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FAN EXPO Portland was February 17-19. It was forming called Wizard World Comic Con, but they renamed it. The last con I went to before the pandemic was Wizard World Portland 2020, where I got to meet many Smallville cast members. I think this event was supposed to take place under its new name in 2022, but was canceled or delayed.

My attitude about cons has changed. I don’t have to go every day and I don’t have to remain at the con all day. This con I only attended the 1st 2 days. I did what I intended to do and left. I didn’t attempt to take many pics of cosplayers. I didn’t go to all the panels I considered. Most of this was because I was just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.

The con was fun overall. There were a lot of little things that I think could be improved. I noted them all in the survey they sent out after the event ended. One thing was scheduling a lot of the better guests (either for panels, photo ops, or autograph sessions) at the same time on Saturday. It made for some hard decisions. There was a lot of Star Trek representation, which I liked. William Shatner, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Anson Mount, and Ethan Peck. I saw them all except Shatner. Nothing against Shatner, but maybe I’ve had my fill of him for now. And he comes to Portland often.

On Friday the only thing I really did was get my picture taken with Ethan Peck and Anson Mount.

On Saturday I went to the TNG/Picard panel with Frakes, McFadden, and Spiner. Because of the weird location of the main stage, they entered through the audience. Frakes and McFadden walked right past me. I saw a panel with Katee Sackhoff, before getting my photo taken with Jonathan Frakes, seeing a Leah Thompson panel, and ending the day with a Strange New Worlds panel featuring Anson Mount and Ethan Peck.

Overall, a very chill but fun con experience. Looking forward to next year.

Three weekends ago (the weekend after PAX). I went to Rose City Comic Con. I went back to work after a week long vacation after then and was swamped, so I didn’t have time to write about it.

I won’t do a blow-by-blow as usual, but I will say that this convention, unlike PAX, was more about panels.  There was some cool stuff on the exhibit floor (such as a Dragonball Z exhibit), but I spent most of my time there taking pictures of cosplayers.  I did some artwork from local artists like I normally do.

I went to panels featuring Kristen Bauer, Michael Biehn and Jennifer Blanc-Biehn, Star Trek: The Next Generation cast members (Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, and Michael Dorn), David Tennant, Felicia Day, Overwatch voice actresses Lucy Pohl and Charlet Chung, John Barrowman, Catherine Tate, Karl Urban, Smallville stars Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, Michael Rooker,  and Evangeline Lilly.

I didn’t get any autographs this year, but I did get photo ops with Tenant and the TNG cast members.

They had a board game section which I didn’t check out because I didn’t see anything being played that I was interested in.  Maybe next year.

I ran into my friend Daniel on the second day, but we didn’t hang out long before we got separated.  Again, I kinda like doing my own thing at cons.

I really enjoyed being at RCCC again this year.  It was a exhausting having cons 2 weekends in a row, but I don’t regret it.  I think RCCC is later in the month next year, so that won’t be a problem. I’m so glad to have an event like this right in my back yard.

The second part of my vacation was Rose City Comic Con.  I think it had been a couple of years since my last RCCC. I’ve been a little burnt out on conventions lately.  They’re fun, but exhausting.  They can also be expensive. In spite of that I decided to make my return this year.

This year the con expanded to 3 days.  On the first day, Friday, I got there a little after noon. The con didn’t start until 1:00.  As soon as I walked into the building, I saw a my friend Joshua, so we hung out that day. I wasn’t expecting to hang out with anyone that day. I kinda like having the freedom to do my own thing at cons.  Josh was cool though, so not much was different than if I had been there alone. After I got my badge, we went to Brent Spiner’s panel. Afterwards, we walked around the exhibit floor  and I got to do one of my favorite con activities – taking pictures of cosplayers. After this we saw a panel on writing LGBT characters. I don’t think either of us found it too interesting, so we left early. We caught the end of a panel featuring 2 cast members from The Munsters and then we saw Kate Sackhoff’s panel.  I left after this because I was tired. I missed the Weird Al panel that was coming up next.

The next day traffic near the convention center was a mess. I didn’t leave as early as I should have and ended up spending an hour inching traffic before I eventually made it to a place I could park.  I got some more pictures of cosplayers.  I got all of my autograph and photo ops taken care of back to back to back.  First was a picture with Rose McIver, then Rose’s autograph, then a picture with Brent Spiner and John de Lancie together.  Originally I had planned on doing them over 2 days, but that changed when I found out Brent Spiner and John de Lancie were doing a photo together.  Rose McIver was so adorable.  I had no idea she was from New Zealand, so I was shocked when she asked me how I was doing with an accent. When I walked up to Spiner and de Lancie, they joked about my RCCC shirt asking what it was and were it is.  After the photo ops, I could just chill the rest of the day and the next day. No more lines.  I saw John de Lancie’s panel and Rose McIver’s panel before going home.

On the last day, traffic was much better. After roaming the floor for a little while, I think I spent the rest of the day in the main panel room. First was Ming Chen. Then Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie. After that was some stars and a producer from Z Nation. And finally William Shatner.  I got a bite to eat after that and went home.

I’m glad that I went back to RCCC this year.  It was a blast. This con has come a long way since first year when it was in that hotel and there wasn’t any air conditioning in the exhibit area.  Right now I have a desire to start going to cons again. We’ll see how long that lasts.

I had a great vacation and it was hard to go back to work Monday.

Lastly, I’m too tired to go through the trouble of posting pics from the con. You can find them on Facebook.

While I was at LeakyCon, I spent a lot of time thinking about fandoms. I’m a major Star Trek fan. More specifically, I a major Star Trek: The Next Generation fan. I’ve seen every episode and movie many times. If I came across a rerun, I used to be able to recognize an episode and tell you the title and season within seconds. I haven’t put that to the test in a while since you don’t see reruns on TV anymore. I know there are people who are more obsessed with it than me, but I’m pretty obsessed. Star Trek: TNG is definitely the series I’m the most obsessed with, even more than LOST.

I thought that I was fairly knowledgeable about Doctor Who. I’ve seen every episode since the relaunch at least once. I spend a decent amount of time chatting with people about it. At the Doctor Who meetup at LeakyCon, we sat around in the circle and discussed the show. I knew there would be people who knew a lot more than me. I was just hoping to be able to contribute to the conversation. As the discussion went around the circle on different topics, I was just happy that I knew what people were talking about. At one point, I was having trouble hearing what was going on when all of a sudden pretty much the entire circle of 50 or so people burst into some Doctor Who-related song. Later, I remembered hearing “Pandorica” and “Amy” and “River”. When they finished, I had no idea what had just happened. It blew my mind. They all knew the song word for word, but I had never heard of it before. Earlier they had all sung a Harry Potter song, but I figured that was from the Harry Potter musical that I have refused to watch.

Later on, with the help of Google, I discovered that the Doctor Who song is by a UK band that writes songs inspired by Doctor Who. They write songs INSPIRED BY DOCTOR WHO. I had no idea this kind of thing existed, but I shouldn’t be surprised. These guys are big on YouTube apparently. The Internet wasn’t around when Star Trek: TNG was on, much less YouTube. I wonder how it would have been different for me if I had the Internet when that show was on. I don’t do a lot of general web surfing these days, but I did when I was in college and had more free time (I didn’t get Internet access until my freshman year of college in 1997). I’m hardly ever on YouTube, but if I had it in 1990, I probably would have spent hours watching Star Trek videos. Most of the people in the Doctor Who discussion were at least 10 years younger than me.

I already knew that the Internet has changed fandoms. I’m already a part of several online communities. This Doctor Who discussion made me realize that I’m not utilizing everything that I could. I have to step up my geek game if I want to keep up with these young people. Or maybe I don’t need to. I’m doing fine the way I am now.