Unreasonable, highly unreasonable.

[oloriel]

The last thing I should be doing with an unfinished presentation waiting, and therefore the one thing I am doing: A sort of Ring*Con diary. Probably long, chaotic because I'm writing this from memory, and I'll just stick to English since most of the Con happened in English anyway. Take it as retribution for the never-translated Middle-earth Festival diary... there might be some minor spoilers, don't know about that yet. @ladyelleth: If I forget anything, feel free to comment. ;)

Here goes...


Since my car was still at the garage when I left on Wednesday, I have to get to Bonn by tram. Actually that's not so bad, line 16 goes from Cologne strait to the Maritim hotel, but you try going by train with three bags, a sword and a chainmail coat. I packed it all as reasonable as possible, fell onto a seat and remained there for the next hour.
But then, after finding the way out of the construction site the station before the hotel currently is, there I was, and after picking up my bracelet and card I even found some of my friends already. My room partners weren't there yet, though. Still I managed to get dressed and help Aditu get into her Gil-Galad costume she wanted to wear for the Mark Ferguson Mailing List meeting, where he himself would be present (apparently, he admired her costume, too). Of course, my carefully constructed schedule for the con was ruined immediately because I just couldn't make it to the first panels. So I missed Jorn Benzon and Sala Baker while we were checking out the merchandising stuff and finally picking up my Éowyn dress. Aditu and I registered for the Ring*Con '04, and we visited the DTG's room. They had new buttons (last year they had only "Chef? Nein danke" buttons, which means "Chef? No thanks" and refers to the new German translation of the LOTR in which, among other linguistical catastrophes, Sam and Gollum call Frodo "chef"): "This will be a night to remember", "This forest is old" and "Dummer fetter Hobbit" ("Stupid fat Hobbit"). I didn't manage to get one of those, either. But we did make it to John Leigh's and Bruce Hopkins' team-panel, which was greatly ammusing. Turned out that not only Craig and Mark are great commedians. Bruce immediately stormed the audience room, chosing some people to follow him and asking all others to immitate hoof sounds while they charged through the hall (which was named Valinor, but I do hope Valinor does not acutally look like that). Then the two of them were quite amused at all the people coming up to the stage and kneeling to take photos, calling each other Majesty and immitating Marc B. Lee, the master of ceremonies. "Jooooooohn Leeeeeeeigh!" They told about scenes that hadn't made it into the final cut, for example one that has Bruce/ Gamling come into the caves to tell Éowyn that the king has ordered them to flee to the mountain path, but then he sees she's helping Morwen who is just giving birth to Just Another Cute Rohan Refugee Kid and he gets all queasy. Bruce also told about the Uruk-hai who grabs him by the throat after the door-breach in Helm's Deep (that scene made it to the SEE), and that Théoden helped him out. "A fine old man..." John/ Háma complained how he never even got to draw his sword before the Warg ate him, and that he had a beautiful helmet for battle that he got to keep after filming but never actually wears during the film. They also talked a lot about horses, as befits Rohirrim, and even told us how Orlando Bloom fell of his horse once with a Gimli puppet tied on his bag, cracking two ribs in the process. Then they invited everyone dressed up as a Rohir on stage. I didn't dare...
There was quite a lot more, but I keep forgetting. They left, Bruce Hopkins juggling apples and eating them. Simultaneously.
After watching him eat, we were hungry, so it was time for our pizza that we had ordered to the hotel. And once I had had my share, it was already time to meet ladyelleth in front of Valinor. We checked out the merchants once more, especially Rene van Rossenbergs really evil, wishlist-overkilling Tolkien-shop stand, with lots of books I must have. There also were lots of already-signed and rather expensive autograph cards, not only restricted to Lord of the Rings; posters, bobble-heads, LARP stuff, DVDs (the SEE, already, but until I noticed they were all gone), CDs, the usual suspects. The only stand that didn't have any visitors at all was that of someone offering LOTR skate boards. I mean, honestly, how cheap can it get.
Then it was time for the one and only Opening Ceremony! The Hall got really crowded so I was a good girl and got to the line I had on my card (D-15) even though several lines ahead were still empty (and they stayed so :P).
The Ceremony was started by the Orcs that had won the first place at last year's costume contest, one of them complaining about sore legs and the other explaining that he didn't get sore legs because he wore fashionable Isengart compression tights. Roaring laughter. Then it was time to get serious; an Orc with a Blair Witch style standard, the Wolf Brothers' Sauron, some Wraiths and Easterlings entered the stage and stomped trough the audience. Amazing costumes, just like last year. Marc B. Lee had us recite the Ringspell; Eve and the Breeze sang a beautiful song underlined by slides of Tolkien, paintings by Alan Lee, John Howe, Anke-Kathrin Eissmann, photos from Oxford and other stuff. And then Marc B. Lee took the stage, thanking the holy trinity of the organizers (The German Tolkien Society, herr-der-ringe-film.de and Fed.Con LTD), welcoming the guests from 16 countries (turns out we actually were from 21 countries) and introducing all guests, from the "intellectuals" over the Weta Workshop and Games Workshop people (gosh, the Weta guy looks as though he must have been 15 or so when they started filming!) to the actors except for John Rhys-Davies, who was still on his way. Then we got the trailer with the images from last Ring*Con (This Weekend... We... Will Rule... The Planet!) and a few funny music videos. I managed to find Katha, and then it was alread time for Craig Parker's panel (actually it was supposed to be JRD's, but as I said, he wasn't there yet). He used the chance to rant about his terrible week: He and Marc had flown in from New Zealand via Los Angeles - Chicago - Toronto - Frankfurt, and not only had they not gotten their flight from LA to Chicago, but also when they finally did, Marc had forgotten his passport so they were stuck in Chicago for another two days until he'd gotten a replacement. In Toronto, they were told the flight had already been closed. "And I turned into Sauron. NO IT ISN'T!. And the nice lady at the counter said that I was not registered for that plane. YES I AM!. A family whose baggage I'd helped to carry was so scared afterwards they didn't let me near their baggage afterwards. We got on he flight, but they got to hear 'Sorry, this flight is closed'..." Craig apologized for ranting so much but we were obviously cheaper than a psychatrist. "It's okay, Mark, I love you again!"
Several fangirls calmed him by giving him belated birthday presents (his birthday was on November 12th). He asked a guy with a magic staff onto the stage and asked him to produce fire, which the guy said he couldn't do because of safety regulations, so Craig asked him for the magic words ("It's my secret!" - "That's creative!"), took the staff, said "It's my secret" and - lit his lighter behind the head of the staff. Unfortunately, it was made of latex, so it melted a bit. This was the first object to be destroyed by Craig Parker...
The second was one of the Path of the Death-statues on stage, when he wanted to hang a bow and arrow someone had given him to one of their horns. The horn just came off. He was sort of embarassed but reassured when he got chocolate cake, which he tried to cut with his room card. Unwisely, he gave away his room number, which resulted in fangirls camping out in front of his room later...
Then he complained about the christmas markets, which already were opened last year, but weren't this time, so he couldn't go and eat Reibekuchen. ("Meett Apfel-Mooss."> Then he shared lots of blonde jokes until someone from the audience (from the security team, actually) told him the "Why are blonde jokes so short? - So men can understand them" one. That shut him up... There was only little time for questions before the Craig-and-Marc Comedy Show after that.
It was hilarious. They said they had no idea what to do, but they did a wonderful job. We laughed so hard you must have heard it in all of Bonn. First they had us do some "warming up for each other": "Place your right hand on your right thigh, give it a slight squeeze and say, "I love you, mate" at the count of three. You can almost see these ripples of love running through the hall! Now, place your right hand on your neighbor's right thigh, give it a squeeze and say, "I don't know you half as well as I could, but I think I love you anyway, mate". *cough*
Then they made up a story about the home journey of the person who'd had the longest way (besides themselves), which was Maria from Mexico. The story was, however, told only one word by the same person at a time and started something like this: "It - was - a - beautiful - day - in - Bonn - when - Maria - realized - that - the - country - wanted - her - out - She - drove - to - the - air - port - but - had - to - realize - that - she - had - forgotten - her - *long pause from Mark* friend - who - had - forgotten - his - *pause* luggage - which - contained - his - *Mark, resignating* passport..." The passport business avanced to a Con running gag, anyway. I don't remember the whole story, but it contained a pogo stick, a Porsche and some other stuff you don't really need to get from Germany to Mexico.
Afterwards, they asked about whom they should make a poem, and one guy was crazy enough to volunteer. He was then asked about his name (Raphael) and his dream ("To become a painter." - "Of what? Of houses?" - "Of naked women"). Consequently, the poem was titled "The Day Raphael painted a nude". Craig and Mark took turns in inventing lines; three had to rhyme, and then came the refrain, "the day Raphael painted a nude". Rather hilarious, especially with potentially dangerous first lines like "I hope she will look like Milo's Venus", or "He thought, 'Well, I'm in good luck'"...
They also reenacted the last year's proposal, but they had another married couple come on stage to move them while they told them what happened. Really hilarious.
Then it was Fairytale Time. They asked a kid on stage whom they asked to play all the stage decoration they'd need for Hänsel und Gretel. Which means, the bread, the birds, the Reibekuchenhaus... Brilliant as well, and the little girl seemed to enjoy it a lot, too.
Marc B. Lee also got his share as Mark Ferguson interviewed him while Craig stood behind him, pretended to be his arms, taking over his gestures and emptying his pockets.
And now unfortunately I can't remember whether that was the end or not. Hm.
After the comedy show, anyway, the official part of the day ended, so I first got rid of the chainmail and then we joined the others in the hotel lobby for some drinks, food and the hookah. Smea messed up the hotel restaurant's meal timetable, and Katha switched from LOTR to Harry Potter...
However, we were so tired that we went to bed early (which means around 2 am) and therefore missed the actors' visits to the bar, ngah. Instead, we soon fell asleep under the flag of Gondor in Wolvie's and Elbereth's room...


Photos will follow. But if I start scanning them now, I might as well skip Cyberpunk tomorrow. Which is a really attractive option actually.
EDIT: There they are, at least for the first day...

In other news: My brother is watching the specials on my DVD. So jealous.

Back to Cybernetics now.

Comments

[kaneda.livejournal.com]

Haha, offensichtlich schaffe ich es heute nicht, fertig zu werden. Schick das hand out so weit du's fertig hast per Mail, dann mach ich das. Notfalls schwänze ich das Proseminar. *hust*

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Du glaubst doch nicht ernsthaft, dass ich was fertig habe?