We’re into the last month of summer. Right now I spend my days keeping Ian occupied until school starts again. If he had his way, he would have spent all summer playing Wii with no sleep.
It’s also birthday party planning time, and I am way behind. I have less than a month, and no location for the party yet. Not good!!
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We ran behind schedule this morning, and we got to the convention center later than I had hoped. I headed over to the 6BCF line. This was the room that the Spartacus panel would be in at 3:15 and I was planning on camping out all day. I missed the Hawaii 5-0 panel, but luckily got in for The Walking Dead panel. This is a show starting on AMC that is about a zombie apocalypse. I very much enjoyed the footage they showed, and Slow Zombies!! (My zombie of choice).
Once that panel finished, I had to get through a Marvel Animation panel and a Stan Lee panel. I spent the Marvel panel out in the hallway, recharging the netbook and camera battery. While out there I saw Zachery Quinto, but didn’t get a pic. I was on the phone with my sister at the time, it was funny.
During the Stan Lee panel, I managed to get to the 10th row. I met a nice couple sitting next to me who were also camped out for the Spartacus panel. Well, the wife was and the husband was dragged along. 
FINALLY the Spartacus panel starts and it is awesome!! Two ‘gladiators’ came out in their costumes (pretty much naked) and I only got a blurry pic. I ended up on my knees in the aisle to get better pictures of Andy Whitfield. A few of you may have gotten a text from me “On my knees at the Spartacus panel” LOL!! They showed a trailer for the upcoming “Gods of the Arena” prequel starting in January. It was a fun panel and worth spending my day in the same room.
Afterwards I hit up the Hatchet 2 autograph session to get something for a friend. While in line I saw that Val Kilmer is going to be signing autos on Sunday. It’s 30 dollars for an atuo and 30 for a pic. I am torn, I’ve always been a huge Val fan, but I don’t want to pay to meet him. Especially the Val Kilmer of today, which is a BIG difference from the VK of the 80′s and 90′s.
I ended up finding Kris and Ian, who had spent the day with our friends The Bettenhausers. Ian had worn his Superman costume for part of the day and had many pics taken of him. KROQ tried to interview him, but they were at th Nintendo DS booth and Ian could have cared less about KROQ.
Later on, I went to the Let Me In Party at Basic Pizza. It was kinda boring when you’re all alone. I did notice a bunch of people from the big horror sites and Twitter, but any attempt to say Hi would have been hampered by the loud music (which I enjoyed cause it was all 80′s).
I only stayed for an hour. There was free drinks and pizza, but no movie swag.
My day started by getting dropped in the middle of traffic near the convention center.
I endured the line to get my badge for the day, and got a big WB bag right up front. Which is very helpful, since my back pack is full of netbook and makeup and food. My first panel of the day was the Danny Elfman panel. This was his first appearance at CC and it was a great panel. When asked about a OB reunion, he said it will never happen. He went on to explain the hearing damage that he got from being in OB all those years and basically said he can’t get up in front of monitors anymore. At the end of his panel, he stayed on stage to sign autographs. I got to the stage and got a few pics before he exited the room. Once he got outside in the hall, the poor guy got mobbed. He continued signing and taking pics. I decided to not be one of the mob and headed to the exhibit hall for a few before the Burn Notice panel.
In the exhibit hall, I happened to find Mr. Bruce Campbell and the rest of the Burn Notice cast signing at a booth. I was too late to get in line, so I snapped a few pics of Bruce as close as I could get.
I decided to get in line for the Burn Notice panel about an hour beforehand. Yeah, about 1000 people had the idea just before I did. This line was insane, and they had queues set up going up and down one side of the convention hall (The panel was in Ballroom 20). After walking for what seemed like a mile, I got in just before the panel started. As usual, Bruce was completely hilarious and was giving out dollar bills to women who complemented him. I was way too far back to even try, lol.
My next stop was Hall H. I ended up waiting in line for an hour before getting inside. I sat through the Joss Whedon/JJ Abrams panel, which was pretty cool. I was having a terrible time trying to use the wifi in the hall. I gave up cause it just wasn’t connecting.
The next panel was The Expendables. What a fun panel this was. I was very impressed with the amount of muscles that were on stage. Sylvester Stallone was very funny, my favorite part was a question someone asked about other action stars that could have been in the movie. He replied “I talked to Van Damme, Seagall, Chuck Norris (at which point the audience screamed) Unfortunately there were circumstances, like insanity”. The footage they showed was fun. Jason Statham cutting people up, guns blasting people.
Scott Pilgram vs The World was the final panel of the day. Right before, workers handed out bags of buttons, you took one and passed it along. I got a red button and then th girl next to me handed me a bag with one lone white 1up button. I thought Ian might like it.
So we get through the panel,, which was awesome, and Edgar Wright says “Do you want to see anothe clip” Then he says Or do you want to see the entire movie”…. “There will be a screening of SPvTW in 45 minutes and those of you with a white 1up button are invited to come”. I was stoked.He then said “I’m walking to the theatere now, if you have a button follow me”. He jumped off the stage of Hall H and walked. I was so excited, I called Kris real quick to let him know what had happened. I then followed Edgar Wright through the Gaslamp District to the BalBoa theater. It was unreal.
I am so glad that I got button. It will now be my lucky button
Today is the Spartacus panel, and then tonight is the Let Me In party. Wish me luck!!
Yesterday they first Official Modefan Scavenger Hunt started. Although our team hit a snag, we still decided to go ahead and do the photo challenges. I don’t think they will count towards our point total, since we were missing one member. Our mission was to drive to certain spots in Los Angeles that have some sort of history with Depeche Mode. We needed to take a pic with an identifying marker for each place and all team members must be in the picture.
I think we got to about six places. The majority of the pics are closeups of Kris, Ian and I’s head smooshed together with the sign behind us. We did have people take our pics at a few places. When we got to one of the sites, one of the workers came over to ask us if DM were playing somewhere that night. Apparently we weren’t the only Modefan members to have visited yesterday. LOL!! The worker did tell us about the night Simon Le Bon came in for a drink
At the next stop, we pulled up in front, jumped out of the van, snapped our pic and jumped back in the van. Security at the door was looking at us like WTF? It was very funny. We could hear a band playing inside and Ian looked very interested. That made me happy. The rest of the night was filled with parking in a handicap spot, and running to take our pic, and then once again at a red curb and more running.
All in all, a fun night for the Freedains. We always enjoy cruising around Hollywood, there is no lack of bizarre sights to see. Still haven’t seen Jesus and Colonel Sanders again. I think that was a one time shot.
Ok, we have (we really means Kris) successfully moved nubbydigit.com. So I should be all set to post to my hearts content. I will be adding all of my CC experiences on here next week. I’ll also be tweeting like crazy from Hall H.
I attended the Weekend of Horrors this past Sunday. This was a Creation Entertainment convention. Fangoria is no longer involved with this con. I hate to say, but the only word I can come up with is Dull. You could easily tell that Fangorias presence was not there. I missed seeing Tony Timpone wandering around in his suit. He always looked like he was genuinely enjoying himself.
Upon entering the Marriott that it was held at, I noticed that there were very few people walking around. That did not bode well The first panel of the day was John Saxon, who had to cancel his appearance. In his place they showed movie trailers. I know that things have changed a lot since I started going to cons, but I sure do miss seeing trailers for upcoming horror movies at cons. Today, everything hits the web so quickly, but back when I started going to cons in the mid 90’s I would always get there in time for the trailers that would start out the day.
I took a stroll around the dealer room, which was very small compared to past cons. They had the Jason Voohees room, and the Michael Myers room, with the actors that had played either character. I didn’t even walk into those rooms, cause I knew it would cost money to even speak to any of them.
I sat through a panel on American Grindhouse, a doc about grindhouse movies and theaters. The next panel was the Michael Myers panel. I got three videos from that panel. It was pretty fun to hear all the behind the scenes and casting stories.
Once those were done, I made my way into the Film Screening room to see a 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams mini panel and doc screening. Most of the actors from the film were there and I got to meet Ogre afterwards in the Dealer Room (which is another story altogether).
The last panel of the day was Dario Argento. It was neat to see him and hear his recount his career and his opinions on modern horror films. I got two videos of that panel which are posted below this post.
All in all, it was an OK con. Nothing great, nothing really new. Creation is putting on another WoH in October with Bruce Campbell. They did say they are trying very hard to get Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert to attend also. That made me very happy!!
I want to throw a party for Ian and his classmates on the last day of school. Having a hard time coming up with a theme. I really don’t like the “summer luau” crap. I wish I could throw a zombie party, but I don’t know if the parents would be approving of that. What to do what to do……
