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hathycolDespite the best efforts of a significant lack of sleep, I am not dead! I have had an immensely busy few days, of which more anon. Firstly, though, COLLECTORMANIA UPDATE OF DOOM. This Collectormania featured a plethora of Stuff What Happened, so I'm going to try and go through it all as logically as possible and only flail like a madowman briefly.
Katie (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stupidore) came down on the Thursday night, and we ate copious amounts of Chinese food and then I spent all day on Friday abandoning her to the mercies of my house while I went to work. Work let me go an hour and a half early, time I wisely used to sleep and pack in a panicked manner. Good-o.
As such, we were ready and raring to go and headed to Wigan to pick up Ann (ann_pan) and her niece Taylor who was an absolutely lovely human being to meet, although I am slightly scared that anyone I know could have a niece old enough to have conversation with, let alone be a fully rounded human being!
The journey down was mostly uneventful. We ate meerkat sweets and shouted at my SatNav and her bizarre beliefs re: speed limits and why I should stick to them. We arrived in Milton Keynes fairly late and nearly ran over Talitau_sigma, who was just trying to get her car parking validated. Oops.
The evening passed by saying hello to all the people who were already there, Fiona, Lucymoralrelativist, Dee and Robin. We wrote soothingly offensive post-it notes and passed the evening mostly in giggles and in flinging Tribbles around that Katie had made, before heading to bed. Tali, Katie and I made up the old people room. I have no issue with this - I like sleep!
The next day was a fairly early start, as we were all cosplaying in varying forms of Star Trek TOS dresses. I was Captain Colleen on the basis that essentially graduate management scheme/driving is all I know how to do; Katie was in red (like Uhura, she works in communications!) and Ann was also in red (she is technical, like Scotty!) and Fiona was pretty much left to bear the burden of being the expendable redshirt. SORRY FIONA WE LOVE YOU REALLY. Tali was in a very Nurse Chapel-esque dress (handy, as she works for the NHS), Lucy was a blue psychologist and Taylor was also in blue as she borrowed Ann's spare dress.
It was quite nice being dressed up for the day, actually; freezing bloody cold, but great fun, particularly when the bus driver gave us a Vulcan salute! Plus we looked fabulous, which was even picked up on by strangers from the internet which is strange but sort of complimentary! (That random Kirk girl was not with us, I hasten to point out. I AM KIRK GIRL DAMMIT.)
Anyway, we turned up and ran around and got virtual queueing tickets and lots of Pick 'n'Mix. I realise at this juncture I should have taken more notes, because I'll be damned if I can remember the weekend in whole. Also we split into various groups and factions throughout the weekend for reasons of sensibleness, so let's see how good my memory is. (HINT: it's not.)
We met some Nigel Planer and Christopher Ryan off The Young Ones for Dee and Ann, before making sure we consumed lunch and lots of sweets. The Travelodge is not a kind venue for concepts like 'sleep' and 'getting lots of it' so many e-numbers were consumed in order to keep us sane.
We also met John de Lancie on Saturday! He was very nice, although Q with a beard was a little bit strange. He thought our costumes were great, and seemed very much on board with us going to see his son. We did not. We are awful people, but awful people on a budget.
Looking at mostlystupidore's photos to remind me of what we did on Saturday, apparently we mostly posed. A lot. There's a photo of us all with me sat on the Captain's chair from TNG (MY RIGHTFUL POSITION GOD DAMMIT) and lots of passing strangers took photos of us. We also got photos of us all doing silly things with a blank wall as a background, where lots of strangers also attacked us. Very odd.
Not long after this, I went to see Levar Burtons autograph. He seemed delighted with us, although that may have been because he was cheerfully consuming a pint of lager. (An idea I thoroughly recommend if in Milton Keynes; the convention is in a football stadium that acts as a wind tunnel. It was beautifully warm outside.) "You have a posse! he exclaimed. I did indeed have a posse. I rule.
I met Nicole de Boer! She was very sweet and very shy.
I also tailed along with other people going to get autographs, and watched other people meet Jason Watkins (Herrick from Being Human) and Robert Patrick. He terminated no one. I was vaguely upset by this. Ann was also indulging her new found love for David Blue (who has... been in... stuff? er?) and he promised to put a picture of us in our Star Trek gear in Twitter. It has yet to happen.
General exhaustion struck early in the day, so we wearily trooped back to the hotel in order to get some food. We went to Wetherspoons in full Star Trek gear, which was either awesome or terrifying. I am unsure which.
We watched Doctor Who in pajamas and confusion. I remain confused over a week later. Jimmy turned up in the evening, and we all drank wine and ate crisps and chillaxed, waiting for the next day.
Sunday morning started with a minor disaster. I had been blocked in the car park. This is bad, as I only have one door that opens from the outside. I looked at the situation. I looked at Jimmy. I looked at my boot.
Jimmy commando-rolled into the car approximately two minutes later. Good times.
There was a very long queue for Alex Kingston, although I think we were there within a relatively sensible time. We prepared to run like madwomen (and men) to her stall, agreeing beforehand that whoever got left behind stayed behind. In the end, the queue was very peaceful and well-organised.
Sunday was, in essence, my 'Doctor Who' day. I met Colin Baker, who I have in the past been very rude about. I will remain being very rude about his Doctor, but the man was charming and polite, and the only person in the history of conventions to spell my name right without being prompted. "Double L, double E?" he queried. I jumped up and down in joy. "Well, a Colin knows a Colleen!" he said with a smile. In the future I may be less rude. Maybe.
However, I also got my shotoshoot with Alex Kingston! I was ticket numer 10 so I was in nice and early, and people-watched in quiet fascination while I waited. She is unbelieveably beautiful and totally validates my hairstyle choices. All I managed to say was "hi!" and "thank you!" but SHE TOUCHED ME AND TALKED TO ME AND EVERYTHING. Gosh.
We also all got her autograph later. She is SO PRETTY. I talked to her about curly hair, and she informed me we should be proud of curly hair. YAAAAAY.
I'm really aware I'm missing lots out here, um. After a few perambulations around the dealers room (I bought ice cube trays in the shape of robots. ROBOTS), Katie kissed a scarecrow, and we again elected to head back to the hotel, where we were all going to be squished into one room. Pizza was consumed in epic proportions, all with a student discount. Yay for Tali!
This day didn't start brilliantly, for reasons that aren't my story to tell so I won't go too far into it. However, let's just say that Lucy has a twat-faced bastard for a now ex-boyfriend, who decided Monday morning was totally the day to end a relationship.
Fear not, the USS Tyreiron swung into action. Maybe the USS Vengeance, I'm unsure, but tyreiron is comforting to write. Tali and I went and shouted at him (and whilst me shouting at people isn't unusual, remind me never to make Tali angry), and Katie took a swing at him. I am not normally in favour of random violence, but on this occasion it was the least he deserved; Katie did tell us later that "it looks easier on Eastenders."
We tried to be as cheerful as possible for the rest of the day. We bought pastasauri (pasta serving spoons in the shape of dinosaurs, obviously) en masse and headed to the convention. We met Gates McFadden, who was just so lovely, very poised and gracious. She asked why we were all wandering around with plastic dinosaur pasta serving spoons, and wrote 'Peace and Love and Good Pasta' on my autograph. I officially heart her. Anthony Stewart Head was even more puzzled by the pastasauri, but also gave Lucy the biggest bear hug I have ever seen and if I didn't already really like the guy I think I might be a bit in love with him by now.
However, the rain was falling down and I was in a white t-shirt, so by about 2pm we made the decision to head off through the drizzle and back to Oop North.
In conclusion, once again, Milton Keynes is cold but meeting skiffy people is AWESOME. There's loads I've missed out, like all the Tribbles we carried around; the awesome cosplayers (Idris! A Dalek! Girl!Sixth Doctor! the lady who basically leapt on me with a phaser rifle shouting 'thank god a female captain!'); the friendliness of the event as a whole, including the stewards willingness to go after the twatface ex-boyfriend; Taylor and Ann's love for David Blue and also Twizzlers; unexpected Peter Shilton; Tali eating Hawaii ice and turning her tongue green; more general awesomeness. This is why I should type things up earlier, as I always remember to put in pictures that way and get it all in order.
Still, I will remember that I had a good time. And that is what counts.
Pictures are here, for anyone who would like to see my badly taken pictures of shenanigans!
Katie (
stupidore) came down on the Thursday night, and we ate copious amounts of Chinese food and then I spent all day on Friday abandoning her to the mercies of my house while I went to work. Work let me go an hour and a half early, time I wisely used to sleep and pack in a panicked manner. Good-o.As such, we were ready and raring to go and headed to Wigan to pick up Ann (
ann_pan) and her niece Taylor who was an absolutely lovely human being to meet, although I am slightly scared that anyone I know could have a niece old enough to have conversation with, let alone be a fully rounded human being!The journey down was mostly uneventful. We ate meerkat sweets and shouted at my SatNav and her bizarre beliefs re: speed limits and why I should stick to them. We arrived in Milton Keynes fairly late and nearly ran over Tali
tau_sigma, who was just trying to get her car parking validated. Oops.The evening passed by saying hello to all the people who were already there, Fiona, Lucy
moralrelativist, Dee and Robin. We wrote soothingly offensive post-it notes and passed the evening mostly in giggles and in flinging Tribbles around that Katie had made, before heading to bed. Tali, Katie and I made up the old people room. I have no issue with this - I like sleep!The next day was a fairly early start, as we were all cosplaying in varying forms of Star Trek TOS dresses. I was Captain Colleen on the basis that essentially graduate management scheme/driving is all I know how to do; Katie was in red (like Uhura, she works in communications!) and Ann was also in red (she is technical, like Scotty!) and Fiona was pretty much left to bear the burden of being the expendable redshirt. SORRY FIONA WE LOVE YOU REALLY. Tali was in a very Nurse Chapel-esque dress (handy, as she works for the NHS), Lucy was a blue psychologist and Taylor was also in blue as she borrowed Ann's spare dress.
It was quite nice being dressed up for the day, actually; freezing bloody cold, but great fun, particularly when the bus driver gave us a Vulcan salute! Plus we looked fabulous, which was even picked up on by strangers from the internet which is strange but sort of complimentary! (That random Kirk girl was not with us, I hasten to point out. I AM KIRK GIRL DAMMIT.)
Anyway, we turned up and ran around and got virtual queueing tickets and lots of Pick 'n'Mix. I realise at this juncture I should have taken more notes, because I'll be damned if I can remember the weekend in whole. Also we split into various groups and factions throughout the weekend for reasons of sensibleness, so let's see how good my memory is. (HINT: it's not.)
We met some Nigel Planer and Christopher Ryan off The Young Ones for Dee and Ann, before making sure we consumed lunch and lots of sweets. The Travelodge is not a kind venue for concepts like 'sleep' and 'getting lots of it' so many e-numbers were consumed in order to keep us sane.
We also met John de Lancie on Saturday! He was very nice, although Q with a beard was a little bit strange. He thought our costumes were great, and seemed very much on board with us going to see his son. We did not. We are awful people, but awful people on a budget.
Looking at mostly
stupidore's photos to remind me of what we did on Saturday, apparently we mostly posed. A lot. There's a photo of us all with me sat on the Captain's chair from TNG (MY RIGHTFUL POSITION GOD DAMMIT) and lots of passing strangers took photos of us. We also got photos of us all doing silly things with a blank wall as a background, where lots of strangers also attacked us. Very odd.Not long after this, I went to see Levar Burtons autograph. He seemed delighted with us, although that may have been because he was cheerfully consuming a pint of lager. (An idea I thoroughly recommend if in Milton Keynes; the convention is in a football stadium that acts as a wind tunnel. It was beautifully warm outside.) "You have a posse! he exclaimed. I did indeed have a posse. I rule.
I met Nicole de Boer! She was very sweet and very shy.
I also tailed along with other people going to get autographs, and watched other people meet Jason Watkins (Herrick from Being Human) and Robert Patrick. He terminated no one. I was vaguely upset by this. Ann was also indulging her new found love for David Blue (who has... been in... stuff? er?) and he promised to put a picture of us in our Star Trek gear in Twitter. It has yet to happen.
General exhaustion struck early in the day, so we wearily trooped back to the hotel in order to get some food. We went to Wetherspoons in full Star Trek gear, which was either awesome or terrifying. I am unsure which.
We watched Doctor Who in pajamas and confusion. I remain confused over a week later. Jimmy turned up in the evening, and we all drank wine and ate crisps and chillaxed, waiting for the next day.
Sunday morning started with a minor disaster. I had been blocked in the car park. This is bad, as I only have one door that opens from the outside. I looked at the situation. I looked at Jimmy. I looked at my boot.
Jimmy commando-rolled into the car approximately two minutes later. Good times.
There was a very long queue for Alex Kingston, although I think we were there within a relatively sensible time. We prepared to run like madwomen (and men) to her stall, agreeing beforehand that whoever got left behind stayed behind. In the end, the queue was very peaceful and well-organised.
Sunday was, in essence, my 'Doctor Who' day. I met Colin Baker, who I have in the past been very rude about. I will remain being very rude about his Doctor, but the man was charming and polite, and the only person in the history of conventions to spell my name right without being prompted. "Double L, double E?" he queried. I jumped up and down in joy. "Well, a Colin knows a Colleen!" he said with a smile. In the future I may be less rude. Maybe.
However, I also got my shotoshoot with Alex Kingston! I was ticket numer 10 so I was in nice and early, and people-watched in quiet fascination while I waited. She is unbelieveably beautiful and totally validates my hairstyle choices. All I managed to say was "hi!" and "thank you!" but SHE TOUCHED ME AND TALKED TO ME AND EVERYTHING. Gosh.
We also all got her autograph later. She is SO PRETTY. I talked to her about curly hair, and she informed me we should be proud of curly hair. YAAAAAY.
I'm really aware I'm missing lots out here, um. After a few perambulations around the dealers room (I bought ice cube trays in the shape of robots. ROBOTS), Katie kissed a scarecrow, and we again elected to head back to the hotel, where we were all going to be squished into one room. Pizza was consumed in epic proportions, all with a student discount. Yay for Tali!
This day didn't start brilliantly, for reasons that aren't my story to tell so I won't go too far into it. However, let's just say that Lucy has a twat-faced bastard for a now ex-boyfriend, who decided Monday morning was totally the day to end a relationship.
Fear not, the USS Tyreiron swung into action. Maybe the USS Vengeance, I'm unsure, but tyreiron is comforting to write. Tali and I went and shouted at him (and whilst me shouting at people isn't unusual, remind me never to make Tali angry), and Katie took a swing at him. I am not normally in favour of random violence, but on this occasion it was the least he deserved; Katie did tell us later that "it looks easier on Eastenders."
We tried to be as cheerful as possible for the rest of the day. We bought pastasauri (pasta serving spoons in the shape of dinosaurs, obviously) en masse and headed to the convention. We met Gates McFadden, who was just so lovely, very poised and gracious. She asked why we were all wandering around with plastic dinosaur pasta serving spoons, and wrote 'Peace and Love and Good Pasta' on my autograph. I officially heart her. Anthony Stewart Head was even more puzzled by the pastasauri, but also gave Lucy the biggest bear hug I have ever seen and if I didn't already really like the guy I think I might be a bit in love with him by now.
However, the rain was falling down and I was in a white t-shirt, so by about 2pm we made the decision to head off through the drizzle and back to Oop North.
In conclusion, once again, Milton Keynes is cold but meeting skiffy people is AWESOME. There's loads I've missed out, like all the Tribbles we carried around; the awesome cosplayers (Idris! A Dalek! Girl!Sixth Doctor! the lady who basically leapt on me with a phaser rifle shouting 'thank god a female captain!'); the friendliness of the event as a whole, including the stewards willingness to go after the twatface ex-boyfriend; Taylor and Ann's love for David Blue and also Twizzlers; unexpected Peter Shilton; Tali eating Hawaii ice and turning her tongue green; more general awesomeness. This is why I should type things up earlier, as I always remember to put in pictures that way and get it all in order.
Still, I will remember that I had a good time. And that is what counts.
Pictures are here, for anyone who would like to see my badly taken pictures of shenanigans!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-07 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-07 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-07 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-07 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-07 07:34 pm (UTC)Yay for Alex Kingston! I must get off my arse and find out when she's going to be at an event that I will be able to attend...
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 04:48 pm (UTC)I didn't get to ask Alex Kingston your question; I'm sorry! You should meant her though, she was fab.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 05:22 pm (UTC)(And yes, I really want to meet her!)
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Date: 2011-06-07 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 12:02 pm (UTC)Also, the discussion on that website about how goodlooking you all are in your outfits starts quite sweet then gets a little creepy. And I noticed a guy on facebook commenting on how pretty one of the girls is too. (To be fair, I thought she was cute too. But I wouldn't write it where she could see it!)
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Date: 2011-06-08 06:00 pm (UTC)But sounds fun, although Facebook won't show me your photos though I suspect this is just because it's getting back at me for deleting my profile!
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Date: 2011-06-10 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 04:50 pm (UTC)