Amazing how things can work out. I just happened to be in Atlanta this weekend.

After seeing a TV ad and realizing that Dragon-Con 2002 was THIS weekend, I double-checked sluggy.com and discovered that Pete Abrams was in town! Took the rail system into town and simply followed the cosplayers to the hotels sponsoring the convention.

I was somewhat awed and frightened at the same time. Awed that the con was so big, frightened that THIS many people were so fanatical about Sci-Fi and fantasy. Finally got my hands on the last DVD installment of Martian Successor Nadesico, and I also boguth a couple of Sluggy books and got them autographed. Pete is a great guy with a great sense of humor. It was pretty cool seeing the guy in person rather than just imagining him at a drawing table...

After that I found myself participating in a Star Wars trivia competition. I was in spitting distance of Timothy Zahn and Michael Stackpole, as well as a couple of the actors from the movies. I got two questions, mainly because the first was WAY too obscure. Even the judges (the authors and actors who were asking the questions) admitted that. Try this: How many pods line the Galactic Senate chamber?* No matter, I failed the second question too, mainly because I was expecting a more grandiose answer... What is the name of the Gungan army?** After failing to answer this one correctly, I was escorted by an authentic Stormtrooper (complete with the non-blaster-proof armor) to Cell Block AA23, where I had to buy a raffle ticket to get out. Didn't win anything, although I wish I had. They were giving away lightsaber hilts.

Immediately after that I headed to an extremely overcrowded room, where Pete Abrams and Bill Holbrook were to be joined by a couple of Babylon 5 cast members for a Who's Line Is It Anyway sort of thing. The webcomic artists were on time. The Hollywood actors were 30 minutes late and had to leave early for a departing flight. The funny thing is, as I was descending some stairs to cross the street from the conference rooms to the vendors' booths, I overheard the actors' voices. Stealing a glance behind me I found that they were RIGHT BEHIND ME! I snapped a couple of photos before I lost sight of them (in addition to the 9 or 10 I took during the improv session). Pete started off slow in his performance (coughcoughkindacoughsuckedcoughcough) but warmed up to it during the "Superheroes" sketch, in which the audience dubbed him "Bun Bun Man" and told him he had to solve a telemarketer crisis. He was still the most popular person on the floor. I think at least a third of the people in the room (and nine-tenths of the people outside trying to squeeze in) were there just to see Pete. Maybe it had something to do with his threat to kill off Kiki if things went bad for him... In the "Freaky Coinicidence" department, I yelled out "Monty Python" as an option during the "Film, TV, and Theater Styles" bit, and when the person in charge switched to it, Pete began spoofing the parrot sketch... which happens to be MY PERSONAL FAVORITE Python sketch of all time!
I had a raffle ticket for a theonering.net giveaway, but since I didn't win anything, I hung around for the trivia immediately following. And these were some TOUGH questions. On my third try I finally got one right... Gandalf promised to let Saruman leave Orthanc unharmed if he would hand over what two things to Gandalf?*** My new t-shirt looks excessively cool.

If any of you were there (not likely, I know, but just in case), sorry I missed you. Would've been cool to meet another Rinkie.

--Chaos"Fan-Cons now officially scare me"Jedi


In case you were wondering about those trivia questions...

1. There are 1024 pods in the Galactic Senate Chamber.

2. It's "The Grand Army". My answer was something along the lines of "Otoh Gunga Bombad Army". Sound stupid? I agree.

3. It was the keys to Orthanc and Saruman's Staff.