lance_sibley | Dragon*Con, day three.

I woke up a little later than I had hoped today. I had to go to the front desk and do the check out/check in shuffle as there was a one-day rate change today - apparently when I booked my room there were no rooms left in the Dragon*Con block for tonight. I do get the con rate for tomorrow and Monday night, though, which means I have to do the check out/check in shuffle again tomorrow. Lovely. I'm thinking I may have to write an email to Dragon*Con's Hotel Liaison(s), though who knows if they'll be able to do anything about it after the fact?

Anyway, I managed to get over to the Hyatt around 2ish.

evil_admiral had left a couple of voice mails for me, and I tried calling him back, but got his voice mail. He was in a loooooong registration lineup, so while I waited to hear from him again, I attended the Trek Guest Stars panel, with Lee Meriwether, Yvonne Craig, Kate Vernon, Tony Todd and Ken Feinberg. They had a lot of good stories. I got up at one point to ask Lee and Yvonne what the atmosphere on the TOS set was like given that both of their episodes were near the end of the show's run, when it was known that the show was being cancelled. Lee said that she had been told not to approach certain people, but she was not told why. Yvonne said that she was never even told that much. In both cases, however, they had no inkling that anything was up based on the behaviour of the cast and crew.

I only managed to take one picture today, at the end of that panel - Lee Meriwether was kind enough to pose for me. The mytelusmobility.ca site is acting up right now so I can't upload the picture to my Photobucket account, however. :( I'll try to do that tomorrow.

After the panel, I called

evil_admiral again and found that he was in the Hyatt, about 40 feet from where I had just been. So I turned around, saw him standing near a pillar, and glomped him from behind. *grin* We had planned to meet up last year, but Hurricane Katrina got in the way and drove up gas prices, so he couldn't afford to drive down to the con. So it was nice to finally meet him in the flesh for the first time. For those of you reading this who know of him through TrekBBS, he's even cuter in the flesh than he is in pictures. :)

We went to an interesting panel, called "Star Trek Vs. Star Trek," on which people compared the different shows in the franchise and talked about which was their favourite, and why. Following that panel, we went to a panel called "Evil Geniuses For A Better Tomorrow: 4th Annual Recruiting Session, Membership Drive And Bake Sale". It was hysterical listening to the panelists talk about how to take over the world. One of them claimed to be building a secret castle lair. There was talk of not performing soliloquies when the enemy agents have been captured.

Following that panel, we decided to get food. We ended up back at the diner in the Days Inn, where I had a salad, burger and fries, and once again could barely finish it (actually, I did leave some fries).

After dinner,

evil_admiral had a date with someone he recently friended on Facebook, so he went off to do that while I went to find the James Bond panel, where the vitriol one is finding against Daniel Craig on various Bond fansites was conspicuously absent. The panel talked about many different aspects, including the inevitable discussion of why Pierce Brosnan was dropped from the role for allegedly being "too old," when Connery and Moore were both older. It was pointed out that modern Bond films are a lot more stunt-intensive than the older ones, and there's a lot more wear and tear nowadays on the Bond actor than there used to be, so it's more important now for the actor to be younger. Of course, at the same time, it's important for the character to be believable. When the audience was asked what their favourite Bond opening theme and sequence were, I said my favourite theme was "Live And Let Die," though I'm curious as to what the original artists approached to do the theme to "The Living Daylights" would have come up with. Yes, before a-ha were hired, the theme was supposed to be done by the Pet Shop Boys... but they backed out when they learned that they weren't being asked to do the whole soundtrack for the movie. My favourite opening sequence sparked a bit of a reaction - I loved the opening montage of Bond being captured and tortured used for "Die Another Day." When I pointed out that I wasn't including the music in that evaluation, the crowd calmed down. :) It was generally agreed that "Die Another Day" was the worst Bond theme - even worse than "Moonraker". ;)

Of course, however, "Die Another Day" was played at the Rainbow Party, which is the LGBT party held in the Trek track room and hosted by the Outworlders. I hung around there for the rest of the night until about 2 am (hey, they were serving Boddington's!), chatting with 2007 Gaylaxicon Chair Scott,

wananga,

rasiler,

ashoemaker and his partner David, and Kirk and Mark, whom I met last year. Kirk was the guy with the blind eye with whom I had some, shall we say, chemistry, last year... anyway, he's gotten his eye surgically repaired, and didn't have to resort to having it removed, as he'd feared last year. He gave me crap for not emailing him to let him know that I would be coming this year. The group ended up in a bit of a backrub chain, though I didn't participate (I like the person whose back I'm rubbing to be paying attention to what I'm doing, not trying to give the person in front of him a backrub).

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few people with whom I hung around at the party... though I did meet a few new people as well.

evil_admiral came back from his date around 11 or 12, I guess it was, and I pushed him toward the dance area so that he could show off his hotness. :) (I'm always thinking of my Fairy Godsons' well-being. ;) )

evil_admiral headed off to his friend's place where he's staying around 1ish, I guess. The party broke up around 2ish (though naturally, a group of us stood around in the hallway afterwards - where I gave Scott a backrub ;) ), and I went upstairs to wander around the bar for a bit, where I bumped into

assetic for the second night in a row. (I still haven't seen anyone else.)

Anyhow, it's 5 am now (will the SMOFS list please calm down so that it doesn't take me two hours to read my email?!), and I'm headed for bed. There's another LGBT party tomorrow night, so it will likely be another late night.