Bela

Dream Theater, "Take The Time" (Images and Words)

Rush -- Peaceable Kingdom (from Vapor Trails)

Casavir needed more depth. Maybe I didn't have him in the party long enough, but there wasn't a whole lot to him. He didn't have a lot of dialog, many quips, much backstory, etc. I didn't dislike him, but I didn't have a chance to like him, either. Three cheers for Sand!! I hated Qara with the intensity of 1000 suns. For the final battle... I thought Neeshka's would annoy me, but she grew on me over time. Bishop was a good badguy -- someone I loved to hate.

My brain is contained. But ohhh the headache...

Vanden Plas - Beyond Daylight

Get a bubble pipe.

Yeah, we did pre-register. But we didn't get there (on Thursday) until about 11:30 or 11:45. At that time, the pre-registered line was wrapped all the way around the convention center towards 8th Avenue, down Convention Way, and then along the marina.

<delurks> I attended 'Con as well. Even though we live in the area, Mr. Bela and I haven't been going regulary (we went last year (yeah, we were at the NWN2 panel! ), then about 5 years before that). I think we only attended panels for TV shows. (Hmm... is that sad? ) Maybe my memory is fuzzy, but it seemed a LOT more chaotic this year than last year. Mr. Bela and I waited in line 2 hours just to pick up our badges! And the lines to get into the rooms for the "big" shows seemed a lot worse, too. Thursday was when we picked up our badges. Due to the 2 hour wait, we missed the Paramount panel (grr), so we went ahead and got in line for Lost. (Yeah, 3 hours before it started...) The Lost panel was mildly disappointing as the questions from the audience were softballs. The panel was only Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. (Last year was Lindelof and Cuse along with Hurley and Jin (and Rachel Blake if you think she counts).) Harold Perrineau (Michael) was a surprise guest. At the end, they showed a new orientation video. (See it here.) At first, I thought it was a joke, but now I'm not so sure. The "Superman: Doomsday" premier was in the same room as the Lost panel, so we hung around the room for that. Mr. Bela enjoyed it more than I did (it was a little too violent for my tastes), although I did think it was good. Except for Anne Heche as Lois Lane. Friday, we attended the panels for the Stargate SG-1 DVD movie and Atlantis. After that, I drove to Los Angeles to a concert (ahh, it only took me 4 hours to get there...), so Mr. Bela attended the Eureka and Babylon 5 panels without me. (There's a B5 direct-to-DVD release out now, if you didn't know.) Saturday, I went to the Simpsons panel while Mr. Bela attended a panel for either Bionic Woman or The Sarah Conner Chronicles (I don't recall which) while waiting for the Heroes panel. There was "only" 45 minutes between Simpsons and Heroes, which wasn't nearly enough time for me to actually attend the Heroes panel. However, I did make it for the Battlestar Galactica and Futurama panels, which were in the same room. Galactica guests included Starbuck, Six, and Roslin, along with a surpise guest of Lucy Lawless. For Futurama, most of the main cast (Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, and Katey Sagal) were there. As the panel started, the audience received a small comic explaining their comeback (the "20th Century Box" network canceled their "box delivery route", but a bunch of nerds used their "nerd powers" to bring them back...), and the voice actors read us the comic in-character. Sunday, we went to the Flash Gordon panel. The show actually looks promising. One of these years, I'll post my pictures.