momebie | Dragon*Con Day 1: Lost more than my heart.

I've decided to do these in a weekend review type of way, so I'm going to be breaking them up into bite size chunks. The first day was relatively uneventful. After what I think is an ungodly early start (I got up 6, was at

barbed_whispers place by 6:45) we got to

honkie_mcgee's, got some breakfast, and got on the road. I pretty much sucked it up at the game of Cows! for the entire trip up. Ah well.

We got to the hotel about three in the afternoon, and within fifteen minutes of checking in I'd seen eight people I know. The odds on that are not supposed to work out in my favor, but it was setting precedent, so I was happy. Then it was off to wait in line for badges (an hour forty-five if you were pre-reg, three hours if you were picking them up from ticket master, and about forty-five seconds if you were buying it at the door). There's something to be said about long lines of nerds, you hardly ever see them agitated. Maybe because they know that good things are coming to those who wait.

I managed to make it out of the badge line in time to herd about 10 people over to the restaurant where we were having dinner. Now,

theemdash had left dinner in my hands, so I'd called Wednesday afternoon and made a reservation for twenty. When we got there, they couldn't find the reservation. They were very accommodating, however, and in the end sat about 22 people with our group. I was floored that so many people showed up, especially since I had taken the tack that I wasn't going to mother hen anyone, and just let them show if they showed.

From L to R clockwise:

mckays_lab,

theemdash,

myras_girls, her husband Corey,

skroberts,

barbed_whispers,

scifigirl, and

melayneseahawk.

From L to R clockwise:

honkie_mcgee's girl Deb and honkie himself, four people whose names I don't know because I fail at remembering things, and Joe.

L to R:

stoopbeck and her friends H and

browncoat_gator.

After dinner we all disbanded and

barbed_whispers and I wandered over to take pictures of this statue at the Suntrust Building and then promptly got turned around and couldn't get out of the courtyard. (We really thought there would be stairs or something to the street below.)

After we escaped the time and space vortex that is the Suntrust Building, we headed back to the hotel to meet up briefly with

pinkfinity and see some of the first costumes of the con. We also saw an unlikely friendship strike up!

And

barbed_whispers says: That effing roomba just whistled at me!

After this we skipped over to the Hyatt to catch Voltaire's show with

sweetnovicane. And when I say skipped I mean I probably did. It was at this point where I started to just feel effing giddy about being there.

But first, Spider Lilies had to finish their set.

We actually saw this kid as we were checking in to the hotel. I had decided kind of early on that I was just going to spend the weekend LARPing as a douche (since I don't really do costumes) and upon noticing his hair I came to the conclusion that I was not the only one with that idea! :p (No offense to him, of course, I'm sure he's a very lovely person who jut happens to have subversive hair.)

This kid really reminded me of my brothers.

And then it was Voltaire! He came onto stage to the strains of Thriller and did a small bit of shenanigating before dropping his guitar off and heading back off stage.

All I knew about Voltaire previous to Dragon*Con could be summed up in two songs and a handful of facts Boy looked up on Wikipedia. I can quite happily tell you now though, that I have drunk of the kool-aid of Voltaire and find myself deeply satisfied. The man's hilarious.

"I have been called a flaming homosexual many times in my life, but a fire hazard only once!" --Voltaire, on how he's been banned from playing the Concourse at the Hyatt.

I really like how this picture came out, but Voltaire gets some of the credit because I'm pretty sure he saw that I was filming and decided to come and make it easier for a short while. You can see it on one of the videos as well.

The following videos were all taken by me. The person you can hear singing most clearly who is not Voltaire, is

sweetnovicane. ♥

Voltaire performing 'Brains'. I managed to do something I've never done before and will never do again, and record the best song of the set. At the beginning Voltaire tells us to say 'brains' after he says it, but it doesn't go as well for him as he had planned. He later lamented that this is what happens when we don't show up to rehearsal.

Voltaire performing 'Goodnight Demon Slayer'. As I mentioned before, I'm new to Voltaire's music. This song, however, is one of the ones that really won my heart.

Voltaire performing what I believe is called 'Cantina'. It's a song about Star Wars and losing your anal virginity to um...everyone. What's not to like!? Also, if you sneak up behind

barbed_whispers and go 'I LOST MORE THAN MY HEEEEART IN THAT CANTINAAAA', she'll want to hit you. ♥

And that's it for day one. It felt long by the time I dropped into bed, but the weekend was just getting started. I think that evening I got about thirty minutes of sleep collectively. It's always good to start a trip in a deficit, yes? More exciting.

And now on to day two! Including the likes of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Gareth David-Lloyd, James Marsters, Tom Felton, and Abney Park.