. Of course, I have adored Sean Astin since I first watched Goonies as a child. He’s one of those actors that has managed to have the best of both worlds – a successful career in movies and a wonderful life at home. I honestly think he could have gone on the whole hour just talking about his kids, and I would have loved to hear it. He talked a great deal about his charity work and his upcoming projects, all of which I am extremely excited to see.
2:30: An Hour in the Firefly Verse: Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, and Jewel Staite were all there for this one. The main thing I can say about it is….Nathan Fillion is absolutely nuts. In a good way. He and Michael Rosenbaum should team up and be a comedy team, because they both had me absolutely rolling with la
ughter during their respective panels. The crew were still very much a crew up there, clearly fond of each other and happy to be where they were, and very appreciative of the fans, those Browncoats who became a true force to be reckoned with and still, to this day, work to get Firefly back on the air. Probably the highlight of this panel for the entire audience was when someone pointed out that since Firefly has been cancelled, Mal and Inara would never kiss…so they did, drawing it out with huge over-dramatic sighs for comedic effect.
For the rest of our time at DragonCon, we pretty much just relaxed and hung out, touring the art show and the Walk of Fame. It was an exhausting weekend, but well worth it, and we had a blast!
The Pictures:
(There are more, but these are a good sampling.)
For those of you who don’t know, November is National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been a participant in NaNoWriMo for the last couple of years, and it’s always a blast. (If, of course, your definition of a blast means not sleeping, drinking energy drinks round the clock, and agonizing over character development.)
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