Well that was fun – Day 1

So this past Thursday, Jared and I packed up and drove to Atlanta to visit friends and hit Dragon*Con. It’s pretty much what I consider my “home” convention, and is one that I enjoy every chance I can get. I Twittered a lot of quick lines while I was at the con but missed a lot of stuff along the way.

This was the first year they’ve started at 10am on Friday morning. Normally, it’s 1pm on Friday that the con gets cranked up, so that was a bit different. Four hotels this year when I’m used to three. And while yes, there’s usually 30,000 people in attendance, I’m curious to see what this year’s numbers are, cos it felt like a lot more this year.

Side note: If you have problems with claustrophobia and random strangers touching you in random places completely unintentionally because it’s just that crowded, this may not be the con for you.

Thursday, we hit Atlanta and Mike and Heather’s house were we were staying. (Thank you again, guys!) That afternoon, all we did was head into downtown Atlanta, pick up our badges (that took an hour, even though we were there practically right on time), and had dinner with them and more people from WoW that we knew that were in town. Fire of Brazil was a lovely place, but I’m not sure they knew what to make of our table. Yes, the geeks over in the corner were a little rowdy. Sorry. ^^; At least no one started getting stupid, just silly. After that, it was home time to mess with their cats and get some sleep before the con got started the next day.

The panel that started it all off Friday morning at 10am, the Shatner/Nimoy panel, was great. We didn’t have a chance at the main room, but they had an overflow room with video screens showing it in another hotel. Walking into the room to hear Shatner asking Nimoy “Did you just call me a ‘dickhead’?” was giggle-worthy. I’m hoping that panel makes it onto the con DVD for this year.

The Spin City panel with Barry Bostwick and Alan Ruck was also great. I like these panels where the people on them actually -like- each other and aren’t making nice for the fans. Most of the questions ended up in one of three camps for them: Rocky Horror (Bostwick), Ferris Bueller (Ruck), and of course, Spin City (both of them). A good time was had by all.

The Farscape panel was good, but sadly the two people from Farscape I hadn’t seen weren’t there yet: Claudia Black and Ben Browder. I was amused that my personal description of Browder (“He-Of-The-Tight-Leather-Pants”) was echoed by Virginia Hey when she was asked what scene/show she liked the most from Farscape (“Any one that Ben’s wearing those tight leather pants in!”)

By then, it was head back to our friends’ house to pick up Heather, who’d stayed home while Mike, Jared and I went around doing geeky stuff at the con. That night, we had our once-a-con dinner with our friend, Josepha Sherman, a wonderful author and folklorist. Jo was having a moment in time involving a plane that broke, a delayed departure, and no convention badge yet, even though she’d already been on one panel right before we came to get her for dinner. /facepalm At least dinner was delightful, and we headed home for the night.

Tomorrow: the rollercoaster that was Saturday.