The Con proper started for me on Thursday afternoon. Racing downstairs to the Sheraton foyer, I managed to bump into a couple of people from the FanClub Chairs as well as a couple of the members who were all waiting for the laser tag. Ah, the joys of shooting people with lasers. Anyway, a small wait later, Richard Hatch turned up, deposited a load of drinks and snacks and then we were off to the event. Which was quite an event in itself as the address given was slightly wrong, so we spent a little while just trying to find the place. However, we did, and a bit later Richard and a few of the other people from the Con turned up. We were ready to battle!
... Insert noises of laser guns, flashing lights and other special effects here.
We played two games, and it appeared that which ever team Richard was on, lost. He came 10th and 14th (out of 15 people), which was pretty spectacular for someone who used to brandish lasers around for a living. I managed a reasonable 5th and 4th place.
Then a quick trip back to the hotel and then another leg up to City Walk where Steve and I were trying to locate the place of the meal. With the laser tag over running a bit, we missed the beginning of the CityWalk, and thus had no clue where were going. Lucky fortune favours the stupid, and whilst wandering about aimlessly, we spotted a group of people with Richard Hatch and Terry Carter and figured we might as well join them. Which we did. The meal was an interesting buffet affair (with some lovely ice cream for desert, man, did I die and go to heaven!) and my first time to meet some of the other people there. In addition, my first meet with Terry Carter, who, like pretty much all the people there, was a terrific guy.
Then afterwards we headed to the Duelling Pianos where after a bit of confusion about how to get in and whether we had ID or not (my NUS card did not quite hack it, and, of course, I left my passport behind, but I soon learnt the art of smiling) had a whale (wail) of a time drinking while the pianists played some rather old (but no less enjoyable) limericks, as well as ripping the piss out of some more conventional songs. Someone had informed them about Galacticon, and so Richard got hauled up to the front and had to listen while they sang songs about now not gay he was!
And then at Midnight, a real treat - the original movie on IMAX. Now, I'd never heard of IMAX before, but when you are sitting in front of a movie screen that is eight stories tall and a couple of hundred feet wide (I kid you not), I am not likely to forget it either. I'd never seen the movie on the big screen before, and wow, on an eight storey tall screen? Amazing is about the only word I can use here. it is also amazing how well the movie fares on this giant screen. You'd be hard pressed to realise that the effects were meant for a television let along this size. However, it did highlight one thing - the "Made in the USA" sticker on the bridge...
A few of the cast and crew were there - Richard Hatch, Terry Carter, Laurette Spang, Herb Jefferson and Jim Carlson were the ones that I saw, but I think there might have been a couple of others. It was now about 2:30 pm and I was tired!
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| The Sheraton Universal Hotel |
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| The view from the hotel |
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| Richard Hatch and Terry Carter at Citywalk |
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| Jim Carlson at the IMAX Cinema |
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| Laurette Spang at the IMAX Cinema |
