WONDERCON 2006: FRI, FEB 10 - SUN, FEB 12.

to all my brothers and sisters in SF. Thank you for a wonderful weekend away from it all.
Thanks for letting me hang out with you guys, as always. You make me feel like family.

to Bob Lai for the picture. You so totally rock!

Wow, it's a good thing we had Yoda manning the table!

At least one of the writers seemed to get what the costumes are really all about. It's too easy to point and laugh at the minority and assume we are 'dorks' rather than admit that the people in costume add color and fun to the event!

The "Stormtroopers" "Grievous" and "Nightcrawler" were mentioned on Live 105 this morning. I believe one of the jack-ass DJ's who always puts his foot in his mouth made a comment about 'the dorks in costume walking down Howard Street.' Some people were nice enough to call in and say that there were actually some cool costumes and it was fun to see people dressed up.

- Kay Dee

Well, it's over.


First I'd like to thank everyone who helped out! Here are my personal observations:

PROS:

* Better manning of the tables
* Easier loading and unloading than previous years
* The t-shirts DID get some conversations going, and caught the attention of people
* Seeing more friends from SVRF come down and spend some time with them
* Getting to party on Thursday night
* Being able to go to some panels that I wanted to go to
* Seeing more 501st members from outside California pay a visit
* Talking to and getting an autograph from Sarah Douglas, Ursa from "Superman" I & II
* Seeing and chatting with Peter and Angie Mayhew again
* A better turnout for the Rebel Legion photo shoot
* A good turnout of people signing up for the club
* Seeing an old friend interviewing for his new job at the SW Insider
* Having Mark make it up to SF!
* Watching "V For Vendetta" a month early
* The "Superman Returns" panel and catching Mirtha as she almost fainted
* Getting lucky with parking
* Free stuff!

CONS:

* The crowds on Saturday, and the lack of space for them
* Forgetting my camera's memory card on Sunday
* Getting to the con, and going back hom eon Friday, because I forgot my costume
* Not taking more pictures of people in costume
* Not buying anything
* No "X3" news
* Forgetting the protest signs for the RL photo shoot
* Not spending enough time with Mark
* "Lightsaber guy" and the photo
* No place to change in and out of costume
* The fire hazard we had behind the table with all the personal belongings, and
feeling sorry for our neighboring table to walk through it to get to their table
* The 4 - 6 pm table shift on Saturday (I'm still upset about that).


It looks like it's getting better every year for us, and I hope each year is a lesson to make
next year even better. Hopefully, I'll have a new costume to debut. Again, thanks to everyone, and here's to next year!

Oh I dunno Matt, I think the "Jedi Phonebooth" was a pretty good way to make a bad situation a little more bearable.

I actually think the photos are better without the protest signs I just figured it was so crowded at the fan table area in general, that was the reason we didn't have anyone holding the signs there. It wasn't like we had an entire Star Wars Pavillion a la Comic-Con.

The entire Convention was great! I do wish that Moscone had lockers like they did at CIII.

The T-shirts did start up a lot of conversations! In hind sight I think we should have had busniess cards to go with them. There were many times when it would have been great to follow up those questions with 'Check out our web site...' and hand them a card with a URL to SFFanForce.com and TFN.

The only other "Con" of the Con for me was getting dehydrated on Saturday and having a massive headache. It zapped all my energy for Sunday, so I didn't make it out to San Francisco that day to get autographs like I had planned.

Thanks again to Matt and Dale for letting me know about the "V" screening!

- Kay Dee

Sounds like all in all you guys had a great time.. Ok.. NEXT year!

I was actually going to get some business cards made, but just didn't have time. Now, we can take care of it and not be rushed. I forgot to mention that I did get to talk to author Timothy Zahn at the table and he signed some books for me, as well as take a picture. Also, Don Bies, builder of R2-D2 and droid wrangler for Lucasfilm came by to talk about his 'mockumentary', "R2-D2: Beneath The Dome", as well as the films. It was cool having him see Alison's interactive R2 on the table, and him signing my Star Wars issue of Vanity Fair.

Kathy, I'm sorry you missed out Sunday, but you did look tired Saturday.

Now I'm thinking of having a quick meeting this Saturday to talk about WonderCon, exchange pictures, and hand out extra "V For Vendetta" masks to those who came this weekend who helped man the table!

Just a quick note regarding the possiblity of C4. Mary Franklin was one of the judges at the Masquarade Sat night and she made an allusion to C4 as well. So I think they are just waiting to finalize some details before any announcement.
I had a great time this weekend. As always it was a blast getting to hang out with everyone. Although I was so tired by Sunday evening that I came home and slept for about 13 hours. Thanks for including us in the 501st dinner, even if we did crash it carrying 4 lightsabers. Nothing like walking through the streets of SF carrying a lightsaber. It's too bad the ones from MR didn't come in time. But I do agree that we get better at this ever year. It will be interesting to see how many new members come out of it. I guess I will have to officially join Rebel Legion now that I am in the photos. LOL

Few more pics. From Sunday, David Chin's (TK-3559) camera. Some pics of Flo Jalin in there for the fellas


http://www.goldengategarrison.com/gallery-members/Wondercon-2006-Day-1?page=9

More pics posted. Dinner is in the Day 3 album, last few pages

http://www.goldengategarrison.com/gallery/wondercon2006

I have a couple pics from the weekend...should I post links here?

- Kai

It was nice finally getting to meet you Kai

Pros
Brandon Routh!!
V for Vendetta (so awesome, even though NP was in it...I try to like her but I can't)
my camera finally worked
seeing you guys...I guess

Cons
TRON "panel"
being an idiot and forgetting my pass on Saturday, which made me late
not wearing my costume (too lazy)
not having enough money for the 501st dinner

Just her costumes, right?

I miss all of you guys already. I had such a great time hangin up there, only wish I could've of cloned myself so that I could be in more places all at once.

Matt great job with the shirts, I was wearing mine yesterday and had two people come up and ask me about it. Oh and by the way, you've got my vote for president of the fan club...i'm sure your already working on ways to get people signed up to hyperspace.

I can't wait to come back up and see everyone again........you guys are still what I call home

until next time...may the force be with all y'all!!!

Yes, that was great!

- Kai

I would have totally spotted you Brit! lol Next time don't even hesitate and just bring it!

Now that I have an acutual day off in about 2 weeks, due to my new job and WonderCon, here is my own list of Pros and Cons:

PROS:
- Seeing all the Sac. Rogues after such a long time.
- The Cat Club (better than New Year's Eve)
- Buying and wearing my Jayne Cobb Beanie from Arielle of the SF Browncoats.
- Having the $ to purchase my shiny personalized Serenity cast print by Jason Palmer, fully framed, and matted - with a bonus Kaylee sketch included.
- My new boss allowing me to go to WonderCon, inspite of me just starting on the job.
- The Superman Returns Panel
- The Frank Miller Panel and his explaination why Batman is such a d--k.
( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/15/DDGPMH7Q161.DTL&hw=frank+miller&sn=001&sc=1000)
- V for Vendetta ( the best dramatic work of Ms. Portman since debuting in "Leon - The Professional")
- Seeing Christy, and everyone else from So Cal and/or Vegas to fly up to SF, since many of us go down there for Comic-Con. Just seeing old friends in general.
- The new SFFF T-Shirts
CONS:
- The "Lemonade Stand" style of manning our table between 5pm and 6:30pm on Sat, the 11th. Something that will never happen again.
- The Chaos of all the bags left at the table- (we do need shelves like the Browncoats did.)
- the non-notification of "certain people" not showing up at all.
- Missing old members who actually could not attend.
- Getting sick and exhausted by the end of Saturday Night.

**Overall, I had a fantastic time. I just wish they had it in the more Spacious Moscone North. Who knows? We may even get a bigger wish by having C-4 up here as well.

I'd add Bizarre questions for the Speakers to a Wondercon Con list...

Especially in the Star Wars presentation where the first guy seemed a little too upset that George wasn't doing anything to stimulate ticket purchases followed by the lady who wanted to baby sit the Lucas kids....errrrr.....

-The lady who told Kevin Smith she didnt know anything about him but wanted him to look at her daughter's headshot which she failed to bring

-Again with Kevin Smith, the "Read my script" guy

FYI - here is a link to Albert's Pics: EuroBeatKing

Does anyone know what happened to the posters we were to give away as prizes? They were all in a big plastic bag, as I remember. Also, did anyone see an extra Medium baby doll SFFF shirt? It's for someone at the last meeting who didn't attend WonderCon. I'm not sure if anyone wanted extra V For Vendetta posters. I have some of those, plus masks for those who didn't get one.

I would like a V for Vendetta poster, I didn't get one...I got sick too, I've had a really bad sore throat this week...

Wow, we must have all really run into something then. That's at least 3 people who are sick. Hope you feel better Brittany and Rachel.

we all really need to stop making out with each other.

LOL! Yeah, I must have blocked that out of my memory!