Yep, still here. No, I haven’t given up.

You may well be asking what I’ve been doing in the past couple months, besides obviously not updating this blog. The simple answer is “working.” I started working full-time hours back in October – getting up at 4am to help open the shop at 5am. After 9 hours of standing on my feet, dealing with customers, I’ll come home…to not be able to get on the computer. For a while, there was only one partially working computer being shared amongst three people. Thankfully, my wonderfully supportive tech support (aka Robert), has returned my ridiculously outdated computer to the world of the artifically-supported living.

I’ve also been working on a number of other things in the meantime – crocheting a ridiculously long Doctor Who scarf for Maggie. Creating a TARDIS cookie jar for Robert (complete with a little light on the lid). Making a “TV shirt” for a friend’s senior video production project. Demolishing and rebuilding a bathroom. Getting bitten by what I am still convinced is really a bear. Basically, life has been busy and full of adventures, and I put this little project on hold for a while, as I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

Now, however, I’m back. The remaining con reports for Dragon*Con 2011 will most likely be less detailed than my con reports have been in the past, partly because it’s been so long and I want to power through them, and partially because I didn’t really take a whole lot of notes over the course of the 2011 convention. I was busy having fun. The reports will probably function more like a highlight reel of the con.

So, without further ado…Friday at Dragon*Con 2011!

The theme for our costumes that day was video game/horror/adventure. Maggie spent the first part of the day dressed as the Silent Hill Nurse, Heather was dressed as a Jurassic Park Ranger (complete with cute little T-Rex), and I was dressed as Rebecca Chambers, from the Resident Evil video games. There were a couple of Silent Hill nurses over the course of the convention, but Maggie was the only one I remember seeing in a completely homemade costume. The other ones, if I remember correctly, were dressed in rubber dresses. The responses of most people to her costume were along the lines of “AAAAAAH!”

The best response to her costume came from a guy dressed as Dexter. He stopped her in one of the halls and started wrapping her in Cling Wrap. It wasn’t until he leaned in and said “You’ve killed too many people” that we realized who he was dressed as. I inadvertantly took a picture of his butt. I didn’t even realize I’d taken it until Maggie looked through the pictures on the camera later.

There were a couple of people who realized who I was dressed as. One such person was dressed as Chris Redfield and asked to pose for a few shots with me. He asked if I knew about the Resident Evil photoshoot that was supposed to take place in about half an hour. Of course, it was news to me. He directed me where to go and headed off himself. On my way up to the meeting later, I ran across the infamous ThunderDuck. Since he was in his Resident Evil costume, I posed with him as well.

I didn’t actually stay at the Resident Evil meet-up long. I didn’t know anyone there, and they seemed to be doing their own thing, rather than wanting a whole lot of outsiders.

Heather came across another individual dressed in a Jurassic Park costume (there wound up being a rather sizeable group in JP costumes over the course of the entire convention).

We wandered down to the Dealer’s Hall. BONKERS! We immediately decided to wait to go in until later that weekend, when there might actually be room to walk around.

We managed to catch one of the Supernatural panels. It was, as expected, awesome. Mark Sheppherd and Christopher Heyerdahl spent part of the panel getting better acquainted with each other, chatting about Norweigian Merchant Marines. Mark Sheppherd had a wonderful quote about fandom – it stemmed from someone asking “Star Wars or Star Trek?” Somewhere, I know my friend Hesa has video of it. I’ll try to track it down, as I can’t possibly do justice to what he said.

At one point in the evening, we found two stormtroopers cosplaying on one of the lower levels of the Marriot. They

were equipped with speakers, so con-goers could hear what they were saying. A small crowd had formed around them, as they were quite funny and were enjoying interacting with the crowd. While they joked around, one of them spotted someone dressed as the robot form of the Decepticon from Transformers 2 that was able to masquerade as a human. The following are some excerpts from their interaction:

“Remember to spay and neuter your pet!”

“Is it hot in there? Are you miserable? Are you a boy or a girl?” (The cosplayer was female and was, understandably, hot and miserable)

“This isn’t the droid I’m looking for.”

Most of Friday was taken up with the Costume Contest pre-judging. Maggie decided to enter her Goblin Knight in the contest, which meant she had to arrive for pre-judging around 5pm. Since she was going to be in a fairly restricted costume, and I was basically in a functional uniform, I stepped in to act as her handler.

We met some truly amazing and awesome people in the costume contest pre-judging room. Since there wasn’t a whole lot else I could do while we waited for the judges to get through looking at all the costumes, I had an opportunity to talk to a lot of them about their costumes. You can expect the transcripts of these interviews to pop up on the site throughout the next couple of months.

Unbeknownst to me, two of the judges Maggie had to face were Henson afficionados. One had worked with Henson as a puppeteer. The other judge worked at the Center for Puppetry Arts (which is located in Atlanta, GA) and had actually handled the original costume. It was this last judge who informed the rest of the panel that Maggie’s costume was film accurate.

As I mentioned, there were some AWESOME costumes in the contest. Maggie’s costume was chosen as a Judge’s Favorite. We learned later that the two judges she had been most worried about actually “fought” with each other over who would get to name her as their pick.

Heather’s high point of the evening came when we saw Lou Ferrigno get off an elevator and walk to the registration desk, carrying an entire bottle of wine. Just for himself. He chatted briefly with the staff at the desk before stationing himself near the elevator. Heather went up to him and said she enjoyed his work. He told her to be careful.

NGB Costume Awards (Friday)

Best Stormtrooper: Celtic

Best Horror: Lady fromSaw

Funniest: C3PO flasher

Best Group: My Little Bronies – We first encountered these guys in the hallway as we were heading out of the Marriott. As they passed us, we stopped in our tracks. They smelled AWESOME! I kid you not, it was like every scented toy I owned from back in the 80s was with me in that moment.

Best Random Find: One of the three Storms from Big Trouble in Little China

Creepiest: The Fly

Best “Huh?” Moment: Stuffed Animal Thingie. None of us could figure out what he was, but it was certainly creative.

Most of: Doctor Who and TARDIS

Best Mashup: Batman Knight

Cutest Kid: Moggle from Final Fantasy (this was Heather’s pick…I’m not even sure if I’m spelling it correctly)

“Sweetest” Costume: This was one of the entrants in the costume contest. It was completely edible – made of fondant, fruit-roll-ups, candy buttons, etc. Unfortunately, it was adversely affected by the heat and was disintegrating. Not to mention people were actually EATING her costume!

Most in Character: Buddy the Elf and Dexter.