Con Report
Nov. 11th, 2002 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanFriday night, I left work about 6pm and headed west. I arrived at the con hotel around 7:30, having made great time. There was a note in the hotel room I shared with Melissa, saying that everyone else had gone to dinner. (Everyone else = Siubhan, Melissa, the Andys, Deb, and Rachel.) I hung out for a bit, and had just decided to go looking for them when they came pouring out of the elevator.
So we reunion'ed, and all, and I went down and got my con registration stuff, and then we gathered in Deb and Rachel's room to watch Firefly. Then we went downstairs for the meet-the-stars and karaoke party, only most of the stars hadn't arrived yet (we found out later that Anthony Simcoe had had travel issues, otherwise I'm *sure* he would have been on the karaoke stage). Gigi was there, but only briefly, so we said hi to her and then commenced with the karaoke.
Siubhan, Melissa, Deb, and Rachel were dressed as MIB, so they started examining the karaoke selections for a MIB-appropriate song. They finally settled on "Don't You Forget About Me," which they could liven up by using their flashy-
things (memory erasers). I was pushing hard for them to do "Secret Agent Man," but they didn't want to.
After they sang, I decided to sing "Ticket to Ride," so Deb sang it with me while the MIB stood behind me as backup. Then the MIB sang the Duran Duran/James Bond song "A View to a Kill" (actually just Siubhan sang and the others danced backup in truly amusing style). Meanwhile, other people were also starting to get the karaoke bug so there were a lot of other performers. Then, this guy Bob who helps organize the con came over to our table and said that he wanted to sing "Secret Agent Man" and would the MIB be his backup? Of course they said sure, so they did that and it was hilarious. Oh, later we had the MIB singing the opening song from Rocky Horror, with me sitting on the stage steps yelling the audience-participation lines. The real audience also yelled them, which was fun. :)
Melissa and I were tired so we left before Siubhan and the others sang their final song.
Saturday, Melissa got up at some horribly early hour to go do stuff. I didn't want to go to the first panel they were going to, so I didn't have to be downstairs until Lani Tupu's panel at 10:30. I got up and took a shower, and then I thought I was going to go buy deodorant (which I had forgotten to pack) and get breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, but the line was horribly long so I just got the deodorant and skipped breakfast. :P As I was rushing back for the panel, I passed through the hotel's restaurant (you have to go through/past it to get from the mall into the hotel) and there was Lani, eating breakfast. I said "hi" and he said "hi, how are you?" and I said, "fine, thanks for coming, see you soon." :) So then I knew I didn't really have to rush.
We had paid extra to get preferred seating, which means you have an assigned seat near the front of the auditorium so you don't have to come all early and worry about getting a good seat. We all gathered in our seats. One of the Andys (Andy K) had come dressed in Crais costume, and he really bears a startling resemblance to Lani. So just before the panel was due to start, Andy went off and whispered to the security people, and they whisked him off through the door where the stars enter the room.
Then Paul, the con organizer guy, got onstage to introduce Lani. But instead of Lani, out came Andy! He strode right up onto the stage as everyone was clapping, and struck a Crais-like pose. Then Paul was all, "wait, you're not Lani!" and the real Lani came out, and hilarity ensued. :)
Picture of Lani and Andy on stage together
Then Lani did his panel, which basically means he talked for a while and then took questions. I wish I could remember much of what he said but I can't. I do remember him saying that originally he was auditioning for D'Argo (and I believe Anthony auditioned for Crais) and then he was sad when he didn't get it, but then they called him back and said "will you be Crais?" and he looked at the script and went, "Will I ever!" He also demonstrated Pilot's voice for us (in addition to playing Crais, he also voices Pilot) and explaining how he would go to the studio to re-dub all his Crais lines after taping, as well as to do Pilot's lines. He also talked about what it's like to tape in a hot barn in Australia, and about how weird it is to have an action figure, and how much it sucks that Australian TV doesn't show Farscape so his family can't even watch it. Although, he has a brother in NYC who has seen it.
He also said that in the very first episode, he and Claudia Black (whom everyone calls Claude) decided to play up a bit of sexual tension between Crais and Aeryn, just in case the writers later decided to take that and run with it, which of course they did. And he talked about how he found out that he was being killed off -- basically he found out by reading the script and seeing "and then the ship blows up," and he was like, "The what does what???" and he called up David Kemper and went, "um, hi?" and Kemper was all, "oh, don't worry about it, he'll be back," but of course he never was, except in hallucinations/flashbacks. Ah well.
Oh, Siubhan just reminded me too that Lani told a story where, at his final audition callback, they said "okay, we need to get some pictures, please take off your clothes," and he had a moment of "oh shit, did I wear undies today?" panic. LOL!!!!
After that there were a couple of Dr. Who people on, but I'm not a Whovian so I can't say much about that. ;) I went to get lunch during this, got a very tasty falafel wrap
at the mall food court and brought it back.
Then Anthony Simcoe came on. Man, is that guy a SPAZ!!!! He came bounding onstage like a ping-pong ball and just didn't stop moving the whole time. Apparently he had had some problems with his flight, getting delayed over suspicious passengers or something, and didn't get in until 12:30am the previous night. So he was hepped up on caffeine and adrenaline, but he's also just naturally manic. Also, it was his first con!
His voice is absolutely nothing like D'Argo's, nor does he look much like D'Argo except around the eyes. He is very tall, skinny, but with a gut, and has blond or reddish-blond hair and a fairly high-pitched voice (with, of course, an Australian accent), and is a self-described geek and dork. He mentioned being a fan of Star Wars and Dark Crystal as a kid, and talked about how he tried to burn his Star Wars action figures
and got in trouble with his mom. ;)
He talked a lot about how he came up with D'Argo's voice. He had proposed the low, sort of scratchy voice to the producers when he got hired, but they said no, but on the first day of shooting when things were hectic he said to Kemper, "I'm gonna use this voice" and since Kemper was so busy and frazzled, he just said "yeah, whatever." So the
D'Argo voice was born; and later as D'Argo started to loosen up more, Anthony started using the slightly higher, goofier voice for when D'Argo is silly.
He talked a whole lot, basically just blathering on about anything and everything. He talked about how excited he was when he found out that his character carried a sword that turns into a laser gun. "MY SWORD TURNS INTO A LASER GUN?!?!" he screamed in ecstasy, his eyes bugging out maniacally. He talked about visiting the Henson Creature Shops and seeing the actual creatures from some of his favorite sci-fi movies, and
how cool that was. He talked about the different voices and accents of the different actors/characters, and how it was deliberately decided to have most of them tone down their Aussie accents (pretty much the whole cast is Aussie except for Ben Browder, who's American, and Lani, who's New Zealander).
He talked about his mom's reaction to seeing the show; apparently she doesn't like it. She thought the whole living-ship-having-a-baby thing was just stupid. He imitated his mom calling him up to tell him how dumb it was; that was very funny.
I wish I could remember more of what Anth said. I'm sure it will come back to me eventually.
After that we, uh, did other stuff, and then we came back for Gigi's panel. Gigi is amazingly cool. She just seems very sweet, very friendly and open, and of course she's gorgeous. She's unbelievably skinny, but
based on the evidence of the con, I think it's safe to say she's definitely not starving herself. ;) She's also very energetic and constantly in motion, not quite as much so as Anth, but close.
She talked about the role of Chiana, which of course was originally a one-episode guest role, but I gather that the PTB had it in their heads to make her a regular depending on how the first episode turned out. But at first, the different producers told Gigi different things about what accent to use -- the Aussie producer wanted her to use her natural accent whereas the American one told her to use an American accent, so it was very stressful to her trying to figure out how to talk! She also, I gather, invented most of Chiana's weird body language herself; she falls into it very easily while talking about it so it's clearly very natural for her. (Her laugh also sounds just like Chiana!) She also has dance training, and her mom is apparently a complete kook -- would wake up 12-year-old Gigi in the middle of the night to go out into the desert
and look for aliens. Then the next day at school, it would be "Gigi, why didn't you do your homework?" "I was up all night looking for signs of alien invasion." "Naughty lying child! Go to the principal's office!" Heh.
After that, we went to wait for our turn at autographs. They do the autographing in groups of 50, and we were numbers 51-57, so we had to wait for the second group. When our group was finally let in, a woman came walking past the line and stood right behind us and said hi as if she were part of our group. I was like, "you didn't just cut all those people, did you?" She wasn't even part of the 51-100 group! Her badge number was 152! She kept trying to claim that the people guarding the doors had let her in, but I suspected she had just slipped past in the initial rush. So I kept badgering her about having cut, and Siubhan chimed in, and FINALLY she took the hint and went back to the end of the line. Yeesh.
Anyway, we got Gigi's and Lani's and Anth's autographs, which was cool, and then we went back to our rooms and crashed for a bit. Then Rachel and I went to try out the hot tub, which was lovely, and then we all got dressed and went down for the banquet.
UFC has this banquet thing where you pay extra money and you get to have buffet-dinner in a big room with the actor guests. You're supposed to leave a couple of seats empty at your table so that the actors can come and sit with you. After the banquet is the cabaret, at which the actors perform. Last year, Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi, STTNG) sat with us and much fun was had. This year we didn't end up getting an actor to sit with us, but we still had much fun, especially once Rachel and Siubhan started hanging their spoons on their noses and I hung mine on my chin. (Near the end of the meal, the waitress chick came by to pour coffee, and she said to Rachel, "oh, you're the spoon lady!" Apparently the waitstaff had been having great fun watching us. Soon after that, one of the waiters/busboys came out of the kitchen with a spoon hanging off HIS nose! LOL!!!!)
Anyway, as for the cabaret, the first Dr. Who guy did a very funny rendition of the song "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me A Bow-Wow," and the other Dr. Who guy read a funny short story. Lani Tupu got up and sang some karaoke; first he did "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis. He was great. As he returned to his seat, Siubhan and Rachel waved dollar bills, then ran over and stuffed them into Lani's shirt and got hugs. Bitches! ;)
Then Gigi and Anthony came up onstage together; actually Anth carried Gigi on his back, spanking her as he went, which I got a great picture of. ;) They basically took turns telling dirty jokes. It was funny.
Gigi's Joke: What's the definition of making love? It's what a woman does while a man is fucking her.
Then Lani did more karaoke ("Bad Bad Leroy Brown") and the Dr. Who guy did another bit which I can't remember, and there was also a bunch of fen performing a short radio show as usual. Another guest, Patrick Kilpatrick, who has done guest roles on many sci-fi shows, got up to read a Dr. Seuss story, and he asked whether Gigi would be his page-turner -- it was only one among the many, many references that were made over the weekend to Gigi's babeliciousness. ;) He was joking, but Gigi actually did come up onstage and hold the book and turn the pages for him while he read "Oh The Places You'll Go." He joked about wanting someone in the audience to get rid of "the kid with the tattoos" (Gigi's boyfriend who was attending the con with her). At our table, we were all *right* there with Patrick, I tell ya.
So that was the cabaret. The one Trek guest, John Billingsley from "Enterprise," didn't perform. :P And then we went back up to our rooms to change for the dance.
The theme of the dance this year was Australia. I just had a t-shirt that says Australia, and a bush hat that Melissa lent me because it didn't fit her. Siubhan had a can of Foster's to carry around. But Deb had the best costume: a huge fake alligator head, with bush hat, and with a piece of bloodstained khaki hanging from its teeth. She also wore a suit and tie and spats, and carried a cane. It looked GREAT and was a big hit at the party. The DJ played "Crocodile Rock" for her.
Much of the music was Australia-themed, and we did some dancing. I asked the DJ to play the Macarena, since we had such fun dancing it last year, but when he played it, no one would dance it with me! I was so annoyed. The whole dance floor emptied out. But then Siubhan told me she had requested Darth Vader's theme so we could dance the Imperial Death Macarena*, so I was mollified. As the real Macarena ended, we lined up in a row on the dance floor, looking quite the motley crew with our croc and our Australia t-shirt and our obligatory fanboy in black leather pants. The rest of the partiers were staring at us, waiting to see what we were going to do. As the music started up and we started the Macarena, there was a very gratifying burst of laughter and applause. :) It was much fun.
*Imperial Death Macarena: you dance the Macarena to the tune of Darth Vader's Theme (aka the Imperial Death March). It really works! Try it sometime!
We danced some more, and eventually went to bed.
Sunday was more low-key, because there were no panels we desperately wanted to attend until 5pm. We got up and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, lazed around a bit, and then us chicks (minus the Andys) walked over to the Dr. Seuss memorial nearby. Apparently Dr. Seuss was born in Springfield so they've got a bunch of statues of his more famous characters, set up in a sort of courtyard with museums on all sides. We took pictures of each other with the Lorax and Horton and the Cat In The Hat. That was cool. We also saw Siubhan's old high school. There was also a museum with a Dr. Seuss exhibit, but we were dithering over whether we wanted to pay the $7. Then we saw a lady putting up a sign about a sci-fi-related exhibit at one of the other museums, and we knew that the $7 would get us into all the museums, so we said what the hell.
The sci-fi exhibit was quite cool. It was a collection of drawings of what people thought the future would look like. Some were from the 1800s, some from the early 1900s, and many from the 1930s and 40s. It was funny how some of them were actually pretty accurate -- people talking on phones in cars, etc. -- and some wildly wrong, like the picture drawn in 1934 and entitled "New York 1973" with huge airplane runways circling the entire island of Manhattan and huge ship docks built underneath.
The Dr. Seuss exhibit was cool too. I didn't realize how many drawings he had done for advertising campaigns before he started doing kids' books. They had a couple of pamphlets he had done for soldiers in WWII, about how to avoid getting venereal disease, but unfortunately all we could see was the covers. :( I would love to actually read those! ;) They also had copies of "The Cat in the Hat" in many different languages, including Latin!
We also briefly visited a natural-history museum and looked at their big fake dinosaur. Then we were tired, so we went back to the hotel and relaxed while listening to panels. Melissa and I sat in on the end of a "how to get autographs" panel, which greatly alarmed me because the attendees were of the truly-frightening-fanboy/girl ilk. Ugh. But then Siubhan arrived to lead her panel, which was basically "we sit around and discuss which sci-fi actors and actresses we would do." ;) That was fun.
Then we had dinner in the loud sports bar because the quiet Italian place wasn't open yet. Then Rachel and Deb had to go catch their plane for home :( and the rest of us went up to hear the final panel, which was Lani, Gigi, and Anthony all together. That was a total hoot! They were a lot of fun on stage together. Much of the same info from the previous day was recapped (that always happens) and they talked about how great the fans are and how much they appreciate the support, especially the Save Farscape campaign. Anthony seems to think that a miniseries or feature film could happen, but that Farscape won't be returning as a series again. Snif.
Anyway, then that was over and we got in our cars and went home. The End.
I also want to mention that I restrained myself and didn't buy the Buffy Musical on DVD, the Smallville pilot on DVD, or any of the other very tempting items. I just bought two tapes, one of "Fritz the Cat" (have y'all seen it? It's a hilarious X-rated animated movie about this cat who goes around having a whole lot of sex with other creatures) and one of "Flesh Gordon," which I've always wanted to see. ;)
I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff. I'll do an addendum post later. :) I'll also, of course, be posting more pix in the near future. I got some really good ones of Gigi and Lani and the MIB, some decent ones of Anth and other stuff.
So we reunion'ed, and all, and I went down and got my con registration stuff, and then we gathered in Deb and Rachel's room to watch Firefly. Then we went downstairs for the meet-the-stars and karaoke party, only most of the stars hadn't arrived yet (we found out later that Anthony Simcoe had had travel issues, otherwise I'm *sure* he would have been on the karaoke stage). Gigi was there, but only briefly, so we said hi to her and then commenced with the karaoke.
Siubhan, Melissa, Deb, and Rachel were dressed as MIB, so they started examining the karaoke selections for a MIB-appropriate song. They finally settled on "Don't You Forget About Me," which they could liven up by using their flashy-
things (memory erasers). I was pushing hard for them to do "Secret Agent Man," but they didn't want to.
After they sang, I decided to sing "Ticket to Ride," so Deb sang it with me while the MIB stood behind me as backup. Then the MIB sang the Duran Duran/James Bond song "A View to a Kill" (actually just Siubhan sang and the others danced backup in truly amusing style). Meanwhile, other people were also starting to get the karaoke bug so there were a lot of other performers. Then, this guy Bob who helps organize the con came over to our table and said that he wanted to sing "Secret Agent Man" and would the MIB be his backup? Of course they said sure, so they did that and it was hilarious. Oh, later we had the MIB singing the opening song from Rocky Horror, with me sitting on the stage steps yelling the audience-participation lines. The real audience also yelled them, which was fun. :)
Melissa and I were tired so we left before Siubhan and the others sang their final song.
Saturday, Melissa got up at some horribly early hour to go do stuff. I didn't want to go to the first panel they were going to, so I didn't have to be downstairs until Lani Tupu's panel at 10:30. I got up and took a shower, and then I thought I was going to go buy deodorant (which I had forgotten to pack) and get breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, but the line was horribly long so I just got the deodorant and skipped breakfast. :P As I was rushing back for the panel, I passed through the hotel's restaurant (you have to go through/past it to get from the mall into the hotel) and there was Lani, eating breakfast. I said "hi" and he said "hi, how are you?" and I said, "fine, thanks for coming, see you soon." :) So then I knew I didn't really have to rush.
We had paid extra to get preferred seating, which means you have an assigned seat near the front of the auditorium so you don't have to come all early and worry about getting a good seat. We all gathered in our seats. One of the Andys (Andy K) had come dressed in Crais costume, and he really bears a startling resemblance to Lani. So just before the panel was due to start, Andy went off and whispered to the security people, and they whisked him off through the door where the stars enter the room.
Then Paul, the con organizer guy, got onstage to introduce Lani. But instead of Lani, out came Andy! He strode right up onto the stage as everyone was clapping, and struck a Crais-like pose. Then Paul was all, "wait, you're not Lani!" and the real Lani came out, and hilarity ensued. :)
Picture of Lani and Andy on stage together
Then Lani did his panel, which basically means he talked for a while and then took questions. I wish I could remember much of what he said but I can't. I do remember him saying that originally he was auditioning for D'Argo (and I believe Anthony auditioned for Crais) and then he was sad when he didn't get it, but then they called him back and said "will you be Crais?" and he looked at the script and went, "Will I ever!" He also demonstrated Pilot's voice for us (in addition to playing Crais, he also voices Pilot) and explaining how he would go to the studio to re-dub all his Crais lines after taping, as well as to do Pilot's lines. He also talked about what it's like to tape in a hot barn in Australia, and about how weird it is to have an action figure, and how much it sucks that Australian TV doesn't show Farscape so his family can't even watch it. Although, he has a brother in NYC who has seen it.
He also said that in the very first episode, he and Claudia Black (whom everyone calls Claude) decided to play up a bit of sexual tension between Crais and Aeryn, just in case the writers later decided to take that and run with it, which of course they did. And he talked about how he found out that he was being killed off -- basically he found out by reading the script and seeing "and then the ship blows up," and he was like, "The what does what???" and he called up David Kemper and went, "um, hi?" and Kemper was all, "oh, don't worry about it, he'll be back," but of course he never was, except in hallucinations/flashbacks. Ah well.
Oh, Siubhan just reminded me too that Lani told a story where, at his final audition callback, they said "okay, we need to get some pictures, please take off your clothes," and he had a moment of "oh shit, did I wear undies today?" panic. LOL!!!!
After that there were a couple of Dr. Who people on, but I'm not a Whovian so I can't say much about that. ;) I went to get lunch during this, got a very tasty falafel wrap
at the mall food court and brought it back.
Then Anthony Simcoe came on. Man, is that guy a SPAZ!!!! He came bounding onstage like a ping-pong ball and just didn't stop moving the whole time. Apparently he had had some problems with his flight, getting delayed over suspicious passengers or something, and didn't get in until 12:30am the previous night. So he was hepped up on caffeine and adrenaline, but he's also just naturally manic. Also, it was his first con!
His voice is absolutely nothing like D'Argo's, nor does he look much like D'Argo except around the eyes. He is very tall, skinny, but with a gut, and has blond or reddish-blond hair and a fairly high-pitched voice (with, of course, an Australian accent), and is a self-described geek and dork. He mentioned being a fan of Star Wars and Dark Crystal as a kid, and talked about how he tried to burn his Star Wars action figures
and got in trouble with his mom. ;)
He talked a lot about how he came up with D'Argo's voice. He had proposed the low, sort of scratchy voice to the producers when he got hired, but they said no, but on the first day of shooting when things were hectic he said to Kemper, "I'm gonna use this voice" and since Kemper was so busy and frazzled, he just said "yeah, whatever." So the
D'Argo voice was born; and later as D'Argo started to loosen up more, Anthony started using the slightly higher, goofier voice for when D'Argo is silly.
He talked a whole lot, basically just blathering on about anything and everything. He talked about how excited he was when he found out that his character carried a sword that turns into a laser gun. "MY SWORD TURNS INTO A LASER GUN?!?!" he screamed in ecstasy, his eyes bugging out maniacally. He talked about visiting the Henson Creature Shops and seeing the actual creatures from some of his favorite sci-fi movies, and
how cool that was. He talked about the different voices and accents of the different actors/characters, and how it was deliberately decided to have most of them tone down their Aussie accents (pretty much the whole cast is Aussie except for Ben Browder, who's American, and Lani, who's New Zealander).
He talked about his mom's reaction to seeing the show; apparently she doesn't like it. She thought the whole living-ship-having-a-baby thing was just stupid. He imitated his mom calling him up to tell him how dumb it was; that was very funny.
I wish I could remember more of what Anth said. I'm sure it will come back to me eventually.
After that we, uh, did other stuff, and then we came back for Gigi's panel. Gigi is amazingly cool. She just seems very sweet, very friendly and open, and of course she's gorgeous. She's unbelievably skinny, but
based on the evidence of the con, I think it's safe to say she's definitely not starving herself. ;) She's also very energetic and constantly in motion, not quite as much so as Anth, but close.
She talked about the role of Chiana, which of course was originally a one-episode guest role, but I gather that the PTB had it in their heads to make her a regular depending on how the first episode turned out. But at first, the different producers told Gigi different things about what accent to use -- the Aussie producer wanted her to use her natural accent whereas the American one told her to use an American accent, so it was very stressful to her trying to figure out how to talk! She also, I gather, invented most of Chiana's weird body language herself; she falls into it very easily while talking about it so it's clearly very natural for her. (Her laugh also sounds just like Chiana!) She also has dance training, and her mom is apparently a complete kook -- would wake up 12-year-old Gigi in the middle of the night to go out into the desert
and look for aliens. Then the next day at school, it would be "Gigi, why didn't you do your homework?" "I was up all night looking for signs of alien invasion." "Naughty lying child! Go to the principal's office!" Heh.
After that, we went to wait for our turn at autographs. They do the autographing in groups of 50, and we were numbers 51-57, so we had to wait for the second group. When our group was finally let in, a woman came walking past the line and stood right behind us and said hi as if she were part of our group. I was like, "you didn't just cut all those people, did you?" She wasn't even part of the 51-100 group! Her badge number was 152! She kept trying to claim that the people guarding the doors had let her in, but I suspected she had just slipped past in the initial rush. So I kept badgering her about having cut, and Siubhan chimed in, and FINALLY she took the hint and went back to the end of the line. Yeesh.
Anyway, we got Gigi's and Lani's and Anth's autographs, which was cool, and then we went back to our rooms and crashed for a bit. Then Rachel and I went to try out the hot tub, which was lovely, and then we all got dressed and went down for the banquet.
UFC has this banquet thing where you pay extra money and you get to have buffet-dinner in a big room with the actor guests. You're supposed to leave a couple of seats empty at your table so that the actors can come and sit with you. After the banquet is the cabaret, at which the actors perform. Last year, Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi, STTNG) sat with us and much fun was had. This year we didn't end up getting an actor to sit with us, but we still had much fun, especially once Rachel and Siubhan started hanging their spoons on their noses and I hung mine on my chin. (Near the end of the meal, the waitress chick came by to pour coffee, and she said to Rachel, "oh, you're the spoon lady!" Apparently the waitstaff had been having great fun watching us. Soon after that, one of the waiters/busboys came out of the kitchen with a spoon hanging off HIS nose! LOL!!!!)
Anyway, as for the cabaret, the first Dr. Who guy did a very funny rendition of the song "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me A Bow-Wow," and the other Dr. Who guy read a funny short story. Lani Tupu got up and sang some karaoke; first he did "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis. He was great. As he returned to his seat, Siubhan and Rachel waved dollar bills, then ran over and stuffed them into Lani's shirt and got hugs. Bitches! ;)
Then Gigi and Anthony came up onstage together; actually Anth carried Gigi on his back, spanking her as he went, which I got a great picture of. ;) They basically took turns telling dirty jokes. It was funny.
Gigi's Joke: What's the definition of making love? It's what a woman does while a man is fucking her.
Then Lani did more karaoke ("Bad Bad Leroy Brown") and the Dr. Who guy did another bit which I can't remember, and there was also a bunch of fen performing a short radio show as usual. Another guest, Patrick Kilpatrick, who has done guest roles on many sci-fi shows, got up to read a Dr. Seuss story, and he asked whether Gigi would be his page-turner -- it was only one among the many, many references that were made over the weekend to Gigi's babeliciousness. ;) He was joking, but Gigi actually did come up onstage and hold the book and turn the pages for him while he read "Oh The Places You'll Go." He joked about wanting someone in the audience to get rid of "the kid with the tattoos" (Gigi's boyfriend who was attending the con with her). At our table, we were all *right* there with Patrick, I tell ya.
So that was the cabaret. The one Trek guest, John Billingsley from "Enterprise," didn't perform. :P And then we went back up to our rooms to change for the dance.
The theme of the dance this year was Australia. I just had a t-shirt that says Australia, and a bush hat that Melissa lent me because it didn't fit her. Siubhan had a can of Foster's to carry around. But Deb had the best costume: a huge fake alligator head, with bush hat, and with a piece of bloodstained khaki hanging from its teeth. She also wore a suit and tie and spats, and carried a cane. It looked GREAT and was a big hit at the party. The DJ played "Crocodile Rock" for her.
Much of the music was Australia-themed, and we did some dancing. I asked the DJ to play the Macarena, since we had such fun dancing it last year, but when he played it, no one would dance it with me! I was so annoyed. The whole dance floor emptied out. But then Siubhan told me she had requested Darth Vader's theme so we could dance the Imperial Death Macarena*, so I was mollified. As the real Macarena ended, we lined up in a row on the dance floor, looking quite the motley crew with our croc and our Australia t-shirt and our obligatory fanboy in black leather pants. The rest of the partiers were staring at us, waiting to see what we were going to do. As the music started up and we started the Macarena, there was a very gratifying burst of laughter and applause. :) It was much fun.
*Imperial Death Macarena: you dance the Macarena to the tune of Darth Vader's Theme (aka the Imperial Death March). It really works! Try it sometime!
We danced some more, and eventually went to bed.
Sunday was more low-key, because there were no panels we desperately wanted to attend until 5pm. We got up and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, lazed around a bit, and then us chicks (minus the Andys) walked over to the Dr. Seuss memorial nearby. Apparently Dr. Seuss was born in Springfield so they've got a bunch of statues of his more famous characters, set up in a sort of courtyard with museums on all sides. We took pictures of each other with the Lorax and Horton and the Cat In The Hat. That was cool. We also saw Siubhan's old high school. There was also a museum with a Dr. Seuss exhibit, but we were dithering over whether we wanted to pay the $7. Then we saw a lady putting up a sign about a sci-fi-related exhibit at one of the other museums, and we knew that the $7 would get us into all the museums, so we said what the hell.
The sci-fi exhibit was quite cool. It was a collection of drawings of what people thought the future would look like. Some were from the 1800s, some from the early 1900s, and many from the 1930s and 40s. It was funny how some of them were actually pretty accurate -- people talking on phones in cars, etc. -- and some wildly wrong, like the picture drawn in 1934 and entitled "New York 1973" with huge airplane runways circling the entire island of Manhattan and huge ship docks built underneath.
The Dr. Seuss exhibit was cool too. I didn't realize how many drawings he had done for advertising campaigns before he started doing kids' books. They had a couple of pamphlets he had done for soldiers in WWII, about how to avoid getting venereal disease, but unfortunately all we could see was the covers. :( I would love to actually read those! ;) They also had copies of "The Cat in the Hat" in many different languages, including Latin!
We also briefly visited a natural-history museum and looked at their big fake dinosaur. Then we were tired, so we went back to the hotel and relaxed while listening to panels. Melissa and I sat in on the end of a "how to get autographs" panel, which greatly alarmed me because the attendees were of the truly-frightening-fanboy/girl ilk. Ugh. But then Siubhan arrived to lead her panel, which was basically "we sit around and discuss which sci-fi actors and actresses we would do." ;) That was fun.
Then we had dinner in the loud sports bar because the quiet Italian place wasn't open yet. Then Rachel and Deb had to go catch their plane for home :( and the rest of us went up to hear the final panel, which was Lani, Gigi, and Anthony all together. That was a total hoot! They were a lot of fun on stage together. Much of the same info from the previous day was recapped (that always happens) and they talked about how great the fans are and how much they appreciate the support, especially the Save Farscape campaign. Anthony seems to think that a miniseries or feature film could happen, but that Farscape won't be returning as a series again. Snif.
Anyway, then that was over and we got in our cars and went home. The End.
I also want to mention that I restrained myself and didn't buy the Buffy Musical on DVD, the Smallville pilot on DVD, or any of the other very tempting items. I just bought two tapes, one of "Fritz the Cat" (have y'all seen it? It's a hilarious X-rated animated movie about this cat who goes around having a whole lot of sex with other creatures) and one of "Flesh Gordon," which I've always wanted to see. ;)
I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff. I'll do an addendum post later. :) I'll also, of course, be posting more pix in the near future. I got some really good ones of Gigi and Lani and the MIB, some decent ones of Anth and other stuff.
