So the first person anyone in our group runs in to is...well...
Talkie Guy. He's an author. He's a
VERY talkative author. One that does nothing but talk about himself and how great he is. So for PC/PR
1 purposes he is aptly named
Talkie Guy and henceforth will
ONLY be mentioned as
Talkie Guy. (Got to make sure slander is kept to a decent level of simple sarcasm)
Anyhoo...
M.B. runs into
Talkie Guy while
the hubby and I are stuck in the colossal mayhem that is Pre-Registration (see photo in
To DragonCon 2009 and Back Again blog). I start receiving rabid texts proclaiming her aggravation and fear that
Talkie Guy will somehow manage to bore her so quickly to tears that her brain may actually implode taking her PC/PR
1 consciousness with it; and then will either say something she shouldn't or...well...lets just say we are working on
M.B.'s conflict issues. Neither of these is a good option. So, acting in my duty to keep her sane, I quickly enforce the "Emergency Save M.B. System".
Oooooooo..... I must explain this new system. I can't really go into details, but it all boils down to
M.B. has her first stalker!! Yay!! Go
M.B.!! The Fan calls himself something specific but for the purposes of this blog we will just call him "The Stalker" Man, this guy really isn't firing on all cylinders...
......Ok. For those of you that know the WHOLE story....I'm sorry, I just can't help myself "
when someone asks you if you're a god, you say "YES"! (Sorry, I know that was wrong, I deserve punishment.)....
....
...moving on...
So, this information, as funny as it may be, is a bit frightening (as well it should be).
M.B. immediately consults the TSME (Top Secret Military Expert or as I like to call him "
Smee") regarding the situation who takes quick action and advises anyone that works closely with
M.B. about the situation. We now have a code word, which will not be named, for her to use in a sentence or text or whatever. This word will let us know that she's in trouble and in need immediate extraction.
Now, enter
Talkie Guy. In my quick wit to try to keep her sane in the present situation I immediately create the "Emergency Save M.B. System", which just so happens to be my own version of the code word system put in place for "The Stalker". Ha Ha!
"This is a test of the Emergency Save M.B. System. The code word is snarf-plat. In the use of snarf-plat, you shall receive one Emergency phone call to help you release yourself of any and all Talkie type humanoids. This is a test of the Emergency Save M.B. System. If this had been an actual emergency..."
Next thing I know I'm receiving a text with the word snarf-plat repeated continuously for 2 solid texts! Way to go with them conflict issues,
M.B.!! Ha Ha! And that was just check-in....
The first celeb
my eyes spotted was
Michael Hogan at breakfast the next morning. He was sitting a table from us in the hospitality lounge of the executive levels. I had seen him last year and thought him a wonderful man. I had no fear giving him a "Morning" when I passed him with my bowl of cornflakes and fresh cut strawberries.
Not two bites into my bowl
Mary McDonnell walks up to him to greet an old friend. She had nothing but smiles and a genuine affection for him. It seems as though all I've heard about her being hard to get along with are false (more on this later).
Just when I thought my breakfast couldn't get any better
Leonard Nimoy walks from out of the hallway where my room is located. Now the hallways have about 12 rooms (or doors anyway). 6 down each side of the hall. I know
Mr. Nimoy didn't walk from one of the doors near the lounge, so he had to be in the middle of the hall or near the back. My room was the last room on the left. That put him anywhere from 1 to 3 rooms away. Awesome!
After eating, I went back to my room to finish getting ready for the day. I turned on
DragonCon TV to watch part of the "
TrekTrak Presents Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner" panel. It was hysterical (
link to news). This was going to be a good day.
The things we managed to accomplish that day were getting tickets for our autographs of
Mr. Nimoy,
William Shatner, and
Kate Mulgrew from one table, and tickets for
Ben Browder and
Rachel Luttrell from another. We were able to shake hands with several stars, but the main ones were not to come until Saturday, which was well and good because we spent most of our day in line for
Mr. Nimoy and
Mr. Shatner's autographs. I must say that I was more impressed with them during the
panel than I was meeting them face to face for autographs. They barely smiled to anyone. I can totally understand not personalizing autographs or shaking hands, because the lines are ridiculous long, but a simple smile in my general direction would have moved me to tears. I am content though, where
Nimoy and
Shatner couldn't move me
Mr. Allen Ruck did.
I'm an 80s kid. Just as most 80s kids, I loved
Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Cameron Frye, played by
Mr. Ruck, was probably my favorites character in the film. I have used the quote "..you're my hero.." more times than I can count.
He was awesome! He was more than happy to take photos and chat for a bit. I walked away so excited about it all that I was crying. Thank you
Mr. Ruck for being such a wonderful person.
That evening, Friday, we managed to get tickets to the Atlanta Braves baseball game (Thankx again, Becca!). We had a blast!
We were not the only Con-goers at the game.
Catherine Bach and
John Schneider (
Bo and Daisy Duke) also made it out. They were apparently having a blast too. The stadium asked them up to lead the crowd in the traditional "Take me out to the ball game" song. When I chatted with them the next day
Mrs. Bach had no problems teasing
Mr. Schneider of stealing the show! Ha Ha! There are plenty more photos of the game in the Flickr link to the right.
Saturday was awesome! Breakfast with
Bruce Boxleitner a table away, wonderful conversation with
Peter Jurasik and
Stephen Furst, and
M.B. had a fun elevator ride with
Tom Felton (you will have to ask her about this one! ha ha!) Not to mention we made our way through the lines for
Kate Mulgrew and
Patrick Stewart.
Mrs. Mulgrew and
Mr. Stewart were much more personable than
Mr. Nimoy and
Mr. Shatner. They smiled and were talkative.
Mr. Stewart even let me snap a photo of him signing autographs.
Sorry this photo is not so good. It was taken with my camera phone. I didn't want to disturb him with a flash.
Also on Saturday we managed to get our autographs of
Rachel Luttrell, who was absolutely beautiful,
Ben Browder, who was more than happy to let me snap a shot of him signing our stuff. That's
my hubby in the foreground.
We were also able to get
Joe Flanigan's autograph. He was also a wonderful person to meet and allowed us to take a photo (even if his "Gatekeeper" was being insistent of no photos).
From there we moved on to an
EXCITING thumb wrestle match with
Richard Hatch! I've met
Mr. Hatch before, at
BabelCon in Baton Rouge. I do some charity work with a group called the
Cast Away's Open Theatre Troupe. We were part of the show at
BabelCon. Our Queen, Dionne, has been madly in love with
Mr. Hatch since the
original airing of Battlestar Galactica. We managed to get
Mr. Hatch to hold audience with Her Majesty, and as my duty states (as Court Jester), I must teach ALL the proper way to grovel before Her. Yes, I managed to get
Mr. Hatch to kneel before the Queen of Hearts! Now, every time I see
Mr. Hatch I have to stop and say hello, but I had never thumb wrestled him. I decided that this time I was up for the challenge! I must say that
Mr. Hatch has an evil power over his thumb. It's strength and might could cower the toughest of challengers. I truly believe that only my very long background in piano allowed me the quick dexterity to wiggle free of him several times (and probably some sweat from nervousness).
Mr. Hatch told me that I put up a great fight and offered me the AWESOMENESS of a future rematch. Does anyone know any good thumb exercises?
From there we moved to
Mary McDonnell's line. While
my hubby was in her line I quickly moved over to
Karen Allen. I've always been a fan of the
Indiana Jones series and Raiders of the Lost Arc was one of my favorites. It blew me away that she made an appearance in the newest move, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I was thrilled to meet her. She was so nice and welcomed chatting. But there is more to her story that is more moving... I'll get to that in a sec.
So,
Mary McDonnell. As I said earlier, I had heard rumors that she was not so nice. After seeing her be so welcoming to
Michael Hogan at breakfast the other morning, I was kind of pumped to meet her. My love is not the new
Battlestar Galactica. My love for her was from
Dances With Wolves. Apparently I was one of the few people at the Convention that wanted a photo of her from
Dances With Wolves autographed. She just beamed when I asked for it. She could have cared less that
my husband was standing next to me with a
Battlestar photo. She wanted to talk to me. My entire perspective of her changed at that moment. Thank you
Mrs. McDonnell for being such a gem to me at
DragonCon.
After that we moved to
Dirk Benedict's line. OMG! I was totally in love with Starbuck from the
original airing of Battlestar Galactica. But, this is where my story of
Karen Allen comes in. Her table was right next to
Mr. Benedict's. We were in his line for quite a bit because he was talking about his book to a fan. You know them Authors and their ability to talk for hours about their works! Ha Ha! Anyway, I was close enough to
Mrs. Allen's table that I could hear everything said. A man walked up with what looked like 5 sons ranging in age from around 17 to 7. They had asked for her to make out her autograph "To a heroic mother of 7" (2 of the children were either to young or much older).
Mr. Allen was so moved by them that it took her a moment to grasp what she was writing. She came around the table to get a photo with all the boys. The father was in tears that he was able to do this. It was simply awesome to watch.
Mr. Benedict was nice too. We were even able to get this photo out of him.
So after doing all of that,
my hubby and I meet up with
M.B. for some well needed rest for the afternoon, before heading off to the Aquarium.
M.B. and I were walking do my room when we noticed three men standing outside of a room 2 doors down from me. As we got close we realized it was
Mr. Nimoy! They politely excused themselves for being in OUR way! Ha Ha! As if
Mr. Nimoy could ever be in OUR way! As soon as we walk in my room
M.B. nearly crumbles to the floor in excitement.
"I just walked past Leonard Nimoy!" She said
"Yes you did." I returned.
"Where's my phone? I have to tweet this."
"How about some coffee?" I asked
"Ok. In a minute." M.B. said as she was furiously trying to type on her tiny cell phone keypad.
"M.B., they are not going to be standing in the hall all day. If you want to casually walk by a second time, we need to go now." She suddenly looked up while exiting out of the chat window of her phone.
"See, this is why I hired you."
"I know." (enter big cheezy grin)
Oh, but it gets better... The next morning I'm walking back to my room from eating breakfast and
Mr. Nimoy comes out of the room directly across the hall from me! I'm guessing that it was the suite. I was sleeping NEXT DOOR to
Mr. Nimoy the entire weekend! COOLNESS!!!!
Before heading to the
Aquarium Saturday night,
M.B. had a panel to do on upcoming apocalypse movies. This was an interesting panel to see, but what made it even more interesting was that
Tony Gowell was there. He had recently received a role as a Zombie in the new movie
Zombieland.
He supplied this photo for me to use. This was before the
colored contacts and blood from his mouth
EWWWWW!!
We got to listen to all sorts of fun stories about shooting and being on set. Even some really disgusting ones about wardrobe malfunctions (can you imagine the malfunctions zombies can come up with). "I love everything zombie, and had one of my dreams come true" he told me. He was a wonderful storyteller and I was excited to see him again Monday night for drinks, after the Con closed.
Sighs, you would think after all that excitement that I would have been completely blown away from this year's
DragonCon, but I'm not finished yet. I think the one person that blew my mind more than anyone else at the Convention was
Felicia Day. Some of you are probably going "Who the heck is that?" Well,
Felicia Day is not a huge star of stage and screen but she has most certainly made her mark with the
DragonCon goers. I went to the convention knowing her from
The Guild, a webisode about gamers. I had heard plenty about
Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog, but I didn't know that she was in it. I had only seen small clips of it.
So let me set this up. You have
Joss Whedon, who is an uber huge director in the Sci-fi/fantasy world for doing
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then in 2002 he releases
Firefly. Both of these two shows have an enormous fan base. So when Fox dumped
Firefly the fans took action. Eventually
Mr. Whedon answered the call of the fans and made the movie
Serenity. So when the writer's strike happened he decided to create
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog to be solely based on the internet. Just about every
Joss Whedon fan has seen
Dr. Horrible's.
Felicia Day played in it alongside
Nathan Fillion (from Firefly) and
Neil Patrick Harris.
So now
Felicia Day has all the
Joss Whedon fans (i can not stress to you how many people that is!! It's a lot!)
Felicia Day not only stars in
The Guild, but is the writer as well. You don't have to be a gamer to understand the series, but you do need some sort of understanding of the gaming world and how it effects people's lives. It's a hilarious comedy set up along the lines of
The Office, but moves at a much faster pace.
So now lets add in all the Gamers to the
Joss Whedon fans. That's a lot of freaking people.
Patrick Stewart,
William Shatner, and
Leonard Nimoy may have had a long lines for the one or two days they were here, and may have had packed panels, but
Felicia Day not only had the packed panels, but a long line every single day of the convention. She was fun and genuinely wanted to speak to every person that she could. I even heard that she visited the Karaoke bar on Friday night. I sooooo wish I could have been there to sing with her (
my Myspace Music page). Maybe next year..
M.B. and I managed to make the tail end of one of her panels.
M.B. had never heard of her, but was completely enthralled with her the moment she said she loved to read fantasy and her favorite Author was
Peter Beagle. From that point on it was made my mission to put an autographed copy of
A Prophecy Forgotten in to
Felicia Day's hands.
I hope you've enjoyed this installment of Celebrities and Authors and Artists! Oh My! Please feel free to pass this along to any friends and family members and any of the above mentioned stars for their enjoyment of what it's like to TRULY be on the D list.... or actually a little under.
1. PC/PR = politically correct and public relation issues of any type.
