Dateline: Cleveland, OH. They waited. Watched with anticipation as the prize made his way through the door and up onto the stage. They breathed, screamed and moaned in unison. Flashes. More flashes. More screams. Questons, comments, musings about sock size, favorite foods, the future, the past, the Tempest and most importantly humility. Someone paid $6000 dollars to sit with him at his table during dinner. Someone else paid $5000. Obsess much? We leave 4 hours later, autographs in hand, directions to his favorite restaraunt in Venice, and a growing admiration for an actor that has provided us with many great moments over the course of his run on Buffy...

What makes a great movie? Let's give it a run down shall we? Great actors? Check. Scaling walls to spy on people? Check. Stalking people behind hotels waiting to grab them and put them in a HUGE van (sorry, h4s!)? Check. (It puts the lotion on it's skin!!) A white bronco chase? Check. Nudity? Check. (Thank you Andy Hallett!) Comedy? Check. (Again, thank you Andy Hallett!) The only thing that was missing from this weekend was a couple of action sequences involving slow motion fighting and a few expolsions. You think I'm lying? Read on...

Here's what I'm gonna do...

This was my first ever con and I must say that I'm completely drained right now. I didn't know what to expect and I'm still going over everything in my mind. If I forget anything I'm sure one of the others who was there during the weekend will remind me. So I'm going to give a blow by blow (um...er...well, we'll get to that..) of the weekends festivities (interspersed with my natural humor and musings of course) from the time we arrived till we left. Work for you? Good...Now, on to the show...


Friday
I'm going to skip the traffic, driving and cussing that went on as we travelled through Cincinnati, OH. After all this site is PG 13. We arrived at the hotel around 7:45 pm.

As we were going into our room I got a call from H4S.

"Where ARRRRREEEEE YOOOOUUUUUUU????!?!?!?"

Hehe, I could already tell this weekend was gonna be fun...

We finished getting the luggage up into the room and decided to head downstairs to register and see what's what for the weekend. As we're coming through the lobby 4 people stop me. OMG! It was Wish, H4S, Hippie and S4E!!! (S4E surprised us and told no one she was coming...the little minx!) As we all chatted for a few mintues, hugging and greeting one another, we found out that Iyari Limon (Kennedy) had just gone through check a few minutes before we got downstairs. Damn! (before you wonder why i'm mad because i missed Iyari, please read on...it'll make ALOT of sense later!)

We then headed into the bar to retrieve Myth and her cousin (who was a Buffy virigin btw). Do you see a pattern forming here? I think I do! (love ya both! hehe) We then proceeded to plan the evening which consisted of a "Bronze" dance. Well, we also knew that James Marsters (hereto referred to as "James") was down a hallway in a room with people who had paid about $60 a pop to have some cheesy finger sandwiches and drinks with him. Hey, whatever floats your boat. (Do I have to mention that the only reason we weren't there was the fact that it was sold out? Probably not) During this time I had to run to our vehicle to retrieve something for the women. (Do you see a pattern forming here? Uh huh, me too...) As I walked out the back of the hotel and headed to our truck, I noticed lots of flashing lights coming from a couple of windows. Well, me being the curious one, I hopped onto a ledge and pulled myself up to see into the window. Lo and behold who should I see standing a mere few feet away but a one Mr. Marsters. In all his resplendent glory. Talking, hugging, posing for pictures and *gasp* smiling. I jumped down with a strange sense of excitement (no, not that nice tingly feeling in my pants...but excited none the less). I immediately ran upstairs to tell LadyHawk and Dusty the news...I had seen James! Of course, I wasn't the first of the group. (Damn you Wish!) But it was exciting that he was actually there...

Anyway...we all met downstairs in the bar (see what I meant!) and I told H4S and S4E (hmmm...try typing those names together a bunch of times and see if you mess it up) that I had just seen James and they wanted to go see him as well. We then went out the back of the hotel and sneaked up to the ledge (insert Mission: Impossible music here). I jumped up on the ledge and was able to see him again. Let me just say the H4S and S4E wimped out on me and wouldn't scale the wall. (ducks to avoid objects flying at his head). We returned to the bar and then headed over to the "Bronze." Obviously, A Flock of Seagulls is back together because the lead singer was there...Just imagine the look, ok? Ok, not many peeps there yet, but it was Friday and we were going to have fun dammit! I'll go with Wish's figure and say that during the course of the weekend the ratio of women to men was about 75:1...no complaints from me! But there was no way in hell I was gonna be the only guy on that dance floor. So some other guy beat me to it. Then we proceeded to make fun of him for a good 30 minutes. They played "It's getting hot in here" and I almost puked. Robin Atkin Downes (Machida...and hereto referred to as Robin) was there helping DJ and almost noone knew who he was although he was really funny. Then the craziness started. James Leary (hereto referred to as Clem) was in the hizouse! Can I just say that he is soooo funny! He was acting all..well, Clem-ish. But without the makeup. He was extremely approachable and danced, sang and hung out with everyone all night.

S4E and I were hanging over by the table (still making fun of Guy #1, mind you) when they played the Buffy Theme for the 1000th time. At that point S4E said she had had enough and went to bed. LadyHawk came over and asked for the camera so she could take a photo of Iyari Limon (who, unbeknownst to me had just shown up). Well, (and here's comes the best part of the ENTIRE weekend...well, for me of course!) LadyHawk (who most of you know is my wife) goes up to her and tells her that I got the trip for her for her birthday so she could meet James. Iyari was like "that is SOOO sweet!" and then looked at me and said "is THIS your husband? OMG! he's soooo HOT!" and gave me this HUGE hug! We spoke for a moment and then we took a couple of photos. She was VERY VERY close to me and as she was leaving to go back to the dance floor she leaned her head in to my chest, hugged me AGAIN and dropped her hand down my back, gently caressing my *ahem* as she walked away... Was it unintentional? Probably. Will I never wash my ass again? Probably not. (something you all wanted to hear, right?) So, here begins my petition to rename the series "Kennedy the Vampire Slayer." Any takers? Trust me, it would work.

Either way, the dance on Friday was wonderful. The actors who were there were so accommodating and nice. I had high hopes for the rest of the weekend.

After the dance, we all went to our rooms and got into some more comfortable clothes and joined up in H4S, Wish, Myth and Hippie's rooms (they had an adjoining suite) We chatted and laughed. I made sure not to pass out before anyone else because I was sure that there was a bottle of peroxide just waiting for my hair. We ate...and ate...and ate...and ate. Myth was pushing Kilbasa on everyone. (did you get your Kilbasa dealer paid off?) and there were a few unfortunate incidents with a cardboard cutout of Spike. (can you say "the REAL captain carboard?" I can...LMAO!) Around 1 or 2 am we said our goodnights and made plans to meet for breakfast at Bob Evans the next morning...

Stay tuned for more...same bat time, same bat channel!