This is probably the very definition of tl;dr. But I had to get down as much as possible, since I have the memory of a fruitfly until I write it down. So, enjoy (as much as you can, without actually having been there...)
Warning: Minor spoilers for BSG S4 (which has been all over lj for a week now; yay, me!) and SG-1 S10 finale. Very mild.
Thursday:
audreysmagic arrived at LAX. Late. We collected her luggage and drove to her hotel, about one mile east of the airport. In the 'hood, yo. But security seemed acceptable and she was willing to stay. So I dropped her off and hurried back to my yuppie Westside neighborhood.
Friday morning:
The first day of the con!
I picked her up and we went to my place so I could make some last minute fixes to my costume. I wore a Tok'ra (desert) uniform and it's pretty complicated, with belts and ties and things. I had a skirt finished from Thursday, but the leather was extremely heavy and stiff. So I decided to wear a regular khaki cloth skirt instead today, to be more comfortable. Not canon, but it looked better, in the end, I think. We packed up all our stuff, went to get coffee, and drove to Burbank.
Burbank. Is not a place I know. I know Glendale and points east, and I know Van Nuys and places west. But Burbank, in the middle? No. I've been there exactly once, in my life. I knew how to get there and I looked up where the Hilton was. But... I got lost. Well, not lost exactly. I knew where I was, but I missed the right street and when I tried to go back, was trapped on the wrong side of the train tracks with no way across where there should have been. But luckily we had plenty of time, so it didn't matter really. It just made me feel kinda stupid.
We get our schedule (and our wristbands, our lanyards, and our free gift of a zip-up shoulder bag which was very handy) and plot our plan of attack. First thing I do? Go buy myself a photo op with Cliff Simon. The only one I pre-bought was JR Bourne, for tactical reasons, so I dithered several times over which photo ops to buy over the course of the weekend. We also go buy pics for the autographs. Sadly I forgot my own camera (because I am a moron), so I'll have to go steal
audreysmagic's pics...
Cliff Simon: Never enough Baals
Cliff Simon opened the convention, as the first speaker. Now, before this, I had heard that he's a great guest and he really gets into it. It's very true. He loves playing Baal, being at the con, meeting fans, everything. The enthusiasm pours off him. He fielded several questions about South Africa as well, and spoke very passionately about it-- how troubled it remains today and he can't make himself go back because it basically breaks his heart to see it so messed up. He also talked about his strange and winding path from being a world-class swimmer to being in the South African military to falling into acting. (the actors fell into two groups: those that pursued it from childhood and those who stumbled into it). He used to work out in MY gym. Damn it, why'd he go and move to the valley?
According to him, Baal started out with 22 clones. And the original Baal is still on Earth. As he said, we never saw him leave, did we?
His Stargate news: first, watch for Baal stealing Power Bars off Mitchell in Quest Part Two! hee. That was the only 'spoiler' he let loose about the back half of the season. Is it my imagination or are actors a lot more careful about that sort of thing recently? Or maybe I got used to producers who can't help talking about how clever the upcoming stories are?
Second, he's been asked more or less to 'save the date' for shooting both the movies. No contract yet, but he seemed fairly confident. So YAY! (if you'rea weirdo and don't like him, well... too bad, looks like Baal is going to play some role in the conclusion of the Ori storyline and the "time travel" movie).
Colin Cunningham: HyperBoy!
He is nothing like Major Davis. Nothing! Ritalin boy was very excitable. He brought a little slide show of the various makeup and costume things he's done. I think he must have been a makeup person in another life, because he's way into it. It's cool though, seeing how different he can look. He crashed and won several auditions because of his vast collection of wardrobe and makeup things. He also lied his way into an audition for "Best in Show", since he wanted to get on the movie so badly.
However I was a bit sorry for him -- everybody got a video befor their entrance, and of all the guests, he's the only one who wasn't in the video they showed before he came on. "Sibling Rivalry" is a great video, but it's a lousy introduction for Colin. That's the only thing I'm going to complain about to Creation. They couldn't find a video with Davis in it someplace?
The photo op with Cliff Simon went by in a flash. He did observe that I was another Tok'ra, so he remembers y'all. :) He's not especially tall, but a stick. A very well-muscled stick. It, ahem, made me think wrong thoughts.
They did their autographs together. And of course Ritalin Boy couldn't sit down and wait for people to finish with Cliff-- he stood up and worked his way down the line, doing people's autographs and kissing all the women on the cheek. Awww. He's a cool guy.
And then we were done. There was a cabaret that night with them plus Tony Amendola, but I had been guilt-tripped by my husband into coming back to put the child to bed at least one of the two nights. Since I'd rather spork out my eyeballs than miss the dessert party, we didn't go to the cabaret.
All in all, being Friday as well as having lesser known guests, it was pretty quiet and relaxed, but more intimate feeling and fun.
Saturday!
We bow before Michael Shanks whose plane came in that morning (from Bulgaria where he was filming a movie for SciFI: Megasnake! snorfle!) and pushed the breakfast later. 8:30 would have been a killer to try to get there in time, but 10:50 was awesome. I became a MS fangirl just for that!
Speaking of, apologies to any Michael Shanks fangirls who read this, but y'all are crazy. You know that, right? One of your number was a fanslut, and made y'all look bad. Sorry to tell you that, but it was true.
The breakfast was Cliff Simon, MS, and Tony Amendola. MS confirms for us at our table that the movies are going and he's in negotiations for them. He's very pro-MGM, all nice things about them, and calls the SciFi execs/programmers idiots, because they hadn't botherred to promote the beginning of the season. He's got a Starbucks cup glued to his hand. I think he's better looking in person than as Daniel, oddly enough. And he's certainly very charming. Fanslut, who was at my table, showed him the stuffed monkey dressed like Daniel she had. It was clever, I admit, with a backpack full of miniature Daniel things, like a book and some rocks and a little water gun in a holster.
Unfortunately most of my pics suck, because of bad lighting and my seat location being a bit off to the side, but I have put in a few that aren't too terrible. Here's the first, from the breakfast, and no, I have no idea why Cliff is trying to squish Michael's head...

I have no idea what the hell Cliff said. The aforementioned fanslut pretty much monopolized him the whole time while he was at our table. But I don't know what I would've said anyway.
Tony Amendola is ... class. I love him to bits. I knew I would, and I do. He talked about acting and theater and his current projects.
Michael Shanks: Inappropriate cashews
Of them all, he has by far the most experience with cons and it shows. He was entertaining, and kept control of things even when they got a little icky.
At one point, a little 14-month old started to cry, and he said, "Make the bad man stop talking" in a very funny desperate "baby" voice. He called the dragon in Quest 1 a fruit bat. And he ranted over the time-dilation scanning device for quite awhile ("Where the HELL did we get a 'time-dilation scanning device?", "What was Mollozzi smoking?" etc.).
The continuing theme of both his appearances, at the breakfast and at the Q&A, was that Lexa was going to have his nuts in a blender if he didn't get his ass home and stay there until after New Year's. Of course, he said that and realized there were young children in the audience and backtracked hastily, "Nuts. And by that I mean, kids, that I have a can of cashews at home, that are very special to me..."
And that became the phrase of the con thereafter. "Cashews" still makes me laugh.
If he could be any other character he'd want to play Baal. He had some admiring words for Cliff Simon having to work uphill against a character with such a silly name. And promply proved it. "Balls. And by that I mean, kids...".
He didn't drop any spoilers for the second half that I recall, except that the finale explores the future of the characters (oh God, be afraid, be very afraid), and doesn't tie up the Ori storyline, which is what the first movie will do. It shoots in March, wtih the second to follow. MGM is doing it, with nothing to do with SciFi channel at all. All he knew about Movie Two was: "Time travel, Baal, and an alligator." Alligator? WTF? I'm thinking he was just messing with us...
More MS bon mots: "There's a lot of Jack in Daniel." He said that, got this pained look on his face, and added, "I just walked into that myself, didn't I?" Oh yes, he loves baiting the slashers.
Speaking of slash, the fanslut brought up fanfic. In retaliation he claimed to have encountered a Daniel/Thor pairing listed on a website and it traumatized him. He shut the discussion down. That was, thankfully, the only time during the con anyone was asked about fanfic.
People, STFU about the fanfic to the actors. A: They don't care. B: It makes you look crazy. And C: it makes the rest of us look crazy by association.
But I can see why he has fangirls, even crazy ones. He's far more charismatic in person than I expected.
Tony Amendola and Obi Ndefo: Jaffa are really not so bad...
Gods, what can I say about his session? He was exactly what I expected, just as he was at the breakfast, even more so. He came out with Obi Ndefo (Rak'nor), and they tag-teamed. They mostly poured on the love of Chris Judge, since they worked with him the most (and owe working several episodes to ones he wrote).
And Obi talked about how awesome it was to have the name of Obi when Star Wars came out when he was five (this was after some young kid asked if he was named after Obi-Wan, which was adorable). He loved people calling him Obi-Wan as a nickname as a kid. This was his first con in NorthAm (he'd just finished one in the UK someplace), but you couldn't tell he hadn't done many. He's done quite a bit of stage work, it turns out, so I'm sure that helps him at these things.
"A Dog's Breakfast": Bow to the salmon!
A panel of the Hewletts (David and Kate), Jane (David's fiancee and a producer on the film), and two Lenics (one also a producer on SG) came out to promote the film. They'd had a screening on Thurs night, which we missed of course. But they played the trailer there, and it is truly hilarious. They took some questions on the movie, and told some stories about trying to cram 35 people (and one dog) into a two-bedroom house, and redoing the schedule because the beautiful back lawn had turned into a lake. "Yes, it was raining in Vancouver, imagine that." Plus a long, funny story about salmon spawning in the river behind the house and a crane nearly toppling in. The threat to the salmon jumpstarted getting some equipment moved, and David joked that thereafter when he wanted something done he just put a gun to a fish.
The whole time David had been totally digging at Kate in a very definitely big-brotherly way at every opportunity. Then someone in the audience asked Kate what she would do to get even. Without missing a beat, she turns and smacks David across the face. Hard. It was awesome. Everyone kind of hoped she'd do it again, so we could all get pictures. At that moment, I think I got a crush on her. She's great, and she clearly had to put up with a lot growing up, but you can tell they'd both totally circle the wagons if someone threatened either of them.
They were all extremely gratified by the fan response in helping to promote the film, and acknowledged that they wouldn't even be in distribution negotiations without them. So that showed some class as well.
Afternoon: The Bourne and Trucco Show!
They did the autograph session next with Michael Shanks, Tony Amendola, and JR Bourne. I do think JR got just a teensy bit screwed having his presentation so late (it wasn't until almost 6 pm that evening), but if the choice was that or breakfast at 8:30, I think I'd still pick the way they did it
So anyway, Audrey and I get our autographs, and I mention to Tony Amendola that I saw him in one of the local First Nights productions here. It's a brianchild of John DeLancie with the Los Angeles Philharmonic where actors and a part of the orchestra re-enact the premiere of a particular musical piece in the first half, and then after intermission, the Philharmonic plays it. Tony was in the one for the "Rite of Spring", which if you know anything about the piece at all, you know that there was a riot in the theater when it premiered. It was just so bizarre. (Of course, as the show points out, it wasn't helped by the theater manager, who purposefully sceduled a rather bland Chopin ballet right before it). Anyway, so I ask my only burning question for Tony Amendola (I didn't feel it was worthy enough to ask during his Q&A) about how he got involved in the project and he immediately cops to being long-time friends with John deLancie and that's how he got involved. Which I sort of figured.
JR's last in the autograph line, but because of the way the line was wrapped he's already seen Audrey and I are there in costume. And he knows hiscrazy, obsessive fangirls are stalking him fans are there. So he signs our pictures (and damn do I wish I'd printed my own -- the only one Creation had for sale was okay, but I could've found better). And then he comments, "I think I've seen those costumes before. Someplace." And we laugh and skedaddle before he thinks we're stalkery fansluts.
What with the MS fangirls out in force the autograph line is quite long, so they've staged the costume contest during the signing period. Neither of us entered. I thought about it, but Joanne, our buddy who sat two seats from us, had made a beautiful Adria the Orisi dress with jewelry and all, and we thought she should win. And she did. We helped, by yelling a lot at the 'voting' period. It helps during these things to have a cheering section.
Then it was time for JR's photo op. Audrey and I each did one alone and I bought another for us to do together. Chris, the photographer, very sneakily took two for us, instead of making us buy the JPG and printing our own copies. We were of course, some of the earliest people in line (partly because there wasn't much else to do), and when JR comes down the hall for the photo op, he's on the phone. And then he's text messaging someone frantically. Chris gets him into position and he's still on the phone. He puts it away, does a couple of pics for the few people in front of fus, and it rings again. He texts some more. He takes Audrey's photo with the phone behind her back. He's got it in his ear for mine, and he asks me, "With phone or without?" I say without, so he hides that one too. He was texting again as we left. THE MAN CANNOT GET OFF THE PHONE!
And then it's time for his presentation. Audrey and I are all prepared to give him a plaque of appreciation from our Tok'ra costuming group. Adam (Mr. Creation dude) has given his permission and he's going to introduce us at an appropriate time. He didn't even make us grovel, it was lovely. He's our dude, and we will accept no dissing of the Adam. He was extremely cool and kept everything relaxed, when other Creation show runners have been ... less than accommodating, I'm told.
Early on, someone asked JR about getting the role of Martouf and he's fumbling for the name of the spy which he auditioned for first (it was eight years ago, after all). And Audrey and I sing out in unison: "Cordesh!" He looks over at us and smiles, like he should've known. You ain't seen nothing yet, dude.
(if you've read the report on
hotcupofanders this is mostly the same: skip down to the bolded "The Plaque")
And then, about twenty minutes in, his phone rings. And he answers it. It's pretty clear from what I can hear that he's giving instructions to the caller about how to get into the building, who to talk to, etc. And then he hangs up and grins at us, all proud of himself. "Any of you watch Battlestar Galactica?" he asks. There's much cheering, and we know that someone is coming in. Ironically, I'm thinking of the various Canadian actors on BSG that I figure JR knows, like Aaron Douglas or AJ (I know all three worked on Jeremiah though not in the same eps, for example).
And Michael Trucco (Sam Anders) peeks through the curtain, as they announce his name! There is cheering and JR makes him come up on stage with him.

And JR asks everyone, "What do you think of his work on Galactica?"
And there is applause and cheering. And Michael asks, somewhat dubiously, "Do you really?"
There is more cheering and whistling and applause. He seems very pleased but also surprised.
He mocks the picture of JR that Creation used for Martouf on the banner behind them. "Surprised and a little melancholy," he says, looking at it. JR sort of shrugs, "That was Martouf."
Michael looks shocked. "Really?" like it was the last thing he'd expected (mocking JR's usual bad-guy role).
So he grabs one of the audience chairs to sit down in, which makes him look rather adorable.

Michael talks a little about being a third leg of a triangle, and how he expected Anders to die (so did we all). And meanwhile JR is nodding wisely and kind of smiling, until Michael demands: "What?"
"That's exactly how Martouf died." *sniff* And he mentions how he got no fanmail before "Divide and Conquer". The PTB even asked him if he got any and he told them no (which, if true, makes me very sad). And then, telling us, he grinned and added, "But they got a lot of mail after Martouf died. A lot." Hee!
Michael and JR riff off each other. Canadian vs. American. How JR moved to LA and ended up getting a place only five blocks away and he goes to Michael's house for dinner all the time, because Michael's fiancee is a great cook. He invites himself to Michael's upcoming block party, until Michael shoots him down by saying it's "not a five-block party, only one." They go on like that for awhile, and it's hilarious.

Michael lets one humunguous bit of news out: He just signed to be a regular!
Hooray! I love Anders! YAY! He doesn't die! YAY!
The Plaque
The conversation between the two of them (there's only an occasional question because they're basically interviewing each other), turns to Martouf and how as Martouf he had to wear all this tripe on his costume. And he realizes he doesn't have to explain, he has visual aides. So he askes, "Are the Tok'ra still here?" Like we went anywhere. But we take our cue and we stand up, and show our costumes to the audience and JR (and Michael, actually, who says they're cool).
Adam grabs this perfect opportunity and announces that we have a presentation for JR. He looks surprised, but waits as we come up on stage. I'm carrying the plaque, and Michael crosses in front of me to get out of the way. My God, he's tall. And solid. JR's not short but he's kind of a stick; Michael's just... big. *big melty puddle of goo* Audrey explains to JR what the hell we're doing on his stage, that we're part of a Tok'ra costuming group and how we invite all the actors who played Tok'ra to be honorary members. And I hand him the plaque.
He is flattered and pleased. And he reads the plaque aloud. He's amused by the Tok'ra patch once he figures out what it is (it's glued to the corner of the frame). The only odd thing is when he thinks that we're the ones who signed it and it's a bit awkward that no, we're somebody else. So we give our names. He gives us each a hug and a kiss and thanks us. I give the mike back to Trucco who murmurs to me that it's a very cool thing we did. I'm sure he means it, but I'm also sure JR got lots of crap from him about it later. heh
And OMG, I got a kiss from JR and I was right next to Michael Trucco. This deserves a squee!.
I have no frakkin' idea what happened to the plaque after that. I think one of the security people took it, but I didn't actually see.
After that it's all kind of a blur. His session ends. Creation has Michael sign the banners too, which is kind of funny. Someone years from now is going to forget who the hell was there and think he played the alien in the bottom picture.
We went out to dinner with a pal of Audrey's who's also a local and takes us to her favorite Mexican place. We are nearly late for the dessert party, despite having almost two hours of dinner time. This is what happens when you get three fanfic writers at one table and give them booze.
The dessert party is for Super-special Gold packages only, and has JR, Obi, and and Colin Cunningham as guests. It basically turns into the Colin the Magician Show, as he proceeds to show off his rather amazing repertoire of tricks. Some of them blow poor JR's mind and when he gets to our table, he can't stop talking about them. But he wasn't on the phone, so I guess that's something. But he's very excited later when he straightens a quarter that Colin bent. Colin does a trick for us, at our table too. I think it's one of those mental things, where he fools you into thinking you're choosing randomly, but you're not. But there's spoon bending (and spoon breaking, when JR tries to undo it) and report of a pretty cool card trick that I'd love to have seen. It's all quite fun, although I don't hit the bar, fearing the long drive home. "Drink responsibly" and I did. A good reason to stay at the con hotel...
And that's it for Saturday.
Sunday
Chill day.
We get a late start because the Atlantis breakfast is a separate ticket and we figure we've given Creation enough of our hard-won cash. Although not as much as some people, as neither of us bought anything at the various auctions, though I was tempted by the mammoth Baal banner. I also don't wear my costume, because there's not much point with Atlantis day. I dither over Hewlett autographs and Momoa photo ops, and end up getting both. Because I am a pathetic fangirl, yes.
David and Kate Hewlett: Please to be not hitting me today!
They kick off the presentations and this time David deliberately waves a hand to be sure that he's outside of Kate's smacking range. Of course, they talk about "McKay and Mrs. Miller" and how poor Kate was an utter zombie her first day on set. She had only about four hours of sleep the night before when she flew up, and then -- of course -- her first day is full of all the technobabble. Poor thing. David relates a story of how he was all smug with one of the guests who had a whole three pages of technobabble, and then naturally proceeded to blow all his lines, while the guest was perfect. "Yeah, thanks for your offer of... "help" but I think I manage."
Their session is very funny. With embarrassing childhood stories bandied about and how Kate can hold entire conversations in her sleep and sleepwalk, which she won't remember later. She wanted to be an actress and David kept trying to get her not to. Then, when she gave her first audition piece for him, it put him to tears. Awww....
This is also a noteworthy session for being the last one attended by my seat-mate on the other side. An older lady, she complained all the damn time, and she reeked of cigarettes. Gah! But she had no interest in Torri or Jason so after the Hewletts she didn't come back. *looks upward* THANK YOU.
During their autograph session David has just told the woman in line in front of me about what an autograph space hog "Flanigan" is. And what does he do? Scrawls his name all across the top, right above Ronon, and he chortles, "Let's see you fit your name in there, Jason!" Nice to see that there's competition even in autograph signing, isn't there?
But the best autograph story is from Joanne, our con bud. She tells him Joanne, and the handler next to him goes, "No personalization!" So he writes on her picture: "Joanne, no personalization! David". And then later, (this is a pic of McKay and Weir), Torri writes, "Ditto!"
Torri Higginson and the Puppy
Who is a crack-up and she brought her dog! Very well-behaved Sedgewig (SedgewicK? Not sure of the spelling) was at her feet the whole time and fell asleep. Adorable. Torri joked that she'd love to have Sedge come be Weir's dog on Atlantis, with an earpiece, and with the help of the Atlantis translators the dog could help on missions. "What? Sheppard's in the well?"

When asked which character she'd like to be if not Weir she went through the list: McKay? No, because then she'd have too many pages to memorize. Sheppard? No, because then she'd have to put too much gel in her hair. Teyla? No, because she'd have to do a lot of sit-ups. So, she decided on Ronon. I would love to see a body-swap episode between Weir and Ronon - Can you imagine the awesomeness? Ronon-in-Weir having to pretend to be Weir when the Genii come calling...
The matching question of who she wanted Weir to hook up with pretty much spread evenly: Daniel, Jack, Ronon, and Shep. She might have mentioned McKay, but Daniel was definitely first in the list. And thus my sekrit Elizabeth/Daniel OTP is given validation -- wow, who knew OTP shipping was so easy? heh.
She complained a little about how Weir-centric episodes are always off by herself, and how Weir has indeed made some troubling decisions that she personally found hard to reconcile.
But generally she's cute and drinks maybe just a little too much...
Jason Momoa: One HOT puppy
First up was the photo op. He's also very tall (6'4") -- although at least I'm tall enough he didn't have to scrunch down like he did for some of the women. He asked my name and when I said Liz, he grinned, "That's my aunt's name." I said something inane back.
In his session, he was also asked which Stargate character he would like to play: his answer was Teal'c. He was adorably smug when someone told him that Torri had picked Ronon as her choice - 'well, yeah, who else?" He loves being Ronon so much.

I asked him the only question I asked during an actor's Q&A, about shooting "Sateda". Not that I wasn't interested in the answer, but I also really wanted to give him a prompt that he could talk about for awhile. Questions were coming kind of slowly, and I really didn't want him to trail off to a stop too early. Gotta help out the puppy. And of course I mispronounced 'Sateda', because in every single language I know even slightly that should be a short 'e'. But apparently not in Sateda-ese.
While he was talking about how he got on Baywatch Hawaii ("folding t-shirts or hanging out with hot chicks? mmm, tough question...") he happens to mention the place where his dad lives and has a surf shop. My ears perk up, because my husband's family lives there. It's not -- er -- on the best side of Oahu. So later, in the autograph line, I ask him if he knows the town. And he's all, "oh yeah, definitely". So I tell him that my husband's one of the (extended) family that owns the supermarket in town. He leans back, and looks up at me, surprised, "No shit!" I nod (not like I'd make it up -- I'm not ethnically appropriate to try to b.s. it) and mention some of the family there. It's practically a certainly the Momoas shop there, since there's only two markets on that entire side of the island. Anyway, he's quite surprised to find someone who knows anything about the area, since it's not the touristy end. The families most likely know each other, which is cool. His parting comment, "The Momoas have a lock on food." I laugh, say something about small world, and let him get back to signing and eating his dinner (which Sedge is desperate to have a taste, but won't leave Torri long enough to get some).
Autographs in hand, we're leave for the airport to make sure Audrey catches her flight.
And we're done.
It was great to do the con thing again, hang out with like-minded people, and meet some of my favorites from the Stargate shows. With SG-1 ending, it felt like a good time to do one, and I'm so glad I did.
Hope you had a tiny fraction of the fun reading as I did going and writing it down! :D
Warning: Minor spoilers for BSG S4 (which has been all over lj for a week now; yay, me!) and SG-1 S10 finale. Very mild.
Thursday:
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Friday morning:
The first day of the con!
I picked her up and we went to my place so I could make some last minute fixes to my costume. I wore a Tok'ra (desert) uniform and it's pretty complicated, with belts and ties and things. I had a skirt finished from Thursday, but the leather was extremely heavy and stiff. So I decided to wear a regular khaki cloth skirt instead today, to be more comfortable. Not canon, but it looked better, in the end, I think. We packed up all our stuff, went to get coffee, and drove to Burbank.
Burbank. Is not a place I know. I know Glendale and points east, and I know Van Nuys and places west. But Burbank, in the middle? No. I've been there exactly once, in my life. I knew how to get there and I looked up where the Hilton was. But... I got lost. Well, not lost exactly. I knew where I was, but I missed the right street and when I tried to go back, was trapped on the wrong side of the train tracks with no way across where there should have been. But luckily we had plenty of time, so it didn't matter really. It just made me feel kinda stupid.
We get our schedule (and our wristbands, our lanyards, and our free gift of a zip-up shoulder bag which was very handy) and plot our plan of attack. First thing I do? Go buy myself a photo op with Cliff Simon. The only one I pre-bought was JR Bourne, for tactical reasons, so I dithered several times over which photo ops to buy over the course of the weekend. We also go buy pics for the autographs. Sadly I forgot my own camera (because I am a moron), so I'll have to go steal
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Cliff Simon: Never enough Baals
Cliff Simon opened the convention, as the first speaker. Now, before this, I had heard that he's a great guest and he really gets into it. It's very true. He loves playing Baal, being at the con, meeting fans, everything. The enthusiasm pours off him. He fielded several questions about South Africa as well, and spoke very passionately about it-- how troubled it remains today and he can't make himself go back because it basically breaks his heart to see it so messed up. He also talked about his strange and winding path from being a world-class swimmer to being in the South African military to falling into acting. (the actors fell into two groups: those that pursued it from childhood and those who stumbled into it). He used to work out in MY gym. Damn it, why'd he go and move to the valley?
According to him, Baal started out with 22 clones. And the original Baal is still on Earth. As he said, we never saw him leave, did we?
His Stargate news: first, watch for Baal stealing Power Bars off Mitchell in Quest Part Two! hee. That was the only 'spoiler' he let loose about the back half of the season. Is it my imagination or are actors a lot more careful about that sort of thing recently? Or maybe I got used to producers who can't help talking about how clever the upcoming stories are?
Second, he's been asked more or less to 'save the date' for shooting both the movies. No contract yet, but he seemed fairly confident. So YAY! (if you're
Colin Cunningham: HyperBoy!
He is nothing like Major Davis. Nothing! Ritalin boy was very excitable. He brought a little slide show of the various makeup and costume things he's done. I think he must have been a makeup person in another life, because he's way into it. It's cool though, seeing how different he can look. He crashed and won several auditions because of his vast collection of wardrobe and makeup things. He also lied his way into an audition for "Best in Show", since he wanted to get on the movie so badly.
However I was a bit sorry for him -- everybody got a video befor their entrance, and of all the guests, he's the only one who wasn't in the video they showed before he came on. "Sibling Rivalry" is a great video, but it's a lousy introduction for Colin. That's the only thing I'm going to complain about to Creation. They couldn't find a video with Davis in it someplace?
The photo op with Cliff Simon went by in a flash. He did observe that I was another Tok'ra, so he remembers y'all. :) He's not especially tall, but a stick. A very well-muscled stick. It, ahem, made me think wrong thoughts.
They did their autographs together. And of course Ritalin Boy couldn't sit down and wait for people to finish with Cliff-- he stood up and worked his way down the line, doing people's autographs and kissing all the women on the cheek. Awww. He's a cool guy.
And then we were done. There was a cabaret that night with them plus Tony Amendola, but I had been guilt-tripped by my husband into coming back to put the child to bed at least one of the two nights. Since I'd rather spork out my eyeballs than miss the dessert party, we didn't go to the cabaret.
All in all, being Friday as well as having lesser known guests, it was pretty quiet and relaxed, but more intimate feeling and fun.
Saturday!
We bow before Michael Shanks whose plane came in that morning (from Bulgaria where he was filming a movie for SciFI: Megasnake! snorfle!) and pushed the breakfast later. 8:30 would have been a killer to try to get there in time, but 10:50 was awesome. I became a MS fangirl just for that!
Speaking of, apologies to any Michael Shanks fangirls who read this, but y'all are crazy. You know that, right? One of your number was a fanslut, and made y'all look bad. Sorry to tell you that, but it was true.
The breakfast was Cliff Simon, MS, and Tony Amendola. MS confirms for us at our table that the movies are going and he's in negotiations for them. He's very pro-MGM, all nice things about them, and calls the SciFi execs/programmers idiots, because they hadn't botherred to promote the beginning of the season. He's got a Starbucks cup glued to his hand. I think he's better looking in person than as Daniel, oddly enough. And he's certainly very charming. Fanslut, who was at my table, showed him the stuffed monkey dressed like Daniel she had. It was clever, I admit, with a backpack full of miniature Daniel things, like a book and some rocks and a little water gun in a holster.
Unfortunately most of my pics suck, because of bad lighting and my seat location being a bit off to the side, but I have put in a few that aren't too terrible. Here's the first, from the breakfast, and no, I have no idea why Cliff is trying to squish Michael's head...

I have no idea what the hell Cliff said. The aforementioned fanslut pretty much monopolized him the whole time while he was at our table. But I don't know what I would've said anyway.
Tony Amendola is ... class. I love him to bits. I knew I would, and I do. He talked about acting and theater and his current projects.
Michael Shanks: Inappropriate cashews
Of them all, he has by far the most experience with cons and it shows. He was entertaining, and kept control of things even when they got a little icky.
At one point, a little 14-month old started to cry, and he said, "Make the bad man stop talking" in a very funny desperate "baby" voice. He called the dragon in Quest 1 a fruit bat. And he ranted over the time-dilation scanning device for quite awhile ("Where the HELL did we get a 'time-dilation scanning device?", "What was Mollozzi smoking?" etc.).
The continuing theme of both his appearances, at the breakfast and at the Q&A, was that Lexa was going to have his nuts in a blender if he didn't get his ass home and stay there until after New Year's. Of course, he said that and realized there were young children in the audience and backtracked hastily, "Nuts. And by that I mean, kids, that I have a can of cashews at home, that are very special to me..."
And that became the phrase of the con thereafter. "Cashews" still makes me laugh.
If he could be any other character he'd want to play Baal. He had some admiring words for Cliff Simon having to work uphill against a character with such a silly name. And promply proved it. "Balls. And by that I mean, kids...".
He didn't drop any spoilers for the second half that I recall, except that the finale explores the future of the characters (oh God, be afraid, be very afraid), and doesn't tie up the Ori storyline, which is what the first movie will do. It shoots in March, wtih the second to follow. MGM is doing it, with nothing to do with SciFi channel at all. All he knew about Movie Two was: "Time travel, Baal, and an alligator." Alligator? WTF? I'm thinking he was just messing with us...
More MS bon mots: "There's a lot of Jack in Daniel." He said that, got this pained look on his face, and added, "I just walked into that myself, didn't I?" Oh yes, he loves baiting the slashers.
Speaking of slash, the fanslut brought up fanfic. In retaliation he claimed to have encountered a Daniel/Thor pairing listed on a website and it traumatized him. He shut the discussion down. That was, thankfully, the only time during the con anyone was asked about fanfic.
People, STFU about the fanfic to the actors. A: They don't care. B: It makes you look crazy. And C: it makes the rest of us look crazy by association.
But I can see why he has fangirls, even crazy ones. He's far more charismatic in person than I expected.
Tony Amendola and Obi Ndefo: Jaffa are really not so bad...
Gods, what can I say about his session? He was exactly what I expected, just as he was at the breakfast, even more so. He came out with Obi Ndefo (Rak'nor), and they tag-teamed. They mostly poured on the love of Chris Judge, since they worked with him the most (and owe working several episodes to ones he wrote).
And Obi talked about how awesome it was to have the name of Obi when Star Wars came out when he was five (this was after some young kid asked if he was named after Obi-Wan, which was adorable). He loved people calling him Obi-Wan as a nickname as a kid. This was his first con in NorthAm (he'd just finished one in the UK someplace), but you couldn't tell he hadn't done many. He's done quite a bit of stage work, it turns out, so I'm sure that helps him at these things.
"A Dog's Breakfast": Bow to the salmon!
A panel of the Hewletts (David and Kate), Jane (David's fiancee and a producer on the film), and two Lenics (one also a producer on SG) came out to promote the film. They'd had a screening on Thurs night, which we missed of course. But they played the trailer there, and it is truly hilarious. They took some questions on the movie, and told some stories about trying to cram 35 people (and one dog) into a two-bedroom house, and redoing the schedule because the beautiful back lawn had turned into a lake. "Yes, it was raining in Vancouver, imagine that." Plus a long, funny story about salmon spawning in the river behind the house and a crane nearly toppling in. The threat to the salmon jumpstarted getting some equipment moved, and David joked that thereafter when he wanted something done he just put a gun to a fish.
The whole time David had been totally digging at Kate in a very definitely big-brotherly way at every opportunity. Then someone in the audience asked Kate what she would do to get even. Without missing a beat, she turns and smacks David across the face. Hard. It was awesome. Everyone kind of hoped she'd do it again, so we could all get pictures. At that moment, I think I got a crush on her. She's great, and she clearly had to put up with a lot growing up, but you can tell they'd both totally circle the wagons if someone threatened either of them.
They were all extremely gratified by the fan response in helping to promote the film, and acknowledged that they wouldn't even be in distribution negotiations without them. So that showed some class as well.
Afternoon: The Bourne and Trucco Show!
They did the autograph session next with Michael Shanks, Tony Amendola, and JR Bourne. I do think JR got just a teensy bit screwed having his presentation so late (it wasn't until almost 6 pm that evening), but if the choice was that or breakfast at 8:30, I think I'd still pick the way they did it
So anyway, Audrey and I get our autographs, and I mention to Tony Amendola that I saw him in one of the local First Nights productions here. It's a brianchild of John DeLancie with the Los Angeles Philharmonic where actors and a part of the orchestra re-enact the premiere of a particular musical piece in the first half, and then after intermission, the Philharmonic plays it. Tony was in the one for the "Rite of Spring", which if you know anything about the piece at all, you know that there was a riot in the theater when it premiered. It was just so bizarre. (Of course, as the show points out, it wasn't helped by the theater manager, who purposefully sceduled a rather bland Chopin ballet right before it). Anyway, so I ask my only burning question for Tony Amendola (I didn't feel it was worthy enough to ask during his Q&A) about how he got involved in the project and he immediately cops to being long-time friends with John deLancie and that's how he got involved. Which I sort of figured.
JR's last in the autograph line, but because of the way the line was wrapped he's already seen Audrey and I are there in costume. And he knows his
What with the MS fangirls out in force the autograph line is quite long, so they've staged the costume contest during the signing period. Neither of us entered. I thought about it, but Joanne, our buddy who sat two seats from us, had made a beautiful Adria the Orisi dress with jewelry and all, and we thought she should win. And she did. We helped, by yelling a lot at the 'voting' period. It helps during these things to have a cheering section.
Then it was time for JR's photo op. Audrey and I each did one alone and I bought another for us to do together. Chris, the photographer, very sneakily took two for us, instead of making us buy the JPG and printing our own copies. We were of course, some of the earliest people in line (partly because there wasn't much else to do), and when JR comes down the hall for the photo op, he's on the phone. And then he's text messaging someone frantically. Chris gets him into position and he's still on the phone. He puts it away, does a couple of pics for the few people in front of fus, and it rings again. He texts some more. He takes Audrey's photo with the phone behind her back. He's got it in his ear for mine, and he asks me, "With phone or without?" I say without, so he hides that one too. He was texting again as we left. THE MAN CANNOT GET OFF THE PHONE!
And then it's time for his presentation. Audrey and I are all prepared to give him a plaque of appreciation from our Tok'ra costuming group. Adam (Mr. Creation dude) has given his permission and he's going to introduce us at an appropriate time. He didn't even make us grovel, it was lovely. He's our dude, and we will accept no dissing of the Adam. He was extremely cool and kept everything relaxed, when other Creation show runners have been ... less than accommodating, I'm told.
Early on, someone asked JR about getting the role of Martouf and he's fumbling for the name of the spy which he auditioned for first (it was eight years ago, after all). And Audrey and I sing out in unison: "Cordesh!" He looks over at us and smiles, like he should've known. You ain't seen nothing yet, dude.
(if you've read the report on
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And then, about twenty minutes in, his phone rings. And he answers it. It's pretty clear from what I can hear that he's giving instructions to the caller about how to get into the building, who to talk to, etc. And then he hangs up and grins at us, all proud of himself. "Any of you watch Battlestar Galactica?" he asks. There's much cheering, and we know that someone is coming in. Ironically, I'm thinking of the various Canadian actors on BSG that I figure JR knows, like Aaron Douglas or AJ (I know all three worked on Jeremiah though not in the same eps, for example).
And Michael Trucco (Sam Anders) peeks through the curtain, as they announce his name! There is cheering and JR makes him come up on stage with him.

And JR asks everyone, "What do you think of his work on Galactica?"
And there is applause and cheering. And Michael asks, somewhat dubiously, "Do you really?"
There is more cheering and whistling and applause. He seems very pleased but also surprised.
He mocks the picture of JR that Creation used for Martouf on the banner behind them. "Surprised and a little melancholy," he says, looking at it. JR sort of shrugs, "That was Martouf."
Michael looks shocked. "Really?" like it was the last thing he'd expected (mocking JR's usual bad-guy role).
So he grabs one of the audience chairs to sit down in, which makes him look rather adorable.

Michael talks a little about being a third leg of a triangle, and how he expected Anders to die (so did we all). And meanwhile JR is nodding wisely and kind of smiling, until Michael demands: "What?"
"That's exactly how Martouf died." *sniff* And he mentions how he got no fanmail before "Divide and Conquer". The PTB even asked him if he got any and he told them no (which, if true, makes me very sad). And then, telling us, he grinned and added, "But they got a lot of mail after Martouf died. A lot." Hee!
Michael and JR riff off each other. Canadian vs. American. How JR moved to LA and ended up getting a place only five blocks away and he goes to Michael's house for dinner all the time, because Michael's fiancee is a great cook. He invites himself to Michael's upcoming block party, until Michael shoots him down by saying it's "not a five-block party, only one." They go on like that for awhile, and it's hilarious.

Michael lets one humunguous bit of news out: He just signed to be a regular!
Hooray! I love Anders! YAY! He doesn't die! YAY!
The Plaque
The conversation between the two of them (there's only an occasional question because they're basically interviewing each other), turns to Martouf and how as Martouf he had to wear all this tripe on his costume. And he realizes he doesn't have to explain, he has visual aides. So he askes, "Are the Tok'ra still here?" Like we went anywhere. But we take our cue and we stand up, and show our costumes to the audience and JR (and Michael, actually, who says they're cool).
Adam grabs this perfect opportunity and announces that we have a presentation for JR. He looks surprised, but waits as we come up on stage. I'm carrying the plaque, and Michael crosses in front of me to get out of the way. My God, he's tall. And solid. JR's not short but he's kind of a stick; Michael's just... big. *big melty puddle of goo* Audrey explains to JR what the hell we're doing on his stage, that we're part of a Tok'ra costuming group and how we invite all the actors who played Tok'ra to be honorary members. And I hand him the plaque.
He is flattered and pleased. And he reads the plaque aloud. He's amused by the Tok'ra patch once he figures out what it is (it's glued to the corner of the frame). The only odd thing is when he thinks that we're the ones who signed it and it's a bit awkward that no, we're somebody else. So we give our names. He gives us each a hug and a kiss and thanks us. I give the mike back to Trucco who murmurs to me that it's a very cool thing we did. I'm sure he means it, but I'm also sure JR got lots of crap from him about it later. heh
And OMG, I got a kiss from JR and I was right next to Michael Trucco. This deserves a squee!.
I have no frakkin' idea what happened to the plaque after that. I think one of the security people took it, but I didn't actually see.
After that it's all kind of a blur. His session ends. Creation has Michael sign the banners too, which is kind of funny. Someone years from now is going to forget who the hell was there and think he played the alien in the bottom picture.
We went out to dinner with a pal of Audrey's who's also a local and takes us to her favorite Mexican place. We are nearly late for the dessert party, despite having almost two hours of dinner time. This is what happens when you get three fanfic writers at one table and give them booze.
The dessert party is for Super-special Gold packages only, and has JR, Obi, and and Colin Cunningham as guests. It basically turns into the Colin the Magician Show, as he proceeds to show off his rather amazing repertoire of tricks. Some of them blow poor JR's mind and when he gets to our table, he can't stop talking about them. But he wasn't on the phone, so I guess that's something. But he's very excited later when he straightens a quarter that Colin bent. Colin does a trick for us, at our table too. I think it's one of those mental things, where he fools you into thinking you're choosing randomly, but you're not. But there's spoon bending (and spoon breaking, when JR tries to undo it) and report of a pretty cool card trick that I'd love to have seen. It's all quite fun, although I don't hit the bar, fearing the long drive home. "Drink responsibly" and I did. A good reason to stay at the con hotel...
And that's it for Saturday.
Sunday
Chill day.
We get a late start because the Atlantis breakfast is a separate ticket and we figure we've given Creation enough of our hard-won cash. Although not as much as some people, as neither of us bought anything at the various auctions, though I was tempted by the mammoth Baal banner. I also don't wear my costume, because there's not much point with Atlantis day. I dither over Hewlett autographs and Momoa photo ops, and end up getting both. Because I am a pathetic fangirl, yes.
David and Kate Hewlett: Please to be not hitting me today!
They kick off the presentations and this time David deliberately waves a hand to be sure that he's outside of Kate's smacking range. Of course, they talk about "McKay and Mrs. Miller" and how poor Kate was an utter zombie her first day on set. She had only about four hours of sleep the night before when she flew up, and then -- of course -- her first day is full of all the technobabble. Poor thing. David relates a story of how he was all smug with one of the guests who had a whole three pages of technobabble, and then naturally proceeded to blow all his lines, while the guest was perfect. "Yeah, thanks for your offer of... "help" but I think I manage."
Their session is very funny. With embarrassing childhood stories bandied about and how Kate can hold entire conversations in her sleep and sleepwalk, which she won't remember later. She wanted to be an actress and David kept trying to get her not to. Then, when she gave her first audition piece for him, it put him to tears. Awww....
This is also a noteworthy session for being the last one attended by my seat-mate on the other side. An older lady, she complained all the damn time, and she reeked of cigarettes. Gah! But she had no interest in Torri or Jason so after the Hewletts she didn't come back. *looks upward* THANK YOU.
During their autograph session David has just told the woman in line in front of me about what an autograph space hog "Flanigan" is. And what does he do? Scrawls his name all across the top, right above Ronon, and he chortles, "Let's see you fit your name in there, Jason!" Nice to see that there's competition even in autograph signing, isn't there?
But the best autograph story is from Joanne, our con bud. She tells him Joanne, and the handler next to him goes, "No personalization!" So he writes on her picture: "Joanne, no personalization! David". And then later, (this is a pic of McKay and Weir), Torri writes, "Ditto!"
Torri Higginson and the Puppy
Who is a crack-up and she brought her dog! Very well-behaved Sedgewig (SedgewicK? Not sure of the spelling) was at her feet the whole time and fell asleep. Adorable. Torri joked that she'd love to have Sedge come be Weir's dog on Atlantis, with an earpiece, and with the help of the Atlantis translators the dog could help on missions. "What? Sheppard's in the well?"

When asked which character she'd like to be if not Weir she went through the list: McKay? No, because then she'd have too many pages to memorize. Sheppard? No, because then she'd have to put too much gel in her hair. Teyla? No, because she'd have to do a lot of sit-ups. So, she decided on Ronon. I would love to see a body-swap episode between Weir and Ronon - Can you imagine the awesomeness? Ronon-in-Weir having to pretend to be Weir when the Genii come calling...
The matching question of who she wanted Weir to hook up with pretty much spread evenly: Daniel, Jack, Ronon, and Shep. She might have mentioned McKay, but Daniel was definitely first in the list. And thus my sekrit Elizabeth/Daniel OTP is given validation -- wow, who knew OTP shipping was so easy? heh.
She complained a little about how Weir-centric episodes are always off by herself, and how Weir has indeed made some troubling decisions that she personally found hard to reconcile.
But generally she's cute and drinks maybe just a little too much...
Jason Momoa: One HOT puppy
First up was the photo op. He's also very tall (6'4") -- although at least I'm tall enough he didn't have to scrunch down like he did for some of the women. He asked my name and when I said Liz, he grinned, "That's my aunt's name." I said something inane back.
In his session, he was also asked which Stargate character he would like to play: his answer was Teal'c. He was adorably smug when someone told him that Torri had picked Ronon as her choice - 'well, yeah, who else?" He loves being Ronon so much.

I asked him the only question I asked during an actor's Q&A, about shooting "Sateda". Not that I wasn't interested in the answer, but I also really wanted to give him a prompt that he could talk about for awhile. Questions were coming kind of slowly, and I really didn't want him to trail off to a stop too early. Gotta help out the puppy. And of course I mispronounced 'Sateda', because in every single language I know even slightly that should be a short 'e'. But apparently not in Sateda-ese.
While he was talking about how he got on Baywatch Hawaii ("folding t-shirts or hanging out with hot chicks? mmm, tough question...") he happens to mention the place where his dad lives and has a surf shop. My ears perk up, because my husband's family lives there. It's not -- er -- on the best side of Oahu. So later, in the autograph line, I ask him if he knows the town. And he's all, "oh yeah, definitely". So I tell him that my husband's one of the (extended) family that owns the supermarket in town. He leans back, and looks up at me, surprised, "No shit!" I nod (not like I'd make it up -- I'm not ethnically appropriate to try to b.s. it) and mention some of the family there. It's practically a certainly the Momoas shop there, since there's only two markets on that entire side of the island. Anyway, he's quite surprised to find someone who knows anything about the area, since it's not the touristy end. The families most likely know each other, which is cool. His parting comment, "The Momoas have a lock on food." I laugh, say something about small world, and let him get back to signing and eating his dinner (which Sedge is desperate to have a taste, but won't leave Torri long enough to get some).
Autographs in hand, we're leave for the airport to make sure Audrey catches her flight.
And we're done.
It was great to do the con thing again, hang out with like-minded people, and meet some of my favorites from the Stargate shows. With SG-1 ending, it felt like a good time to do one, and I'm so glad I did.
Hope you had a tiny fraction of the fun reading as I did going and writing it down! :D