Friday
We stow our bags at the Buckhead Intercontinental, which will be our home for the rest of our trip. This is when we find out that this was also home to the Chick-Fil-A kickoff game between Alabama and Virginia Tech. We will see VT and 'Bama fans the rest of the weekend. This was a particularly busy weekend as NASCAR was also in town this weekend. We then drop the car off at the airport and hop on the Marta back downtown.
We run into a dude decked out in Umbrella Corporation (Resident Evil) gear and a red tipped plastic machine gun. We ask him for directions to registration which sends him into a disgusted tirade about how we needed to pre-register instead of using Ticketmaster (or as he put it "PRE-REG, PRE-REG, PRE-REG"). He also lets us know that we are "mundanes" because we are not in costume. If we are in costume people come up and want to talk to you. We didn't have any problem talking to people, but over the course of the next few hours we would find out he was right about PRE-REG part...
10:30am We hit the line to get our badges. The lines break between PRE-REGers and Ticketmaster orders. I am happy to see that my Ticketmaster service charge provides...such...well lack of service. We get in line just ahead of a pirate who does his best to keep us in good cheer with his pirate-y antics.
10:56am The line moves inside! As we move inside we see what will turn out to be the first two of many golden bikini clad Princess Leia. Apparently Jabba didn't let these two out in the sun...ever.
11:43am We are through one line, but now we have to wait for our badges to be printed. You get to put whatever name you would like in addition to your real name. I choose Karate Chop Jones which will later give name to this blog.
11:47am After a surprisingly short wait of 4 minutes, my badge is ready. The Beer Girl calls out "Karate Chop Jones, they are calling your name." Woot!
Overall I give the registration process a:
FAIL! I understand the need to prevent counterfeit badges and other tomfoolery, but come on an hour and seventeen minutes??? Don't think you escape the lines by pre-registering, you just get a head start. Think of it as being 10 cars ahead of someone in a traffic jam...better than the next guy, but it still sucks. Good thing we didn't even hold faint hopes of getting into the Shatner-Nemoy session.
We hit up the nearby Gyro King for a quick lunch. Only seats a few people, but reasonably price and not too shabby.
By the time all is said and done, we've missed the start of the 1:00pm sessions, so we decide to check out two of the vendor rooms. All manner of corset, board game, comic, or toy are available here my friend.
In addition to many amazing costumes from shows, video games, and books, we also see many people dressed as "steam punks". Steam Punks are Victorian English-y in a world where steam power drives technology. That is my mundane opinion, but regardless the costumes are pretty sweet.
2:30pm Being a big fan of Firefly we hit up our first DragonCon panel. Only Ron Glass (also from Barney Miller) has made the trip this year so no Nathan Fillian for us. Ron was clearly emotionally attached to Firefly and was upset with his character's death. Still he was gracious and good natured, if a little wacky.
We are treated to the music stylings of the Bedlam Bards singing the classic Firefly song "The Man they Call Jane" as we leave Mr. Glass and meet up with some Charlitan's. The Beer Girl is a huge Charlaine Harris fan and her Sookie Stackhouse books (basis of the HBO series Trueblood). Over the last couple of years she's formed a friendship with some other fans and Charlaine herself. I've been lucky to tag along and meet some really great people and the NY Times bestseller herself. It also explains the Beer Girl's Merlotte's shirt she is rocking.
I should also mention that I am sporting a Monroeville Zombies shirt commemorating both where the original Night of the Living Dead was filmed, but also the mall 5 miles from my house. I end up getting three call outs during the day. Who says I'm a mundane? Woot!
I give the group some time to hang out and go exploring the con on my own. I find a third vendor's area on a lower level and also check out the Hall of Fame, where all your favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy stars line up for autographs.
Time for dinner so I leave the con area and go to Gibney's Pub. Seeing Frito Pie on the menu, I give it a try. Fritos are then covered in beef or turkey chili. I go with turkey. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. Probably fabulous at 2am. I am less than enamored with my $6.25 draft which seemed high for a non-sporting event, but not criminal.
I meet back up with the
Charlaine Harris crew (hereby referred to as CH) for the Opening Ceremony which happened in the same room as
CH's panel. This lead to the second
FAIL of the day, but this one was entertaining. Someone thought that a couple
beach balls would get people pumped up. But the brand of nerd waiting to see CH lacks a certain...coordination. The Opening ceremony is pretty tame.
Pre CH panel, all the girls dressed as Sookie get pictures together. Good effort by the ladies as some have made True Blood bottles and even Merlotte's order pads. Charlaine is as gracious a speaker as there is. She addresses everyone's questions and is politically correct and nimbly dodges some tricky questions about if Eric's blood is in Sookie and Bill drinks from Sookie, is he affected by Eric's blood. I may have the names backwards, but you get the general idea.
We then roll over to a bar called the Avenue with the CH crew, where intelligently they have a draft beer special for DragonCon-ers. $3 drafts! There is quite a stir as two of the stars of Stargate Atlantis, Joe Flanigan and Jason Mamoa, stumble by and go into Mortons. The Beer Girl, who doesn't know or care who they are, becomes a hero to her crew by jumping a festooning chain, dodges cars and chases them down in Mortons. She asks for a picture. They say "Are you serioius?" Affirmative fake star ship guy, she sure is.
After drinks, it is musical Buffy the Vampire Slayer time. Think Rocky Horror Picture show only with the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where a demon is making everyone break into song. All I can say is "They got the mustard out!"
We hope to hang out for Dr.
Horrible's Sing-a-long blog, but we start to worry about how late the MARTA runs. Bummer. They even got the girlfriend from the show to join in the fun. Sadly we leave as streams of people in Captain Hammer T's come in... Thus our first day of Comic Con comes to an end.
SaturdayFirst let me say that I travel quite a bit. For work and for fun. I've stayed in nice hotels. The
Buckhead Intercontinental is a very nice hotel. But the bed we slept at the Intercontinental in this weekend was incredible. Next to my buddy Jim's bed in Colorado that he gave up to the Beer Girl and me when we visited, it might be the most comfortable I've slept in.
10 am Saturday starts off with a bang. This is the start of the big
DragonCon parade. The parade is broken down by category as
Ghostbusters, super
heroes, pirate ships, aliens and space marines,
orcs and Venture brothers, even the characters from Galaxy Quest came trotting past. Also bemused Virginia Tech and Alabama football fans checking out the freak show. Some guy on
youtube captured it pretty well here with 9 minutes of highlights:
11:30am We then get in to a panel by television's Ghost Hunters. These guys are funny and cool. Even the guys from Ghost Hunter International who I was
luke warm on before hand. Apparently Joe Chin farts quite a bit. The Beer Girl would check them out a couple of more times during the weekend and further confirm their cool-to-hang-out-with-
ness.
tBG (the Beer Girl) and I head over for lunch at the nearby Durango's Steak House. There we find a truly great prime rib sandwich. They also accommodate my desire to watch Ohio State's first football game of the season. We watch the first half then head back for more DragonCon.
We catch the tail end of Micheal Biehn. I'm a big fan of three of his films. Aliens (Hicks), Terminator (Reece) and my sister's personal fav, Tombstone (Ringo). Kinda dry overall but he did have a pretty good line when a bunch of guys dressed as space marines came up for a pic and he asked if he should pretend to be asleep.
We get to hang in the same room and thus get right up front and center in the first row for the next guest Karen Allen. Allen is famous for being both in Animal House and for being Indiana Jones' love in the first movie, and now his wife! Allen is delightful with a smile that lights up the room. Some douche dressed up as Indiana Jones first tells her that his favorite movie is the first one his second favorite is Crystal Skull because those are the ones she is in. Really? Crystal Skull? Come on buddy. He called the chick in Temple of Doom a bimbo and wanted to know why Allen wasn't in the second one. Allen responded that she'd be sure to let Kate Capshaw next time she saw her and educated this uber fan that Temple of Doom took place earlier than Raiders of the Lost Ark. He then thanks her because he did not know that. FAIL. If you dress up like a character, know what you are talking about.
I run down to the dealer room and get a Hellboy comic autographed by creator Mike Mignola, then it is time to head back to our hotel for a little rest for tonight...
8:30pm DragonCon has a nice treat for con-goers this year. The Atlanta Aquarium stayed open late for us and made available discount tickets. The Atlanta Aquarium is awe inspiring. tBG and I have been snorkeling off Cancun with whale sharks, but it was amazing to see them in clear water. The manta rays were another personal favorite. I could sit in front of the huge tanks all day. I strongly suggest you make the time to visit!
Sunday
Riding in on the Marta today we run into John, a volunteer at the walk of fame, and his wife. They answer our questions about which stars are cool and which are tools. (i.e. Lou Ferigno cool, shockingly Reading Rainbow's Gordi LaForge a big time tool) We also talk to a couple from my hometown of Columbus, Ohio who own Larry Smith Book Sellers and have a set up in the vendor area.
Breakfast at the Corner Bakery is delicious. tBG has a tasty breakfast sandwich while I have a chocolate muffin and cheese grits.
We check out the Comic Artist Alley this morning. This room exceeds expectations. The artists were personable and engaging. tBG got an autographed comic board from the artist of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and an autographed print from the artist of the Dark Crystal comics. I score an autographed Batman comic, an Excalibur and two Courty Crumrin graphic novels all for under face value! We also get Mouse Guard Fall 1152 hard bound edition. David Peterson not only signed it but sketched a character for us. There was one thing we didn't realize about the artist alley, but wish we had. If you bring a sketch book, many of the artists will sketch something for you. Some charge, some don't. Either way, that is a great souvenir.
Next I check out some fighting robots similar to the TV show Battle Bots. The small ones are going today and it is fabulous. They are something like 5lbs or smaller. Wins are accomplished by pushing the opposing robot out of the ring. One guy had what looked like a spinning pizza cutter on it, while another had what looked like a reverse spinning old school push lawn mower that rips people's robots up. One guy taps out when he sees the blades taking chucks out of the only expensive part of his bot.
1:00pm I go down to the dealer area to try to get my badge signed by artist Eric Powell who draws the comic "The Goon", but he isn't there. I race over to another hotel to check out MST 3000 panel "Crow vs. Crow" staring both men who voiced the wise cracking, awful movie watching robot who brought me much joy. It starts with a montage of Crow bits, then a not very interesting moderator mono-tones through the interview segment and I decide to see if I can get that autograph for my badge. Unfortunately this is a FAIL as Eric is still not at the signing location.
tBG and I then hit Mellow Mushroom for lunch. A work buddy told me to check out the Atlanta pizza chain. This was an excellent idea. I have the House Special pizza sporting Pepperoni, Sausage, Ground Beef, Onions, Green Peppers, Mushrooms, Black Olives, Tomatoes, Ham, Bacon, and extra cheese. This also was an excellent idea. I wash it down with the Mellow Mushroom brew, Bogart. We liked this place enough to hit it for lunch the next day. One more thing about our trip to Mellow Mushroom. Two guys were walking around with real live pythons around their necks. Apparently this is some kind of new fad (or douchbaggery. Your call.). Anyway, since tBG has irrational fear of snakes, it was really lucky they decided not to stop and eat here.
Next up is the Art section. We don't want to waste the last slice of the pie so we gave it to one of the artists. They are supposed to be starving right? Some pretty cool stuff here, but nothing we had to have. Hard sell to tBG to have barbarian art up in the family room.
The Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant was starting so off I went. How could I miss that? I have to say that this was significantly more funny than I anticipated. Some of the contestants were really witty and prepared. There is something about a woman dressed as a Klingon, pointing a sword and singing Pat Benatar's "One Way or Another" that just lends itself to a good time.
5:30 pm Time to get serious. DragonCon is trying to break the record for number of people dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller at the same time. This is the last practice session and is manditory to participate. At first one of the organizers is showing us the dance slowly and helping up build more and more of the dance. Then we get pulled into a room where we were run through the whole dance over and over with hopes we would pick it up. But, I get it. We are almost out of time. Lucky for me the nearby storm troopers knew what they were doing so I could copy them.
7:00pm Dance time. Over 900 people gather to walk the walk and dance the dance. If the fire inspector shows up, we are screwed. No spectators can fit in the room. One woman who earlier was dressed as a giant hand of blue (Firefly) is now a giant sequin glove. Aliens, zombie Elvis, afore mentioned storm troopers, and cross dressing sailor scout (Sailor Moon) all add to the atmosphere. We run through it once, then it is lights, camera, action. We have to pose til the laughing ends or the Guiness Book of World Records will not count our effort. In the end...Success!!!
We check out a little bit of the 30lb robot battles, and they are cool too. I think I may have enjoyed the creativity of destruction showed by the smaller bots. I did get to see an asian bot competitor throw a screw across the room like it was the first thing he's every thrown in his life. It was one of the most amazingly unathletic moves I've ever scene. I wasn't the only one to see it, as the dude behind me snorts when I say "What was that?" while raising one eyebrow. By the way, don't throw screws. The other bot nerds were pissed. They may not be able to beat you up themselves, but some of their bots look like they could do a number on your lower extremities.
We made one more stop that can not be revealed at this time, but will be in time.
Marta us to the airport, and our weekend is over. Overall a fantastic weekend I won't soon forget!
