Friday, August 29

I arrived at the Minneapolis airport around 1:30 CDT, and proceeded to take the public bus to the convention center via the Mall of America. I registered and signed up for my tour and autograph sessions, and enetered one slip in each contest - play DOOM with star Mike Nelson, and brunch & shop with stars Bridget Jones and Mary Jo Pehl.

I went into Gypsy's Basement (the merchandise room), and the lines were beyond ridiculous. Apparently there were problems with the cash registers. I proceeded to the Hilton.

I wandered up to the third floor and saw the volunteer table. I talked to Assistant Info Club Poobah Barb Tebben, and told her about my situation -- I had been scheduled to volunteer in a screening room Sunday, but it conflicted with the celebrity panel. I had asked Head Poobah Julie Walker to give me another slot, but she just took me off the list instead. Could I sign up for another time, maybe? Barb said they were doing okay, but to come back and check later.

Still hauling my luggage, I wandered around looking for the RATMM room. I found it. Empty. I wandered again, and spotted TSD. We chatted a bit, and I wandered around some more.

I decided to settle in the RATMM room, whilst I waited for roommate and reservation-holder Jim Ellwanger, whose flight wasn't due for a while. Some luminaries, such as Ed Dravecky, Dreamy Sphar, Brenda Sarafina Olson Forrseter and MiamiMike began to trickle in. I saw a note left for me -- I was supposed to meet the Digiverse diaspora at six to grab good seats for the Keynote Address.

Dinner. Clockwise from left: Chris French, hiding in the shadows, Petrea Mitchell, ikaros, Mike Sphar, Ed Dravecky, Tammy Stephanie Davis, Ramirez.

By this time I had managed to lose my program.

Ellwanger shows up, and I put my stuff in the room.

5:20ish -- dinner. A bunch of us go to Edwardo's Natural Pizza. BioKen, Mitchell, Chris "Eightball" French, TSD, Mikey "Dreamy" Inglis/Sphar, Ed Dravecky III, Ramirez (??-maybe), and a few others (hey, I met a LOT of people that weekend, so if I forget a detail here and there, it's because of wet-RAM overload, not spite. Except when it is out of spite, which I may or may not mention.) Dreamy is friendly with the waitress -- apparently he crashed his rental outside on Thursday. Unfortunately for Sphar, a Back-to-the-Future type thing failed to ensue. I had Mozzarella Garlic Bread, pepperoni and sausage pizza, and a couple Molsons. Not bad. We break around 6:40 and dash to the Convention Center for the 7:00 keynote.

Lucy Huntzinger, Kelly Donaghue, and half of Sarah Heiner. (Sorry, Sarah!)

I get a seat in third row next to oldtime RATMer Brenda Olson Photo courtesy Lucy Huntzinger

7:00 -- Kelly, Lucy, and Sarah give me hell for not meeting up with them -- they have front row seats! Miraculously, Brenda has an open seat next to her in the third row. I sit down. The lights dim. The two TV screens light up, and the familiar strains of the MST Love Theme fill the ballroom. The crowd went extra wild. We all sang along - or at least I sang so loud I thought everyone else was. Producer Jim Mallon, the man behind Gypsy, introduces the rest of the cast, including new writer Bill Corbett. Seems to be a stand-up guy, I guess. Then Mike gets up to make a "very special introduction." Who could it be? Joel didn't stop by, did he? Frank? No, it's just Sci-Fi Channel exec Barry Schulman - which I would have known had I not lost my program. Mike and Kevin throw leis on Schulman and BOW DOWN! before him. Schulman assures us all he is a MSTie, and tell us that he first encountered the show on Turkey Day, as BBI did Zsa Zsa Gabor in "Queen of Outer Space." Audience members nervously glance at each other as we await a punchline. (Note for nonMSTies: This movie was never on MST.) There is none. Either the man is confused or he's just reading a script some confused minion gave him. He does give the new showtimes, which I believe were 10 pm ET Saturday (which I suppose includes the standard 2am Sat/Sun repeat), and a repeat 4pm Saturday. Perhaps he meant 4pm Sunday, since that would make more sense. Maybe not. Then he introduces one of those loooooooong SFC promos. "Neat," I figure, "they must have added MST to it." No such luck. It's the standard promo, and I'm still not sure why they played it. Still, it seems SFC kicked in a good bit of dough, so I won't begrudge them a bit of advertising. Next, Jim does most of the talking, the intricacies of which I'll leave to people who recorded the event. He introduces a tribute to the departing Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Forrester, Crow), set to Sinatra doing "My Way." (One of my favorite songs). Then Paul Chaplin introduces "Assignment: Venezuala," one of the shorts on the allegedly upcoming MST CD-ROM. It's a rough cut: the time code plays in the corner, and the audio's not that great. In fact, from the third row, the audio sucks. I missed about half the lines. But what I heard was awfully funny. The Brains sneak out.

Back to the RATMM room. More conversation and silliness. By the end of the evening, I've met Q, Christine Pena~, Rick Thorne, Col. Di and many more! (Now how much would you pay?) I go up to agentj's shindig for a few minutes and meet even more online types, including Mr. & Mrs. Jungle Goddess. Back to the RATMM room for a bit. Carrie and Tibby cavort. Jess and Christine Malcom show up. Some weird kind of Truth or Truth game gets underway. After Sid Varma gives me crap for weaseling out of answer, his is "get back to me later." Whatever. I guess that's why we all love Sid!

11:00 Time to GO CALYPSO! and watch Untamed Youth.

1:00 AM. MANOS!! MANOS! I get to watch Manos on a big screen. Kelly and I ran up from our Untamed Youth seats to get in the front row. The crowd is really jazzed. Eveyone la-la-las in time. Roars of applause at the best lines ("Ziggy got Garfield neutered?! Now that's funny!"), introduction of Torgo, the titles, and just about everything. I almost stop breathing during the "Flying Elves are back!" sequence of Hired! Miss Donahughe beats a retreat by the first host segment. I join MiamiMike, soundwave, and Sheryl Gere on the floor for the rest of the movie. This one strange -- girl? guy? I settle on girl with really deep voice -- WILL NOT SHUT UP. She talks through the movie, sings the Beck's and Mentos songs by itself during the ad spots, and tries, and partially succeeds, to lead a "give me a T-O-R-G-O" cheer. The movie ends, to thunderous applause.

2:45 Bedtime.

To be continued . . .