TopMan writes...

Top Man's Super-fantastical Super-long Con-virgirnal (Vir-journal

Disclaimer: Many of the people mentionned in this were also ConVirgins and n00bs, so chances are you've never heard of them/me and barely remember them/me from the convention, if at all. Hopefully, this will help you get more acquainted with us ^^

Someday the Nth of Whenever

I was browsing the web, and *somehow* came across the Gathering Of The Gargoyles 2004 website. I looked at it and thought "Jeez, what weird kinds of people would go to this?" Then I read the page, and thought "Jeez, I would go to this!!"

A couple of days after Someday the Nth of Whenever:

I talked to Reusch about it, thinking she'd laugh in my face. Instead, she said "awesome!" Everything was set ^^

Friday, August 6th:

Well, the day started off with Reusch and I getting a lift over to the hotel from my dad. The convention wasn't due to start for a little while, which we planned on purpose so we could wake ourselves up with a Tim Hortons french vanilla. We ended up eating brunch there, and it was very nice, except at the very end, when we were sitting outside with our coffees, much to my disgust and Carolynn's delight I was pooped on by a bird -_-. Not the proudest moment in my life. Luckily it was just my hand, so I washed it off easily, and we decided to head over to the hotel and scope out the inside.

In doing so we found out that Registration table was already open, so, feeling VERY antisocial, we sort of tiptoed up to the counter and waited until someone approached us, then we half-whispered our names and sat down at an empty table feeling foolish and admiring the packages. Suddenly, I get Abe from the table going "Heeeey, Topman!" and Sarah The Great is asking us if we want to join the Clan Olympics. I had already been considering it, as it sounded fun, and Abe was there to encourage me, and Reusch was all up for it, so I was close to saying yes. The only problem was we had only two people. So I asked her to put a question mark down next to our names. About 5 minutes later I figured "Ah, what the hell" and signed us up. She said there were two others needing a team and asked if we didn't mind pairing up with them, which of course we didn't. This was the make-or-break moment where half the convention could end up being spent with complete and utter weirdos.

And fortunately for us, we did! Nezumi and David were great fun from the get-go, and we hung out together the entire convention, but more on that later, because Abe ruined our good mood by making us think up a name. After five minutes of weird conversation, we decided on "The Mexanadians" (despite the fact that Nez was from Texas, not Mexico, and Texanadians would have been just as easy, for some reason we stuck with that.) We were so proud of our bizarre name, that we were grinning right up until the moment Abe said "Okay, so now we need your team motto." And we all went: "MOTTO!? *GROAN*" So, we decided that a hearty groaning sound would be a good motto for us. Unfortunately, for the moment we were going to have to leave our new teammates, as Con Virgin 101 (which Reusch and I felt we definitely needed to attend) was starting, while Nez and David decided to attend something else, which escapes me at the moment.

Con Virgin 101 was a blast. We arrived 15 minutes late due to our meeting with Nez and David, and apparently we weren't the first to interrupt Sapphire's panel, but since there were so few of us she just ended up starting over from the beginning. She talked about how everyone's insane (which is true), and then showed off her impressive art and french skills with a hilarious little scribbling. ("Bonjour, je m'appelle Velociraptor" XD) Of course, there can't really be ALL that much to talk about for introducing new people to cons, so after about 15 minutes, she realized that we had a whole spare hour. So all hell broke loose (that is to say as much hell as can break loose with about 7 people) and we started drawing on the board and chatting. We met ChameleonGirl there too, who is a great and funny gal, and there was a couple which I believe were French Canadian, and unfortunately I never caught their names, but they were nice and friendly. I felt a bit bad about having made little comments throughout Sapphire's presentation, because she seemed a bit miffed by all the interruptions, but I hope she realized I did it because I had warmed up to her and the room, and wanted to join into the discussions, maybe not in the most appropriate of ways. If you're reading this, I hope I didn't offend you in any way =S

Next up was the voice acting seminar, where Reusch and I got to see Greg Weisman in person for the first time. We learned here that Keith David wasn't going to make it, which was a little disappointing because I had been hoping to hear him spout a number of Goliath lines during this panel, but I soon got over it. Greg was a great speaker, and had a lot of information to give out, and I thought it was a very interesting panel considering, as a child actor, albeit not a very famous one, I had done (small amounts of) voice acting in the past and wanted to see what he had to say. At the end he was having people read the skits and coaching them, and Reusch SOMEHOW managed to convince me to join in for the last skit, provided she did too. I ended up getting Brooklyn, and Reusch, this time to MY delight, got Hudson (which was funny, as we are both avidly averse to Hudson's character). It was fun, although I'm almost positive I read WAY too fast, and then felt confused because Greg didn't mention anything to me (it either wasn't as bad as I thought, he didn't notice, or I was a hopeless case). Sidenote, whoever did the first Demona reading (I believe it was CrzyDemona?) and the Griff reader (Michael?) were AMAZING!!!

Unfortunately, we found out the Radio Play Auditions weren't available for viewing, so it was either the Costuming Seminar or the RPG panel. Reusch didn't want to touch the Costuming Seminar (we had just spent two solid weeks working on my Thailog costume, which was a beast to make) so we went to the RPG panel. Unfortunately, we had only dabbled in RPGs (read: RPG, as in one) so we didn't understand the panel at all, and decided we should probably leave before we went nuts in the room trying to pretend that we knew what we were talking about.

We went up to the con room and watched a couple of episodes, I seem to remember Kingdom and Hound Of Ulster. At some point we ended up finding Nez and Dave and decided that during this extended break we should find some food somewhere so that we wouldn't start stomach-rumbling during the opening ceremonies. We went to the McDonalds that was found, by whom I don't know, by going through the hotel restaurant into a bank/business building, then down the escalator into an underground mall. The service there was TERRIBLE. First off, the girl at the counter AND the guy in the back CONSTANTLY disregarded the beeping of the fry machine, so they burnt the fries TWICE. Reusch's salad took at LEAST 15 minutes to make, and they ended up giving her the wrong kind of chicken, despite the counter-girl asking twice. They neglected to give her a fork or salad dressing. She later found out that the chicken wasn't cut properly, so she returned to the counter, asked for a knife, was given a fork. David, meanwhile, was waiting for a double big mac, and they ended up accidentally making a single big mac, and then didn't notice until he was waiting for the food for five minutes. So he got to wait even longer. They gave us a complimentary hamburger, which I ate, but it wasn't all that good, and definitely didn't make up for the awful service.

We all headed back to the Opening Ceremonies, which were a blast. The staff presented themselves, and then during Liz's speech, Abe and MAui surprised us all by "taking over". They announced the teams, and then shocked us by saying that the first event would be NOW. Good thing we'd eaten =) Reusch and I had to grab the balls from the bin, and then pass them over the line to Nez, who stuffed them into David's hole-filled shirt. While Reusch grabbed balls from the bin, I took the strategy of picking up any and all balls that were dropped by others onto the floor. It must have worked moderately well, because we were in third place by the end. After all the excitement died down (I felt bad for Liz... the beginning of her speech was cut short, and then we were all still catching our breath for the end) Greg presented the DVD info (w00t for December 7th) told his amusing stories (I was shocked when EVERYONE around me shouted out "It's Better Than Barney", but I'll be prepared to join in next time ^_~), played a tape with a bunch of people who worked on Gargoyles (Keith David was hilarious, and Ed Asner was funny too, but he also said some very deep, nostalgic stuff about his being on the show and wanting to come to a Gathering that kind of made me sad, the way only nostalgia can), and then played all of his videos, which for some must be a bit boring now, but for me was quite interesting, as this was the first time I was seeing them. He then played an audio tape of The Last, the not-so-long lost Atlantis episode, which far too many of us took far too dirtily, but for good reasons!

After Opening Ceremonies came Mystery Gargoyles Theatre, which Reusch and I didn't quite understand at first, but then we figured out it was just people making jokes about the show as it's playing, which is what we do anyways. We also met some new friends there, Annie and Catherine, who, while we didn't see them much aside from the banquet, were really cool people and great fun to talk to. Jade Griffin also came off as being really cool, but I never really had a conversation with her until Sunday, which is a bit of a shame.

After an hour or so of heckling, the Clan Olympics people were kicked out of the room so we couldn't see what was being set up. It ended up being some kooky toss-the-ball game, with some very inventive twists, such as the Spirits and the flip-over rule, and the tic-tac-toe. I suck at tossing balls, and although two of my three shots came EXTREMELY close (one actually bounced off the middle of the chair that the target was sitting on, but never actually hit the target) but none succeeded, which made me feel a bit useless. We almost got a tic-tac-toe, which would have scored us some bonus points, but we didn't end up doing so. If only I had gone last instead of second, I MIGHT have been able to at least accomplish that... nonetheless, Reusch, David and Nez had enough skill to pull us into 2nd place! Congrats to them.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday hopefully coming before Tuesday ^^