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[01]Hi, all!
[02]When I say I just got home, I MEAN that I JUST got home from the Xena convention. I seriously haven't even changed clothes yet... I'm just so energized.
[03]I thought I'd give a nice little con report, Sarah McKeithen P.O.V. If any of you don't know me that well, and are understandably not interested in hearing my personal, involved point of view of how things went, go ahead and delete this now and find something shorter.
[04]So, I leave me home about 10 on Saturday morning (after being absolutely DEVASTATED that my wonderful friend, Cat, couldn't make it due to illness, my poor, sweet baby) and we find out way to the Delta Orlando Resort hotel in, no kidding, Orlando, where our lovely convention takes place in exactly the same place as last year, which really shouldn't have surprised me. It didn't grow or anything, and it actually seemed a lot smaller, but I was soon convinced that it was worth my while.
[05]I sort of wandered around for a little while and purchased a few items. I started out with $130, but that didn't last too long, although I was surprisingly and very nicely responsible with what is, for me, a large sum of money.
[06]So, I eventually chilled out enough to plop down in my D-21 seat, next to a very nice lady that I had the good fortune to blubber and sob with during some of the videos (she was very sweet and shared her tissues).
[07]First up was the Callisto music video, which I was squirming around trying to keep from dancing to, it was nice and catchy, followed by a TO BE ANNOUNCED on the schedule I'm looking at that, for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. Oh wait! Yeah I do! In ADORABLE video with Renee and a 100 watt smile along with a lovely, rather tired Lucy for the Pasadena con last year that they decided to go ahead and show us. That was really nice, and I love seeing them together.
[08]Afterwards we had the all time favorite Gabrielle moments, which really got me sniffling and blubbering. I wish I had kept a pencil with me to jot down what they were, since I was a little too high on cloud nine and a little too teary eyed to possibly remember even what number 1 was.
[09]Next was the trivia competition, where three fans got up to answer 5 questions in a row, and each one $50 dollars. Two of which were my sweet friend, Heather, and myself, and both of us came away rather wired about that. Lesse... a couple of the questions were, "Who the hooded figure was from The Bitter Suite", which would be Ming Tien, and "Who's first and last name are the same reversed", who would be Bob Trebor, and "What three eps Michael Hurst directed", which would be ADITL, ATOTM, and AAC.
[10]Then we have the salute to Gabrielle video which was, really, more of a salute to Gabrielle being Xena's "light" than anything else, but it was still nicely done.
[11]Lovely blooper reels! I had just bought Kit 3 earlier that day, and hadn't seen these yet... favorite moment, Renee from ATOTM saying to Istaphan, "Looks like you'll have a REAL erection!". ROFLMAO! I KNEW that was there, but it's hilarious when you see it.
[12]Music video salute to Claire, and then CLAIRE! What a nifty lady she is... very tall, very beautiful, and very, very talented. She was extremely enjoyable to listen to.
[13]Intermission was next and, yes, this is where it gets really exciting for me, because I FINALLY got to meet the phenomenal Missy Good, who was extremely sweet and patient with me, answering all my questions and generally just being a good sport about my endless babbling and near fainting upon first seeing her.
[14]I was chatting with Missy through the salute to the end of Herc music videos, and the Herc blooper reels, but that's okay, cause I'm not a Herc fan anyway.
[15]No minimum bid auction, which was fun, and not nearly as outrageous as it was last year. I tried my darndest to get something with that 50 dollars, but in the end, I'm glad I was outbid every time.
[16]I'll confess that when I saw the volunteers get free merchandise for helping with the auction, I marched myself up there and volunteered to be a volunteer today, Sunday, which I was, and got a Callisto mug along with a "The Debt" t-shirt and "The Price" script.
[17]I'm a greedy girl when it comes to Xena. *G*
[18]Music salute to Joxer that actually got me misty eyed, and then Ted Raimi came out and had us all cracking up with making a huge act of tripping over everything and trying to sit in his chair.
[19]Ted struck me as a very talented, very sweet guy, who really, really likes to be funny. I'm not sure there were two serious moments the whole time, he was always doing some kind of an impression or telling some kind of a story, which was okay, because even though he was obviously hamming it up, it didn't come across to me as being overbearing. I had a blast listening to him.
[20]At one point, someone asked him to sing "Joxer the Mighty", and he had a bunch of us come up with him and sing it with him. So, of course, I shot up like a cannon when he picked me (he let pretty much anyone come up), and we had fun with that. I had made it back to my seat when I saw people hugging him, so then of course I was back up there hugging him and hopefully not saying right into the mic a shy little "I love you" which he was wonderful about.
[21]Autographs were fantastic and, yes, this is the personal Sarah version to Sarah's more personal friends and family, so Sarah's gonna tell you about Sarah's gosh-darn experience, okay? Thanks.
[22]Some of you know that last year I was pretty excited, and I asked a lot of questions and generally made an ass of myself at the convention, which was bad. When going up to Claire, I was trying my best to come up with something flatteringly impressive to say on the spur of the moment, so I just blurted out that Xena would be NOTHING without Alti, which got me lost of unhappy boos from the crowd and generally ended up with me crying the bathroom and leaving early.
[23]But Claire hadn't made me feel badly about it last year, and she had been so polite and understanding, and was even more so when I walked up to her at the autograph stand and started blubbering about how much I appreciated her being so kind and how much I enjoy her work and love her. She just put her pen down, and watched me and smiled, and generally made this little fifteen year old Xenite feel like a million bucks, which ain't easy to do. She was, in one word, amazing.
[24]Ted was a sweetie... he sort of giggled and made small talk as I told him what an inspiration he is and how much I enjoy all his work.
[25]Then I went to the hotel, where I was up half the night writing in my diary, and dreaming about the con the other half.
[26]At some point during that day I was ecstatic to meet Becky and Shirl, nutbreaders, and Mike Vivian, all wonderful, lovely people who I had a great time with, even more so on Sunday when I was a little... calmer. *sheepish grin* I was NOT half as bad as last year... honest.
[27]Lovely.
[28]Next day I'm totally pumped and ready for action. I get to the con about an hour early, and run around using up a roll of film just taking shots of the convention area, cause I didn't want to forget a thing. Finally I settle down to the women of Xena music video, which I'm, again, squirming around to dance to.
[29]Next was the all-time favorite Xena moments which, I gotta say, were fantastic. Among them were the scenes from "Ides of March", "One Against An Army", "The Bitter Suite", "Altered States", and the number one moment was the reviving of Gabrielle scene from "Is There A Doctor In the House?"
[30]Sarah tearing up again. *happy sigh*
[31]Xena blooper reels, just season 2, and even though I've got the darn thing memorized, I had a great time with it, too. I'm glad I restrained myself from talking along with it, unlike a couple of people right next to me.
[32]Another salute to Joxer, more Ted, and Ted was just so adorable bringing up people on stage to do stuff with. At one point I got up the nerve to ask a question (how's that a change from last year?) and asked about the WWF scene from KS, which he admitted to being purely Lucy, Ted, and Josh Becker. I didn't mention that I hated that scene.
[33]Young Herc blooper reels, not much to my taste, and then I high-tailed it outa there with Becky and Shirl to take pictures.
[34]Afterwords we had the costume contest, where an Amazon one third place, a golden hind one second, and me dear friend Debbie won first prize as Callisto the Fool from BS.
[35]We just won't mention that there was also a talent portion to that contest, where two people participated, and one of them was myself shaking like a leaf while singing "The Love of Your Love" from the BS and unable to finish it without bursting into tears.
[36]I still got a mug, t-shirt, and something else that I'll hafta go see again, and everyone was really nice to me (I got offers for voice lessons. *G*), so that was okay.
[37]Then, I had the happy fortune to find that Heather from the trivia contest the day before was actually a good friend of mine, who I hadn't recognized, but finally recognized me, and had me friend Debbie along with her from last year. (Cat, I honestly had NO idea how to find them!) So I was properly ecstatic to be seeing my friends again and for the first time, both of them decked out beautifully in costume with Heather as Jace (and she was Meg in Xena costume the day before) and Debbie, of course, as The Fool.
[38]Salute to Ares *whistling* and intermission, followed by the auction. Ye gods ABOVE, it was HOT on stage holding up that stuff! JHC, I about died, but it was fun, and there were suspicious figures in the audience taking pictures, whether or not of me is irrelevent. *G*
[39]Salute to Eli, and Tim Omundson who is... the best word I can find would have to be SURPRISING. You wanna know what's REALLY amazing? He is EXTREMELY good looking! I was impressed... he has so much personality, and poise, and is a spunky little... er... well, big, fella. I came away thouroughly charmed.
[40]Ending the day was a nice round of autographs, where I had Ted sign a Joxer pic with, "Ha HA! I'm Joxer the MIGHTY!" which he was cute about. Tim... hehehehe. He had mentioned while on stage that he could kick Ares' ass ANY day, so I decided that was a nice footer for him to add to a good Eli praying pic, which I had a good laugh over.
[41]The day ended with me waiting for my mom while meeting various fans and taking pictures.
[42]I had a marvelous weekend with marvelous people. Now, if only I could convince my mom to fly me out to California... Pasadena, anyone? I bet I can convince em!
[43]Take care, everybody... hope you guys had fun (that came), too!
Sarah McKeithen
My name is Sarah McKeithen, I'm 15 years old, and I live in Florida.Favorite episode: ONE AGAINST AN ARMY.
Favorite line: "Even in death, Gabrielle... I will never leave you." ONE AGAINST AN ARMY.
First episode seen: SACRIFICE - Part 2
Least favorite episode: IN SICKNESS AND IN HELL