September 7, 2008
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More Atlanta Fun
Last weekend (8/29 – 9/01) I went to Atlanta for two reasons: to visit my sister, and to go to DragonCon 2008, the largest Sci-Fi convention in the US (I think?). Anyway, it’s a four-day convention held across 3-4 hotels in downtown Atlanta, and it was a lot of fun of course. Particularly since I was able to go with my sister, and it was the first time going there for the both of us. Oh, by the way, I think I’ll skip the other “updates” I was planning way back, like the one about the Olympics. That’s sort of… um, past by now. Though I still find it hilarious that BBC and most other places outside the US ranked countries by gold medals, then silver/bronze, and so China came out at #1 and the USA at #2, while CNN insists on ranking countries by medal count (as if a gold, silver, and bronze are equal) so that the USA comes out at #1. It’s sort of like burying your head in the sand and refusing to admit that the USA came in second place.
Yes. We came in 2nd. Deal with it. It was still a great Olympics, with some outstanding performances. And we did amazingly well all-around. We just didn’t win as many golds as China. That makes it more fun next Olympics since there’s finally some competition again.
So yeah, DragonCon…
For starters, I found it really well-run. After being used to anime conventions, the way DragonCon was run was so efficient by comparison, like clockwork. Part of that is due to the average age being higher (D*C attracts a much wider range of people, I think), and the longer history of D*C compared with other conventions.
Anyway, that last reason is also why they’re able to attract so many big names there. Some of the folks I was looking forward to seeing, at panels or otherwise: Avery Brooks (Sisko on DS9), Michael Dorn (Worf on TNG/DS9), Nathan Fillion (Mal on Firefly), Morena Baccarin (Inara on Firefly, Adria on Stargate), Jewel Staite (Kaylee on Firefly, Keller on Stargate), Edward James Olmos (Adama on Battlestar Galactica), Cliff Simon (Ba’al on Stargate), Erick Avari (Stargate Movie, and Dr Chandra Suresh on Heroes), and Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto on Torchwood), among many others.
Getting a good seat in some of the panels was tough, though. In particular, the Firefly panels pack the house and get people lining up 3-4 hours early. Me and my sister got seats near the back of the first one, but more decent seats on the second:
We also saw Nathan & Morena kiss… Not sure how much of it was an act.
At the Stargate panel on Monday, I even got to ask a question to Morena & Jewel. And I managed to do so without getting all nervous and saying something stupid! I think I asked something about how it was transitioning from Firefly, where they’d been on since the start, to Stargate, which had already been running for several seasons. I think… I was a little starstruck, as I recall.
The Firefly and Stargate panels were great, of course. Besides that, the DS-9 panel was really good–mostly because Deep Space 9 is my favorite of the Star Trek series, and Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) is one of my favorite characters in any of the series. Avery Brooks has a tendency to… meander a little bit, though. He’s a brilliant speaker, mind you, he just goes on a little long. Probably something to do with how he’s also a tenured professor…
We also saw a number of good costumes, too:
In conclusion, DragonCon was a lot of fun. I’d like to go back next year if I’m able to make the trip. Also, Ramadan has now begun, so I’m fasting each day. I’ll try to talk about how it’s going in my next update. KF
