They love me on YouTube

If you see a headline like the one at the top of this page, you probably think that I'm going to go on (and on) about Franks and Beans.  But that is not the case!  I mean, people do love me on Franks and Beans.  They do, right?  I think so.  Anyway, what I'm referring to is yet another great moment from Comic-Con, specifically the two Nerd HQ panels that I was able to attend.  Fortunately for those not in San Diego at the time, all Nerd HQ panels were broadcast live on YouTube and have been archived for posterity.  Due to the intimate settings of the panels (there were 250 tickets sold for each), chances are that if you were in the audience, the on-set cameras captured your image at one point or another.

In my case, I was able to attend the Joss Whedon panel and one of the two Nathan Fillion Panels.  Fillion actually hosted the Whedon panel as well, and Alan Tudyk played host at the Fillion panel, so I got to see twice the facetime with Firefly alums than I had expected.

The panels were, at their core, question and answer sessions.  This was exciting because, among other reasons, you actually had a chance of asking a question here, as opposed to a Hall H panel at Comic-Con's convention hall, when spots to ask questions are snatched up two nights before anyone even shows up.  Several staff members were available with microphones, and we were told early on that, if we had questions to ask, we should let someone with a microphone know.  I didn't act soon enough and was left waiting at the Whedon panel, but I did still get on camera a few times.



Embedded here is the official stream from the event.  Because it was a live feed, the title screen lingers for, well, quite a while.  If you take a look at the comments on YouTube, people freaked out about this.  Whatever.  The panel begins in proper form at the 26 minute mark, so feel free to scroll to that point to see.  Here's a picture from my seat at the event:

Pretty cool!  As you can see in the video, Whedon was cool and cordial throughout, and Fillion was his normal jovial self.  I wore my Jayne hat because, I don't know, it's a Firefly panel at Comic-Con, so I'm pretty noticeable in the crowd.  Because of this, I'd often see myself in the crowd shots on the big monitors in front of the stage area, and like a person who apparently has nothing better to do than take his attention away from a very exciting event to mug for the camera, I did...well, just that.

Naturally, the whole panel is worth watching, as Whedon facilitates a nice discussion about a number of his projects, and I hope that you (YOU, faithful reader) take the hour and watch it if you haven't already.  But as this is my blog, let me just point out that there are some really nice Jeff moments at the following time codes: 1:09:52, 1:16:20 and 1:17:03, which looks a little something like this:

A few people watching from home saw some of my antics, and a number of them commented on it.  Since I am (apparently) a narcissist, I figured that I might as well take some screen shots and paste them all up here to prove to no one in particular that it actually happened:

So that was pretty fun.  And thanks to all the random people who...uh...noticed me?  I certainly appreciate it.

Next up on the circuit was the Nathan Fillion panel with special guest Alan Tudyk, the second such panel of the day.  There was no video bombing in this panel (at least by me), but I did get to ask a question!  And also I looked very dashing in my brand new Pirate hat.  I'll admit that my question wasn't the most inspired, because I tried to rearrange the question that I was hoping to ask Joss Whedon the day before.  But dammit, I knew that I had to ask a question, and if I was going to ask a question, it was going to be about Firefly come hell or high water.

This panel (which is also very much worth watching in its entirety) begins at the 17:15 mark.  My big ol' question comes at 40:51:



Great.  This was my view of the stage:

And, um, here's a picture of me with microphone in hand.  Check out that guy at the very bottom of the picture, who seems to be inflicted with some Jack Nicholson-inspired madness:

Obviously, YouTube or not, this was a great time.  I can't wait to try to go back again next year.  Maybe I'll be able to pop up in front of the White Queen again.