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Blaise writes...

GATHERING CON JOURNAL, SUN. 6/25/06

Got up, cleaned up, and hung around until the first panels.
I had two choices: "Gargoyles: The Comic" and "Talespin." As much as I wanted to go to the panel about the BRAND NEW COMIC BOOK I found myself heading over to the much less attended "Talespin" panel, which wound up touching on many aspects of the "Disney Afternoon" in general. Seeing the early pitches of both "Tailspin" and "Goof Troop" was fun (for much the same reason as the "Gargoyles" pitch is fun--it's nice to see the difference in character designs).

Afterwards, I drifted for about half-an-hour (it was a week ago as I write this--I can't remember so well, okay?!), and then made my way to the "Gargoyles: Voice Acting Process" panel. I don't care that Keith and Thom were late; I absolutely enjoyed the panel. I had already seen about 5/6ths of these folks at the 2001 Gathering (of course, it's ALWAYS nice to see more of them), but Brigette Bako was the new face (and a very pretty one at that!). I had a whole list of questions, most of them acting oriented, but I had to settle for my top two. I'm still glad I asked them, though--both Brigette and Elisa complimented me on my questions (yay!). Morgan Sheppard is always a joy (and now I know why he's sometimes credited with the initial W. before his name). I cringed when I heard about poor Keith David's experience as Othello with that one middle school audience ("HE AIN'T CRYIN'!"). It was a lot of fun and nowhere near enough time.

A hurried autograph signing session later, I went to the "W.I.T.C.H." panel--definitely the biggest roster of guests at the whole con. An even bigger surprise was being able to watch the third episode of the new season, which I otherwise would have missed because I forgot to program my VCR. Following that we had a very nice question and answer session, although my last question to the actors ("What led you to pursue acting in general and voice-overs in particular") managed to set the whole panel about 15 minutes over. I still got some great answers (and even MORE autographs and compliments on the questions I asked). Ginny McSwain seems like a great gal, and I really wish I could have attended her Mug-a-Guest, but I couldn't pass up the "Gargoyles: Voice" panel.

Anyway, I got my autographs and hurried over to the Dealer's Room where I was scheduled for the 4pm Jim Cummings Mug-a-guest. I sat at a table with seven other attendees…and an empty guest chair. After a couple of minutes Jen made her way over and mentioned that Jim probably wouldn't be able to make it. I was disappointed but not really surprised--the Gathering is great, but some things have to take precedence. But then Jen mentioned that he had been there on Saturday.

Me: What?
Jen: Yeah he was on the "Darkwing Duck" panel.
Me: (convulses)
Seriously, my neck twitched and everything. To know that I had only just missed him that one day…. Oh, well. Next time you see him, Greg, tell Jim we're glad he came at all.

Unfortunately, I could not afford to attend the banquet this year, and I lost track of the guys going to A Fan's alternative option, so I just drifted until the Masquerade. I read a bit, saw Keith David and his family head out, and then wandered over to just outside the ballrooms where I had a long and pleasant chat with, among other people, Guardian and Kythera. We talked about a little bit of everything (can't remember it all just now, but I do know it was a fun time), and eventually, it was time for the Masquerade.

There were fewer costumes this year (even a two-time attendee such as myself managed to pick up on that), but the ones we got were GOOD. My favorites included Set (an incredible costume--the design and sculpting of the head and eyes alone was fantastic), Onyx (anybody who can pull off a beak and wings like that deserves special notice in my book) and, of course, the Garghoul (what can I say, I'm a sucker for cloaked figures with burning red eyes).
Afterwards there was a bit of dancing ("Let's do the Timewarp again!") and eventually, the continuation of the Blue-Mug. This one was a bit quieter and we still managed to get a decent amount of cool info. I was quite amused to learn that Michael Reaves had never really expected to get "…walk barefoot into Hell" past BS&P. He was a very interesting fellow and I wish I had gotten to see more of him.
I guess there was some sort of disturbance by some drunken guests from the wedding a couple rooms over, but I never really noticed.

A little after midnight, we broke up and all headed to our respective sleeping quarters, effectively ending the day.

I was a little sad that night-tomorrow was the last day.

Greg responds...

I was partial to the Garghoul myself. And Holly. (Wings by Eden, btw.)

Response recorded on February 01, 2007

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Blaise writes...

GATHERING CON JOURNAL, SAT. 6/24/06

I woke up fairly early (the first panel wasn't until 10am, and I was up by 7am or so), and headed into the hotel to wash up. Sat in the lobby and found myself having a nice chat with Greg B. and a few other fans whose names escape me at the moment.
At 10am I headed over to the "Kim Possible" panel and got a nice sneak peek at the upcoming season (a lot of funny stuff to look forward to). After that, and a few quick autographs, I made my way up to the con suite to watch the remaining four music videos that could not be played the previous night (I wanted to see all of them before I voted). The con suite was closed, so I wound up being a part of a small group of people looking for someone who could open it. Eventually A Fan volunteered to "man the suite," so to speak, until a full staff member was available (which wound up happening fairly quickly). Unfortunately, there was no way to watch the remaining four videos in the suite, so the staff was trying to figure out something else.
I'll just end the suspense now--I, unfortunately, never got the opportunity to see those last four videos, and as a result missed out on the voting. I am glad that a couple of my favs placed, though.

In the meantime I went back down to the panels, and saw that I had been cast in the Radio Play!
Now, a funny thing about me is that I tend to worry about the feelings of others--something that even extends to panels. I want every panel to have a decent audience. Consequently, when it came to a choice between the "Gargoyles: Development Process" panel, and the "Adapting Stories & Characters from Comics to Film" panel, although I would have loved to sit in on the "Gargoyles" one, I went with the "Comics" panel. The same thing went for the "Gargoyles: Writing" and "Hellboy" panels as well (although, the fact that Hellboy is a character published by Dark Horse Comics didn't hurt). Those two panels wound up being very fun and informative. They also touched on the differences between the mediums of comics and animation (highlighting why "X-Men: Evolution" had much better animation than the Fox "X-men" series), and they left me feeling psyched up for the DTV animated movies they'll be making for these characters later on.

Then came the Radio Play rehearsal. Several people were already in the room, including (fanfare please) Keith David! I could not help but feel a little self-conscious in his presence (it didn't help that I had a sunburn on my freaking forehead!). Seriously, I felt too nervous to just talk to him, even in such a casual setting. He however felt no such qualms about me, and complimented my oriental dragon shirt. I was happy.
As I mentioned before, the script was for the episode, "The Mirror," and although I had a suspicion, it was still a happy revelation. Likewise, I had a sneaking suspicion since my audition that I would be given the role of Broadway…and I was! It was great fun, and I always love the chance to strut my stuff like this. Naturally, Keith was Goliath, Thom was Lex, and Crispin did his best Hudson.
Anyway, the rehearsal wrapped up a little after 4pm, and we weren't needed until 5pm, so I just sat in on the last part of the "Darkwing Duck" panel. Tad Stones (who had also sat on the "Hellboy" panel…man, what a change of pace!) was there, but I either did not notice or (going by others' con journals) just missed another guest at the panel…Jim Cummings. It would be a little less than 24 hours before I would learn he had even been there.

At last, we come to the Radio Play. We were all introduced, although, despite having worked out the seating arrangements in rehearsal (it was decided that sitting Crispin next to Thom was an unwise idea), there was still some minor confusion and a couple easily fixed seat mix-ups. And, as for the play itself…well, it was GREAT. People laughed in all the right spots (though Greg had to prompt them to applaud for the first Act break), and it's always nice to see "lost" lines that got cut from the episode (one of them being Puck's little aside to the audience after his "Human's love a battle hearty…"). It was a good time, and any worries I had about my Broadway performance were quickly put to rest.

Afterwards, around about 6:30 or so, I had several hours until the Blue Mug with Greg, Keith, Thom and Crispin. I wandered around the hotel a bit, did some reading, and when Onyx came by looking for people to play Munchkin (it's a card game) I joined up, along with KingCobra_582 and a couple whose names escape me at the moment. Of course, Munchkin is a very LONG card game so we had to cut it short in order to make it to the Blue Mug.

Question: How many fans can you cram into the con suite? Answer: Not enough. The place was practically packed wall-to-wall. It was a miracle the guests had any room. There were a number of Blue questions (some asked by me, I admit…maybe I just wanted to "fit in" but I was genuinely curious, too) but not a whole lot. It was great fun (highlights for me include Keith interjecting a cussword into the "I've been denied everything…" line, and Greg venting his frustration with animation executives by standing on the chair and saying what he WISHES he could say ("ARE YOU LISTENING TO YOURSELVES?!"). Unfortunately, there were too many noise complaints from neighboring rooms, so (to avoid getting kicked out), we headed for the ballrooms. Unfortunately, they were locked and so we gathered in the little lobby area before them to figure out what to do. At this point there was an unpleasant encounter with one of the hotel security, who apparently could not, or actively would not, understand that we needed to confer on what to do next before we could properly disperse. Seriously, we would have been out of there even sooner if he had just let us done what we needed to do.

Anyway, the remainder of the Blue Mug was pushed to tomorrow night, and we all headed back to our respective sleeping quarters for some shut-eye.

Next, Sunday….

Greg responds...

You were a damn good Broadway!

Response recorded on February 01, 2007

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Blaise writes...

I figured the longer I wait to write my con journal the less I'll remember, so without further ado…

GATHERING CON JOURNAL, FRI. 6/23/06

Well, there's not much to say about my morning before heading out--I got up, made sure I had all I needed, got in my car, and (after finding a good Samaritan to give my battery a jump-start) drove the 30 miles to lovely Valencia. Got to the registration desk at about 10:30 am or so and started reading the program to see who all we had for guests. That's how I found out that Jeff Bennett (an industry hero of mine) had to bow out. While I was a little disappointed, I wasn't all that surprised (he strikes me as a very busy man). At any rate I signed up for the Jim Cummings "Mug-a-guest" (10:30am and already I was number seven on an eight person list!), and made my way to the "Creating Compelling Characters" panel headed by Christine Morgan, Ellen and Spacebabie. That was a bit confusing because it was supposed to be in Ballroom E, but the dividing wall wasn't up yet, so I finally found it in the Valencia A room. It was a fun and informative look at the process of creating full and…well, compelling characters in fiction. I asked about how to make heroes compelling, and I had more questions but time ran out. I would have loved to have gone to their "Villains, Villainy and Plots" panel, but I couldn't due to scheduling conflicts (in my case, the wonderful Radio Play which I will write more on later).

Since there was still the mix-up with the rooms, I found myself wandering back to the dealer's room and encountering Greg Bishansky (who I had last seen in 2001, but who nevertheless managed to recognize me). We had a nice chat while looking through the animation cels. There were a lot of good one's there, and not just from Gargoyles. At about this time we also encountered the OTHER Greg, Weisman, who sat outside the dealer room for a bit because he had a bit of downtime on Friday (and apparently he felt like he SHOULD be doing something, but the staff members advised him to enjoy the break).

Anyway, eventually I went back to the Valencia A room for the last bit of the "Costuming" panel, and then sat down to wait for "Voice Acting Workshop" with Thom Adcox and Crispin Freeman. Being an actor myself this was right up my alley, even more so because I have been interested in the anime dubbing process for quite some time and I actually got to try my hand at dubbing some young, buffoonish, wannabe knight. One thing I learned about dubbing, IT IS HARD. There's timing, making sure you're not too fast or slow, making sure you match the mouth movements, and then remembering to actually act! Still, I felt I did passably well (and hey, the audience liked me!).

Next came the auditions for the Radio Play. I had wondered what Greg would select this year--"Gargoyles" or something different? If "Gargoyles," what episode? Looking at the audition sheets, I figured out almost immediately it was "Gargoyles" (seeing things in the bottom section like "D (40)" and "G (41)" kind of led me down that route), and a little later I had an inkling that it would be "The Mirror"…and it was! But back to the audition. I was originally going to read Brooklyn's page (it had been five years since I had done that one, after all, and I had learned some new tricks), but I heard the young lady in front of me tell her friend that she was going to do Brooklyn, so I decided another character would be better for me. I settled on Broadway, mostly because I saw a lot of "acting beats" and opportunities for choices in his dialogue. Went in, did my audition (also doing my best Scottish accent and dog bark when prompted) and left feeling pretty good about it.

Checked out some pics at the art show (a lot of wonderful work there). Ran into Greg B. again and got into a discussion about the new comic (hooray that it's here!), and then I headed out and down the street for a bit to get some food rations for this weekend.
Came back and encountered Blaquethorne and Crimson Fury, and he and I killed the time before Opening Ceremonies discussing this and that. Eventually we made our way over to the ballroom, encountering none other than the very "Beth Maza" who started this whole "Gathering" thing in the first place!

Opening Ceremonies was great fun (once it finally started). Hadn't expected the music videos, but they were nice (I really love the one for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"). Still enjoy seeing all the pitches (damn, Sphinx is HOT), but the biggest treat for me was the lost "Team Atlantis" episode "The Last." Even without a fully finished animatic, it was great. I loved the translation of what was actually being said by Demona's Latin chanting. One thing that impressed me about this show was that it was perfectly capable of standing alone. A person could have watched that episode with no prior knowledge of "Gargoyles," or Demona's immortality. It was great!

Last item of my evening was the Mystery Gargoyles Theater 3000 panel, run by Jade Griffin. It was basically a "Dracon Trilogy"--"Deadly Force" followed by "The Silver Falcon" and finally "Protection." At first, all I was going to do was watch, but barely two seconds into "Deadly Force" I started flinging jibes myself. Thankfully, some of my comments managed to get some laughs.

It was great fun, and after it was over (somewhere between 10 and 11 pm), I headed back to my truck, set up my bedroll in the covered bed and got some shut eye (what can I say--I had originally planned to drive back and forth every day, but the gas necessary to do so was a little out of my reach at the time…).

On to Saturday….

Greg responds...

Sleeping in the truck, huh? Where were you parked that you didn't get busted?

Dude, that's dedication!

Response recorded on February 01, 2007

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Vid the Kid writes...

Gathering 2006 Log

Note: Most of this was written on my PocketPC using either the on-screen keyboard or the transcriber feature. I fixed the worst typos, but didn't bother to correct the minor ones where you can easily know what I meant.

Thursday, June 22

The cell phone rings at about 3AM. It's Orbitz informing me of our flight status. Ordinarily. Reminding customers Of their flight 3 hours before would normally be a good idea, but not when the flight departs before sunrise. Anyway. Dad picks us up around 4:15 but we're not quite ready to leave yet. It's around 4:38 When we finally get on the road. Wo got to the airport around 5:10 Just under an hour before the flight was scheduled to depart. After waiting in line 20 minutes, we barely made the half-hour checkin cutoff time. We then went through security, and used the toilets, and as we were coming back out, our names were called in an announcement saying our flight was departing. We ran to the gate and were the last to board. Things went well fRom there, thoough takeoff and landing made Ed extremely nervous.

During our long layover at DFW, we had some pizza and rode the Skylink a full circle around the airport just for the fun of it. That made Ed nervous when we passed 50 feet abobe the parking lot which will eventually be Terminal F.

Upon reaching LAX, I was almost surprised to see our luggage appear on the carousel after watching other people's stuff go around for like 15 minutes. Then we took a shUttle bus to the rental agency, which is by no stretch of the imagination "in terminal" as Orbitz would have you believe. Plus, after the young driver fees and insurance, the charge was twice as much as i'd expected.

From there, we headed up La Brea to Hollywood, and did a bit of cheap touristy stuff: taking pictures of Ed with the stars (the gold ones on the sidewalk, not living humans) and the street signs at Hollywood & Vine. I even got free parking, because we forgot to feed the meter and were lucky enough not to get ticketed.

Finally, we headed up to Sylmar and checked into the Motel 6. After letting him nap a bit, I persuaded Ed to come to the pool with me, since we probably wouldn't have another chance. Then we went out for pizza and groceries.

Friday, June 23

We woke up at 6 local time, and had breakfast (cold pizza, which we had a lot of, and chips) and watched tv. At 11, we drove up to Valencia for the con. Finding the place was interesting, since traffic backups coaxed me to take the 14 instead of the 5, and my sense of direction doesn't seem to work very well in the subtropical summer.

The first event was a fan discussion about Creating Compelling Characters. That was fun. I don't write much but it seems I really have the potential forr it. Next was Character Design. Early in that, a lot of questions were dismissed because they were supposedly out of the scope pf the panel, but I thought the panelists were being too narrow. The second half, however, got more interesting, as we talked about coloring and stuff. The next fan panel was My First Con, which was somewhat helpful. By this time it was clear that Ed was already known to quite a few people by his onlime writings.

We had lunch at Valencia Town Center / Westwood Shopping Town. Then Ed bought a few souveniers and we headed to Opening Ceremonies -- which, btw, started a half-hour late and ran twice as long as scheduled. Not that I'm complaining about the length. After that we participated in Mystery Gargoyles Theater for 3 episodes. That was fun, but it was getting late and I was still on Columbus time. So we headed back to Sylmar, had some food, watched South Park, and I decided to journal for thursday and friday. And then sleep. Sleeeeeeeeep.

Saturday, June 24

We got a bit of a late Start, but were on time for the panel on gargoyle physiology, psychology. And society. Greg stopped in And I asked him about how the sun regulates stone sleep. I started to explain my theory, but it was too complicated for Greg and he cut me off. Then he gave me an answer that satisfied me very Much. However, based on his explanation gargoyles Should be affected by jet lag where Store sleep is concerned.

After that was the mug-agnest with thorn Adcox. The most interesting part of that was when he was asked if he was s fan of "married with children". He misunderstood, and said, "no, I like boys," thus confirming what was previously only a rumor as far as i know. Towards the end i asked him what he thought of los angeles roads. "it's a nigjtmare" he said. Then came the panels "gargoyles: the writing process " and "darkwing duck" which were both interesting and informative. Then came the radio play, fearuring Thom Adcox amd Kieth David in their usual roles, plus over a dozen con-goers, in a performance of "the Mirror" with Greg Weisman narrating. Verry entertaining .

After the radio play, we had some time to hill before the blue Mug-a-guest. So we drove around Santa Clarita looking for a cheap place to eat. We stopped at Jack. In- the. Box wherc Ed had a big cheese burger and I had a milkshake which tasted just like one of those ice crean sandwiches. Than we went back to the hotel where I watched Ed play a game called Munchkin with some other con-goers.

Finally, at the blue mug, things were getting fun. People asked interesting questions but about halfway through, we were told by thc hotel that we were too Loud, and had to leave. It was nearing midnight and I was getting tired so we headed back to Sylmar.

Sunday, June 25

We got a late start again, but this time the 5 freeway was Moving along nicely So we got to the con only about 15 Minutes late. Ed went to the comic discussion panel and I Sat in on the talespin panel. That brought back alotof Memories. Now I want to buy all the tv shows I used to watch ON DVD. After that was the voice acting panel, which had all the big names. The line for autographs afterwards was Very long. Then there was thc panel on the production process, which was interesting, but we left early for the panel on writing Erotic Scenes. This was followed by Drawing Erotic Scenes. Both were very informative.

For the next couple hours. We hung out in one of the con-goers' hotel room for the sixth annual ''anti- banquet" which consisted of watching DVDs and eating pizza.

We had to stand around for a while before the masquerade opened, but It was fun when it finally got started. There were costumes and dancing (I just watched) and towards the endwas the re- convened blue Mug-a- Guest. We Found out thot Elisa is not a virgin. At Midnight, though. I was getting tired and we had to be at the con again early in the morning. Thom left at midnight, too.

Monday, June 26

We checked out of the motel in Sylmar and headed to Valencia. Traffic was light onthe 5 again, and we got to the Hyatt before 10. I weat to the panel on time travel while Ed did his Own thing. I applaud Greg for understanding and properly implementing one of the More difficult theories to write for. This was my favorite panel of the whole weekend. Afterwards, I had about an hour to kill before the Mug-A-Guest with Greg. So I used the time to catchup in my log.

The mug was fun and interesting. We talked about the comc, among other things. I didn't ask any questions but I got a good group photo {including me) using the camera timer. Then we satin on Digital Coloring Methods. I already knew about the tools used, but I learned a little bit about when to use certain tools in an artistic conteXt.

Then there were the closing ceremonies at 2. That consisted mostly of art awards and thank-yous to Con Staff.

After leaVing the con, we headed to Santa Monica because it's insane to visit L.A. And not see a beach on thePacific. We snacked on chips for lunch while Sitting on a mound of sand near the shore. Then we headed to the Motel 6 at LAX which is huge, like 9 stories tall! After checking in, we had dinner at Pizza Hut in Lawndale.

Tuesday, June 27

Hung out just in the motel room with Ed for a bit. Then it was time to leave, and I made sure we were all packed and that we weren't leaving anything important behind. Well, wouldn't you know it, we're later than I'd hoped by the time we get out of there. Next stop was a gas station next door to the rental agency because I was supposed to return it with a full tank and that particular gas station had the cheapest price I'd seen all over SoCal ($3.099/gal versus up to $3.299/gal elsewhere). When I got there, though, there was no way to pay with a credit card! WTF! So I returned the car on empty, and the rental agent did me a favor by acting like I'd pre-paid (so instead of paying $5.99/gal for most of a tank, I only paid $3.06/gal for a full tank). So then there was the shuttle, and on to check-in. When we got there, I was surprised to find that our departure time had been moved up significantly, and the boarding time was only about 10 minutes after we went through security! Talk about cutting it close! Of course, Orbitz probably tried to call us a few hours in advance, but Ed had the cellphone off most of the time.

In the airport and on the plane, Ed was even more freaked than last week. It probably helped that, sitting in the row in front of us on the plane, was another con-goer (named Jeb I think) who helped somewhat keep Ed's mind off of the terror. Still, he kept insisting that I close my window, but most of the time I was firm with him (I like to look out the window!). We had pizza with Jeb on our short (really short, we had about 10 minutes to eat!) layover at Dallas and then we boarded our final plane. Ed did much better on the final flight, showing almost no sign of fear.

My dad was waiting for us just outside security, and we found our bags quickly. We talked about the trip on the ride home, and after getting dropped off, I pretty much headed straight up to my computer to start catching up with email. And then, a bit after midnight, it was time for sleep. Sleeeeeeeep.

Greg responds...

I'm glad you liked the time travel panel. That was one I'd been dying to do for awhile. It's so much easier to explain time travel issues with a white board than with text only here.

Response recorded on February 01, 2007

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Spacebabie writes...

Monday June 26
9:30 am. This time I had a sandwich from Charlie's Hot Subs for breakfast and had a nice chicken teriyaki sammich and to drink: a Starbuck's banana caramel Frappucino. We grabbed our food and hurried back to the hotel for Greg W's Time Travel Panel.
10:00 am. Greg explained the differences in several approaches of time travel and brought up Back to the Future. He mentioned the two different paradoxes and how one was in reference to the Phoenix gate. He explained the time loop used for the Archmage.
11 am. After Greg had We totally adlibbed our lines. Revel broke out into his fake Eastern Euro accent and I left Christine and Karine came in with the Iron writers and Artist competition. Writers were given notebooks and pens and artists had to use mystery ingredients. The theme we all had to use was Macbeth. The artist's mystery ingredients were Play-doh, feathers, and pipe cleaners.
There were several fun and unique artistic pieces and several writers read their fics out loud. Allaine's was first and he wrote a crossover with Kim possible. My fic involved Macbeth wearing a red Speedo.
Noon The last panel I attended was the coloring panel hosted by Karine, Stephanie Lostimolo, Kyt and Revel. The used Steph's gargoyles Gypsies pic as an example and showed how to create brushes, make light sources and create masks and shade. I loved Stephs's squeals of "Wheeeee"
2:pm The end of another con ended with Jen thanking everyone for being here and the awards were handed for the music videos and art show. Y2Hecate came up and pointed everyone into the right direction of Pigeon Forge for 2007. She mentioned there were plenty of pancake houses nearby and earned a woot from Greg Weisman.
We hung out in the room for about an hour before we organized a group for Linner at the mall food court. Revel and I got several Arbies sammiches. We got into several discussions until six and we got up to return to the hotel. I bought a couple scoops of Gelato before we left, caramel pistachio and crème Brule flavors.

We hung out in Aaron's room along with Gside, Y2Hecate, Jeb, Jade Griffin, Jonathon, Aaron, Mara, Lynati, Ckayote, Y2Hecate, and Leo. Y2Hecate had to leave around six and Mara napped for a few hours. Lynati left to have dinner with Ellen. I got my floppy notebook and laptop and started to work on my con journal until eleven. That was when Revel and I returned to our room to pack, load up the minivan with the large suitcases, helped Aaron, Mara and Lyn with their luggage and get some sleep.

Tuesday: June 27
We got up at 4:30 am and apologized to Gregx since he also heard the alarm and left the room. We paid for our stay and entered the minivan, from between 5 and nine I dozed on and off and then I got hungry. We stopped at a Loves for snacks and drinks before we continued.
We got to see a lot of scenery we didn't see before because it was dark. We saw a circle of light around the sun along with a circular rainbow and lots of neat rock formation. This time we didn't get a motel on the way and pushed on. We stopped at a Chilies in El Paso where everyone but Aaron doodled on a napkin and passed it around. I had the fajita quesadillas. We switched drivers and didn't return to San Antonio until 5: 45 am.

Wednesday: June 28
Slept in. Ah sweet sleep, woke up, ate and just relaxed at Aaron's. Aaron, Mara, and Lyn checked their favorite online sites and I worked on my con journal until late afternoon. We went to the H.E.B to check Mara's schedule and get some soda and cat food, and then to McDonald's for dinner. I had a quarter pounder with cheese combo.

We watched the Sealab 2021 DVD until 10:00 and I returned to work on the Con Journal until after 1: am when I got ready to sleep.

Thursday: June 29
Revel and I loaded our things onto Hyena, said goodbye to Aaron, Lynati and Mara before we drove back to Conroe.
We arrived at the Kroger were I work first to check my schedule and get a few necessities…including my past two checks before we went to the bank. MONEY yaye!
After going to the bank we returned home and thus ends another Con Journal.

Greg responds...

I love the level of detail in your journals, Spacie.

So Aaron lives with Mara AND Lynati?

Lucky guy.

Response recorded on January 31, 2007

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Spacebabie writes...

Sunday June 25

9:30 am I had Cinnabon for breakfast again. Hey, you can't beat a good cinnamon role. After I finished eating I went down into the dealers room to purchase two more Anthologies for my grandparents and my parents.

12:00 pm The Mythology in Anime panel. Crispin Freeman ran a beautiful panel. He explained some of the different faiths and beliefs and how they influenced anime and he played a video that described the mythological journey of the hero.

1 pm. After the panel I joined up with Ellen and Revel. Ellen wanted to meet with Jon Weisman before the W.I.T.C.H panel since she enjoyed Jon's baseball blog and we both were on a panel that ran against W.I.T.C.H. It was just our luck because Jon Weisman just walked up. He, Ellen, and Revel got into a discussion about a baseball and I got a chance to tell him I enjoyed his work on Roughnecks.

Took a break in the hallway with Revel and watched the line of people getting things signed. Kyt, Siryn and Gregx did an excellent job of keeping the line moving.
Gregx sat with us once the line waned and we got to hang out and talk. We were still talking when Steve Blum arrived. Gregx got his small fan boy moment and we all shook his hand before Gregx escorted Steve to the W.I.T.C.H panel.

3:00 Writing Erotic Fan fiction aka my last panel and the one that stood out in my mind the most. I broke the ice by mentioning the anime pr0n that broke my brain otherwise what "not" to write when writing a single erotic scene. I would explain more about the panel but "Ask Greg" is PG-13. Moving on.

4:00 I stayed for the drawing erotic scenes and watched Mara, Y2Hecate and Kyt draw naked people and gargoyles. Kyt put those little pawn shape pieces to "Interesting" use on the dry erase board. Revel and I stayed until it was about an hour till banquet.

For every Gathering I have attended I always went to the banquet, but I never dressed up for it. This year was the first time I got pretty. I was never a big fan of dresses but I love my pretty blue dress. I wore it along withy my titanic necklace and matching earrings I put up my hair and added a flower hair accessory. I even put on a little body shimmer.

6:00 Revel and I had already planned to sit together with Gside at a table. Kirsten, Adam, Jonathon, Tony and Andrea Zurcconi who both dressed up joined us. Tony looked stunning in his suit and Andrea's dress was gorgeous. I loved the collar and choker. Our Guest was Patrick Archibald.

The food was pretty good. I loaded up my plate with tomatoes and onions, marinated olives, steamed asparagus, potatoes, bread and chicken. While eating we talked with Patrick about his work, what he was working on and how to promote both the DVDs and comic.

After we had finished eating, it was time for Q&A. Our guests introduced themselves, explained their latest projects and answered several questions before it was time to prepare for the masquerade.

The idea for Revel's and my costumes were pretty much a last minute idea. I wanted to do something with Revel. Tony's and Andrea's costumes from 04 were an inspiration, instead of being and evil Elisa I dressed up, as Elisa as Salli and Revel was Thomas Brod. I can't remember the last time someone was Brod with or without Salli.

9:00 pm. We waited outside the entrance to the ballroom, very careful to stay out of the way of hotel staff carrying out cake. There were several adorable kids' costumes this year. Benny looked like a Jawa gargoyle and Erin was beautiful. Becca was a young Hyena, Fox was Lexington, Abby was a young princess Kathryn and Fusion Demon was a gypsy fae. The adult costumes were also amazing. We had a Goliath, a Puck, a Gene Simmons Garg, Onyx garg, Pearl garg, a vampire lady, Tony as a gargoyle hatchling using the cut up pieces of a Chernebog child's costume, a crossover costume of Inuysasha 1/2 and the Egyptian fae, Set who's large Ankh was really two scimitars held together. While waiting several of the wedding guests ran up to us and wanted to take pictures, an elderly lady told Tony he was cute.

We totally adlibbed our lines. Revel broke out into his fake Eastern Euro accent and I responded with the first thing in my head. Music was playing the first time and we had to do it again and we pretty much remembered what we said.

There were the usual categories for every year: Adult and Kid version of canon and fandom, cutest couple, Gorelisa and Tom Adcox memorial award. This year we had a bonus category of a half award for Jade Griffin's Inuyasha ½ costume. Revel and I won 2nd place for cutest couple. It was two badges linked together that said "ZOMG cutest couple" with little hearts.

We danced and mingled some more until Greg W gathered us around for Blue Mug A Guest round 2. This time Michael Reeves joined Greg and Thom. Crispin had to leave and he gave Thom a parting kiss.

The second Blue went by in a blur but I remembered Greg W mention how the Ask Greg questions will be cleaned up and Greg W was impressed by Revel's panting of Thailog. The goatee idea developed between Revel and Greg X. I'm so proud of my Revel. I'm even more proud of that than the pr0n.

Greg responds...

I really do like that goatee.

Response recorded on January 31, 2007

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Spacebabie writes...

Saturday June 24th.
9:30 am. Revel and I didn't have much planned for the day, so we slept in and ran off to the mall for breakfast. I wanted to try one of the crepes from the Melt and ordered the deviously popular strawberries and crème along with a chilled coffee drink. We returned to our room and enjoyed our breakfast before we returned to the art room to vote.
11: am ZOMG so much great art to look at and vote for and it was difficult this year with so much great art. I am so proud of my Revel. He and Y2Hecate had brought the most amount or pr0n. I enjoyed watching Lanny's expression when he saw Kyt's "Blue Light."
1:00 pm. Ellen and I decided to meet in the hotel restaurant and were joined by Gregx and Allaine to discuss our future panels. After looking at the prices both Gregx and I decided on just a soda.
2:00 pm. Ellen had to get the last half of her meal in a take out so that we both could make it back in time for Crispin Freeman's Mug a Guest. Crispy was a lot of fun. He mentioned he got into the business and what anime series he had worked on.
3:00 the next two hours was devoted to panels. The first was the villains with Christine, Gregx and Ellen. The points that were brought up were
· The different kinds of villains aka
· What motivates them and how they advance the plot
· Writing for canon villains
· Creating your own
I got a little bit passionate when we talked about our favorite villains to write for in the Gargoyles universe.
4:pm Villains ended and we switched Gregx for Allaine to discuss romance and drama. Points that were brought up were
· Tension and drama from the various couples
· The bickering couples
· Odd and unique pairings
· The dialog that flows between the couples
5:pm Next up was the Radio play. I knew when I heard the first character was Random Gargoyle A, it was from Gargoyles. I guessed from which characters were in the script it was "The Mirror." My guess was confirmed when I heard Puck was in it. The Mirror is a classic episode that is a number one favorite of many fans. It was great to hear Keith's deep voice and Crispin's Hudson. We all laughed when he made his pirate sound. We laughed again when he covered one eye with his hand.
6:pm. Food at the mall again. This time I wanted some West Coast Cuisine…aka food I can't find in East Texas. I had a Panda bowl form Panda Express. I had Kun Pao Chicken and steamed veggies on the rice bowl. Revel and Gside tried the Hot Dog on a stick. Allaine and Lynati also had some Panda Express. All three of received some silly fortunes from our cookies.
Allaine's="You will find a Great Bargain."
Lynati's="Success will come from your plans."
Mine="You Love the thrill of showmanship and Display."
7pm. We hung out in Aaron's room until nine thirty. I painted my nails a metallic purple while Y2Hecate showed us picture's of next year's hotel, and she showed us something else…something that broke a lot of people's brains. A hentai anime that not only have any plot but no point. It was to prep us for the Blue Mug a Guest.
9:30. We headed over to the Con Suite, passing by Keith David on the way. He wanted to know when the Mug started and we told him. There were several people in the Con-suite already but still plenty of room to find a place on the floor. That plenty of room got filled up fast. Norcumi and Quindar gave out new Gargles shirts featuring a blending of two in jokes. When our guests arrived I got twisted around and separated from Revel and ended up being sandwiched between Seth and Siryn. I gave Siryn a well-deserved massage. She worked hard on the program for this year and deserved to be pampered.
The questions for this year were not too Blue but there were plenty of dirty questions and Greg W asked Christine if she had any dirty questions and she did. Favorite Question: "Are you a Werewolf?" Gregw's response: "No, I'm a robot" Keith David explained the Jalapena story and sang for us and Crispin Freeman was asked if he was willing to dub any Yaoi anime or as Steph had to explained to GW "Boy sex"

Greg responds...

silly fortunes from our cookies.
Allaine's="You will find a Great Bargain."
Lynati's="Success will come from your plans."
Mine="You Love the thrill of showmanship and Display."

...with no pants on.

Response recorded on January 31, 2007

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Spacebabie writes...

Friday June 23

I woke up sometime after Gregx left, washed my hair and got dressed. After Revel was ready we went out to seek breakfast and were joined by Ckayote. We ended up in the mall food court and at a Cinnabon we got classic Cinnabons and I tried a caramel chillata. Ah sweet ice-cold caffeine goodness. We scrambled back to the hotel and scarfed down our breakfasts while in the lobby.

10:00 am. I got separated from Revel on the way to the registration table. Talked with Ellen while we both waited in line for our Reg packets. Our packets contained our con badges, beautiful programs, participant ribbons, copies of the anthology and our name cards for our panels. This was my first time of being published in the anthology and I still can't believe it. The end results were beautiful. I loved Kyt's design of the book.
After receiving my packet I went into the art room to help Revel set up his art until about 11.

11:am Ellen and I joined up with Gregx and Christine in the dealer's room to do some prepping for the panels. The first writing panels were about characters and their development but since the four of us was also on the villains panel. This was one of the few times where we could have a group meeting since both Christine and Greg were one staff.

11:55 am. I dashed back to my room to make sure Pippin had finished his feeding. To explain, Pippin is my Compaq Presario 2200 laptop, named after a hobbit since it's small and it travels well and if I get mad at it I can shout "Fool of a Took." When I say feeding I mean recharging his battery. I brought Pippin since he has my list of original characters.

NOON: Time for my first panel, Creating compelling characters. We had a good-sized group who were very attentive and asked a whole lot of interesting questions. Points that were covered:
· Avoiding the Mary Sue and Gary Stu syndrome.
· Believable dialog
· Making the characters into real people, aka giving them well developed backgrounds
· And listing several examples

1:00 pm basically went around the art room to look at the art and show Cindy what Mara drew for me, the picture of Matt Bluestone in his underwear.

2:00 pm I rejoined Revel during the voice-acting workshop hosted by the talented couple: Crispin Freeman and Thom Adcox. I'm a fan of both, Thom for being Lex and occasionally dropping his pants and Crispin from various anime I have seen. Crispin had brought some anime dubbing equipment and asked for volunteers. The first was Blaise who voiced a comedy relief character and was ZOMG amazing!!!

3:00pm my next panel was Tools, Tricks and Traps of the trade with Christine. Here is me, the fanfic author and I'm teamed up with The Christine Morgan, creator of Jericho, author of one of the best Gargoyles fanfic saga's and pro author of several book series. She was fun to work with and just as easy going and fun to talk with, as she is online. We both brought up the tips we had used when writing and also brought up the mistakes we had made in the past and how to avoid them.

4:00 pm. After our panel, Christine and I both raced back to the dealer's room for the Anthology signing party. That was a fun experience. The writers and artists passed around their books like high school yearbooks and signed our names and wrote funny messages before we singed copies from other people. It was a good time to kick back and relax a bit before opening ceremonies.

5:00 pm. Opening Ceremonies began with a beat, a rocking beat. We got to view several great music videos including Jen's "Bring Me to Life." Video, Gregx's "Sympathy for the Devil" Video. The hilarious "Can You Feel The Love Tonight." Vid and the emotional "Hemorrhage." Vid.

Jen and the rest of the con staff greeted everyone and asked to see who were this years con virgins. There was a great show of hands. Then came the second timers, third timers and so on until there were only a few hands for those who have had been to every Gathering. They got a special award ribbon.

The Fan Guest of honor award went to the one who started it all. Mai Li aka Beth Maza.
Allaine, Ellen, Y2Hecate and Kyt received special awards for being featured in all three anthologies.

Y2Hecate came up and announced next year's Gathering at Pigeon Forge Tennessee.
Greg Weisman came up and did his thing: which was tell the story of how Gargoyles came to be, along with show us his usual video goodie of the intro's to the series, the pitches of New Olympians, and Dark Ages, and the Leica Reel of Bad Guys. Revel had to remind him to tell everyone not film it and we got to see some of The Last video that was a collaboration between fans using the storyboard and art panels created by Greg's team and the recorded voices.

There was a bit of bad news. There is no definite release for the second half of Season Two.
8:PM FOOOOOOD! I was hungry. Revel was hungry. A lot of people were hungry. It was time for another walk to the food court, but first we got a surprise from Norcumi and Quindar, the creators of the Gargle pun and shirts. They handed out custom Gargle toothbrushes out to everyone.

A good-sized crowd was organized and we set out for dinner. Revel and I both decided on Arbies and I had a classic Arbies with cheese combo. We hung out in the Food Court until it was time for the mall to close and we returned to the hotel to catch the tail end of MST3K before we hung out in Aaron's room until we got tired. Marty/Kai talked about the comic and a very disturbing video game.

Greg responds...

Lots of action for Day One, huh?

Response recorded on January 31, 2007

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Spacebabie writes...

It Begins Again. The Con Journal and Road trip.

We a lot had happened since the last Gathering. I moved to Conroe Texas and I am living with Revel. Do I miss Orlando? I do a bit, but home is where the heart is and before I get any more Saccharine I shall begin the journal.

Tuesday June 20

The trip began days before as usual, or at least usual since the past three years. The nights before I prepared for everything, cats were taken care of, gave my apartment key to Revel's mother, had everything packed. All I had to do was wait until work ended. Hard to focus on work when all you are thinking about is The Gathering. Time also seemed to move even more slowly, but hey, I got through it.

We loaded up our suitcases into Hyena and set off for San Antonio, only stopping on the way for food like chicken nuggets and fries.

When we arrived at the apartment of Aaron, Mara and Lynati the gate was closed and Aaron was at his mother's place. This was a problem because it Aaron was the only one who knew the code to the gate. We had to wait until somebody else came up to the gate and followed them in.

Lynati and Mara did meet us halfway between where we parked and their apartment. We dropped off our backpacks and chatted while we waited for Aaron. Lynati had her computers in Stereo. She had her desktop on one side of her work area and her laptop on the other. She showed us the art project she is working on with Mara while she printed out Mara's pr0n. Meanwhile, Mara drew a picture of Matt Bluestone in his undies, and Lynati gave me a purple crayon to color it.

Aaron returned and went back to the World of Warcraft. He and Revel went over the last details of our route while us gals looked through more pr0n. Not long after we went to bed. Revel and I drifted off to sleep while listening to Aaron play World of Warcraft and curse at the screen.

Wednesday June 21

The guys went to get the rental van while us gals did some last minute packing and Mara played some funny anime music videos.

Revel returned and we loaded the minivan and Aaron took his car to his mother's place. Aaron returned and Revel gave him the keys. Aaron went back to the apartment to feed the cats. Aaron couldn't leave until he had locked up. The apartment keys were in Lynati's purse, Lynati's purse was locked in the van and Aaron had the keys to the van.

After we got that fixed up Revel and I followed Aaron in Hyena to Aaron's mother's house. We parked Hyena, got up in the rental and we were off.
Our first stop was a sandwich place where we got sandwiches to eat on the road. I had the Manhattan.
Our first big stop was in El Paso where we had Burger King for dinner. I had a whopper combo. After we ate, we made some comments about our scenery. There was an oil refinery on fire and we joked about the Eye of Sauron. There was also a star set against a mountain. At night it looked like it was floating.

Thursday June 22

Our second main stop was Tucson Arizona were we crashed at a Days In. It was a pretty decent motel, had a microwave and a fridge. After we showered we returned to the minivan and it was onto Valencia. We stopped off at a McDonalds and got breakfast to go. I got a yogurt parfait and some coffee.

Another place we stopped at was a historical site that had a few shops, a gas station, a historical post office and a lot of tanks. Revel got several pictures and bought me a bag of wasabi peas to munch on.

We made it through the dessert and the L.A. area traffic till we made it to Valencia. We stopped by at this one traffic light before we could turn to get to the hotel and there was a crowd of people that crossed in front of us.
"Hey could that be?"
"I see Silver."
"There's Jen and Greg X."
"I see Nikki."
"There's Greg Weisman."
"Open a window."
Aaron and Revel opened their window and waved to them. They waved back. Greg Weisman said something pointed to the hotel and then to the restaurant. We were not sure what his exact words were but we think he told us to park the van and join them, and we did…well after we parked we helped Ckayote take his stuff up to the room he was sharing with Aaron, Mara, and Lynati and by the time we caught up with them we had a bigger crowd than before.
Jen's group was seated first and after they had cleaned up a few more tables we were able to sit us down. Revel and I were at the table with Silver, Kirsten, Ckayote, Shaun, Kyt, Greg Weisman, Liz, Siryn and a few other people. We caught up with everyone while waited for our food. Silver, Revel and I shared a pizza and I had a margarita. You know you are getting old when you are glad they card you.

After we returned to the hotel we grabbed our bags, got the hotel situation worked out with Gregx and got the keys. We dropped off our stuff and we hung out in Aaron's room for a while until we got tired and returned to our room. Gregx joined us and set the alarm for the con staff breakfast and we talked before we went to bed.

Greg responds...

Spacebabie is like me. Both our conjournals spend a great deal of time detailing what we ate. It's my favorite thing to talk about.

Response recorded on January 30, 2007

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dph of rules writes...

sorry for the delay between my pre-trip Gathering Journal and this one. There's certain things I wanted to wait for before writing the latter gathering journals.

Gathering Journal Day 1 - The Trip there - Friday
Originally, my stepmother was supposed to take me to the airport, but due to bad weather, my dad ended up taking me. I want to stop to say it's 11:09am Saturday morning when I'm writing this part of the journal. I got to Little Rock airport ~7:15am and was waiting on my flight and was very nervous. I had a 30 minute delay in take-off because of bad weather in Dallas. The flight was ok, I slept about 30 minutes during it. Dallas-Fort Worth airpot was big to me. Luckily, I was able to find my gate in time and eat lunch before takeoff. On the flight to LAX, I slept about two hours. Boy, is LAX airport big. The trip from LAX to the hotel took over an hour - mostly because of rush hour traffic - rush hour traffic at 2:30pm, what a concept. I don't get why people complain about traffic in LA - it's just the same as my local rush traffic traffic multiplied by a few more lanes. So I got to the hotel, signed in, saw Patrick & GXB, and promptly asked where A Fan was [A Fan was my roommate]. They told me the con suite (I forgot what room number that was) so I headed there. I handed A Fan my half of the room expenses in the form of a money order, he gave me a keycard, and somehow I misunderstood him and went to the wrong room number (occupied by another con-goer) and went back and got the right room number, and went to our room. There I unloaded by suitcase. [Random note: A Fan, what a name, sorta like a restaurant in my home town called 'A Place To Eat'.] I had about 90 minutes to kill before Opening Ceremonies were scheduled to start. They actually started an hour later and my back (*pauses writing the journal momentarily to go to the Gargoyles Physiology panel*) was sore for standing so long. (I should have set down sooner. [Now, it's 9:55 pm Saturday when I'm writing.] I enjoyed the Opening Ceremonies a bunch and it seemed like half the people present were con newbies like myself. I was shocked by the Bad Guys reel (in a positive way) and seeing that suddenly explained Lain and Gunjack's feeling towards that. Afterwards, I got lost trying to find my way to the mall food court [with me, it's a given that I will get lost on either the way there or the way back the 1st time I go anywhere.] I should have just followed Gside's (I think) group the way there and I would have saved time. I got back to the hotel room ~9:15pm that night and fell asleep for about 2 hours and awoke with A Fan in the room. We chatted for an hour or so about Gargoyles/Gargoyles Theories/Alternate Gargoyles universes. My pet universe was the one where a modified version of Vows occurred: Xanatos & company were not around to foil the Archmage's attempt to get the Phoenix Gate and a theory about how the gargoyles universe would have confisicated for that non-event. Then we hit the sack. Somehow, sometime during the day, I bought a gargoyles comic book for $3 (that being all the cash I had on me) and I really owe him something for that.

That's all for Friday.

Greg responds...

Traveling across country with only $3 in cash. You ARE a thrill-seeker!

Response recorded on January 30, 2007


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