| TT19 |
 TT19
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Jul. 18th, 2005 @ 04:37 pm 
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TT19
Another Toronto Trek has come and gone. With it another great time. Better in some respects than past years but also things that I miss from past years. This is long so I hope you have loads of time.
OK I decided to get a hotel room this year for a few reasons. I would be supporting TT. I could stay at the parties later and not worry about driving. I could bring R2 and have some place to store it.
I don’t now if it was normal but the room was HOT. The air conditioning was not good enough. The first sign was a fan in the room when I walked in. IT was on and circulating the air. I thought maybe it was on because the room air conditioner was off. Nope. The air conditioning in the room could not cool the room properly. Sleeping was not easy. By 4-5am it would get cool enough.
Well for the first point it was no problem. For point 2 it was great. No watching how much I drank etc.
For point number 3 it was good and bad. This hotel is older and normally I have no problem with getting R2 into hotel rooms. However the doors are about 1 inch too narrow to drive R2 in. I had to physically lift R2 into the room each time I needed to get R2 in and out. I would get up and shower. Then I would assembly R2 but getting him out the door would be an ordeal and I felt like I needed another shower.
It was a major pain in the butt.
It makes me seriously think if I want to bring R2 again.
Went to the Meet and Greet with Danny and Kali. It was a blast. Didn’t get to sit with my OBAVA friends which was a bit of a let down. Was sitting with my friends wife. She had a great time even though we had a couple of odd people at our table.
Danny is a funny guy and the time we had was great. I know they are being paid for this but I do hope they also enjoy themselves. The Q&A was fun with him. I am always worried that there would be not enough interesting questions being asked. I missed 80% of his first one as. I was droid wrangling.
Kali is beautiful and smart. I was not sure with her since sometimes you wonder if you would have enough to talk about. See looks different then on TV. It was the same with Clair Kramer. When I saw her she looked amazing.
Well Kali was also fun and is at looked like she was just getting into doing conventions a lot of it was new to her also.
She made a couple of very good points in her Q&A that I think I knew all along but could never put it into words. The question of why I like Buffy so much. Why I support it. She pointed out that Buffy has changed/saved some people. That is great but the part I loved is that she was mentioning how all the characters had layers and that each person related and appreciated one layer. That was the reason so many different types of people love the show. That is why you have fans going from their teens to the 70s. Male or female it did not matter.
That was a sort of wow moment that she could put it into words.
I brought R2 to the M&G as I wanted a photo of the actors with me and R2. It is my sort of new thing I want to do at conventions. Well Danny loved R2 and wanted a photo of himself with R2. I met him the next day for autographs and he showed me the photo they printed for him.
Well it was my first time brining R2 to TT. It was great fun overall. Lots of positive reactions. Hung out with the 501st every so often so with troopers and people in costumes there were a lot of photos taken. Kids loved it. Kept some of them guessing as to who is controlling R2. Convinced quite a few kids and some adults that no one was controlling R2. Lots of complements on how good R2 looked. Lots of the standard questions. Build me one, how much , how long did it take to build etc. NO problem there as it is expected.
Stories?
One guy was there Saturday I guess for other reasons and took a few pictures and then went home to show his son so that they would come the next day to see R2.
Had a great time with 3 kids. They were all around R2 and were so pleased when R2 would do as they say. They were all saying R2 loved them the best since it would go to them when they asked.
A kid came running around the corner after hearing R2. I am not sure if they were con goers but the parent said the kid heard R2 and yelled out Star Wars and then went running. The kid had a great time just looking at R2. I really need to figure out how to install a lollipop dispenser.
Some kids also loved the scream. I used that every so often. When seeing Vader or a Klingon. R2 scream and back up quickly. It works and people love it.
Only one kid who was afraid of R2. His father wanted him to stand beside R2 for a photo but the kid literally ran away screaming.
Chased a few kids. The kids and people loved that.
R2 got loads of hugs. He sure is a media hog.
The plush carpet was a bit hard on the drive system. It seemed deeper than normal. It did drain the batteries a bit faster.
Since I had panels and stuff I parked R2 in the model contest. I was not going to enter it but Anonymoose insisted. Nice guy. I wish I could have finished some model for his contest. He did have a full size Dalek and K9 so I guess my R2 fit in. I hope people enjoyed them.
Well I had one breakdown. Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) sunnyd for minding my R2 as I went to get my cart. I was a bit shocked with the failure as I just upgraded the drive system to be more reliable. I was afraid that it would be a terminal failure that could not be fixable. It turned out to be something relatively easy (for lack of a better word) to fix. So I lost about an hour of con time. Thank goodness I was able to keep R2 running around.
I even had people come u to me and say how glad I was able to get it fixed and have R2 running around again.
To me TT is OBAVA. That is what got me involved in TT so I will always enjoy the time with my OABAV friends. It was great to see Nicole, Candice, SunnyD, Heather, Margaret, Miriam, Hico, Leslie, Sharon, Gordie, Scott, Cindy, Justin, Colleen, Sara, Cori, Richess, Linda, Sheena, Chris, Shiela. I sure hope I didn’t miss anyone. Of course not enough quality time with them.
Of course Sharon, Leslie and Liz were working to make sure we had a fun time. A big Thanks and a big {{{HUG}}} to them. I hope they had some time to enjoy themselves.
I was glad that Nicole and Candice could come out for a bit and enjoy themselves.
I had panels with Chris, Colleen, Fee and Sara. I love doing those things.
Sorry I could not make the Buffy after con dinner but I felt I should go with the guy giving my R2 a lift.
We were trying to promote the Fanforce Toronto club but things were so busy that things did not work out. Also the room we had was so small.
Unfortunately I see it as a lost opportunity. Next year we will have to do more planning.
As I am getting more and more involved I am meeting more and more people from different fandoms. It is great but at the same time I am mixing all my fandoms up. I would be talking with someone I recognize but forget which fandom we share in common.
The other thing is I am terrible at remembering names.
I am not an autograph collector so I normally do not line up for that part of the con.
I met a few of them but for me they area a bonus for going to TT. I rarely get autographs but since the Danny and Kali lines were short I was able to scoot in and get an autograph and chat a bit with them.
Barr y Morse – Got his book and autograph. Of course he is quite advanced in age. I didn’t get to chat with him much but he seemed pleased to see the fan interest. He did take time to autograph the book, which I liked and made sure it was neat. It was not laboured so I was pleased in that sense.
Rene – I bumped into him on the elevator. I did not attend the auction but I did see him there pushing some stuff. He looked happy there. I thought I was getting a photo with Nemic but it turned out to be Rene. So I got my photo with R2 and him. He was cordial but I think the heat was getting to him. With all the panels and stuff happening I did not get many chances to get photos of the guests with R2.
Toga Party. I never had a chance to make my Toga so I had to try and make it at the party. Well I did a terrible job as it kept falling apart. Party was crowded and the pixie crack was flowing. There was a lot of people I didn’t recognize. It was crowded. Not as much fun as before with the smaller group.
But kudos to the hosts for a good time. It is great to know I am not the only one addicted to Pixie Crack. Although for some reason there are only photos of me with pixie crack.
I missed a lot. There was so much else I wanted to do or see. That is the disappointing part of the con
The fact that I am involved in so much makes me glad and sad. Glad that I am giving back by doing panels and helping out with the various clubs and having R2 there. However I am also selfish. I wish I could go to panels I want to. I wish I could have no commitments and go to see certain actors or go to the auction. A part of it is the fact that there is always several good things going on at the same time.
But sometimes I think if I did not have any panels or if I didn’t have R2 there I could go to more panels and do more fun things.
Current Mood:  cheerful |
| From: | (Anonymous) |
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| Date: |
July 18th, 2005 09:37 pm (UTC) |
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LOL, gee Alex, you must have really enjoyed seeing SunnyD, you mentioned her twice. I'm glad you had fun and found lots to do.
Tell me more about what happened with Fan Force. How were you trying to promote it and in what room? Maybe we can find some way to do this better next year.
That post was from me incidentally. Also, I believe my hotel room had a double door so you could have stored R2 in there or maybe we could have figured something out. I'd worry about him getting damaged lifting him up to get him through the door. I hope you bring him again next year because he was such a hit with so many people.
Before the con next year, talk to the hotel liaisons and request a room with a wider door. They have to have them for people with wheelchairs and I can't imagine that R2 is much wider than a wheelchair.
In all the hotels I have taken R2 this was the first one that R2 would not go through. Every door I have encountered with R2 he can just squeeze through.
This was a complete shocker. My reasoning was that is was an old hotel.
I did not know they had the double doors until Buffycus Partius. I thought R2 was the same width as a wheelchair but apparently not as the ramp they brought out for me to get R2 up to the M&G was narrow by about an inch. Again the first time it has ever happened to me as all other wheelchair ramps have been narrow but always wide enough for R2.
The fanforce group thing was a bit disorganized. Next year we will hopefully be more on the ball.
Glad I could lend a hand! R2 was easy to watch!
![[User Picture Icon]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/93581296/1212018) |
| From: | assetic |
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| Date: |
July 19th, 2005 07:24 am (UTC) |
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Alex, I *will* post pictures of R2 and the Tardis later :D
Your R2 ROCKED! He was just so darn personable! Glad you brought him!
I just love the image of you parked in the chair like some crazed cesar, a sugar candy Caligula. It's positively iconic.
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