BlogGlue

Greetings!

Here are a few of my favorite things: Nintendo, Penny Arcade, The Legend of Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Harvest Moon, Fallout, Dungeons and Dragons, books, dice, Professor Layton, Shadow of the Colossus, Minecraft, and so much more. I'm going to talk a lot about video games, I sincerely hope you don't mind.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Gallifrey One - 23rd annual Doctor Who convention! Part one.

It is amazingly serendipitous that I happened to attend one of the world's largest Doctor Who conventions in the very same week that I started to watch the show. And really, after being in this situation, I am hard pressed to think of a better way to turn a tentative fan into a full blown obsessed individual.

I don't know much about the Daleks, but I know
I want my picture taken with one.

Rachel is a recent, but no less voracious, Doctor Who fan and she had big plans for us to watch a bunch of the 2005 continuation while she was in town. Sadly, with so many other things going on, we were only able to watch two episodes T_T That was enough to have my interest seriously piqued though.

 Control console, anyone? P.S. that's Rachel and she's awesome!

We arrived at the Marriott at LAX around 11 am on Friday and the place was aflutter with individuals dressed in long coats and scarves. I whispered to Rachel that it was difficult to tell who was in cosplay and who was in regular clothing. We registered and nabbed our snazzy badges, then set off looking around.

"Full Adult" =D I'll talk more about the 
amazing ribbons in a minute.

I felt really out of place and overwhelmed; I was completely surrounded by all manner of intense, die-hard fans, some had been watching the show since the '60s! I was blown away by the generational gaps in fandom: teens, children, adults and grey-haired ecstatic old men and women. I've been to conventions, and I'm familiar with the immediate companionship and camaraderie present among the attendees, but this Doctor Who con was centered on only one thing and that was a different experience.

We noticed right away that many attendees had colorful ribbons hanging off of their badges, but I paid them no mind. I figured it had something to do with their rank as Who fans. As Rachel and I walked the halls and got a lay of the land for events we wanted to see, we were called over to a vendor and told that if we filled out a survey then we'd get a muffin and a ribbon. It sounded simple enough, so soon we found ourselves with food and a brown ribbon to fasten to our badges. It was then that we understood the intense power of the ribbons, and we had ribbon fever badly. I had never been to a con with ribbons before; what a game changer!

The rest of my ribbons from the day. We ran around
like crazy trying to collect as many as we could.

Through the day we were confronted with really fun cosplay and some even better recreated creatures from the show. The dedication was admirable!

 A full sized remote controlled Dalek was wandering the halls, as well as
this super adorable K-9 that could be seen following people around.

Be sure to come back tomorrow for the second part of our adventures!


-MJ

4 comments:

Words cannot express how envious I am right now. I've never had both the opportunity and the money to attend a Who convention at the same time. One day...

I'm so glad you had fun! <3 We're going again next year. This is fact.

Dan do you live nearby a location that hosts a Doctor Who event? I hope you get to attend soon!

Alii, we are most definitely going next year. I'm bummed we missed the opening ceremonies!

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