Today was the first official day of DC. Good thing we got our badges yesterday, this morning, line was wrapped around the block twice.
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| Didn't cosplay but we had on our geek shirts |
We noticed that everything starts a little later on the first day. There were a couple of panels that started at 9am but vendors, exhibitors, and art gallery didn't open until 1pm.
Since we're early risers, we were already in the hotel before 9am so we wandered around a bit getting our bearings and people watching. Not many costumes (or people) out this early.
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| This guy quietly walked right towards me till I looked up and nearly screamed |
Our first panel started at 11:30, " The Asgard, what a bunch of &#*!" Hosted by SGMT (Stargate Multiverse Track) volunteer, he led a discussion on whether Asgard really were good or if they were deviously trying to keep our potential stifled. The purpose of the panel is to start a dialog and see where it goes. This was very much a fan-based/audience panel with a lot of back and forth as people defended their positions. We found it meh, but was interesting to hear all the fans in the audience politely arguing with each other about the finer points of specific episodes.
With hundreds of panels, it's hard to choose the ones to attend and there is the temptation to stuff as many into one day as possible. There's usually 30 minutes between each panel but with so many people, it's hard to maneuver through the crowds, the lines are often huge for each panel, and you miss out on people watching if you get so busy rushing from panel to panel.
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| Guy on the left had me doing a double-take |
We headed back to the host hotels, which by now were a lot more crowded. Gawked, took pictures, then lined up an hour in advance for "I Play One on TV" with Adam Savage, Phil Plait, and Veronica Belmont. They talked about sharing science to mass audiences, scientific method, how to make science fun for tv. Fun panel, very relaxed, speakers were comfortable and very very funny. Adam Savage really seems to enjoy himself up there. Getting in line an hour early paid off, we got seats only a few rows from the front. HUGE room, seats lots of people (1500+) but after a certain distance, you can really only see the panel on the big screens in the room.
4pm was "It's not news, it's fark". Owner of fark.com
spoke about crap that media passes off for truth. This was part of the Skeptics track. The panel had a lot
of good material but he seemed to want to cover so much that he spoke
quickly and never really finished each thought completely.
We left a little early so we could catch ST:TNG Q&A panel at 5:30.
LOOOONG line. We got there about 40 min before the start and ended up pretty far
back in the room. John de Lancie (Q), Michael Dorn (Worf), Marina Sirtis (Troi), with Garret Wong (Harry Kim) moderating. It was a straight q&a
session so they answered questions from audiences and would sometimes
expand or add anecdotes. Marina Sirtis is cuttingly funny and very snarky.
Apparently this is how she always is. She mentioned that when acting as
Troi, she has to remember to leave Martina completely out of the
character. Fantastic and lots of fun, very glad to have experienced
this.
After TNG we stopped back at our hotel and dropped off some stuff. We walked to Fox Theater to see Behind Mythbusters tour. Jamie and Adam had timed their tour to hit Atlanta during the same time as DC, so we had bought tickets in advance. Two hrs of MythBusters sharing experiences, some neat science (phone book friction, energy conversion, paintball, high speed camera) and answering questions from the audience. Again, Adam makes a great speaker. Very enjoyable, funny, and the time flew by.
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| Alton Brown was in the audience, he came up during audience participation (on the right) |
Walked home. Ready for the parade tomorrow morning.
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