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Post by Lola m on Apr 24, 2006 18:32:09 GMT -5
So good to see you posting again, teacherdarling! #wavey# I have to run off right now, but . . . **bookmarks to read in depth later** |
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Post by Lola m on Aug 4, 2010 19:29:30 GMT -5
My usual long, very long, huge bunch of babbling ahead over OMG way too many posts! Possible spoilers for multiple shows! Likelihood that I’m forgetting all the best bits! A distinct remembering bias towards things that are relevant to my interests! (I did at least use the interwebtubes and Monnie's and my photos to make sure I (hopefully) spelled people’s names right and so on.) Wednesday• When we were eating a late lunch at the hotel, someone was being interviewed at the table over, but we didn’t know who he was.   • The emails and so on said we couldn’t get our badges that day at the convention center (since we didn’t have preview night tix we had been told it was either a drive out to this other locale or get them the next day), but we decided to check things out at the convention center anyway. So, we walk along the sidewalk, along the line, past the line of other people, asking the security people. We keep telling them we don’t have preview night tix and they keep saying to go further down to another door. When we get there, past all the waiting people, they just . . . let us in. Right up the escalator and walk up to the right guy who gets us set up, no wait, no problem. We were confused, but delighted! • Everyone got these GIANT swag bags. One side has the comic con logo and messaging, and the other side is a show or movie or whatever – all different ones. Monnie and I both got Big Bang Theory ones. Walking back to our room, many people asked us if we wanted to trade ours. Needless to say, we didn’t give them up. ;-) • We went out to very nice Italian restaurant, based on our concierge’s recommendation. Sat outside in the lovely weather, eating delish food, and listening to the very Italian sounding (owner? Manager?) guy be very attentive to the guy at the table next to us and they chatted about all sorts of things, including how the surfing has been lately. It was just extremely giggle-worthy to me to hear this very very stereotypical sounding and looking Italian restaurant guy do this. Shouldn’t be, I know, but it was. I mean, imagine classic “Godfatheresque” Al Pacino chatting about the breakers that morning and his “boogie board”. **giggles again** |
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Post by Lola m on Aug 4, 2010 19:32:33 GMT -5
Thursday• I went to see if I could get autographs while Monnie headed to the exposition floor to check out the WB booth. The Farscape folks were just setting up and so I was only the third person in line! Awesome! I got photos signed by Gigi Edgley and Virginia Hey and talked briefly with Gigi because she saw from my badge that I’m from Minnesota and so is her fiancé! (He’s from Ham Lake, which is just north of the Twin Cities.) In fact, she had been in MN just before coming to Comic Con, staying with her future in-laws at their cabin/place “up north” (such a classic MN thing to do). She told me that she had been coming out of the public showers and a girl was staring at her and she looked down and had a rash all over her chest and neck! She freaked out, because the family had told her about chiggers and she was convinced that was what was wrong and she knew that it could take a week or two to get over them and she was worried she’d look crappy for pictures at Comic Con. But then it turned out to just be heat rash and it went away and she was fine. And then in addition to the signed photo, we had the people behind me in line take a picture on my camera with her!! A very unexpected conversation to have with the person I was there to fawn over, but it helped me be slightly less tongue-tied than I would ordinarily have. I think I only came off as slightly awkward, rather than my usual very awkward, so yay me! • I went down and found Monnie at the WB booth, where they had run out of freebie giveaways and so she did not get her Supernatural tote that she wanted (a running theme for the con!  ). We wandered the Exposition floor for a while. It was crazy crowded, but we knew it would get even worse later, so we checked a few things out. Saw some cool sights like: a prop of Green Lantern (among other things) at the WB booth; Buffy posters at the Dark Horse booth (and signed up for the lottery to be at a smaller Joss panel at the DH booth, in case we didn’t get into the other panel we wanted – since we did get into Joss’ panel, we didn’t need the lottery, yay!); zombies; Star Wars; Futurama; gaming tournaments; cool costumes; etc. • I wanted to go to the Stan Freberg and Hunter Freberg panel, and Monnie was kind enough to come along, even though I’m sure she had no interest whatsoever.  They told a bit of his history, the funniest of which was the story of how he got into doing voices for cartoons. Basically, he’s just out of high school and tells his mom he’s going to take the bus from Pasadena down to Hollywood and get an agent. Which, basically, is what he does. Asks the bus driver to just let him out “in the center of Hollywood”, sees a sign for “the stars of the future”, which turns out to actually be an agent office, goes up, does some voices (like FDR, etc.), wows the woman there who asks if he ever thought about doing voices for cartoons. He hadn’t, but what the hey. Next thing he knows, she’s taken him down to Warner Brothers to do the voices again, they tell him to come back the next day and do some for the animators, and bingo – he’s got a job. And of course, one of the studio folks (actually a name I knew, but I’ve forgotten it now), sets him up for the best punch line ever when he said to him, “why haven’t we heard from you before? I mean, you didn’t just get off the bus yesterday, did you?”. HA! He also did the Cecil the sea-sick sea-serpent voice for us as well as some of his cartoon voices (goofy gophers, etc.), and a couple “John – Marsha” lines. They played “Take an Indian to lunch” from The United States of America, volume one, and showed several of his funny commercials – like a Hitchcock parody for Gino’s frozen pizza and one with the Lone Ranger and Tonto. He also said they were working on Hx of US vol 3; in the meantime the two of them had recorded a CD of silly fun songs and they played a few of them. Later, I tried to find their booth in artist’s alley to buy a CD and get it autographed, but I was looking in the wrong place so I missed that. Boy, if my dad were still alive, he’d have been over the moon to hear my stories! (Also, I would have tried waaaay harder to actually get the signed CD. ) • We decide to just “check out” Ballroom 20 (little did we know how silly that would have sounded to people more in the know) and end up getting in with virtually no wait (again, not realizing the insane-o usual lines and that we only were able to virtually stroll in because the line had been capped earlier and people had left). Naïvety for the win! • Burn Notice panel: we came in late for this, just a few seats here and there, so we sat way in the back. We were still in time for the announcement by the network guy that they had just gotten the green light (about an hour before) for a Sam Axe prequel movie that will show us the last job he did before retiring. Bruce Campbell was very funny! He told us about the upcoming ep (now has been shown) where Fi is kidnapped – he was all “you should never kidnap Fi!”. Oh! And he kept slipping money to anyone that did/said something nice about him. Like to the network guy when he announced the movie deal. Also, apparently Bruce had been complaining that he needed to find a woman in Florida and then in the Q&A a woman stepped up and said she lived there and . . . well, and he told her to come closer to the stage and turn around and got another 20 out and acted like he gave her his number and was all “call me”. • White Collar panel: Moderator was Willie Garson(Mozzie). Tim DeKay (Peter) said some of his favorite scenes were the “walk and talk” moments between Peter and Neal and the ones at home with Peter and Neal and Elizabeth, that it felt like family. Marsha Thomason (Agent Diana Barrigan) said she liked the “kicking butt” scenes, like the recent one where the guy had come to kill her and she was all “drop the gun or I’ll shoot you in the shoulder” and he didn’t so she did just that. Matt Bomer (Neal) and Tim DeKay were both just positively adorable looking.  Matt all serious/shy, wearing glasses and a hat. Tim just . . . well, just looking handsome as hell (even handsomer than he is on the show, seriously)! And he seems just so open and nice and . . . just a good guy, really. • Psych – Opening was AWESOME! They did this little film (several of the panels opened with some kind of filmed skit talking about going to Comic Con – like the White Collar panel gang talking about what costumes they were gonna wear . . . um, I forgot to mention that in the WC panel bullet point . . . never mind!) So anyway, this is all on the set and Curt Smith (original guy from Tears for Fears) is sunning himself and Tim Omundson (Lassiter) convinces James Roday (Shawn) that Curt really loves it when fans come over and tickle him. So James does and then Curt is all “calling my lawyer now”. Um. It was funnier than I am making it sound!! Anyway, then after the mini-movie, Roday brings Curt out live on stage and Dulé Hill (Gus) comes on and all three of them sing Shout and It Was Awesome! Everyone else comes out, like Jules and Lassiter (he was all suited up with shades on and did this star/pimp kind of hands up pose and kiss his fingers point to the audience, HA!) and Corbin Bernsen and the creator/producer guys. Corbin B was also very funny, showing off his legs in shorts. Tim O was very snarky and they said he was the one who did the most screw up/crack everyone else up stuff on set. They talked about the wacky names that Shawn comes up with for Gus. There was joking about the pineapple hiding. (I can never spot it in the show, myself, so I laughed when Corbin B was all “we hide a pineapple on the show?”) HA! Of course I’m sure you all know that Dulé got up and tapped with his friend Jason Samuels Smith (from Stomp). Awesome!! I’m sure you can easily find vid of it on Youtube, etc. I also remember that when they were talking about how they were unlike their characters that someone said the biggest difference about James Roday is that he is really an introvert. • Foamy floaty men!! OMG, so fun!  SO FUN! We saw them high up in the sky as we were walking back from the convention center – what are those? Are they . . . balloons? People shaped balloons? No! They were foam – like, well, like just solid foam – like soap foam or something. Shaped like the outline of a person. And as we came around the corner, we saw they were being made by these big boxes on the ground next to our hotel. It’s like you could see them forming and then starting to come loose, a little hand or a head or foot starting to peak out of their molds and then they’d just – release! And float up and away! And one of them swooped right over our heads and we almost could touch it! And they flew up and around and away! It. Was. Magical! • Then we searched out and found the CRAZY-ASS long line and got our swag! (At some of the panels, they give you a little ticket and you turn it in to fulfillment for your present. Like from Psych we got a big foam pineapple to wear on your hand and a T-shirt, etc.) • Stan Lee right outside our hotel room doors practically!!! Like, standing outside the door next to Monnie! On his cell! With another guy just kind of standing by him, like a handler or aide or something! (Well, possibly Stan Lee, possibly just a guy who looks and sounds like him, but DAMN, I want it to have been Stan Lee, so I am declaring that it was him!!  ) • Ordered hamburgers from room service and devoured them! OMG so hungry!!! • Then we went to the Dr Horrible Sing-Along Blog sing-along – sooooo fun! Organized by the California Browncoats, they had made up little books with the lyrics and the call outs to give to each of us. My favorite call out was whenever anyone says “freeze ray” the audience says “pew, pew - pew pew” and makes the six-shooter motions with their fingers. Oh, and yelling “Moist” every time he appears, like they yell “Norm” on Cheers. ;D
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Post by Lola m on Aug 4, 2010 19:37:52 GMT -5
Friday• It was a Ballroom 20 extravaganza day! 8:00 a.m. start puts us in line at farthest end of tents – we don’t know yet if this means we’ll get in (room seats 4,000 but you didn’t see this line – yikes!), but it does! We’re just at the start of the back third of the room – nice big display screens in front of us, so yay! We are determined to see the panels we want, so that means staying in the ballroom all day, including a few panels we don’t care that much about. (Basically, Comic Con doesn’t clear the room between panels so you can stay as long as you can stand it. And they do let you leave to go to the bathroom or get a quick snack/drink to bring in, etc. as long as you leave and come back within the same panel – you get a little color-coded panel at a back door.) • Stargate Universe panel: Actually rather a fun panel, even though I don’t watch the show. I got the most fun out of Ming-Na (plays Camile Wray). She was just having a good time herself, all goofy with her new smart phone thingee. Lots of people on panels had tech toys they were using, taking pictures or texting or showing them off, but she kept petting hers and totally losing herself in it and actually crooned “my presssscious” to it and was just adorable! ;D Also, when they were talking about how they handled the pregnancy of one of the actresses and then it kind of led to “what if someone else got pregnant” and Ming-Na was all “this shop is closed” and did that kind of circling gesture pointing down her abdomen and David Blue (plays Eli) sitting next to her by that point just had given up and had his face in his hands, laughing and blushing. Also? It is always a pleasure to listen to Robert Carlyle talk. He’s one of those “could read the phone book and make me happy” guys. • Caprica panel: James got the biggest round of applause as people came out. \o/ And he looked very very nice. He mentioned he’d also be in the big 200th ep of Smallville. Sasha Roiz was also sooooo pretty – as were Alessandra Torresani and Magda Apanowicz. James said he based his Barnabas character on a combo of Timothy McVeigh and a Methodist minister (his dad was a Methodist minister and he used a bit of that), that the guy honestly thinks he’s doing the right thing and using any means to achieve what he sees as a noble purpose. Um. What else. Sooooo hard to remember all without taking notes at the time! Sasha talked about how he liked playing a gay character in a world where that was not an issue. They said that Zoe and Lacy would both really kick some ass by the end of the next bit of eps (which is the end of S1, I guess they don’t know yet if there will be a S2 – but are hopeful) and that Lacy would really have some major changes and development. And that there would be “a bunch” of Zoes. (Copies of the Zoelon or the Avatar or both, we were not told.) Cool! Alessandra also talked about how when they filmed the scene where her dad sets the Zoelon on fire, there was actually fire right in front of her! Oh, and when they were talking about connections to BSG, folks were yelling in the crowd that they wanted to see a young Doc Cottle and then the panel guys joked about him being a kid and already chain smoking. Ha! But then they also said they wouldn’t necessarily have many characters from BSG show up, unless it “felt right”. • The Big Bang Theory panel: Wil Wheaton moderated! \o/ Does it get better than that? OK, so they started by handing out the lyrics to the show’s theme song and Wil is all “I thought, what would be more appropriately geeky than to have a mass sing-along . . . but then I thought, what would be better than that? Why, to have the Barenaked Ladies here to lead us.” And so the band came out on stage!! And we all sang the song with them!!!! **flails** Oh, but before that they showed some scenes from the show that used comic con in some way, like when the one when they come back from the Artic and Sheldon is all distraught and curled up in ball and says “I missed Comic Con” and so on. (There is no logical order to the following memories, people, I’m just throwing things out here.) In the Q&A, there was this little girl who asked who was best friends on the show and Kaley Cuoco (Penny) and Jim Parsons (Sheldon) were all “you’re trying to break up the cast” and “you’re a horrible, horrible little girl” and the little girl is giggling and the entire room is dying from laughter and they keep going, saying stuff like “she’s evil Wil Wheaton’s daughter” and Wil Wheaton is doing evil voice and saying “excellent” and “my plan is working”. OMG. So funny!!  Oh – before that, I think, Kaley and Jim sang “Soft Kitty” because he was convinced that the questioner wanted to hear that, but it was someone else in the crowd and she kept trying to tell him that but then just gave up and sang with him and then made sure they got the real question. Kitties! At some point a person asked if the BBT would ever go to Comic Con and one of the creative guys talked about how they never go outside the studio, that their show was an “indoor cat”. HA! And someone from Comic Con was saying they could fake it because the Con people would lend them stuff – “we’ve got posters”, they said and then that became a running joke. Um. **thinks more** There was talk about the ping pong (I think) tournaments they have and everyone was talking about how Kaley cheats and she was denying it even as she talked about how she did it. HA! And Kunal Nayyar (Raj) is soo funny! He just drops in these deadpan lines that totally cracked me up! And I can’t even remember any of them except that he’d just be sitting there all quiet, with an evil grin and then lean forward and drop a line. So. Funny! Man, I know I’m forgetting tons of stuff . . . • Bones panel: Here is where I confess that I really only remember basking in the pretteh that is David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel and remember virtually nothing that was said. Oh, except I do remember that David, on his own, talked about how he’d enjoy doing an Angel movie. I know! Monnie just looked at me with her eyebrow up - totally surprised that he talked so . . . readily? happily? easily? about the Angel experience, so to speak. And, of course, he looked stunningly good. • The Joss Whedon Experience panel: Once again, time for a confession. I went into a bit of a fangirl daze so I find I have not a lot of memories of actual stuff he said. **hangs head** I just remember him walking around up there and me being all googly and happy. But I’ll push my brain and try to think of some. Of course he mentioned the Avengers movie that he’ll be directing, but we didn’t get that as a scoop since it had already been announced in the Big Ballroom the day before with all the stars cast and so on. There will be a new Serenity comic coming out from Dark Horse that will give us all the background on Shepherd Book – woot! (That one made me really really happy.) At some point someone asked if he’d create some good gay male characters and he said something about it being time for some man-on-man action. Gee, wonder why I remembered that bit, eh? I know he talked in his funny-serious way about killing characters off, but that is lost in the mists of my fangirliness. I also do remember that someone asked him about the long uncut shot in the opening of Serenity and he did a very interesting discussion about how these kind of shots can be very powerful, if used appropriately – that they draw the audience right into the scene, the place, but that they can be overused just to be showy and meaningless – and gave several examples of excellent uses of them, especially ones where you don’t really consciously notice that it’s a single shot, but you notice the feeling. And then, of course, the best bit. When a Q&Aer asked who was his favorite actor – and he’s all “I can’t say that, you’ll get me in trouble, hem haw, OK, it’s Nathan Fillion” – and then the crowd screams and he says “No – it’s Nathan Fillion” and points and the camera shows us Nathan standing at the mic all dressed in funny mustache and hat and glasses and coat (see Monnie’s pics) and OMG, crowd goes even more batshit. HA!! • Entertainment Weekly: Women who kick ass panel: I’m gonna pretty much just list who was there and not much else, because my brain was giving out at that point and your patience is probably doing the same if you’re still reading. ;D Jena Malone, Anna Torv (from Fringe) Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost and V), Ellen Wong and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. The main story I remember is Jeana Malone talking about all the training she did to prep for the movie Sucker Punch – months and months of basically advanced combat training and at one point she’s coming down on this rope, upside down, shooting her automatic weapon and then reloading on the fly, still upside down. Oh, and she fondly recalled deadlifting 300 pounds. Actually, several of them talked about various martial arts being good all-round training and prep (including Elizabeth Mitchell). They did talk about more than just physical aspects, but I can’t remember more, sorry! • True Blood panel: As Monnie said with her pics, the moderator guy was fun-neee!! Vague memories of other stuff: they started (like a lot did) with some clips – an exclusive review of the rest of the upcoming season (not really spoilery, just clipfest extravaganza!); Anna P did her “Soookie” impression ; they explained how they shot the “turn her head around during sex” shot; Rutina talked about enjoying playing all the craziness with Tara; the guy who plays the King of Mississippi was really fun and funny; the guy actors who get naked a lot talked about the “brotherhood of the sock” and the choices of what you get to wear depending on the scene ; someone asked Allan B about why he uses death so much in his work but I can’t remember his answer. • TV Guide hot list panel: What can I say. Chi McBride! Zachary Levi! Summer Glau! Julie Benz! Elizabeth Mitchell! Morena Baccarin! (With new bleached hair – and she was all “clap and tell the producers you like it and maybe I won’t have to dye it back when V starts filming again” but you could tell she was just joking.) Morris Chestnut!! OMG!! So Very Much Pretty. All in one spot. **dazed happiness** • At this point I was crashing, big time. I cruised, while Monnie stayed for Batman: Under the Red Hood. And she said it was really good! • I had a nummy pasta thing with veg and sausage via room service and collapsed like a bunch of broccoli!
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Post by Lola m on Aug 4, 2010 19:40:29 GMT -5
Saturday• Expo floor again briefly in the morning, crazy! Crazy! Even busier than before!! Monnie tries the WB booth again, but they have stopped doing a give-away line because it got too long and was bothering the other booths. They are now handing out swag “at random”. Monnie once again gets no Supernatural tote bag. **cue dramatic music** • We headed out to first the wrong Hilton, and then right one, for an Indigo Ballroom day. The cast of Leverage was hanging out on balcony, but only Monnie gets pics. I fail! • Leverage panel: We got our swag as we come in! Woot! T-shirts, of which I manage to snag two – hacker and thief. We basically have the entire cast except for Sophie, along with a producer guy and surprise Wil Wheaton (I’m betting because he had to be in the room in the panel after this one anyway.) CK was very bubbly and fun – talking about his singing (and that he also wrote the song from the ep) and frankly encouraging the idea of Eliot/Hardison, especially after they showed the clip where they are handcuffed together, running thru the woods. (I’m thinking his time on Angel got him plenty used to Comic Con and fans and slash fans to boot. ). Granted, he did first talk about how the characters overcome some of their differences and become closer friends, got over some of their differences, etc. but then totally also played to the slashers and encouraged that. (Monnie, was this the panel where someone was asking where to find fanfic and someone else on the panel gave her a website address, or was that Community? And was this the same time that Wil W was saying “it’s out there” about some fic or was this another Wil W panel? We saw him sooo many times! No wonder Monnie and I are both totally crushing on him now, eh?) Beth Riesgraf (Parker) was really adorable too, very bubbly and fun. Aldis Hodge (Hardison) was more laid back, but he was obviously having a fun time. At one point, someone asked about his character’s ambitions for forming his own crew and he was all “Hardison is still learning from Nate, but if we’re on for 20 more seasons . . .” and someone quipped that if they were on that long “we’ll be Leverage, she wrote”. Ha! Wil W said his character would be coming back for another ep. Oh!! And at one point the producer / creator guy said they were doing an ep where we go back in time and see when they all were trying to steal the same thing and met each other but didn’t realize that they did – and so we see the same story through all their different viewpoints and how they think it went. It sounded like a really fun ep! • Venture Brothers panel: OMG, this was the FUNNIEST panel of the whole con!! And they basically said “yeah, we don’t have any Venture Brothers news” and then just riffed on teasing each other and other nonsense. It was only four guys (the creator guys Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer and then voice actors James Urbaniak and Patrick Warburton) and they didn’t have anyone moderating or asking questions or any real structure at all. At one point Doc just babbled on for like, 10 minutes, about this one horrible horrible so bad it’s hysterical movie, describing scenes and everything. And they were giving Warburton all this crap and he was whining about how much they were gonna cut Brock Sampson out of the upcoming season. Oh, and Doc and Publick were all snarking about “you can see that we basically just use their regular voices” and then Publick says, kind of quiet, “now watch, Urbaniak is gonna talk about his Obie” just exactly at the same time that James starts saying “I won an Obie” in this Dr Venture cranky voice. OMG, so many moments to laugh at!! Oh – oh!! And they started and ended with a super awesome trailer for the upcoming season (although it’s actually apparently just the finish of the previous season, for reasons that I never really understood) with so so many clips I can’t even begin to describe everything in it – let’s just say that we saw: Hunter and the S.P.H.I.N.X. gang! A mob of zombie Hank and Deans!!!! Sergant Hatred singing and playing the guitar while Pete White just cringes with his face in his hands!!! And right in the middle of all the whiz bang action we suddenly get this extended bit with Dr. Mrs. The Monarch gargling. Also? At some point they were talking about action figures and polled the audience on whether they should be dressed as Moppets or Pupa Twins. I voted Pupa. • Sanctuary panel: I don’t watch this show, so I don’t remember tons . . . Next season should have more action/adventure, and traveling to more places, as well as more hot naked manflesh on display. (The guys on the show call it “dude-ity” rather than nudity. Amanda Tapping was all “yeah, the guys get naked a lot because I’m a producer”. ). Someone asked about the new look of the show in the past year or two and Amanda talked about the new camera they have (a Red 1, I think?) and that it took a while to really feel comfortable with it and see what it could do. Oh, Polly Walker will be on the show in the next season. (I think there was some concern if they would be renewed for more after the stuff they’ve already shot/are shooting, but they were sounding pretty confident.) They’ll have some SciFi regulars as guest stars. Um. Amanda T is directing another ep . . . can’t remember more! Sorry! • The Guild panel: So much fun!! See Monnie’s pictures to see the squid heads they all came out wearing. HA! They showed us two video presentations – the first ep of the upcoming season 4 and the new “Game On” bollywood style musical vid – which I think is even more awesome than last year’s “Do You Want to Date My Avatar”. If you haven’t watched it yet – SEE IT!!! SEE IT!!!! OMG, brain dying again . . . can’t remember . . . Oh, they handed out buttons that were a small version of the painting of Codex and Fawkes we see in ep 1. **snortle** Don’t wanna say more about that until you see the ep. • Community panel: First off? You could tell they were all kind of stunned by the response they got. When they entered the whole room (couple thousand people) just roared and cheered and stood up – it was awesome! Basically all the cast was there except for Ken Jeong (Senor Chang), along with creator and writer types. Much fun was had with the Abed and Troy “bromance”, Chevy Chase got a lot of milage out of the fact that they couldn’t hear well (the room was echo-y for the folks on the panel, apparently, but we could all hear fine), the crown expressed much love for the ep “Modern Warfare” (My Fave!) and Joel McHale said the network hated them for that because it took soooo long to film. Then the creator guy said that they were doing an Apollo 13 parody/tribute ep in the next season. Woot!! Glover was talked into doing (even over the usual Comic Con “there may be children under 18 here” disclaimer) one of his dirty comic routines about this homeless guy breaking into Joel’s house and saying aliens were coming and they were taking penises and the only safe place was his mouth and on and on and it sounds dopey but it was so so funny! And as Monnie mentioned with her pictures, Danny Pudi and Donald Glover sang both a bit of the biblioteca rap and Somewhere Out There. **happy sigh** • For dinner that night, we went to this Hawaiian fusion restaurant – this amazing appetizer with duck and flatbread sooooooo tasty and then strolled along the marina for a bit. • In a flip of the night before, Monnie was wiped and stayed in and I went down to one of the convention center rooms to watch the Masquerade costume contest, although I didn’t stay for the whole thing.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 4, 2010 19:44:41 GMT -5
Sunday• Hugest line evah!! We get up at the ass-crack o' dawn and there are already a CRAZY amount of people! And the building isn't even open yet! And some were there at 1:00 am!! **flails** (Later, Monnie and I both confess that we thought we might not get into Ballroom 20, but we end up snagging seats in the first section of the room. Phew!) • Smallville panel: Unfortunately, since I haven’t been watching the show in the past years, I didn’t pay enough attention to it to really remember much. They were really excited to be hitting 200 eps and both excited and bummed about it being the final season. It was cool to see John Schneider there and to learn that somehow Clark’s dad will be back in the final season, but no indication of how or why – memory or projection or dream or hallucination or brought back from the dead, who knows! They showed a clip-fest of stuff from the upcoming season and of course I noticed the tiny moment that showed James (since he’d said he was going to be in it at the Caprica panel, I was watching for him). • Supernatural panel: Mostly what I remember was Monnie being over the moon. ;D Also? Just before the panel started, when she was tweeting like mad and still mentioned how she had never managed to get a Supernatural bag, suddenly she poked me and said “the WB just started following me!” and then a bit later “the WB just tweeted me that they’re sorry I didn’t get a bag and want to send me one!” Bow before the power of the tweet!! Our complete and total conquest of Comic Con was thus assured. All in all, I’m glad Monnie sold her soul so that we could have such amazing luck with everything. I realize it may cause her a bit of inconvenience later, but I’m sure it was worth it. Ahem. Back to the panel. Who was there? Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Misha Collins, Jim Beaver, Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble and Ben Edlund. Jensen opened it up by showing a scene from the ep he directed recently. It focused on Bobby and Crowley (played by Mark Sheppard) was in it! Woot! Jensen and Jim were asked about that ep and Jim talked about how he wanted to torture Jensen a bit, like he thought he might try staying in his trailer and not come out and that Jensen was telling him to move there and pick up the phone, etc. and he just yelled back “I know how to pick up a goddamned phone”. Jensen said that Jim was great and “did all the heavy lifting” but that he “wouldn’t hit his mark” – back and forth snark like that. But then they also each did the “he was the best I’ve ever worked with” thing too and the crowd was all awwwww! Kripke and/or Sera said that there would be more monsters and MOTW next season. Kripke also said that if the season end would have been the series end “more people would have died”. Also, he talked about how he was all pumped about the final ep and then he went online and was all crushed to read people hating it, but then he got over it. Misha said that Castiel would be “cleaning up heaven” and made a joke by comparing it to post-soviet Russia “just to make it more boring”. Sera responded to a question saying that horror and scifi genre stuff has always had female fans, not just guys. Jensen said that his story is gonna start with him all normal life guy and then how does he get back to hunting demons, figuring out what he wants to do, etc. Also, he said (about the return to monsters) that he was looking forward to killing some vampires the right way next season and snarked about all the nice vampire types that are out there now. • American Dad panel: Again, not a show I watch, so not much to say. They screened basically the entire Christmas themed “killer Santa” ep, and it was funny enough in spots. But American Dad has always seemed to be trying too hard, for me. • Glee panel: Whew! On the home stretch now, people, this is the last panel we went to. Before I try to dredge up actual (if mushy) memories, I’ll give you my big overall impression that I came away with – I think Ryan Murphy may have been the most “serious, thoughtful, straightforwardly answering, really listening to and considering questions he is asked” creative person on any of the panels I went to. Now, certainly he could have been totally shining it on, but it really struck me at the time. OK, on to the memories! Next season will focus more on all the different characters, even pulling back a bit on the number of songs done per ep. Exploring more home life, meeting more parents and other family members, more stories about some of the kids we didn’t get as much one, etc. Chris Colfer wanted to sing the Time Warp and Murphey said they might do a Rocky Horror ep – woot!! Also, they confirmed that Kurt will get a boyfriend and Murphy talked about how he wanted the character to get all the stuff he never got to have in high school. In the Q&A, someone asked about if Kurt was ever gonna see any repercussions from his “obsessive behavior” with Finn and I loved that Murphy just calmly said that he would not agree with the label of obsession, went on briefly to put a bit of context around Kurt, and then answered that yes, they intended to continue to explore the results of that situation, probably early in season two. (I was so happy with how he handled that. Because I feel like some fans got a bit extreme with their condemnation of Kurt and woobifying of Finn. Anyway, I could say more, but getting off my soapbox now.) Murphey was also really interesting when he talked about how he wanted to show that the arts and music and so on matter in schools and that they got a lot of feedback from music teachers and so on saying that the show’s popularity actually helped them keep funding and so on. At one point, the cast said it was more intimidating to sing for Oprah than the President. HA! • That night we strolled through this small park / walkway we had been looking at from our balcony and then went back into the Gaslamp quarter and had a nice dinner at a Mexican place. • Then it was back to the hotel to pack and watch True Blood and whine about having to leave San Diego.
The End!! **falls over**
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Post by Michelle on Aug 5, 2010 10:43:44 GMT -5
LOLA!! I love your recap of the con!! It sounds so cool and so overwhelming and so fun! Between that and Monnie's pics, I almost feel like I was there. But based on your description of the crowds, I'm kind of glad I wasn't. |
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Aug 5, 2010 11:57:39 GMT -5
Sounds like totally exhausting fun!
Also, re Gigi Edgely: every con report I've ever read paints her as the biggest fan of her fans ever (and with that cast, it's an amazing thing to be able to say; Ben once spontaneously walked in the Save Farscape contingent at the Hollywood Halloween Parade). In the old days of small cons with dinner-dances, she was always the last one off the floor.
Julia, am going to need a little lie-down just from reading this.
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). We wandered the Exposition floor for a while. It was crazy crowded, but we knew it would get even worse later, so we checked a few things out. Saw some cool sights like: a prop of Green Lantern (among other things) at the WB booth; Buffy posters at the Dark Horse booth (and signed up for the lottery to be at a smaller Joss panel at the DH booth, in case we didn’t get into the other panel we wanted – since we did get into Joss’ panel, we didn’t need the lottery, yay!); zombies; Star Wars; Futurama; gaming tournaments; cool costumes; etc.
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