I woke up around 10, ate breakfast (sliced bread + German nutella for the win). Packed my crap and checked out. I didn’t have the tickets back home, but I checked in online and sent the pdf file to the hotel receptionist which printed the tickets. I liked staying at the Avidon, which is a really nice hotel, but it was a 20 minute walk from the convention which was a bit bothersome. Also I didn’t find the droids I was looking for
After getting my tickets I spent about an hour or so, using the wi-fi to write up this blog post in Google docs (but knowing myself it will probably take weeks until I managed to put it on my blog), chat online, read news (apparently someone got a critical hit on Osama Bin laden, and he failed his saving throw).
Apparently they buried Osama at sea, and if homeopathy is true, I guess this means all the seawater on earth in a while will be medicine that cures terrorism! way to go guys!
Took some pictures of the half-life black mesa train skytrain and some airplanes at the airport before getting on my flight home.
I’ll upload many more pictures from the convention soon, so many cool costumes this year. Just have to get them organized in picasa before uploading them
Last day of a convention is always a little bit sad, and there is also not that much happening. I didn’t even arrive at the Convention hotel until around 13:00.
I watched the panel with Garret Wang and Robert Duncan Donuts McNeil, it was fun but it seemed they had much more fun the day before. Afterwards I was going to get a picture taken with them, but Fedcon had rescheduled it to earlier that day, so I missed it >:(
I met up with Zach and DJ Bear from Trekradio.com, he was also the victim of Fedcons rescheduling, and they had moved all of his interviews with the actors without telling him even though he confirmed the time 2-3 hours before the interviews.
I watched the panel with Wil Wheaton and Marina Sirtis which was fun, but a little bit less energetic than the previous panels they were in. Also the questions for them and for Garret/Robert were also not as good/fun as earlier in the convention.
Random picture of hot girl in silk specter costume!:
I went by the infinite space booth, and actually got to try the PVP part of the game (1vs1). It was fun, but it’s really hard to review a game that is not even in alpha yet. All in all I think Infinite space should be fun and has lots of potential, and I’m looking forward to seeing it in alpha/beta later this year.
The closing ceremony was a little bit disappointing and went on at least 30 minutes to long, but afterwards I went with DJ Bear, Zach and two very nice Swiss people out for dinner (A pizza with 4 cheeses and pineapple), the only hot meal I had during my entire stay in Germany.
Then we went back to the hotel and had drinks and ice cream. I returned to my hotel around midnight.
The “main” day of the convention, but did not do anything worth mentioning until the Guinnes world record in number of people in star trek uniforms from Las Vegas was broken. Previous record was 550 people, new one is almost 700.
After that I went to the Nicole de Boer panel, followed by the Seaon Maher panel, both which where fun. At 16:00 I missed the Paul McGillion & Kate Hewlett panel, to get my picture taken with Scott Bakula, and at 17:30 I took a picture with Marina Sirtis.
And like ALL the times when I got my picture taken, the weirdo German photographer kept yelling out ZZ Top
At 17:30 There was a dinner at the Maritim with Gameforge (the developers of Startrek Infinite space), which incidentally was the first time on the convetion where I ate something that resembeled normal food. This was very fun as I got ot talk to some of the developers and the guys at Gameforge, but unfortunately this meant I missed the photoshoot with Sean Maher
But did get to take lots of pictures of people in costumes, I’ll upload many more of them to picasa when I get them organized
The dinner finished at 20:00, just in time for the Nicole de Boer photoshoot, which was 20 minutes delayed. After that I hit the bar, drank some Jägermeister and got back to catch the end of the Scott Bakula Panel.. At the very end he promoted Garrett Wang to Lt.
Got to talk to lots of nice people today, and had lots of fun =)
I think this guy might have been selling droids with bad motivators:
Up early, eating my sliced German bread with nutella and coke (maintaining a healthy diet while at a convention is always my top priority).
I arrived at the convention in time for the photoshoot with Kate Hewlet at 10:00, and she was really nice to everyone who had their picture taken.
I listened to the Robert Duncan McNeill panel, which was very funny and included alot of humor between Robert and Garret Wang.
For some reason I missed the Scott Bakula fotosession at noon, and the 13:30 photoshoot with garret wang was cancelled, as was the 14:30 photoshoot with Paul Watson. From 12 to 18 there was mainly the autograph sessions, but I did not bother getting any this year.
I did however meet some nice people at the Sea Shepherd booth, and got to have my picture taken with captain Watson, after all he doesn’t have that many Norwegian fans. I also took a weirdly posed picture with Paul McGillion which I’m curious how will turn out, I guess the Indiana Jones hat will be the recurring themes from this years Fedcon pictures of me.
I walked around alot, and ran into Zach again, and ended up being his photographer for a little while.
At the infinite space both, I got to play another mission, where you defend a space station against 3 waves of klingon attacks. I also got to study the game on a HD tv and the graphics again managed to amaze me, considering it’s a browser game (I might even have to stop using the term “browser game” as an insult).
The controls also seemed better today, and I got to see a bit of the lobby, and menus (crew, items, ships, etc..) and I’m now looking even more forward until the game is released (sometime this summer a very loose rumor said, but I kinda doubt it.. I’d guess no earlier than the last quarter for 2011).
For dinner I had nelsquick chocolate milk and cold pancakes from the airport grocery store a substantial nutritional improvement from last nights dinner, which shall remain nameless. I actually considered heating up vegetarian bratwursts with the hair dryer in my hotel room, but ultimately decided against it
After all that walking around it was great to sit down in the main convention hall at 18:00 to take in the interviews. Richard Dean Anderson was a lot more fun than I was expecting (never seen him live or doing panels before), and lots of people in Stargate uniforms got on stage and gave him a gift or award or something like that
Paul McGillion followed and was also great. Same goes for Scott Bakula who was really funny, and did a surprising amount of singing. This is only my second convention so haven’t seen Marina Sirtis before (think she’s been to Fedcon like 6-7 times), she was very funny and told all sorts of interesting stories, it’s funny how she’s the complete opposite of Troi
First day of the convention, up “early” for a shower and breakfast. Got to the convention hotel around 11. but kept walking between several places to get those sponsor tickets I won from GameForge (the makers of Star Trek Infinite Space).
Having used 1 hour to finally get my badge (and being sent back and forth between about 10 of the Fedcon crew), I went to the Infinite Space booth, and got to test a development build of the game. I liked the game, the graphics is very nice, the controls were OK but some features were obviously missing. The mission you played in that particular development build was a bit disappointing story wise, and seemed a bit rushed (but what can you expect from a developer build?), but it showed off a bit of the mission system, and it seems pretty good. All in all, I think it may turn out very good, and I’m looking forward to follow the game progress to alpha/beta testing.
I kept walking around the convetion area, looking at booths, etc.. And then this Indiana Jones hat literally begged me to buy it (and by literally I mean figuretively), and by begged I mean “it was there” and by buy I mean “to exchange a common currency for goods or services”.
I met a few people from Fedcon 2 years ago, which was nice, and some people from the German star trek forum said hi (or guten tag) Also I ran into Zach from Hailing Frequency and Trek Radio at the infinite space booth, which was fun.
I waited over an hour to get my photo taken with RDA (and if you don’t know who RDA is, you should really be ashamed of yourself).
Garret Wang did a really good job of being MC, and was alot of fun at his own panel and the Opening Ceremony.
At 21:00 it was time for the Wil Wheaton Panel, and at the time of writing I’m 90% sure it was the highlight of the entire Fedcon Trip. Wil Wheaton is just amazing (not just because he’s a fellow geek, gamer, skeptic, sci-fi fan, etc..) He’s always funny, intelligent and entertaining. A few quotes: “I’m a skeptic” (for posterity), and in regard to the recent Sony fuck up: “Sony put’s DRM on EVERYTHING, but store your personal information in a text file.. Genius!” Also he talked alot about his roles on TNG and the Big Bang theory (Eureka was never mentioned, but he did mention The Guild in passing a few times )
After that I was pretty tired, so I opted out of whatever happens at the maritim after closing, and took a cab back to my hotel.
Today was the day before the convention. I got on the train from Amsterdam 14:30, and spent 2 hours looking at the Dutch and German countryside wooshing by backwards. Lots of cows, trees, windmills, a lama, some sheeps, grass, trains, etc…
When I changed trains in Drüisburg, I was pretty sure I had gone on the wrong train (I think it left earlier than it should according to my ticket), but was positively surprised to find myself at the same train station I had been at 2 years earlier when taking the train to from Düsseldorf to Bonn.
I arrived at my hotel (which had a rocking chair… yay!) around 6 , chilled a bit, and made my way to the supermarket to get some soft drinks and food. Ended the night by watching Arrested Development and an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force (which is total rubbish, seriously? people actually enjoy that show? where did the world go so horribly wrong?).
I think I’m in a German TV commercial for Fedcon 2011, a Sci-fi convention I’m going to in a month (It’s going to be awesome)
Someone recognized me in the video and was kind enough to send me an email (Thanks to Dietrich, which I met at fedcon 2009, he makes all sorts of really cool replicas) I was almost tempted to steal his Grays sports almanac, but I’m no Biff Tannen so instead I got myself 2 magnets for my kitchen (“Main Fridge”, and “Deep Freeze 9″)
I love google analytics*, it’s great and awesome in all sorts of ways that I won’t go into right now, instead allow me to present some funny search queries that have all somehow led people to this blog.
*For those of you who didn’t know, Google Analytics is a way to know how many people visit your website, what they search for, or where they come from, etc…
variations of “stargate universe sucks” - 1100 hits
variations of “new star trek movie sucks” – 1800 hits
So far so good, at least there are a few people out there with good taste, but it is when you get down to the more unique searches, those with only a few hits that you find the weird stuff.. Apparently even tough Stargate Universe sucks, somebody on the show has huge (or big) tits
Stargate universe big tits - 13
stargate universe girl with big tits - 6
“stargate universe” “big tits” - 2
big tits on sgu - 2
big tits stargate universe -3
girl with big tits on stargate universe - 1
actress with the huge tits on stargate universe - 1
who is the girl with the big tits on stargate universe? - 1
biggest tits on stargate universe - 1
chick with huge tits on stargate universe - 1
sgu stargate universe big tits - 1
star gate universe big tits - 1
stargate universe huge tits - 1
sgu kills off big tits?- 1
stargate universe chick with huge tits- 1
stargate universe chick with big tits- 5
I can only assume they are looking for pictures of Julia Benson:
Hmmm. I just realized that due to it’s questionable content, this post will undoubtedly attract more hits from people with nothing better to do than googling for Julia Bensons boobs..
So I might just as well throw in another picture, I’d hate for people to leave here empty handed.
Some other weird searches with only 1 hit
why do the shields on the enterprise suck? – I have no idea, the real question is why would somebody write that phrase in a search engine? mexican knick knacks – I bet this guy was especially disappointed with my blog why are everyone in stargate universe morons? - I… Don’t… Know… all video editing software sucks and makes no sense at all - You should stick to pictures, they are simpler to wrap your head around best brand donkey balls chocolates - I’m afraid to even comment on this one fedcon convention swine flu - Hah! I see I was not the only one worried about swine flu duing fedcon 2009. Not so much worried about catching it, as guests not showing up feed trondheim - I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye out for starving children jello shot launcher - Let me know if you find one! ms paint police - These guys should have a SWAT unit!
Tomorrow I’m leaving for Bonn, Germany to attend my first ever Star Trek Convention, the convention is Fedcon, and I have no idea what I’m going to do there
Better have Summer Glau sign a Firefly dvd cover, don’t know why, but life is like playing Monkey Island.. you just do stuff because it’s there, and hope it will pay of later.
Either way it should be fun, maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of this swine flu that the media has been hyping the entire week.. Influenza kills like 1000 people in Norway each year.. 30’000 in the US, and a new influenza virus spreads across the planet every year without people yelling about a pan(dem)ic.
