SATURDAY
========

The day starts off beautifully, with a traffic-less drive under a clear and
unseasonably warm sky, tooling along the 110 (aka, the racetrack freeway) in 
my freshly-tuned Miata.  I get to the Pasadena Center just after noon and find
parking, then before I can even fret about being late or not being able to find 
my buddy from work (DM), she pulls in just as I walk away from my car.  Sweet!  
We find the ticket booth and pick up general admit tickets for the day, then 
finally find the entrance (weird signage at that place!) and head inside.  

First up - Gina Torres (Zoe on Firefly, also seen in Angel, Matrix sequels, 
24, Dark Angel).  She's lovely and I can't wait for the Firefly movie.  She 
didn't have any details, but she assured us that Joss really is a 'can do 
anything and everything well' genius (he used to write Angel scripts during 
camera set-up for Firefly, then move effortlessly into directing, for example) 
and the whole cast is raring to go.  Mmmm... Adam Baldwin  ;->.  Oh, she did 
mention the interesting triangle of Mal, Zoe and Wash, seeing as she and Mal 
have been through hell and back together, so there's a type of intimacy that 
her hubby just can't quite replace.  She mentioned that might go someplace 
someday.

Then came some really cool presentations about Sky Captain (mmmm.... Jude Law)
and Hellboy, both of which are much more on my 'to see' list now that I've 
heard something about how they were made and who made them.  Sky Captain is 
unique in that all the backgrounds were blue screen and have been replaced 
by 3D computer graphics/animation.  And Hellboy - well, the director is a 
self-professed comic book geek and firmly believes that "geek-cinema" (ala 
himself and Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi) is the only way to get decent 
versions of genre flicks (comics, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, etc.)  He has a 
point.  I mean, can you imagine someone who didn't absolutely live and breath 
and love LOTR making those movies nearly as well as Peter did??  And Ron
Perlman was fun to see in person.

Next came John Rhys-Davies, who I've enjoyed since Sliders.  He was very 
refreshing and honest about his past roles, including all the health issues 
that the LOTR makeup caused him and how he was glad to leave Sliders and they 
were glad to see him go.  And he kept us rolling with that Gimli voice... 
joking about how the Academy should have a "Best Dwarf" award and telling us 
about "a certain elf's" misadventures with the canoe.  

After he left there was a Dead Zone panel, but since we'd never seen the 
show, we went shopping and grabbed some food.  LOVELY pics of RDA, MS, CJ 
and various others in the dealer's room.  Oh, and some great SG and Star Wars 
props and such.  And some frighteningly good Next Gen look alikes, especially 
the Picard, who totally had me fooled for a moment.  

We headed back to the auditorium in time to see the end of the Star Wars
panel -- Kenny Baker, Jeremy Bullock, Peter Mayhew, Ray Park and others
(I guess from Clones, which I've never seen) and a bunch of fans in really 
good costumes.  

Then comes the big moment for Saturday... William Shatner!  He was an
absolute riot.  What a freakin' hoot!!  He's a great storyteller and plays 
the ego card at just the right over-the-top level.  And since I'd just seen 
him the previous Sunday on 'The Practice' as 'Denny Crane,' I was pretty 
much dying of laughter at some points because he's *so* making fun of his 
con persona on that show.  I could've listened to him for another half-hour, 
easy.  He talked about his horse show, which raises money for a children's 
charity, and ended up auctioning off set visits to Enterprise ($5200 per 
couple!!) and tickets to the horse show ($250 each, or thereabouts) for said 
charity.  That rocked.  I love to see auctions for charity do so well  ;->   
At the end of his time he brought up Sally Kellerman (i.e., the original Hot 
Lips Hullahan), who has never done a con before but seemed to have a good 
time.  She's performing a set of standards at The Roxy in Hollywood on April 
19th... I might try to check that out.  After seeing her in jeans, I have a 
feeling my bro would enjoy that a lot.  Maybe even as much as Linda Blair.  

We stayed for the Lost in Space panel (I wanted to see who got the lead role 
in the new TV show... if I recall correctly Richard Burgi was on the short 
list but didn't get the final callback).  It hasn't been picked up by any 
particular network yet so... we'll see if it's on next fall. 

After that we headed out to meet the Our Stargate gang for dinner.  Wow!
What a big, loud, fun crowd  ;->.  I got to see almost all of my fav local
gals and finally met quite a few folks I've only 'seen' online before. 
Good grub, good prices, great company -- a heck of a way to kick off the
evening!  

Then it was a short hop to the Westin for the Sumuru viewing party... at 
least once I'd dropped by my car to pick up the Krispy Kremes.  I mean, I 
knew Coco had Guinness, so KKs were a necessary item.  I'm not sure about 
everyone else, but I had a *great* time watching the movie!!  There were
definitely a few inside jokes for Stargate fans and -- other than the facial 
hair -- Michael looked just yummy.  Some of the dialogue was... well... as 
Michael said at the Q&A when he heard some of us had watched it: "I'm sorry." 
But I've honestly seen worse.  I'm going to talk the SG locals into watching 
Demon Under Glass sometime.  Post-Guinness, of course.  Anyway... judging by 
the noise level, a good time was had by all.  Well, except the neighbors, who 
called security.  Whoops!  So, we ended up splitting the group into several 
smaller parties and continued in separate rooms.  A bit of a bummer, but 
probably better in the long run cuz it meant that I actually got some sleep 
and didn't have big, nasty bags under my eyes for the brunch with Michael 
and Amanda the next day.  And can I just say that I absolutely adore my two 
roomies?  Nothing like drifting off to sleep with all those wonderful Sentinel 
and Stargate bunnies hopping around in your head....  



SUNDAY
======

At the brunch... contrary to our fears, Michael and Amanda did *not* just do a
walk-through-and-wave.  In fact, they arrived at the restaurant even before we
were let in (walked right past me and DM... I saw a flash of her Meg-Ryan-but-
cuter smile and shining blond hair and then looked next to her and got a nice
solid gander at jeans, black leather jacket, sunglasses and a *killer* smile.  
*GOOD* morning!  Once inside, we grab seats throughout the restaurant (five 
areas, one of which was outside).  DM and I got the window seats at a table 
for four and spent the brunch with two very nice woman who are also locals.  
As we're getting acquainted, Michael and Amanda are in the room next to ours 
chatting and taking pics with people.  We're very happy when we realize what
the plan seems to be and wait (mostly) patiently.  It took a while, but they 
finally got to our room and started working the tables, giving me plenty of 
opportunity for candid shoots + pics of them with people I don't know.  Then 
they get to us (you know we're all squeeing on the inside and trying to be cool 
on the outside) and start asking our names, introducing themselves and shaking
our hands.  I had one of those weird parallel-track moments in my brain at that 
point: (1) Michael is so silly/cute coming up to us rabid fans and saying "Hi, 
I'm Michael"... uhm, yes, honey, we know, and (2) I'm holding Michael Shanks's
hand!  I'm such a dork... but I was a damn happy one.  Now, I'd heard that 
Michael is good with faces (and even names after a couple of meetings), so 
I figured I'd give him a push, so when I shook his hand (I don't even need 
to mention that he has a wonderful, strong, manly handshake, do I?  I didn't
think so), I said "Nice seeing you again, Michael."  He said, "You too. Now 
when was that?"  I mentioned Fan Odyssey and he said something along the lines 
of "That's right" and then "What was your name again?"  At which point Amanda
introduces me to him since I'd just met her a moment before.  LOL!  If it was 
a totally fake look of recognition, fine, I'll take it.  As DM pointed out, 
even if he didn't this time, he probably will next time, seeing as July is 
only a few months away.

Oh - cute moment from DM's POV, since she was mostly an RDA fan coming into 
this -- he walks up, says "Hello" in that slow, sexy, way-deeper-than-Daniel's
-voice way of his and shook her hand and she was a *goner*.  Yep, he literally
had her at hello  ;->   

Re: my typical foot-in-mouth babble -- DM was saying something to both of 
them about how great the ep Heroes was and how wonderful they both were in 
it... she mentioned that she cried.  I jumped in and added that I did too, 
which I rarely do, but when I do, it's always Michael's fault.  Well, that 
got his attention... so then he's standing there looking down at me, unsure 
how to respond.  "Really?" he asks.  I nodded and started counting them off 
on my fingers (never looking away from MS, of course - d'oh!), much to the 
amusement of Amanda and my tablemates.  "Meridian, Lifeboat, Heroes."  He 
finally said "Uhm, I'm sorry?" and we all reassured him that "No, that's a 
good thing."  Then I felt bad about ignoring Amanda and babbled at her how 
moving her running-through-the-base-crying scene was.  At some point Michael 
looked over and asks "Do I ever make you laugh?"  The recent "Teal'c is *so* 
deep" scene ran through my head and I briefly considered mentioning that, or 
telling him that I'd seen Sumuru the night before and laughed *A LOT*, but 
I thought the latter might be too much even for me, then got distracted with 
the whole picture-taking thing.  

The order was DM, Michael, Amanda, then me.  Right before they took the shot
Amanda looked down at me with those *amazing* big blue eyes and asked if I 
wanted to stand next to Michael.  Being a smartass (and, hell, Amanda is a 
*lovely* lady and I'm sure as hell not gonna complain), I said (loud enough 
for him to hear), "No, that's alright.  I've seen him before."  DM cracked up.
Meanwhile I'm slipping an arm around Amanda and onto Michael's back.  Hehe. 

Anyways, after we took the pic together I worked up the nerve to have a short
conversation with him about why he choose Sekhmet as the Goa'uld in the episode 
he wrote.  I actually started out by asking both of them, since Amanda directed,
but she said, "Oh, that was all Michael," and stepped out of my sphere of
consciousness.  Shoot, while he was standing right in front of me explaining 
how he'd been researching Egyptian mythology and Sekhmet's myth just seemed to 
fit his original idea for the plot (which got changed by the more senior writers
quite a bit, of course) and how he knows that Hathor and Sekhmet are in some 
ways the same goddess, but he figured he could get away with it because their 
myths diverged at some point (hehe... I even got a Daniel-ish hand motion 
during that sentence), the entire room kinda, well, disappeared.  Finally I 
took a breath (at least that's the way it felt, because suddenly the room came
back into focus) and realized that their handler was practically tugging on 
his sleeve cuz they were *way* behind (they still had 2+ rooms to go) so I took 
a step back and thanked him and said "Well, I should let you get back to making 
the rounds."  They are both just so sweet about wanting to give everyone some
personal time and giving you their full attention for those few moments... I
feel bad that the folks in the very last room got short changed with that... 
they needed like another 30 minutes or something!  So,  I took more candid shots
until they left the room, then we ran over to get some of the *amazing* grub.  
Crab legs, shrimp, roast beef, salmon, gnoccis and several types of desserts --
yum.  And that was without even looking at half of the buffet!  Shortly 
afterwards it was time to head back across the street to the con, just in time 
for the Stargate Q&A, which I'll have to talk about some other day because
this has already gone on *way* too long....