.:Saturday, July 12:.

..:12 of 12 Project: Con Report Part 2:..

Okay, seeing as I spent all of today up at the con, this month's 12 of 12 is going to be yet another con report. (Note: I did actually write this entry on Saturday, I was waiting to get the photo's back from the day so I could post them)

So, the weekend was... kind of a bender of fandom really. A con, a fest, a movie and an art show coming up. Meredith has had very little sleep and it's looking like more sleep is not in my immediate future as I can't seem to turn off Stargate.

Okay, first things first. Hellboy? Was AWESOME. Absolutely loved it, I love it when a movie not only lives up to, but surpasses the hype and the anticipation the fans have built up. Waited in line for an hour or so, much of it spent with Jenn attatched to KT's leg like a leach and the people in line behind us killing themselves laughing at our conversations.



Guillermo del Toro's mind scares the living FUCK out of me however. He created small, winged creatures, really really cute, called tooth fairies. Why? Because while they do eat people whole, they tend to go for the teeth first, and while they're chewing they sounded enough like a dentist drill that I actually ended up cancelling my dentist appointment as I don't think I could stand to sit in the chair right now.

The beginning of the movie was absolutely incredible, there was an animated sequence giving the history of the golden army and the elves told as a bedtime story. But the animation style? Was amazingly well done, probably one of my favoirite parts.

As always, in any del Toro movie, the little details and subtle layering of all the aspects of the characters, both good and bad, was beautifully done. Interesting plot, really REALLY funny and some suprisingly good action sequences. And perhaps the biggest miracle of all? I actually didn't hate Liz in this one, maybe because she seemed less like a whiny little emo girl and more like an adult.

Now, onto the con! Got up at the crack o dawn, no, really, the sun was barely up. Went out to the traditional breakfast at Mels, goddamn I love bacon. Tramped back to the apartment and drove off to the double tree where Polaris is held every year. (I always feel kind of bad for the normies who accidently stay at a hotel during one of the cons)

Got into the hotel, rushed through registration, then ran upstairs to catch Gareth David-Lloyd doing the I&I, we were a few minutes late, but not too bad overall. He was still rather pissed from the night before and trying not to squint at us all too badly.

Gareth was doing a bit of Q and A and storytelling when we walked in. Firstly? That man's accent is absolutely lush, god I love the Wlsh. Secondly? He was wearing a shirt (see photo below) with a punk sheep on it, and that made me happy.

He was also extremely witty and has an absolutely filthy mouth, lovely suprise that. Panders to the fans wonderfully, nice to see an actor young enough and new enough that he's still in love with the energy and enthusiasm that all the fans have for a show, and an actor, they love. And the fans did ask some rather.... well, in a show where we get sex scenes between the two male characters, what kind of questions do you think they'd ask? He has a pretty good sense of humour about it though, and warned all fans off ever touching any shaft shaped prop as aparently John Barrowman has a habit of sticking his genitals in them as a prank.

I love the brits.

Right after Gareth was Cliff Simon, a Johanessburg actor who plays Ba'al. He is hands down our little circle's favourite bad guy on Stargate as he is A) Gorgeous, B)Has the best clothes of anyone on the show, C)Is a complete and utter bastard and damn good at it and D)Has a voice that could charm the knickers off a nun. Damn.



He was a bit upset when he got onto stage as Don S. Davies had died last week and he requested that they not question him about it. So, of course, one asshole an gets up and asks for his opinion on Don's death. Tosser. Way to make the guest stars upset.

It was interesting though, as with any Stargate guest he told stories of Chris Judge and pranking the new cast (by Saran wrapping all their toilets, aparently this is now a tradition on set) and about Richard Dean Anderson and his love of tripping other actors up by throwing out his lines, coming up with something on the fly and then expecting them to follow along. I can totally see him doing that, I love actors.

So, right after Cliff Simon's Q&A let out I headed over to get my photo taken with Gareth whilst KT went out to hunt down some caffeine. And on the way I ran across a litte troup of fans outside doing a photo shoot.



There was a group of 11: All 10 of the Doctors as well as a Season 4 Rose. There was a Who Hug, a massive massive amount of photo's and alot of rather lewd jokes about screwdrivers and celery. The costumes were all REALLY REALLY good though. Usually in a large troup half the novelty is the fact that it's a group, but these people could easily have gone on their own and still had a million pictures take of them as the costumes were brilliant.

So, after snapping a million photo's and fangirling wildly at a few of the doctors got in line to see Gareth and get a photo taken with him. I was wearing my contacts today, you know the ones:



And was stopping foot traffic in the hall as people kept pulling me aside to take photo's with me or freak out and start backing away.

I made a small child cry, that alone was worth the contacts.

So finally got in to the atrium where they were snapping the photo's, and when I got to the front of the line Gareth jumped back when he saw me and started gushing a bit about how creepy those contacts are and how he hated it when Burn Gorman had to wear them for the show. Snapped a couple of photo's as he asked for a copy (squee) thanked him and proceeded to oooze my fangirlishly melted self out the door and resisted the urge to pinch him on the bum on my way out (barely).

Got a rather nice photo out of it though:



Was walking back from the photo, trying not to giggle as black eyed demon girl giggling like a maniac tends to make people back away and start talking about padded rooms, and a troup of armed military guys held me at gunpoint and pointed a scanner in my face.

No, really.

Aparently the con had hired on an Alien troupe for the year, and they were scanning the hotel for someone infected. What made this awesome was that just down the hallway where KT and Beej were, a man fell down on the ground, started convulsing, and this happened:



I love the fans, and old fashioned cons, the little alien moved and everything.

Stopped laughing long enough to stumble our way into the dealers rooms and do a bit of shopping, bought a few books and plushies, as well as an iteresting necklace, but no huge purchase this year. (Unlike Beej, but that will be explained later). What really did steal the show however was the fan cration contest. The ever present hand built figurines and toys, along with a few really fun ones this year.

First was the Adipose Cake:



The adipose are the little fat monsters from doctor who, they are ridiculously cute and happy looking, and someone made a cake out of it. The little caption on it says: "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips". I thought KT was going to kill herself with Squee over it, she was so amused. I really want someone to make a plushie of this, cause if they don't I may have to, just so I can squish it and scare Beej.

Another one of the really cool ones was that someone created the control room and lab complex of Stargate Atlantis out of Leggo.

No, really.

No, REALLY, look:





It was amazingly detailed and must have taken him an obscene amount of time, but it really was quite cool. I am currently really tempted to drag all my lego out of storage and see if I can reproduce some of it (the stargate and the puddle jumper) and put them in the fish tank as decoration (and yes, it is safe for fish, it's just a bitch to clean). He had even MADE little leggo wraith and everything, perfectly done.

After that we tooled about the art room for a while, a few nice prints that I may have bought if they were a little less pricey, some gorgeous molded leather masquerade masks and alot of really cool Steampunk jewelry. Steampunk usually consists of alot of mechanized, semi-futuristic stuff. In this case, neckalces and rings make of reclaimed pieces of old broken fob watches. I bid on a few, but it ended up going a little too pricey for my wallet, so I shall fall on the old standby of just damn well making it myself, (and probably adding in matching earrings while I'm at it). KT ended up buying a really nice piece of jewellry, looked v. nice, and could be worn 2 ways on top of it.

Came out of the art auction to this sight:



And yes, yes that is a TIE pilot playing guitar hero. The best part? He was playing a LOVE BALLAD. Awesome. I have no idea how he could actually see anything or even work the keys in that outfit, but he actually managed to get a decent high score.

Went upstairs to wander about for a bit, then I got this call from my baby sister:

"Mere?"
"Yes, where are you Beej?"
"I'm in the dealers room, can you come down and unlock your car so I can put this away?"
"Oh dear gods, what the hell did you buy?"
"One of the big remote control Daleks."
"....."
"WHAT?!?"
(Reason I was flipping out, I had seen some Daleks in the dealers room that were $300 and were MASSIVE)



It turned out she had actually bought one of the smaller models, so it was a hell of alot cheaper and smaller, but no less amusing of course. KT Spent a good 10 minutes poking it to make it scream "EXTER-MINATE!" at her. It may or may not be the most awesome thing ever. She's still all a-squee cause she got all the autographs and such she wanted as well as some really fun stuff.

So went off to go pick up the photo I had taken with Gareth, was told to come back in an hour, then another hour, then another hour.... after the third time I was pretty depressed as I had kinda wanted to get a photo with Cliff Simon as well, but if it takes them 7 hours to process it we didn't really have time. So guess who we bumped into just as I said this?



He was just standing about waiting for them to call him in to do photos and was really nice about getting a photo done. At least he was after he stopped being scared by my contacts.

One of the best days of my life, I made Ba'al, the best bad guy that Stargate has ever seen, yelp and leap away.

Cons are awesome.

We sat about for a couple more hours, kinda wrapping things up and putting off leaving, picked up the photo's and a few more fun things from the dealers room. (The Canadian Browncoats were selling juggling goslings, I really really wanted them!) I bought another teddy:



It's a mini-gloomy bear. I've never seen one of the little ones of these that have the blood on them, and he was dirt cheap. Am taking votes however, what do you say his name should be? Dexter or Jekyll....

Have happily spent the last hour scaring the living fuck out of my cat by chasing him around the living room with the remote control Dalek. He absolutely HATES that thing, and it actually says a bunch of different things ( all very vintage) and then does the gun sound. But the best bit? The eye-stalk has a motion sensor in it so it follows any movement you make. Le awesome.



Now, as I have been watching Stargate in search of Ba'al for about (checks time) 3 hours now, I need to sleep.

Art show is tomorrow, this is gonna be a good weekend.

Labels: 12 of 12 Project, art stuff, cliff simon, contacts, conventions, dalek, doctor who, gareth david-lloyd, hellboy, leggo, Movies, Nyx, polaris, star wars

Meru at 11:20 PM

.:Thursday, July 3:.

..:Fangirls and faires:..

So, in just under a week KT will be back, Yay! I have missed my fangirling brethren and the horrible horrible spaz attacks that come after "who nights".

The Casa Loma ren faire is this weekend, Polaris and the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibit are next weekend, and the Sterling Ren Faire is the weekend after that.

Between it all we have Hellboy and the Dark Night, housewarmings amd family holidays, and a few weeks of doing nothing at work to fill up the days.

I have a feeling this is gonna be a really good summer.

Labels: doctor who, katie, polaris, Ren Faire, summer

Meru at 1:55 PM

.:Monday, June 30:.

..:OMGWTFBBQ?!:..

Okay, a few things to rant about.

Thing the first. Was feeling somewhat shitty, and decided to watch Stargate SG-1 the Arc of Truth as I had yet to see it. I figure, "good old dependable stargate, you hold no real suprises for me anymore, this'll be comforting".

And then it comes on, good old movie music, nice BC scenery AND MY FUCKING UNCLE IS PLAYING A CHARACTER IN THE OPENING!! I figure it was just the drugs, so I checked IMDB, and there it was, in nice neat text, my uncle, Simon Bradbury is in STARGATE!!

Thing the second: Did anyone else have their brains dribble out their ears upon seeing the new who? Did he not promise that they were NOT going to do that? They had better fucking fix this the bastards...

Thing the third: Why is the mabinogi now an mmorpg? is nothing sacred?

And as a last note: painkillers are awesome and make everything blue and swirly.

Labels: doctor who, painkillers, Stargate

Meru at 12:57 PM

.:Monday, June 23:.

..:Wonderland and Who:..

Okay, so Mich came over on sunday and we went out to wonderland. We figure, "it's supposed to be cloudy with light rain, we'll be good without alot of sun gear." so I didn't put very strong sunblock on, so I am currently a LOBSTER.

I did however get to go on Behemoth again, that thing is much MUCH scarier whilst sober, I can tell you that. Sat in line for topgun for an hour and a half and spent the whole time getting hit on by the group of guys behind us who could not take a freaking hint.

Then it rained.

ALOT.

It was weird when the freaking CAROSEL was suddenly the most popular ride in the whole park


And people started stealing the lids off the garbage cans to keep the rain off.


And collecting in small huddles, we passed DOZENS of these.


And people treated it like it was the end of the freaking world and started running for their LIVES


And of course, by the end of it all, both me and 'chelle were completely SOAKED.



It was AWESOME.

Decided to leave after wandering around the park in the torrential downpour for a while, you know your wet when you can ACTUALLY empty a cup of water out of your shoe before you get into your car by the way. But agter an hour the park looked like it was gonna be closed for the rest of the day so we drove home.

And into a hail storm.

One so bad all traffic on the 400 had STOPPED and people were hiding under the overpass in an attempt to keep windshields from getting shattered.

All in all a rather.... interesting day.



Also? I just finished watching the new Who. And the trailer for next weeks epi.

WHY THE FUCK IS IT NOT SATURDAY YET?!

Labels: doctor who, messed up weather, michelle, wonderland

Meru at 9:41 PM

.:Monday, June 16:.

..:Movies and Milling:..

Spent a good chunk of this past weekend stuck up in Caledon babysitting the dog and the house, so I dragged a bunch of old friends out and we went to a crap load of movies. Pretty much spent the whole day in the theatre going from movie to movie as a friend was working podium and just let us in, so, the movies.

Kung Fu Panda - I actually really really liked this, I don't care if it's daft, but it made me laugh alot and had some great jokes
Don't Mess With The Zohan - Funny, but annoying. You got the impression they were trying to do a version of Kung Fu Hustle, same kind of slapstick ridiculous fighting and dialogue, but with Palestinians and Israeli terrorists, didn't really like it, possibly cause of an intense dislike of Adam Sandler
The Hulk - suprisingly OK. Kept me entertained at least, although a good chunk of that could be the novelty... About half the movie was recognizably filmed on U of T campus and yongue street, and everyone knows it's a bit of a childhood dream to watch the hulk fucking OBLITERATE your school. And compared to the last hulk movie? It can only be an improvement, also, STARK WAS IN IT!!! TALKING ABOUT THE AVENGERS *dissolves into a fangirlish puddle*

Other thing is that I started competing in the hypermilling, which is kinda the latest trend in Canada and the US. It's a competition to make a tank last the longest. Most cars take about 8-12 gallons per 100km that you drive (mine takes 5-7, take that SUV soccer moms!!) and the idea is to use a bunch of tricks to lower that as much as you can, the current record is 1.3 gallons to 100km, which is freaking mad in and of itself, if my gas did that a tank would last a month and a half.

The idea is to treat your car as if A - it's about to rattle apart at any minute and B - that you don't have any breaks. (not really hard to imagine with puddles. Turn off the AC (also not hard as puddle's ac is broken, and likely to remain so as mere is BROKE) Coast to a stop whenever you can, don't slam on the gas or the brakes as that REALLY eats into the gas, and go the posted speed limit, I didn't know this, but a big part of the posted speed limit is what kind of wind conditions are ideal for gas mileage, not just road safety, so going 130? aparently causes your fuel to burn even faster.

It means I have to get up about 10 minutes earlier, but I've doubled the life on my gas tank, so REALLY not complaining.

Another thing? Mere's new resolution: GET THE FUCK IN SHAPE THIS SUMMER - I don't mind being a bit squishy around the edges, I like curves, but I have literally no upper body strength at all and that's just sad, so Mere is going to attempt to actually start going to the gym more than once a month when she feels really guilty after finishing a ben and jerry's tub of ice cream on her own.

Shut up it was cookie dough and brownie fudge, like you could say no?

Also, DID YOU SEE THE TRAILER FOR NEXT WEEK'S WHO?! Why is it not saturday yet? WHY?!


Back to work now, blah.

Labels: avengers, Bad Movies, doctor who, hypermilling, resolution

Meru at 10:36 AM

.:Sunday, April 6:.

..:Just Finished:..

I just finished watching both the Dr. Who Premier and the Torchwood season finale.

I think my brain is BROKEN.

I can't even blog, must go do something that requires no thought process... like re-organize cupboards...

BROKEN!

Labels: doctor who, random ranting, torchwood

Meru at 5:07 PM

.:Tuesday, January 29:.

..:Guys, Gracie and Geekines:..

So, am seeing a guy again. Has actually lasted more than 3 dates, am V impressed. Even survived Jenn asking him what his intentions were and what prospects he has. Also, he seems to have a it of sense as instead of bringing me flowers, he brought me the BSG movie Razor. Sweet.

Class is hell, welsh is slowly sucking my soul. Am headed out tomorrow to get my hair cut and dyed while Gracie is in town. Brother and his girl Mon are looking to move downtown, so I might actually see my family more than once a month (if that some months). Beej is all a-squee as she and her friends have gotten a house that they're moving into after the school year finishes up, am quite pleased with this and cannot wait to meet these friends of hers and embarrass her horribly as she does to me every time she talks to my friends. (It's practically a family tradition at this point)

In other, much more geeky, news: The next season of Dr. Who is starting up on my birthday, damn that's a good present, thank you BBC!!

Labels: Beej, dating, doctor who, Hair, owen, welsh

Meru at 12:43 PM