We decided to go to Dragon*Con again this year, Ruth, Ted, Dylan, and I. We decided to leave an hour earlier this year so that our wait in the registration line wouldn't be as long. Just like last year, we drove to the Doraville Marta station and then took Marta to Peachtree Center. We probably got to the Hyatt Regency after 7:30, maybe 7:35 or 7:40. The doors opened at 8:00. Our trip through the line went a lot more smoothly this year. We probably waited about 45 minutes to an hour less this year. After we got our badges and left the registration area, we thought we would check out the parade since we missed it waiting in line last year. Before heading that way, I decided to phone my e-mail friend of 10 years at least, Steffani, to start planning how we could meet up. Steffani and I first started e-mailing back and forth when we were discussing a favorite childhood series of ours, Voltron, on the Sci-Fi Channel message board. Cartoon Network was just bringing it back, and our cable provider here didn't offer us Cartoon Network at the time. I was pretty bummed about that. :-P I told Steffani that we were planning on going to the parade, but she and her friends were heading out to get autographs. We went out to the street to get ready to view the parade, but a few minutes before it started, we decided to go to the autograph area so we could try to see some of the stars before the crowds got too thick. We went there, and Ted and I got to meet up with a star that we were really wanting to meet, Robert Llewellyn, a star of the series Red Dwarf. We both got his autograph, and Dylan took a picture of Ted and Robert together. We ran into Virgil, a wrestler, again. He was at last year's con. We also saw Sean Astin and Robert Englund. We were waiting in Robert's line when my e-mail friend caught up with us. It was cool getting to see her in person and chat with her and with the friends she came with. While I was chatting with them, Ruth, Dylan, and Ted went up to see Robert. Ruth called Kiah up on my cell phone, and Robert talked to him on the phone. Robert said that he had Dylan with him and was going to eat him! :-D After that, Ted brought me over to see Robert because I was wearing a shirt with a symbol from V. He thought that was cool and handed me a free black-and-white photo from the series. We spoke with a few more people in the autograph room (a few people from Star Trek, Adam West, the guy who did the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play movies, and a few others) before heading out to lunch. My e-mail friend also saw Adam West and decided to pay $50 for his autograph! We went to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch and then checked out the dealers' rooms when we got back. Those are always crowded and difficult to navigate. I ended up finding the Star Wars Holiday Special on DVD. I've heard that this special is really awful, but being a Star Wars fan, I've always wanted to see it for myself. I also found a couple of other DVDs I wasn't expecting to find, the Logan's Run TV Series and Moon Dreamers. Moon Dreamers was a short cartoon series that aired as part of My Little Pony and Friends in the 80's. We went back to the autographs room before leaving and saw a few more people there. We spoke with George Takei and went back to see Robert Llewellyn. He was probably getting tired of seeing us, as we had dropped by his table and spoken to him a few times. :-) By early afternoon, we were all getting exhausted, and Ruth was ready to go home. She was getting tired and was really starting to hate the crowds, especially in the dealers' rooms. She's just not into science fiction and fantasy like I am, so she really didn't show an interest in anything in the dealers' rooms. She just stood back while Ted and I browsed. That was hard to do with all the people walking around, so she and Dylan would just step outside and wait for us to finish looking. My e-mail friend and I had separated by this time, so I phoned her to tell her we were leaving and that it was nice meeting her and her friends. We then headed back home after an exhausting but fun day at Dragon*Con. I thought it was a good trip, although the autographs area didn't hold the fun for us this year that it did last year. Many of the stars wouldn't allow pictures, so I pretty much didn't get to use my camera at all. I just had the few pictures that I uploaded to my album. Even Dylan couldn't really take pictures this time around. Also, many of the stars that were there we saw last year, and the stars with the biggest draws just had so many people waiting in line to see them. We actually did luck out and get to speak to Matthew Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies. Ted noticed that no one was waiting in line to see him, so we went over and spoke to him for a few minutes. He was at last year's con, but we couldn't even see him because of the huge number of people waiting in line to see him. This year, the stars from Firefly and Heroes had the most people waiting to see them. It was a good trip overall, and I'm hoping we can go Friday to Monday next year so we can check out some of the panels and other events, which we haven't been able to do yet.