cheerfulI was so glad I was able to make the trip to New York to meet up with her, though a bit sad I missed spending an extra two hours with her because of a flight delay. Besides that hiccup, pretty much everything went as (sort-of) planned. The most amazing thing is how at ease we were with each other. There was no awkwardness of meeting in person for the first time. (Though I was a bit surprised at how slight her accent was. ;) We immediately started talking and didn't stop for over two hours. It was fabulous being able to talk all weekend about BSG, Lee/Laura and all the missed potential of the ship, and my long, long, long gestating Season 4 AU fic face to face. We watched a couple of Lee/Laura-centric episodes, 'Resistance' (in which I may have blurted out Paul Campbell was a bastard. The DC bitterness lingers!) and 'Crossroads'.
Oh, and thanks to comparisons made between Kara/Leoben paint sex and Adama's seeming desire to have paint sex,
beccatoria and I came up with a series of crack ships. She still favors my D'Anna/Jammer pairing, but I think it's a tie with the Kara/Leoben/Adama love triangle. But it wasn't all BSG. I totally sold her on Leverage! We watched the first two episodes and a couple of vids and I filled her in on as much as I could about the show without spoiling her too much. And I can't wait to see who she ends up fangirling more - Hardison or Parker.
She, in turn, talked a bit about future vidding projects (in hindsight, I lament not asking more questions, but, not being a vidder, I tend to think vids are harder to explain than fic, though that's probably my bias), and shared some real cracky Star Wars stuff with me. I'm now deeply disturbed by one part of the SW radio drama.
We did manage to leave the hotels and enjoy some sites. Friday night we ventured into Times Square for dinner (a yummy hamburger and cheesecake at Roxy's) then we set off on a pilgrimage to M&M World where I enlightened her as to my fascination with all things related to the Blue M&M. She, too, thought the store was awesome and ended up spending more than I did.
Saturday we walked what felt like most of the city and my legs felt the after effects on Sunday *and* Monday. We checked out The High Line, a park constructed around old, abandoned high rise railroad tracks, in the Chelsea area before having some yummy Challa French Toast at a diner. Then it was a very long walk to 3rd Avenue and 60th Street to the famed(?) Serendipity where we met up with
no_detective and nicole_anell. no_detective I had not seen in several years and nicole_anell I barely got to see at Dragon*Con so it was wonderful to be able to catch up with both of them. Sadly, 
chalia43, who had hoped to meet up with us and I had really hoped to meet, got stuck out of town on business. We only had to wait about an hour to get into Serendipity, which, given what I had read, was a short wait and the frozen hot chocolate lived up to the hype. After we finished,
no_detective had to leave, but nicole_anell hung out with us for awhile longer. beccatoria dragged us into a "sweets shop" and then we walked around Central Park for a bit. I had never walked around the park in the evening and it was quite lovely.After
nicole_anell left us, we made are way back to the hotel. Long story, but we only had a hotel in the city for one night and needed to get our stuff and head to our other hotel in Newark. It seemed like we would be waiting for quite some time at the hotel for a cab to take us to Penn Station when bike-cab (not sure what else to call it) operator pulled up, dropped off a couple, asked if anyone needed a ride, and mentioned he could go to Penn Station. beccatoria and I decided it would be an adventure and climbed in. Though we were dodging in and out of traffic in an open vehicle and came within inches of several cars and buses I surprisingly never feared for my life. Sunday we just hung out at the hotel and watched BSG before it was time for me to go to the airport. It was hard to leave. We had so many terrific fandom related conversations, got to learn more about each other and were so comfortable together that I really hate we live so far from each other and are unable to do this more often. And I can honestly say she is one of the sweetest, kindest, generous, and enthusiastic people I have had the pleasure of meeting.
I was shocked to learn
beccatoria had not yet seen the 'Shatner on the Mount' video that seemed to spread like wildfire on the internet following it's endless showings at Dragon*Con. Just in case anyone else missed this soon to be classic, here it is:And speaking of Dragon*Con, THEY HAVE GUESTS ANNOUNCED! They've never announced guests this early before! Trek looks to have a large contingent in 2010 with Armin Shimerman, Rene Auberjonois, Mirina Sirtis and Jonathon Frakes already signed. I'm especially pleased to see Frakes listed because I'm hoping he'll talk about his work on Leverage.
And speaking of Leverage, Dean Devlin announced on Twitter that there will be a Leverage convention in Portland March 19th-21st. I'd love to go, but I'm not sure I can fit in the travel.
In TV news, I still find I don't have much to say.
beccatoria and I both lamented that neither of us have a show we feel compelled to discuss at length and analyze to death since Battlestar Galactica ended. TSCC was an heir apparent, but we know how that turned out. House is, surprisingly, holding my interest thus far this season. I'm enjoying seeing the old team back together and House is both the same, yet a little bit different. If I had one problem with this weeks episode it was in the last five minutes. The writers went with an ending that lacked balls and didn't make any sense. Remember how I said I thought the Stargate: Universe premiere wasn't very good, but it didn't feel me with rage? Well, I decided to watch the second episode, which is actually part 3 of the pilot, and there was rage, people.
I don't know where they got the Stargate personal from, but they never would have made the cut under the leadership of the last two series. I've never seen so much disregarding of orders in a single episode in all my years of viewing. Then there was the senator's wife who claimed to be close friends with the president and his wife and threatened to tell the world about the Stargate program unless her daughter was rescued and returned to her. Someone needed to tell her it would be her good friend the president that would have her declared insane and locked up until she shut up.
There was also a bunch of little stuff that annoyed me to no end, like playing a song with the lyrics "don't forget to breathe" just as the machine that generates air for the ship went back on line. Seriously???
But I became offended when, while on a mission, Dr.Rush confronted Sgt.(?) Greer about Greer'shis anger which, in Rush's opinion, was the result of growing up poor and because of poverty he had two choices in life - jail or the military. And Greer is the only black character on the show. Need I say more? I almost feel out of my chair.
And that's probably it for my posting for the week.
