mandolin | G2008 con journal, part 1

OKAY! So I think I know why con reports never get done: I get too many quotes and can never finish. Soooo I am just going to do a bare-bones con report and then COME BACK AND ADD QUOTES AND STUFF LATER.

So, anyway. G2008.

I am pleased to announce that I managed to only pack carry-ons. I didn't really have an option because I wasn't going to leave my laptop or Carmine at the mercy of baggage handlers, and I'd promised to bring Carmine to G2008. Since airport security tends to do a double-take at the most bizarre things, I got to the airport early in case they saw him coiled up in his shoebox and went "WTF is that?"

Naturally, security didn't blink. And then my flight was an hour late, so I spent about three hours in BWI, taking note of the pretty-but-still-weird renovations and playing Apollo Justice on my DS. Bringing that sucker was a smart move; I got through two cases just waiting in airports this weekend.

So my flight ended up landing a total of two hours late in Midway, but fortunately finding poor Shaun wasn't difficult despite him having to wait at Midway over an hour. Getting a ride to Evanston was. It seems that Airport Express had no record of my reservation; not that it mattered anymore, since the time of the actual reservation was long past, but the lady at the desk couldn't help me. So we had to split a cab all the way to Evanston, with a cabbie who didn't quite know where the Hotel Orrington was (he had to pull alongside another driver and ask while the two of us facepalmed in the backseat). Fortunately, checking in was not difficult and after dumping our stuff in our rooms (and mocking the window in the bathroom door) we decided to find food. The safe was functional, but it was JUST barely too small to put laptops in. So the Do Not Disturb sign was on our door for a good portion of the weekend, as I personally have learned that you can't trust housekeeping anywhere.

Nobody we knew was in sight, so it was just the two of us. There was a Chili's a few blocks down, so we settled on that and discussed various job-related BS, and then stopped at the CVS on the way back to grab a few things. We hung out for a while in the room and discovered that we could get the in-room Internet to work (after a little searching to find the real CAT-5 cable), and eventually crashed around midnight.

We got up at 8:30, and immediately afterwards Missy called to tell us she was en route. Which gave us just enough time to shower. After a Panera run for breakfast-- I was so happy there was a Panera right across the street oh my God-- we went up to registration to see who was there, with Carmine in tow. I realized I forgot something, and as I headed back to the room I ran into a couple of film students who were doing a documentary about the con as a personal project. They'd stumbled upon the Pigeon Forge con last year and thought it was really cool and came this year with their equipment.

There were a lot more people there when I got back; I talked to Mara, Lynati, Spacebabie, Emambu, Gside, Greg Bishansky, and others. Sarah the Great and I compared train routes, but it took her two hours from O'Hare, which would mean at least three hours for me, Shaun, and all our luggage to get to Midway. Carmine got tons of attention, but he was sitting on a sore spot because my left shoulder started to hurt. So I ran back to the room again for ibuprofen and took a few minutes digging through my luggage to find it and dropped my T-shirt and con packet off in the room too. The con suite was open when I got back, so I ducked in and looked at the art Mara was sharing with Susan. There were leftovers from breakfast-- very nice leftovers-- so Mara and I each absconded with fruit. We talked about trying to have cons in more central locations-- money was the main reason a lot of people couldn't come this year in spite of the fact that the location was more convenient. I also found out that this was the same weekend as Wizard World Chicago, which the staff hadn't known when they chose it, but still. Oooops.

I got into the back of Voice Acting panel a little late right when Greg had volunteers reading from "MIA." This was familiar ground, but then he had three volunteers read a bit from Spectacular Spider-Man episode 12. Gside got Uncle Ben and cheerfully announced "I'm gonna die!" After the read-throughs and Greg and Thom Adcox (the voice of Lexington, for those not in the know) coaching volunteers on what to do and not do, the floor was open to questions. One of the discussion topics that came up was distinctive voices (e.g. Thom) versus more flexible voices (e.g. Jeff Bennett).

Greg: "Some people do only one voice-- I mean, they can act, but--"
Thom: "I'm sitting right here!"

Greg pointed out that the problem with distinctive voice talent is that it's harder to have the same actor do multiple parts in one show because viewers might notice it. But sometimes they absolutely have to have a distinctive voice, which is why they had Keith David voice the Big Man in the first episode, but when he was unavailable had to go for a sound-alike.

Jeff Bennett tried to imitate Thom once, and Thom went, "You're trying to replace me!"
Greg: "Actually, he nails Bill Fagerbakke."

Jeff once told Thom he was lucky to be distinctive. Thom: "I'd rather have his voice. He works a lot more."

Decided to pass on the radio play auditions; I got Owen Burnett last year and figured that was the pinnacle of what I could do. I also wanted time to poke around and get lunch. There was an art festival in Evanston that weekend and so close to Northwestern University, there was no shortage of places to eat. Found out Jillian was looking for a place to crash on Sunday and Missy pointed her my way since at the time Missy wasn't spending the night on Sunday.

Somehow, I wound up leading about 13 people to the Chili's a few blocks away because Aaron wanted a burger and the rest of us just wanted food. Me: "Wait, I'm leading? We're doomed!" The film students came along with us and we descended on the restaurant en masse around 2 pm-- I brought Carmine because I didn't have a chance to stop in the room first. A couple of us had to leave early to get to Greg's Mug-a-Guest, but we all got done and managed to get back and had time to crash in our rooms a bit before Opening Ceremonies.

Sat with Shaun and Sarah the Great, and found out from Shaun we were invited along to dinner with Missy and company. A good chunk of Opening Ceremonies was taken up by the music video contest; there were 14 entries to show. Jen Anderson got up to talk about the 2009 con, which was once again in LA. Thom: "You can stay at my house!"

So Greg stepped up and pointed out how few hardcore fans had or knew about the Gargoyles Hot Topic T-shirts (mine was still in the mail). Since Disney doesn't advertise worth a damn, it's up to word-of-mouth. He did his usual spiel-- roll call for how many Gatherings, the pitch, the "it's better than Barney" story (at which point Keith David apparently JUST got the joke), the "Bad Guys" leica reel, et cetera. He almost forgot to show the recording of "The Last," the never-aired episode of Team Atlantis with Demona. All the voice work had been done when that series was canned, so fans had added storyboarding and artwork to the recording. There was a lot more added since last year's showing.

We sort of flailed around for dinner options afterwards and after gathering a group of people that included Shaun, Sarah, and Missy went wandering around Evanston to find something to eat. After passing on the Indian place (they only had a lunch buffet and I'd prefer that to try more stuff) we settled on the Celtic Knot to eat. The food was decent and we drew random stuff on the paper tablecloth cover. I could only manage a literal snake on a plane and a Kirby, really. After dinner we sought out a liquor store to buy wine that we knew Thom liked, and discovered the wrong side of the tracks-- literally. So I wouldn't go that way alone, but we were in a big group. But after we found the place, got wine, we had to make one last stop at the Ben and Jerry's en route to the hotel since Shaun was not-subtly expressing a desire to do so.

Missy and I actually crashed not long after; she was exhausted and I was tired and honestly, I wanted to be able to stay up late after the Blue Mug on Saturday. Shaun went and hung out with Jen and Patrick and Thom and Greg et al til like 2:30. I didn't even hear him come in, I was out cold.

More later!