DragonCon 2015: Day 3

{Sorry for the delay on this series of blogs–will be much quicker with the 2016 edition!}

Sunday September 6th, 2015:

After Sunday morning church and lunch of nuggets at Wendy’s, Beka and I made it to the convention at 1:30 for our 2:30 panel: “Ask A Character!” This was a voice actor panel where several actors would take questions from the audience and give answers as their characters. Pretty great!

The voice of Yakko Warner and the voice of Goofy were the best. So funny, and mildly dirty!

There is video of the entire panel, which started late here: (I did not shoot this)

After that bit of fun, we rushed to the next hotel to see comic book writer and artist duo: Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner. The Husband and Wife team that is doing everything Harley Quinn related for DC Comics, but I know them best for making Power Girl my favorite comic to read Pre-New 52! In fact, their run with her character made Power Girl my favorite super-powered character DC publishes.

They discussed Harley Quinn, and how she’s changed over the years. How because her sales figured are so high for DC they’ve been able to get away with anything they want to in her series. Which sounded like they were having great fun with.

Amanda Conner is crazy. Good crazy, but still crazy. All summed up in the detail of her seeing “STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE (1977)“…in theaters….in Summer 1977….22 TIMES!

Jimmy Palmiotti was enjoyable to listen to. He and I share a bitterness for Power Girl’s low sales numbers before the New 52 happened, as well as the changes made to her in the New 52. Luckily, they’d brought their PG back to Harley’s comic, just because they love her so much and DC will let their top sellers get away from anything!

From here I made a terrible mistake. I assumed a 5:30 panel titled: “Big Story with Tiny Budget” would be a helpful filmmaking panel. Boy was I wrong!

Sitting in what could have been the SMALLEST room in the entire convention, Beka and I listened to advice ranging from: “That’s-Super-Obvious-Beginners-Advice” to “Well-I-Don’t-Have-A-Million-Dollar-Budget-So-This-Is-Worthless-Advice”. I always forget: “Low Budget” means $10,000-$1,000,000. Not the several hundred I work with. That’s Micro Budget/No Budget.

To make matters worse, we stayed the entire panel waiting for something useful that we missed our last panel for the day!

During the Ask A Character panel we were told about: “The Music Of Animaniacs And Other Silly Songs” happening that night, where Yakko was going to preform ALL of the Animaniacs songs, including updated versions of the U.S. Presidents and Capitals songs! We got in line after the abysmal filmmaking panel and after the half hour wait and moving line, the room reached capacity just ten people ahead of us!

It was my fault and I’ve regretted it since….

This crushing disappointment made us call it a day and head back for the hotel. We passed the line for Karen Gillan’s panel and were surprised to see the line leading two corners of the hotel it was in! We’d be seeing her the next day, so this was a sign to get to her early.

A train ride later Beka and I found ourselves at Krystal once again enjoying a feast of corn dogs, tired, but excited for our last day of DragonCon only a few hours away…

~_M.H._~

Follow Me on Twitter: @MHSmith22

DragonCon 2015: “Journey To The Con”

Thursday September 3rd, 2015:

At last after a long year of waiting DragonCon 2015 had arrived! My wife and I were only able to experience one day of last year’s convention, and that just wasn’t enough! As soon as tickets for this year were available we signed up for the entire convention; now the time had arrived!

Left work at 1pm and grabbed Checker’s on the way home to pack the car and feed our army of cats. Packing the car was quick and easy, feeding the cats…not so much. After everyone was calm, fed and behind proper doors, we were off to the same Red Roof Inn we stayed in last year. The four hour dive up was nice, despite the fact half the new music I tried to take with us didn’t load/play. The big disturbance was traffic slowing to a near crawl. After two miles of slow we saw the cause: a new, “use to be” white VW Beetle had plowed through a guard rail and caught fire; rendering it useless as a mode of transportation, and a grim reminder of why we buy Honda.

6:30pm: we arrived at the Red Roof Inn and spent the next 15 minutes in line. New management had taken over and wasn’t the most organized institution. Once we made it to the counter everything went smooth. Room 141 was to be our lodging until Monday. Now last year when we arrived we judged the motel’s exterior and deemed it to be a mistake, but were surprised by the comfort and quality of our room’s interior. This year the inside matched the outside. The safe was locked and inoperable, the funny looking “loop lock” motels/hotels have in addition to the deadbolt was broken in half, but the real kicker: mold growing on the office chair a the desk. The bathroom was in no better shape. The paint was pealing badly and the shower itself was detaching from the wall almost if it were attempting an escape!

It didn’t matter we told ourselves as we un-loaded the car, avoiding the holes in the carpet. The bed was king size memory foam, the water pressure was amazing, but most importantly: the air condition worked and worked well!

Once un-loaded we were back on the move to the Marta train station. Tonight we had three missions: Number One was accomplished by getting to our room, Number Two was to reload our Marta cards allowing us to use the train, and Number Three was to get our passes for the convention. We used a different Marta station this year: the “East End” station. Much easier to get to and far less crowded.

Reloaded our cards and took the train to “Peachtree Center” right in the middle of DragonCon! After ascending what is without a doubt the longest escalator I’ve ever been on, we walked to the Sheraton Hotel for our badges. Making the decision to get our badges that night was a great call on Beka’s part. The crowd on the street was minimal (something that wouldn’t stay that way for long), and the badge line at the Sheraton was manageable. Once in line it was maybe five minutes before we had our badges as opposed to the fifteen minutes last year.

Badges in possession, we looked at a few cosplayers lurking around the lobby level and entrance. Several Deadpools, several Jedi, and a few Ghostbusters. We headed back to the Marta and back to the hotel.

Before returning to our room we stopped at a nearby IHOP for dinner a little past 9pm. Beka enjoyed a simple supper of eggs, bacon and pancakes, while I enjoyed a more exotic treat: chicken and waffles! We both however drank something we would be getting very little of on this trip: water.

Back in the room we narrowed down the next day’s agenda and prepped our supply bags. After watching a bit of Forensic Files, we readied for bed. Tomorrow would begin our busy weekend…

To Be Continued In: [DragonCon 2015: “Day One”]

~_M.H._~

Follow Me on Twitter: @MHSmith22