September 11, 2001 How 24 hrs can change things, eh? Last evening, I was most intent on venting my exasperation with Creation, Inc. Tonight, they seem like tiny fish in a mighty river of 'wrong'. God Bless all those who have been injured or lost friends or family in the attacks. America will survive. NYC will rise from the ashes. Life WILL go on. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all. Jules
ONTO THE CON {THE CLAUDIA CON THAT IS!}
September 08, 2001 For someone who was phobic about flying for years, I was certainly laid-back today. Due to highway and airport construction, I barely got to the gate as my plane was boarding. Low and behold, the first flight arrived in Pittsburgh on schedule and the second, bound for Newark, left early. Despite landing 20 minutes ahead of schedule, I STILL got to DinnerCon more than an hour late. My first thought on getting into the taxi in Newark and hearing the driver talking on his cell phone was "Frell! The translator microbes aren't working!"
On arriving at Grand Central Station and locating the Food Court, I looked for large groups of people and fairly easily found 'THE SCAPERS!' Having met lots of you at ScaperCon2K1 really helped! KRAD was a fairly easily identifiable individual too! Of course, the dinner was finished! But, I got invited to Guenivere's party...which was great, cause the hotel not only couldn't find ME in their computers, they couldn't find either of my roommates. Thankfully, the desk clerk remembered ME from my calling her over and over looking for them and began routing my incoming phone calls to the Presidential Suite. No, I hadn't been elected to anything...that's where the party had landed!
It was a GREAT Scaper party! Lots of 'stuff' for making con books. Munchies, drinks and LOTS of scapers! Add FS videos, music videos and Claudia in 'Good Guys, Bad Guys' [or as Kevin called the 'game' he made up for it "SILLY BUGGERS - Sexual Ambiquity-Ambiguous Genitalia] We made "rude" comments throughout {for some reason, Kevin and I seemed to be the best...or worst...at that. Hmmm?} 'Course, I was ROYALLY embarassed at the con the next morning, when the music video by Hynerian_Donkey that I had dissed so badly the night before, was played for us by Creation as a contest winner! [thankfully, Lance understood I wasn't making fun of him...just his choice of music!] If you'd like to view Lance's winning video, it is available as a download at DallaScaper's site: www.farscapefantasy.com It's called "Fly Me to the Moon."
My roommates finally met up with me at the party and gave me my key to 'the elevator shaft' as we laughingly referred to our room....located right behind the ....elevator shaft! Nope, I'm NOT goin there. It'll only get me started. My roomies, paperbeatsrock and Farwing were great fun...especially considering none of us got much sleep that night. I ended up meeting some Florida scapers in the hotel lobby around 3am [I had retreated there so I wouldn't keep my roommates awake]. I did get about 3 hrs sleep...but it wasnt' enough cause Sunday was ...dun, dun, dun...THE CON!
September 09, 2001 First order of business - breakfast! (especially since I hadn't eaten since noon on Sat!) We're in NYC, Sunday morning, you have what for breakfast? What? NO BAGELS?!?! Unbelieveable! Had to eat eggs and toast. Finally met Cherair and her daughter, Erika. They had been stuck on the runway in Cincinnati for over an hour on Sat. because of thunderstorms in Detroit {amazingly, I missed out on the phenominon both coming AND going!}. I was sure glad later in the day that I took time to eat, since it was 13 hours later before I saw food again! I finally hooked up with my budd, Bobby from New Jersey in the hotel lobby and we went off to find the con. I had already been up to the 18th floor in the middle of the night {the guard looked a little startled when the elevator opened at 3am...!} so I knew about the 'no bathrooms' bit. They weren't letting people into the dealer room until 11am, so we got in the back of a long line to wait for 20 min or so.
Once they opened the room, the line moved fairly quickly. At the end, we were given our Stunning portrait of Aeryn, hand-signed by Claudia Black. I have mine framed and placed where I can see it from my computer. Claudia ROCKS! The picture is 10x15 which made it a little hard to carry without damaging it, so I took mine back to our room (and visited the bathroom there...those without rooms had to travel to the 6th floor to find facilities!). Back in the Dealer's Room, I landed at KRAD's booth right away. He signed both my copies of "House of Cards". Thanks again, Keith. Talked to him and PKSkipper a bit, learned about his being assigned to write ANOTHER Farscape book. More scapers arrived and, of course, I took some pictures! I finally got to meet Davron and had someone take my picture giving him the hugs I had been entrusted to deliver from BethS and Dabee! My pictures can be viewed at http://pictures.care2.com/view/1/602775752. Of course, I had to purchase an official Farscape Convention t-shirt! And LOTS of pictures...some for autographs. Then, it was time to go to the main room and find our seats!
OMG! What a shock that was! The room was a ballroom I'd guess, that had been totally opened up and filled with chairs. The stage was at least the length of a football field away from the back of the room! At least I had a Gold ticket, and a seat in the 5th row (row E). My friend Bobby was in row L. One interesting discovery...once you found your seat, there was no way out except to climb over everyone....No Aisles! Where's the fire marshall when you need him? Anyhow, I quickly learned to be content where I was...smushed up against a pillar at the far right end of the row. At least I could both see and hear, a luxury the premium and general admission seats didn't have.
The program started with a Farscape montage video, which was followed by the winning Fan made music videos. They were: "I'm too sexy", "Fly Me to the Moon", "You can't get a Man with a Gun", and "The Muppet Show Theme". "Fly Me to the Moon" was made by Lance Palmer, alias Hynerian_Donkey. Lance was there...and promised to forgive me for making fun of 'Ol Blue Eyes' the night before! Lance, you ROCK! Next, David Kemper came out to talk and introduced his 'surprise' guest, Thomas Vitale who is the programming executive for SciFi Channel. Although we weren't prepared for who the secret guest would be, I immediately thought of a question for him. I asked why we have to endure Farscapeless Fridays? Why they don't continue on, repeated S3 on Fridays and S 1& 2 Mon-Thurs. He assured us that S3 will be completely rerun...but during the week, after S 1 & 2 are finished and will take us to January. He says the final four will air on the four Fridays in January, as they did last year. He was also asked if there is a chance of a 'spin-off', such as "Angel" from "Buffy". He says there's always a chance for a spin-off from a show that's this popular and has so many strong characters (Crais' Commando's anyone?). LOL! He was also asked if SciFi would ever consider showing FS reruns on its sister station, the USA Network. Tom told us, flat out, No, never. He said that Farscape is their 'Signature Show' and they would not want to dilute its impact by allowing it to be shown somewhere else.
He and David Kemper both responded a question about there being a fourth season. They both feel that this will DEFINATELY happen. It is just a matter now, of dotting the I's and crossing the t's.
