Friday, July 2
Saturday, July 3
Sunday, July 4
Today was the first day I was able to attend the Con. From today's experience I now know that it is best to come to the Con earlier than Saturday. Anyway, more on that later. After picking up my advance membership kit, I glanced through to see which panel I would be attending first.
For my first panel, I selected An Hour with Wortham, Robin, and Wayne from 1 pm to 2 pm. Wortham Krimmer was the mad Centauri Emperor Cartagia. Robin Atkin Downes was the doomed rogue telepath, and Wayne Alexander was whoever he wanted to be, playing multiple roles and multiple alien races, though he's probably best remembered for his portrayal of Lorien. An added bonus to the panel was Jason Carter who played the role of Ranger Marcus. Kind of funny looking back at B5 -- I despised the characters of Jason and Robin, but I thought they were the highlight of the panel. Makes me consider their characters' differently in hindsight.
From there I went to check into the Downtown Courtyard (YAY corporate rates), and ate a late lunch after that. After this, I wandered over to the Atlanta Apparel Mart. The AAM is where the Dealer/Exhibition Hall is. I browsed through there for an hour or so checking things out.
While checking things out, I made my way through the Walk of Fame. The WoF is where the celebs sit around to autograph items for the fans. This is why I discovered Friday is a great day to come to the Con. I've always had to wait in lines for what seems forever to get an autograph, but today was minimal wait since the large influx will not occur until tomorrow. I was able to snag autographs from Claudia Christian, Mira Furlan, Robin Atkin Downes, and Jason Carter. Notice the pattern? ;-) All B5 celebs for the clueless. I make an observation here that I found to be very interesting. The more well established B5 celebs charge the standard $10/autographed color photo, but the less established (IMHO) Jason Carter charged $15 while the even less established than him (once again IMHO) Robin Atkin Downes was the most expensive at $20. Not a complaint since I paid the asking price, but I did find it very interesting. Draw your own inferences.
After the autographs, I wandered around the Dealer Hall and would bounce back over to the Hyatt Regency where the majority of the panels are held. At one time between my bouncing around, I found myself on a street corner waiting for the walk-light while standing between Mira Furlan and Robin Atkin Downes. The Con is so much fun since it provides small opportunities to interact with celebs :)
My final panel of the evening was the 7 pm Hacker 101 in the Hyatt. This panel was to educate the newbies that hacking in not criminal activity, but rather an exploration into computers and programming enthusiasts. An introduction to hacking culture, separating the truth from the BS. The key motivation from hacking should be "To Learn." I just wanted to give a shoutout to SE2600 for the great job they did :-)
Well, that's it for the first day, except for the after hour parties and dances. May fill you in on that tomorrow or may not ;-)
Peace Out!
Today was a slam packed day of attending panels at the con. Not much opportunity for anything else.
I started off my day with the 10 am Babylon Park with Wayne Alexander. This panel was to meet with Wayne Alexander and the creators of Babylon Park. We saw the original show and their latest productions of 'Crusade Wars" and 'Frightspace.' It was a total riot!
From there I went to the Babylon 5: A Womens Perspective. Mira Furlan was Delenn, the Minbari Ambassador. Julie Caitlin Brown was Na'Toth, the popular aide to the Narn ambassador, and later a lawyer. Claudia Christian was the fiery-tempered Susan Ivanova, Maggie Egan played an ISN News Anchor in 11 episodes of B5, as well as on Crusade. This was an awesome panel. I really enjoyed the chance to see more into the personalities behind the characters of Delenn and Susan. The only question I have left is what did Joe put into the water on that set? All the women released solo musical CD's. As a side note, Claudia joked about her failed attempts at relationships on the show: first, she was dumped by Talia and next, Marcus was frozen.
The third panel is one that you can not loose with because it is none other than Peter Jurasik: Nice Guy. Peter is perhaps best known for his role as Ambassador (and later, Emperor) Londo Mollari on B5, though he's also published a novel, and has played many other roles in his career. The most interesting thing that came out of this panel (besides Peter's typical dynamic self) was that a fan asked him if he knew that Ed Wasser had performed in a soft-porn movie. Peter's response was something like, why had no one asked him to do one. If anyone has any info on this movie of Ed's please e-mail me so we can let inquiring B5 mind's know. Peter also auctioned off some autographed B5 cast pix as a fund raiser. It left the question of just where does a kid get the money to bid more than $200 for a cast photo?
Following Peter's panel, I went to the 2:30 pm showing of the Babylon 5 Music Videos. There John Hudgens showed his creative and exciting B5 music videos. He had a new B5 video to debut at Dragon Con as well -- the last of the Babylon videos.
The 4 pm panel I went to was TAP/YIPL, sponsored by the Southeast 2600. The former publisher of TAP/YIPL (the earliest and until recently longest-running hack/phreak zine, originally started by Abbie Hoffman), Cheshire Catalyst, gave a history of TAP/YIPL and discussed the early days of hacking during the Vietnam War, the MA Bell monopoly and the dawn of the personal computer revolution.
Finally, I took a much needed late breakfast/lunch break around 5:30. After eating, I headed to the Apparel Mart to wander around the Dealer/Exhibitor Hall. I stopped by the Wholesale Slaughter Booth and met Tedlick after exchanging a few messages over the past few months. WSE had a rawkin' both and Tedlick was a great guy on top of that.
Moving back to the panel scene, I attended the 7 pm Anonymous Remailers panel. PGP encryption powered Cypherpunk and Mixmaster remailers, along with NymServers form a global network to protect the identities of their users. Learned how and why they communicate protected by anonymity that cannot be broken even by governments and large corporations.
The final panel I attended was another Southeast 2600 one, Hacking 201. More technical than Hacking 101; pointers to free books, papers, operating systems, group, hardware, software, organizations (NLUG, EFGA, etc); the tech stuff they couldn't go into last year. Mad props out to the 2600 guys that I remember: nohbody, johnny x, HugMe, and rattle -- thanks for a great series of panels. You guys RAWK. I have to say this is the only panel that has ever provided free beer to the audience, and then had a hat collection beer run after the panel wrapped. What a total buzz. Also, shout out to Josh, the guy from Columbus, GA sitting next to me. You were a total riot!
That's it for tonight!
Peace Out!
This was the final day of Dragon Con ‘99. I did not do a whole lot today.
The first panel I had planned to go to was Low Bandwidth Internet Access by Cheshire Catalyst and sponsored by the guys at se2600 again. Unfortunately, the 10 am panel had to be switched to another topic because Cheshire had to depart Saturday evening. Our topic became Hacking 301. Not a whole lot to this one. It was more of a wrap-up on what we had discussed previously, and looking to the plans for next year. We jokingly discussed "free pr0n" for next year ;-) Also, discussed the possibility of get a wired room to run 24/7 so we can bring our systems in and play. Thanks again, se2600, for some great panels.
The last panel of the con I attended was the Babylon 5: A Look Back with the Cast and Crew. This was our chance to see and hear all of our B5 guests as they look back on the show and forward to the future. Wayne Alexander, Julie Brown, Claudia Christian, Peter David, Robin Downes, Maggie Egan, Mira Furlan, John Hudgens, Peter Jurasik, Wortham Krimmer, and Jason Carter. This was an excellent panel although it was difficult to hear at times. The cast and others did an excellent job, and it was fun listening and watching everyone. At one point, the panel was stopped so John could show the final B5 music video, and you could tell how moved Claudia and Mira were. Someone even commented that those two plus Julie had tears in their eyes.
From this point, I headed over to the Apparel Mart after giving David a quick call [got his voice mail :-( ] As it turned out, I wound up behind Mira and Julie. It was interesting. I wanted to be the geeky fanboy and tell them that I thought they were great and how much I liked their work, but I wanted to respect their privacy. As hard as it was, I held back and just basked in being in their presence. As we were standing on the corner of Peachtree by the Hyatt -- Claudia, Wortham, and Maggie come up behind me. I found myself surrounded by celebrities the entire distance to the AM. It was bizarre finding myself in front, beside, and behind these celebs. At one point, I had Claudia walking right beside me no more than a foot away. I also saw how graciously they smiled at people who snapped pix of them while mid-stride in conversation with the other celebs. I guess perhaps I should have been bolder, and said what I wanted to say and snapped pix of them as well. While this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, I still felt like they needed their personal time as well without anymore fan interruptions as possible.
Once in the AM, I made my way to the WSE booth and purchased a limited print from them. I stopped by the Tarnished Images booth as well and purchased another print. After that, I headed to Peachtree Center for lunch and headed back to the hotel for a well deserved nap. For me, the Con was over. Here's looking forward to next year!
Let me know if you like this journal type entry of the Con, and I may try to do it again next year if enough people like it.
Peace Out!