A few weeks before San Diego Comic Con, I started to notice more and more people using the hashtag ‘#NerdHQ’— a mystery event. After investigating, I traced it back to The Nerd Machine, a site founded by Chuck’s Zachary Levi. Naturally, I was giddily curious. A NERD headquarter?! I was picturing a giant tree house for nerds. With geek tech blinking and making noises inside, comic books, toys and all that cool shit.
Turned out, Levi’s vision was almost as good as mine and within less than a month he organized an off-shoot Comic Con event. The headquarters established itself and set up its shop a block away from the convention at Jolt n’ Joe bar and restaurant.
I fail at looking sultry. Gizzy, on the other hand, is an expert.
You do not need to have a Comic Con badge to enter Nerd HQ but they did sell tickets to the individual “Conversations” events throughout the weekend. The money went to charity, Operation Smile, and the event raised $40k (SDCCblog.org). Pretty amazing but not surprising! Each “Conversation” panel that Nerd HQ offered was only $20 a pop but you spend an hour with the guests and then most of them had a free autograph session afterwards. Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin were among some of the stars that participated in these panels.
Who did Gizzy and I went to see?
The panel for “True Blood” at Comic Con is one that I have wanted to see for years, but each time the line to get in resembled something you would imagine seeing at Disneylworld multiplied by one thousand. Each year I would try to get in, and each year I would fail. I started to feel like I was Captain Ahab and the panel for “True Blood” was my big white whale. My sexy, ridiculously good looking Southern white whale.
Thanks to a kind samaritan with an unwanted bathroom pass, I got into this fabled panel. And you know what? It was AWESOME.
The panel started off with a fun trailer of Season 4 that teased us with lovely things to come (shirtless Eric, possible Eric x Sookie, possible Jason x Jessica, and more witches!). After that, the cast members were introduced and welcomed with loud and sincere cheers and applause, especially for Alexander Skarsgard and Stephen Moyer. Alan Ball, the creator of the show, was there along with cast.
The panel started off with a question for Anna Paquin asking her about the different sides of Sookie Stackhouse. She responded saying that a part of Sookie is still sweet and innocent, and the other part of her has “lots of dirty vampire sex.” This pretty much set the tone for the whole panel. The actors who attended were Anna Paquin (Sookie), Stephen Moyer (Bill), Ryan Kwanten (Jason), Rutina Wesley (Tara), Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette), Alexander Skarsgard (Eric), Deborah Ann Woll (Jessica), Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pam), and Kevin Alejandro (Jesus). Each actor was asked about the changes in their characters, which included a possible romance between Jessica and Jason, and stronger and happier Tara, and an amnesiac Eric who keeps forgetting to put a shirt on (God bless this show).
The Wired Café– a little oasis with limited access to convention goers who knew people who knew people who knew people who–well, you know. Lucky for us… we knew people! Hooray for us!
It was a great place to get away and relax for a bit during the weekend on the first two days of Comic Con. The place got a little crazy during Saturday since it was the ‘big’ day that weekend. It was all good tough because I can’t complain about free alcohol and free food. It was nice to get a little taste of the VIP treatment. Gizzy definitely took advantage of it and spent half of her Friday there. She probably went through most of the Tru Blood (true facts).
Gizzy and I share our TOP 5 favorite memories from the Wired Café this year.
Space Pirate Queen’s TOP 5:
• The small bar designed to be a mini-replica of Fangtasia from the television series True Blood. The bartender was really nice too and the drinks were refreshing (not the heated red wine though).
• The veggie plate had asparagus instead of just broccoli and carrots. Wished they had desserts though.
• Watching Matt Smith and Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) do a silly dance for a few seconds. Photos below.
• Getting to try Just Dance 3 with my boyfriend on the XBox without having to deal with the crazy crowd at the con’s exhibit hall. Party rockin’!
• Free photo booth sponsored by Cirque Du Soleil.
Photo booth at the Wired Cafe
Gizzy’s TOP 5:
• The free alcoholic beverages mixed with Tru Blood and the free food.
• Getting to be within 5 feet of Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood) for twenty glorious minutes.
• Technically partying with Dominic Monaghan and The Doctor. Technically.
• Seeing people descend on the free food like locusts during a Biblical plauge.
• The free booze. And sharing an elevator with Channing Tatum.
