San Diego Comic-Con - Day 4

You might not believe me if I told you that four days of hanging with the geek elite in sunny, beautiful, 75 degree weather can actually tucker one out to near exhaustion...but it would be the truth, boy howdy. In the end, it was Katie who fell first. She fought hard and valiantly for Nerd-Girl Pride, but as our fourth and last day dawned she would not be moved from her bed for all the glimpses of Tom Welling, Justin Hartley and Misha Collins the universe might offer her. We had our last two, Must-See panels early on Sunday morning. Tina, toughing it out, and I dragged our now blistered and tired feet out of bed at 6am and made our way back to the convention center and it's inevitably long and boring panel lines. Luckily, we had Batman and Superman too keep us entertained and a nice, big tent to keep us shaded while we waited.

While we waited, I periodically checked my Twitter to see if Nathan Fillion would make his much-teased-about appearance at the Con later that day. More on that later...

The room holding our last two panels (Smallville, followed by Supernatural) was unexpectedly set in a much smaller room than our usual one. This found us a little anxious about actually making it into the room at all, let alone finding a couple close seats. I'd heard the day before, via the Twitter grapevine (it really does come in handy!), that Tom Welling would be making his first ever Comic-Con appearance at the Smallville panel. Considering that we were already bummed about the absence of our two favorite demon-hunters (Jensen and Jared), this completely lifted our Totally-Psyched! levels. After a couple hours in line, we were herded (like fanboy and fangirl cattle) into the panel-room. Up until the Smallville panel, the Lost panel was the only one where I had received "gifts" when entering the room. We were handed black, baseball hats with the Smallville logo written across the top. Now, I would never say no to a free gift, but I'm pretty sure I won't be walking around Atlanta with that hat on (or anywhere else, for that matter). My ex always told me I was way to obvious about my geekiness. I'm thinking wearing a Smallville hat around would be a little overboard, even for me (who has been recently spotted sporting a new Empire Strikes Back t-shirt).

Anyhow, we entered the room and even though I know tons of people didn't make it in, our 6am wake-up time paid off and our seats weren't that bad at all. The Smallville panel was nearly as big as the True Blood panel. As the audience yelled and clapped in welcome, Justin Hartley (Green Arrow), Cassidy Freeman (Tess) Erica Durance (Lois Lane), Tom Welling (Clark Kent), Allison Mack (Chloe) and Callum Blue (Zod) walked onto the stage and took their seats.

*Just as side-note, there have been so many seasons of Smallville, one can totally forget how many great actors have guest-starred on this show. Jensen Ackles played in 22 episodes, James Marsters played in 13 episodes, Ian Somerhalder (Lost and Vampire Diaries) played in 6 episodes (totally forgot about that!), Kyle Gallner (from Veronica Mars) has been in 3 episodes, Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse) played in 3 episodes, Neil Flynn (from Scrubs!) played in 2 episodes, Jonathan Taylor Thomas (JTT!) was in 2 episodes also and even Shawn Ashmore (who's twin brother, Aaron played Jimmy Olsen) played in 2 episodes. Wait, did I say "great actors"? What I meant was...totally hot and/or adorable MALE actors. *swoon*

Anyway, back to the panel at hand. Jeph Loeb, who has played producer on Smallville, Lost, Heroes and was even going to produce the Buffy Animated Series, moderated the panel. I'm a really crappy fan since I cannot for the life of me remember the other, non-actor, peeps on the panel, but I'm sure they were a couple producers...I might have to get back to you on that one. Anyhow, we were shown an amazing montage (that a lot of the actors hadn't even seen), with tons of shots from the next season, that totally pumped up the whole room (even Tina, who had stopped watching the show years ago). After seeing that footage, I can honestly say that I am completely and amazingly excited about next season. It looks totally badass. As for the actors, I have to say that, besides True Blood, this has got to be the best-looking cast on television right now. There was not one decent-looking actor up there; they were all stunningly beautiful. Everyone seemed really excited to be there and everyone got the chance to put their two cents in. Justin Hartley's two cents, for example, was to continually defend himself (his character) on the fact that Lex Luther really WAS dead (after multiple fans asked questions about that sticking). "No, I killed him. He's dead"! His (mock) offense at the fans questioning his killing abilities was very cute and it got lots of laughs. Allison Mack was extremely out-going and by far the funniest of the group. You could tell that she was more than happy to talk through the whole thing, if they had let her. Tom Welling was, understandably, a little hesitant and shy but he did well for his first time. Which takes us to my...

Favorite Moment:

When a cute, little fangirl walked up to the mic and addressed Tom Welling, asking him some generic question and adding, "...and could you take your time answering so you can just stare at me for as long as possible"? The audience busted out in laughter, but it couldn't drown out Allison Mack's ringing laughter from beside Tom Welling. She thought it was the funniest thing ever. Tom smiled indulgently and even with little amusement, if I remember it correctly, and said, "Wellllllllll.........I...........think........", drawing out his sentence very slowly and staring dreamily into the girl's eyes. It was a hoot and I like him even more now for that kind and gracious act for an over-zealous fan.

Scoop/Spoilers:

In case you haven't heard, Brian Austin Green will be guest starring in a couple episodes as Metallo. We got a couple shots of him in the montage for the next season and I have to tell you, I haven't been so excited about a half-human, half-machine-thingy since Iron Man was released last year. It's going to be LEGENDARY!

The Supernatural panel followed immediately after Smallville ended, so Tina and I kept our seats for our last hour of 2009 Comic-Con panels. I felt myself getting slightly depressed at the thought of leaving. It had been an extremely stressful and tiring trip, but well worth it and I still wasn't ready for it to end. But seeing as the girls' aunts were already on their way from Huntington Beach, I wouldn't even get a last chance to take on the Exhibition Hall. Depressed, indeed. But I rallied for our last two panel guests, Misha Collins and Jim Beaver, Castiel and Bobby from Supernatural.

It was a small panel, with only those two actors, the creator Eric Kripke and two other writer/producers, but Misha and Jim made the best of it. It was Misha's first time at the Con, but I'm not sure about Jim. They both did spectacular and it was a great panel, despite the absence of the show's two stars. Misha and Jim are both really outgoing people, so they had no problem entertaining the over-crowded room.

Favorite Moment:

When a fan asked, "How does it feel to know you are just as important to the show as Jensen and Jared"? Misha and Jim, without any obvious communication between themselves, starting ranting about how, "those boys are important and we let them believe they are the stars of the show so as not to hurt their feelings"...and so on and so forth. In the end, they almost had us believing that we watched the show for them and could care less about seeing Jensen and Jared onscreen.

Scoop/Spoilers:

Again, in case you didn't already know, Mark Pellegrino (Jacob from Lost and also from Dexter), will be playing Lucifer next season. In a very Supernaturalesque twist, the writers are writing him as a very sympathetic character; his feeling are hurt by the Angels/God that banished him and he comes off as misunderstood. Personally, I cannot wait to see Mark in this role. He is fast becoming one of favorite actors right now and I'm very excited to see what he will bring to the role.

So there ends our Comic-Con adventures. Soon after we left for the hotel, I saw a tweet from Nathan Fillion, saying he was going to be in the Exhibition Hall for the afternoon and later saw he had surprised all the people who showed up for the California Browncoat screening of Dr. Horrible (or maybe Serenity). I could not have been more upset about missing him, but such is life. Perhaps I will have another chance to stand open-mouthed and brain-fried in front of him as he signs his autograph and I walk away without saying anything beyond a whispered, "Thanks, Nathan". I can only hope.

If you're afraid you may miss my exciting and stimulating accounts on Nerd Nation, fear not, for Dragon Con is right around the corner and yours truly shall be attending all four, fabulous days. Until then, Viva la Nerdias!

Monday Ramblings

I've got a couple different issues to discuss and ramble about today and since this blog has an average of maybe 2 viewers (Ok, yes, I'm rounding up. So sue me) it's mostly me rambling to...me. I'm like the crazy, old cat lady except instead of talking to my cat, I'm talking to my blog (Ok, yes, I talk to my cats too. So sue me). Anyway, onward and outward.

This weekend my two BFFs (Tina and Katie) and I stole away to a magical land. A land of couches and big leather chairs that swallow you whole in their soft, lazy embrace. A land of cooking whilst under duress, crazy family reunions (minus two: my wayward sister Jamie and my cat, Candy, who was killed recently by an evil dog; my heart still aches) and the traditional talk of cocaine, sex and Judaism at the restaurant table. I drove home yesterday, not with visions of candy canes and sugarplums in my head (Christmas is coming!), but with visions of demons, vampires, shapeshifters, the Winchester boys (be still, my heart) and kooky southern bells. We spent all of Saturday and part of early Sunday morning catching up with this season's Supernatural and True Blood. I will not speak of the nightmares I suffered when I finally fell into bed. It's just too bad they didn't also contain bedroom scenes with Sam and Dean. Needless to say, the two shows are rocking my relatively dull world. This season's Supernatural is by far it's best to date and with the addition of angels to the list of supernatural creatures, it's only getting better and better. True Blood is just as exciting to watch. Except for the crawl-out-of-the-ground-naked-and-have-sex part. That was...interesting and not to mention...dirty. No pun intended. Anyway, it was a fun and relaxing weekend (at least while my mother was out of the room).


In an effort to stop myself from blogging non-stop about Twilight, here's some fun scoop on Heroes from Kristen Dos Santos. Seriously, I want her job. She has my total dream job, no question about it. I'm not above admitting my total and complete jealousy of her. Check out below for some TV scoop.



Also, in case you haven't heard, it pains me to report that it's very possible that Pushing Daisies will get cancelled after this season. It's not confirmed, but the next two weeks are crucial. It's a great show. It's unique, funny, inspirational, eccentric and complex. Please try to watch this week and next to show your support. It would suck to have this show off the air and instead have some dreadful non-scripted show in its place. Like we need more reality, come on people. Open your minds and realize the beauty and power of your and others imaginations. And of course, the total cuteness of Lee Pace. Don't miss out on that.

A Supernatural Story

I have been...procrastinating on doing a post about this show. This is my Supernatural story...

Let's go back to the year 2005. One night in September I actually have something to do besides college homework or just being lazy and loser-ish on my couch with my then roommate. I have a new job, a new potential boyfriend (that's the biggie, people) and a new social circle that consists of more times than not drunken college students and servers. So, getting to the point, I had better things to do than sit at home and check out the new WB series, Supernatural, no matter how smokin' hot the lead actors were. So, I set a blank video cassette (ah, the good old days...) to record the show and politely told my roommate that I would politely break her pretty little legs if she ruined my recording. I excitedly left to go see my potential new boyfriend (a lovely relationship that ended up lasting more than two years) as my roommate smirked behind my back at my failed attempt at polite threatening. The next day I asked her what she thought about the show. Big mistake, people. She gave me a pretty little anguished pout, as if I had made her watch an obnoxiously long infomercial selling really ugly shoes. She then started to whine about how stupid and ridiculously predictable the show had been. She had NOT been impressed. Now, there are very few people whose options I trust when it comes to TV and film. She was not one of them, to say the least. Still, when a show comes with that kind of introduction, it's hard to knock those kind of thoughts of out your head. It's a first impression kind of thing. So, when I finally sat down to watch the first episode, I too was unimpressed. After that debacle, Supernatural and I had a falling out and I never again spent the effort to try watching it again. Until now...

Tina and Katie finally convinced me to borrow their first season Supernatural. We spend a lot our time together talking about our favorite books, TV and films. We share our own favorites and it's very unusual for us to NOT fall in love with each other's favorites. They were adamant about the fact that I would LOVE this show. Out of respect for their opinion, I promised to try out the first season again. It sat on my coffee table for a couple weeks before I sighed in resignation and popped the first disc in. I slowly made it through the first disc, but the slow part didn't last long. By about a quarter of the way through the season, I was hooked. I'm not sure if I should love or hate my friends for finally forcing me to watch Supernatural. Love, because it's a really fun and entertaining show, full of Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki hotness. Hate, because loving this show and these actors is making me feel like a drooling, twittering, obnoxiously obsessed teenager. Again. I mean, I went through this with Buffy...must I go through this again?! And now, when I am almost 26 years old? Seriously? *Sigh*. Yup, there's just no stopping it. No hiding it...

Hi, my name is Lauren...and I'm in love with Supernatural.

*Hi, Lauren* -- All voices from In Love With Teenage Heartthrobs Anonymous

So, I bet you can guess where your QotD is coming from, huh? Yeah, good guess. Enjoy and try to keep your judgement to yourself. I'm a fragile little drooling teenager.

Molly: Oh, thank God!

Dean: Call me Dean.

Dean: One of us should probably stay here with you just in case he stops by.

(Madison leaves the room)

Sam: All right, you go, I'll stay.

Dean: Forget that. You go after the creepy ex, I'm gonna hang here with the hot chick.

Sam: Dude. Why do you always get to hang out with the girls?

Dean: Because I'm older.

Sam: Dude... were you on my computer?

Dean: Uh...no...

Sam: Oh really? Cuz it's frozen now, on bustyasianbeauties.com?

Sam: So?
Dean: The secretary's name is Carly. She's 23, she kayaks, and they're real.
Sam: You didn't happen to ask her if she's seen any black dogs lately, did you?
Dean: Every complaint called in this week about everything big, black or dog-like. There's 19 calls in all. And I don't know what this thing is.
Sam: You mean Carly's MySpace address?
Dean: Yeah, MySpace. What the hell is that? [Sam laughs] Seriously, is that, like, some sort of porn site?

State Fair

So I headed down to Perry, Georgia this weekend with my two BFFs, Tina and Katie, to spend some time just lying around being lazy and to catch some crazy-fun time at the State Fair. Once we arrived, late Thursday night, we caught up on all the True Blood episodes that were recorded on my parent's DVR and boy howdy with that show, I gotta say. Sex, blood, violence, crazy pointed-teeth vampires and sexy pointed-teeth vampires; it was a hoot and a half. Stephen Moyer was definitely sexier than I first thought and he had such great on-screen presence that I was always holding my breath while I waited for him to suddenly appear again on-screen. He had a very believable old southern accent that made up for everyone else's crappy accents on the show. Anyway, we really enjoyed it. It was cheesy, that's just not something you can miss, but it's a good, fun cheesy, which is something we can work with.

My two BFFs and I were soon joined by four other friends by Friday afternoon: Elliott, Charles, Corrie and Ryan. Once everyone was settled in on Friday night, we proceeded to go through bottles of Capt Morgan, red wine, Land Shark (for Charles) and various bottles of vodka. It was only when most of us where happily tipsy that I decided that I had waited long enough; it was Rock Band time! I would brook no argument and as I stood there with my guitar belt slug over my shoulder, jittering with enthusiastic excitement and waiting for the boys to set it up, I suddenly realized that I had been standing there waiting for an awful long time. I wrenched myself out my rock star daydream to find Charles and Elliott looking around like dumbos and as I looked into their guilt-ridden faces, I realized the awful truth; even with all the equipment (the microphones, the guitars, the drums), I would not be able to play the guitar that night since the actual game had not been packed. The next couple hours were spent calling every available video rental place and search high and low in the local Wal-Mart, all to no avail. It seemed that my night was ruined. But I put on a happy face and tried to enjoy the company of my friends...all the while dreaming about being a rock star.

The next day and night was spent lying around, recovering from the previous night's festivities and spending some time with my folks, who had only arrived home that afternoon. After having some tasty BBQ for lunch, we headed to the fair a little later that evening. We rode the ferris wheel, all the while praying the highly unstable metal parts wouldn't rust out from beneath us and cause us to plunge to our deaths below, we walked around the arts and crafts exhibits wish we could eat all the prize winning cakes, ate disgustingly fattening food (I'm not allowed to eat for the rest of the week) and then headed home smelling like animal poop, smoke and carnies. All in all, it was a good weekend. Check out some pics below and have a great Monday!

Motivation of the Week

Motivation of the Week is something I want to do each week, basically listing things that are happening that week that help get my lazy butt out of bed each morning. We all need something; something to motivate us, something that is apart from our regular routine that makes it worth getting up in the morning. These things could be as simple as the release of a highly anticipated film or a dinner date with a friend you rarely get to see or it can be as big and exciting as a much needed vacation. People don't usually appreciate the small things. They are often overlooked in the stress and chaos of everyday life, but these small things can sometimes be the tiny stepping stones that help you get through each week. We shouldn't take them for granted. So, that being said, here are my motivations of the week:


1) Getting to see my friend, Nathan, who is being shipped back to Iraq soon and who I maybe get to see 3 days out of each year since high school ended. That's him below with the collar on, with his owner. Haha. I kid, I kid. He's actually the owner, of course!














2) Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Yes, I know. A movie shouldn't be any motivation to get out of bed in the morning, but despite what my mother thinks, movies can make people HAPPY! Well, a day out with your best girlfriends, watching a big red devil kick monster ass and then browsing quietly among the books at Borders and maybe even downing a margarita at the neighboring Mexican restaurant can make people happy. I mean, it makes me happy, so that's all that really matters, I suppose. Below, the Hellboy trailer, as if you haven't already watched it a millions times and the best twins ever and my movie/books/margarita buddies, Tina and Katie.






















That's it for this week, folks, especially since it's a shortened week. What helps you get out of bed each morning?