SHINDIG! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! So much crazy fun there are no words!

But first, before I continue squeeing about Firefly, I shall squee over the fact that I just found out I won two tickets in the lottery for the Dean/Buchanan debate I may have mentioned earlier. La-LA! I'ma gonna see DEEEEEEEEAN!

EDIT: WAH LIFE IS SO HARD. Michael isn't letting me miss rehearsal that night, as we're doing all Act I, so I'd be kind of necessary. So close, and yet so far... *weeps* First he comes to Dallas the day before I leave for Nimbus, and I'm too frantically preparing to be able to spare the time, and now rehearsal. Life clearly hates me.

So instead, I shall concentrate on reasons why life is great! Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or rather the farm, the Pennsylvania Shindig was utterly fabulous. I think one of the most fun aspects of the 'dig was being able to completely geek out and make all the ridiculously dorky Firefly inside jokes you can possibly conceive, and have all those around you understand every word. And not just Firefly--Buffy, Angel, Star Wars, etc. were all fair game. Penn seriously needs a sci-fi club, pronto.

Saturday around noon, we started with the "meet and greet" and lunch (fresh bao!). Seeing a few people dressed as Kaylee and YoSafBridge, and observing the sheer quantity of knitted orange Jayne hats, I immediately donned my Safe!River outfit. Tthen once we'd assembled most of the attendees, we launched into Firefly Jeopardy. There were three teams of two, and I was lucky enough to be chosen, and even luckier to be paired with Steve, the guy who we later nicknamed "Freaky Memory Guy," as he was fast like a freak and killed our rivals with his brain. Good lord, the trivia that guy could dredge up... though in the probably most esoteric question of the game, "Which two characters are seen using sugar tongs?", I knew that it was Jayne and Inara. Which is kinda eerie in itself. :D I credit this random knowledge to the fact that I was dressed up as River at the time.

We ended up winning by quite a comfortable margin, and as our prize, we both got to select from the cornucopia of DVD sets donated by the glorious RhymePhile, who gets loads of free DVDs as a perk from her job. I chose Buffy Season 6 (list price: $60), which if I'm not mistaken is now my first piece of actual official Whedon merchandise. Gravy, I'm such a fandom mooch. XD

We then did a Trivia Bee, where I was eliminated in the first round with "What does Book say about the use of spices in Serenity." I was trying to say something along the lines of "a man can eat like a king if he has enough Rosemary," which I now know should be "A man can live on packaged food from here til Judgement Day if he's got enough Rosemary." But it was fun to backseat drive with the other eliminees (is that a word? it should be), dorkily whispering amongst ourselves "pulmonary stimulators, cardiac infusers, and cortical electrodes!" and other such fannish things that we would be shunned by polite company for knowing. Bwa ha ha! The bee was eventually declared a draw when the duel between the two top girls had been going on for so long that we started to run out of questions.

It was in the Bee that we were met with what would become the biggest inside joke of the Shindig. One question asked for the name of the Mudder who sacrifices himself and takes a bullet for Jayne, something not a one of us knew. Hat's [MyOrangeHat, aka Kristin, the host] answer sheet said his name was Rick. The trivia was provided by fans, so we weren't sure if this was canon or the result of a confused mistake. In the end, we found that Rick is the name of the character the actor plays on the show "24", but the name stuck. However, we kept making jokes about Rick (ie, "Alas poor Rick, I knew him, Horatio") until it turned into an all-out Rickstravaganza (my pun), and we concluded that we needed to form a Rick fanclub--I suggested we call ourselves "Rickets" (or "Rickettes")--and live our lives through the moral guidance of "What Would Rick Do?" We further decided that the freaky (obviously inbred) blond kid with the buggy eyes should be named Norma. Man, that kid is weird.

Later, several people brought instruments (namely a guitar, an autoharp, and a trombone), so we jammed dorkily to "The Ballad of Serenity" and "The Hero of Canton." You haven't seen funny until you've seen a guitar, an autoharp, a trombone, and a bunch of fans with different ideas as to lengths of certain rests and fermatas try to make music. Hilarity!

Before the light was gone, the Big Damn Costumers all assembled (okay, all 5 of us) for pictures. We had a couple normal ones, some semi-posed, and one with "Okay, pretend a bunch of Fox executives are attacking", which resulted in zany hijinks and me looking threatening with the gun-shaped stick (just an object; it doesn't mean what you think) I'd carried around all day.

As night fell, we pointed the projector at the barn wall and launched into "Serenity." It was so much fun to watch episodes with a huge gang of crazily obsessed fans. The boys shouted catcalls at the Sponge Bath Scene, and the girls threatened to replay Mal's nekkid scenes in "Trash" repeatedly. Unfortunately, we ended up not having time for either "Trash" or "Objects in Space," which is quite a tragedy, as I was looking forward to seeing Simon's delicious torso projected two stories tall. We ended up watching "Serenity", "Our Mrs. Reynolds", "Shindig" (obviously), "Out of Gas", the teaser-trailer, and the extended gag reel. Then we all went to sleep.

And now I'm going to stop writing this blog entry because I'm feeling very sleep deprived and can't think straight, despite it not even being 11:30 yet. I'll wake up bright and shiny early to finish my CSE 240 problem set. I cannot do logic in this frame of mind.

Things I will talk about tomorrow: OMWF, first signs of sleep deprivation, charades, our Jayne statue, Tim Minear, and more! Also, photos!