Fresh Fish Served Daily

I would definitely say this year was my best Dragoncon ever. We stayed at the Marriott on a high floor (never longer than a few minutes waiting for an elevator all weekend!) Staying at a con hotel is really the way to go, as it makes everything so much easier. We also didn’t share the room with anyone else, which means no worrying about anyone’s schedule but our own. Here’s a brief rundown of the con:

Thursday: Check in and get unpacked. Check the registration line, and it’s massive. No thanks, we’ll try again tomorrow. Beers at the Lindberg Taco Mac, bed at a decent hour.

Friday: Breakfast at the Starbucks conveniently located inside the Marriott. They scald my coffee, but I get the last blueberry muffin. I’m in line in front of Richard Hatch (who is wearing sunglasses inside, like that makes him harder to recognize). We go to get our badges, and this time the pre-reg line is about ten minutes long. Dane and I wait for a while with Scott who is doing on-site registration, which is probably a few hours long. I nip out early so I can catch the last half of the Buffy/Angel Q&A panel with James. Somehow a question about slash fanfiction makes it through the moderators, and everyone groans. Next up is the Venture Bros. panel with Doc Hammer and Dana Snyder. Both guys are hilarious, and also super nice. This one was probably my favorite panel all weekend. Then it’s a rest, dinner, and drinking into the wee hours.

Saturday: I learn my lesson and get a frappuccino at the Starbucks, which they can’t scald so therefore it actually tastes good. We head to the Battlestar panel, which is highly entertaining. Later at the Walk of Fame I get an autographed copy of The Last Unicorn from Peter S. Beagle who is the nicest man ever and also knew how to spell my name without me having to tell him. We tried to get in to the Hyatt in the evening for the parties, but by then the fire marshal had closed it down and wasn’t letting any more people in until some people left. So we watched the Dawn contest on DCTV and went to bed early instead.

Sunday: The Star Trek: TNG cast panel was excellent and the actors were all very funny and seemed to be enjoying themselves. After that there was an Adult Swim panel that was very…strange. They showed some clips of upcoming projects, including the Aqua Teens video game, which was all pretty funny. After the clip reel there was about 15 minutes for questions, and that’s where it got sort of uncomfortable. The schedule had Doc Hammer appearing at the panel, and he wasn’t there (on the panel, anyway, he was sitting in the audience instead) So some of the people with questions were sort of jerks and insisted on asking about Venture Bros., which I think made the panelists sort of hostile after that. It was the weirdest panel I’ve ever seen (though I missed the Star Trek/Battlestar panel, and I heard that it’s up there on the list). For dinner Gray and the talking car liberate Dane and I from the food court and take us to Sonny’s instead. I have a good time even though the “energy beverage” they had in the consuite was making me feel all weird, and we even get in a little bit of Guitar Hero before we head back to the con. In the evening it’s drinking, the short film festival and Blood Car, and a little dancing.

While we were still technically there on Monday all we did was check out and catch our plane (which was miraculously on time, a feat which our flight to Atlanta did not manage). Oh, I also saw Jonathan Frakes waiting for his plane at the airport, which was sort of neat.