I’m a geek. Anyone
that knows me can attest to this fact. I
can throw a Star Wars reference into almost any situation life gives you. I am obsessed with reading and watching
anything involved in the fantastic. I never miss The Vampire Diaries or True
Blood. I love the Walking Dead. I’ve seen the LOTR countless times. I could go on and on, but I think the point
has been made. Having said this, I had
until yesterday, never been to a Con.
Why? I have NO idea. It was a geek MECA. Geekiness embaraced. Geek CELEBRATED. Where letting your geek flag fly isn’t just a
right… it’s a necessity. There’s nothing
you can do, you can’t help it. It comes
pouring out of you in the most terrific way. But let’s not get ahead of
ourselves….
This whole thing started last year when I first discovered
there WAS such a thing as Dragon Con when I had heard that Zak Bagans was going
to possibly be there. I became VERY
interested in learning more. I looked it
up and saw that there were MANY MANY people there that I would be interested to
see. At the end of the day, Zak Bagans
fell through as did my plans. But I
never shelved the idea of Dragon Con.
Not completely. Cut to this year
a couple of months ago when I looked to see who all would be there and I see
not only Alcide from True Blood but most of the cast of The Vampire
Diaries. Are you KIDDING me? You mean to tell me that there is a place only
a mere 2 hours from me where I can go and see all of the marvelous people? Umm… yes please!!
So I recruited my little brother, as he is a giant geek as
well, and decided to give it a go this year! (The straw that broke the camel’s
back was the rumor that Norman Reedus aka Murphy MacManus/Daryl Dixon might be
there) We got our Saturday only passes
ordered and booked a hotel and it was official! I was going to my first con!!!
Our trip started like most (although I have to admit this
was my first time ever road trip with just my bro and I), with some
well-planned amazing car mix CDs.
Although these mix cds had a slight different twist than my usual….
Jason wasn’t down with the Hanson/BSB/NKOTB awesomeness that Steph and I rock
out to. But there was some “Istanbul
(not Constantinople)” so it fit the theme of the weekend well.
Since we booked less than a month ago, nearly every hotel in
the Atlanta area was completely booked.
So we HOTWIRED anything within half hour of the Con…. Not the WORST
place I’ve ever stayed…. But certainly not the best. The room smelled like what I imagine the
inside of King Tuts tomb smelled like when it was first opened. It was the most stale/unused smell. And the
pillows were about as flat as two sheets of paper stacked… But I digress.
Waiting in line turned out to be one of the more interesting
times in my life. I thought I knew about
how it would be… but it turns out I had NO idea. I knew people dressed up, but I guess I didn’t
realize to what degree… and how high the percentage of people dressed up would
be. Next year I’m going to seriously
have to consider dressing up… I feel like I missed some of the fun. People were dressed up as EVERYTHING! Doctor
Who, Anime, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Star Wars, Batman, Superman, True
Blood, Predator,Tropic Thunder, Allen from Hangover, ect… Some of which I knew… some I had no
idea. But it was crazy! At one point
this little Asian dude wearing a girls costume (which I later found out of
Sailor Moon) comes up behind us and starts talking to some girls and at some
point he mentions he can do the whole dance (there’s a dance?) and he turns the
music on his phone and precedes to do a thirty minute dance like there’s no
tomorrow. One of the most fun things I’ve
ever seen. He just DIDN’T care. And NO ONE was judging! That’s the best part of
this con. You can be as “lame” as you
want to be and NO ONE cares a bit! It’s license to geek out! We saw a car that was made into a Tie Fighter
(R2 Unit included!), The Ghostbusters Mobile, The Batmobile… I’ve never had
such a time waiting in line!
There was also an older dude in line in front of us wearing
a Big Bang Bazinga shirt (which I saw about 75,000 at the con) whom we coined
Wikipedia because he just stood there spouting out random facts about random
unrelated things. At one point he
started talking about the British invasion and starting singing. He was UBER annoying… but at the same time
mildly entertaining. I’m sure the people
he was with were about ready to cut his throat.
Once the line started moving, we went through it relatively
fast. We were done with registration by
8:45 I bet and so we had a good hour and a half to figure things out. The way Dragon Con works out is it takes
place between four of the major hotels in the Peachtree area. We walked to the Marriot because that is
where all of the events of the morning were taking place. My brother got his picture worked out. He was getting his picture made with Stan Lee
at 11:15. (One of his Heroes). I found
the area that I would be going to the True Blood panel and then we went in
search of food.
Now I don’t know if it was some kind of survival game to
make you feel like you were in any number of scifi movies… or if I am just not
meant to be a hunter/gatherer (my blood line would have gone extinct within a
matter of days if I had lived in the stone age)… but it was SO hard to find
food!!!! They had stuff set up everywhere for when lunch started but NOTHING
for breakfast. We tried to at least find
something to drink and there was a place selling canned cokes for two dollars
(WTH????) but you had to have exact change.
UGH!!! So not only are we walking all over hell and creation but we are
doing it on no sleep and absolutely no food!!!! Finally after an hour or so of
wandering around we found a place selling candy bars. I bought two just in case food was this hard
to come by again. We looked around the HUGE
shopping area for a while then I headed up to the True Blood panel to get in
line and Jason headed to get his photo.
I had originally planned to skip the True Blood panel so I
could go to The Vampire Diaries panel and then get my picture made with Joe
Manganiello so I would get to see the ones I wanted from both shows… but then
my picture time was scheduled at the same time as the Vampire Diaries panel… so
I had to miss it. Boo. But my moments with Alcide made it worth it!
One of the best looking people I’ve ever seen in person in my life. Face melting. Truly. But I’ll come back to that later.
When I get to the area (that was relatively empty only half
an hour ago) it looks like they are having the Beatles/Elvis/Tupac reunion
concert up there. You can barely move!
And just as soon as I get up there they start wrangling everyone into a line
(which goes outside… in the hot sticky air) and somehow I get lucky and am very
near the front of the line. The room they
lead us into is HUGE! I end up in around the fifth row which is really
nice. They show Dragon Con TV on the big
screen while we wait and they did show one thing that was really
hilarious. It was a fake promo for a
movie that (and I paraphrase) went like this: “From the people that brought you
Alien and Alien 2 and Alien Verus Predator comes a new movie which hopefully
not also suck. It’s Predator Versus A
Ninja Versus Waldo” and then it cuts to a scene in a forest and all you hear is
crickets chirping and nothing happening for like five minutes. It was hilarious! And for anyone that doesn’t
get that… those three things are all things that are never seen. I dunno… I laughed. Around five minutes before the cast was due
to come out they started playing the “cricket” type sound that HBO always plays
right before True Blood starts and I gotta say… I got chills. I was super excited. It’s always awesome to suddenly be in a room
with people that you’ve loved watching on TV or seeing on stage or however for
a long time. And then the “moderator”
man came out and started introducing everyone.
We had (and I’m going with character names) Sam Merlotte, Alcide
(yummmmm), Arlene, and Lafaette. I videoed
a lot and took a few pictures. It was so
fun! Hearing them tell stories of filming some of my favorite parts on the show.
Let me take a quick moment to interject with something about
being out in the humid hot air…. I have naturally disgusting… I mean curly
hair. I straighten it because I hate the
curls. Throw this straightened hair into
humidity and you get something wonderful called… fluffiness. Giant nasty fluffy hair. There is also a phenomenon that is created on
my face called shiny greasiness. So
right before I get my picture of a lifetime…. Both of these wonderful events
take place. I am now
greasy/shiny/fluffy. Let the meeting of a sexy beast begin!!!!!!
Immediately after I tried to make my way down (amongst ten
trillion people) three floors to the area where my picture was to be taken,
because I only had a few minutes to get there.
I walked down there and was sorted into the correct line for which
person I was getting my picture with. It
wasn’t a big room so we were all really close to the stars of True Blood. OMG. Seriously seriously… Joe Manganiello is
so good looking that it actually made my stomach hurt. And oh man is he huge! 6”5’. Wow.
We got to watch other people getting their pictures made for about
twenty minutes or so before it was my turn.
They were taking the pictures really any way you wanted them. Some of the men would act like they were
scared and he would put on his werewolf face and one girl got him to pretend to
propose (which is had already thought of but didn’t actually want to do). He would hug you or just whatever you wanted
it to be. And I loved how no matter how
many people there were (and there were a lot) he talked and smiled at every
single person that came up and didn’t act like he was getting tired or bored with
it. When it was my turn and I walked up
to him and he smiled down at me… Oh holy crap.
He held out that giant muscular beautiful arm and pulled me to him…. What
dreams are made of friends… truly…. I
mean, it felt totally surreal. This giant sexy beast of a man and for the one small
moment in time, he’s only focused on you.
It was a matter of seconds but it could have been a lifetime. I saw our unborn children in his eyes and my
god they were gorgeous! Dark hair and green eyes.….. “Hey how are you?” I’m pretty sure I said “I’m good. How are
you?” (I love you. Can I have ten thousand of your babies?) Or something to that effect. They
took the picture then I had to look WAY up to see his face and his smiled down
at me and said thanks or something… I’m not sure. I was stupefied. Beautiful.
Simply beautiful. And again
flashes of our long happy life together appear. And he sees them too, because, I
mean, why wouldn’t he? And then I walked
out into the hall where my brother was waiting and I know I was beaming like a
jack ass. Couldn’t help it. SUCH a wonderful moment!!!! And I have a
photo to commemorate it forever!
Jason told me how he had just run into Dean Cain in the
hallway and he’d shaken his hand and said hello. I thought that was really nice
that he took the time to stop and shake his hand when he didn’t have to. He could have just kept going to made him get
in line and pay but he didn’t and that was cool. We had also walked past Lou Ferrigno earlier
in the day which was cool. (He was the
original HULK for anyone that doesn’t know).
He wasn’t nearly as big as I would have expected. He was short.
We decided to head over to what they call the “Hall of Fame”
where all of the celebrities gather and you can pay and get autographs and
pictures. Even if I didn’t want to pay
for anyone I could at least walk past them.
We saw Anthony Michael Hall (16 candles, weird science, breakfast club,
Edward Scissorhands), Felicia Day, Dean Cain, Lou Ferrigno again, some of the
voice actors in ARCHER, Adam West and Burt Ward(original batman and robin), the
True Blood cast again, a bunch of people from Star Trek the Next Generation,
among many others. It was really
awesome! Alice Cooper was also there but I didn’t see him. We saw Bonnie from the Vampire Diaries but
none of the others (boo). I had
considered getting my picture of Joe Manganiello signed but after I picked it
up and went back there were ten trillion people there and we couldn’t get back
in.
We walked back to the Marriot to search for lunch because
our lonely candy bars had long since abandoned us… and again… what a feat! There
were places selling 6 million dollar hot dogs and hamburgers everywhere but
there were people crawling all over them like ants on a picnic. Finally we found a Papa John’s station that
was pretty empty and we were so hungry that it ALMOST tasted good. (I hate Papa John’s…) We found a place on the
floor by the stairs to sit and people watched while we ate. It was actually nice. We saw a group of Predator’s taking photos
and pretend attacking people. We also
saw the best Superman I’ve ever seen… including all of the movies. He was tall, had a square jaw, dimple chin….
If he had taken off flying I would NOT have been surprised.
One thing I wanted to mention was a moment I witnessed when
I went back to pick my picture up.
Someone from Doctor Who was in the room taking pictures with the people
who had ordered them and I was standing by the door where the people come out
after theirs is taken. Two young boys
(early 20s?) walked out and this is a moment I’ll never forget. The looks on their faces… like they had just
reached the pinnacle of their lives. (I
equated it to when Stephanie and I went backstage at Hanson) They both looked
beyond overwhelmed… like they wanted to cry and puke and jump in the air all at
once. And then they both looked at each
other and just fell onto each other in a bear hug. I could just feel the moment pouring off of
them. It was so awesome to witness. I wanted to jump into the hug as well. It was just such an amazing moment for them,
you could tell.
All in all, Dragon Con was SUCH a fun experience!!! I can’t
WAIT to do it again next year! Anyone that has an inner geek should really
consider giving it a try. Not only did I
see a ton of people I never imagine myself being that close to in my life, but
I got to see my future husband and a glimpse of our life together. Can’t wait until he looks me up and we start on
those gorgeous children!
