So, we are back again and the memories are starting to fade away, so I decided – once again – to write down what I haven't forgotten already.
We started early this year: On Monday we frakked a toaster. Not the way you might think: We blew it up for our costume contest video. Daniel has been working on the preparations for quite a while and his brother (who works for Weco) had outfitted it with some explosives (not real ones, just fireworks).
So we set it up behind the woods, waited until it was dark and pointed our video cameras at it. It was quite an experience to see the broken pieces of a toaster flying around. Cut to the right length and with some sound effects added it looked really good.
The Trekdinner Bonn had a nice “German” dinner with Dirk and Ed Wasser (and his very likeable wife) at the Sudhaus in the centre of Bonn. We laughed so hard this evening we almost cried. Especially when Ed tried to cut off Tom's ear. Or when we discovered that the “vegetables” were indeed “pork chops”!
I took far too many photos that evening, so let me apologize for it right here, right now.
Ed Wasser - besides having played Mr. Morden on Babylon 5 – was this years “Master of Ceremonies”, so meeting him in person was a real treat, as he is a very funny guy and he had some very dirty jokes , especially the one he told us about the duct-taped guinea pig...)
First thing we did was to paint “tattoos” on our arms: Jana got a Starbuck and I got a Sam Anders tattoo as we were going to impersonate these BSG characters on this years con. We had some experience with it as Jana already did it last year, so it was looking rather good I think. Well, as good as it can look without hiring a professional make up artist! ;-)
We went to Bonn on Thursday to get the registration form for next year and to meet up with some old friends we only see once a year at FedCon, like Jörg and Igi. The first thing we noticed when we entered the Maritim was the huge announcement: “Achtung! FedCon 20 Maritim Hotel Düsseldorf!” What the frak?! Bad memories of Fulda and it's charming gym atmosphere came rushing back to us. And for us native to the Cologne area Düsseldorf is some kind of arch nemesis! (Don't ask me why, I just live here, I'm not born here!)
And so we bitched a bit about it, until Jana found a flyer of the Düsseldorfer Maritim on Friday morning and we discovered that it is very modern and stylish, and probably a good location for a convention. And: For the same money as this year we get one whole day more! That really made my day! ;-)
Sadly moving FedCon to Düsseldorf means we cannot drive there every morning as it is just not efficient to have an one hour drive up there and back again in the evening. And all the petrol you would need, it would most probably cost a fortune! Well, the rooms are a little fortune as well, but on the plus side you can stay up as long as you want and use the pool and the gym and so on. So we decided to check the box for a hotel room as well. But that means we have to save up for it the whole year and any kind of other expenses have to be thought over twice! Good bye, flat screen TV... :-(
After this shock we went to get something to eat. We just followed the other trek dinner members to the GSI across the street and ate the buffet until I was sick! (Probably the reason why I felt so bad the whole Friday!) That gave us some time to talk through our stage performance for the costume contest once again as well as to decide which video to use in the background.
Originally we didn't want to stand in line for our con passes this evening but when we returned to the Maritim there were just a few people there, so we decided to do it anyway so we didn't have to on Friday morning.
So it all started out like with the Cylons in BSG: We had a plan but we abandoned it! Originally Jana was to start the day early, drive to Bonn and stand in line for next years tickets. But when I couldn't get back to sleep at 4 in the morning, we decided to tell Pete – who was supposed to pick me at about 8 up on his way – to go back to bed.
So we thought we had some head start when we arrived at the Maritim. But alas, there were already about 20 people waiting there! (The tightly packed parking lot was a hint!) What the frak? It's only 5 in the morning, don't you people sleep?
The waiting is the hardest part, that much is clear. We sat there with nothing much to do – at least we had a sofa – except for listening to music on the PSP and watching one episode of Torchwood on Jana's notebook before the battery died. Little by little the other members of Trekdinner Bonn arrived and from then on it was much more fun. We made some more fun of Düsseldorf until the joke was officially dead and then moved on to making fun of the people around us! Yes, we are not the kindest lot, but we are fun! ;-)
When the line finally began moving we had almost all of the trek dinner with us. But sadly we only got numbers 46 and 47. :-( That means next year we have to get up even more early since we have to do an hours drive before standing in line.
Since we had already checked in yesterday we had nothing much to do until the panels started, so we went up to the art show as soon as the con opened. Sadly there weren't that many exhibits jet – and as we anticipated we hadn't had a chance to come back later as our days were tightly packed from then on. The ones we saw were great, thou. We especially liked the colonial vipers and the cylon base stars.
Next stop was the market down on ground level where we rummaged for autograph pictures and I finally found a fitting TNG uniform – in blue, thou, but after that I was ready for Saturdays Guiness Book Record attempt: Beat these sad 99 Trekkies who assembled on Londons Millenium Bridge a few month ago!
At 12 we went to see the Stargate Fan film on the “Mainbridge”. I can't remember what we did after that, but it must have been something distracting since we came back to the main bridge at about half past 2 to see Luciana Carro (Kat from BSG) and James Cawley was still talking about Star Trek Phase II, the well known fan films.
When Luciana finally was on the first thing you realize is how small she is. But she is a nice person and we had much fun listening to her BSG stories.
Suzie Plakson, mostly known for her role in TNG as Worf's mate K'Ehleyr, was on next.
The hoot of the day was Manu Intiraymi, who – as we learned soon – has a big giant Borg penis. It seems it was the one thing they weren't able to remove. (At this point I wondered why the Borg would need penises at all, as the do not reproduce as much as assimilate who ever they meet.) Anyway, on a more serious note he told us that he believes that the world is run by a few multinational corporations and not by the people. Tell us something new, Manu!(Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean it's not real.) ;-) He also presented us with two or three trailers to movies he'll be in: “Zah - A Pizza Movie” (seems to be rather silly, I like that) and “Fortress”. He also talked about a short film called “Expired” which is about excessive drug abuse. Sounds interesting.
After that there was a pause on the main bridge as the preparations for the opening ceremonies had to be done. So we went to the holodeck to see Chase Masterson who played Leeta on DS9. Man, she can sing! Sounded really good, in spite of the crappy acoustics.
Then it was time for the big opening. As always before the guest stars came onto stage we had a little bit of show: This year it were the Aliens again who stormed the stage. And then Ed introduced all the guest stars. All except for the last one came out onto the bridge an greeted the audience. But Terry Farell only send a video explaining that she could not come – again! - because she couldn't leave the country due to some bureaucracy problems with her tickets and her passport. Liar liar, pants on fire! But some people actually believed it, so when she finally appeared on stage her reception was even louder than for all the others... Cheap trick, Terry, but it worked great, so we forgive you!
So it was a good thing that Terry Farrell's panel was next after the opening. She told us about being a mother and not having had much time these last few years: The reason why she cancelled on us so many times. But all's well that ends well, and we were glad to have her. There were the usual questions about the trill spots and how many (and where) they were, too, but that's not that interesting in my opinion. And then there was the question about the deep sea fishing, which was a bit strange, but obviously she did a boat trip some years ago which included catching two big fishes (forgot what kind). The rest was more or less a PR gag.
Next up was David Hewlett, Dr. McKay from Stargate: Atlantis. He is a very funny guy and he told us about his role on SGA (that he is allergic to cats and was forced by the script writers to carry one; and about his sister, who plays McKay's sister) and about some of the movies he made since then (“A Dogs Breakfast”, “Nothing” and a new one called “Splice”, which is supposed to be rather dark instead of funny.) Halfway through his panel Aaron Douglas appeared on stage to get him another beer! (It's fascinating how actors from such different shows as SGA and BSG know each other...)
The last panel of the day was held by James Marsters, known to my mainly as Spike from Buffy, but who also played an obviously very interesing character in Torchwood. Since I hadn't seen these particular Torchwood episodes, most of the references and questions concerning his character were lost on me. But nonetheless it was an interesting panel. No one asked about his role on Caprica, thou, where he plays a crazy terrorist. That would have been interesting, but maybe it also would have spoiled people, so it was just as well.
Then came the time to have the rehearsal for our costume contest. We were one of the last group to rehears and going on stage for the first time to only a few spectators was almost as bad as going out onto the stage for the second time with the seats tightly packed! We were just about to panic! ;-)
But we weren't the only ones rehearsing. I'll tell you more about the other's performances later on, but it was all very good. We didn't understand all of what they did because they weren't dressed up just as we weren't, but they made a good impression. Except for some people who forgot their lines! ;-)
The party this evening was far too loud for me since I had developed a little headache over the day and I still wasn't feeling well in the stomach, so we left at around 2 in the morning. There were some stars mixing with the “normal” people (as far as you can call a bunch of sci-fi fans normal), so I at least got one picture if Joe Flanigan holding a Weißbier. ;-)
The Saturday began as the Friday had ended, only worse: My Headache had grown beyond measure. At least my stomach was back behaving normally. Nonetheless we slept through Gordon Michael Woolvett's panel. Since I never saw Andromeda, I think I didn't miss that much. (Ask someone who saw him! I don't know.)
We arrived at the Maritim right on time: To not get a parking space! It was the same day the big fireworks “Rhein in Flammen” was supposed to happen, so all kinds of people were there, not only Trekkies, blocking all the good spots. After driving around for 15 minutes I finally found a good spot on one of the driveways of the ministry building on the other side of the road. Since there is no one working there on a Saturday, I felt save to park there, but still the whole day had that feeling in the back of my head. A feeling, that finally subsided when – on one of those many times we returned to the car to get something to eat or drink or to change clothes - I asked one of the girls writing tickets to those parking on the lawn or in a no-parking-zone and she told me that she wasn't concerned with those parking on private grounds since she was only in charge of public streets. Ah, German bureaucracy, I love you! ;-)
Still, one of my fellow Trekkies bumped his car slightly into my number plate. Now I have second new dent in it. Well, nothing worse happened, so I let it slide! ;-)
Because of all this confusion (“There must be some way out of here...”) we missed most of Martha Hackett's panel. She's the one who played the Bajoran looking Cardassian spy on Star Trek: Voyager. Not the most likeable character, but nonetheless I would have liked to hear more from her.
Next up was Cliff Simon, who was the Goa'uld Ba'al on Stargate. He held an interesting panel, but we had to leave early because the autograph session had started. And suddenly we remembered that before the autograph session we were all supposed to go to the back of the hotel dressed up in our Star Trek uniforms, to meet all the other Trekkies for the world record attempt. After about half an hour 507 Trekkies had found their way to the fountain at the back entrance and a new record was set! (On the same day some other convention in Florida tried, too, but they only got 110 people to dress up! Shame on you! Someone must be very pissed right now! *g*)
After we changed back to our BSG outfit we went to the autograph session. As always there was a long line but for the first time in years we didn't have people waiting there with the “wrong” (too high) con number. It looks like finally everyone got the hang of it! Or they were simply too tired to stand in line for nothing! ;-)
So we got our signatures – Jana's DS9 art print is finally complete – and then it was time to take pictures with all the other BSG frakkers who dressed up like us (or even better – I'd really like one of those uniforms, they look spiffy). The “old” guys were back, too, dressed I their colonial Uniforms from the 1978 series. And there even was one of those orange Deck Hand Uniforms. Really cool!
Shortly after that we had another chance to get our picture taken: All members of one trek dinner or another met in front of the Maritim. I guess I never have been photographed quite so often!
Now we had to speed up things, because we had to get ready for our Costume Contest performance. So we – Jana, Steffi 1 and I – put on our red dresses. The others had planned to do it later, but we wanted to see Aaron Douglas. But as sitting in the panels with a red dress on would have given away too much of our show, I put on the green trousers and the jacket of our BSG outfit on top of that. Meanwhile Steffi didn't get her contact lenses into her eyes. Wow, I am still astonished I can put them in within seconds nowadays; when I saw Steffi struggling with them I felt oddly reminded of a long ago time when the thought alone of putting the finger into my eye sent me crawling up walls. ;-)
Dressing up takes a lot of time, so we missed most of David Gareth Lloyd's panel. But since we didn't see that much of Torchwood anyway, as I think I have already mentioned, that wasn't that bad.
Better than missing Aaron Douglas and his cylon penis! (What is this?! PenisCon?!!) He told us the exact same story about the day Edward James Olmos ate a stinky sandwich and then did a scene with him breathing in his face for several minutes, word for word. Edward had told this story last year so it seems it's really true!
Up next was Kandyse McClure, but we missed her because we had to meet for our Custom Contest performance. The idiot I am I forgot to put on make up as we all planned, so I had to use some borrowed lipstick as rouge and an eye liner as we had nothing else on us. Finally Jessy lend me her eye lashes thingy whatsitcalled youknowwahtimean. ;-)
And again: The waiting is the hardest part. We waited for at least half an hour to get behind the stage, and then another 15 minutes as we were up as the sixth group. Fitting! ;-) Adrenaline in these dosages is very strange: You remember the sweat in your palms and the hole in your stomach but you don't remember actually going out on stage! Maybe because you tried so hard not to think about it in the first place. But when we were on stage we did our show and it was... well it wasn't great, it was pretty frakked up. But in the end we won a price! Best group! Yay! Go us! Daniels amplifier wasn't turned on so we almost missed our cue to stop worshipping the toaster and start rocking to his guitar, but the jury didn't seem to notice.
I don't know about the groups that came before us, but the ones that came after us weren't that bad, either. There was a Diva (from the fifth element) singing life (good voice, nice costume); a bit about characters from different sci fi shows getting their hair cut (funny); a medieval costume (looked like much work); a singing Spike (who forgot his words and will probably get some trouble from his partner); a Seven of Nine; a Amidala; some Na'vi, who thought they were smurfs (very funny); some SG personnel who find out the other one is a trekkie as well (funny, too); a Wolverine (nice stunts); and last three Men in Black erasing all the audience's memories of the previous gigs (didn't work, thou ;-) ).
Now it was time for the jury to go backstage and think about who would win. On stage we saw the plush wars, a spoof on Star Wars, and some professionally airbrushed Na'vi, who looked almost real. After we got our certificate it was time to get out of the red dress. Jana and I were so fast that we missed some photo shooting! ;-)
Apropos photo shooting: Joe Flanigan was so occupied with his photo session, that he had to switch panels with Tahmoh Pennikett. Steffi 1, the biggest Tahmoh fan I ever met, missed almost half his panel. A good thing we undressed so fast so we could tell her. ...let me rephrase that: A good thing we got out of the red dress and back into our BSG uniforms so we could tell her! ;-)
Up next was Michael Dorn. He has the thickest glasses I have ever seen! ;-) He must have like a hundred dioptrin! And without his Klingon prosthetics I almost didn't recognize him. But he seems to be a nice guy and told as a lot about the differences of being on TNG and DS9. He seemed to prefer DS9 since his character had more development there.
We skipped the KISS Revival Band Concert in favour of the fireworks. On the way to the car – again to get something to drink and to move all the photos I made from the flash cards to the notebook – Jessy gave me one of her trusty Ibuprofen pills, since my headache was killing me at this point. I have to say, that stuff is better than Aspirin by far. Suddenly I could hear the voices in my head again! ;-)
Then we went to the Rheinaue. It's only a short walk from the Martim, and when we arrived, the first thing we did was getting ourselves a Nürnberger Bratwurst to go. We found a really good spot near the first aid booth, so we should not have been surprised when a mood killer ambulance had to turn on it's siren to get through the crowd.
The fireworks were great, thou. Rockets, firecrackers and fountains of fire, parachutes and balloons with bright glowing things on it, wheels of fire rotating into the night sky and all these gizmos.
Afterwards there was a very loud (and extremely bad – our alcohol level just wasn't high enough at this point) band calld Söhne Bonns (WTF?) on the Rheinauen stage, so we practically ran away with our ears covered. We returned to the party after my headaches were practically gone because of Jessy's 300mg of Ibu (and the Gods know what else was in that pill). Steffi had a belt of small bottles of alcohol and while she passed it around – I only had half a “bottle” since I had to drive – she explains her meeting with Tahmoh. At some point Manu came over and put his chewing gum inside the door frame. And there was a guy with hair just like Joe Flanigans. Didn't know that was possible! ;-) Dirk told us they had already sold 900+ tickets for next years con. Impressive! He said, he wished that there were so many ticket sales for RingCon.
We were back home at 5:20 in the morning. My, my, first time I stayed to the party's end! ;-)
We slept through the whole Sunday morning after that and finally came back to the con at the end of Richard Arnold's auction. Sorry to have missed that, but a little bit of sleep was necessary! We had already decided not to get James Marstres autograph since it was 30 €, instead we bought a bluray disc of Avatar. It was only 14,99 and that's less than two cinema tickets would have cost us. (You can read what I think about the film in my (German) blog article.)
So, for us the day began more or less with the BSG Panel, held by Luciana, Aaron, Kandyse and Tahmoh. It was an exceptional experience to have these four actors on stage, especially since we hadn't had a chance to see Kandyse before. They all made a really good impression.
Next was the Star Trek Panel with Michael Dorn and Terry Farell. Since their charakters on DS9 were married, this was an interesting panel, too.
The Stargate: Atlantis Panel was held by David and Joe. These two are hilarious. They have a very good stage chemistry and can improvise as well.
The Torchwood Panel, held by Gareth and James, wasn't that interesting to us. As mentioned above, we are only starting to watch that series.
That was the last panel and the only thing left was the closing ceremony. The end of FedCon is always sad, but this year it was even worse because of all these brilliant stars. It seems like they all had a good time in Germany and hopefully some of them will come back in the future. Terry was so touched by our standing ovations that she cried on stage.
At first Jana and I wanted to go home as fast as possible because we hadn't slept nearly enough during the last days. But when the other members of our trek dinner wanted to go to that self service Italian place we decided to come along, since the food there is great and not too pricey. Before that we had to move Daniels amplifier from backstage to his car, but that was done in a few minutes, so when we arrived at the Vapiano the others were there already. Since it was a warm evening we decided to take a table outside.
Sven had bought a Light Sabre from one of the booths and we had some fun with that (“We could do a Star Wars scene!” *explicit hand gesture*), and after we ate (salad, pizza, tiramisu), Steffi 1 replayed her conversation with Tahmoh in life action (“Hihi!”) by standing on a bench to show how big a fellow he is. We were literally rolling on the floor after that! Good job, Steffi!
We returned to the Maritim for the after con party and had some more fun with stabbing each other with the light sabre, but soon we were so tired that we left, especially since some of us had to start early on Monday morning. Back home we decided to watch Avatar but I fell asleep, but that's a different story!
So, in retrospect I think this was one of the best FedCons ever. I liked it so much I really didn't want to leave! But all god things have to end and there is always next year! ;-)