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DragonCon begins on a Friday afternoon. Attendees are arrive throughout the day. The dealer rooms, art galleries and dozens of discussion panels opened up. This is the time to start digging in and trying out some fun convention stuff.
| Day One Gallery - Friday, September 2, 2005 |
ChrisReid: This was just a minute after I woke up. I can't quite smile yet.
LOAF: Chris is dressed as a Blue Meanie from Yellow Submarine.
ChrisReid: We got ace to join us in the pool this morning for a quick swim before the convention events officially got started.
LOAF: Swimming?! That's a-pool-ing!
ChrisReid: It was still early when we got back, so we turned on the news. CNN's headquarters is just a mile from our hotel. We haven't been able to keep up on much news over the past week, so it was pretty shocking to see all the latest developments.
LOAF: New Orleans needs a whiff of grapeshot.
ChrisReid: Halman, LOAF and Frosty took the train to a nearby mall with a GameStop. Frosty finally got a Nintendo DS and everyone picked up Nintendogs.
LOAF: A beautiful woman tricked Frosty out of one Nintendo DS worth of money and then gave Halman a terrible hat.
ChrisReid: They went to the Dune Party afterwards and got to eat this giant cake shaped like a Dune book. Everyone won a free Dune novel too.
LOAF: Kevin J. Anderson said they tried to get "spice cake". Everyone laughed -- we had to, he was giving us free stuff.
ChrisReid: LOAF managed to be the first person to try on the Dune prop hat without it falling over his head.
LOAF: My idea for a costume here is - what if Luke from Gilmore Girls could also fold space, and also he ate Rory.
ChrisReid: Halman took this shot with his film camera, and then he one-houred it to photo CD for us to put up immediately.
LOAF: A bug that thinks?! Frankly, Frosty is offended.
ChrisReid: Familiar welcome banners decorate the halls.
LOAF: Attendez-moi!
ChrisReid: The dealer rooms finally opened. This is a long shot of the ballroom for large scale vendors. One level beneath it is the dealer area for smaller dealer booths.
LOAF: If I ever have money again at D*C, I'm buying myself one of those kilts.
ChrisReid: Various DVD movies on sale.
LOAF: I believe you need to build a carefully cultivated collection of bootlegs, not just buy whatever isn't out on DVD yet. Put some thought into it and find the illegally copied DVDs that most express your interests and personality.
ChrisReid: There are plenty of obscure action figures to buy.
LOAF: They're all characters from Buffy.
ChrisReid: The Red vs Blue guys were autographing everything people bought.
LOAF: Finally, a chance to interact with Halo without having to have fun or press buttons.
ChrisReid: These looked like real guns, and the kids asking to buy them looked about 11 years old.
LOAF: Owning pearl-handed dueling pistols isn't just legal for eleven year olds in Georgia; it's mandatory.
ChrisReid: There's more anime than you can handle at DragonCon.
LOAF: Somehow the only thing I ended up buying was an anime DVD, even though I hate anime and everything it stands for. How ironic, just like that song (Don't Cha, by the Pussycat Dolls).
ChrisReid: Shirts stack to the ceiling.
LOAF: Pants stuck to the floor.
ChrisReid: These are various pins and science fiction/fantasy CDs.
LOAF: MY OTHER CAR IS THE GIRL HAL 9000
ChrisReid: Beyond the dealers' rooms celebrities have booths set up for autographs and pictures with fans. I think this is one of the guys from Lord of the Rings.
LOAF: Notice how a pointed, firey 'DEVIL's REJECTS' poster perfectly frames screaming blonde's head. Now that's expert photographymanship.
ChrisReid: Kevin Sorbo played Hercules and one of the guys on Andromeda.
LOAF: He also played the evil alternate universe Hercules and, probably, the evil alternate universe guy on Andromeda.
ChrisReid: Max Grodenchik played Rom on Deep Space 9.
LOAF: Before you and I got together, I was dating this stripper from Luxo and, well, I may have given you grodenchik.
ChrisReid: All the walking and crowd navigation tires people out, and being near beds makes it easy to fall asleep.
LOAF: Those beds were actually there! All we did was add a little color, because in reality they're entirely white.
ChrisReid: This is a long shot between the connecting door in our rooms. ace and LOAF are resting up for evening activities, and Death is checking the schedule for his next events.
LOAF: 9:00 - blood drive, 10:00 - blood drive, 11:00 - blood drive
ChrisReid: We killed some time to spare with Pictochat.
LOAF: The snail's name is Zeke, and he is a recent fixture in Lesnick mythos.
ChrisReid: And then everyone introduced their dogs to eachother in Nintendogs' Bark Mode.
LOAF: Thin Lizzy? Get Outta Here!
ChrisReid: Before long it was time to suit up for a night on the town.
LOAF: Hat's goin' on?
ChrisReid: These suits are great. We're about to descend to the Hyatt lobby to check out people's costumes.
LOAF: I'm surprisingly flexible. Try me.
ChrisReid: I had to run off and finalize some preparations for Saturday's parade, but fortunately I caught back up with people.
LOAF: We were standing under that fakw awning to avoid getting fake rain on ourselves.
ChrisReid: This family was really cute.
LOAF: Oh, I think I can think of another adjective to describe them. (Fantastic!)
ChrisReid: This guy was a vendor, but when he wasn't selling glow-in-the-dark merchandise, he was out socializing with the crowds.
LOAF: Glow in the dark eratta merchant by day, party guy by night? He's truly living the American dream - or wherever he's from. Colorformica.
ChrisReid: This was one of two impressive Starship Troopers squads making the rounds.
LOAF: The other one was so impressive that it wasn't even from Starship Troopers.
ChrisReid: Shaun from Shaun of the Dead.
LOAF: Actually, that's Zombie Cal Ripken.
ChrisReid: There's always a million Neos, Mr. Smiths and Trinties at DragonCon.
LOAF: Waifishly thin and only attractive because she's the only woman in the picture? That lady has Trinity down to a T.
ChrisReid: It's Buddy Jesus flanked by two jerks.
LOAF: Actually, that's regular Jesus. The second coming wasn't quite as impressive as we'd expected.
ChrisReid: There were quite a few lame costumes, but everyone else remembers Saturday's costume night as being much better than Friday, so we left to find a place for dinner.
LOAF: Remember when Family Guy was great? I don't either, anymore.
ChrisReid: We managed to scrape together a crew to visit the Steak & Ale Restaurant, but it was very dark for pictures. I managed to blind LOAF with this shot of his cheese salad.
LOAF: They didn't have ham cubes, so I couldn't make a true salad... I just had a big pile of eggs and cheese.
LOAF: Since we loved it so much, we decided to Marriott.
ChrisReid: Some panels we tried to attend after dinner were filled to capacity, so we played video games in the lobby instead. Don't we look cool? Some dork came up and made fun of us for Pictochatting, but he didn't even have a DS.
LOAF: I'm coming for you, Red!
ChrisReid: LOAF!
LOAF: All you biatches who be all up on my Wing Commander II timeline picked tha wrong day ta mess wit da L-man, yo. Word to yo proper placement of End Run at least one year previous to Fleet Action to allow for various references to Melek's exile and Bondarevsky's time spent at the Academy.
Continue to Day Two
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