LoneGunCon Vancouver BC held March 23, 24 and
25, 2007
Friday, March 23rd, 2007
The Twins (Surreal and Anndie) arrive at our hotel in Burnaby, BC with Amazon X around the hour of 3:00 AM. So late, in fact, that the hotel has already cancelled our reservation. Guh. Paperwork sorted out, we got to our rooms, called the others to let them know we had arrived and planned for breakfast meeting at 10 AM.
See, we had a ton of things planned for this con, and in general it all worked out! At breakfast, we passed out the official con badges, including having Amazon X handwrite his name on a blank one for Kevin, our legendary favorite waiter at the hotel restaurant. We then passed out the tour maps for the day.
Vancouver, city of moist, proved itself this weekend by soaking the crap out of us and making our tours a little waterlogged but hella fun! Touring on Friday was the downtown area.
The Big Silver Ball.
General Motors (GM) Place was used in XF episodes Sleepless, etc.
Plaza of Nations (directly across the street from GM Place, pictures taken from there)
Used in XF and in Stargate SG1 episode 2010
The flags in the Plaza of Nations
Used in XF in episodes Squeeze, Little Green Men, 3, etc.
Vancouver Art Gallery Ð funny fake door that says Police and Sheriff.
The area around here, Vancouver Art Gallery and Robson Square, was important in LGM and XF history (though not many pictures were taken due to RAIN!!). Underground (we could see the above ground glass bubble) is the skating rink. XF episode Apocrypha was filmed here, the skating rink was called Capital Ice. We stood on the sidewalk spot where the Gunmen ran out and climbed into the car with Mulder to give him the data disk from the locker in the rink. We figure they must have parked the car on the sidewalk itself due to the structure of the street area. Cool!
Vancouver Aquarium Ð used in several episodes, such as in Fearful Symmetry the whale tank area was the zoo boardroom.
Friday after the touring we split up for a bit. Amazon X got a new tattoo, and while she did that Surreal, Anndie and Evie went shopping for dinner/snacks. Grocery store and Costco trips, picked up tattoo girl and back to the hotel! We watched new vids by heuradys and Surreal, played Royal Canadian Recycled Actors Union Ð the board game invented by twins, a bit of LGM bingo, and some late nighters watched Dean HaglundÕs newest movie Spectres.
Saturday, March 24th
Got up a little earlier today so we could start touring of the day. We ate leftovers from the night before; some people went to the restaurant. First stop was Mt. Seymour Provincial Park (formerly Seymour Demonstration Forest).
The road and woods from the car was also known as Cascade, Washington (The Sentinel), the jungles of South America (XF, The Sentinel), abduction sites and graveyards (XF), etc. This was the clear view.
Further up the mountain, the fog settled in and we could not see a thing.
We stopped before we had to be rescued as there was a nice turn around with lots of snow and fog!
Magsrose and Amazon X place the mascot for the weekend, Mags Flat Stanley, for a picture on the sign before we leave.
Simon Fraser University (what we could see of it) was used in lots of XF episodes and other shows, as well as being the college stomping grounds of Dean Haglund.
The most famous building on the Simon Fraser campus, it was used as the exterior shots of the FBI building frequently, as well as the Tollana capital on SG1.
It is behind the lamppost.
The clock tower at UBC Burnaby campus. In XF, it was used in the episode Blood, where the guy starts shooting people at the end of the episode.
BC Children and Women Hospitals. Not sure of which building was used, but here is where Scully was returned from her abduction, as well as used in other episodes.
The tour went well, we had a lot of fun. There was way too much fog on Mt. Seymour for us to find some of the really cool things such as the boneyard used in XF often, or Rice Lake, where Scully floated on her little boat after her return.
So, we went back to the hotel, got changed for dinner. This year we were smart and reserved a private room at a nice restaurant downtown Vancouver called the Cactus Club Cafe. We got our money worth because the food was fantastic, service was great (we had our own private server), and we used the room for 5 hours without being interrupted by the wallowing masses. Hee!
Mike laughs at the picture heuradys has of a badly taxodermied squirrel that looks exactly like Gary Jones doing his Katherine Hepburn story. Lance eats.
Our special guests this year included Bruce Harwood and his wife, Heather, Mike Roberds, Lance Peverley, Patrick Stark and his wife and baby. They were wonderful guests, we all had a great time as always! Mike has been getting extras work (just finished working on Painkiller Jane with Gary Jones). Lance has left the film industry and gone back to his old passion, journalism, and is the editor of a newspaper! Patrick has started his own production company called Starstruck (I believe, correct me if I am wrong), and his wife is now a stay at home mom (she had been an actress). Finally, Bruce is getting work; he did a couple of episodes of Whistler, and appears in the new film The Last Mimsy.
The annual family portrait at dinner. Bruce appears to be saluting in the back.
After dinner, everyone departed. A few of us hung back and talked with Bruce. He will be appearing at DragonCon this year along with Dean and Tom. He told us that if we make it, to stop by his table and make a huge deal out of him (he no longer gets recognized much Ð though that could be because he SHAVED HIS BEARD off completely and now he looks about 25 years old). So we said we would squeel like fangirls and yell ~Oh my god it is Bruce Harwood!!!~
Turns out Bruce and Heather had parked their car next to ours in the parking garage. So, as we were getting in, another part of our group (Magsrose, ravenlaughing, scannerwa, and everlydawn), drove by and squealed like a car of fans should by yelling ~Oh my god, it is Bruce Harwood!!~ It was hysterical and Bruce did a sexy little dance for us before we all finally left.
Back at the hotel, some of us went back to our room and watched....something. Oh yeah, we watched the beginning of the pilot of Psych to see Mike Roberds. That was all we got to, we were just too tired to do much else.
e & H question guard regarding Grodin related signs outside studios and
get shrug in reply because guard does not watch show.
Sunday, March 25th
The next day, the signs were still there.
Six of us had tickets to the Vancouver screening of the independent film A DogÕs Breakfast (http://www.adogsbreakfastmovie.com) by David Hewlett. There were a few words from Hewlett, Jane Loughman (producer) and John Lenic (producer) before the film and a Q&A after. We had gone to a previous screening in Los Angeles, but it is a hysterical film so well worth another viewing. Plus, this time we were with our Gunfen.
The filmmakers John, David, and Jane.
Mars, the star of the film!
After the screening the two of us, everlydawn and Amazon X joined Bruce and Heather Harwood for a late lunch downtown at Death by Chocolate. Heather brought a friend of hers to meet us as well; who, shall we say, is Amazon X in 30 years (her words, not mine). Hysterical fun was had; we stayed for 2 hours then went on our way.
From there, we pretty much left town. All 4 of us were headed back across the border. We were giving everlydawn a ride to the place she was staying for a few nights, then finding a hotel near the SeaTac airport for the night as we all had planes to catch Monday morning/afternoon.
Overall, the weekend was a great time! Maple cookies and Canadian candy are sitting on the coffee table, as well as the leftover Girl Scout cookies from the weekend.