Saturday, September 11, 2010

Dragon*Con 2010

Things started off crazy since I needed to graduate my students out before I could go anywhere. They all passed with flying colors which not only had me excited for such a high class average but it meant I could leave town ontime. Flying was no trouble. Landing in Atlanta was nuts.



I can't remember the last time I took a subwaylike system. Jared told me to take Marta which I thought was the train that went between concourses.....oh no... it was the public sub trans system that will shoot you into the heart of Atlanta. Wasn't bad but still had my stomach in knots trying toget where I was going.

Only there 10 minutes and already attacked by Deadpool fans!


Once I made it to my destination that is where the fun began. DragonCon is like the biggest multiblock party that lasts for 4 days. You are bumping elbows with Klingons, superhero characters, steampunk creations and everything in between. Its not just for the geeks....its for EVERYONE and oh man there are some really hot men and women cosplaying out there (cosplay- costume of your fav characters). What is even more funny is the fact you could be walking alongside a celebrity at any moment. Next year I know of a few celebrities that may wear their attire from their shows just to see if people think they are a good rendition of that character :')



I was supposed to be assigned to Marc Singer (Beastmaster, V the series, etc...) but the man moves at such a high speed that giving him a person to help handle business would only slow him down. He is amazing to watch because he is very people friendly and is willing to go out and shake everyone's hands if you let him. Since he didn't need help, I was assigned to Summer Glau as a line manager..... trust me she needed it. She is known as River on Firefly and as the cute terminator on the Sarah Conner Chronicles. That girl is sooo sweet. She let the line continue even after closing just to get a chance to meet and sign for more fans. Meant long days for us handlers but still it was worth it!
Summer Glau and our friend G.



Line duty? Easy some think but when you are working in a convention setting where there is thousands and thousands of people with about 300 of those people wanting to be in line for Summer.... well.... its nuts. My job was to keep them all on the marked off taped areas (so we know which guest's line they were in) and I was taking their orders ahead of time to save the handler sitting next to her some time. It was almost a mantra to be telling these people "30 for an autograph, 10 to take a picture with her using a personal camera......" At least 3 times I was asked how much to take Summer home in which I replied, "You need to negotiate that with the man up there with the tattoos, that's her boyfriend." I tried to make the whole ordeal fun since they were all in for a long wait. We joked, laughed and talked about where they were from, what costumes they were wearing and so forth. When I had people trying to take unauthorized pictures I would get in the way and then have to make the people delete what was on the camera.... I got tired of this so the next crazy thing i did was I told these people that I hated to get mean (which I did) but the big man behind me (Kane who plays Jason in Friday the 13th movies) has a machete and isnt afraid to assist. On one of these times he heard me he thwapped the machete hard on the table in front of him. Was frickin hilarious to see a full row jump. He and his buddy were looking at the table to see if they dented it....thankfully the machete he had used still had the plastic safety edge on it LOL



I still did a lot of running when not doing line duty. Would say that working the con saves you money but it didn't. When Bobbi and I had a chance to break away for awhile, I spent over 300 dollars in stuff to bring back for friends and family. OH well. Did get a chance to look over at the pictures of Eddie McClintock's table when he was on break. He stars as Pete on Warehouse 13 but I didn't know before the convention that he was an artist. His bold line work and comical pictures were really good! When I had a chance to speak with him later during a slow period he was telling me how his wife encouraged him to set up a website for his artwork. I need to look at the website later to see whats there at http://www.eddiemcclintock.com/ He is a really nice guy to shoot the breeze with.
Obama Jedi and Bubba Fett



Two people that were also very enjoyable to talk to were Daniel Harris and Shawnee Smith. Both girls worked on various horror flicks like Saw, Friday the 13th and so forth. Looking at them they look like they should be carded for cigarettes but omg they were 33 and 41....that blew my mind! Shawnee was telling me about her 3 kids and her significant other Braiden who has a company called Miles of Chocolate. Dang it I missed out on the divine chocolate he was passing out! I was picking on him later about it but we went off on a tangent about the Amazon Kindle instead :')

Beautifully done!


One person to watch out for when it comes to the actors we were working with.... Kane Hodder. That guy (who played Jason ) is a prankster.... someone gave that man a bottle of Con funk! Con funk is that awful smell of a person who smells like they ran a marathon and hasn't bathed in weeks. I never understood why you don't SHOWER before coming to meet some of your favorite stars. Someone out there found a way to bottle this funk as a practical joke and Kane got a hold of this stuff. At the time I was having a nice conversation with Kevin (Erin Gray's son) about audiobooks when he smells it first. We were looking around trying to figure out who reeks when we see a grinning Kane from 2 tables away. He shows us the bottle, then casually walks out to the middle of the room where the fans walk. He descretly sprays a whiff then walks back to the table to chat lightly with his friends. Poor Poor steampunk group that happened to walk thru the fallout area, they started choking and holding their nose looking around for the foul being. Kane and the rest of us are laughing til that fallout crowd (damn the circulating A/C) started making the smell head our way. I warned Bobbi and her friend,who where sitting with Edward James Olmos, about the impending doom.

Sorry Guys, I didn't get their numbers


We did have some hotel troubles while out there but overall the whole DragonCon experience was great this time around. My Velma costume was a hit and had to stop about 20 times for pictures. I saw some great inspiration for a steampunk costume for next year.



Definetly worth doing it again
Me as Velma

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