Friday Evening, September 3, 2004

So, what can you say about Dragon*Con?  It's always insane - four days of a non-stop party in which every possible fandom converges.  This was my 15th overall convention and my fourth at Dragon*Con, but it was the first time that I had driven to Atlanta.  I managed to get underway at around noon on Friday afternoon, which meant that I would miss the first Firefly panel.  Not sad about that at all as the Saturday panel turned out to be MUCH better.

After making EXCELLENT time (cough*leadfoot*cough) from Tennessee to Atlanta, I was shocked to find a 20 mile-long parking lot on the interstate, fortunately in the other direction, from people fleeing Hurricane Frances.  I slipped onto Williams Street (home of Cartoon Network) and then up to the con, arriving right around 4:00.  After getting everything up to the room, I slipped into registration, which is usually a 2-hour wait.  I was stunned to discover that I only had five others in front of me.  On the way in, I saw the fan-made Firefly 2005 movie poster, which was quite excellent and set the tone for the weekend.  I also picked up an AWESOME Blade II poster.

First up was the dealer room, which is always an experience.  I did my initial pass to see what was available this year and then made my way back to the Walk of Fame.  I saw lots of cool actors, including Soupy Sales, Margot Kidder and tons of others, including the very lovely Julie Benz.  I decided to wait until Saturday to make my assault on the autograph lines and head to some panels.

My first panel was a quick sweep through the Buffy room, naturally, for the Buffy Deconstructed panel.  I caught the end of the panel and got to see the excellent Puppet Angel on display.  I asked Trish, the Buffy track leader, if she had seen any hounds and she said that she hadn't.  I decided that the Buffy Speed Dating session really wasn't for me, so I jumped out to call El Presidente, who was still in the Firefly Guests session with some of the other hounds at con.

While I was waiting to see what would emerge on the hound front that night, I decided to slip into the Dragon*Con Championship Wrestling tournament.  I LOVE DCW!  And it was a blast as usual.  Fourth year running for this event now and the crowd is starting to get more sophisticated.  Nothing like seeing a box of Lucky Charms smashed over someone's head.  El Presidente gave me a call to let me know that something with Jewel may have worked out, but unfortunately, I discovered on Saturday, nothing panned out there.

I decided to make a run through the lobby and got to see the first few costumes that were emerging for the night.  The ball-man was the funniest of the night.  After not making into the Garrett Wang Star Trek panel, I then went back down to the Buffy room to see what was happening in the Angel in the Dark session, a discussion of dark paths that the Angel characters had taken.  The debate actually got lively, and in the middle of the session, I thought I recognized someone in the front of the room. 

Nearing the end of the session, a young woman next to the person I recognized got up and went outside.  I flagged her down in the hallway to ask if it was a hound and it WAS!  After the session, I waited for the hound - Vampire Lady - to come by and decided that a little grief was necessary.  I stopped her to say that I was taking pictures with random people at the con and had selected her. My ruse didn't work though as she figured out who I was (my Hellmouth Central T-Shirt helped a little).

The timing was great though as her friend was going to hold a place in line for the Buffy Horror Picture Show!  We went over and got to shout at the performance, though sadly there was no Fiat and Otts this year.  I do have to say that the audience participation was MUCH better than last year.  Lines are starting to get formalized around the show now and it was great.  VL and I had a wonderful time mocking Dawn.

Dawn:  Does anybody even notice? 

Crowd: NO!

Dawn: Does anybody even care? 

Crowd: NO!