omfg gallifrey
Feb. 18th, 2009 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseSo! Pictures so-far-uploaded from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aris_tgd's Camera of Awesome (tm) are here! I would particularly point out the amazing gorgeousness of both the first Romanas that we found, the Pair of Eights, and the ungodly-disturbingly-perfect Ten, but everybody was so awesome. And how about that line up of all ten of the Doctors? Sooooooo freaking amazing. Those fellows did a totally awesome masquerade skit that I'm hoping will turn up on YouTube in the next few days - I'll be sure to link the minute I find it. :)
Anyway. My slightly insane review of the Con as a Whole!
Thursday: Started out from Portland about 8:30am and drove as far as the Bay Area in CA. Listened to lots of music and a few Big Finish audios, saw loads of gorgeous scenery (hills and mountains are beautiful when covered with trees, but they fascinate me when they're covered in nothing but grass and scrub - totally not what I'm used to. And I'm enthralled by wild cacti.) Stayed over witharis_tgd's folks, who were very sweet to put us up for the night. ♥
Friday: Drove the rest of the way down to L.A., arriving in late afternoon (through the most hideous rush-hour traffic I've ever seen, but I must say it was much more tolerable with Big Finish audios to entertain us). Checked into the hotel and the con, and then settled into the room, checked schedules, had a little down-time... and then got changed into clothes a little less grubby from travel and went to the opening night party, where we met loads of nice people and had some tasty drinks. Very nice start to the weekend.
Saturday: Really the big day of the con, and official Costume Day for the three of us. ;) After breakfast and getting all dressed up, we wandered the halls a bit meeting people and having lots of fun pictures taken, and then queued up to have pictures taken with Wendy Padbury (Zoe), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Nicola Bryant (Peri), and Phil Collinson (up to recently, producer of the current series). All were very sweet and friendly, lovely people... and the waiting was significantly livened up by a bit of amusement when Wendy accidentally groped Nicola's chest, to everyone's amusement. ;)
After that, we zipped over for pictures around the Tardis, enjoying everyone in costumes, tooled around the dealer's room a bit, and had a lot of fun playing random spot-the-guest. One moment, I was followingaris_tgd toward the elevators, with maymargaret right next to me, and then suddenly she disappeared. I looked behind me, and saw that an older gentleman had caught her and was examining her arm-band. The costume makes no sense until you've read it, so that happens quite a bit whenever she wears this outfit, but I swung back to keep her company... and then realized that the gentleman chatting with us was Frazer Hines. I will admit, here, to a moment of absolutely absurd fannish glee... so great that, after taking pictures of both my friends with him, I cheerfully thanked him... and completely forgot to beg a picture, myself. *Headdesk* Another strange and delightful moment when I saw a girl bearing a striking resemblance to Tara from Buffy walked by me... and I realized as she got close that it was Amber Benson, there to sign autographs.
The bad part of Amber Benson being there was that the poor dear sat in the hall at a table all day with her handler/agent/friend/whatever, and nearly nobody paid the slightest attention to her. I felt horribly guilty every time I passed her, and kept being torn whether to just keep on, or to stop and say hello even though I don't collect autographs.
That... continued to be a problem all weekend, actually. I had a nice little chat with Colin Baker at one point, and realized after the fact that it might well have confused him that I didn't ask for a signature or photo. It's not that I don't appreciate his work, it's simply that I feel deeply awkward about that sort of thing, and can't seem to find the line between what actors expect of fans, and what I expect in terms of treating actors like people who, really, are probably pretty damned sick of signing things. I should note that everyone there was utterly sweet and kind, and the "sick of it" thing is what goes on in my head - I'm perfectly happy to chat with actors/writers/whatever, but outside of the actual lines for autographs/photos/etc, I have a compulsive thing about not "bothering" them. Which leads to me either nodding politely and staring into space (...we got stuck in the elevator something like four times with Kai Owen, and I spent a good several minutes stuck in a doorway queue face to face with Phil Collinson - the elevator thing in particular bothered me, because I have a weird thing where being in elevators with people I don't know always makes me a little nervous) or, if there's conversation, feeling a strange need to chat without actual reference to the reason I know them. It's all very strange, and I apologize for going off on this random tangent about my own bizarre politeness quirks. Ahem. Back to the con!
I do not however, have this politeness compulsion regarding other people in costume. I know I like being asked for pictures when I'm in costume... so I'm perfectly willing, for instance, to practically glomp a lovely girl dressed as Ace-in-a-tux-from-Ghostlight. ♥ The poor dear put up with my neurotic delight very well. ;)
There was a DALEK. And an awesome Cyberman, as well, but... a DALEK. He had lights and the voice and the plunger and he ran around the con and it was AWESOME. He even came into the dance on Saturday night, and I nearly died of happy (...as well as dying of plunger-extermination, which was a bit hilarious).
Kai Owen and the writer of the episode did a hilarious live commentary of "Something Borrowed," and Colin Baker gave me a good-natured scolding for buying some of the Gallifrey audio CDs rather than something with him in (he was hanging out at the table, since they were the folks who'd brought him to the con, and demanded to see what I'd got as soon as I'd finished my transaction) and then forgave me because apparently he's great friends with Louise Jameson.) Oh, and Wendy Padbury accidentally groped Nicola Bryant's breast during a photo shoot, which set the whole room (particularly those two, Phil Collinson, and Frazer Hines) into giggles for a good while. ;)
The Masquerade was full of brilliant skits, and I'm hoping several of them will turn up on YouTube later this week, but I'll list the important ones as well as I can. The best was a fabulous little thing about Ten showing up in the... er... cosmic Waiting Room of Rassilon, essentially, with all his predecessor-Doctors, and having a hilarious conversation with them, during which Eleven, too, showed up. I won't share details, because I'm really hoping that one turns up on line, but trust me - it's brilliant, and all their costumes were fabulous. There was also a group who'd perfectly duplicated the environmental suits from "Silence in the Library" - very creepy and delightful - and Doctor Who reimagined as a musical in the style of Chicago, which was adorable. Beautiful work. Pure costume-wise, massive props to the pair who made full 8th-Doctor-movie style Time Lord outfits - they were absolutely gorgeous (and made me very grateful that I hadn't attempted that!).
The dance Saturday night got delayed by the preceding event running over, so by the time we got around to it I was pretty tired. I managed to stay up long enough to dance with a nice fellow dressed as the Ninth Doctor (who turned out, randomly, to work for a car dealership that I'm reasonably sure is one of our customers... we had a lovely chat about the automotive industry while dancing), and laughed my head off when the Dalek showed up. Also, this DJ won major points for being the first DJ I've ever heard to actually realize, hey, it'd be a great idea to play some of the music that's featured in the show! Clever person played "Voodoo Child," as well as that hilarious Britney Spears song that was used in "End of the World," and I was very happy. ...Almost certainly the only time I will ever be happy to hear Britney Spears, but there you go.
Sunday was reasonably low-key for all of us, but K and I made it to part of the charity auction and while (alas!) they did not auction off either the plush Adipose or the adorable knitted plush Dalek while I was there, we did get to see Kai Owen and Gareth Lloyd-David (...or is it David-Lloyd? I still can't keep that straight...) auction off stuff, and were very amused. Got a lovely shot of them with a Four scarf draped over them both... and now I'm just waiting until someone who was there writes a crossover to fit it, because that's pretty well bound to happen, now, isn't it? ;)
Once we'd settled up and checked out and all that, we drove north along the coast - some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen, and lo! Once we got out L.A., the weather was perfect, and the ocean was sparkly and blue, and even a mild case of "oh-god-I've-eaten-too-much-junk-this-weekend" couldn't ruin it all for me. Beautiful. There was a dreadful moment in the middle of nowhere, when we were running out of gas and couldn't find a gas-station and it was dark and we were all tired and a great big freaking tumbleweed rolled out in front of our car (very iconic and, with hindsight, hilarious, but it kind of scared the daylights out of me at the time, because... well, I've never seen one before, and for an instant I thought it was an animal. Those things are HUGE! But we made it as far as the Bay Area, where we descended on an awesome little Afghan restaurant like a trio of locusts, and then, blessedly, slept.
Monday was the big haul from the Bay up to Portland, but we stopped through in San Francisco, which means I finally got to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I was not at all disappointed. Beautiful city, and an absolutely gorgeous bridge. ♥ By the end of the ride we were bored of music and audios, and spent the hour or so playing "Cliff, Shag, Marry." Doctor Who is a very good fandom for that game, as there's 40 years' worth of characters to go through, and the main character counts ten separate times. *Nods* Anyway, always worth a laugh.
Tuesday really wasn't anything other than getting home from Portland to Seattle. But we made it! And my cat was so happy to see me. He slept on my pillow last night. ♥
So... in the end, it was an awesome trip. They've got Peter Davison confirmed for next year, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to go - although I'm definitely planning on flying next year. I love roadtrips as much as the next 20-something, but... yeah. I think it'd be a lot easier just to fly. This time was fabulously fun, though.
aris_tgd's Camera of Awesome (tm) are here! I would particularly point out the amazing gorgeousness of both the first Romanas that we found, the Pair of Eights, and the ungodly-disturbingly-perfect Ten, but everybody was so awesome. And how about that line up of all ten of the Doctors? Sooooooo freaking amazing. Those fellows did a totally awesome masquerade skit that I'm hoping will turn up on YouTube in the next few days - I'll be sure to link the minute I find it. :)Anyway. My slightly insane review of the Con as a Whole!
Thursday: Started out from Portland about 8:30am and drove as far as the Bay Area in CA. Listened to lots of music and a few Big Finish audios, saw loads of gorgeous scenery (hills and mountains are beautiful when covered with trees, but they fascinate me when they're covered in nothing but grass and scrub - totally not what I'm used to. And I'm enthralled by wild cacti.) Stayed over with
aris_tgd's folks, who were very sweet to put us up for the night. ♥Friday: Drove the rest of the way down to L.A., arriving in late afternoon (through the most hideous rush-hour traffic I've ever seen, but I must say it was much more tolerable with Big Finish audios to entertain us). Checked into the hotel and the con, and then settled into the room, checked schedules, had a little down-time... and then got changed into clothes a little less grubby from travel and went to the opening night party, where we met loads of nice people and had some tasty drinks. Very nice start to the weekend.
Saturday: Really the big day of the con, and official Costume Day for the three of us. ;) After breakfast and getting all dressed up, we wandered the halls a bit meeting people and having lots of fun pictures taken, and then queued up to have pictures taken with Wendy Padbury (Zoe), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Nicola Bryant (Peri), and Phil Collinson (up to recently, producer of the current series). All were very sweet and friendly, lovely people... and the waiting was significantly livened up by a bit of amusement when Wendy accidentally groped Nicola's chest, to everyone's amusement. ;)
After that, we zipped over for pictures around the Tardis, enjoying everyone in costumes, tooled around the dealer's room a bit, and had a lot of fun playing random spot-the-guest. One moment, I was following
aris_tgd toward the elevators, with maymargaret right next to me, and then suddenly she disappeared. I looked behind me, and saw that an older gentleman had caught her and was examining her arm-band. The costume makes no sense until you've read it, so that happens quite a bit whenever she wears this outfit, but I swung back to keep her company... and then realized that the gentleman chatting with us was Frazer Hines. I will admit, here, to a moment of absolutely absurd fannish glee... so great that, after taking pictures of both my friends with him, I cheerfully thanked him... and completely forgot to beg a picture, myself. *Headdesk* Another strange and delightful moment when I saw a girl bearing a striking resemblance to Tara from Buffy walked by me... and I realized as she got close that it was Amber Benson, there to sign autographs. The bad part of Amber Benson being there was that the poor dear sat in the hall at a table all day with her handler/agent/friend/whatever, and nearly nobody paid the slightest attention to her. I felt horribly guilty every time I passed her, and kept being torn whether to just keep on, or to stop and say hello even though I don't collect autographs.
That... continued to be a problem all weekend, actually. I had a nice little chat with Colin Baker at one point, and realized after the fact that it might well have confused him that I didn't ask for a signature or photo. It's not that I don't appreciate his work, it's simply that I feel deeply awkward about that sort of thing, and can't seem to find the line between what actors expect of fans, and what I expect in terms of treating actors like people who, really, are probably pretty damned sick of signing things. I should note that everyone there was utterly sweet and kind, and the "sick of it" thing is what goes on in my head - I'm perfectly happy to chat with actors/writers/whatever, but outside of the actual lines for autographs/photos/etc, I have a compulsive thing about not "bothering" them. Which leads to me either nodding politely and staring into space (...we got stuck in the elevator something like four times with Kai Owen, and I spent a good several minutes stuck in a doorway queue face to face with Phil Collinson - the elevator thing in particular bothered me, because I have a weird thing where being in elevators with people I don't know always makes me a little nervous) or, if there's conversation, feeling a strange need to chat without actual reference to the reason I know them. It's all very strange, and I apologize for going off on this random tangent about my own bizarre politeness quirks. Ahem. Back to the con!
I do not however, have this politeness compulsion regarding other people in costume. I know I like being asked for pictures when I'm in costume... so I'm perfectly willing, for instance, to practically glomp a lovely girl dressed as Ace-in-a-tux-from-Ghostlight. ♥ The poor dear put up with my neurotic delight very well. ;)
There was a DALEK. And an awesome Cyberman, as well, but... a DALEK. He had lights and the voice and the plunger and he ran around the con and it was AWESOME. He even came into the dance on Saturday night, and I nearly died of happy (...as well as dying of plunger-extermination, which was a bit hilarious).
Kai Owen and the writer of the episode did a hilarious live commentary of "Something Borrowed," and Colin Baker gave me a good-natured scolding for buying some of the Gallifrey audio CDs rather than something with him in (he was hanging out at the table, since they were the folks who'd brought him to the con, and demanded to see what I'd got as soon as I'd finished my transaction) and then forgave me because apparently he's great friends with Louise Jameson.) Oh, and Wendy Padbury accidentally groped Nicola Bryant's breast during a photo shoot, which set the whole room (particularly those two, Phil Collinson, and Frazer Hines) into giggles for a good while. ;)
The Masquerade was full of brilliant skits, and I'm hoping several of them will turn up on YouTube later this week, but I'll list the important ones as well as I can. The best was a fabulous little thing about Ten showing up in the... er... cosmic Waiting Room of Rassilon, essentially, with all his predecessor-Doctors, and having a hilarious conversation with them, during which Eleven, too, showed up. I won't share details, because I'm really hoping that one turns up on line, but trust me - it's brilliant, and all their costumes were fabulous. There was also a group who'd perfectly duplicated the environmental suits from "Silence in the Library" - very creepy and delightful - and Doctor Who reimagined as a musical in the style of Chicago, which was adorable. Beautiful work. Pure costume-wise, massive props to the pair who made full 8th-Doctor-movie style Time Lord outfits - they were absolutely gorgeous (and made me very grateful that I hadn't attempted that!).
The dance Saturday night got delayed by the preceding event running over, so by the time we got around to it I was pretty tired. I managed to stay up long enough to dance with a nice fellow dressed as the Ninth Doctor (who turned out, randomly, to work for a car dealership that I'm reasonably sure is one of our customers... we had a lovely chat about the automotive industry while dancing), and laughed my head off when the Dalek showed up. Also, this DJ won major points for being the first DJ I've ever heard to actually realize, hey, it'd be a great idea to play some of the music that's featured in the show! Clever person played "Voodoo Child," as well as that hilarious Britney Spears song that was used in "End of the World," and I was very happy. ...Almost certainly the only time I will ever be happy to hear Britney Spears, but there you go.
Sunday was reasonably low-key for all of us, but K and I made it to part of the charity auction and while (alas!) they did not auction off either the plush Adipose or the adorable knitted plush Dalek while I was there, we did get to see Kai Owen and Gareth Lloyd-David (...or is it David-Lloyd? I still can't keep that straight...) auction off stuff, and were very amused. Got a lovely shot of them with a Four scarf draped over them both... and now I'm just waiting until someone who was there writes a crossover to fit it, because that's pretty well bound to happen, now, isn't it? ;)
Once we'd settled up and checked out and all that, we drove north along the coast - some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen, and lo! Once we got out L.A., the weather was perfect, and the ocean was sparkly and blue, and even a mild case of "oh-god-I've-eaten-too-much-junk-this-weekend" couldn't ruin it all for me. Beautiful. There was a dreadful moment in the middle of nowhere, when we were running out of gas and couldn't find a gas-station and it was dark and we were all tired and a great big freaking tumbleweed rolled out in front of our car (very iconic and, with hindsight, hilarious, but it kind of scared the daylights out of me at the time, because... well, I've never seen one before, and for an instant I thought it was an animal. Those things are HUGE! But we made it as far as the Bay Area, where we descended on an awesome little Afghan restaurant like a trio of locusts, and then, blessedly, slept.
Monday was the big haul from the Bay up to Portland, but we stopped through in San Francisco, which means I finally got to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I was not at all disappointed. Beautiful city, and an absolutely gorgeous bridge. ♥ By the end of the ride we were bored of music and audios, and spent the hour or so playing "Cliff, Shag, Marry." Doctor Who is a very good fandom for that game, as there's 40 years' worth of characters to go through, and the main character counts ten separate times. *Nods* Anyway, always worth a laugh.
Tuesday really wasn't anything other than getting home from Portland to Seattle. But we made it! And my cat was so happy to see me. He slept on my pillow last night. ♥
So... in the end, it was an awesome trip. They've got Peter Davison confirmed for next year, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to go - although I'm definitely planning on flying next year. I love roadtrips as much as the next 20-something, but... yeah. I think it'd be a lot easier just to fly. This time was fabulously fun, though.
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Date: 2009-02-19 12:58 am (UTC)