Okay, I went to more than one panel.  In addition to the Warehouse 13/Eureka crossover panel, which I have more than several pictures from, I also went to see Stan Lee, Kevin Sorbo and Lexa Doig (Andromeda), Laura K. Hamilton,  and a couple of others, but those pictures didn’t come out so well.  I think the Dragon*Con staff screws with the lighting in the ballrooms to mess up pictures.  Anyway, here are some select shots.

These are some of the more interesting costumes that I saw this year at Dragon*Con, most of them are costumes that I haven’t taken a picture of before.

As much as I love my American Sci-Fi TV shows, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Smallville, Eureka, and Warehouse 13, the panel that I geeked out the most at was the R2 Units panel in the Robotics Track. On Friday, I saw a guy controlling an R2D2. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen an R2 Unit at Dragon*Con. But what made me stop was the fact that he actually had the Princess Leia "Help me Obi-Wan, you’re my only hope." projection being displayed on the wall from the R2 Unit. That piqued my interest. Then I saw that on Sunday there was going to be a panel about R2 Units. I decided to go because I thought it would be cool.

The panel had 5 guys who were part of the R2 Builders Group. Three of them brought their R2 Units. I was impressed. They talked about the process of building your own unit from scratch. I didn’t realize that there was so much involved. It isn’t like you can call a company up and say, "Hey, I want to order a working remote control R2D2." You actually have to build it yourself. Of course they talked about how the community of R2 Builders help each other buy providing plans, parts, advise, and there own experiences with putting one of these things together. You can make one out of aluminum, wood, resin, plastic or any combination of the above. It can be just a room piece, or one that’s fully operational with actual R2 sounds and blinking lights. I took one look at those things and thought I could do that, but at the end of the panel I was not so sure.

These guys put a lot of time and effort into building their R2 Units. As a matter of fact, one question asked during the Q & A was what was the hardest thing to get or acquire to make the droids. The response went something like this: Getting my wife to support this hobby. Seriously, it sounded like it could cost anywhere from $500 to $40,000 to build one of these things. These guys are the geekiest of geeks.

Who wouldn’t want one of these things. I couldn’t think of anything cooler to have, especially when going to a Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention like Dragon*Con.

If you’re interested you can find more information at www.astromech.net or click here for the Astromech Yahoo! group

Okay, Dragon*Con isn’t in danger of dying, but there are things that I think need to change.  This was only my fifth time in attendance, and I am going to keep going; however, it’s frustrating to see things that I think could be changed to make it even better.  But let me first talk about what I think is right about the convention.

• The passion of most of the people who run the different tracks and participate in the panels is evident.
• The Main Track events are always full and entertaining.
• The ability to pull in stars for the Walk of Fame amazes me.
• Not making it hard for conarazzi (convention-paparazzi term coined by a fellow geek) to get shots of their favorite cosplay members.

Now, here is what I think is wrong and should be fixed:

• There is no way that this convention should be held in 4 hotels.  Imagine my displeasure when I had to walk all the way to the Sheraton for one panel, and then had to walk all the way back to they Hyatt for another.  It’s bad for people who have broader interest than just the Trek Track.  One of the more popular and well attended tracks was moved out to the boondocks.  Its great if you are a straight Trek fan and you don’t have to go to the other hotels too often.  Solution:  THE GEORGIA WOLRD CONGRESS CENTER.  They have enough room for the entire convention to be held in one place.  The explanation I heard about the reason why they don’t go their anymore concerns something that happened so long ago that the people involved probably can’t tell you what actually happened or they don’t work at the convention center anymore.  Either way, it makes sense to move it there.
• There are tracks that should be absorbed into other tracks.  For example, the X Track was popular when the X-Files was big and it was justified then.  Now, its just the place where they put the Lost panels.  I think that the American Sci-Fi Track should absorb what’s left of the X Track.  Also, I understand why there is a Science Track and a Space Track, but do they really pull enough people to justify it being in separate tracks over a 3 or 4 day period?
• Why can’t I buy Memberships from Ticket Master up until the event, or at least the week of the convention?  I decided to go just one day this year, Saturday.  Obviously, this is the busiest day for one day people and first timers, who probably never come back after waiting in line for 2 hours to get the one day pass and then miss 2 panels that they wanted to see, or don’t make it into that megapanel of their favorite tv show.  I went online Friday night thinking I could avoid the crowd bu getting my ticket online and going to the Ticketmaster line in registration which never has anyone waiting.  But to my dismay, I clicked on the Ticketmaster link and was directed to a page that could not be found.  But luckily I was able to get into the registration line at 7:15AM and only had to wait an hour after registration began at 8AM before I got registered and my day pass.
• Someone please save the Comic Track.  The first time I went to Dragon*Con there was a DC megapanel, and a Marvel panel that was packed.  DC announced some big events and had some big named artist and writers who brought with them first looks at cover and panel art.  Marvel had some of the most popular artists and writers in several different panels over the weekend.  That year the comic track was huge.  But its been downhill since.  Over the last few years we have had House of M, Hulk World, World War Hulk, Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Civil War, the Sinestro Corps Wars, and Secret Invasion.   And it seems like Marvel and DC has decided not to do any type of promotion or maybe those in charge of the Comic Track would rather just rest their laurels on getting artist to come do sketches and throwing Peter David on every panel they can.  That just won’t do.  Someone please save the Comic Track.

There are other things wrong, but these 4 main things would make the whole experience that much better for all of us.  I spent about 15 mins looking for a suggestion box and couldn’t find it.  Maybe the powers that be don’t won’t our input.

Yes…I don’t have the strength to go tomorrow, so I’m officially done with the Con weekend.
I am in the process of putting up pictures now, and will have full con reports in the next few days.
I will say these things very briefly:
1) The tribute for Don S. Davis was lovely. Being the first SGOWF panel I’ve gone to, I was amazed at the love and devotion the fans have to the series, and also the very loving, respectful and poignant remembrances by his former co-stars. There was not a moment that I sat in that panel and did not cry. Amazing send off for an amazing man.

2) I love the Potter fandom. Of all the fandoms I’ve seen, no one does it better than the Potter fans. The costumes at this year’s Yule Ball were nothing short of spectacular. The cosplayers are all awesome, and I had a lot of fun with the different “photoshoots” tonight. If you can’t tell by the smiles in my pictures, I had an amazing time.
3) Matthew Lewis is also nothing short of spectacular. I sat in two of his panels this weekend and he was very gracious, funny and appreciative of the fans. He talked to my daughters on the phone Friday. He spoke to fans one-on-one and was very down to earth. He posed for pictures at the Yule Ball, after showing up with his brother even though he had said he was not feeling well. I tell you, I love that Matt Lewis. As long as he keeps coming to the con, I’ll come to say hello.
Here are two of my favorite pics from the Ball (and as I mentioned earlier, I will post more later on tonight, before I completely pass out!!)

Me with Matthew Lewis in front of the Platform 9 3/4 display from the YA Lit track.

And this guy (who is one of my favorite Snape cosplayers) won the Costume Contest…and true die-hard HP fans will know why!!!
What is that mysterious ticking noise?…

Well, I didn’t spend as much time in the WOF (Walk of Fame) as I had in the past, but after finding out months ago that Michael Dorn,  Cirroc Loft0n, and Avery Brooks would all be there, I knew that I had to go get their autographs and spend a moment with those guys.  I have other pictures and video from past years, but I’ll just put what I took this year.  Also, my African-American Sci-Fi autograph collection is filling out;   I am still kicking myself for not getting LeVar Burton’s autograph from 3 years ago and Nichele Nichols from last year, but maybe they’ll come back.  Enjoy.  I’ll leave these two photosets up for the week.

I didn’t take as many pictures of costumes as I have in the past.  But here are a few of the more memorable that I took.

The Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention in Atlanta known as Dragon*Con starts today. This is our fifth year in attendance. We will post some pictures of some of the costumes and some of the stars we run into. We will also give you some of the news and rumors that will be floating around on the convention floor, and any discussions that may arise.  Not as big as Comic Con, but its big enough to be a lot of fun.

The Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention in Atlanta known as Dragon*Con starts today. This is our fourth year in attendance, but the first time where we share some of the sites and sounds here. We will try to give some insight and general impressions to those not in attendance and post any announcements and news (though I doubt there will be anything that we hadn’t heard from ComicCon).