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