Dragon Con is coming ……

Dragon Con is coming …… in a few short weeks I’ll be packing up my car, heading to Birmingham to pick up my crew and then heading to Dragon Con to get my 6^th badge (in 6 years) and enjoy several fun filled days of people watching, chilling, and just hanging out with the best person I know … GOLDEN !!! I can’t wait. I was super pumped about it cause this was going to be our first year in a host hotel and I was going to get my dress up on. I no longer had the excuse of shuttles or uber vehicles to contend with so I was going to go all out. Then yesterday all that changed. 

Me and my crew are still hitting up Dragon Con for the 6^th year in a row but our hotel fell through. They ripped it out form under me a week ago and didn’t even bother to tell me. I saw several complaining about it online so I pulled up the ap and checked my reservation and it said cancelled. Two weeks ago when I checked it for a similar reason it was still intact. I immediately called them to say what the hell. The lady on the phone couldn’t have been nicer. She was in the main “office” of said chain and was the go between for me and the actual hotel, who wouldn’t answer the phone. The nice “office” lady was super helpful and even complained about the actual hotel people who just….weren’t. I told her that’s why I called you I couldn’t get them on the phone. She said they told her people have been calling to complain all week. Gee I wonder why. I have since posted on a Dragon Con message board and I wasn’t the only one that this happened too which should make it better but it doesn’t. I mean this hotel doesn’t care they are going to get their money and then some that weekend so who gives a fuck about me and my squad? I do. I feel like I’ve 100% let them all down.

Last December when I booked the room, I was so excited I was bouncing around my office, texted my crew, tweeted I had won the biggest prize of all, I was just on cloud nine. Everytime I have thought about this, I have gotten excited. It was going to be a whole new experience for me and my crew who have always stayed away from the con and shuttled back and forth. So much wasted time. Waiting on the shuttle that never seems to come, finally calling an uber, getting to the hotel, getting all comfortable and not wanting to get back down into the crazy. I was looking forward to not having to deal with that. To just getting there and ... being.

However, as disappointed I am by this turn of events we did get a hotel, that is connected to a shuttle so that’s a plus. It’s not the hotel we typically stay in, it sold out 2 months ago, so I’m not sure what to expect and as you know dear reader I’m not a fan of the unknown. I’m still planning to take my gear and I might still dress up but I also might talk myself out of it. Atlanta is hot yo! This will be a fun relaxing trip cause that’s what me and my squad need. We need a few days of hanging out, eating good foot – or cold pizza, laughing, people watching and just enjoying life. I really need this I can’t tell you how badly I need this trip. 

So the Con goes on and so will we but this is my post telling my squad I’m sorry I let this get screwed up and next year we will try for one of the other host hotels, cause it will be a cold day in hell before I stay at xxxx. So watch this space as we lead up to the Con it will still be fun, it will still be a good time, it will just be different and who knows that might be good too, maybe this shuttle will actually show up when it's supposed to. A girl can dream right?! 

Marcy
@beaslma

DRAGON CON RECAP

Technically Dragon Con is still underway but as in years past we packed up all the things, got a trolley, got the car out of the lot and headed back home today in anticipation of rejoining the real world tomorrow. Once returning to Golden’s we unpacked the car, said hello to Mighty, changed into comfortable clothes then slept for the next 4 or 5 hours. I personally slept through most of the Blair Witch the sequel, waking up in time for the ending only to find out Golden’s DVR cut off the end of it, and Keanu, which is some movie about a kidnapped cat. Golden slept through them all as well as Lego Batman. I guess eventually we’ll get up and get food but for now I’m letting Golden sleep off the Con and thinking about taking another mini nap before food as well.

Sunday was a blast. We got up late, said good bye to M, and had some lunch at Johnny Rocket’s before heading down to the madness that was the Con. We finally caught that damn elusive Shuttle Bus, the Purple Line that is … the Green Line can kiss my ass, and made our way to the gaming rooms at the America’s Mart.

At that point Golden decided to paint and take a zombie, and she did a damn good job. (see below). While she did that I watched the Alton Brown panel on Dragon Con TV since the line was 2 hours long 3 hours before it started. I mean damn! Also he's bringing back Good Eats and not just as a web series !!! :D The Dragon Con TV streaming was amazing and I'll definitely be getting it again even if I don't come to the Con.

From there we made our way over to the Arcade, I’m not sure if this is the first year that they have had it but it’s the first time we have participated and it was great, will definitely make our way back to it next year. They had all these vintage games and pinball, and new games not released yet and some games that were in another language so we all just guessed and pushed buttons until it did things. It was awesome. 

  

Afterwards we made our way over to the Hilton for the Wynonna Earp meet up. Which was a ton of fun. I mean really no other fandom in the world is as passionate and awesome as the Earpers. While it wasn’t an “official” Dragon Con event the people who set this thing up did a great job. There was drinking, chatting and fun had by all. Emily Andras, writer, and actors Tim Rozon and Michael Eklund joined the meet up for a drink and chat and they made sure to talk with everyone. They love this fandom as much as the fandom loves them. It was cool to see and be a part of. Also Golden ran into several of her Twitter peeps at the event including M H which was a lot of fun too.

   

After that we just walked around and out got our last taste of the awesomeness that is Dragon Con. Saw some cosplay, another really epic dance party and had to catch Uber to get back to the hotel when that damn shuttle bus wouldn’t show up. Really this was one of my favorite Dragon Cons. We actually ended up doing some of the fun stuff available for the Con and didn’t just pay a lot of money to people watch. Don’t get me wrong people watching is fun and all but after a while you think oh look another Captain America and it kind of gets old. Once I recover from this trip we’ll start planning next year’s trip and I look forward to it every year cause if nothing else I get 5 days to hang out with my favorite person on this planet and that after all is the best part of all. Well that and this year it didn’t end with me giving blood and face planting so... WIN!

    

I’ll drive home in the morning getting mentally ready to re-enter the real world on Thursday and while I’m ready to get home I’m sad to leave Golden behind. I miss her like crazy when we are apart and wish science would get off their asses and make me a freaking portal to make hanging out with her more often a possibility. 

Peace –

Marcy

DRAGON CON DAY 2

Today has been all about missed connections. From not being able to connect to the interwebs to not being able to connect with a stupid bus, it’s been one giant day of not being able to connect, even within our own group. Let’s start at the beginning. The alarms went off around 6 ish …. Far earlier than any one human who is on vacation should be getting up. One of our crew arrived last night and had to pick up her badge and we wanted to be there right at 8 so we could get good spots for the parade at 10.  Last year we watched it on TV at the hotel mostly cause Saturday’s at Dragon Con are just …. Well ….. stupid. All the locals turn up on Saturday for the parade and have day passes which creates this gridlock of people throughout the area. With SEC football playing this weekend, the Falcons playing this weekend (well yesterday) and many other things happening in the Atlanta this holiday weekend Saturday becomes a cluster of people and not all are nice. We were talking earlier today about how the last 3 years everyone has been really nice and really inclusive and this year there is this underlying layer of …. I don’t know how to describe it …. Like you know one wrong move and it  could all just pop off with very little warning. We have since decided that this is due to the number of people here for the first time with a feel of entitlement that they have not earned yet. This is the biggest crowd ever for Dragon Con and it’s been very clear that Dragon Con, and the host hotels in general, haven’t been prepared for it. I mean some of these hotels have been beyond trashed and I've felt really bad about it.

Photos from today’s parade can be found on Golden’s twitter account, some of my favorite pictures from today can be found below.

  

 

  

This is the BEST parade hype man in the world. He'd find random kids in similar costumes, and bring them together, below is his "Footlong hotdog" :D he really made the waiting on the parade to get to us time go by fast. He was having as much fun as we were. At one point he pulled a tiny Storm Trooper out into the street to help him hype up the crowd. The kid had so much fun it was awesome to watch. Volunteers for Dragon Con are just the best. 

   

 After the parade, we went through the vendor hall which is several floors of all the things to buy, look at, and see. Stan Lee was signing merchandise today at the Vendor Hall which made the people like 15 deep instead of the usual 10 deep. Dragon Con PSA #1 --- I get that we all cosplay and love dressing up in awesome things we have created but can we all agree that there is no place for that shit in the Vendor Hall. I mean if you have on fairy wings that took you 6 months to create and go into the Vendor hall and they get messed up that’s on you. Don’t bitch people out cause they brushed up against your stuff in the 2-way-2foot hallways of the Vendor hall.

Anyway … using the technique taught to me recently by the boss man has made my panic attacks this year very minimal. I’ve nearly had a few but was able to beat them back down and focus on my breathing and made the panic attack not seem so bad. I already texted him thanks for that. While in the Vendor hall our crew of three often became a crew of two as one of us would wander off while someone stopped to look around. At one point I just left the vendor hall and texted my crew saying I was at the elevators, take your time, as I sat in my awesome chair.

After the vendor hall is when the missed connections came full circle. We waited on a Shuttle Bus for nearly an hour before saying screw it and called Uber. Uber has been our savior this trip which has been great but also sad. The last few years the Dragon Con Shuttle was one of the best parts of the Con, those drivers were awesome. This year we can't even get the drivers to stop let alone have a conversation. It's been real disappointing. We know the Green Line exists cause we caught it on Friday but haven't seen it since. Like it's some Yetti in Sasquatch territory. Like we know it exists but no one believes us because we have no documentation of it. We stood there with two ginger haired young ladies and got really angry when the Purple Line bus, which we had decided we were getting on cause Green Line had said screw it and gone to get a samache, drove by waving at us like we were just saying hi, when in all actuality we were saying, “Hey jerkoff stop your bus so we can get on it!” It's not like we were trying to flag them down in the middle of the street we were at the Dragon Con Shuttle Bucket but he didn't give a damn. We finally called Uber and I felt bad cause we had to leave our Ginger friends behind. I accidently clicked the small car (as I always do having a small crew) and we wouldn’t all fit. I really felt like an asshat. I can see their hotel from my hotel so we could have made it work …. But yeah they have their own cell phones and life and can make shit happen if they need too right!? I do hope they made it home and are not still down there waiting on that bus.

The temperature this year hasn’t been too bad there’s even been a few instances of “I’m cold” uttered from someone’s mouth, and it might have been me. Usually the weather is so hot here it’s suffocating. I reserve the right to bitch about the weather later if I want to but for now know it’s starting to feel like Fall.

Saturday ended with us having dinner at Hard Rock and by dinner I mean we ate food sometime after 10pm, then walking to the Marriot to watch all the pretty and hang out. We saw DJ MC Chris do his thing, an impromptu dance party, lots of naked, and even a couple who I’m pretty sure said screw it getting back to the room is too far let’s do what we have to do in the middle of a room like no one could see them. Bless them I hope they had protection. If one has a Baby at Dragon Con do they have to name it after the hotel?! We rolled back into the hotel around 3 am as Day 2 flowed into Day 3.

Happy Con

Marcy
Golden
M