Dragon*Con Day 2 – Parades, Fish & Disease

 

Saturdays at Dragon*Con are really known for 2 things: The parade on Saturday morning and the parties of Saturday night.  We’d be replacing the parties this year with a trip to the Georgia Aquarium for Dragon*Con night and a photo shoot with people from Irrational Games (The company behind the game for our costumes).  We were really looking forward to that.  Our hotel, The Ellis, has a restaurant with a balcony that overlooks Peachtree street, but it had been booked for 7 months prior to the parade.  Yes, this is that big of a deal.  So, we got some coffee, and found ourselves a nice spot on the curb right outside the hotel, about an hour before the parade was to start.  Even an hour early, it was crowded.

Now, I don’t usually do this, but I’ve got to this time.

The above is a picture of the biggest douchebag father I’ve seen.  Everyone in this area had been there over an hour.  The couple behind us had two small boys and the boys had been sitting where douchebag dad is now sitting.  As small boys will do, they got up to go see mom for a second, and as they left their spot, Mr. I am the center of the universe, ran in and slid into that spot, taking it from the boys.  The parents and everyone around us was shocked and appalled at this, but douchebag dad didn’t notice at all.  Now, being the Boy Scout that I am, Melinda and I scooted back just a little to open a spot on the curb and offered it to the boys that douchebag dad had just screwed.  The parents were grateful, and we got to set a little bit back right.  Moral of the story, DON’T BE A DOUCHEBAG AND TAKE KIDS SEATS AT A PARADE!!!

The rest of the time before the parade started was people glaring at him and talking about what happened and him being completely oblivious to it.

Then the parade started!!

Box Heros!

And just to show you the sense of humor at Dragon*Con, the parade organizers put the above My Little Pony costumes right in front of
The Road Warrior Costumes.

The Sci-Fi Janitors cleaning up the mess.

After the parade it was time for breakfast to let the crowds die down a little.  Still it was crowded and busy in our hotel.  They actually ran out of regular glasses at one point and so my milk arrived like this:

Our waiter apologized, but it struck me as incredibly funny.

We didn’t even try to go to any panels or other events. The people who come in just for Saturday always push the attendance to over the 40K.  We did go to people watch for a while though, and wear our other costumes.

Melinda as Alice from Resident Evil.

Me as a Sandman from Logan’s Run, and yes, I had a red life clock in my left hand, but it didn’t last long before the heat melted the glue.

Human version of My Little Pony characters.

Scooby and Velma

After a while we found a good spot to just overlook the anthill of people and I just started taking random shots.

The most bizarre thing we saw all weekend, an escalator with no one on it.

This is the Mayor from Nightmare Before Christmas.  The Mayor had two faces that spun around in the movie and this guy caught that in a creative way. He actually used a lamp shade for the mask and would just spin to show one face or the other.  Great job.

After this, it was in the upper 90s, no breeze and a lot of people that the heat was causing to be rather rude at times.  So we went back to our hotel (got Quiznoes on the way), ate and got ready for the aquarium trip.

We were going to have to drive ourselves there instead of taking one of the con shuttle busses for a couple of reasons.  I wasn’t sure how Delta would fit on a bus or survive the trip and the Aquarium had a strict no weapons policy and I was going to take a 3 foot long drill arm.  While not a traditional weapon, still a weapon and with the vague no weapons rule, I didn’t know how they would react to it.  So I wanted to be able to put it back in the car if they said no.  It took a while to get there because of road closures for traffic flow, finding the parking garage ($10 to park there) and then walking all the way around the aquarium to get from the garage to the entrance. Yes you walk the entire perimeter of the aquarium to go from the garage to the entrance and from the aquarium exit back to the garage. Ugh.  Once we got to the line to get in, they were doing bag checks of course, and in front of me was a Viking princess with what had to be an 8 foot spear with a metal tip that was covered with just a piece of leather.  If they let that in, the drill would have no problem. They didn’t look twice at her, the guys eyes did pop out when he saw me carrying the helmet though.  I love that reaction.

When we got in, we were greeted with a scream from Ashley from Irrational Games.  She was blown away by our costumes.  She had to stay at the entrance, where we were causing a stir getting the helmet on and then tons of pictures being taken, so she called over Sarah, who jumped up and down.  Sarah then basically guided us through the aquarium.  She and Melinda talked the whole time, I couldn’t really hear anything.  Sarah guided us to the Irrational Games photographer and then into the aquarium’s tunnel under the tanks.  The photographer wanted some pictures in there.  Perfect spot really, but no one told me about the two way moving floor.  So as I was standing there posing as the photographer instructed, I was nearly doing a split.  This caused some amusement when everyone noticed, and they moved me to the stationary middle section.  I’m really looking forward to seeing the pictures when they are published. 

After that we made it into the main area, where we had some more pictures taken and met several people that I know from various online forums.  That was one of the cool parts. Actually meeting online friends in real life.  We were told that the main picture meet up with everyone and Irrational was going to be in the main observation room at 10.  We made it in there early again, and just hung out.  I was actually starting to feel tired and a little worn down.  When 10:00 arrived, there were people and flash bulbs everywhere.  Thanks to everyone that came and thanks especially for those that took pictures and posted them online allowing me to get copies.

This is in the main observation room.  The room is blue because of the 50 foot long 20 foot high observation window.  It was amazing.

So far this is my favorite shot from the whole thing.  The little girl is dressed as one of the Little Sisters from the game and was just perfect.  Only problem is I didn’t know she was standing beside me until she started reciting a nursery rhyme from the game.  So I’m standing there and I hear this little voice reciting the creepy rhyme and I totally got chills.  Even Irrational’s photographer got creeped out.  I could hear him saying “This is really scary”.  We did good.

These are a couple of other pictures from Friday night of me and Melinda.

After we got back to the car, we managed to find our way back to the hotel.  I was tired and thirsty, so I started drinking a Gator Ade we had brought with us.  It didn’t help. I felt worse after, and just kept feeling worse and worse.  Sometime around 11:30 or midnight, me and my old friend, the porcelain god, reintroduced ourselves to each other.  For the next 13 hours, we were best friends.  Con-crud had struck hard.  I think my system was still weak from having been sick earlier in the week, and I just couldn’t fight off the germs at Dragon*Con. 

We ended up leaving around 3:30 Sunday, two days early.  That totally sucked.  It took until Thursday before I was able to eat without my stomach hurting and the fever didn’t break until Wednesday morning (spiked at 101).

So we only got to attend one panel, but had some amazing pictures taken, just have to find them now.

Dragon*Con–Day 1–Lines, Lines, Everywhere There’s Lines

 

Day one was supposed to start like last year, with a True Blood panel.  However, when we got to the location, about an hour early, the line was already out the hotel, down to the street and lapping around the hotel.  Melinda likes True Blood, but not that much.

The crowd on Friday, felt to me, like last year’s Saturday crowd.  That could have been because there were in fact more people this year, or the fact that last year, my mask restricted so much of my vision, I was never able to see the crowd.

We did a little people watching, but the Friday costumes were a little lacking.  Just a handful actually stood out.  I’ve got some pictures below.

Our second panel of the day was to meet the voice actors for Yoda and Ahsoka for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and the wookie himself, Chewbacca, Peter Mayhew. We got to the panel about 2 hours early and were sixth and seventh in line.  When the panel started, the stars   introduced themselves and immediately opened the floor for questions. It was really awesome to see several kids, in costume, step up to the mic and ask questions.  The cutest was from a little boy to Ashley, voice of Ahsoka, asking her “How dirty did Ahsoka get when she was trying to escape from those lizard things in the woods?” The entire room went “Awwwwww….” all at the same time.  Ashley answered the question very well and was obviously used to dealing with children and not just rabid fan boys.  A bit later a slightly older boy stepped up and quickly corrected the younger boy by stating the actual name of the race of the lizard things.  Later someone asked where the actors stood on the really big question, did Han shoot first?  Peter gave the best answer of all time to that question: “I don’t really know. I didn’t see. I was on the other side of the bar finishing my drink.” Straight from Chewy himself.

After this panel let out, we had 30 minutes to make it to the next, a work shop on casting and mold making. We got to it 15 minutes early and the room was full. So it turned out that Friday would be the only panel we would get to see.

Now Friday night there was supposed to be a meet up of Bioshock cosplayers (people who dress in costumes).  I got a text late in the evening that it had cancelled, but we went anyway.  Subject Delta and Eleanor made their debut in front of the Marriott from 9PM to around 11:30PM.  The costumes were a big hit.  We didn’t dare try to go into the hotel, just because of the crowds and how bulky the costume was. This may have been a problem, because as of yet, I haven’t found any of the pictures taken of us in costume and we only came out of the evening with 2.  Also, unfortunately, the syringe portion of Melinda’s costume did not make the show. It sort of…well…fell apart.  One of the valves shattered, one of the gauges came off, and the worst and unfixable at con, was one of the straps to attach it broke lose.

While we’re talking about photographing cosplayers, there are a few rules people should keep in mind.
1) Always ask first. Now the exception to this is if there are a lot of people snapping pictures and you just jump into the pool, that is usually  acceptable. At least by me. However, if you want your picture made with the cosplayer, ALWAYS ASK.
2) If you are having your picture made with the cosplayer, please keep in mind that this is just a picture and not a TSA checkpoint. There is no reason to grab or grope the poor cosplayer. No matter how funny you may think it is to grab Subject Delta’s butt, it isn’t. Especially to Mrs. Subject Delta.
3) Be polite. If there is a certain pose you want the cosplayer to do, simply ask.  Shouting out “Hey Bioshock Dude! Lift your f*%king drill thing!” is not a good idea.  Unless you’re looking for a f*%king drill thing up the side of your head, or worse.

That all said, most people associated with Dragon*Con followed those rules.  The others that were either their for one of the other events or just their, they are the ones that need educating.

Subject Delta and a Bunny Splicer

I have no idea who she was, but she was awesome and her costume was great (even if she did sneak attack me here).  She saw me, screamed, ran up to me and gave me a big hug and then asked for some pictures. After that, she and Melinda struck up a conversation and Melinda told her about the aquarium gathering, and she actually came to it.

Subject Delta and Scientists from Aperture Labs

These guys were awesome. They had two Portal guns and we made the deal that Delta could hold one if they could use the drill arm.  Worked out well I think.

Other Costume Pictures from Friday.

Dragon*Con Day 0

 

Pre-registration Hell, take 2.  Dragon*Con’s typical attitude toward attendees seems to be, buy early, save money, wait in line forever; Buy day of, spend more, no wait at all.  Not the best attitude toward your customers, but they did try something new with bar codes for pre-reges this year.  We got in line at 11:45AM (it opened at 10AM) and the line was already the length of the hotel block, and within a half hour of no movement at all, the line wrapped around two sides of the hotel. The reason we were given for the stand still was that the computers went down.  Really Dragon*Con???  You have every geek and nerd in a 50 mile radius here and we can’t keep a simple computer system going?  *groan*  Still once the computers were back online, the line did move pretty well.  Our wait went from 4.5 hours last year, to just 2:15 this year.  A 50% reduction in time, including a system failure, is a pretty good improvement.  Many people ask why they don’t mail the badges to the members, and the given answer is due to forgery, but the unspoken answer is greed.  The same reason they don’t cap pre-reg sales.  Now the wait could have been even shorter, but, once I got to the end of the line, I was waiting for the next bar code reader to open, and I was removed from the line and taken over to the analog station where they tried to find me in the “Book”.  I waited there for a good 10 minutes, and they couldn’t find my name. So they moved me to another bar code reader station, where about 5 different things were going on at once saying they would have to scan to look me up (this whole time I was watching where my blue registration card was traveling like a hawk).  Then just before they were ready to scan my card, a guy claimed to find my name in the “Book”.  Credit where credit is due, he did find Kevin Martin, but after I left the area and was looking over my badge, I saw it was a Kevin Martin from Canton, GA not Knoxville, TN.  Now did I turn around and go back in and ask them to fix it?  Oh, Hell NO!!!  I’ve got my badge, I’m done.  I was not going to back into the gerbil maze and smell the funk of hundreds of sweaty geeks anymore.  If it bites me later, then so be it. Karma, but for now, I have a badge and that’s all I need.

Dragon*Con 2011 Day -1

 

Day –1 of Dragon*Con 2011.

We made it to the Ellis with no major incidents around 5:30.  Traffic was traffic, but not horrid.

When we pulled up to the valet station, Melinda got the valet and told him we may need 2 luggage carts.  When I opened the Santa Fe’s tailgate the  conversation went something like this:
Valet: WHOOO!
Me: Yeah, it’s a big box.

Valet : You here for the Dragon*Con?
Me: How could you tell?
Both laugh.

Even checking in, the lady at the counter looked at our luggage cart and asked “You here for the Dragon*Con?” 

So they’re a little surprised to see people staying here attending Dragon*Con, but they are prepared for it.

After we unpacked I checked the big box to see how much damage the Subject Delta helmet and others had suffered had suffered.  All in all its not too bad.  A tube has broken off the helmet. A couple of wing nuts off of Melinda’s Eleanor piece. And a bit of chipped paint that will have to be touched up.

And that is why you travel with a costume repair kit that includes: a hot glue gun and glue, paints and brushes, duct tape, zippy ties, Velcro, scissors, etc..

Our Tentative Schedule 
Wednesday – 9PM – “Hatchling” meet-up at the Marriott Pulse bar.  On Mondays they have the Dead Dragon parties for the survivors. Some thought that a Hatchling get together would be a good idea.

Thursday – registration opens at 10AM.  Hopefully have badges by lunch.
7:30PM – Celtic Block at the Hyatt. Celtic bands.
8:30PM – Yellow Ribbon Party at the Marriott. Party for showing support to service men, women, family and friends at Dragon*Con

Friday – Morning to Evening – Panels for True Blood, Star Wars Clone Wars, Costuming and Prop Making. No costumes being worn at this time.
9PM – Bioshock costuming meet up at the Marriott Fountain.

Saturday –  10AM Dragon*Con Parade
Morning to Evening – Prop making workshop, people watching.  Melinda will be dressed as Alice from Resident Evil : Apocalypse and I will be a Sandman from Logan’s Run.
7PM – 11PM – Bioshock photo shoot at the Georgia Aquarium with Irrational Games!!!!!

Sunday – Morning to Evening – Panels and workshops all over the place.  Costumes to be determined.

Monday – 10AM Top Gear Panel as part of the British media track, and then 11:30 – 3:30 ROBOT BATTLES 2011!  Then back to the hotel to pack.

Tuesday – check out, drive home.

I’ll try to post as the weekend goes, but as you can see, its going to be busy and all kinds of fun!!!