Albuquerque Comic Con set the bar pretty high for our 2012 convention season. Before I forget, we have to thank Jim, Cody, Alfred, and the small army of volunteers that took care of us during three very, very crazy days (and one very special 11-year-old girl who was Jinxie’s helper throughout the weekend). Without them, your brave commanders would’ve ended up hiding under a table or trying to melt snow to obtain drinking water.
Wait . . . snow?
Yes, you read that right. When Juliette, Jinxie, and I got to town, we were greeted by a sight very few of your commanders have seen lately—snow on the ground. There wasn’t much—or we’d probably have snowball fight pictures for the gallery—but there was enough to make it really cold. Thankfully, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino stayed toasty warm over the course of the con.
On to the fun parts!
We invaded the Hard Rock Friday morning with Neil, Anthony, Noel G., and Madison Lintz. As soon as the tables were set, a sea of folks swept over the convention center. I’m not even sure how many people we talked to that day. There were a lot of them and they were all So Friggin’ Nice. The highlight of that afternoon came when Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation) paid us a surprise visit. I’ll tell you right now, it is nearly impossible to render Jinxie and me speechless. He managed to do so by saying, “Hi.” Before you all groan and disown us, we did rally and had a nice little chat with him.
Friday night we learned the secret to turning Juliette into a giddy little girl (Jinxie side note: which was hysterical). No, I won’t divulge what did the trick. (Did you really think I would? She travels with a crossbow!) After we calmed her down, we hung out and met even more new folks including Daniel Gillies (The Vampire Diaries) and Rachael Leigh Cook (She’s All That). It seemed to be the theme for the weekend—meeting really awesome people. The secondary theme was not being able to keep Juliette in one spot for more than ten seconds.
What do you mean that’s normal? No one can have that much energy!
Saturday, the floodgates opened in the Hard Rock Hotel. You think I’m kidding, but at one point we couldn’t see anything across the hall from the ZSC/Walking Dead table. Except Waldo. He’s getting really bad at hiding these days. Juliette, however, is a pro at hiding and somehow managed to disappear before Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk) paid us a visit. No cha-cha this year.
When we weren’t communicating with potential ZSC members, we ambushed cosplayers. Twice on Saturday the tables were turned, forcing Jinxie and I to save Anthony from having his face chewed off by the undead. His survival training needs to be refreshed. Obviously he’s forgotten the difference between fans, crewmembers, and friggin’ zombies! The smell is the key, dude. Just sayin’.
On Sunday, it became impossible to tell which of us at the table were walkers, and which were zombie slayers. The general consensus was the universe didn’t contain enough coffee to keep us going. Then a strange thing happened, once the fans started coming in, their energy gave us a kick in the backside. If we haven’t said it before, I’m saying it now: we could not continue to survive long convention weekends without you, the fans and crewmembers that stop by to visit with us. Thank you!
The hardest part of any con weekend is saying goodbye. We saw Neil and Noel G. off on a safe flight back home. The rest of us stayed another night and had a nice, calm, quiet dinner . . . okay, I can’t keep a straight face on that one. We weren’t quiet at all as we shared funny stories around the table. It made for an awesome way to wrap up the chaos in Albuquerque.
The story doesn’t end there. Keep an eye out for my travel post. You’ll learn what happens when two of your commanders take a road trip through the desert.
Missed out on the action in Albuquerque? Our next live appearance will be at Monster Mania 21 on March 9-11th in Cherry Hill, NJ.
There, I said it. This was not my opinion a couple weeks ago. As a matter of fact, I’d been looking forward to laughing at the Ringling Bros. clowns while waiting to meet with my informant within the circus family. My continued survival requires information. But, seeing as the UGA tracked my travels from Dallas and back in May, I’ve been forced to find outside contacts to bring me information from across the country.
This exposure to new, potentially unreliable sources is what got me in a heap of trouble. And on my birthday of all days!
My contact, an unnamed performer who has been missing since that day, sent me a ticket to the circus along with instructions on where to meet him afterwards. He’d found something while traveling through Colorado he swore was essential for the ZSC to know. However, this something was so sensitive he didn’t trust the phone or Internet to pass it along. His messages, coded of course, made me wary, but I agreed to meet with him face-to-face for the first time. Yeah, yeah… meeting a strange man you’ve only ever talked to via email, not my brightest moment. He’d only ever given me good information, though. I had to take a calculated risk.
Half way through the show I realized that my contact wasn’t performing. No one matching the description he’d emailed made an appearance in any of the three rings on the convention center floor.
By the end of the show, I wanted nothing more than to figure out why he wasn’t out there. I’d adopted him as part of my team and I don’t leave team members behind. So, despite the warning in the back of my head, I made my way to the meet spot. The massive crowd masked my movement and, I hoped, confused anyone trailing me.
It was a trap. The meeting location, tucked between two semi trucks, had been compromised. Instead of my contact, a group of clowns milled around. Some carried lengths of rope. One toyed with a knife, flipping it in the air over and over. When I went to back away from where I’d been spying, someone caught me from behind. They had the element of surprise and far superior numbers. There was no way I’d fight. Not if I wanted to live.
See? Sometimes your commander uses her brain.
They tied me up and shoved me inside one of the trailers hiding us from public view. If you’ve never been locked inside a trailer, it is really dark. Sure, there’s plenty of space and air, but that doesn’t mean a dang thing when you’re bound. Nor does all that air help when the darkness is dense. I may as well have been in a coffin. And that was the point. My captors were trying to rattle me. It only worked for a moment before I kicked myself for being weak.
The next day the circus rolled out of town… with me tagging along. Wasn’t like I had much of a choice. No one came into the trailer aside from those who’d captured me. One of them rode with me to the next city. Occasionally he would try to interrogate me and I feigned deafness from the sound of asphalt racing by under the truck’s tires. From the gist of the conversation, they thought I was responsible for my informant’s disappearance.
Things went from bad to worse when we got to the next city.
Since subtle attempts at interrogation didn’t work, my captors got really inventive with their techniques. Won’t go into what all happened, you all saw the damage in my PSA. But know this: I. Did. Not. Break. The secrets I’ve collected for the ZSC are safe. All I told them was the truth; I don’t know where their comrade went off to. If he is dead, he died with the information he’d gathered for me. The guilt of knowing this eats at me, even now after being dumped in the middle of the desert and forced to find my way back home. If he is alive and set me up to be kidnapped, may the gods help him…
Don’t worry about me. Just need to lick my wounds, then I’m back in action.
Wondering how a brigade of ZSC members wearing bright orange shirts can become virtual ghosts? What motivates them to keep going when the undead are on their heels? And what exactly goes in their go bags?
Albuquerque Comic Con set the bar pretty high for our 2012 convention season. Before I forget, we have to thank Jim, Cody, Alfred, and the small army of volunteers that took care of us during three very, very crazy days (and one very special 11-year-old girl who was Jinxie’s helper throughout the weekend). Without them, your brave commanders would’ve ended up hiding under a table or trying to melt snow to obtain drinking water.
Yes, you read that right. When Juliette, Jinxie, and I got to town, we were greeted by a sight very few of your commanders have seen lately—snow on the ground. There wasn’t much—or we’d probably have snowball fight pictures for the gallery—but there was enough to make it really cold. Thankfully, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino stayed toasty warm over the course of the con.
Saturday, the floodgates opened in the Hard Rock Hotel. You think I’m kidding, but at one point we couldn’t see anything across the hall from the ZSC/Walking Dead table. Except Waldo. He’s getting really bad at hiding these days. Juliette, however, is a pro at hiding and somehow managed to disappear before Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk) paid us a visit. No cha-cha this year.
When we weren’t communicating with potential ZSC members, we ambushed cosplayers. Twice on Saturday the tables were turned, forcing Jinxie and I to save Anthony from having his face chewed off by the undead. His survival training needs to be refreshed. Obviously he’s forgotten the difference between fans, crewmembers, and friggin’ zombies! The smell is the key, dude. Just sayin’.
I. Hate. Clowns.
Wondering how a brigade of ZSC members wearing bright orange shirts can become virtual ghosts? What motivates them to keep going when the undead are on their heels? And what exactly goes in their go bags?