Karen, Grant and I drove down to Atlanta and arrived about 9am on Friday.  We went straight to the MARTA station to park our car and just dragged our luggage with us.  In the past we've gone to the hotel first to drop everything off, but we didn't have as much junk this year.

When we arrived, we met up with Mike in the food court and then went to the Hyatt so I could check Mike and Karen into their room.  Unfortunately, it wasn't ready and it was the wrong kind of room - a king instead of two queens.  And of course there were no rollaway beds left.  Grant and I had better luck at the Marriott, where our room was ready.  One of Williams Shatner's panels was about to start on the DCTV channel, so we went on up and invited Karen and Mike to join us.  DCTV was really spotty, with the sound going in and out and the picture flipping a lot, but at least we got showers before we went out exploring.

We went to the Sheraton to get our badges and I was very hopeful.  The previous year we stood in line in the hot sun for hours, but I'd heard that the new methods for this year meant you could get through the line in under ten minutes.  We had a real shock when we walked into the hotel.  There was no line.  There was no line!  At all!  It was the craziest thing I've ever seen at a con, especially one the size of Dragon*Con.  You rock, registration staff!

After the delightfully painless process of badge pickup, we went to our first panel: Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: the Gathering.  I wasn't hoping for much since I haven't played Magic in years and the game has changed a bit, but I still thought it would be cool to hear him speak.  As it turned out, he covered a lot of the history of how Magic came to be so it was really very fascinating and informative.

My favorite part was when he talked about how he hated people collecting the cards and driving their value up, and the whole Fallen Empire set was released to "crash the market".  Someone also mentioned an iOS app called Kard Combat that Richard Garfield had worked on, so I had to go check it out.  It's a bit simpler than Magic, so of course i love it.  All in all, a very successful panel to me!

Since we were already in the Hilton when the panel ended, we went to the Walk of Fame to look at all the stars.  I wanted to see the Boondock Saints actors and it was really eerie seeing Christopher Lloyd, who looked just like he did in Back to the Future.  We saw Brent Spiner too and I was surprised Grant didn't want to talk to him, since Data was his favorite TNG character.

Then we went back to the room to watch the Boondock Saints panel on DCTV.  Man, DCTV saves us a lot of time standing in lines!  The picture and sound had cleared up so we were able to enjoy it.  Those guys are hilarious, so much like their characters in the movie.  Norman Reedus was much quieter than Sean Patrick Flannery and kept making random observations.  One of my favorites was when he pointed into the audience and said "hey look a nun!"  He then held up his camera and asked her to flip him off.

Another cool moment was when someone asked them, if they could fight any crime syndicated in the world, what would they pick?  Someone in the audience yelled "the senate" and they totally agreed.  Then another lady talked about how some of her family was violently murdered and the movies helped her put her life together and get her concealed carry permit.  Crazy stuff.

We went to the dealers room and exhibitors hall after that.  It's amazing how much of the stuff is starting to look old hat after this many years at the con.  And all the really cool stuff is still out of my price range.

One happy moment was when we arrived at Nene Thomas's booth.  I was planning to buy the new book that she and her husband co-authored, and while I was waiting to pay she came to stand beside me and said "hello again".  I was in my Kaylee costume and turns out she remembered me from last year!  I was so tickled.  Who expects one of their favorite artists to remember them, especially with all the events and people she sees in between?

Marvin arrived around then and Karen and I went with him to see Tom Smith perform.  We had fun singing along with some of his songs, but it was a lot of stuff we heard the previous year, so not nearly as amusing as when we were hearing for the first time.

Karen, Mike and I watched the costume contest in their room, since the Marriott's DCTV was acting up again.  I discovered that after they finally got into their room, they'd at least been upgraded to the International Tower so it was a very nice room.  They had a chair and footstool that worked okay for an extra bed, I guess.

The costume contest had some fun stuff and I was very glad the guy dressed as Daft Punk won.  He looked pretty awesome!

After that there were a few concerts I wanted to go to to end the night.  My goal this year was to check out some bands, which I always seem to neglect.  Karen went with me to see The Last Dance first.  I kinda liked their sound, but the music was so loud that I couldn't make out any of the lyrics, which was very disappointing.  It was also loud enough that my ears really started to hurt, so we left after a few songs.

We went to the Voltaire concert instead, and he was pretty entertaining.  He was very drunk and actually forgot parts of his songs a few times.  Then he played some songs with another band (whose name I've forgotten) and we didn't like their music as much so we called it a night.