SATURDAY

As I write this blog entry, I’m realizing just how seriously crammed-full Saturday was.  What a blast of a day!

We survived the night packed like sardines in our room.  There was myself, Serv, Race, Jon, Ravenface, and Shockwave all sharing “Harvey Dent’s Room”.  It was a little cramped.

After showers, Jon, Race, and I headed down for the parade.  I was shocked at the number of people present for the parade.  I heard later there were roughly 3,500 people there just to watch the parade.  Wow! Here is a video I took of the spectators all lined up to watch the parade.  For whatever reason, it came through on YouTube somewhat jumpy (sorry about that).  If you can’t view the embedded video, click here to be taken to the Once Upon a Geek YouTube page.

The parade was particularly good this year too.  They did the right thing and started it off with bagpipes and a Cobra battalion!  Also worth mentioning was the impressive number of superheroes in the parade this year.  Finally, I really liked the “Vote Zod” presidential campaign; that was funny.  Overall the parade was very entertaining and well worth the time.

After the parade, I dashed over the Torchwood panel.  I was shocked to find only a small crowd and that I could walk right in and get a great seat.  By the time the panel started, it was a packed house of approximately 1,600 people.  The panel featured Gareth David Lloyd (Ianto), James Marsters (Captain John on ‘Torchwood’ and Spike on ‘Buffy’), and Anthony Lewis (guest starred as Tommy in one episode of ‘Torchwood’).   Not really any spoilers for the next season, but they were a funny group with interesting anecdotes.  It was discussed that next season would only be five episodes long.  The only real glimmer of leaked information was regarding the new cast members of the show.  It was asked if two new people would replace Tosh & Owen.  Gareth David Lloyd responded by saying there would actually be more than two people added to the cast, but it was unknown how many of them would continue on after next season.

James Marsters shared a neat story about how he got injured during filming (cut his leg pretty deeply), but didn’t tell anyone.  Finally once he started bleeding through his costume, he quietly let John Barrowman know about his injury.  Apparently Barrowman called in a doctor to the set who patched Marsters up in secret without anyone else aware.  All the panelists agreed that Barrowman is larger than life.  He is apparently a never-ending source of energy and you can’t help but love the guy.  Not surprisingly, Lloyd and Marsters addressed the issue of kissing Barrowman (as both have done so on the series).  They didn’t think it was a big deal and the point of the scenes was not to be a “gay scene” but a “romance scene”.  Marsters was pretty outspoken about how enjoys creating controversy over his performances.  Anthony Lewis got to share his “romance” story also.  He had a bedroom scene with Tosh.  Turns out it was filmed the same time as the bedroom scene with Adam (from a later episode).  So basically Lewis and the actor playing Adam took turns in the sack with Tosh; there was some macho high-fiving over this on the set.  The actors also addressed questions about other projects, dream projects, and their musical bands.  At one point, Gareth David Lloyd was even asked to rap for the audience.  I took a brief video of this and will try to upload it soon (the sound quality was terrible on it).

After the Torchwood panel, several of us met up at Hooters for lunch.  It’s become something of a tradition for us to go to Hooters for lunch at least once during DragonCon.  Good food, good company, good… well, y’know.

Then I went over to the Brit Track in the Sheraton (new hotel for DragonCon this year) for a session on Doctor Who.  This time it was our friends over at NeedCoffe.com versus the Whoniverse.  Lots of good banter and discussion on the various Doctor Who franchise series.  I even won a DVD copy of “Timelash” for answering a trivia question correctly.

I’m really not sure what day this was, but I ended up in an elevator at one point with Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko on ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’).  He seemed nervous around the crowds and appeared to have some difficulty walking.  I’m not sure what the deal was, but I heard rumors ranging from old age to drunkenness.  Who knows.  Regardless, I felt a little sorry for him.

I also ended up in a different elevator with Michael Hogan (Colonel Saul Tigh on the new ‘Battlestar Galactica’). He was a really nice guy, talkative, and very up-beat. I’m glad I got a chance to meet him, regardless of how brief it was.

Of course throughout the day I was snapping pictures of various costumes.  I think I’ll wait and do a separate post just on the costumes of DragonCon 2008.

Around 5:00pm, Michael Bailey, myself, Ravenface, and a few others made our way over to the infamous “Marvel vs DC Jeopardy” session.  Comic book trivia has become quite a passion of ours at DragonCon.  I was fortunate enough to land a spot in the top three last year.  This year marked the 10th anniversary of comic-related Jeopardy at DragonCon.  Van Plexico of AvengersAssemble.net and his right-hand man George were once again the hosts.  They were plagued with technical problems, but still managed to put on a good show.  Sadly none of the Unique Geek folks managed to make it to the final three.  However, that may in part be because of the elimination process this year.  Let’s just say that those in the back of the room had a distinct advantage when answering elimination questions.  Unfortunately, we all sat in the front.  🙁

After another round of Chick-Fil-A, it was time to head to NeedCoffee.com & Quick Stop Entertainment’s “Nuts on the Road: Gonzo Sound & Vision” film festival!  This was the big moment most of us had been waiting for!  After no film fest in 2007, we were anxious to partake in the wacky hijinks once again.  This year did not disappoint.  The first 300 people in the door were greeted with exclusive “Stark Industries” poster tubes.  When expanded, the poster tubes looked quite a bit like a rocket launcher.  They were really cool!

This party started at 10:00pm and went until around 4:00am.  The whole gang from NeedCoffee.com was there (several of who also two-time as members of THE UNIQUE GEEK).  Something new for the film festival was an opening band, “Paul and Storm“.  These two guys are hilarious!  I enjoyed them so much I bought there CD on-site that evening.  Here is a YouTube video I found of these guys from a show they did in Pittsburgh.  They did the same opening number.  If you can’t watch it via the embedded player, check out the video by clicking here.  Funny stuff!  Then go to their website, www.paulandstorm.com and give them your money.  They deserve it!

Also on hand was Dana Snyder (voice of Master Shake on ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’ and other cartoons), along with Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank from Mystery Science Theater 3000.  After the opening music number, the film festival got cranking with bizarre and hilarious videos.  During the breaks tons of swag was given out and a great time was had by all.  I personally passed out from exhaustion during the show and eventually left for my room around 3:00am.

Another day, another great adventure.  More tomorrow…