Bill Shatner loses my coat and pushing the Spandex envelope

WOW! An amazing day!

How...how...cool.

Am I glad that I told Animala that we should leave two hours early? You betcha! The line to get registered was stunning, and we were in line for at least an hour and change.

Suddenly, I had a soundbite moment. After winding through a line for an hour, you come out the other side, having given your personal information, hanging around a desk waiting for someone to call out your name to give you your badge. When one someone called out, "Jimi Hendrix!" I got out my little pocket recorder.

Audio: Bing gets his badge.

By then, the first session that we were going to see in the "Skeptrack" room ("Where do we go from here?") had been underway for about 15 minutes. No matter. We walked into that lightly populated session and BANG! There were Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer), Eugenie Scott (call me!), Ben Radford (who my class had just read), Jeff Wagg, Margaret Downey, Seth Shostack, and Daniel Loxton. Fantastic. And then I asked a question...

Audio: Bing asks a question and a whole lot of nifty people answer! Do you recognize Eugenie Scott? (Call me!)

Not long after a wander and buying some thoroughly nerdy t-shirts, I saw William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, apparently manning a coat check room. Either that or signing autographs. I seriously was not expecting to see Shatner. Suddenly, there his cherubic face was. Pretty cool!
Animala and I then visited the skeptic/science themed tables, picked up some free stuff, and I lost my recorder while talking to Eugenie Scott. (We found it several hours later underneath the table. Whew!) Then, Animala and I ambled into the "Walk of Fame," where all the celebrities were signing autographs. I have no interest in getting autographs, really, but it was cool to spy Charisma Carpenter, Lou Ferrigno, Richard Kiel (I was amazingly excited to see Eegah himself!), Karen Allen and more! It was kind of like walking through a celebrity zoo, gawking at the celebrities who are on display (and knowing that a lot of other ones are just not out today). But then we were off to see the MST3K/Cinematic Titanic people: Trace, Mary Jo, and Frank for their talk, which was pretty funny. Then, when I came out of that, well, I almost ran over Steve Gonsalves and Tango, from the Ghost Hunters. I think that I could take them, and that's all I need to know.

Back to the skeptic room, and I nearly clock Brian Dunning. Now, Animala gets us a seat, and I head out to find a loo, when a little perky person looks at my badge (which reads "Bing") and says, "Bing McGhandi?" I have often feared the day when I would be recognized, and I was not sure whether or not I should duck. "I'm PerkySkeptic!" she said, and it was hugs all around! A fantastic meeting made possible through the miracle of name tags (speaking of which, I saw a guy with a "Hello, my name is" badge in which he had filled in "Inigo Montoya"). After swapping real names, we went in to see the Ben Radford presentation about his utter smashing of a psychic crime-fighter, which made me all tingly. Then, I went for a Big Bang with Perky (and, seriously, you'd never mistake her for Lachrymose Skeptic, Baleful Skeptic or Lethargic Skeptic), that is, to see the incredibly busy Dr. Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast and the International Year of Astronomy talk about the Big Bang and a great program to bring astronomy to kids. The Galileoscope is astronomy's $100 laptop program. They are so, so cheap and they give you the warm fuzzy of knowing that you shared something really, really important with kids. Fantastic!

I sneaked out, making sure to let the Perky one know I would be there the next day. We farted about, taking in the flagrant spandex abuse. (Seriously, people, I withheld a lot of judgment today, but, Ms. Asscrack, Painty McMann-Boob, and Cripple Nipple, you really pushed the fucking limits.)

Then we went to see the Australian Skeptics perform their podcast, where the Young Australian Skeptics got a mention, as did their upcoming anthology. Loads of fun, that. Now, we wanted to go to the big shindig with, basically all the people I wanted to see at once, but the line went around the block. Nonetheless, I shouted out to Frank Conniff, and he waved at me, probably only slightly annoyed. We love you, Frank! You are my favorite henchman!

Such a massively awesome day, I can't get over it. Tomorrow is more of the same. We bought the extended, 3-day pass so we could visit tomorrow for the JREF panel, where Animala, appearing as Lucian, will know some people. I am very psyched about this.

Now, I am exhausted, if you don't mind. More stories tomorrow!

HJ