I walked over 17,000 steps, seven miles in total. And that was on 6 1/2 hours of sleep, thanks to a portion of my anatomy that I won't mention.

So this will be short; we did the usual, the Tucker did his thing, Snowy looked grumpy, and we left him watching the "Movies!" channel. Traffic was nicer today, but we still didn't finish breakfast until ten, which was okay, because neither of us had ten o'clock panels, and we didn't care about standing in the sun to watch the parade. They took out the chair lifts that go from Peachtree Center into the Hyatt, so you have to go to the Hyatt by way of the Marriott. This was longer but harmless and we sat in James' next panel room chilling out until Phyllis showed up. They compared scooter notes. Since he had company, I took off for the Hilton where they were having a review of the new Doctor, which turned into a review of the anniversary special and the Christmas special first. The room was packed! The usual discussion about favorite regenerations also happened.

Oh, and I won a prize! They gave away some things at the end for answering trivia questions; I knew who Peter Davison played in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the Dish of the Day) and won seasons 1 and 2 of Dangermouse! On the way to my next panel I dropped the DVD and a book I picked up in the Sci-Fi Literature panel room's free library, the Virago book of ghost stories (by women). Thought it would make good Hallowe'en reading. Alice and Ken were just parking next to us and I walked with them to the Hyatt.

I never made the panel I wanted to see because they were lined up outside and I don't stand in the sun for anyone. Sorry to have missed Jim Butcher (and the "Dresden Files" panel afterwards was full, too), but I did get to see Larry Niven. So finally I gave up thinking I might fit in the room, because at 1:10 they still were "loading" from outside, and went down to the Art Show. I don't think I saw a spacescape at all this year: it was almost all fantasy! Thankfully, there was little of what James calls "intestinal art." Someone did a neat series of berry-based dragons, there were cats (of course), I drooled over the Celtic embossing art as always, looked at the handcrafted jewelry and some neat boxes made out of old Brownie cameras and other lovely sculptural things. My dead favorite piece was of a falcon, his back to the viewer, his wings slightly spread out, done all in autumn colors in the wings as well as in the background. But it was only for sale as artwork, not as a print, although there's a small winter deer print I'm quite fond of.

I also fought my way upstairs and across the street and into the Merchandise Mart to find McFarland Books, but I was a little disappointed. Everything I was really interested in I already had, and the book about Heinlein's juveniles was just an alphabetical index of his characters. I was amused by a book of essays about "Calvin and Hobbes," and still may go back for the book about racism in books from 1920-1960 (the "yellow peril" and all that). I didn't bother looking around anymore because I was warm and thirsty, and fled back into the Hyatt and found some quiet refuge in a small stairwell near the International Tower elevators.

At some point I apparently lost my owl visor which I bought years ago at Michael's; I guess it was there at the stairway, but I didn't see that I left anything behind. I wear it not just to keep the sun out of my eyes, but to keep the fluorescent lights out of them. So I was kinda bummed. Anyway, I walked over to the Marriott to see the rest of the Classic Doctor Who panel, with Rob Bowen, Robert Ray, Alan Siler, Ken Spivey, and two other gents. Same questions as always: favorite Doctors, favorite companions (to which Rob always responds "Romana II, because Lalla Ward is a goddess" LOL), least favorite villains. I'd enjoy this panel better if the sound actually worked better in Marriott 601-602. I still can hardly hear anything.

I had nothing planned for four, just wanted a nice cool panel room, so I ended up watching The Land of the Lost cast again, but they were fun and upbeat and it was what I needed. They told about at least one of Spencer Milligan's pranks. I do want to see their film Finding Spencer!

Now, the shortest way from the Marriott to the Hyatt and on to the Westin would be through the back doors, but Georgia Monsoon Season was roaring outside, the rain coming down in sheets. So I took the bridge. What a frippin' mob scene. It must have taken me twenty minutes to go across the bridge where crossing the street would have taken me about three. And no one at the information desk at the Hyatt had seen my owl visor. ::sigh::

So by the time I got to the Westin I was 20 minutes late for "Women Travelers of the 19th Century." I went looking for James instead; he was in a panel about survival foods in an emergency situation, with a bunch of the audience trying different self-heating MREs and some brief references to preserving and foraging.

When this was over we went directly down the hill to the Sheraton. BBC America was presenting a special showing of tonight's episode of Doctor Who, "Into the Dalek," at 7 p.m. James didn't have anything else he wanted to do, we had to turn in the scooter at the Sheraton anyway, and with the scooter we got to sit in the front. So we went. They didn't actually get started until 7:30 because it takes a while to get 1,800 people in a big ballroom! The sound was a bit obscure sometimes and Capaldi's Scottish accent tends to blur his words anyway, but it was a great story, and I was happy to see you could actually keep track of the plot. I loved Matt Smith but the episodes were becoming puzzle pieces. This one had bits of Fantastic Voyage, with some very funny scenes with Clara and the handsome new teacher at Coal Hill School, Danny Pink. Hm. I think I sense a pattern here. We've had two episodes here where a certain event is caused by the Doctor. The mysterious "Missy" appears. Do I see this happening in the remainder of the episodes? And the Doctor facing "Missy" in the season finale? And the word "larder" was mentioned again. Interesting.

Anyway, home, dog walking, and lots and lots of milk. Dehydration is not fun. Want bed. Better: want bed and sleep. It's sad that I slept better on a work night!

Labels: conventions, health

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:19:00 PM

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