When a geek is offered the opportunity to be in the same room as Nathan Fillion, or as most Firefly fans would prefer to call him: The Captain, you say HELL YES! And that is what I did. After I went to the Supernatural press room on Sunday morning of San Diego Comic Con 2011, I went to the Castle press room.

This press room was held in a mysterious room… so mysterious that most of the Comic Con staffers/elites insisted that it did not exist. After ten minutes of staffers and myself looking bewildered as we checked the Comic Con map that they printed in the program book, I decided to do my own investigation and (thankfully) eventually found this invisible room.

Finally, I was seated at one of the tables and super excited to finally see Fillion in person.

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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.

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Friday, July 22 – the second day of Comic Con was a professional learning experience. I participated in my first ever round table press room and yes, I was pretty scared. I did not go to college for either writing or journalism (can’t you tell?!) and the last time I was even remotely considered a reporter was when I was in the newspaper club during middle school. I prayed that I wouldn’t embarrass myself  or the LA Weekly. Armed with my puny experience as a local blogger, I dove head first into a two hour back to back session for Torchwood and Spartacus. A special thank you to the Starz Network and Nicole, the hardworking PR woman who coordinated all of it during the convention.

The experience turned out to be a lot of fun. I observed the more experienced journalists and quietly studied their methods. We had a woman who was an absolute natural at asking great questions and getting the most interesting answers out of the actors and writers. She was engaging and fearless. Most importantly, she was well informed– the ideal journalist! She was awesome and I wished I remembered her name because I definitely looked up to her.

The first actor we had at our table was Manu Bennett from Spartacus. I still felt a little nervous and I don’t remember if I actually got a question in (I don’t think I did).

Okay, I admit… he was also super hot in person and I was silenced by all that man-sexy! Ha! It didn’t take too long for me to find my own quiet approach to asking questions and my general cute-ness masked my inexperience. Whew.

I did get brave enough to stand up and tell Lucy Lawless how much I have looked up to her all my life and was rewarded with a hug. I almost died from happiness and she was incredibly gorgeous in person.

Check out my LA Weekly articles: A New Spartacus for a New Season and Torchwood Miracle Day.

Other highlights:

Bill Pullman (he is in the new season of Torchwood) was delightful. I’ve always loved him as an actor and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to sit down with him. I even got to ask him a question.

Jane Espenson! If anyone should represent successful female writers in the nerd world, it is this woman.

Liam McIntyre, the new Spartacus, seemed like a nice guy who was just having fun with his career. I am looking forward to his interpretation of a role he had inherited from Andy Whitfield.

Regina from Comikaze Expo was kind enough to extend an invitation to their awesome party on Thursday night and Gizzy and I got to mingle and talk to fellow nerds and nerdettes. It was a great way to end our first day at Comic Con– with people dressed up and with drinks in our hands.

Party guest stars included Stan Lee, Yoshiki (X-Japan), Robin Thorsen (The Guild), Jeff Lewis (The Guild), Sandeep Parikh (The Guild), Sean Becker (The Guild) and Morgan Spurlock. At least, those are the people we spotted. We heard that Jewel Staite (Firefly) showed up too! Oh, can’t forget to mention some spooky friends from the Ghost Ship.

These ladies are two peas in a pod. They should totally hang out.

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I was very much excited to go to our first day of Comic Con and rallied Gizzy out of bed early in order to pick up our badges and try to hit panels in the morning. We managed to get to the convention center a few minutes before 10am but it definitely was not enough time to hit any of the 10am panels we planned on. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get into TheOneRing.net’s Hobbit panel because the room was already full with a line for the panel following it — which had Felicia Day, which is why everyone was trying to get into the room.

It was a difficult year to attend panels because even the smaller ones have lines now and you have to be there at least an hour in advance for everything. Needless to say, I only managed to get into two (and a half-ishies) panel that entire day. Good grief!

Only at Comic Con can giant, plastic bags could be considered sexy.

Oh You Sexy Geek!

We settled down at the Oh You Sexy Geek! panel which we thought pertained to us as it was a discussion involving lady geeks and our “controversial” presence in the geek world. The panel was moderated by Katrina Hill aka ActionChick and the panelists included: Adrienne Curry (America’s Next Top Model), Bonnie Burton (Lucas Film), Clare Grant (Team Unicorn), Kiala Kazebee (Nerdist), Clare Kramer, Jill Pantozzi (The Nerdy Bird), Jennifer K. Stuller (Ink Stained) and Chris Gore (G4TV). Plus, Seth Green, who hi-jacked the panel for a few minutes.

The panelists touched on topics that have already been discussed by female bloggers online, including: what is the meaning of pandering? Why is it so offensive for geek girls to be sexy? Is sexy cosplay just for attention-seeking-girls or a way for girls to feel good about themselves?

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Fortune Cookie enjoyed some greasy fried food at the OC Fair while the Space Pirate Queen and Gizzy had to suffer through all the geekery and nerd-fest shenanigans of the San Diego Comic Con. We were forced to drink free booze, eat free food and be in the vicinity of some of our favorite artists, writers and actors. Especially the Space Pirate Queen who had to look at the beautiful people of Spartacus. What torture. Torture, we say.

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It’s that time of the year again, the ultimate geek pilgrimage: San Diego Comic Con 2011! This year, Gizzy and I will be there all four days and we will be able to cover double the good times. My schedule is quite crazy and super packed. I tried to narrow down the panels I am interested in and then broke it down on my Google calendar to see how much of it I can actually do. It was quite painful to slowly drop a lot of the panels  but I tried to stick to my own advice that I dished out last year.

By the way, Gizzy and I will be picking up a bunch of goodies at the convention and we’ll be throwing a contest for people on our Facebook page. LIKE US and win some prizes, hooray!

With my buddy, David Mack at SDCC 2010!

Now, here are the panels I want to go to if you are all interested in tracking me down. Yes, a lot of the panels are overlapping one another, but I always try to have “back ups” just in case I can’t get into a room.

Also, I’ve recently changed my hair style and color so if you need to know how I currently look like, check out my twitter photo.

THURSDAY

10AM - TheOneRing.net: Hobbit Talk

10:45AM - Oh, You Sexy Geek!— Does displaying the sexiness of fangirls benefit or demean them? When geek girls show off, are they liberating themselves or pandering to men? Do some “fake fangirls” blend sex appeal with nerdiness just to appeal to the growing geek/nerd market, or is that question itself unfair? And what’s up with all the Slave Leias?

11AM - The Evolution of Web Series: The Guild to Dragon Age

12:00PM – Spotlight on Jo Chen

1PM - Archaia Entertainment: Immortals, the Graphic Novel

2PM - Join the 2D Animation Revolution

2:15PM - Street Fighter X Tekken

3PM -  Magic & Monsters— Adult and young adult science fiction and fantasy authors discuss the costs and consequences of “magic” in their novels and the scary, hairy, and dangerous creatures that lurk in the worlds they have created

4PM - No Damsels in Distress Here— Female voices in sci-fi and fantasy create kick-ass heroines. My dear friend, Marie Lu, will be at this panel, so please come and support her!

5:30PM – New Media Meetup @ The Bristol Hotel – Facebook Event Page

9PM – Comikaze Expo’s Industry Party
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