DragonCon: Days 2 & 3

Yesterday was a busy day, and I took a mess of photos. I'm still uploading them as I write this, so just check my sets page on flickr for updates.

Day two:

We left the hotel room to find the DragonCon parade was going on. I didn't know there was a parade, but managed to get several photos.
The day started at a panel on dragons, science and fiction. I though it was all fiction, but this was the second thing I didn't know today.
Next, we sat in a panel on drawing comics. This was a rare panel in that the speaker knew his topic, and presented it well.
I stepped in to a talk by George Takei... took a photo and stepped out. It just wouldn't be right to leave without a photo of the required Star Trek actor.
I stepped in and took a photo of Traci Lords. It wouldn't be right to stay and listen to what she had to say...
...so I left and had a book signed by Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman; both of whom have interesting things to say. I learned Tracy is a dude; that made the 3rd thing learned if you are keeping count.
We sat in a panel of designers vs programmers hosted by the makers of Galactic Civilizations II. I found this interesting, but i don't think Cicelie stayed awake. Just as well though, I had to sit though dragon talk.
The first costume contest we saw was CosPlay, an anime based competition. There were only a few entries but some pretty impressive costumes. This ended with a girl playing anime theme songs and some of her own stuff; she was talented but I didn't care for the songs she chose.
The Dawn contest is the "big event" of dragoncon. This was masterfully MC'd by British actor Anthony Daniels, best known as C-3PO. He has a humor and wit that made me wonder why I've never seen more of him.
The contestants were many in the Dawn contest, and came in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Really not much to say, go check the photos.
After Dawn there was a World of Warcraft meetup. The turnout was great, the panel was not. Next year, they should plan a topic to talk about instead of "let's talk about WoW!"

Day Three:

The morning we left for a panel on trends in art, but bailed on this for an origami class. I made a hat, and a penguin while Cicelie decided to show off and kiss the teacher's ass.
Next was a presentation by a tattoo artist on the history of tattoos. This was pretty interesting and was followed up by taking a volunteer to tattoo infront of everyone. We couldn't stay though...
...we left for the Mythbuster's panel, hosted by the build team Grant, Tory, and the hhhhaaawwwwwtttt Kari. We arrived early to get a bonus - Two stars of Firefly, Alan (Wash) and Summer (River) taking questions. The fans of dragoncon are the same fans that got Serenity made, and the actors thanked everyone for the support.
The Mythbusters were the peak of the day. They started off showing the myths and outtakes that aren't allowed to air by the network. These included can you light a fart (yes) and do women fart (also yes). The first was preformed by Adam, the second by Kari, who wore a set of microphone panties connected to a loud speaker for the test.
I had planned to talk here about how awesome the preview of Neverwinter Nights 2 was. Like many events, the DragonCon staff can't work a schedule and had to move it to 7pm, when I had other plan.
At 7pm was the Anime Music Video contest. Apparently this almost got canned because of ASCAP. The EFF were at the conference, and hopefully they will help the con make this a permanent contest because the videos were great. I'm sure they will pop up on http://www.animemusicvideos.org
The evening was capped with a panel on Old School anime. At the heart of the discussion was the quality of "kid" amine. Back in the old days it was Robotech, Speed Racer, and, my first anime, Tranzor Z (aka Mazinger Z). While there are better (even for the same era) anime, these are the ones kids saw that lead them in to the anime world. Now it's Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, void of content compared to the old school. It turned out to be a interesting discussion, but high, very high, on the geek scale. I mean, it boils down to arguing over 25 year old cartoons, and that's why we went.

Posted By Mike On Monday, September 04, 2006
Filed under photos dragoncon | Comments (1)

Daryl - Monday, September 04, 2006 5:09:24 AM

Despite my umm kicking your ass like a seabass on your previous post (according to or as retroactively incited by Willie), I find this stuff fascinating. Perhaps because I have no passions of my own that I can think of for the moment, I find it interesting how involved people become in sci-fi/fantasy characters. I've dug seeing your pictures.

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About Michael

Michael C. Neel, born 1976 in Houston, TX and now live in Knoxvile, TN. Software developer, currently .Net focused. Board member of ETNUG and organizes CodeStock, East Tennessee's annual developers conference. .Net speaker, a Microsoft ASP.NET MVP and ASPInsider. Co-Founder of FuncWorks, LLC and GameMarx.

Proud father of two amazing girls, Rachel and Hannah, and loving husband to Cicelie who inflates and pops his ego as necessary.

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