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Jurgan writes...

We had been traveling for about a week before the convention, camping in the Smoky Mountains area and south Kentucky, as well as taking in the scenery at Nashville. Anyone who finds my journals insanely entertaining and wishes to see more of my stellar wit (including a hilarious account of getting hopelessly lost in rural Kentucky at night) can go to www.freewebs.com/jurgan6, where I'll have the rest posted in a few days. And now, to slide this in under the deadline.

Note: Heather = Yami Raven, Rob = Jurgan

Friday, June 22

Given as it was the second longest day of the year, we were on the east edge of Central Time, and we were in a tent, the sun woke us up at 5:30 A.M. We'd planned on getting up at 7:00, but when I saw the light, I thought it might be 7:00. But we had a long drive, and we were pretty well awake, so we decided to just get up and get a move on. We bought some donuts at a gas station and drove east across a national forest in Kentucky, then south to Pigeon Forge. Fortunately, after five days of travel we'd gotten past all of our wacky driving mishaps and had a fairly uneventful trip. Our directions had gotten lost, so there was no chance of Mapquest screwing us up again, but we'd seen the Grand Resort when we drove through on Tuesday, and we were able to find it again without much trouble.

We got to the hotel at about 1:30, and they said that they wouldn't have our room ready until 2:00, so we drove down the street to a Chinese buffet. The food was pretty good, and the TV was playing a loop of some bizarre Chinese acrobats performing feats of superhuman precision (wow, I sound like an ad). We then went back, checked into our room, and carried our stuff upstairs. Typically, Heather wanted to make our first stop the dealer's room, so we checked in to the con and then looked at the goodies. I immediately spotted an RPG related shirt that was utterly hilarious and perfectly fitting with my RPG personality, so I didn't even try to resist the urge to buy it.

Shortly thereafter, it was time for opening ceremonies. Learning our lesson from last year, we both went to the bathroom beforehand. When we got down, we saw that the TV was too close to the ground for everyone to see from their chairs, so we quickly moved the chairs to the sides and sat on the floor. Hey, we're an informal bunch. After announcements, Greg started his usual spiel, calling it "The Rocky Horror Gargoyles show," an apt comparison which I'd never thought of/heard before. Last year, Greg kept trying to encourage people who'd already seen it to leave, but I think he's accepted that that's not going to happen. So we saw the usual fun stuff, heard some good, or at least possibly good, news about the comic and DVD's, but by the time it was over it was too late to show the music videos. I never got to see any of them. I guess we ate dinner and went to bed, though I can't for the life of me remember what we had- probably something informal like sandwiches. Heather fell asleep unexpectedly, and so did I a few minutes later.

Saturday, June 23

I got up by 10:00 or so because I wanted to audition for the Radio Play. I ran to a "quaint" old-time diner and brought back lunch (note: I may be getting when we ate which meals mixed up, but it doesn't really matter. If you're accused of a crime, though, I may not be your best witness). Heather stayed in the room, because there wasn't anything she was interested in, and after a week's camping, a bed is hard to say no to. At the auditions, I was a bit intimidated, because I still remember trying out in 2002 and bombing terribly. A large crowd sat on the stairs, and we had a lot of fun talking, though we only had a couple scripts to share. I argued with some girls about how Inuyasha would have been better if it had taken lessons from Gargoyles. At one point, I made some joke referencing a certain character from TGC whose name must not be mentioned (let's just say it was mentioned over forty times in one episode). A few people felt my faux pas had to be punished, and started discussing whether it would be more appropriate and/or efficient to decapitate me or simply remove my larynx. That's the sort of conversation I find very amusing. I was one of the last to audition, and I feel I did a lot better than before, reading the part of Brooklyn instead of Xanatos. Greg said I did "great!"

I went back to the room for a while, and either went to get lunch or ate some leftovers (I honestly can't remember when I got the food). I went back down at 2:00 for the world-building for fantasy/sci-fi fan panel. I almost always go to the fan panels, except for the art ones. We talked about a lot of good stuff, though I can't really remember much of it now. I was also spending the entire panel wondering if I'd made the Radio Play cut, since I hadn't had time to check beforehand. Once the panel ended, I quickly ran to check the casting sheet, and was thrilled to find I'd made it! Of course, it turned out that there were more parts than people, so I made it by default, but I like to think I did well enough to merit it. I ran back to the room long enough to tell Heather, and then ran back down for rehearsal. Greg had us set up the chairs in a very specific pattern, and then had us sit in an even more specific arrangement. Once we were all seated, we found out that we were performing issues 3, 4, and 5 of Gargoyles comicbook. Of course, we were all thrilled by that revelation, and I'm sure many of us were tempted to flip to the end to see what happened, but I stayed with the cast. I was Matt Bluestone, and my scene was early on in the play. Greg had to give me a note, calling for "Matt," and it took me a minute to realize who he was talking to. Apparently "Tri Chung" is pronounced "try," not "tree." Huh. Anyway, we went through the play, and sat on the edges of our chairs throughout act three. When we found out about the Illuminati's triangular structure from 1 to 36, as a mathematician I immediately set about calculating how many total members there were, although I didn't expect it to be significant. I could have done it in my head (18*37- half the last number times one more than the last number), but it was distracting me from the story, so I pulled out my phone calculator. 666. Hmm, maybe it is significant. The "Andrew Johnson" line got a big laugh at rehearsal, though less of a response in the play. And, of course, "Nine." When we finished the rehearsal, we were given a twenty minute break. Heather had been unsure of whether to come, but when I told her what we were performing (without spoilers), she decided to come. Then I ran back downstairs, where several cast members were mulling over the revelations we'd just had. The conversation led me to come up with a theory for who number 1 is (this is why I love fan speculation- together we come up with better ideas than we would individually; whole vs. sum of parts). Obviously, I can't put speculation in an Ask Greg entry, but I convinced a number of people, including Greg Bishansky.

The play itself went very well. The audience was barely larger than the cast. Heather got a couple pictures of me reading my lines, but I don't think they came out. Fortunately, Youtube has the whole thing. Thom Adcox got people rolling on the floor every freaking time he opened his mouth. We got laughs at the right moments, and a very satisfying gasp at the end.

After the play, Heather and I went to dinner at Kinkaku, a sushi/hibachi restaurant across the street. We had just sushi, and it was pretty good. Still not my all-time favorite (that'd be Toyo, in Rock Hill, SC), but it was a good meal.

We hung around for a while, and then went to the Blue Mug. On average, the questions started out pretty dark blue and gradually paled as the night went on. I had a couple terribly mild questions, including one Heather wanted to ask, but she left before she got a chance. Thom pulled his pants down to show his tattoo and repeated his infamous "Monsigneur Nelson" joke. I'm still not sure I get the joke, but it's fun to watch.

After Thom left at about 1:30, most of the people scattered. My favorite thing to do at cons is just sitting around talking to people, so I gravitated to the small group sitting around Greg. Jen Anderson was there, and I think Gorebash, but I can't remember any others. Next year I should really write this stuff down immediately, instead of trying to remember it a month later. My biggest regret is that I can't remember who all the people I met were. Anyway, we sat around telling stories. I mostly just listened, since I'm still relatively new to the cons and didn't want to butt in to other people's conversations. All the others knew each other pretty well, and I did feel a little intimidated at first, but it was pretty easy to talk after a while. We had one conversation about which was worse: hurricanes, tornados, or earthquakes. Jen told a story about getting on a plane by pretending to be engaged to Thom. Greg lay down on some chairs half-asleep, waking up occasionally to tell people who called him that he was not a taxi company and they needed to enter a different area code. Eventually, Greg decided he was going to bed, and the rest of the group broke up.

That evening summed up the con for me. Although there were far fewer guests and events than last year, I felt like I really got to know the people who were there a lot better. I'm really starting to feel like I'm part of these cons, instead of just a guest watching them. I got to meet some new people, whom I'll hopefully see again next year.

Part 2 in another post, assuming I get it done before the queue closes.

Greg responds...

Well, the queue will open again when issue #6 comes out (sometime this month) so post part 2 then!

Response recorded on September 10, 2007


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