UGH. So busy! But in the midst of it all Rob & I celebrated our 3rd year anniversary. YAY!

AND today is Rob’s birthday. It’s a big week in our household.

SO. Here’s the next installment of my Comic-Con trip report (click pics for bigger).

Thursday, July 21
On this day, our plan was to spend the ENTIRE day in Ballroom 20 and catch most of the television panels. The first panel was at 10am for Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe and we got in line at 7:45am. Even 2+ hours early, there were at least 1,000 people in front of us. We were pretty much guaranteed a spot, though, since the ballroom seats 4,000+. The only thing to do was… wait.

So close! The entrance to Ballroom 20 is in sight!

Annnnddd… we’re inside. YES. So much closer to the stage than last year.

The Burn Notice panel featured actor Bruce Campbell (he is freaking HILARIOUS) and creator Matt Nix. They were the highlights of Comic-Con 2010 and they didn’t disappoint this year. Some gems –

- Bruce Campbell opened the panel by poking fun at attendees — he said that the # of showers taken by Comic-Con attendees is 0 and reminded everyone that showers are free at the hotels. He also said that Comic-Con sees the most people wearing basketball shorts who don’t even play basketball. LOL.
- Then he even took a shot at a show on his own network — “For all you sleep-deprived fans, the Covert Affairs panel is up next.” EEEKKK.
- Unfortunately, Jeffrey Donovan had to work and couldn’t make the trip but that didn’t stop Bruce and Matt from talking about him — aka making fun of him.
– We learned that Jeffrey directed The Fall of Sam Axe and he was STILL #1 on the call list.
– Bruce discussed how Jeffrey started going up the list of potential directors for the movie. Apparently Jeffrey approached him and asked “Did you enjoy working on that episode I directed?” He responded “Sure, you did a great job. What do you think I’m going to say to the star of the show? It sucked. You were an asshole?” BWAH.
- During the question and answer portion, a fan dressed as Draco Malfoy went up to mic. Before she even asked her question, Bruce said “Harry Potter’s dead. It’s over. Might as well put a chain saw in his head. Oh, I’m sorry, am I making fun of your most beloved character ever?” She looked SO PISSED. LOL. Matt Nix covered the awkward pause by saying it was “important [for him] to keep [his] hostile relationship with [his] fans.”
- A fan asked what Bruce did to prepare for the TV movie. He responded by saying “I did two things to prepare for Sam Axe. Jack and shit. Thank you for asking.” OH MAN.

Pure entertainment.

I don’t watch Covert Affairs so I was pretty lost during the panel. It was pretty awesome to see Peter Gallagher, though. He even joked that he’s excited that they “used one of [his] eyebrows in the Comic-Con poster.” Hehe.

Next up – Psych! The panel opened with the creator Steve Franks and the writers singing the theme song live. Awesome! The best tidbits –

– Learning William Shatner will be guest starring next season. Other guests include Malcolm McDowell, Joey McIntyre and Danny Glover.
– The announcement that the season 7 premiere will be a musical episode.
– And Dule Hill will be tap dancing in a future episode. YAY!
– When discussing similarities to The Mentalist, James Roday said that “The Mentalist may have more viewers, but we have better fans.” Awww.
- Dule constantly with his head down… tweeting! Case in point. When asked by a fan whether he and Roday are friends in real life, he looked up, paused, and said “Sorry, I was tweeting. What was the question?” LOLARIOUS.
- Sometime during the panel, Dule tweeted that fans asking questions should end with “hashtag get Roday to tweet.” Someone finally did and he told her to “hit me up and I’ll hit you back. Say hi it’s meeee!” OMG, he’s so awesome.

Ringer marks the return of fan favorite Sarah Michelle Gellar to TV. I’m a huge fan of hers and I have high hopes for her new show. My favorite moments of the panel –

– Learning that Kristoffer Polaha auditioned for the role of Riley on BtVS.
– Ioan Gruffudd hadn’t heard of the CW before working on this show.
– Ioan also said that at age 37, he’s happy they even allowed him on the network.
– On the switch from CBS to the CW, SMG initially thought “Yes! I’m getting better clothing!” LOL. A girl after my own heart. Also, SO TRUE.
– When asked what she would wear if she participated in Comic-Con cosplay, SMG said “If I dressed up as Buffy, you guys would tell me I was a lame version of Buffy. I want to dress up as a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills.”

I really really want this show to be good.

And our last television panel of the day was for Game of Thrones. We’re really lucky we got into ballroom 20 so early in the day. This panel was incredibly popular — supposedly upwards of 7,000 people were in line but couldn’t get in because there wasn’t a lot of turnover from panel to panel. It sucks and I wish there was a fair way to handle admission into each panel but I don’t know what that solution is. So, the highlights —

– Emilia Clarke. She’s stunning! And has dark hair.
– Jason Momoa yelling in Dothraki in the middle of the panel.
– George R. R. Martin was the moderator and he asked the actors about their favorite scenes. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) said “Well, Isaac was really annoying, so pushing him.” As the audience laughed, he quickly shook his head to take it back. LOL.
– One of the creators (can’t remember which one now) promised lots of supplementary material on the DVDs/Blu-ray, like the actors’ audition tapes, of which Jason Momoa’s was a highlight. He said “No offense, but I hadn’t heard of you before. I hadn’t kept up on my Baywatch.” Hee!
– Jason Momoa talked about reading the book and discovering that Drogo died. Talking directly to GRRM, he said “I f*!#ing hated you, man. I was like f*!# this.”
– A fan asked the actors how they would end the series — Peter Dinklage said “Dance number.”
– GRRM is asked about the books and he reveals that he’s a fan of bittersweet endings and that’s probably what we’ll get when the book series is complete.

Excellent panel!

Later that night, we had dinner with friends and decided to check out Nerd HQ, which was a bar taken over by The Nerd Machine, Zachary Levi‘s company. As soon as we arrived, we spotted the entire cast of Psych! SO COOL! I think they were heading to a party nearby. We weren’t quick enough to snag pictures with them but I did manage to take a random picture of them posing with some other people. LOL.

It was a great day at the Con — but looong. And there were 3 more days to go.

To be continued…