This report started out as a sort of diary thing, but since I had very little time to write it and I'm too lazy to edit it, it tapered off pretty soon. It's a few days after the con while I write most of it. Sorry! But, hey. Beggars can't be choosers. J/k!!

Saturday- 12 midnight.

OK, it's midnight on June 30th, the day of the con. And I can't sleep. 'Cause I'm so excited!!

Anyway, we're (my mum and I) getting up at 6.15am to leave at 7am for the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, right by Heathrow Airport, which is about an hour and a half away from my house. We're staying at the hotel tomorrow night (which took some fast talking from me, since it's muy expensive. Mum wanted to drive there and back both days, but I told her how bad it would be for the o-zone. Several times. Commonly known as whining. But whatever.) and driving back after the con finishes.

The guests will be Hudson Leick (Callisto), Adrienne Wilkinson (Livia/Eve), Ted Raimi (Joxer), Greg Lee (Virgil/Zack on Dark Angel), Karl Urban (Caesar/Cupid) -originally Jennifer Sky, but she couldn't come- and Jennifer Blanc (Kendra from Dark Angel). I've met Hudson, Adrienne and Ted before. Hudson is... well, multiply anything you ever read about her by 1,000, add a little bit and you'll still be pretty far away. ;-) Adrienne is one of the sweetest people I've ever met- she truly does care about her fans. I've traded email with her a few times and not only did she answer, she did so very quickly. Like, same day kind of quickly. Ted is just one of the funniest people in the world!! He is also really sweet- last year, I met him, but didn't have a photo taken with him (The con offers a service- I had ones with Hudson and Adrienne done- and they are developed in time to be signed.) and he said to find him the following day and he'd pose for one on my camera, which he did. *big grin* He's so tall!!!

OK, it's now 12.20 and there's six hours until I have to be up again. I better get some sleep. Good night!!!

Saturday, 5.25pm.

OMG, Hudson Leick is SO funny!!! She made Ted... but, no. I'm getting ahead of myself. *grin* Keep reading.

So, this morning, we get up, leave and make it there in plenty of time. I got my steward duties (door guarding inside the main hall for 1.5 hours each day, in return for reserved seats in the front two rows when I'm not working), then I did Helen, the head steward a favour by guarding (they like that word here) some "official (signed by Adrienne and Hudson- I almost stole one) convention prints" for an hour. I missed CH, which was showing in the main hall at the time. *pout* But since Season 6 starts showing here TOMORROW, I'm not too mad.

I also got my card for the photo session (a pic of Adrienne, Hudson and I together) and three pictures for signing- one each of Livia (from Path of Vengeance), Eve (in her new green outfit- not sure what ep) and Callisto (from Return of Callisto).

After that, I went and got in line for the pictures, which took, like, 45 minutes. I eventually got there though. Hudson said hi and that she liked my shirt (reading: Don't judge a girl by her T-shirt) and Adrienne said she REMEMBERED me from last year (cue BIG SMILE from Amber) and she was really pleased when I told her I like her fan club.

After lunch, chez McDonalds's (which I barely ate - I was jumpy all weekend), it was time for the talks. I'd missed Ted, since the photos had run overtime, so Jennifer Blanc was up. Since this is a Xena report, I'll skip her, but she was very sweet and very cool though. I felt kind of sorry for her though, since very few people there knew her- they were mostly Xena fans, and the Xena actors had mostly met before too. They overscheduled her too, IMHO- an hour of talking each day, for her first con, while some of the others were sharing spots on both days (Adrienne and Greg on Saturday, Ted and Karl Sunday).

After Jennifer left, it was time for Adrienne and Greg. I was sitting in the middle of the hall at the time, since it was one of my guarding sessions, so my pictures might not be too clear. Adrienne gave me a subtle little wave when I asked her to sing and she said she would at the end. She admitted that she thought Eve was "whiny" (her words, not mine) and that her IQ had gone down a lot as the season progressed. She'd become, basically, a plot device: "Mommy, I did something really dumb- come rescue me!" was the plot of several eps. She mentioned something to look out for in The God You Know- when Gabrielle comes running in to fetch Eve (I haven't seen the ep, so I hope you guys know the scene I mean), wearing the hat, her actual line is "It's me, Gabrielle!" Just in case Eve forgot. *grin* They dubbed over it though, but her mouth is not in sync with the line. She told us all to watch You Are There if we could, since she loved it and it was HILARIOUS.

Greg was telling stories about fight scenes on Dark Angel- he almost knocked out Jessica Alba after making sure she knew the block to a new punch he'd been taught! Also, one time, he was shooting a fight in a stairwell and had a kick to do from a very strange pose, so the stunt people weren't sure where his foot would end up. So, the director is telling them to be careful and the (very accomplished martial artist) guy he's meant to be kicking is all "Greg cannot kick me- he's not fast enough!" The next take, apparently, Greg almost got him, but didn't and this guy is insisting that he's fine. The next take, Greg feels something hard as he kicks. He hears "CUT!!!" and looks up to see this stunt guy's nose totally out of joint, gushing blood everywhere (cue eye-covering and "Oh my gosh!"-ing from Adrienne) and Greg's all "Uhhhhhh......."!! It wasn't a really rare thing though, he said, which made Adrienne laugh.

They both told stories about their first days on set (Adrienne was with Kevin, and Greg with Lucy, Renee and Ted). Adrienne told the "splitting the pants" story and Greg about issues with ad-libbing scenes- he has to memorise them. So he, Lucy and Renee are rehearsing something from Livia, and they start saying completely different lines to the script! They both said that as they drove back to the hotel, they'd been really worried- "We're SO fired. It was a great first day- bet there won't be a second."

As it came to the end of the talk, Adrienne finally sung- this Hebrew (I think) carol that she didn't know the title of, but was pretty. Let me just say, her voice is AMAZING!!! She could seriously quit acting and start up a singing career if she wanted to.

After they'd gone, Karl Urban was up. I don't know why, but I had him pegged as an American actor. *shrug* He's actually from NZ, and has a very cute accent. He actually looks a lot different in real life as well- he has long brown hair (that was tied in a ponytail all week) and seemed to like baseball caps. He doesn't actually look that different to Kevin Smith. Several times during his talk, to make a point, he'd slip into his Caesar/Cupid characters. Someone asked him how important the costumes were to his portrayals, and he switched between the two very suddenly and very naturally... it was weird sitting a few feet away from Caesar, Julius Caesar.

He told some stories about the filming of Destiny (which, along with When In Rome... and A Good Day, he says are his favourite Caesar eps. He likes the early ones better.). During the bedroom scene, when Xena is crawling towards him in the red dress, his contact lens came loose, so he started blinking to try and get it back into place, which made Lucy crack up. The two of them would have some fun as well- he said Lucy was comfortable enough with him to suddenly start calling him Dickhead, as Xena. *grin*

His favourite lines were "Break her legs" and "Divide a woman's emotions from her sensibilities and you have her," both of which he delivered as Caesar to us. He liked Caesar's complete self assurance and confidence.

One of his favourite memories of his time on Xena was when Kevin Smith was trying to chat up Hudson Leick. She was saying something, and Kevin turned around and said "That's an oxymoron," and Hudson just looked at him for a while and finally said "There's a lot going on up there, isn't there?" LMAO.

He talked about his new film as well - well, not *new,* I guess, since I saw people who had promo pics of it for him to sign - "The Price of Milk." I don't remember exactly what he said about it, but the movie seems pretty cool. He also talked about the Lord of the Rings trilogy (he had a LOTR cap on and someone asked about it). He will be in the second and third movies. As Caesar, he'd liked having his little mini, 10 men army - "I don't need a legion! I have my 10 men!!" - and how, on LOTR, he had about 500 people backing him up. He plays the chief rider (I think he said) guy, whose name I didn't catch, since I've never read the books.

After Karl's time was up, Hudson came out, posing to her heart's content. I don't think that we were the most responsive crowd she's ever talked to (although I think "performing" is probably a better word), since she was making a lot of comments about how polite and British we were and there were a couple of pauses. She likes people to just shout out questions, and most of us were not used to that. I was sitting on the floor at the front (since all of the steward seats had been taken...*pout*) and I made a couple of sarcastic comments, which I'll mention as we get to them.

A man asked her about her yoga - I don't remember what he said exactly - but Hudson forced him to come up on stage and do a pose! *grin* I think he was juuuuust a little starstruck, since he seemed to forget exactly what various parts of his body were named. She told him to curl his toes into the ground, so, for some reason, he kept crossing his legs together. For those who are curious, she wanted him to do the dog position (which is basically going down on your hands and feet with your butt in the air). In the end, she just grabbed his belt and put him in the right place.

A silence came after he went back to his seat - now very red - and she asked "Why is no one asking me questions?", so I replied that I thought they didn't want to do yoga. "I don't blame them." *grin*

Someone asked her about A Necessary Evil, and tormenting Gabrielle - to which she replied by asking us if we'd ever been in a rage with anyone. She said that we were British, so probably not and proceeded to impersonate an angry Brit (by breathing more heavily and saying "No, everything's fine," in a tone that obviously meant the opposite. Her accent wasn't actually too bad though.), but said just to go with her. She asked if we'd ever been in a rage, and then this really sweet person comes along. What do you do? You lash out at them. That's how it is between her and Gabrielle. I thought that was interesting- it's actually very true.

With Hudson though, you don't get too much in the way of detailed answers. She plays with the audience a lot, but she doesn't give answers in the same way that Adrienne does. She wasn't saying too much, but it was still fascinating being around her.

After about a half hour of this, they brought out the zebra print dress she'd worn last year, to be auctioned off for the James W. Ellis Foundation. Ted came out to help her with it, and after they showed a video explaining what this charity did, the auction got underway. The foundation helps collage students who have been affected by cancer (either the student or their parents) and pays in part or in full- they didn't say how much exactly- for their collage education. The bidding opened at £100 and went up quite quickly. Then, Hudson got an idea. She suggested that if Ted wore the dress, it should go for more. This wasn't planned, I don't think, since Ted seemed surprised, but game. After some convincing, he went behind the screen that had been put up for the con and put it on. It fit a little tight, but didn't actually look too bad...*grin* He seemed a little embarrassed, but the two of them seemed like pretty good friends. A lot of what he was saying was making Hudson laugh pretty hard and they seemed comfortable with each other.

That dress went for £500 eventually, and Ted disappeared, They then started auctioning the dress Hudson had on at the time - "I'm all purple and slithery!!" - and she got the convention director up to help her with it. Somehow, she managed to talk him into wearing it too, so they went behind the screen and switched clothes. He just had on a black suit jacket and white trousers- pretty normal. He looked hilarious when he came out. *grin* She asked what she should make him do, so yours truly suggested "Make him do the scream!"- which she did. A while earlier, a young girl had asked for Hudson to do it, so she made that girl come up on stage and do it with her and Sean (the director). They all got up on this little table and started yelling. Hudson gave the mic to the girl so she could be loudest. It was so funny!

Sean disappeared somewhere after that, for a minute, so Hudson started going through his pockets. She took out his room key card and said it was 209, if any males were interested (lol), and gave his spare change away to one of the guests. She was just getting on to mock-auctioning (I hope!) his wallet when he came back and made a comment about having already given Hudson her pay cheque. Anyway, he was back as it was time for Hudson to go... so she left. :-( The woman is HILARIOUS!!!!

After that, I had about 45 minutes to kill before I was allowed to queue for autographs, so I went back up to our hotel room (knocking on the wrong one at first by mistake, lol) and wrote a little to this report, before getting ready to go. My mum had nothing to do all weekend, which I felt bad about, but she said it was nice to get to relax. She ended up queuing with me for over an hour to get the autographs. They were queuing right outside of our room, which was useful, but it was very hot and not too pleasant for claustrophobic little me. But it didn't last forever, and there were funky pictures of ancient Rome to look at on the walls, complete with semi-understandable captions that were in either Latin or Italian. I couldn't tell which, but parts of it were similar to Spanish. *shrug* I was muy bored.

I got there in the end though, and said Hi to Karl, who was first in line and asked him to sign the cover of my con book/program/actor bio thing... whatever it was. So he did. :-) They weren't supposed to be personalising things, since they'd gone overtime, so mostly they all just wrote their names. Last year, all of the guests had written some form of "To Jessica..." on their pictures.

Hudson was next, and she said I was "sweet" while she did my book, the photo we had taken (which I'd gotten back just before I started queuing) and my pic of Callisto. She's kind of scary in person actually.... not Callisto kind of scary, but she can put you on the spot. She's nice though.

Greg came next- they all seemed kind of bored, which made me think it wasn't the best queue system in the world, since we were about 45 minutes overtime by then. It was a slow queue. - as he and Adrienne, who was next to him, had been playing lots of Noughts and Crosses games all over the paper table cloths. Greg won one just as I came over. He signed my con book again. I hadn't bought a picture of Virgil, but I wish I had done actually, since he was really sweet. I told him thanks for coming, and he said thanks for having me. He rocks.

After him was Adrienne, who seemed a little lonely. She was sitting along, while all of the others had a friend with them. She was talking to Greg and doodling all over the table cloth. She was doing a flower when I left- her art's not bad. She said again that she remembered me. *smile* She signed my con book, and the photo of us. I asked her which of the two pictures I'd bought was her favourite and she pointed immediately to the Livia one.

Adrienne's autographs.

Ted was after Adrienne, and he said he remembered me as well. *smile* He also rocks. I love Ted... but not in *that* way! Minds out of the gutter, people!! Anyway... moving on. He signed the con book also, and wrote "For Jessica." I think he personalises all of his autographs. I like that- it's cool.

After I said goodbye and thank you to Ted, I was up to Jennifer Blanc, the final guest. She didn't see I was there for a while, but apologised when she looked up. She surprised me a little bit actually, since she'd been smoking. I don't know why.... it wasn't what I had for her though. *shrug* But whatever. She said thank you very much for coming and signed my con book again.

After I made it back to the room (and either I missed the directions or it was a terrible system to get back- I went past about 100 rooms on the way), I was kind of hungry, so we went down for dinner. We went to the "Brasserie" restaurant in the hotel, where I had a HUGE plate with a burger and fries... I didn't know what the hell most of the rest of the stuff was. *grin* About halfway through the meal, a familiar face came in and said hi to us. Karl Urban. I was muy impressed. He saw my badge and said "Hi- how're you doing?" We said we were fine and asked him, and he said- I quote- "Crikey, I'm shattered!" (he was on NZ time to start with, and cons are very draining, so I don't blame him) and smiled before he went and sat down.

5 or so minutes after that, I had an "Oh, crap!" moment, when I realised I'd left my camera in the room, and I was planning to go straight to the costume contest after dinner. So, I dashed up to the room, grabbed the camera and went back down in the lift. As I came out of the lift, I saw none other than Greg Lee coming out of the stairwell door. He also said hi and asked how I was, so I said I was fine again- a little tired (I hadn't even been thinking about being tired until Karl mentioned it...*grin*) and asked him. He said he was fine. He said he was just going for some food before he had to judge the costume contest with the others, and when I asked him, he said it started in about 30 minutes. It had been put back because of the late running autographs and that he'd see me there.

I told Mum all about it when I got back to the restaurant - Karl had gone - and after we finished, we went up to the main hall to get seats. Well, I did. She hadn't actually bought a ticket for the con, so we hung around the entrance door for a while, looking at all of the costume entrants. After 15-20 minutes, we saw Greg and Adrienne walking past (like, 2 feet away!) and talking, but they didn't see/recognise me, so I went and got a seat in the hall, saying goodbye to Mum.

After one of the entrants came, Ted introduced a lady who had come as Callisto, before letting Hudson come out. They did a mock interview - "How long did it take you to make the costume? It's very good- you look a lot like her." "Uh.... a long while..." before Hudson posed some more and took her seat at the guest table.

The costumes were one of the highlights of the weekend actually. Ted mostly, but the others as well would make the fan do/say things in keeping with who they'd dressed up as. Hudson made a woman who had dressed up as Callisto from Bitter Suite sing something. She even sung herself- a round of "Happy Birthday to You!" saying "Now you know why I didn't sing in that episode!"

One guy had come dressed as Eli, so Ted and Karl proceeded to nickname him "Eli the Peaceful" and, each time someone came dressed as a villain, they would call Eli back out and make him pray for the fan's soul, at the same time whispering to the fan to attack him! It was funny!!

There were about 30 entrants in all, and prizes were given that ranged from "best look alike" (A woman who had a fantastic Xena/Saba costume from TGYK) to "Best use of alcohol" (Maximus.... who I assume is from Gladiator. He was kinda funny, in a pathetic sort of way. ;-)) They gave away copies of the new issue of the Official Magazine or of the postcard book to the winners, then to all of the entrants. Then, there were two copies of the magazine left, so Ted made all the contestants get in a circle and threw the mag into the centre of it- a scramble.

After that finished, there was a disco. I'd gotten Adrienne and Hudson a little funky gift each (incense burners and incense, in different flavours. Flavours? Is that the right word? Whatever...*shrug*) part as a thank you and part as an early (for Adrienne)/late (for Hudson) birthday present each. Answers on an e-card for when their birthdays are...;-) I hadn't had chance to give them to either woman all day, so when I saw Adrienne getting up to leave, I hurried over and gave it to her. She seemed pretty pleased. She said thank you a few times and gave me a hug and told me she'd open it in her room when she got up there. *big smile* Happy Amber. Hudson had left in that time, so I went back to the room (on the way down, I actually saw Adrienne again, sorting something out at reception. I walked a lot slower, but I didn't interrupt her.), had a bath as my Mum's movie finished and we figured out what time we'd have to get up for me to be able to see You Are There at 9am. (8.15am for those that are interested.) Then we went to bed. Tehehe...

Amber