Mind of Migg

Sunday was painful waking up.  After our unsuccessful attempt at meeting Russell T. Davies on Saturday morning, we knew we were going to have to arrive as early as possible on Sunday to get into the Doctor Who panel at 10am.  We woke up around 6:45, packed our bags up, grabbed a quick breakfast, and were at the train station by 7:30.  Even then, the platform was already pretty crowded.  Fortunately, we were able to get on the first train that pulled in.

There was a guy dressed in a very accurate tenth doctor costume that got on at our stop.  He even came with accessories: he had two sonic screwdrivers and psychic paper.  The Tom Baker Doctor was also at our stop.  It was exciting to see multiple people in costume or Doctor Who/Torchwood day.

We made it into the convention center by 8 and booked it straight for the badge pickup hall.  The program said it didn’t open until 9, so we assumed we would be waiting in line before even having a chance to line up, but everything was open.  We walked right in and got our badges then hurried over to the Ballroom 20 line.  There were people walking around everywhere already, which explained why the tickets at the BBC America booth were long gone by 9:30 the day before.  The line was already fairly long, but they hadn’t lined anyone up indoors yet, so we figured we’d have decent seats.  I was surprised at the number of Doctors in costume there were.  I figured I’d see one or two, but there were dozens, and even one dressed as Matt Smith, the 11^th doctor.  There was even a girl in a Dalek dress and another girl dressed as the TARDIS.  It was a fun line to wait in.  I even got my picture taken.  A girl was going around taking pictures of Doctor Who t-shirts for some web site, and mine made the cut.  When people around me realized what my t-shirt was, they loved it.

The line started moving and we made our way inside.  Our seats were much better than I thought they’d be.  We were in the front section on the side, maybe 20 rows back.  They passed out Classic Doctor Who comics, which was a nice way to kill time reading.  I realizedFinally, the stage lights came on and out came Russell Davies, Julie Gardner, Euros Lyn, and David Tennant.  The hall was packed by the time it started and David Tennant got an extended standing ovation that he completely ate up.

The first thing they did once everyone was seated and introduced was talk about the fact that David (I was starstruck on Saturday, but we were mates on a first name basis by Sunday) had just filmed his final scenes as the Doctor.  They talked about the screening the night before and the upcoming final 3 specials.  Then they screened a special teaser trailer of the final special.  It was awesome, and included confirmation of the return of a particular actor and a particular villain (I won’t say in case you want to avoid spoilers).  The crowd went crazy at that part.  As the lights came up, David yelled, “that went way too fast, roll it again.”  The crowd screamed, lights went down, and they played the trailer again.  I got chills.

The rest of the panel was great and even ended with an extended trailer of The Water of Mars, the next special.  It ended with the ominous four knocks that were referenced in Planet of the Dead.  I don’t know if that was the actual knocking moment, but whatever it was, the next special looks amazing.  We moved up a little closer after the panel ended, even though we had decent seats.  Next up was American Dad.  They did a read through of the first act of their Christmas special and then screened early animation of the rest of the episode.  I’m not a big follower of the show, but this particular episode was really funny.  It was also cool to see Seth McFarlane read so many different characters.  When that panel finished, we were able to move up another few rows and closer to the center.  By this point we were in the fifth row and satisfied with our seats for the Torchwood panel.  Two rows up, the Torchwood kids were hanging out again.

The next few panels flew by.  There was one from Paper Heart, which was cool to see.  I love Charlyne Yi when we saw the screening at the LA Film Festival, and I loved her again at this panel.  Next were panels about Alien Trespass and then a panel about Mystery Team.  The Mystery Team panel was funny and it made me want to check out their online videos when I get a chance.

Then the final event of Comic-Con for us started: the Being Human/Torchwood panel.  Being Human went first.  Russell Tovey joked around a lot and even got the crowd to do the wave.  They showed a few clips and it looks like a promising show.  I’ve DVR’d it and am going to try and watch this weekend.

Then Torchwood was up.  There was a smattering of boos when Russell Davies came out.  Apparently some people are ridiculously upset about the (SPOILER) death of Ianto (/SPOILER).  Upset to the point of sending nasty emails and letters to writers, starting websites to protest it, and trying to organize a chant for the beginning of a panel.  I’m glad they were a very small minority.  I was upset when it happened too, but it made sense for the story.  Russell Davies, John Barrowman, and Julie Gardner all did a wonderful job of fairly address why it made sense for the character and the importance of staying true to the story.  In addition, Torchwood has moved from BBC3 to the main BBC1.  They had to go out with a bang and in with a fresh start.  The decision made sense on so many levels.  It’s also not like death is a new thing to the show.  Through the first two seasons, they’ve shown that no character is safe; that’s how dangerous working for Torchwood is.  So fans of the show shouldn’t in any way feel slighted by the move no matter how much they liked the character.

Only one of the annoying ones asked a rude questions and I give great credit for the way they respectfully answered back.  I’m glad the cheers drowned out anything else, because they deserved it.  Torchwood: Children of Earth has been far and away the best television event of the year.  The Torchwood panel was also extremely entertaining thanks to Barrowman.  He nearly took over everything for a while and completely flustered the moderator.

When that panel wrapped up, it was time to go home.  Unfortunately, it wrapped up at the same time as the last few panels.  We walked around the edges of the exhibition floor we hadn’t seen yet first.  The comic book side wasn’t nearly as packed as the studio booth side, and had a more relaxed vibe.  There were some cool old action figures, but I already have the best ones sitting in storage so I didn’t buy any.  We followed the last of the crowd out and had to wait forever to catch a trolley back to our car.  By the time we reached the car, we figured we’d have dinner in town before the drive back.  That turned out to be a great idea because the traffic back to LA was awful.  So many people were heading back at the same time that it didn’t clear up until after Orange County.  We made it back home around 10pm, dropped our bags, and crashed.  Comic-Con was amazing.  I can’t wait for next year.

We planned to get an early start for on Saturday, but since we were Comic-Con rookies, we didn’t realize that an early start to the day meant camping out the night before.  We had to pick up our badges and we read that badge pick-up opened at 9am and the exhibition hall opened at 9:30am.  Our plan was to be on the floor right at 9:30 to get a ticket from the BBC America booth for Russell T. Davies signing autographs that morning.  We were unsuccessful and learned the hard way.

Our first mistake was thinking we would get on the first train that came by.  San Diego has a great trolley system that runs a special event route from Qualcomm Stadium all the way to the convention center.  Our hotel was a five minute drive about halfway between the two.  The problem was, we were a little slow with breakfast to begin with, so we needed the trolley to pull up right as we reached the platform.  It did, but the platform was packed, as was the arriving trolley.  So we had to wait for trolley #2.  We left Britt and Andrew behind when we stopped, because they were planning on lining up for the Lost panel.  We went through the badge line, ran down to the convention floor, and made it to the BBC America booth by 9:39.  With everything else going on, Russell T Davies couldn’t possibly be a big enough draw to sell out, right?  Nope.  The guy looked at us like we were crazy to expect tickets to still be available.  It wasn’t until Sunday that we realized just how early people arrived and managed to get on the floor.

Dejected, we figured we might as try to catch the Lost panel as well.  We followed the line to Hall H back, and back, and back, and back.  The line winds around outside the front side of the convention center, but then wound across the street, toward the pier, then back around the front side of the pier.  Even though we were waiting to enter a 6,700 seat theater, we weren’t sure if we were gonna make it.  We had decided ahead of time that if we didn’t get into the panel, we would leave the line and gawk at Russell T Davies as he signed autographs from 10:30-11:30 for as long as possible until being escorted out.  Fortunately (or unfortunately) we were in the last group let in.

We stumbled into Hall H in the dark with workers continually telling us we couldn’t stand in the back and to find a seat.  It was so dark as they played a trailer from the show that I couldn’t even see my hand in front of me, let alone find two open seats in the packed theater.  We shuffled back and forth along with other latecomers, moving to another section of wall along with the crowd until we were told by someone else to move again.  I was already planning on doing this for the entire panel when one worker practically grabbed us by the hand and found us two seats.  We sat down right as the opening videos finished and Jeffrey Lieber and Damon Lindelof began speaking.  The entire panel was very entertaining, and included a few promo videos that left clues about what may have happened after last seasons cliffhanger ending.  A few cast members stopped by, usually in the form of skits: Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Michael Emerson (Ben), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Nestor Carbonell (Richard), and even a surprise at the very end when Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) came onstage to wave at the crowd.

After the panel finished, we tried to get away from the madness and grab some lunch.  We found a decent sports bar a few blocks away that wasn’t too crowded and had some nachos and burgers.  We went back and ventured onto the exhibition floor again because Britt and Andrew hadn’t been.  It was beyond packed.  Wall to wall people filled the floor and as the day went on, the nerd stench kept growing.  Full body spandex and sweaty, crammed together bodies do not mix.  We were fortunate enough to get giant BBC America bags with the Doctor on the side.  There were no more surprises with autographs, although I did see Edward James Olmos signing in the morning.  I did a double take because the floor wasn’t too crowded yet and I was standing about five feet away from him.  For about two seconds, I thought, “wow, I need to get his autograph and say something,” but then I saw the $55 per signing sign beside him.  I passed.  One other cool sighting though: Anthony Daniels (C3PO) was right at the entrance to the hall, taking pictures with an R2 unit.  The others I was with thought I was trying to get a picture of the robot.  I had to explain to them after he was whisked away that I know my Star Wars legends when I see them.

We lined up for Ballroom 20 mid-afternoon.  Our plan was to catch the True Blood panel around 5-ish, but we wanted to get in earlier to get decent seats.  Unfortunately, a few thousand others had the same idea.  We were in line for just over an hour before getting in during the Fringe panel.  Fortunately for us, we were able to rest up during that super exciting panel.  Once it ended, we raced up and grabbed the best seats we could find.  Violet and I were lucky and got up in the first block of seats.  Britt and Andrew not so much.  Sometimes being small and able to sneak through pays off for Violet.  It got us a few extra Doctor Who bags and it got us good True Blood seats.  Anna Paquin looked nervous when she came out, and I don’t blame her.  The entire ballroom was packed with screaming fans.  They showed an awesome preview of the remaining half of season 2.  Violet and I decided to leave the panel early when it was down to fan questions.  The questions people end up asking in any given panel are usually extremely underwhelming and we had an important screening to catch.  We wanted to make sure we had great seats for the Doctor Who and Torchwood screenings.

We were a little worried when we tried to line up for the screenings.  It was in one of the smaller rooms, and there were so many people for the panel before, that they closed the line.  It basically meant there were so many people standing in line, they couldn’t allow any more to fill the hallway without violating the fire code.  So we would stand along the nearby wall until they asked us to move, then walk in circles around the end of the line.  We did this for about twenty minutes until they finally started letting people in and we had room to hop in to the line.

It was awesome being in line with other Doctor Who fans.  Earlier in the day, we saw a group dressed up as about five of the doctors and saw one guy dressed as the fourth doctor, but not much else beside that.  I was wearing my black Cyberman shirt, but didn’t see any other Who shirts.  The lady in front of us was a huge sci-fan fan and even ran a booth at the Phoenix comic-con with her husband.  She showed us her autographed pictures of John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd and we all speculated about whom the “special guests” introducing the screenings would be.  I also spent a bit explaining to a few people behind us that Planet of the Dead was actually the Easter special and gave them some background on Torchwood.  I loved every minute of it.

Then one of the workers opened the door leading backstage.  We caught a glimpse of John Barrowman and Naoko Mori hanging out.  We were at the perfect location next to that door and a door directly across from us, which led to the green room.  Barrowman and Mori headed there and we tried to sneak of few peeks of them hanging out behind the black curtains.  Then, one of the coolest things ever happened.  David Tennant and Russell T Davies walked through double doors nearby and into the green room.  I started pointing without saying anything and Violet instinctively started screaming (along with half a dozen others).  The lady in front of us started jumping up and down.  There was no time for a picture but that is by far the most starstruck I’ve ever been.  We were hoping they would enter the hall before they let the audience in, because that would require them going through the door five feet in front of us, but no such luck; the line started moving.

Everyone was filling the right and center sides of the room because that’s where the screen was, leaving the left side open.  The left side was directly in front of the stage, so we took those seats.  We had already seen both episodes, but we knew who was coming out to introduce them.  We were able to get second row seats by the stage.  First a worker came out to get the crowd pumped up: “when I say Doctor you say Who.  Doctor.  WHO.  Doctor.  WHO.”  The best thing was, only a handful of us in line knew who was there.  All the others were either already inside or waiting in the line down the hall or around the corner.  So when they were all announced and came out, the crowd went crazy.

Russell Davies started by calling the BBC Whales office even though it was 3am there.  He wanted us to say hello to their voicemail and let them know how much we in America loved Doctor Who and Torchwood.  We definitely showed the love.  Next, David Tennant introduced the Doctor Who episode and then handed off the microphone to John Barrowman.  They hugged as he handed it off, prompting a response of, “Aww, wasn’t that cute?  I’d kiss him but no” from Barrowman.  So of course, Tennant leaned forward and let him have one.  Barrowman then pretend fainted and screamed, kissed Russell Davies, and was flustered the rest of the night.  It was hilarious.

The screenings were so much fun to watch with a pumped up crowd.  They cheered at certain parts during Torchwood that gave me chills and were silent during the crushing scenes near the end.  I got chills again when they cheered as the Doctor’s shoes can be seen in the opening of Planet of the Dead, and everyone screamed as the opening credits and them song came up.  We stayed for about half of Planet of the Dead before heading out.  It was a long day, Britt and Andrew had just finished dinner, and we were all exhausted.  It took nearly two thousand words to describe the days events, which may be my longest post ever, but it only scratches the surface of how much fun it was being there Saturday at Comic-Con.

Comic-Con officially got underway with a preview on Wednesday night, and then started on Thursday. However, my day 1 was on Friday. Four days seemed a bit much, especially since it was our first time visiting. Violet and I had passes for Friday and Saturday, and then bought tickets for Sunday at the last minute when we learned that Doctor Who and Torchwood were having panels on that day.

We drove up on Thursday, took care of some wedding errands, and settled in, ready for a long weekend of comics, movies, tv shows, and lots of nerd stink.

We watched Day 5 of Torchwood: Children of Earth in the hotel on Thursday night and woke up groggy and somber. It took a while to get going. We made it out of our room relatively early, but by the time we ate breakfast, drove to the trolley stop, took the trolley to the convention center, and walked through the crowd, it was nearly 11 am.

It was a bit overwhelming seeing how large the crowd was (and it only grew larger over the weekend) as we got our passes. We knew for certain that we were catching the TW and DW panels on Sunday, and the screenings on Saturday night, but we didn’t really have a plan for Friday. So we wandered the exhibition floor to start. It was massive. It’s a never-ending hall of geekdom. There were so many giant displays and people in costume everywhere. The hall was filled so you couldn’t stop if you wanted to, except when smashed in by a human traffic jam. Friday was Star Wars day, so there was an especially large number of Jedi, Darth Vaders, and Storm Troopers. I loved it. These are people who probably sit quietly in work cubes all day long, but get to bust out for four days straight. I’m sure they practice their poses and facial expressions in the mirror, and they love the attention when someone asks to take a picture with them. The costumed people are awesome.

As we walked through part of the floor, Violet did a double take and said, “Is that Captain Jack?” I looked and thought it couldn’t possibly be him (only because I would’ve known from the schedule that he’d be there), but as I looked beside him, there was Tosh. Then I heard him talk and knew: it was John Barrowman. And of course, beside him was Naoko Mori. I was like a deer in the headlights for a moment, just staring with my mouth open. We decided to get his autograph and were even able to get a picture with him.

We didn’t get Naoko’s autograph (a bit pricey to get both), but after texting Celia and James, the only other Torchwood fans we know, James requested we tell Naoko she was, “breaking our heart.”. There was no line in front of her so Violet walked up and said a friend asked her to say that. She was flattered and then looked over at me (I was hanging back because it seemed strange to both go up to her if we weren’t lining up to get something signed) and waved. I think she assumed I was the friend and too shy to approach her. It was a little awkward but I still waved back. Definitely worth it.

We took a break from wandering the floor and ate lunch outside. We were warned in advance of the long lines for expensive food, so we packed a bag of goodies for the trip. After eating, we headed back to the floor to do some shopping. We passed by Colin Baker (the sixth Doctor) and bought a couple of Doctor Who action figure. We bought a Rose with K-9 figure, and a Captain Jack with the gas mask child from the two part The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. We figured it was appropriate since those were the characters on our Doctor Who t-shirts that we were saving for the Sunday panels.

One thing I found amazing about comic-con was the number of people perfectly comfortable wearing full body spandex all day long. This was surprising for two reasons. One – because a lot of those people had no business wearing it and I feel like there should’ve been some type of dress code at the door that looked out for everyone’s best interest. There are children there. Two – because despite the stereotypes of nerds that would attend an event such as this, there were actually a lot of people that pulled it off. Some of those slave Leigh’s weren’t messing around.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in line for Ballroom 20, which was the second largest hall behind the HUGE Hall H (which supposedly seated 6,700). We made it into the ballroom in time to catch Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku talk about Dollhouse. I thought the first few episodes were a little shaky, but it got stronger and the unaired season finale that they screened for the audience appears to take the show in an entirely new direction. It looks like it has a lot of promise.

We left Ballroom 20 starving, so we headed into the Gaslamp district for dinner. We chose the Old Spaghetti Factory because we were in the mood for Italian and it was right across the street from the convention center. I’ve loved that place since I was a little kid. We always went there for special occasions growing up. We finished dinner and then met up with Britt and Andrew, who drove down during the afternoon and caught a couple of panels. The four of us took the trolley back, stopped for a snack, then collapsed in the hotel. The first day of comic-con was a ton of fun and only made me more excited for the rest of the weekend.

I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan, but I’ve seen all the movies so far and really enjoyed them. I haven’t read the books yet, but I’d like to after all the movies are complete. I don’t want to skew my perspective this far into the story. I went in a little cold, having seen the last movie on opening night, which was over two years ago. It took a while to remember exactly what was going on in the story, but once I did I was set.

Harry et al. are beginning their sixth year at Hogwarts in this film. There’s tension because Voldemort and his crew are growing in power. A new professor comes out of retirement to work with Harry and he’s hiding a secret. Dumbledore asks Harry to get closer to him to learn more. Meanwhile, love is in the air for all the kids. That’s only scratching the surface, because there’s a whole lot going on, however it never gets too muddled or confusing. I’m just too lazy right now to give a proper plot outline.

I like the Harry Potter series because it’s good natured fun without seeming too childish, and has lots of action combined with good story. It’s like the anti-Transformers 2. There is excellent CGI and some great visuals. Add to that the fact that whenever it’s there, it’s there for a reason, and you’ve got a great summer movie. In this film in particular there are some great moments and a good balance of action and plot. It’s over two and a half hours long, but I never got bored and it never felt like it was dragging (again, the anti-Transformers 2).

I will say that the ending was a little anti-climatic, although it does set up the epic last book (or two films) nicely. I also heard complaints from readers that there was SO MUCH left out from this book. All I know is, it was a long enough movie as it was and left no holes for me as a movie viewer, so I was satisfied. If you enjoyed the other Harry Potter’s, you’ll definitely enjoy this one.

The second wedding of June took place last weekend. Tridi and Tulika’s ceremony was a huge, traditional ceremony. Add to that all of the pre-wedding events (with nearly 1 TB worth of HD footage captured by yours truly for those events), and it was huge. The ceremony began with the groom and his family and friends dancing around and making a grand entrance to the gazebo. There was a pit stop where Tridi could eat and cool off, and then everyone was seated. Seriously though, the traditional prayers and blessings were awesome and really cool to see. Once he was up there and people made their way to seats, things were underway.

It was tough to see what was going on in the gazebo because there were so many people. There were also around 4-6 different people with giant professional cameras. Now, I know a few of these were the professional photographers, and that’s fine. But for the other people – just because you have a large, expensive camera, it doesn’t give you the right to act like paparazzi and stand up, blocking everyone else’s view at every critical moment. It was ridiculous at some points. Regardless, I could see most important things, and those that I couldn’t, I was filled in on.

Tulika made a grand entrance, being carried in, and then circling Tridi seven times so that he could approve. From there, things felt as if they were progressing more quickly, mostly because James and I were livetweeting the ceremony under the hash tag #tkwed (because they both have the same initials), and everyone was taking random silly photos.

Later, they put rings on Tulika’s toes, the couple took seven symbolic steps together, and they were pronounced husband and wife. It was strange because guests were all over the place during the ceremony. It was very traditional, meaning very long, and a lot of the guests must’ve been used to it, because they were chatting, on the phone, etc. The majority, including the DIC clan (yes, nearly the entire clan was back together, including MattJack!) paid attention though. We had to make sure our tweets were accurate.

After the ceremony, we had a good two hours to kill. Since we were at a resort with a driving range and golf course, we figured we could hit some golf balls. James doesn’t golf, so he decided to stay behind with the girls. I felt bad for him. How could he possibly know what 3 married girls would chat about? His fault though. Phil, MattJack, Keith, Roman, and I hit balls for a little over an hour. We tried hitting opposite hand since everyone was confused by my lefthanded clubs. It was fun, and a good way to pass the time.

We got back to the girls and James and washed up a bit before cocktail hour and the reception. Everyone, including the hundreds of Indians in attendance, changed into formal suits and dresses, while Roman and Rachel pulled out their special event Indian attire, and James busted out his turban. Everyone was ready for drinks, food, and dancing.

The food was super spicy, but tasted great, so I couldn’t resist a second plate of appetizers. The bar was open for the first hour, so we all made sure to double fist drinks as fast as we could. We finally sat down at our table, 36 (soooo many people), and waited to eat. The bride and groom finally made their way in, and then there was more spicy but irresistible food.

A group, including Tridi’s little brother Trilo, put together a skit detailing the events surrounding Tridi and Tulika’s relationship in interpretive Bollywood dance style. Then the real dancing got started. Dancing to Indian music seems relatively easy. You just keep your hands in the air while you bounce and you seem to fit in. Some people take it to whole other levels though. They make it look cool. People like James, who discovered he was naturally amazing at this style. The rest of us had a good time, but it was exhausting.

We danced like crazy for a while and then everyone slowly made their way back to our table. It was a long ceremony and reception, and we were all ready to call it a night. I had an awesome time, and I’m really happy for Tridi and Tulika. They threw a great party. Congratulations to the both of them. Two summer weddings down, one to go. No pressure…