FRIDAY

11 pm and all is well. Sort of.

Got an early start to the con, but ran into a father and son who'd
broken down by the side of the road, so I played Good Samaritan.
Cost me a half hour. But what can you do?

Got to Denver, checked in,  then immediately went to Mile High
Comics. Managed to find copies of the rare book, "Bimbos Of The Death
Sun" by Sharon McCrumb, a murder mystery that was written as a parody
of sci-fi and anime conventions. Hilariously funny, and worth every
cent.

Then it was off to keep a promise to KaraOhki.. my first sushi
experience!

California Rolls, Battered shrimp, Teriyaki grilled chicken with
sesame seeds, pickled ginger (to my eternal shame, I didn't know what
the ginger was. Had to describe it over the phone to KaraOhki,
who enlightened me. Oh, the humiliation. *grin*)

Returning to the con was an exercise in insanity. Denver was having
THREE musical specials (Including Little Richard, appearing this
weekend), two football games (one pro, one college), a city sponsored
Taste Of Colorado thing, and at least two neighborhood celebrations.
It was a 15 mile trip one way to the sushi restaurant. In the round
trip, I encountered _25_ traffic accidents. OUCH!

After fighting my way through the traffic outside the con, and the
crowds inside, I stumbled upon the rarest of gems.. Keir Dullea and
Gary Lockwood had arrived early and were offering to sign convention
programs for FREE! (Photographs and other items, $20 an autograph.
Plus cost of item if you were buying it on the spot. So you can see
the attraction.)

Keir had played Dave Bowman ("I'm afraid I can't DO that, Dave."
"Don't give me any of that shit, HAL..") in 2001: A Space Odyssey,
with Gary as his soon to be murdered crewmate, Frank Poole.

Got their autographs and even discussed the mystery of the Seattle
monolith with them. Keir was tickled pink that someone had pulled
off a practical joke of such finesse, and was saddened that Stanley
Kubric hadn't lived to see it done.

Went to the dealer's room then, and found a rare
not-intended-for-sale advance reading copy of "BATMAN: No Man's
Land", the novelization of the comic mini-series. Only $5, and I
almost lost it to a rather determined lady with a Ninja Purse of
Death.

Sad news... I met an old friend tonight, one I'd shared every con
with (except the last) for the past ten years. Tonight, I found out
she was dying. :( She's on O2 round the clock, has a tracheaotomy,
and can no longer leave her wheel chair as they've amputated her left
leg.

Put MY pathetic complaints into perspective. :(

That's all for tonight. The con winds up to full speed tomorrow
morning, I need some sleep to be able to deal with it.

Night, all.

SATURDAY

or..
UP, UP AND A-YAWN... (wait, that's not how it goes?!)

Up for breakfast, then off to the anime room. Something I haven't
seen before, "Wandering With The Wind, parts 1 & 2".

Then off to the main activities room to hear Keri Dullea and Gary
Lockwood.

Noon - stopped for lunch after a furious scavenger hunt. They passed
out "Federation" passports to everyone, and everyone who can hunt
down the 14 visa stamps for their passport gets a prize. I have
eight, there's supposed to be fourteen. Wonder what the prize is?

Got to see the second Ranma movie, which I'd missed before. Prince
Toma's a hoot. And the face on that POOR birdman. Heh.

Damn, damn, damn! Got all of the stamps, only to be told, you gotta
go have a staff member sign off as proof you haven't cheated. And by
the time I found a non-busy staff member, they'd run out of prizes!
BOY, am I pissed. They did offer, as a first come, first serve sort
of thing, a t-shirt for a movie that hasn't opened yet. IF I'm one of
the first in line tomorrow. GRR.

Keith Cobb (Tyr the Neichean from "Andromeda") was _great_, and very
kindly did a scene from Shakespeare for the entire con as his way of
thanking us. Cassius orating on how there was no way he'd kiss
Ceasar's feet. VERY emotional and powerful.

Then he made us laugh by relating how he was approached by a man
he THOUGHT was a fan... but who turned out to be the owner of the
largest Male Escort business in all of Hollywood. The gentleman
handed Cobb his business card, told him that he (Keith Cobb) was
the most requested male escort ever and offered him a job! Women
were apparently willing to pay his company tens of thousands of
dollars if only he could get them Keith Cobb as an escort for just
one night!

Keith told us he'd kept the card, mounting it on his desk. As a sort
of "I'd damn well better STAY a good actor, or that could be my
fate..." reminder. Heheheh

Micheal Dorn was hilarious, and actually REMEMBERED meeting June
Geraci, a friend of mine. (Those on the Fan Fiction Mailing List know
her as KaraOhki, the writing cabbit.)

By the way, Kara, Mr. Dorn says "Hi". ^_^ More on that privately.

His humorous rant on his friendly rivalry with Patrick Stewart had
everyone rolling in the aisles. Apparently, Patrick loves to come by
and sweep Michael's girlfriends off their feet with his suave British
accent. This annoys the hell out of Michael, because later on, all
the girls can do (when he's dating them) is ask him over and over
"How's that DREAMY english friend of yours? Is he single?"

Then the costume contest. For my friends on the Transformational
Story Archive Mailing list, you'll be tickled pink to hear that the
contest that won Best of Show was a young lady who came as a
full-sized Bug Warrior from the movie "Starship Troopers". The very
SECOND she stepped on stage, it was obvious she'd swept both the
audience and the judges. Even the other contestants agreed, she
deserved the award. At her acceptance speech, she told us all that
she'd worked on the costume for almost a year!

WELL worth it!

Hopefully, the photos with my new zoom lens camera turned out. If so,
scans will be posted on my web site, and I'll post a link to them
here on the list.

Almost 9 pm here.. the only things going on at the moment are a few
late movies, and Tim Russ (Tuvok, from Voyager), who is singing
with Neil Norman and his Cosmic Orchestra, which will end in a
general dance and ball.

As I have two left feet, and Neil's music is getting a tad loud for
me in my old age *sigh*, I'm going to close this entry for the night,
have a quick & quiet dinner, then head for bed. Checkout time is
tomorrow morning, and it's early. (*grumble*)

This is your roving idiot^H^H^H^H^H con reporter, signing off for the
evening.

SUNDAY

TINY BUBBLES: Or, Timm Russ and How Vulcans Party When the Masks Come
Off.

Trust me, you don't want to know. Heh. Just finished a quick shower,
then I'm checking out of the room early. (They give you a cut rate
for that, saves them money. So this will be the last entry until I
arrive home in Haxtun sometime this evening.

Nothing really happening until the afternoon anyway, when Tim Russ
from Voyager takes the stage, along with Gary Lockwood and Keir
Dullea. So, it's a quick breakfast, and off to the amine room for
several hours.

See you on the Flipside...

LATER, IN A MYSTERIOUS WAREHOUSE...

Okay, so it's the cottage I live in. Sue me. *grin*

After breakfast, I hurried to the anime room and got to watch an
episode of Car Robots, the Japanese update of Transformers,
soon to be seen on the FOX channel. Very well done, and lots of fun.

Then another trip to the main room to see Keir Dullea and Gary
Lockwood again, making certain to take LOTS of photos.

Back to the anime room for Utena.. the episode where Anthy swaps
bodies thanks to the exploding curry. I STILL don't get the elephant
joke, quite, but it was hilarious.

Meanwhile I'm collecting my prize for having all my visa stamps in my
"passport".  People were grabbing convention staff and making rather
graphic threats to try and figure out where the visa stamps were
hidden. Heh.

*I*, on the other hand, being the anime genius that I am, had managed
to find all 14 with no problem at all.

Honestly? I tripped over someone who'd followed the con staff around
when they'd _distributed_ the stamps and ink pads. ^_^

Won a t-shirt from the upcoming Jet Li movie, "The One", and an
"Osmosis Jones" baseball cap. Heh.

Next in the anime room was "Record of the Lard-Ass.. err... Lodoss
Wars", and I already had that on VHS. So, off to see Tim Russ and try
to get an autograph. No such luck, tho.. the autograph line was
longer than the entire hotel, and stretched out into the parking
lot!

He DID get the entire hotel laughing their asses off by announcing
that he'd brought a script with him, a parody of Voyager that he'd
made with the secret help of the stage crew to break up the cast.
He grabbed some volunteers from the audience, handed them copies,
and we got to see... *insert dramatic drumroll here*...  "Star Trek:
Voyeur!" Starring Captain Laid-away, First Officer Choco-latte,
Commander Two-socks, Lt. Bare-Ass, Seven and 3/4, Mr. Knee-licks,
and a host of other perverts.

GODS, I hope someone caught it on videotape..

Child's Toy was a lot of fun, and so was the "Dirty Pair-odies"
that they ended the day with.

Things wound down after that, and I loaded up the car, pulling out at
about 6pm. *sigh* You sort of wish the con could go on forever.
But it ain't gonna happen.

And that was StarCon 2001 - A Convention Odyssy.



       "Dreamers may die, but the Dream is eternal..."

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