Longer Post-Con Update.

Ok, this will be a summary of things I saw at Dragon*Con, which might not be of interest unless you're me.

First up, at the airport yolen and I ran into nsingman and jungle_goddess, who were on the same flight down to Atlanta, which was amusing, because flying down to Atlanta (for Fantasm) is how we met in the first place.

After the flight, we took the MARTA to Peachtree center and took the habitrail to the Marriott. While looking at the long check-in lines, I spotted the self-check in kiosks. Between this and the automated check-out, I went the entire weekend without interacting with hotel staff.

Thursday night the four of us had dinner in the hotel. (I had the BBQ burger, yolen had a salad and chicken strips).

Friday, the first panel we went to was Star Trek vs. Battlestar Galactica, which as someone else noted, is a good idea for a fan panel, but a lousy idea for a celebrity panel. Still, we got to see Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, Jamie Bamber, Aaron Douglas, and Richard Hatch.

Oh, let's forget trying to go in temporal order. I was going to do that, but I don't have my schedule handy, so I'll just go for impressions.

Gil Gerard looks and sounds *much* better than when we saw him 3 years ago. From what I read, he had some form of gastric bypass surgery, and has lost 150lbs. Erin Gray still looks pretty.

We got lots of Season 3 BSG spoilers, including The Big One At The End. The downside of not having cable, and waiting for DVDs. Richard Hatch showed a clip on Bear McCreary and the music of BSG. I think we're going to pick up the soundtrack CDs.

I picked up two recent Emerald Rose CDs, including their newest one (Con Suite). Funnily enough, I never made it to the actual con suite at Dragon*Con. For that matter, there was the whole gaming track, and I never even made it into the open gaming room. I think that's because they moved it. Last time I was at D*C in 2004, the gaming room was the bottom level of the Hyatt, so I'd wander around between panels and looking at costumes, and finding myself on the game-floor, wander in and see what was being played. This time, the gaming room was in the Marriott, which despite staying there, didn't have many panels I went to.

But thank goodness for staying at the Marriott over the Hyatt. D*C was even huge-er than before, and the elevator problems in the Hyatt were correspondingly bad. (Too many people and not enough elevators.)

Nichelle Nichols was very nice. Marc Singer is funny. Ron Glass laughs a lot.

Picked up a bunch of GURPS 3e books at 3/$10. Also got Muchkin Impossible, Star Muchkin 2, and Munchkin in a Blender.

Doc Hammer wasn't giving out spoilers for the 3rd season of the Venture Brothers, but was entertaining. He has the same haircut as Pete White (the albino on the Venture Brothers).

Saw a whole lot of very good costumes. The guys who won the costume contest did Wallace and Gromit, along with the penguin from The Wrong Trousers, the sheep (Shawn) from A Close Shave, and the were-rabbit from Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This year we decided to watch the Masquerade on DCTV in our room, and I think it was as good if not better than going in person.

Claudia Black is pregnant, and renovating her house. She thanked everyone at her talk, saying that everytime she signs an autograph, she's thinking things like "that will pay for a new toilet seat".

Picked up the deluxe boxed version of Kill Doctor Lucky. Didn't buy any t-shirts.

Had a very nice steak dinner Sunday night with nsingman and jungle_goddess.

Robert Asprin has a new Myth book finished, and is negotiations with Tor about trade paperback rights. He also has some other new book coming out, something about dragons. I buttonholed him in the food court on the way out, to get a picture with him for my brother.

Timothy Zahn has a young adult series he's pitching around, and read us the first four chapters. Not something I'm likely to buy, but not bad. He's also pitched 3 new Cobra books to Baen.

Didn't make it to any of the film festival this year, either. The problem is D*C is so huge, if I had a time machine I could probably go 2 times seeing different panels each time, and not run into myself. For that matter, a time machine would be useful to let me put in 20 hours at the con, get 10 hours sleep, and then resume con activities only four hours after I stopped.

I think I'd like to go to a con that's somewhere between LunaCon (about 1000 people) and D*C (about 30,000). Something with around 5,000-10,000.

The borrowed laptop from work worked just fine, even if I didn't bother posting from the Con.

Saw a bunch of you there, if briefly, and it was good seeing you all.

I should have some pictures uploaded by the weekend.