ChicagoTARDIS

Before I go into the con, Cara McGee, a prolific tea blender for Adagio Teas has horrible medical bills to pay. And Adagio is having free shipping all weekend. She gets a kickback for every one of her teas sold.

Okay, ChicagoTARDIS. There are some expansion pains; the parade of guest stars for opening ceremonies was cancelled to let the guests get dinner after a massive round of personal photographs, for example. And it's been so long since I've been at the higher level that I wasn't expecting the tables at the Friday 8:00 reception instead of the cocktail party format. I was still able to get up and move around, so I could talk to the Big Finish guys (a goal of mine), but that meant I missed it when Dan Starkey (Strax) sat at my original table. On the other hand, I ended up the night sitting between Tony Lee, Frasier Hines, and Terry Molloy, so thare's no bad there!

Tony has announced this is basically his last American con, Gally excepted, because he loses too much work time coming over and going back and adjusting to the time change. Gally is the exception. It because of a moral judgement between this con and that one, but because LA is a working trip, meeting people he works with. I'm going to miss him, so I'm trying to talk to him whenever I can here... I'm most likely not doing Gally again for a while. It's too crowded... and the chances of my being on furlough again just as a highly expensive cross-country con happens are too high to risk.

The Sherlock Homes panel was crazy and crazy fun, although I was startled when Johnlockers (Sherlock/John) lived down to their rep by two different people trying to get panelists to talk about/admit their preference. Dudes, I do like BBC Johnlockers, but he'll of I'm going to preach it at a panel, and the person next to me had said she runs Sherlolly (Sherlock/Molly) so theres your answer!

Dan Starkey remains a superb guest, Paul McGann was so jet lagged still that he was genial but almost incoherent*, and Colin Baker and Louise Jameson did an excellent reading of Love Letters.


*at one point he asked, reasonably I think, was he supposed to remember all the details of the Who movie, a project he'd done 17 years ago.

Freema

From the Freema panel, before I forget:

She hasn't had time to watch anything after Catherine Tate, but her brother is hot for Clara

There's a universality to filming - grips all look like grips, etc - but American days are much longer and American craft services much better. "You can ask for, I dunno, an egg white omelette with the tears of a clown."

She wants to play an X-man who can fly.

She's still talking about David farting.

She and Catherine Tate bonded over a mutual love of cereal. Billie Piper was handing out chocolate on the TARDIS set to everyone.

She took an online Which Companion Are You quiz and got Rose Tyler.

She wasn't thrilled with the unrequited love idea and was confused by the marriage to Mickey, but loved the idea of Martha hunting aliens.

She was sorry to not be on the Sarah Jane Adventures, but acting involves a lot of being at a crossroads and realizing that if you take one option, you shut out alternatives (I.e., she took a different job before SJA was mentioned as a possibility and couldn't fit it in.)

A woman told her through floods of tears how much it meant to see a companion of color on Who providing inspiration to women like herself.


ETA to fix autocorrect. In what universe does realizing become realism zing?