United Fan Con - Jewel at Springfield MA 11/10-11/12
POSTED BY: ItaMoon
UPDATED: Thursday, November 16, 2006 23:17
VIEWED: 1539
PAGE 1 of 1
This is my take on the UFC experience this past weekend. Re-posted from the New England Browncoat board.
The Marriott in Springfield was very fancy but not really up to the chain's standards. It's in a less-than-thriving neighborhood and has
some of the poorest signage imaginable. The parking is rather expensive (yes… having to pay additional $$$ to park in the hotel's own lot leaves a bitter taste) and the guest parking card I was given did not work.
We win! Our Browncoat quartet (Holly, Michelle, Drew & Simon from CT) did luck out big time with our room location: 1 floor above the photo shoot room and only 2 floors above the main convention halls. Saved mucho time skipping the long wait for the elevators.
If you're ever looking for an easy convention roommate, Simon's great: insisted he was just fine sleeping in a chair(!) We tried to ply him with extra blankets and pillows, but he claimed he was all set. By the end of each night, however, he'd slipped down onto the floor. The second night, despite great pains, I managed to trod on him on my way to the bathroom. (Sorry!!!)
Got photo sessions with Jewel Staite, William Shatner, and Mark Stricksen -- companion to the 5th Dr. Who or somesuch back in '85. Tried to sell / give that one away: My pass automatically included auto and photo sessions which were scheduled against our FF/Serenity panels. Eventually I ended up going to the Stricksen session and he was wonderful! I read his program bio back at my room and realized I needed to talk more with this fellow. Fascinating life! Wouldn't mind borrowing it for a few weeks. During the banquet when our table was lining up for the yummy food, I popped over to his table and had a lengthy conversation about his current doings. At the cabaret, he read a bit from a book (actually chewed by a rat) he'd written when
he was 6(!) and illustrated how it foreshadowed his present career. He produces, directs and occasionally stars in loads of nature films
for Animal Planet, the Smithsonian, and another similar big nature network. Exotic locals, tales of Steve Irwin, near death (twice in one day) and malarial adventures were recounted. Got to talk to him again in the line for the mass auto session on Sunday. Came away very impressed.
Evidently I unknowingly used the Jedi mind trick on Jewel and her minder while getting her to `john hancock' my grenade. I didn't think to pay them and they didn't think to ask! At the photo session she thanked me for asking good questions and the previous Q&A. I did ask about Rebecca Gayheart's first day on the FF set. She was
politic and wouldn't vouch for Alan Tudyk's take on the series' first read-through. (She joked(?) that Alan was probably a little tight with drink when he told that story.) While Drew was naturally entranced by Claudia Christenson (sp?) (Babylon 5) in her tight leather push-up skin revealing through the leather-laced side
outfit, I found her conversation a bit bawdy and her Q&A more fit for a late-night comedy club.
Grace Park (BSG) and Jewel are in a close race for sweetest humans on the earth, but at the risk of offending, I'm gonna say Grace wins. And these two women are SO UGLY! Wait… the other thing. Disgustingly beautiful even up quite close.
I think we should propose a bill: all sci-fi shows filmed and / or shown in the US must only star Canadian actors. Good god they're nice!
Shatner was great on stage but his people protected him so thoroughly that it was impossible to get any time with him. At the auto session, a 10-foot mote was created to protect the Man from the unwashed masses shuffling past behind a rope. The con assistants grabbed your
items for signing and rocketed then beneath his pen. I really can't make out what he wrote!? It was so ridiculously quick that I thought for sure the pro photo session would be conducted as
each fan ran past a cardboard cutout of Shatner.
In line as I approached the camera area I noticed no one touching him and vice versa. It's so much more usual to have the actor fling their arm around you and make sma
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME