Wednesday 23rd April, 2008:
Being a convention running in the middle of the week and myself having started a new full time job, I had to start getting ready for the Con on the Tuesday night, I packed my costume, shoes and everything I wanted to get autographed into a big bag ready.

Having to start work at 8am so that I could finish a few minutes early, I headed there and left my bag sitting in the car all day. Throughout the day the excitement grew especially when I was organising things like having my friend Jodie pick me up from work so that I could leave my car there, it was just so much easier to do it that way.

Eventually it started to get closer to 4pm and as it neared the excitement grew even more and as soon as it hit quarter to 4 I was outta there. Grabbing my bag from my car as I left, I met Jodie around the corner from work and we headed off into the city from there.

Not taking as long as we thought it would we arrived in the city in fairly good timing, parking basically right out the front we headed in. There were a few people sitting downstairs chatting so we went and joined them, but when I saw another friend of ours Rick I went over to see him and gave him a big hug then followed him upstairs to where the actual event was happening. There was a queue of people up there and heaps I knew so I just started chatting to everyone as we waited to be let into the room.

Not long after arriving upstairs I got a call from another friend Sarah who had just arrived in the city and was getting close to the venue. Leaving my bag upstairs with some others I ran back down the stairs and out of the building and headed down to meet Sarah and she made her way there. Having spent the night before chatting online, and after reading a fanfiction I had written a few years ago we had decided to get some stuff for Chris, so when Sarah had arrived in the city she had brought one part of it, whilst I had printed a copy of the fanfiction. Once meeting Sarah we headed back upstairs of the venue and joined onto the queue again.

It wasn’t long though before the doors were opened and we could head in, having paid a little bit extra than others to attend a cocktail party with Chris we headed on through to a slightly lower level were Christopher Judge and Gary Graham the two guests of this convention were standing mingling with fans. Getting to say hello and have a quick chat with both of them we then let others have time with them and just made our own little group to the side, catching up with each other as we generally only see each other at conventions.

The small Cocktail Party was fun and Pete was there with his camera to get lot of photo’s or everyone which was great and is always the best way to remember events like this. Here are two photo’s one is of a big group of us with Chris and the other is just of a group of my friends who were off chatting to the side.




This next photo was very funny, as a group of friends and myself were just standing to the side talking and I saw that Pete was getting ready to take a photo and so being my silly self I quickly jumped up on the ledge that was behind Chris and just as I turned to face the camera and grin the flash went off., my timing was perfect and we all had a good laugh over it, Chris included!



The cocktail party didn’t last too much longer than that before everyone started heading into the main theatre. Having paid that little bit extra for the ticket also entitled us to front seat rows so we were right down the front just a few feet from the stage which was great, nice and close.

But before any Q and As started, Scotty came in to have a quick chat to everyone before sending everyone who wanted photo’s with Chris out to get them, being in front we all got to have our photo’s done first as well which was great, I had a photo of just myself and Chris and then a photo taken with Chris as well as two of my friends, Sarah and Nicole.


Once all photo’s were taken care off, we all headed back into the theatre and then not too long after that Scotty came back in and introduced Gary Graham to the stage, his Q and A session starting with a nice and quick music video, which made everyone laugh, including Gary.

Not actually knowing what Gary had done or what he was from I wasn’t really all that interested in what he was speaking about, although he was a good guests and I did enjoy listening to him do his Q and A. He had some good stories to tell as well which was fun and he posed for photo’s for us!



Gary having finished his Q and A session Scotty then came down to introduce Chris Judge, but before he did they put on a music video of a song that Chris sung to stills of Teal’c in Stargate SG-1. He came in wondering where we got it from, Heehee! So before he started asking for questions he went around and asking all kids in the room how much their parents swear.

He then opened it up for questions and the first question was “What’s your favourite swear word?” But before he started to answer he decided to take a few minutes to pose for us to all take photo’s of him, which was good, so he wasn’t distracted by flashes when answering.



So back to answering the question he started off saying that his kids swear a lot, but all he asks is that they know what it means. Then he continued with explaining that ‘Mother Fucker’ is a term of endearment and that he’d ring up Michael Shanks and go “Hey motherfucker, what’s up mother fucker” So his answer to this was rather entertaining, and the parents of the kids who were there didn’t seem to mind all that much which was good, although it was Christopher Judge so even if someone was not happy with it they probably wouldn’t have shown it, I wouldn’t have!



Chelle did ask Chris how his Buttock reflexes were going and if they helped him in the puff and ruffle, then he went on to explain exactly what the puff and ruffle was. Chelle explained her understanding of the Puff and Ruffle and was saying that whenever there were female guest stars on the show the guys would play all nicey and sort of puff out their chests to show off. Then Chris explained his side and said that when there were any guest stars they all sorta looked out for each other and were very protective and he was saying that Amanda and Teryl wouldn’t let them near the guest stars. It was a interesting conversation.

There was one lady in the crowd who wanted to ask Chris a question on behalf of her daughter, so Chris asked her why her daughter wasn’t there, she said she was in bed and then Chris made her ring her. It was quite funny, the lady brought the phone up to Chris and he grabbed it and it was obviously still ringing because he said into it “Wake up motherfucker” Everyone laughed at that, and then when she did pick up Chris goes “This is god” then finishes with “No sorry darling this isn’t god”… “This is Daniel Jackson” But she hung up and Chris was like “She hung up on God AND Daniel Jackson!” It was sooo funny!



There was one moment when Chris needed to go to the toilet so he just walked out of the room, kept the microphone and kept talking, it was hilarious. Scotty was on stage with the other microphone and we were all like “I hope it goes out of range” Heehee, was great, and then when he came back someone mentioned YouTube and Chris was like who’d bring in a camera just for that… then he realised the whole thing was being filmed for the DVD! Mwahahaha!



Oh and there was a moment in between a question when Chris just suddenly threw out a “Aussie Aussie Aussie” And immediately the crowd return with an “Oi Oi Oi” Even Chris was impressed by that and he did it two more times before finishing with an “I’ve only waited ten years to do that again!” Before getting to the next question, it was hilarious!

Another question Chris got asked was “Is there a story behind where Kel’no’reem came from?” And this answer was fantastic, he explained that it all happened because he fell asleep on set once and he got called into the ‘how come room’… his excuse for falling asleep was that he had to meditate to commune with his symbiote and… they went for it!!


Chris talk was hilarious, there were some great Questions being asked and Chris was just hilarious in any answer he gave. At one point Locky asked Chris about the action figure, asking Chris if since the action figure came out does he play with himself, or something like that, it was hilarious and Chris actually told us a story about his young daughter who actually sleeps with his action figure when he goes away, everyone went ‘Awwww’ and he was almost getting teary, it was really sweet.

Chris talked about a few different topics depending on what question was asked, the ones I remember the most other than the swearing and talking about his daughter he also explained the farting competitions he and Richard Dean Anderson used to have on set and how he would adjust his diet just so his farts would be more effective. It was a very very interesting topic of discussion.

After that topic was finished it was time for Scotty to get up and shoo Chris off but there were a few things he had to do before hand. One of course was the Vegemite moment, which was absolutely hilarious. I got up handed over the Tube of Vegemite to him and he goes to me “Is this lubricant?” Heehee, so there was a bit of Um and Ahhing before we talked him into trying it.



He said that he had actually managed to avoid tasting it before and he did promise that he would taste it for the very first time. Someone ran in with a packet of Chips and Chris runs over and grabs one whilst everyone in the place is yelling “Nooo!!” Then we explain that Vegemite is very salty on its own, so he throws the chip aside then he got a refill of scotch.

Before tasting it he turns to Scotty and goes “I resisted this for 12 years” And Scotty’s response is “Well you’re not leaving Melbourne without it” It was fantastic, so funny to see just how far the whole Vegemite thing has come from just as girls throwing it up to Rainbow back at our first con in 2005, very funny stuff and now everyone gets into it! But back to Chris… First off he had a smelt of it and I think that turned him off more than anything, his reaction was fantastic! Whilst Scotty is describing how Carmen taste tested it and the whole crowd is going “Do it. Do it. Do it”



So squirting some Vegemite from the tube onto his finger he waited a few seconds taking deep breaths before he stuck his finger into his mouth!



His reaction directly after tasting it was walking almost off stage and then having a bit of a shake before walking off again then he came back and goes “It tastes like puke, after you’ve puked it” Then he came back sat down, took a nice sip of his scotch and says “It’s not bad!” Heehee, it was really fun to watch all this unfold! And then once getting the microphone back he goes “It’s a little salty but… after being up 12hours who isn’t?”



Vegemite moment over Scotty then got Gary to come back on stage and then he got up one of the guys in the crowd Chris, whose birthday was a few days after the convention, Chris had no idea this was happening as it had all been organised by his wife Lyn. So Chris gets up on stage with Chris and Gary and then Everyone starts singing Happy Birthday!

Once everyone had sung it Chris got big hugs from them both and Chris even gave him a kiss on the head, it was very cute and sweet. Oh and Chris once again shouts out “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” followed with the same “Oi Oi Oi” in response, another three times. Then whilst Chris tried to get two of them to pose with him so Lyn could take photo’s Chris (Judge) goes “I’m going to projectile vomit Vegemite”



Before Chris left the stage he goes over to Scotty shakes his hand and says that he’ll definitely be coming back again, which had the entire crowd cheering once again… Once Chris left the stage then the rest of us started heading out to line up to get our Autographs having the VIP ticket meant we could get in first and get tickets but a few of us waited until the end and were just hanging around chatting with all our other mates. Sarah had to wait because we had organised earlier in the night for her to come and stay at my place that night.

Anyway, finally getting to our Autograph time I got Chris to autograph my Stargate SG-1 200th Episode cap as well as my BDU Shirt which I have gotten signed by every Stargate actor/ress I have ever met. And I also got the photo I had taken with him autographed as well as the one of myself with Nic and Sarah, which I also got Nic and Sarah to autograph too. It was great Chris signed it ‘The Posse’



I also got him to sign a photo of himself I had picked up from the desk to start with as well as a picture I had gotten out of a magazine of himself, Ben, Claudia and Michael dressed in the Wizard of Oz gear from the 200th Episode, which Chris autographed by circling his crouch and then writing ‘Wow’ by that stage of the evening he was a wittle bit drunk as well which was probably one reason why.



After he had finished autographing my stuff it was Sarah’s turn and as we had planned to give him something together we did, I handed him over the printed copy of the fanfiction, whilst Sarah handed over to him an Aussie Slouch Hat, which is one of those green floppy hats which have corks hanging from the rim, the reason why is something that I wrote it the fanfiction that was funny and we just had to go with it, Chris thought it was great and said he was gonna wear it to play golf!



After all Autographing was done we hung around a little bit longer, until Chris was done with all the Autographs and everyone was all packed up and ready to go which was about 1am. So after some mucking around we then all headed off, Jodie driving Sarah and myself to pick up my car and then we got back to my house at about 2am. Which wasn’t too bad as I started work at 9am so had a good amount of time to drop Sarah off at train station before work etc… It was a fantastic night and Chris was just hilarious, can’t wait for him to come back again!

PS: Very very very belated i know, but i was only just reminded that i didn't do one, so now you have something to read and look through whilst i write up my one for Armageddon this year!!!

Sunday 14th October:

Waking up just before the alarm was set to go off at about 6:30, we stayed in bed until we had to get up, which was well after the alarm had gone off, as we had the weirdest alarm clock in our room we re-set it before going to bed and when we woke up it was half an hour or more ahead of the actual time… it was very frustrating. But also good, coz we got to lie in bed that extra half an hour! Then we all got up and started getting ready, showering and getting dressed, wearing our Armageddon shirts, well Grace and I anyway… then remembering to take and extra shirt for photos! Although I was gonna be wearing Scotty’s flight suit and had left that in Peter’s booth the day before… so I didn’t need to, but Grace did!

Ringing up to Chelle and the girls room to see what was happening, we already knew from the night before that Jodie wouldn’t be joining us and would be sleeping in, which was why we had called Chelle’s room instead of the other one. So they told us that they had organised to head to the Venue in Munchy’s car, which meant that it was just Grace, Rae and I where left to get there on our own, we had asked Scotty if we could get a lift with him, but he was taking some of the other guys and didn’t have room. After talking to Chelle though, to not disturb Jodie we decided to ring Rae’s mobile instead, we organised to meet her downstairs at seven.

All set Scotty left and headed down to meet the other guys in the lobby, whilst Grace and I finished up getting ready. Brushing Teeth etc... Once done, we grabbed our bags, meaning my backpack and the other plastic shopping bag full of lollies and cans of Coke. Then we both headed downstairs to meet Rae, making sure we had a room key with us we left. Arriving downstairs Scotty, Munchy and the other girls were all down there already, standing around chatting, so Grace and I just walked up and joined them. But the girls had to leave because Munchy had to move her car from where she’d parked it the night before. So after they had left and Rae had come down. Apparently her second trip down as the first time she had forgotten to grab her bag full of munchies and cans of V. Once ready we then left the hotel, leaving Scotty waiting for Rob and the others still.

Leaving the hotel we headed down the street towards the tram stops, as that was how we decided we would get to the venue and we also needed to get food and supplies for the day so a seven eleven on the way was perfect. Stopping at the first we passed, Rae went in first, handing her bag to me so that they wouldn’t think they were brought there. These weird guys were taking to Grace and I though and were kinda getting creepy so Grace followed Rae in and I walked father down the street. Then when the girls came out we headed farther down to the Tram Stop in which there was another seven eleven. I went in and brought some sesame bars and nougat bars to pack in my bag and also grabbed an apple juice and muffin. Rae also grabbed something then we sat and waited for the tram. But it was taking too long and there was a nice row of Taxi’s just across the street so we grabbed our stuff and headed over… we’d get there quicker and it’d be cheaper we figured.

Walking across to the cabs, we got into the first one in the row, telling him to take us to the Exhibition Centre. It didn’t take long and we were getting dropped off there, though the stupid Cab driver, while Rae was paying Grace and I were getting ready to get out but the Cab was still rolling, so we yelled to the driver “Brakes!” eventually he got what we meant and the car stopped… Idiot! Anywho, that little bit of excitement over we walked into the Centre, there were already a few other people there, sitting on a seat obviously waiting to be let inside. So we sat down and waited with them, but eventually Grace rang Scotty and we started heading over to the exit, but the doors were still closed so Grace told Scotty to ope them up, but he couldn’t so we ended up walking around to the exit way and entering there instead! Once inside Grace and I went over to where the autograph table was and dumped our bags behind there where Rob and the others would be most of the day. We decided that no way where they going into Scotty’s car again not after what had happened the day before.

Grace and I quickly ran to the toilets getting that over and done before anything else started but then, the dam button on my jeans fell off… it was terrible, my jeans kept falling down and were totally annoying me, I had the zip done up but it kept coming down without a button. Grace remembered seeing some safety pins the day before so she went in search for them, but couldn’t find them so we then went in search for Scotty, finding him, I told him the problem and he went and got some safety pins. How embarrassing, running back into the toilets I used the safety pins to do my jeans up, which held the zip up thank god. So now that was all sorted, Phew. That would have been a very unpleasant day otherwise.

I also found out that Rae had been given the job of gopher for the day so she wasn’t sure if she was gonna be able to cover me, but she promised she’d try, which I appreciated anyway… after that anyway, we were told to get into the group with the others while the guard explained how the doors and everything were going to work today. Munchy’s mum had also turned up to help for the day which meant an extra set of hand which was good. Luckily Grace and I didn’t get stuck on the doors at all which was good as it meant I could help Clare and the rest of our table get it set for when the guys would be down. Luckily, we’d learnt from the previous day and there was now a rope barricade type thing set up outside for the queue to follow, it made it a LOT easier! Anyway, once the door people were organised, Grace and I headed back inside, as I entered Clare came around from the other side, it was funny coz she just smiled at me and then we hugged! That was the start of our day!!!

Grace hung around with us for a bit whilst we sorta discussed what we’d be doing during the day, what we’d be doing differently to the day before anyway, now that we had an idea of how it would go. Clare also mentioned that we would have another person helping out with the queue, Amanda’s brother, who would stand at the end of the line, after people had gotten their autographs from the guys, which would make things a little easier. After a while, Grace had to go off to do stuff herself, so I went down to Rob and asked when it’d be possible for us ‘Staff’ members to buy our tokens for autographs and photo’s he said to come back at about 10am for them. So I went back and told Clare and we decided that at Ten she’d go get hers and when she got back I would get mine, that meant that we’d be ready by the time the guests came down for their first signing session at 10:30. About then was when the Cartoon Network guys turned up, I can’t actually remember their names but they were cool too, we chatted a bit about what was gonna happened differently to the day before… less stressing way, hopefully!

After a bit of running around to tell Grace and the others to try get their tokens straight away I then went back to the table as it was getting close to Ten, so Clare went and brought her tokens and then came back, she told me that she hadn’t been giving her tokens yet as they weren’t quite ready and asked if I’d grab them for her so I said I would and then ran off to get my own… I had quite a few to buy! I brought three autographs of Joe, Peter and Conner as well as photo’s with Peter, Conner and Alan. Luckily for me I had been given as a birthday presents of Scotty and Locky, vouchers for a photo with Joe and an Autograph from him as well. So that was that covered. After paying and getting my tokens, I grabbed Clare’s ones as well and then headed back to the table, it was already getting close to 10:30!

At 10:30, again like the day before no-one was down yet so Clare just asked me to go upstairs and get them, it was only Chris and Stephanie I needed to bring down first, so going upstairs there was another lady up there already so I just asked her to inform them that they were needed downstairs for their signing sessions. So she grabbed Chris and his manager and told them and they headed over, I couldn’t see Stephanie in their at all so I asked the lady –whose name I don’t know- and she insisted that Chris’ manager was her so I just shrugged and led them downstairs. On the way down, at the bottom of the stairs we met up with Kerrie and Rae who had their hands full with coffee, two of which I grabbed for Chris and his manager. Letting Rae and Kerrie continue upstairs I led Chris and his manager back through the stinky wrestler’s locker room, through the rest of the exhibition centre over to where our table was next to the entrance! I then explained to Clare that Stephanie wasn’t up there and what the lady had said to me, so Clare rang Amanda and Amanda said she’d been given the wrong times and Stephanie was still at the hotel so we had to wait for her to get their, so we had to start making a separate queue for those wanting Stephanie’s autograph, whilst we let Chris’ queue go through.

There was a bit of running around during this stage as the queue was out the door so we had to keep asking if people wanted Stephanie’s autograph or were after Chris’. I also had to stop all the people who were trying to climb over the ropes to join the queue, which was frustrating too, and even some people who were climbing over because they couldn’t be bothered walking around to the side exit, some people are so lazy! It was about half an hour later when Stephanie finally arrived at the table and so we could then start letting Stephanie’s queue go through. This made it easier so that we didn’t have to ask questions to people further down the queue and we could concentrate more on the queue jumpers. To start off there were also a lot of people, who had obviously also attended the previous day and had seen how big the queue for Billy West had been and we had a LOT of people asking when Billy West would be signing, so we were telling everyone that he was back at 12 but to probably get here at about 11:30, which was when we would start a queue for him, no-one was allowed to queue for him before then, or else it would have been even crazier.

Deciding that it had gotten way outta hand the previous day and we didn’t want to have to make Billy stay and sign for as long as he had the day before we decided it would be best to cut of the line as soon as we figured there were enough people in the queue to last the entire hour and a half he would be signing for. So when it hit 11:30 and the queue started… We actually had to cut it off before it was even twelve because it has gotten too long, which meant that we had to have someone standing at the other end of the queue, stopping people from joining in as well. It was crazy again, and then we had the Gold Pass people, that were able to jump queues for auto’s which meant sticking them in front of others, which I always felt bad about doing, but they did buy their tickets so. Anywho, the Billy West queue was just crazy and he wasn’t even down to start yet… Luckily though, Joe’s talk didn’t start until 1 so I could help Clare out with the queue this time until then anyway.

One of the girls from GateWorld, Dani (Lauriel) I got to talk to for a few minutes and she said that her and her brother Paul were going to head upstairs so I asked if she could try and spare some seats for us, she said that was cool, so I msg Grace and told her. I also saw Jodie and she was with her friend Nicole who I’ve meet a few times before, it was good to see Jodie there, but I didn’t really get to talk to her that much, just a quick chat on her way inside. I also spoke to one of the Gold Pass holders, a gentleman that actually comes into my work very often, which is where I must of known his face from! He also does karate with one of the girls I work with, which was pretty cool. He was also heading up to get seats for Joe’s talk. They knew it was gonna be completely packed out so everyone was heading up there early. John Wesley Shipp who played ‘The Flash’ and also has a role in ‘Dawson’s Creek’ was on before Joe so most people were already up their listening to him as well.

As it got closer to One I started to panic slightly as I hadn’t heard from Rae yet and Grace was already finished with her guys and was over waiting with me, so I gave Rae a quick ring and she said she mightn’t be able to relieve me, which made me panic that little bit more, but then she rang back a few minutes later and said that it was fine, so she musta organised something herself, but I was so thankful to her, so she started heading over towards us. Once she got there I gave her a huge hug and said thanks, then I went and let Clare know what was going on which she was cool with, she already knew I really wanted to get in to see Joe, and I’d said that Rae was gonna try take over and since she saw Rae was there already she was cool with it all. Then Grace and I quickly headed over to where our bags were, grabbing our Camera’s and I grabbed the last tube of Vegemite out of my bag and then we headed up to the Auditorium, being staff it meant we could sneak through the entrance way and not haveta run around. Heading outside we met up with the other girls and the group of us headed upstairs running all the way, even though we had plenty of time.

Entering the Auditorium, John was still on stage so we just discretely walked a little to the left and all sat down against the wall relaxing a little bit, while we waited, which was much needed. Then Bill the New Zealand organiser came in and finished up for John, we all applauded him etc… Seeing that Dani and Dana were both sitting in the front row and there weren’t any seats left around them, as Bill was exited the room and quickly asked him if it’d be okay if we just sat down the front, he said he’d get back to us, but we walked over and chatted to them anyway, and ended up staying there… which was great… front front row… floor!! I sat in front of Dani but the other girls wanted to move over and told me too, so I told them to move instead, after all it would have been rude I had been the one to ask Dani to mind seats for us, and she’d offered the floor… which was even better!!

We all sat and chatted for a little while, before Scotty came in and got up on stage, ready to introduce Joe to everyone. He started talking a bit and then eventually it was time and Joe was there… introducing him up on stage, I actually put my hands over my mouth the moment I saw him, unlike some of the others I hadn’t actually seen him yet. He looked really good, with his red checked farm boy look shirt on, he looked great though… and HOT!!! I really couldn’t tell you exactly what was talked about as I think I was slightly in shock mode at that stage. I do know that someone, I think it was actually Chelle asked something about he and Amanda working together and whether they had found something that gets between them. Joe went on to say they were working on it and it was hard to find any flaws because Amanda’s character was just great and there’s nothing to hate… or something like that! Someone I’m guessing the same person who had asked Conner, asked Joe to do a Wraith impression so he did so… his B-Grade Wraith impression as he called it.

Joe’s B-Grade Wraith Impression

I can’t remember much of the questions answered as I was just enjoying being there, I remember Dana (LCEB) asking a question something about whether he was goofy or natural or would ever try snowboarding. That was actually one of the first questions asked; now I remember it! Oh and there was also a time when he looked down the front at us girls and said something about seeing all the red shirts, and we all yelled in reply we were his fangirls… but then explained that we were actually just staff members! There were lots of other questions asked; I think another was whether he actually likes the Puddle Jumpers or not, I think he said no! Heehee, meh, there was too much excitement going on I can’t remember it all, that and I was sooo trying to get Don to bring over the Microphone so that I could do the whole Vegemite thing again. It was getting near the end of his time and so I asked Dani to put her hand up to try get the microphone for me, but that didn’t work much and I could see Marwin over on the other side of the auditorium with hi camera ready.

Eventually it came to the end and Scotty entered back into the room, I managed to get his attention before he got up on the stage and sorta waved the Vegemite tube so he could see what I hadn’t got to do yet, nodding his head to me, he waited for the last question to be asked and then after Don had handed him the microphone he got up on stage to finish off for Joe. But then he came up and said “Now before you go, we have a little Melbourne Tradition down here… Who here has heard of the Vegemite Girls?” or he said something along those lines, but it was hilarious because it was like the entire place erupted with cheering, which just made us look at each other slightly shocked. It was an awesome response and so I then stood up, tube in hand Scotty handed me the microphone but I was just like. “Here” and handed it to him, heehee… Smiley Speechless! Doesn’t happen often so savour the moment! It was great though, I did manage to tell him that he had to taste it, so he did… I didn’t get any photos of the event but some of the others did and they look great, I can’t wait to see the DVD! But it was funny.

Then Scotty finished up and Joe left the room, everyone cheering him out as he left. Great guy he was! Though knowing that photo’s were gonna be happening almost straight away, we ran outta the auditorium and headed straight down to Peter’s photo booth ready for the photo’s. Luckily Grace and I had already gotten our tokens for our photo’s unlike the others who had been told to get them, but hadn’t. But they managed to get there photo’s taken anyway, luckily because they had sold out of photo’s with Joe, because one of our friends, Nicole had missed out on one. But getting ready for photo’s Conner and Peter were also down there so that the photos could all be done at once, John was also there, but they were just finishing off his as we got there. Grabbing the bag that I had left with Peter, that had the Flight Suit in it, I quickly pulled it on over my clothes so I was set for photos. But Peter had to let the Gold Passes go first, so since Jodie was down there I just plonked myself on the ground net to her for the moment and we chatted a bit, whilst the others ran off back to the doors and Grace went back to do what she had to do, Scotty promised to get everyone in time for their photo’s.

Before the Gold Passes were through, Jodie wasn’t really looking so good so we asked Peter if he could let her take her picture now, before she got any worse, so she had hers taken, then sat back down for a bit before headed outside to the others, were she sat down. After Jodie was done and while Peter finished with the Gold Passes, I was helping Lowry trying to stop people from taking their own photo’s it was very frustrating and there were a few repeat offenders, very annoying. Once Peter was done with the gold Passes though he then started with Staff Members, When it was my turn I handed my photo token to Lowry and then quickly got my photo’s taken, the whole time, I didn’t notice til after, Marwin was videoing it all… Anywho, I had my photo taken with Joe and Peter and then with Conner. All wearing the Flight Suit, but it was hot, I had the sleeves pulled up, was a good look, but Peter is a great photographer and so didn’t really get that in much, which was alright, because I had my runners on with it anyway! But it looked good enough for the photos, even with the orange shirt showing underneath! I didn’t get to have my photo taken with Alan though as he wasn’t down there yet, but that was okay as I would get to later on.

Once my photo’s were done, Peter got me to go and relieve the girls on the doors so they could get there’s done. It was funny though, wearing the flight suit no-one could really see I was staff, so when I rushed passed people to get outside I got a lot of ‘Hey watch it’ of people, which was funny coz I’d been doing it most of the weekend, but with the orange shirts on I guess they figured we were in a hurry, it was just interesting. But once I was outside and relieved Sarah to get her photo done, there wasn’t really much for me to do, because they already had an extra set of hands so I pretty much just stood there and talked to Jodie. I was pleased though that the showbags were all gone because that meant no handing them out… Yay! Evil Showbags! Whilst I was outside though and since it was so hot I had pretty much taken the Flight Suit off, it was zipped down and I had the arms tied ‘round my waist, good look! Getting back to the photo booth I took the whole thing off and then put it back away in the bag… I wasn’t gonna change for my pic with Alan, too much hard work!

Once done there, I went off to see how the animation queue was going, Rae wasn’t there at that time but Clare had some others helping and said it was okay for the moment, then Rick who was on the exit door, asked me to find someone for him so I went off, but then Scotty grabbed me and asked me to do something for him… he was taking me somewhere but then got distracted, anywho, Rick was suppose to be sitting with Peter, collecting his tokens for autographs so I ended up leaving him on the door and jumping in their myself, besides, Rick’s a bigger guy and better on the door! This is probably my favourite part, I was sitting with Peter Woodward on my left and Conner Trinneer on my right, very comfortable position. And it was great because I got to actually sit down, though the chairs weren’t that comfortable, but good enough.

Peter was an awesome guy, I got to chat to him quite a bit, a very nice guy had a ball talking with him. There weren’t that many people lining up for autographs though, I guess people most people would have gotten them the day before. But there was still a queue for people wanting photos done; I think they were mainly waiting for Alan though. But the massive line that was at the Autograph table were mainly people buying tokens for Joe Autographs, it was huge… and winded around a bit… very long. Since Joe had finished with photos they had set the tables in the far right corner to make a sorta queue line and Joe was sitting at the end of that HUGE line! I didn’t get over there just yet though. I was having too much fun sitting with Peter and Conner anyway, every time someone came up with a camera to get a photo I would basically lean over to the other person whilst they took photos! Heehee, anyway, while I was there, I got them both to sign my Atlantis Cap and my BDU shirt with SG-1 Patches. Peter was funny; he said to me “Do you want me to write a personal message like ‘Thanks for last night’?” I just laughed and said “No no, it’s okay” so he just wrote ‘For Janelle. Lust. That’s all…’ Heehee, funny guy and then he signed a photo of himself and gave it to me, sooo cool!

After I had gotten them to sign my stuff for me I put them back away in my bag and then got out one of the chocolate bars I’d brought that morning and came back to the table and started to discretely eat it under the table. When Peter looked over at me I said to him. “Excuse me, I’m just discretely eating my chocolate bar” He just laughed and said, “Don’t worry I’m not discrete about anything” Heehee, he really was a great and funny guy, very awesome stuff! Oh and I think I saw the rudest thing ever, I work in customer service on a register and I hate when people are on their phones, but there was this one guy, Colin, he came up to get an Autograph of Conner and spent the entire time Conner was signing his stuff on the phone… how rude and wrong, I coulda hit the guy! I said as much to Conner and he just sorta shrugged, I guess he’s had worse! But then there was this other guy, he had a chevron with him, said he has he’s own Stargate built at home and he brought in one of the chevrons to get signed, and he just kept talking and talking and Peter goes “This guy just won’t shut” to me and I laughed then the guy moved along to Conner and kept going. It was funny.

Anyway, not much after that was done, Scotty came over with Munchy and got her to jump in my stop whilst I went off and got my photo taken with Alan, which was fun, I went there and said to him “I’m sorry my phone went off in your talk yesterday” While Peter was taking the photo. I said to him that I swore I turned it off, and he went on to tell me this story about when he did theatre and someone’s phone went off he stopped the show went over and asked if he was gonna answer it! I just blushed and said sorry again, but then I had to run off, Scotty told me to go get my autographs off Joe now while I had the chance, but I hadn’t got my photo’s back yet and I always get the photo I have taken with the guest signed, so I ran off to the information desk and they checked if my photo’s were there and luckily there were so I grabbed them all, well everyone except for the one with Alan of course!

I then ran over to where Joe was autographing, jumped in line with my photo then remembered all the other stuff to get signed so ran back and grabbed them all, putting away the photo’s with Peter and Conner for the moment, grabbing my stuff, shirt and cap I ran back over and jumped in line. I first gave him the photo of us and he signed it and then I gave him my cap and I’ve gone “Oh cool the first auto on it in Gold Pen” And he said, “I can get silver if you want”… “No no no, Gold’s Fine” So cool… Lead character gold is perfect! Then he signed my Shirt… ‘Thanks for the Vegemite’ I love It, I shoulda shown him what Rainbow wrote but I was not thinking straight! That done with I did my own little squee as I left him and then hurried back to get my photos with Conner and Peter signed and then put everything back in my bag. Then Scotty came over again and grabbed me.

He led me back to the animation queue, suppose it was time I got back there after all it was where I was suppose to be! So I took over from someone else and was stuck at the end of the second Billy West queue, telling anyone wanting to join that sorry ‘bout the line was cut and finished. Luckily, because he only managed to get through the line before he finished at 5! Anyway, I stood there and talked with the Security Guard who was there with me and also Rae’s friend Sarah, who was waiting to get her photo’s back. Every now and then I would run over to the information desk to see if the photos of me and Alan were in yet, no luck though.

Some how I ended up with another two bags of dark M&Ms, I swear after that weekend I’m never eating dark M&Ms again! Anywho, there were still a few people who were trying to get into the Billy West queue, but we had no choice but to turn them away. It was harsh as it was the last signing of the weekend, but they shoulda know to get there sooner. There was a group of people that asked to join the line and I had to turn them away, but one of the girls, who was dressed as Wonder Woman asked if they could still line up if they weren’t after Billy’s autograph, I said I’d check and so I asked Clare and she said it was fine so I told them that they could discretely join the queue. There was one guy who came up and I was glad that Clare was out with me at this time because this guy was putting on the worse sob story. He just went on and on and on… and then Clare just had to ask him to leave. It was funny, because she just turned around as I stepped forward and her head went down on my shoulder! Heehee, and then the Security Guard goes, he’ll probably go hang himself now. It was just weird, the way he sobbed but it didn’t work! Oh well… It was cool though, when the group from before, the lady in the Wonder Woman outfit, her and her friends came up to me and said thank-you and we chatted for a bit, before they had to run off to catch their flight.

Eventually the queue started getting down again as it got closer to five. I really wanted to get the photo I had with Alan signed so I asked Clare if she’d mind and she said she’d be fine with the queue now. So I went in search of my Alan photo’s as I didn’t wanna miss getting it signed by him, so I went to the information desk, but they still weren’t there, so I went back inside and went to Peter’s booth, and asked Bec, his assistant for the weekend, and they had just printed out, thankful I went to the autograph booth, but they were all gone, bugger! So I managed to find Scotty and said that I missed Alan’s Auto, so he told me to follow him. So we ventured upstairs to the Green Room, once again through the stinky locker room. When I got up there, Joe and the others were up there as well, but Alan wasn’t at that moment, so we were just watching the pillow fight from the window when Alan came out from wherever he was and Scotty asked him if he’d do a big favour and sign the photo for me. I thanked him heaps and then we just stood there and watched the pillow fight. “Look at those kids bashing the shit outta themselves with pillows” Alan said to me and I just laughed, it was so funny and cool and you could see all the nice bright orange shirts circling around the wrestling ring.

Watching a few minutes longer I turned away as the other did and I started to head back down again, but Scotty was heading down with Joe and he asked me to walk with them, so I followed, talking to Joe a bit as we did so, which was cool, it was so funny hearing all the younger girls yelling out “Hi Joe” as we passed, it was cool. Once we were at the back of the room, we met up with Locky and Grace and we were all just chatted as Scotty had to run off and find someone to open the doors up for him to get to his car. It was a little fun, and then the doors open and Scotty and Locky walked out with Joe, whilst Grace followed with some stuff and I held the door open for them, and then the security guard came over and I spoke to her before Grace came back in and we headed back inside.

I still had some stuff to help with at the Animation table so we headed back in that direction, and the queue had gone down completely now and it was just Chelle their with Niki as well as her husband David and son Tom. They were getting an autograph of Billy West. So I decided to join in too and I got Rino Romano to sign a Batman photo for me, he asked what my name was and I said Janelle, but I was still wearing my Smiley Vegemite badge and so he looked confused and then asked which named I’d prefer it written to and Richard Horvitz who was sitting next to him heard Smiley and started singing this song, it was so funny! Rino decided to sign it Janelle though, but he joined in with Richard as they sang “Smiley Smile, and I'm wondering if this is some kind of creative drought because I am....” Heehee, it was so cool and they kept singing, starting from the start of the song, together, even as Richard signed a ‘The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy’ poster for me, continuing on, I got Billy to sign one of the cards for me, To Smiley this time! And then to Neil and he gave me a signed ‘Conan’ poster, a video game he does the voices in.

After I’d gotten the autographs, and I can’t remember where Grace disappeared to at this time but she did… anyway, I went behind the table and asked Richard what song it was he was signing and he said it was called ‘Brian Wilson’ and was made by ‘The Barenaked Ladies’ so I wrote that down, and then he was talking to Rino and goes, “My favourite song by them is ‘If I Had $1,000,000’” Then he started signing that, and Rino joined in, it was sooo awesome, coz they were signing to me! Yup, Richard was signing and Rino was like back up, here’s what they sang… Rino did the (parts) “If I Had $1000000 (If I Had $1000000) I'd buy you a house (I would buy you a house) If I Had $1000000 (If I Had $1000000) I'd buy you furniture for your house (Maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman) If I Had $1000000 (If I Had $1000000) I'd buy you a K-Car (a nice Reliant automobile) If I Had $1000000 I'd buy your love”… and now I own the CD!!!

After taking for a while, Clare asked if I’d please escort Richard, Rino and Neil back upstairs while she waited for Billy to finish and she’d walk up with him after. So leading the way back to the Green Room, I also had a mini camera crew following me who were gonna be doing interviews upstairs. So once again walking through the stinky locker room, funny because Richard said to me before we entered “Hold your breath”! It was really bad by this stage, so we made our way quickly through there and then headed back up the stairs. Where the crew set up and then Neil noticed that Rino had taken his signs with him so he asked me to run back down and get his for him. So I took of passing Clare on the way who asked me to bring a chair back with me as well. Getting to the table I ripped off the sign just as Grace came over, she asked if I was ready to go I said that I just had to take the stuff upstairs and we’d be good to go, so I grabbed a chair and she grabbed Neil’s sign and we both walked back upstairs.

Passing through the smelly room and walking upstairs, they didn’t really need the chair anymore as Richard was already on camera so I just put it down then gave Neil his sign, and up there, Amanda and Clare were just talking with Neil so Grace and I sat down for a minute with them. Amanda said that they did a great job and that she’d have both Clare and Grace doing exactly what they did this year again coz they did such a great job! Which was very cool. We didn’t stay much longer, just til Richard had finished and we said a quick goodbyes to them all and then Grace and I headed back downstairs, as we exited the locker room, Tabitha, Robbie’s daughter wanted as to sign her Staff shirt, as everyone had done. I just signed it while Grace wrote ‘Showbags are evil’ Heehee, was cool. Then we headed over to get our bags from behind the autograph table and Rob asked me about some stuff he’d given Clare to get signed from the animation table, but I had no idea what he was talking about so I quickly ran upstairs to see Clare, cut they had already gone so I quickly sent her a msg, luckily we had exchanged numbers earlier on in the day. I tried to find them myself, but couldn’t but then Clare was back and Rob was sorting it out with here, so Grace and I left, Jodie had been waiting for us as well, coz the other girls had once again gone with Munchy.

Getting outside Grace hailed a cab and we all clambered inside, asking for the Grand Chancellor. We had about half an hours time to get changed ready for dinner so it was a slight rush. Once the cab had dropped us off, we walked through the hotel Lobby where there were already people waiting to go to dinner. Hurriedly we caught the lift up, Grace and I getting off at 13 and Jodie continuing up to 15. Once Grace and I were in our room we briefly collapsed throwing our bags and stuff on the bed. We briefly showed each other what we’d got, but we knew we had little time so we started getting ready. We both showered and got changed, into our dresses that we had gone out and brought earlier in the week. Did all that stuff you do before you go and have dinner with someone famous!

Once we were ready and had had time to sit down and relax slightly, we then headed out to the dinner, remembering to take our tickets with us this time! Walking out of the lifts, Richard and Neil were down there and saw us as we headed upstairs we told them they should come up too, they both said maybe! It was cool, heading upstairs, I don’t like heals, seriously! Anywho, we made it to the top and entered the room, looking around we saw that Chelle, Niki, Munchy and Jodie were already there, but Sarah wasn’t yet… The lady at the door then took our tickets and led us over to the table where we were to sit, which was the same as Jodie was already at, as well as Anthony and a couple, who I’ve seen at other conventions, but don’t really know their names. I sat down next to Jodie and Grace next to me, leaving a space between her and the other later for Sarah, but another lady came in and sat there instead. Didn’t matter though, when Sarah came in she sat across the other side of the table next to Anthony.

We chatted for a while, waiting for our guest to show up. John Wesley Shipp came in and he sat down next to Jodie, he was a really great guy too, we had a good chat with him while he was there. Then in came the rest of the guests, Peter and Conner and the Wrestlers, don’t remember exactly which order any of them came in, we were waiting for Joe, who didn’t come to last. Anywho, Rea ended up coming to the dinner, she had stayed and helped out at the centre after we’d left but apparently Amanda had asked her to come to the dinner to help out a bit, it was cool, she came and sat down next to John for a bit because Joe wasn’t there yet. When asking where Joe was Amanda said that Locky was driving him around and Grace and I just looked at each other and Grace’s gone. “He’ll never get here then” Heehee, after all Locky doesn’t have a licence. It was funny anyway, but they did eventually get there, but Joe went and sat down at Conner’s table. We were waiting for him before we ate but since he sat down there we all got up and grabbed some food. And I actually did grab something… and eat it!

After sitting there chatting and eating for a while, Joe was finally led over to our table and he sat down next to John, the two of them chatted for a bit. It was cool having him there, but we really didn’t get to talk that much, he did more talking with John. But it was alright. Before we knew if he was being shuffled across to the next table, and Peter was joining ours. Though Joe didn’t stay long on the other table before he was ready to call it a night and he left… I didn’t get the opportunity to give him the drawing I had done for him so I just passed it on to Rae when she passed and she ran out and gave it to Locky to give to Joe. Which he did and told me later that when he gave it to Joe, Joe was really touched by it! This made it feel so much more real and special! It was so cool. Anyway, here is a scanned version of the drawing I gave him:

After Joe left, John left our table and went to sit on the other whilst Peter moved a spot to sit next to Jodie, or he might have gone up and got Desert, I honestly can’t remember exactly. But some people got desert and some, like myself didn’t. Peter was awesome though, he chatted to everyone ‘round the table and was very cool. At one point one of the guys handed him a photo, from another convention that he had attended that Peter was a guest at a few years ago. Peter had a good laugh at the picture, while the rest of us were like “What is it?” His response was hilarious. “It appears to be a gentleman whose groin looks a lot like my head” Heehee, that cracked everyone up and then he showed us the photo. And then he said “Well this is definitely going home to be burnt” And we were all like, but first you have to show us all, so the photo did a round of the table, it was great fun!

Hmmm, anyway, I was wearing a dress that was a little more revealing than I am used to and as always I kept pulling it up slightly, Peter noticed and leant over to me and said “Next time you need that done, just let me know… I like women, I like low cut tops, I like breasts” He said and we all just laughed along with him, he was so funny, loved Peter! Then everyone sorta started moving around a bit, there were a lot of people crowded around Conner’s table. Grace and I got up from ours and went over to talk to Locky and Rae and the others on the Staff table. Then Peter got up from the table and was talking to someone over in the corner and Conner seemed to have everyone now surrounding his table, little to crowded for my liking and Grace’s hence why we were over chatting on the staff table.

After a while Peter came over to Grace and I and asked us to join him downstairs. “I want to go outside for a cigarette but I don’t want to go alone, will you girls join me” I said yeah yeah but Grace decided to stay up there and chat with the others, so I walked downstairs with Peter and stood outside talking to him. He asked if I was single, I said yeah and asked him the same his response was the same, then he started telling me that he had a son and he saw him often and he lived in England, sounded like he’d be a really cool Dad. He was so awesome, we chatted downstairs for a while, before making our way back upstairs, but by the time we got there everyone was getting ready to leave, though there were some new arrivals, because Richard had come up to join in. Saying hello and chatting a little, he kept asking me what the song name was so I wouldn’t forget it. He was a great guy too. But since everyone was getting to leave we didn’t chat long and just said our goodbyes to everyone and as the guests left the rest of us headed back downstairs.

Talking to a couple of the other girls we told them that we were just gonna go up stairs and get changed and come back down then we could all go out for drinks, I so wasn’t gonna wear that dress anywhere else, so getting back to our room, I got changed while Grace gave Scotty a ring to find out where exactly he was, but he was currently in a meeting with the other organisers and said he wouldn’t be long so we decided to just wait for him to get back. Relaxing and chatting while we waited, though once we’d both got changed we ended up just laying on the bed, I joked that when Scotty walked in he’d see us asleep and just collapse onto the bed on top of us. Heehee, but we were awake when he got in, but he did collapse onto the bed anyway! So after he rested for a moment and then got changed himself we eventually made our way back downstairs.

By the time we got down there a lot of the people from dinner had left, but there were still a few left, and Neil and Richard were still down in the bar sitting around chatting. Downstairs we met up with Rob and his Room-mate, along with a few others. I saw that Dana was sitting on the chair in the lobby so sat down and chatted to her a little, asked her if she wanted to come with, but she was waiting for a taxi already. So I sat and waited with her until the taxi came and until everyone who was coming with us was downstairs. Once everyone was there we headed off up the street, we were gonna find somewhere to have a drink but then changed our mind and decided on just buying some ice-creams so we headed back to the hotel, walked passed and into the closest Seven Eleven. We each brought and ice-cream and a drink, I was sooo thirsty, I grabbed myself a bottle of coke, yummy, especially when in class bottles… and Rob shouted so that was cool.

That done we just headed back to the hotel, stood around outside for a while chatting whilst we ate our ice-creams, while we were out there Liam left so we chatted to him for a bit whilst Josh got the car ready and then we all headed back inside and then went and joined the others sitting in the bar. I went and started talking to Neil and the group that he was chatting to, and when he got up to get another drink he told me to sit in his spot so I did, and told him thanks for making it nice and warm for me! We sat around down there for a while, until one of the girls, Bec went outside for a smoke and since I was in mid conversation with her I joined her, we chatted for a bit, actually it was quite a while because during that time I had a missed called from Rae and two messages from Grace wondering where I was. I did also talk to a few other people though as well, like Chris and Lyn, who are a couple I met earlier on in the year at the Don and Carmen Convention, we chatted a bit about the weekend, swapped mobile numbers and then they had to get going. So saying good bye to the tow of them with hugs, Bec and I continued chatting, we got to know each other quite well which was very cool, but eventually we headed back inside.

We sat ‘round the bar for a little bit longer before I think Rob had come down to get the guys to turn the heating on in the pool, because the others were up there ready for a swim. So hearing that I decided I might as well head up with them, the pool and swimming seemed like a rather good idea as my muscles were aching as it was. So before heading up there with Rob I said goodbye to everyone downstairs, exchanged mobile numbers with Bec, though it was more like I got hers then pranked her so she’d get mine. I said goodbye to the others, and then got a big hug of Richard as I left… he was so awesome! Just as I was walking out though Neil came back into the bar having gone off somewhere and he started asking me something and then he said “You’re not going to bed, you’re going to the pool, ain’t you, ain’t you” I think coz earlier on I had mentioned going to bed to sleep. Then we did this little bit of play fighting, but that didn’t last long. Then I headed up to the pool with Rob and I think Jodie came with as well.

When we got up there, Grace and Scotty were already up there, dangling there feet in the water. And Locky and Rae were sitting at the other end mucking around, so Jodie joined them, whilst Rob and I went back down to our rooms to get changed ready for a swim. Entering the room I saw there was a note on the bed for me saying they’d gone to the pool. Heehee… changing into my bathers quickly I then grabbed my jacket, remembering how cold it had been on the Friday night, and also I could put the room key in the pocket. Heading back upstairs I was glad that there were plenty of towels there already as I didn’t bring one with me. Not wasting any time I took of my jacket and got into the water, though not as hot as the Friday night, it was still very relaxing, which I think is exactly what we needed. Rob came back up and jumped in with us too. Locky and there others were mucking around and Locky was taking random photos the whole time it was weird but meh, he’s had a few drinks I think.

We didn’t last that long in the pool before someone mentioned food; I think it was Scotty who mentioned that a Kebab would be nice right about now. I was honestly too hungry to care what we ate, that is as long as it wasn’t Chinese as I know that makes me sick. So we all got outta the water and departed. I don’t remember seeing Locky, Rae or Jodie after that though. Having showers and getting changed again it wasn’t that long before we were meeting Rob downstairs in the lobby which was now almost deserted just like the bar which was now completely empty… meeting Rob though we then headed off for food. The Kebab shop was closed for renovations so we continued on, finding a Chinese restaurant we went inside, I just didn’t say anything… that is until Rob gave me a menu and I said ‘No thanks’ and then the others decided it wasn’t fair so we decided on finding something else so we got back up and headed further down the street, Grace new of a 24 hour Hungry Jacks somewhere. So that’s were we went, we got our foods, sat down and chatted about all sorts whilst nibbling away at the food.

Finishing our past midnight snack we then headed back to the hotel. Walking through the lobby to the lifts, inside we said goodnight to Rob as he got off at his floor then we headed to our own, by this time we were pretty much exhausted again and ready for sleep. So getting back to our room, we all changed and got into the bed. Setting the alarm to go off later in the morning, as no need to be up early the next day. Chatting for a little while about the day/weekend, it wasn’t really long before we were all asleep again, our exhaustion getting the better of us.

Monday 15th October:
We woke up before the alarm went off in the morning; I guess we were just used to waking at that time. But we decided to just stay in bed, so we did, then the alarm went off and we were still laying in bed, until Scotty’s phone started going off, with this and this and this… Busy guy he is! So after having been awakened by the phones and alarms Scotty and Grace both got up, Grace went over and turned her phone on and found she’d had missed calls. I was being lazy and stayed in bed, and then Locky came in and dropped some stuff off and chatted for a bit before disappearing again. For the day after morning, it was still busy.

Eventually getting outta bed, I luckily pretty much had packed my stuff the night before. So I just got changed and as it was VERY nice weather outside I put on my denim shorts and a sleeveless top, which was the most coolest (as in keeping me cool, cool) thing I had to wear. Which was perfect, besides my car has air conditioning and that was where I would be spending most of the day… at least before I got home anyway!

So packing up all our shit, meaning getting our still pretty wet bathers, our bathroom stuff and everything else and stuffing them back into our cases, I also had to pack my sleeping bag away, but that’s no big deal really as I just stuff it into the bag, rather than do the whole roll up and proper… it’s too easy just to stuff it in there! Anywho, Scotty had to run downstairs for some reason so Grace and I continued packing up on our stuff… Then Grace thought that she better ring up to the other rooms to see if they were up and ready to go. But they weren’t, they were all still in bed still, so Grace just told them to Hurry it up. We also told them to meet us down in the basement, so that we wouldn’t have any issues in reception with having so many people coming from the two rooms, that organised. Grace then rang up the other room, where it was just Jodie as Rae had had to run off earlier in the morning for a work training course or something like that. Made sure that Jodie was up and getting her stuff ready, which she was, and reminded her to bring down my suit holder thingy that had me Air Force uniform in it!

It wasn’t long before Grace and I were all set to leave, so double checking around the room in case we left anything behind… Which we didn’t, we then grabbed all our stuff, bags on top of bags and began our trek out of the room, along the corridor and into the lift. Heading straight down to the Basement with our stuff, we figured it would have been much easier that way to pack our stuff right into the car. Reaching the Basement, we headed in the direction of the little booth were I had to sign out my car so I could get my keys for it back. I think Scotty was out the front at the time or something as he saw us and decided to give us a hand with all our stuff. With Scotty’s help with some stuff we managed to wheel and carry all our bags back up those dam tight ramps, telling Scotty the story of how hard parking had been on the Friday as we went. Finally reaching the Third Level, my Malpy was parked right where I had left it, but gladly there was NO car to the right side of it which meant no climbing through passenger door.

Opening the boot the three of us stuffed out cases and some of the main bags into there, but before getting too carried away we decided to put the majority of bags onto the backseat as we still had to fit Jodie’s case into the boot, and there was also my suit bag to consider too. Once the car was packed we were gonna wait for the others, but Grace got a phone call from them saying they were waiting at Reception for us, so we locked my car back up, grumbled and mumbled a bit and then headed all the way back down the ramps. At least we didn’t have cases and bags that time though. Getting back to the lifts we went back up the one level to Ground Floor, where all the other girls were waiting for us with their stuff. Bar Munchy who had had to run off earlier in the morning.

Meeting then there, Grace went over to reception to check us all out, taking the four room keys from the other girls. Chatting at the desk Grace sorted out prices etc… it worked out so that the rooms costs us $94 each, but as Scotty had actually paid for the room by card already. I didn’t have time to get any cash out to give to him so I promised to give him it the next time I saw him, and as grace had worked out the price of petrol as well, she said it was fine for me not to pay as I’d driven in, which I guess was fair enough. The other girls who had cash on them actually gave Scotty the money then. So once Grace had sorted out all the checking out of rooms, we said goodbye to Sarah, who had to leave so she could catch the Train back home, also saying goodbye to Scotty and Locky who had ended up down their. The rest of us then headed back towards the lifts, for the basement. Luckily Grace and my stuff was already up there we just kinda helped the others with theirs, first though Chelle had to go and sign out her car from the car park so she could get her keys and get into it, as I had beforehand.

Making our way back up to the cars, walking once again up those lousy ramps, we finally got back up their, Chelle and Niki went over to theirs and started putting their bags in whilst we just slid Jodie’s huge case on top of ours and then laid the suit bag on top and shoved what else of the other stuff we could back in. There was still some stuff on the backseat but nothing major. So once both cars were packed up and ready to go, we said all our goodbye’s and then left. Can’t remember who left first, but think it was the others, not sure though. So that done and now we were set to go, Jodie hoped into the front seat, which we found out had actually been moved since we were there as the seat was right back. But anyway, she got in adjusted everything, I jumped in the back seat and we made our way down the ramps. Getting done was a lot easier than getting up and quicker, no mistakes! Once we were done, we stopped in this little exit alley we had to go through while Jodie and I swapped positions and then we started on our way off.

Driving Grace home first, I got to do my first ever Hook turn which was… interesting, I did it okay though, no problems. Didn’t take long before we were at Grace’s and helping her unpack her stuff we got out her case and then re-situated Jodie’s a bit, before we then helped Grace inside with hers. We stayed at Grace’s for a bit, watched an Episode of Dawson’s Creek that has both John Wesley Shipp and Joe Flanigan in it, that was exciting, especially when we were going “We’ve met him” To both of them, was fun! Sitting around having a bit of a chat whilst Grace unpacked her case and what not, we didn’t stay too long as Grace had to leave because she had Uni later and had to do an oral presentation… So we said our Goodbyes and then Jodie and I left, on our way home.

We stopped via a KFC and had something to eat, which we both needed, food was good. After that we then headed back home, getting on the Freeway, firstly I had my Tomtom (GPS) on but once we were on the Freeway I figured I didn’t need it so I turned it off, that and the battery was going flat… but I was wrong anyway. I missed the turn off and kept going, but I did turn off the next turn, but then tragedy struck when my Tomtom, decided that it didn’t want to get turned back on, we tried to turn it on a few times but nothing happened so then I got Jodie to get out the in-car chare cord for it and she unplugged my iPod cord and plugged the Tomtom one in, then it decided to turn back on, stupid thing! But managing to get our way on the Freeway again all was good and I could turn it back off and plug my iPod back in.

That was about as much excitement as there was on the way home, other than the fact that I was completely buggered and seriously almost falling asleep driving, not good, but no accidents so that was something. But anyway, I did stupidly miss the turn off, thanks to Jodie’s observing, I was so tired and concentrating on the road I missed it, heehee, naughty J, but I just turned off at Jackson’s Road instead which I think turned out even better. But anyway, that done, we then started the way home, me that little bit more alert now, getting to Stud Road I asked Jodie if she’d mind if we went via Knox, she didn’t so we stopped there, parking, and then I went in search of a copy of a ‘Barenaked Ladies’ CD, which I found at JB Hi-Fi and brought, along with a copy of ‘The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy’ Loved Richard, great guy and now I have a cartoon he was in, woohoo! Mind you the entire time we were in any shops with DVDs we were going. “We’ve met them and them” it was so much fun, always good to do after conventions, and lots of fun!!

CDs and DVDs in hand we sat down a bit and rested slightly, which is what I needed to get me awake, a break from the road. That done we then headed to Jodie’s, I played my new CD the way there as well. I dropped her off helped her out a bit with her bags etc… and then left her with her unpacking before I headed off and for HOME! Getting home in no time I didn’t even make it upstairs with my bags, half of them came up with me whilst the rest where dumped at the bottom of the steps before I collapsed onto my bed and fell asleep. It wasn’t until I heard my StepDad Garry get home that I went down and grabbed my bags, not that it helped as I just laid back down and went to sleep. I was sooo buggered. But eventually I got up, managed to unpack, sort through things… played the CD in my stereo whilst I did so too. I eventually got it all done… went out that night, then got home and completely crashed… slept sooo well, until I had to get up for work the next day… not good on my very very sore muscles.

But when it came down to it all… it was all worth it! I had an absolutely fabulous time, even though most of it was running around and being utterly busy, totally nothing I was used to doing, but I loved it completely. It was awesome fun and I am hanging out for the next Armageddon!! Go Armageddon!!!!

ARMAGEDDON EXPO.

MELBOURNE, 2007

Friday 12th October:

Waking up fairly early, I finished off packing my bags and getting everything ready, jumping on the net and doing a few things, then hearing from Jodie that she was ready I then packed everything into my car (MALPY) and then headed to pick her up, filling Malpy up with petrol on the way. Once at Jodie’s we got her case in the boot, and then headed towards the city, with a stop by Coles to get food supplies and a folder for Jodie. It was also lucky we stopped because Jodie had forgotten to pack her memory stick and we had to wait for her mum to bring it down to us, so we brought some stuff from the bakery.

Once we’d gotten Jodie’s memory stick from her Mum, we ran for the car and then headed off in the direction of the city and to pick up Grace. It took us just under an hour to get to Grace’s place in Maribyrnong. But picking her up we got her stuff into the boot as well and then we all headed towards the city, Grace leading the way.

Getting to the Hotel we packed in the car park… what an experience that was I tell ya… the smallest car park I have EVER seen, with these tiny ramps… I stalled about three times just trying to get up the first one… god knows what would’ve happened if a car was coming down!!! Anyway, getting up the first ramp and reaching the second, Chelle and Niki were there with there bags and stuff, and decided to follow us back up as I ventured up to pack on level three… though them following was not the best thing, because it made things worst for me… I nearly hit the wall on the ramp and needed to back back but they were right behind me and they were laughing and I just stressed out! But I got to level three and managed to park my car… Jodie said she would drive out, so that was a relief!

Anywho, after parking, next to another car and a pilar on the left we all climbed out the passenger door… emptied the contents of the car and then we all headed back down the ramps and back to the entrance, were we had to sign in our cars and hand our keys over to the clerk guy… was not happy about that! Maybe I shouldn’t have watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as many times as I did! Oh well, left my keys and then we headed inside the hotel, signing into our rooms, two under Grace’s name. Once done we then headed up to our rooms, all of our stuff crammed into the lift. 1510 and 1509 were the numbers and we separated into the two, Grace and I leaving our bags and things mostly packed as we’d be moving into Scotty’s room once he was back at the Hotel from setting up the Exhibition Centre!

Letting Jodie study some the rest of us decided on a quick trip down to Target to get some cash out and for Niki to get some bathers… after than we headed back to the hotel, moving into Chelle and Niki’s room we sat down to watch some Stargate Atlantis… the episode Michael we chose! Watching whilst drinking coke and snacking, after a bit Locky turned up, collapsing on the floor, we chatted for a bit, but then Locky had to go get ready for the cocktail Party and so he could pick Alan up. Then the rest of us decided to go out and get dinner, Jodie coming with us… getting back to the hotel we sat down to eat, then Sarah rang to say she was there, so I ran outside to meet her and we walked down to the car park and went straight up to level 15 via the lifts! On the way up we bumped into Liam and his carer Josh and they joined us, up in the girl’s room.

After a while it was time to get ready for the cocktail party, so Grace and I went back into the other room to start getting ready, and just when we’d started to unpack stuff Grace’s phone rang and Scotty had gotten to the Hotel so we then grabbed all our stuff, said goodbye to the others and headed for Scotty’s room down on level 13... 1304 our room was!... where Scotty opened the door just wearing jeans. Heehee! He asked for one of us to go pick up his suit so I ran back down to the lift and went downstairs to reception. There were a couple of people already there for the Cocktail Party waiting. Getting back upstairs I gave Scotty his suit, then we all started getting ready!

Once ready we then, all three of us headed out for the Cocktail Party, walking up with Scotty, and then remembering that we’d forgotten to bring our tickets with us, we headed back to the rooms and grabbed the cocktail party tickets… mine was really kool, coz it’s number 1! Running out of the Lift we ran past a guy said a quick hello getting our tickets we ran back and he said ‘Guess I’m not the only one who forgot something’ which made us both laugh, of course we had no idea who he was… the entire lift trip down… we still didn’t until we asked Locky who he was… Neil Kaplan, who turned out to be the one guest we spoke to the most, he was just awesome!

Anywho, the Cocktail was pretty awesome, we met some of the guests, I got to meet a few people that I’d met previously on the internet… Lieutenant Colonel Errand Boy (LCEB) and Lauriel from GateWorld as well as Stargirl from the ‘Happy Place’ which is the old ‘Stargate News Australia. Also met peoples who I’d met previous years as well, it was great to see people again and meet those off the internet! The first guest I was introduced to was Chris Rankin as Chelle was told to get him and bring him over, he was very nice to meet, when he was asked to have some photo’s taken I held his glass of wine for him! Heehee.

The cocktail party was fun, chatting to other fans, catching up with the guys from previous years etc… it was great fun, getting photo’s taken, least there were some taken which is cool coz at least I got to see how my outfit looked! Which is a bonus, though it might have been a tad bit revealing… but it looked pretty good I think? Here’s some of Peter’s photo’s that were taken. They look pretty good too!

Niki, Sarah, Me, Chris Rankin, Grace and Chelle.

Clockwise: ..., Jodie, Alan Tudyk, Josh, Grace, Niki, Chelle, Sarah, Liam, Myself, Rae and Sarah.

Grace, Neil Kaplan, Sarah and Niki.

Myself and one of the organisers Rob.

GateWorld Girls: Lauriel, Me and LCEB.

Had to have a photo taken of the GateWorld girls, that was called for of course! :P And it was great meeting them all, well the two of them, and Chelle was there as well… and well the photo’s were taken by Peter who is also a GW member! Heehee… all fun and games… love the photo’s, thanks Peter, you do the best jobs ever!

So… the cocktail went on, taking to different guests and other convention goers, meeting new peoples etc… etc… it was fun and then when it finished at like 10ish a group of us decided to head up to the pool. The pool was on the roof but it was heated so after getting changed we all headed up for a swim… Myself, Grace, Scotty, Locky, Rae, Niki, Rob… Chelle and Sarah also came up but they didn’t swim… and then Neil turned up, he was a really really great guy, awesome to just chat with! He was up there taking photos of the Melbourne night, though he ended up just chatting to us! It was fun; we all had a good time, til we had to get out and walk in the freezing cold air, it was bad… but wrapped in towels we managed it.

Getting back into the hotel was good the heating was just fantastic! Once in the hotel room I asked for dibs on first shower, mainly because I’m allergic to chlorine an even though it was a salt water pool, there is always a hint of chlorine involved, so I showered and changed into my Pyjama’s. After the others had showered Rob then came down to our room, but there was a little issue they had to sort out so after a shirt talk, Rob and I headed off to Locky’s room… meeting Neil in the corridor who asked us in for a glass of wine… passing we went off to do what had to be done, then came back to the room, and were all sitting around talking… Myself, Rob, Rae, Locky and of course Grace and Scotty. We talked and chatted, music playing in the background for a while, then Rae and Locky headed off for sleep and the rest of us tried to sleep… but the floor were I was, was very uncomfortable… so we really didn’t get any sleep all night.

Saturday 13th October:

Starting off the day with Rob leaving at about 6… the rest of us laid around until the alarm went off at 6:30 and then started getting ready to meet the other girls down in the lobby at about 7:45… we showered got dressed and got everything we needed for the day ready. Knowing that operating on ZERO sleep was not a good idea, but not being able to do anything we just walked out ready for a tough day ahead!

And it was… Leaving Scotty to bring some bags with him to the Centre Grace, I and the rest of the girls then headed off, deciding to walk… we went passed a coffee shop where, Grace and Chelle brought coffees and donuts… BIG coffees! I got myself an apple juice… I didn’t think my body woulda coped with the amount of sugar a donut has for breakfast. Continuing on it was a nice and quiet-ish work that didn’t really take that long...

Walking into the Exhibition Centre we could see some people running around, but there wasn’t really any entrance so we rang Scotty and he opened up the main doors and herded us all inside. Where we got to pick out our Bright Orange ‘Armageddon Expo. Staff’ shirts, which were quite big sizes and the smalls, were baggy. Changing into them we then needed to find somewhere to off load our bags and things for the day, not wanting them lying around anywhere… Scotty said we could put it in his car out the back so we did… which wasn’t such a good idea… but I’ll get to that!

Stating off we all stood around and listened as instructions were given, Sarah and Myself were started off at the Entrance way… for the Ticktek pre-ordered tickets, it was fun I got to rip of ticket ends… yay!! We also had flyers to hand out and eventually show bags, which had been kept at the other entrance way… I was not pleased about handing out showbags… after having spent soo much time packing them; I never wanted to see one again honestly! Grace got a… not so nice msg from me about that! Whilst working on the doors a good friend of ours that we met about a year ago at the Rachel, David and Tony convention, Nicole came in. She’s awesome, she came in wearing a BDU Shirt with a ‘Carter’ badge and dog tags and ID card, it was sooo cool, was awesome seeing her again! Anywho, I only stayed out the front until around 10:30 which was when the animation guests were due down for signings.

Waiting until about twenty to 11 and Chris Rankin still hadn’t shown up and having run around and asked Scotty and Rob and a few others were he was I eventually just went upstairs to get him myself, though it was the first time I met his manager and... She doesn’t give good first impressions… her excuse for not being down there was that they hadn’t had coffee yet… but then she managed to get the coffee brought to the table instead… that made my job easier! So leading Chris and his manager over to the animation table I had a little talk with Chris, not much but a little… then once he was at the table and sat down a queue started forming, but as there was only the one guest at the time, it wasn’t huge.

I also managed to sneak in and get an autograph off him myself which was good… to add to my collection! Whist Queue minding, there were a lot of questions asked, because we were right at the entrance door way into the Room so people were wondering how to get to different places, the Wrestling, Comics, etc, etc… Luckily I also had my schedule in my pocket, even though they were spread out on our table and also in all the showbags, they were used quite a bit and I ended up with more than one over the weekend! Chris was the only one signing on our table until Roger Bumpass, Stephie Sheh and Neil Kaplan finished off with their panel upstairs and came down.

A friend of mine Les also turned up, I spoke to him for a minute or so but we were getting so busy with the queue of people waiting for to get an Autograph from Billy West, that I really couldn’t talk to him that much so he decided to go off and take a look around the place, see what was about etc… I didn’t really see him that much for the rest of the day, I spoke to him once more and he took me over and showed me a stall that had a heap of Stargate stuff, which I hadn’t seen before but didn’t have much time so I had to rush off again!

Just as it was getting to Twelve and Billy West was on his way down to do autographs, I let Rae cover my queue minding so that I could run with Grace and Sarah off to watch Conner Trinneer do his Q&A session. But this is were it got annoying and tricky, I needed to get to my bag to get out the Vegemite and Scotty’s car was out the back which had been all locked up and the only way out was having a security card unlock the doors… Which took about half an hour, mainly because they were stuck sorting out the Billy West queue…? Whoops! While I waited for a security guard I sent Grace & Sarah to the Auditorium so they wouldn’t miss any more than they had already, Anyway, eventually I got to the car and just grabbed out my backpack and then bolted for the upstairs!

I luckily didn’t miss anything too special, they were mostly talking about Star Trek, which I’ve never seen so… would not have meant buggery to me! Though I did get in there when some Atlantis questions were being asked, such as when someone asked him to do a Wraith impression, which was great and Conner was hilarious, he just out his hand out in front of him and like moved his fingers, was funny! After a bit I noticed Marwin the video/DVD guy, who likes getting the Vegemite moments on the DVD guy who likes getting the Vegemite moments on the DVD so we made our way over to him and he told me were best to do it and that I should get the microphone, so I headed back across the other side of the room where Don had the microphone and running down to someone in the front row I handed them the microphone so they could ask their question, then once they were finished it was time for The Evil Vegemite Girls to strike Armageddon!! I said something along the lines of ‘I’m just gonna ask a random question, but… have you ever heard of the Vegemite Girls’ he hadn’t so I stepped up to him and handed him the tube with a ‘you have now’ very funny, got a clap and cheer, but he wouldn’t taste it… then the girls came up with me, for some reason we were dancing funny and offered to sing the Vegemite song, but we didn’t!!! Anyway, after that was done, the girls and I decided that it was time to eat so we headed out of the auditorium and back downstairs.

Getting downstairs I saw what ciaos the Animation queue was so I just put my backpack down where the Media Guests were signing, where Rob and the others were and ran back up to help Clare and the others with the queue, which had zigzagged it’s way through the front area. Which had caused trouble with our exit and entrance being the same door, so we had to open up the side door and stick up a big exit sign… having a staff member and one of the centres Security Guards leading people over to the side door and checking all the stamps off the people entering. So I ended up relieving Rick of that job, whilst also keeping an eye on the queues! That went on for quite a while though, Billy just kept signing and signing, even though he was only suppose to be there for an hour and a half, he kept going from 12 until quarter to 3, in which he went for a break and then was back again at 3:15 to start again.

Also, when Billy had come down for his singings, Rino Romano and Richard Horvitz did as well, and the queue got to the stage where we were running up and down and asking anyone who wasn’t after a autograph off Billy to come with us and we were just sticking them in the queue so that they could get what they wanted signed by who they wanted, which worked out well and stopped all the complaining from those having to wait in line. While Billy stayed down signing, Rino and Richard disappeared and then Chris, Roger, Neil and Stephanie came back down for more.

I really can’t tell you exactly what happened with that table at this stage, because things got a little crazy, there were swapping of positions, and then I was running around trying to find drinks, the table had run out of water, and the main supply was running low, but I managed to grab a few bottles for the table, and actually managed to get to my own bottle and have a bit. But I still had not eaten, which didn’t make me feel so good, as no sleep and no food and running around don’t go together well… when it got to maybe 4-ish, I got to the stage where I was getting a little wobbly, but it passed as there were too many things to do… I had to then go back out the front, make sure the other girls had gotten off for breaks, which they mostly had… having the extra person there made that easier for them.

At one point Rae gave me a Sesame bar to eat, which I so needed at that point and it kept me going that little bit longer. Anyway, back to Billy’s second line at 3:15ish… There was a huge queue of people, which we had decided was too much to get down so had had to cut it off, even before Billy had started signing, it was just incredible, but at least we had learnt from the first queue. Anyway, since I wanted an autograph for myself I ran and brought a $10 photo of Fry from Futurama and Clare said the best way to do it was for me, just to lead the new queue in, which actually worked out well. So that’s what I did, when it was time to, and Billy was back down and sitting comfortably I lead the queue up, got my picture signed, ran round the other side of the table and put it with my water bottle and stuff and then went back to queue minding.

I also at some point managed to sneak in line and buy an Autograph token for Alan Tudyk, so that I could get my ‘I Robot’ DVD signed by him. So I grabbed my DVD outta my bag and then headed for that queue, which luckily I could sneak into nicely. Alan was really cool, and his shirt he was wearing was so funny, it was a t-shirt with like a shirt and tie drawn on it type thing… all properly done of course, it was just really good and funny… I’d never seen one before, which is weird coz now I have seen a few since! Anyway, I got my DVD signed, which he signed: Smiley ‘I did not murder him’ then his auto, while he was saying to me “I’ll just sign right on top of Will’s name” *grins* So after getting Alan’s autograph I popped my stuff away and then headed back to the queue minding, which thankful had gone down a bit.

We decided that it was a good idea to cut the queue when we thought enough was enough. Which was great because then Billy actually got to leave with Rino and Richard at 5pm when the signing from the Animation table finished for the day, which left me not needed for queue minding… and having heard that since Alan’s talk earlier on in the day had been packed out and they’d organised for him to do another after the last signing session. We decided to do that, so finishing off with the Animation table I grabbed my Billy pic and headed back to put it away. At the same time Peter Woodward was still there so I spoke to him briefly then grabbed the other tube of Vegemite out of my bag. “Sorry I didn’t get the opportunity to see your talk before, but this is for you” I said as I handed him the tube… his facial expression was great because I had seen them earlier up in the green room all trying Conner’s tube!... Hmmm, that’s something I can’t remember, I don’t know why exactly I was up there that time… probably to get Chris and the others down maybe………

Anywho, before heading up to the Auditorium with the girls, since Grace and I had access to our bags hidden behind the tables, we both swallowed down a couple of Heron each, with water… which was heaven on our heads… That done we all headed up stairs and it was Great just to be able to actually sit down… except I embarrassed the hell out of myself, again… my phone rang in the middle of his talk, I tried turning it off but it was being stubborn… so I just said hello, to see it there was anyone there, but hung up anyway… to make it worse, I musta been soo tired that my phone ringing had actually woken me up… how terrible is that?? Oh and whilst my phone is ringing and this is going on I am slipping further and further down in my seat from embarrassment… after that my phone went on silent!! I was real bad though, I think everything combined and well the embarrassment made me feel bad… I could not stop shaking for the rest of the talk, but at least I didn’t fall asleep again, that’s an upside!

Once Alan’s talk had finished, and I think at some point Scotty had gotten up on stage and started taking off his shirt which was… Interesting, I honestly don’t remember why he was doing so, but the place was going wild, and Grace and I were just laughing… it was very funny, but then he put it back on and then…… I can’t remember what happened, I think that’s when he thanked Alan and we all cheered and then departed. Heading back down stairs and into the main building where there were only mainly staff left, and Munchy had turned up, who had been the one who rang me and embarrassed me earlier… But anywho, she was there and she’d driven so she took… Chelle, Niki, Sarah and Jodie back to the hotel, hanging around for a few minutes organising some stuff I spoke to Rae and she said she’d be fine with covering for me the next day when I wanted to go see Joe, which was just awesome, I owe her BIG time! And luckily for Grace she wasn’t going to be utterly busy at that time so she would make it to Joe which was great too. Anyone, with the others gone, we were just gonna jump on the bus that had been called for the guests and everyone… but Grace and I ended up going with Scotty coz we still had stuff in his car!

Back at the hotel… The three of us got into our room and just collapsed, on the bed and chairs, exhaustion setting in. I have no idea exactly what was said during this time as I was zoning in and out of the conversation. Eventually we managed to get the energy to move and showered and got changed. Whilst we were getting ready, Locky rang up to our room wondering what was going on… since we were all pretty much exhausted and really just wanted to go out and eat and not worry about anything else, and really didn’t wanna talk about work aka Armageddon. So we decided that just the four of us would go out and eat dinner together… which also made it easier as it was a Saturday night and I doubt it would have been easy finding somewhere that had a table for over ten people to sit at… and that would’ve been noisy anyway. So we rang up to Chelle and the girl’s room and told them of our plans. Once we were ready we then headed out… all cleaned, changed, sore, tired and most importantly hungry.

Walking around the city for a bit, Scotty suggested a place called ‘The Spaghetti Tree’ so we went in search of it. Walking around for a while we came across the Hard Rock Café and thought that’d be good so we went in, asked for a table for four and were told that it’d be an hour wait for one, so scrubbing that plan we then headed back off down the street. Walking further down the street we then found the Spaghetti Tree place and went inside. Entering we asked for a table for four and got directed to one immediately, and it was just up the stairs and close-ish to the door, a good spot actually. Sitting down we looked through the menu, ordered a round of drinks for everyone and a Garlic Bread to share. Once our drinks and the garlic bread arrived, we then ordered our meals; I went for the nice and simple ‘Steak and Chips’ Locky then got a message from Peter asking where we were so Locky replied telling him exactly and he messaged back saying he was on his way. It didn’t take long until he arrived, he asked first and then pulled an empty chair up to the table, and there was enough room for him to hang on the end. He then looked at the menu himself and ordered something.

I don’t really know what happened conversation wise here as I was pretty outta it. I just remember at some point Grace said something to me and I jumped in response. I think I had fallen asleep again, but I was still just staring off into space, I’m surprised I didn’t freak them out, I freaked myself out a bit that night. Can’t believe though that I managed to fall asleep-ish, even with a glass of coke in front of me… I musta been REALLY tired.

Not long after though our meals arrived and almost immediately as the plates were on the table we were eating… And Peter’s meal did not take long to come after ours either, it was good, I nice little efficient place, and I was glad I wasn’t the only hungry one!! Amazingly though I only managed to eat just over half of my meal… I’m not the best at eating during normal times and I sometimes just can’t eat full meals and the fact that I haded really eaten all day, didn’t make it easier on my stomach, so I ate what I could. And it did the job anyway, I felt a heap better having gotten some food into my body; I didn’t feel as exhausted as before. And I was actually able to listen to what was happening in the conversation, without losing bits of it!

I do remember though at one point throughout dinner that Peter started talking about Armageddon stuff and Locky and I were just like. “We’re not talking about work remember?” But the conversation continued anyway, mostly between Peter and Scotty. It just mostly talking about photos and what Peter thought would help to do the next day… There were lots of ideas coming to us on how to approach the next day as the day had been sooo totally hectic! But it was a first for all of us involved so it was a learning experience and we knew a little better how to handle the next day that little bit better!

Finishing eating and after having been sitting and talking for a while we decided it was time to depart so we paid the bill, then headed off, back down to the hotel, Peter coming with us, even though he wasn’t staying there… Getting back to the hotel we just went and sat down at the bar, where Rae eventually joined us as well. We chatted for a bit but it didn’t take long before the exhaustion from not sleeping and the day started setting in again and we were all getting pretty sleepy. So while Peter headed off, Scotty, Grace and myself headed back up to our room whilst Locky and Rae stayed downstairs, we later learned that they ended up checking out the ‘Ice Bar’ in Melbourne somewhere, sounded pretty cool… literally, but we were just too exhausted.

Getting back to our room the three of us once again collapsed down on anything available, but it wasn’t long before we were changing into our Pyjamas and getting ready to go to bed. I got my sleeping bag out from its hiding spot under the bed, where we’d hid it earlier in the morning… I then pulled the desk chair over to the small couch chair and attempted to sleep like that, but the chairs kept moving apart which was not good, but the floor was sooo hard. Eventually after lots of urging from Grace and Scotty that there was room on the bed I moved over, staying in my sleeping bag and sleeping close to the edge, it was MUCH better than the previous arrangement. It was only like 11pm and we were ready for sleep, which came fast and it was weird because at about 1am we all woke up at the same time! It was funny, we chatted a few minutes but then went back to sleep… sleeping was very VERY good!

To be continued in Part, 2...

Friday 27th April, 2007:
Having stayed on the internet until around about 4am, whilst chatting and packing I finally made it into bed, put on the very last episode of Stargate ‘Unending’ and after watching it fell finally fell asleep! Yep, I actually did sleep! *shock* But… I did wake up like three hours later at 7am, watched some more of Season Ten before actually getting out of bed at around about 10-ish, just enough time to jump in the shower get dressed and pack the rest of my stuff. Then I went back on the computer for a while, whilst waiting for my mate and lift into the city Jodie to arrive at about 12:30-ish! Even though we didn’t need to be at ‘The Sebel’ –Formally known as the ‘Carlton Crest’- until about 3-3:30pm, because the booking was in Grace’s name!

So after some really bad MacDonald’s and a quick visit into Minotaur and Officeworks we headed back to the Hotel to meet up with Grace, finding there had been an accident somewhere and the traffic was really bad so she would be a while. So I just messaged Locky and he came down from Scotty’s room and sat around and chatted with us for a bit, even after Grace had arrived. Whilst talking to Locky he told us that Scotty had taken Don & Carmen up to visit all the Vineyards for the day. :D Anyway, the four of us talked right up until Locky said he really had to get back to work, so he departed us and then Jodie and I went to get our bags whilst Grace checked us in.

Grabbing our stuff we then headed up to the room, totally surprised at how good the room was, we were expecting a room like the one we’d shared the first night last year, but this was oh so different, there was no wallpaper so none pealing either, the room also had a couch, a single bed and a queen sized one as well. We were quite surprised when very happy, especially coz we had six people staying in there… :P So the three of us got ourselves comfortable and just sat around chatting whilst we waiting to hear from either Sarah or Munchy, who were yet to come. Meeting Munchy downstairs we brought her up to the room and then headed out to meet Sarah at the tram stop! So returning to the room we managed to get ready and dressed up to go downstairs in just less than half an hour, well timed by us it was! We then headed off downstairs!

Dinner:
Arriving outside the restaurant we met yup with some familiar faces, VIPs from previous years, like Matt from the first year and Michelle and her daughter Niki from last year! Michelle came over to me and mentioned that she knew a friend of mine off the internet Eve, and that she had told her to say hi to me! :D That was cool, its fun when you know the same people! :D Michelle even mentioned that she’s read my LiveJournal before! We all stood around chatting when we were joined by Anthony, I new VIP member who quickly joined in the conversation. Finally we were allowed in and the group of us all chose to sit at the same table, we continued to chat whilst waiting for the rest of the VIPs to arrive, once they were all there, Scotty announced that the guest would arrive at around about 7:30, so we just all continued to chat away whilst we waited for them to arrive!

Don S. Davis was the first to arrive of the two and was allocated the seat right beside me! :D I t was quite funny, because the moment he sat down all the conversations stopped and the table went silent, of course though I had to point that fact out to everyone :P Thought that did make everyone kinda laugh and then start talking again and this time Don joined in as well. At first I found him kinda hard to understand coz he talked kinda slow but after a while I got used to it and it wasn’t so hard to get! :P Not long after that Carmen Argenziano and his partner Eileen Grubba who is an actress and singer! They went and sat over on the other table. :P I think Carmen was jealous because Don had more younger females on his table, whilst on the other the table there were more guys :P Heehee… :P

Don was really awesome, he was a really nice guy, he loved talking about his wife Ruby and their animals, he told us that the reason why Ruby wasn’t with him was because the people who they had organised to look after their pets whilst they were away had to cancel so she had stayed home to look after them instead. He told us how it was Teryl Rothery who was the one who made him realise that Ruby liked him etc… that was an interesting story, but I’ll explain in it more detail further along! Oh and Carmen also made sure that Don remembered he’d promised Ruby he’s be a good boy, so he was on his best behaviour and was telling no dirty jokes! :P So… having chatted with Don and everyone else at our table, somebody actually got up and went to get themselves dinner, which seemed to remind everyone that there was food involved in this dinner. So eventually everyone got up and got themselves some food, I stuck with just the chicken and rice, I was safe that way, don’t go anywhere near Seafood, yuk!

When the group of us mentioned that we had plans to go out and karaoke after the dinner, we asked if any of the others wanted to join us and there were a few yeses but more no’s, and when Anthony said he couldn’t coz he had to get up at about six the next morning, Don was thinking that it started seriously early and his expression was priceless! Then Anthony explained that he lived about an hour out of the city :P Which brought s to the topic of where each of us lived which was pretty awesome, because I found out that Anthony lives like in the next suburb to me and works in a shopping centre place I go pace VERY often! :P And I also found out that Michelle and Niki only live about twenty or so minutes from where I do… that was pretty awesome to work out, funny how we all seemed to live so close… it’s odd because the main four of our group, the original four Vegemite Girls well I live out here in FTG, Sarah lives in Hoppers Crossing, Munchy in Somerville and Grace is Maribyrnong! So a little of all over the place! :P

At some point somebody mentioned that favourite blooper of mine, which is of course that Solitudes one. And of course I know the entire thing off by heart so after some persuasion from the others I recited the entire thing, I totally love that quote, I’m surprised I held off my laughing long enough to say it! But everyone else had a laugh too so that was good as well. Then the topic of Don on MacGyver came up and he spoke about his few guest spots as the Cement Truck driver and Bear poacher, then I asked him about being the stunt double for the character ‘Peter Thornton’ he spoke about getting blown up and stuff :P Then I said that I had him in Look Who’s Talking and we spoke a little about that as well! Oh and for some reason the topic of my phone going off at last years convention came up and so Grace rang my phone to show Don what the ring tone was, which is the Stargate theme song with lyrics and he had absolutely NO idea what it was, it was funny :P Then Munchy and I started singing along! :P But then I had to go into tones and play my message tone which is ‘Most People I Know… think that I’m crazzzy…’ which is what went off last year… Don got a good laugh out of that! :D And then I just had to show Don that I had a pic of him on my phone of course! :P

After having been talking to Don for a while Scotty then had don and Carmen change seats, so that they could spend equal time with both tables! So then I had Carmen sitting next to me :D And Eileen decided to stay sitting next to Don on the other table! When Carmen first sat down he held out his hand and asked me name so I said it and shook his hand in greeting, then he looked at everyone else on the table and introduced himself! Then he almost immediately started to talk about Amanda, and how great she is and how she makes working on Stargate so much fun and how she helped him when he first started on the show! Talking to Carmen was just as awesome as talking to Don, they are both such top notch awesome guys! I got to talk to Carmen about what I did, working at Officeworks and how I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher when I was at school, but changed my mind and was now thinking along the lines of Multimedia or Photography. We had a great chat and he started to talk about his own daughter who is 19!

Anyway, after a while Michelle came over to ask Carmen a question and so the three of us got into a more detailed conversation about Amanda and well mostly the whole Jack/Sam relationship thing, and asked Carmen’s opinion on it! He said to let him think on it and he’d get back to us the following day! :P Not long after that Don got up from his seat at the other table announcing that he was ready to head off for some sleep, so Munchy run on over to give him the first hug of the evening! Then Michelle gave both him and Carmen a little pressie, which she told me was a John Williamson CD, from her and Niki!

So, having said goodnight to Don, Carmen and Eileen went off to do something so Michelle and myself just continued to chat. We found out that not only are we both equally crazy Amanda fans but we also share the same birthday, 1st September… how awesome is that?! That definitely doesn’t happen very often. After that we then exchanged email addresses and promised to keep in touch etc… Not long after Carmen and Eileen came back and this time Carmen decided to sit down the other end of the table, so we all just continued to sit around and talk, it was great to just be so relaxed around them and everything, there was no pressure or anything and I think that is definitely what I love the most about being VIP, the atmosphere at the dinner is just so comfortable and relaxing, for both the guests and us goers! Though it wasn’t much longer before a staff member came over and told us that the restaurant was closing and we had to move our little gathering out to the Bar. So as we all got up to leave Carmen and Eileen decided to just call it a night and head up to their room.

When saying good bye to him though, he had to ask me what my name was again so I just said to him “It’s Janelle, but you can call me Smiley” He liked that and then I mentioned to him that I was gonna be wearing a costume the next day and his response to me was. “Well if I don’t recognise you, just smile” :P that was awesome and put a big stupid grin on my face :P:D Anyway, as we were all making our way outta the restaurant, Peter decided to be sneaky and snuck up on me and tickled me. So I did a nice little squeal and only just stopped myself from falling over, though I was VERY embarrassed since Carmen was like right behind me still. I think I scared them slightly as well, but at least they all sorta laughed and then Peter and I just gave each other a nice huge hug! :D

After Dinner:
So… upon moving out into the bar area, most of the others from dinner had left so there was just a small contingent left. Just myself, Jodie, Liam, Munchy, Sarah, Grace, Michelle & Niki, as well as Locky, Peter and Scotty! Munchy, Jodie and myself, decided since the guests had gone and dinner was over we’d go get changed so we went back to our room and changed into more casual clothes, didn’t take long and we were back down stairs, after skipping through the corridor of the hotel signing ‘We’re off to see the Wizard’ :P so staying downstairs we all hung around and continued talking, not long after Iain turned up as well. :D

We stayed and chatted and eventually all the others had left us, Locky & Peter headed off first, needing sleep before the day they had ahead of them, plus they weren’t staying at the hotel. Scotty soon left to go back to their room and then Michelle and Niki decided to go, so we waiting for Liam to get picked up before Grace and Iain went up to the room, Grace to get changed and Iain to dump his stuff. Once that was done though we then headed off down the street to the city, jumping on the first tram, which happened to be probably the only tram in the whole of Melbourne that advertised the Sci-Fi Channel, mind you we didn’t stay on it long as we didn’t seem to have the best driver! Anyway, the task to find a karaoke bar was not as easy as the past two years had been, every place we went to was full or closing, so eventually we just gave up and after stopping by a Seven Eleven to stock up on junk food supplies we headed back to the hotel.

Getting back into our room we all settled in, Munchy and Sarah were on the couch, Grace was on the single bed, Iain on the floor and Jodie and I just laying on the Queen bed, we turned the TV on and got all the food out to eat. We set ourselves up for a long morning, but even that didn’t last long as there was a knock on the door not long after, we all made Iain get up and get it as we hid on the floor,, the whole six people in two person room thing :P Anyway, all they had to say was that they had gotten a complaint about the amount of noise that had come from our room and that we were to quieten down. So, we turned the TV done low, switched all the lights off, managed to get ourselves all set out and comfortable for the night, with Sarah taking the spare pillow and blanket and using a bit of floor for her bed, and Iain joining Grace on the single bed. Following this involved a LOT of giggling and laughing and then reading the subtitles off of whatever the show was on SBS, something about someone missing a head or something… :P

Eventually all the others got to sleep, but I had trouble like always so I just grabbed my iPod put it on sleep and let it lay and hopefully send me to sleep, which it thankfully did, eventually… But I did only manage to get about an hour or so sleep before I awoke again, giving up on sleep I turned my iPod back on, funnily enough it had turned off during “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and then it played some of the Stargate quotes I had on it! :P And after those that definitely meant no more sleep for me, but that was okay, an hour was more than I got last year! :P

Saturday 28th April, 2007:
We had our alarms set for 7am, but someone’s *innocent grin* premature awakening woke up everyone else so it was more like quarter to when we all got up Iain jumped in the bathroom and showered first, followed by Grace and then Sarah, then myself, and Jodie and Munchy got in there last. With that all done we were all dressed and ready to head off to the convention by about Eight! Decided we may as well head straight off instead of hanging around, we repacked everything into our bags and then headed down to check out! Munchy, Jodie and I went in Jodie’s car whilst the others went in Grace, it was sooo much easier having cars to store all our luggage in this year! That done, we then all headed across the ‘Saville’ where the convention was to be held!

Parking over in the car park where Grace normally does for work we grabbed our backpack/day bags etc… and headed over to the place. But whilst the others all went and grabbed something to eat from a Seven Eleven, Jodie and I who weren’t hungry headed straight to the building. We were the only two in costume out of our group this year and were getting some curious looks as we made our way across. Outside the place we bumped into Travis who we met at the very first convention we attended in 2005, he had been VIP and we’d all gotten on pretty well, was great to see him there again!

Anyway… we made our way inside and up the stairs to where the convention was to be held. Michelle and Niki were already there so we went over and stood by them and started to chat, about events of the previous night etc… A while after the others come upstairs as well and we were just all chatting, Grace & Sarah were catching up with Travis mostly! Though when speaking to another of the guys there we found out that he had actually been a VIP, but had to miss the dinner as his wife had given birth to a baby born in the early hours of the morning! Then we found out that it was also his birthday, what a birthday hey? A baby and a Stargate convention! He showed us some photo’s of the baby and there was one of him crying and he said that was when he told him he couldn’t come to the convention! I think the boy has got a very good chance or becoming a future Sci-Fi/Stargater! :D

We all continued to stand around and chat as we waiting for Scotty and the rest of the gang to open up the doors for us! One thing that caught me off guard though was when a group of convention goers came up to me and asked if they could get their photo taken with me, I said sure, but just then Scotty opened the doors and I kinda got a little sidetracked from the photo taking. I said to them that I would definitely do it just if they could wait until we were all inside as there was just too much stuff to be done upon entering the room! And now here comes the expensive part…

Convention:
Entering the room I got given my little entrance envelope with my ticket/badge thingy and my two autograph tokens inside, off Scotty’s wife Lisa I then headed off to find Scotty. I had managed to make a few extra Vegemite badges this year, changing it from Girls to Gang, and had made one for Jodie, Iain, Scotty and Liam, so I chased after Scotty and gave him his badge which he immediately pinned on his shirt. That being said and done I then headed off for the merchandise… So figuring out what I had to get I picked myself up a two Carmen Photo’s one with him and Richard Dean Anderson, I got a Don one as well and also paid to have my photo taken with both of the guests! I decided to come back after figuring out how many autographs I needed to get! After having done that I made my way around to the ‘Gateworld Collectables’ corner, looking around it didn’t take me long before I had myself a Daniel and Vala Figurine as well as a Stargate Keyring and a Tenth Anniversary T-Shirt, with the name of EVERY single episode in order on the back, it’s awesome!

And whilst looking at the figurines I got talking to Michelle and Niki again and I was telling them about how Munchy and I had gotten figurines once and had been mucking around with them and gotten Sam and Jack into some interesting position, then she mentioned she’d seen some photos of someone doing that and I was like “You mean ones were Sam and Jack were on top of each other on the ramp covered with Replicators?” Heehee, oh that was a funny day, but Michelle and I had a good laugh coz we realised that those very pictures she’d seen were the ones I’d taken… Funny how things like that get around! :D Anyway, I then decided to purchase the products I had and luckily for me I paid with cash so got them slightly cheaper, which is always a good thing! :P

So, having gotten them and had nothing else to really look at I then headed with all my stuff done to find my seat, VIP4 I was, so the fourth seat in the first row, very cool and very close to the stage! Sitting down I then had to add up all the signatures I needed, so knowing that I got one from each with my VIP ticket I marked those off as going on the photos I had taken with them, so then I just had to get ones for my shirt and cap, and also one from Don and Carmen for a friend of mine and another of Carmen for another friend, so that added up to three from Don and four from Carmen, so having added that up I then grabbed my card and went back over to queue up to purchase the tokens for them. Luckily Scotty helped out and I got through the queue rather quickly! That done I headed back for my seat, whilst waiting for everything to get started Michelle, Niki and I just continued to talk, we did that quite a lot actually :P Then I remembered the girl who’d asked to have her photo taken with me so I went and got that done for her and then we all went back to talking, and at some point we all started signing Happy Birthday to the new father! :P

Finally after a while of waiting, Locky got up on the stage to address everyone, telling us the rules we had to obey and then finishing with his last rule being to ignore what he’d just said! :P Following Locky was Scotty, who had now changed into a Flight Suit, with all the patches and all, and it looked pretty awesome! After giving us the run down for the day he then introduced both Don and Carmen to the stage and they came in and said a quick hello, Don spoke briefly about why his wife wasn’t with him and about his pets and he and Carmen had a bit of fun, but they only really spoke for a few minutes before Scotty ushered them off to the Photo Session.

And here’s the fun part! As I was making my way up to stand in the photo queue, Carmen saw me in my costume and was really impressed he just went “Oh Wow, Smiley!” And then he gave me a huge hug and I just had this incredible grin on my face :P That was just sooo awesome, he said that he loved the outfit and that it really looked great! So after that I joined the line for the photo’s loving the fact that being VIP that meant we got to go first! It was great being in front, because Peter was taking photo’s of just Carmen and Don together to start off and he got some great shots, especially the one were Carmen was puckering up to kiss Don! :P Heehee, very funny! The two of them in photo’s just look like two mischievous kids, they’re great!

Anyway, the photo’s were fun to get done, I got mine done and got hugs off both Carmen and Don, Don liked my costume as well; we got to speak for a few minutes before Peter was ready to take the photo! Having gotten my photo done I hang around and chatted to the filmer guy and watched as the others had their photo’s done as well. Every time Carmen had his photo taken Don would be sitting done and cuddling up to Eileen, it was quite funny and I got a good photo of Scott hugging her as well! :P When Munchy was getting her photo taken with Don though there was a little problem that Peter had to sort out and so Don was just hugging Munchy and then he said “And there is one reason why I like Officeworks” :D Then he looked up and over at me and then said “There’s two reasons why I like Officeworks” And then grinned and pointed to me! :P That was really funny! During the photo’s though I continued to talk to the filming guy and he suggested that on of the ‘First Contact Convention’ guys, Rick should have his photo taken with him and have them both bending over as they are both bald :P Heehee, luckily they decided against that though, there’d have been too much flash I think :P

Anyway, while the photos were all happening, Locky had put on some Stargate music videos as well as some clips and bloopers from both Stargate and some other Sci-Fi shows! Grace and Sarah definitely liked the Supernatural bloopers ;) Oh and whilst this was happening I was talking to another of the guys there and he said he might be able to get me a copy of Season three Atlantis to watch, since I haven’t seen any of it! How cool is that?! :D Hmmm, what else happened whilst photos were going! Oh yeah that’s right, I was walking around and suddenly there was this guy wearing a navy uniform there, he wanted to have his photo taken with me, so we got that done and then he seemed to disappear again. Anyway, after the photo’s were finally finished, Don left the building to do a little tour of Melbourne I think, but Carmen and Eileen stayed and it was then time for Carmen to come up on the stage for his Questions and Answers session!

Carmen was hilarious; he loved to talk about working with Amanda and the rest of the cast! He spoke highly of them all and said that he just loved being able to work with them all, he mentioned that he would have liked to have explored the character of Selmak more. He also told us that his favourite episode was ‘Tok’ra, Pert Two’ and his least favourite was ‘Jolinar’s Memories’ and ‘The Devil You Know’ as he just basically got to be dying in hell the entire time! When asked what he thought of the character Martouf he had to think of who was that and we were all like “JR Bourne” And then he remembered and couldn’t remember the symbiotes name so I’m like calling out “Lantash!” And he just laughed and goes “See smiley knows all this stuff” :P That was cool, I think he just liked calling me Smiley :P Anyway, one of the main questions, which Michelle had brought up the previous night she asked again and this time he took his time in answering the question. It was a Sam and Jack shipper question, wanting to know what Jacob actually meant when he was dying in ‘Threads’ and told Sam to not let rules stand in her way of happiness. Carmen said that from a fathers point of view he doesn’t think Jack is the right man he’d want his daughter to be with but if it mean that she was happy then it didn’t matter as much. Hearing this Michelle and I gave each other five ;):P

So all that having been done, I felt that it was about time to release the Evil Vegemite girl in me and brought out the tube! :P Sticking my hand in the hair Scotty came over with the microphone and I just asked whether he’d tried Vegemite before. He responded yes he had, but I threw him the tube anyway. We told him he had to taste in on stage so he did, opening the tube he was just gonna put some on his finger and I was like “No, no, you’ve got to squeeze it into your mouth!” :P Mind you everyone else was like “No!” Heehee, but he did it, he squeezed the tube into his mouth and his reaction was almost as good as Rainbows the first year. The taste of it hitting him he grabbed a bottle of water and just skulled almost the whole thing, and what was left he tipped over his head! I was too busy laughing that I couldn’t get any good photos of it though! But it was all filmed for the DVD, including our reactions! :P

Then someone brought up the topic of how Teryl had gotten him to take his shirt off at a recent convention in Canada, it was for charity and he was standing next to Cliff Simon who used to be like Mr. something-a-rather :P Scotty let him know that he actually had footage of that moment and then Carmen just hid behind the pillar beside the stage, then Scotty was like “How about demonstrating the real thing?” But nope, that didn’t happen, but it was still very funny! :P At some point after that Carmen had started talking about Eileen and mentioned to us that she was both a singer and actress and he got down on his knees and asked her to come up and sing but she didn’t want to so his plan didn’t work! But she did come on stage when Carmen’s Qs & As were over and Scotty was handing them a gift for coming to Australia. They gave Carmen a Aussie Cricket Shirt and a cap to Eileen! :D

After Carmen had finished and disappeared off the stage Scotty came back on with Locky and the two of them then started off the auction! There were some great things in the auction. They even auctioned off the photos Peter had taken of Don & Carmen earlier in the day. There were also framed pictures which were all auctioned off with autographs being included. The most expensive thing to go was a huge framed poster that was signed by over twenty of the cast and crew, it went for $800 which was incredible as we were all expecting it to go for at least over $1000!! The second most expensive thing to go was Locky’s green BDU replica jacket which Munchy brought for $600, it was just incredible that it went for that much! Oh there was also a replica TER (Transphase Eradication Rod) that had been signed by Richard Dean Anderson, but that didn’t even hit the reserve price so it didn’t go! Anyway, for once our group was rather good with the auction, Munchy got the jacket, Sarah brought something else, and I got the very last item which was one of the photo’s taken of Don & Carmen, I got it for $78 which was great!

So once the auction was over we then broke for lunch, but Locky put on the last ever episode of Stargate Sg-1 ‘Unending’ so most people stayed back and watched that. We all went and paid for our auction items, I love the photo I got the two really do just look like big kids, it was great! So whilst the episode was playing in the background. Don came back into the room, not realising he still had another to go before he needed to be back, and since Carmen and Eileen had already gone off to tour Melbourne he stayed around and chatted with us for a little bit before he then disappeared again to waste a bit of time! After that I went over to Rick who was guarding over the Auction table and the two of us were chatting away, we exchanged email address and just really got to know one another it was awesome. I love how at convention you really get to meet some Great people who you have so many things in common with!

Anywho, there were some interesting conversations going on during this time. I also spent the time talking to Peter a bit and as well as some of the other guys! After the episode had finished and everyone had cheered and applauded then it was time for the ‘Stump-A-Nerd’ panel, which consisted of Scotty, Ben and another guy called Pete! The have a thing on triple M and so they got up on stage for a bit, as time had run over they just went with showing some clips of movies and stuff. Whilst this was going on though, Don had arrived back again and Michelle and I were up the back talking to him! He was just so awesome, a really sweet and nice guy, who kept giving us hugs and kisses, like he kissed me on the head at one point :P He definitely liked to talk about beautiful women :P Anyway our conversation got cut short when Scotty interrupted us and called us over to take our seats again as it was now Don’s turn on stage!

On stage Don spoke once more about his wife Ruby and how it had been Teryl who had been the one to make him realised that Ruby liked him, and apparently they ended up making out in Teryl’s kitchen but overbalanced and ended up on the floor… That was definitely an interesting story, he then spoke about how when they got married they had their wedding on a boat and at the time Amanda and Alan owned a house on the bay and when the house came into view there was this massive huge sign on it saying ‘Congratulations Don and Ruby’ and they still have the sign too, how sweet. He really loved to talk about Ruby and even about Amanda and Teryl , he talked again about their pets and their bulldog :P And when asked what his favourite animal was his response was Human… Female :P Don also spoke briefly of his time in the Military, he told as all about what he had done and what had happened when they got back home and it was quite a bit emotional to hear so he did only speak briefly before moving on! He also spoke about his artwork, his drawings he does, when asked whether he would ever sell his work his response was NO, he would never, but he did have a brochure for an upcoming exhibition of his, and he said that he would only ever sell copies, but never the originals, which is understandable!

Don was just as great as Carmen on stage, he was funny and he talked about the show and what it was like working with everyone on it, saying that coming to work on the show was a pleasure. So he mainly talked about these three topics, his wife, his pets and working on the show, and before we knew it Scotty was about ready to pull him off the stage, but we were yet to do our thing and as I had let Munchy do the honour this time I let her give him the Vegemite, which Scotty had anticipated as usual and got Munchy up to give it to him. IT was the first time that it wasn’t me giving the Vegemite which was different! :P Anyway, don had tasted Vegemite before and there was no way he was gonna do it again. Actually, the previous question to the Vegemite was one about the nudity scene in the first episode and his response to the Vegemite was that he’d rather do something like that than eat it again! :P Heehee… but he posed and let us get photo’s of him with it!

Anyway, before heading off to start off the autograph session, Locky got up on the stage with Don, carrying a Star Wars bag. But on the projector screen there was a great photo of Don, Locky in a suit with all his medals and Scotty in a suit as well, it had been taken on Wednesday morning. As it was ANZAC Day they had taken him out to Watsonia Barracks for the dawn service and as a thank-you for coming to Australia they had gotten him and actual Australian Army Hat! The hat looked awesome and when Don put it on he really did actually look Australian. He was really honoured and it was very great!

So after that Don was sent up the back with Carmen to start with all the autographing. Since the whole day had been running behind schedule Scotty skipped the Costume Competition and just went straight to the farewell. He let all the people needed to go in a hurry to either catch public transport or get somewhere in a hurry go first and then everyone else to follow, starting with the VIPs! Mind you our group ended up at the back of the VIP queue as Peter wanted to get a photo of the group of us together and since Grace had to go straight away, Peter and the rest of us just went out the front of the room and the photo was taken, which I can’t wait to get a copy of, the photo included: Me, Munchy, Sarah, Grace, Iain, Jodie and then Locky and Ben jumped in for good measure! :P:D Only person missing was Scotty but he was too busy with everything else to join us! After that was taken though it was time to wait in line for autographs, we let Grace go ahead of us all though as she needed to get outta there, so she got her stuff signed, said her goodbyes and disappeared!

The rest of us continued to chat as we waiting in line and slowly made our way to the tables. It wasn’t that bad really, I mean we did all get to talk and chat whilst waiting so it wasn’t at all boring! When I finally got to get my autographs done Carmen was first and all up, I needed to get six from him, including the one for the photo of him and Don together! So I gave Rick my tokens for the autographs and then gave all the things to Carmen to sign, he actually got through them rather quickly! :D Even whilst keeping a conversation going. He was just the sweetest guy, really awesome and Eileen was fun too! :D She wearing Don’s Army Hat and she really did look like she was having a great time. She was nice to talk to as well and we found out that they had to fly out to Sydney at 6pm, so it was gonna be pretty rushed.

Moving past Carmen we could hardly get to Don because the queue was so bad so Michelle, Nikki and I just continued talking as we stood between the two tables. For some reason we started talking about the CD they had gotten for both Don and Carmen and we then all started to sing the Old Man Emu song, which was a classic as Don’s expression was priceless! He had NO idea what was going on. But the three of us did conveniently shut-up as soon as the camera guy came over with the video camera! Which just like last years he seemed to follow us around and he got Don as he was signing all my things! I totally can’t wait to get the DVD of the convention, I reckon it’ll be awesome and have some great priceless moments on it, just like last years! I reckon this years will be even more hilarious with all the awesome stuff that went on during it!

So… having made it to the end off the line and gotten everything done and autographed we all moved aside and then kept talking, we were definitely having some great conversations during the day and the previous night too. We decided that waiting for the different conventions to come up was too long a time and that since we all lived fairly close we should try and catch up more often, go out for coffee or something like that, which would be great because we do have sooo much in common! Anyway Peter was came over to chat with us and he then noticed that Locky had fallen asleep on one of the chairs so he got Sarah to go over and give him a kiss on the cheek, but Locky was totally out of it, so Peter wanted to get a photo so this time I went over and gave him this huge kiss on the cheek and nearly knocked him over, all the while Peter was getting a photo of it all! But poor Locky had no idea what was going on, poor Guy :( :P

Anywho, after standing around for a fair while Locky came up and we finally got Peter to take a photo of the two of us together! Mainly for all the peoples off the ‘Stargate News Australia’ website (SNA) :D So we got it done and I really can’t wait to see how it turned out, his outfit looked pretty awesome as well, he definitely went to a lot of work to get them all looking so great! I can’t wait to see most of the photo’s Peter took during the day, it was just too bad that Scotty was so busy we didn’t get one done with him in it as well. And I missed out on getting one done with Rick as well :( But he was busy sitting down with Carmen while he was doing his autographs, we’ll just have to get one next year! Yup! So, we continued standing around chatting, Michelle and I exchanged mobile numbers and promised to keep in touch, then the filmer guy came around again and wanted to get an interview with us again like last year, saying it was an annual thing! So we all stood around in the corner and did that for him, then it was time for Sarah to depart so we said our goodbyes and she disappeared. Then it was time for Michelle and Niki to take their leave as well so with all hugs goodbye they took off as well!

It was a totally awesome day and everyone had an absolute ball, at least out of our group anyway and I’m pretty sure that even the guests were enjoying themselves and having a good time. Anywho, eventually it got to the stage were Jodie and I had to take our leave as well, Jodie wanting to get home to get some sleep before watching the cricket! So after walking downstairs we then remembered that we hadn’t ordered a DVD for ourselves so we run… sorta run, back up the stairs to the room and over to Lisa to order them. So whilst paying I asked Lisa if I could sneak up to Rick and give him a hug goodbye, which I did! And in the process I spoke to Eileen for a bit I said that it was a pleasure to meet her and of course Carmen & Don, I also said that I hoped that they had had a great time and enjoyed themselves and hoped also they would enjoy Sydney as well. She said it was great to be there and that it was a pleasure to meet us as well, she was very nice to talk to a great Lady as well! Having spoken to her I then went to say goodbye to the filmer guy, whose name I don’t know if you hadn’t noticed already! Heehee, I gave him a hug goodbye and he was like “I’ve been hugged at one of these before” So I gave him another hug and Eileen just laughed.

So after having said goodbyes to everyone and hugging them all: Scotty, Lisa, Locky, Peter, Ben, Rick, Travis, etc… Jodie and I then headed back down the stairs, said goodbye to Munchy and her mum who had come in to pick her up and then we headed off to where we parked the car that morning. Which was again an interesting walk with all the weird looks we were getting, but it was totally worth it, a totally awesome day all round! We all had an amazing time, it was just excellent and there is NO doubt that just like the others this was worth every single cent that was given! I enjoyed myself thoroughly and it was just Great, another incredible experience! I can’t wait until the next convention already, getting to see everyone again is always the best! Always know that you are gonna have a GREAT time at them, no matter who the guests are!

On a side note… I would just like to say a massive, huge, enormous thank-you to Scotty and Lisa and everyone else from First Contact Conventions: Locky, Rick, Ange, Peter and… filming guy! :P You all did an absolutely fantastic job, thanks for putting in all the hard work to make it just a great day that it turned out to be, it’s very much appreciated by all! :D THANK-YOU!! :D

I’d also like to add a thanks to both Carmen and Don, as well as Eileen, who took the time to come down here and spend their time with us, it was great having you all here and it was definitely an hour to have met you, it is not something that will be forgotten any time soon! I’m honoured that I had the pleasure of meeting you each personally, it was a great experience and I really do hope that you enjoyed yourselves and your time here in Australia and Victoria! :D THANK-YOU!!! :D

So… now that’s all over with, here is my very long-winded write-up of my latest convention experience! I have been extremely detailed this year, hoping to have not missed out on any of the good parts! Hope that this hasn’t bored you and that you can actually understand what the heck I have written! :P I’ve been told I can get carried away sometimes :P I did mainly write most if the high points, but it was just a awesome time had and so much happened! Hope you enjoyed either way!

Luv Janelle aka Major Smiley Gidget! :D