batskeets | The in-depth account of the Bruce Campbell expedition

Since Amer just came online from Italy a few minutes ago, I probably won't be going to work for at least a few minutes. SO, I guess I'm gonna write this now!

12:30pm - I hopped in the car and took off to pick up Zach at his house before heading up north. I had some good tunes lined up on my MP3 player, and we went through the Arby's drive-thru before leaving town, so good food and good tunes = happy driver. :) The trip up I-5 was pretty smooth, as expected.

2:30pm - I got onto the stretch of I-5 that goes through Portland, looking for a Burnside St. exit. I figured out around Jantzen Beach that there *wasn't* a Burnside St. exit (or at least, not one that I was smart enough to notice), and turned around to head back into town. (Yes, I know I don't know Portland roads. I'm from the freaking suburbs, okay?! ;p)

3:00pm - after twisting and turning and going in completely the wrong direction a couple more times, I finally found Burnside, and so we parked just a little bit down the street from Powell's, and went inside. Straight towards the bathroom. ::lol::

3:10pm - we wandered around the store, trying to get oriented and figure out where this thing is actually going to happen. Zach saw some sign or something that I missed, which told him that it was in the Pearl Room upstairs. We had just been up there prior to finding that out, and there wasn't anything going on yet up there in the way of a line, so we took to wandering around looking at (duh) books. I had forgotten how cool it was to browse around in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy rows. Ahhh yeah.

4:15pm-ish - After a bit of Zach talking about random sci-fi books he's read, and me flip-flopping on what Vonnegut book I should read next, we're like "hey, maybe we should actually go find Bruce Campbell's book, huh?" So we went looking for If Chins Could Kill, and it was pretty easy to find. We both read the little synopses on the dust jacket, and decided it sounded like a fun book, so we each picked up a copy and took it along. About that time, our tootsies were getting a bit tired, so we went to the cafe to cop a squat.

4:30pm - We snagged a table in the cafe, and sucked down our respective sodas while leafing through Bruce Campbell's book, and browsing through other readables in the immediate vicinity. It was soooo nice to sit.

(Side Note: even if you're not going to a book signing, I might actually recommend you picking up the book, just for a good read. I'm about 1/3rd of the way through, and it's a fun book so far. There are some funny little anecdotes and amusing photos, and some pretty kooky fan e-mail excerpts. It's a very Bruce-ish production. You can practically hear voice in your head as you read some of the sentences. If you like the guy, you'll like the book. ^_^)

5:15pm - I look at the time and suggest that maybe we should go look in the Pearl Room again to see if there's line forming or anything like that. Sure enough, we got up there, and the whole place was set up with chairs and everything, and quite a lot of them were already occupied! We managed to nail down some seats in the back which were pretty good. I tried to stake out the two chairs on my left too, for James and Felicia, but at one point I had to step out to use the bathroom, and when I got back, somebody had taken one of them. Rrr. Anyhoo, this time was filled with more reading through the book while we waited for people to show up and for things to get going. We also saw Chad and Jennifer briefly, and said hello and stuff, but then they evaporated and we couldn't figure out where they went. (Chad's friend Walt told us later that they had gone down to the cafe because it was too crowded in the Pearl Room)

6:00pm-ish - The room was filling up quite a bit, and there was a large cluster of people gathered in the corner between the door and the chairs that were set up. I was walking around a bit, and James spotted me, so he and Felicia came over and we figured out who would sit in the remaining seat that I managed to keep people from taking. James won, because Felicia is a nice, nice person. :) James did a lot of huggy stuff with me for a few minutes, and we told him about how the day had been so far, and then James and Zach started talking about obscure (to me anyway) role-playing rules and so I took that as a signal to bury my nose back in the book.

7:00pm - I found out that the doors to the room were closed, and that they weren't admitting any more people because the crowd was getting so big. We started wondering if Chad and Jennifer got back in okay, and I also noted that Mike and Garrett probably weren't going to get in, since Mike had told me that they'd probably get there late, like 7:00ish or after. (I feel seriously bad for everyone who didn't make it in the door. It was great fun. ;_;)

7:30pm - SHOWTIME! Bruce comes in and everybody whoops and hollers and is very enthusiastic. Bruce starts off reading a bit from his book, which includes some fan e-mails that are funny and/or scathing. He went into a lot of little digressions while he was reading the selection too, just random, tangentially related stories that were also funny. He was a lot like I thought he'd be, kinda laid-back, a lot of levity, doesn't take himself too seriously. He was a hell of a lot of fun to listen to.

After that, he took questions from the audience... some of them were quite specific and even referred to movies that I hadn't seen before, and others were just silly, random things. (i.e. "Do you like bacon?") Apparently Bruce has a part in the upcoming Spiderman movie too, which is yet another reason for me to go see it. Woo!

8:00pm - the Powell's people are telling him to wrap it up on the questions, because they have to get through the book signings, and close at 11pm. It was too bad too, because he looked like he was having a great time up there. Anyways, once he was done speaking, it was time for the FUN FUN STANDING IN LINE! Lines suck. :p But it's okay, cos I had friends around to help pass the time.

The line moved sloooooowly, because some people were being cheaters and trying to cut in line. Grrr. :p In the meantime, I had James get my backpack from the bag check, since I remembered that my digital camera was in the front pocket, so I could get my picture taken with Bruce after all. Hooray! :D This lady also came around intermittently with a big bowl of candy, offering it out to people. That was a nice touch.

9:30pm-ish - I watched Zach in front of me get his little chat with Bruce, and then James snapped his picture, and then it was MY TURN! I went up and said hi, and he greeted me, and asked me a bit about myself while he signed my copy of his book. I also told him that I was enjoying the book so far, cos I know I'd like to know it if somebody was enjoying something *I* had written. He seemed to like that too. He wrote "Hey Sarah -- Gimme some sugar baby!" in my book, and signed it, and then I got my photo taken. He was a nice, nice guy.

(Side note: Right before Zach got his turn, Bruce pulled one of the staffers aside, and I heard him ask the staff guy to go through the line looking for any couples with small children, and bring them to the front, to make sure they got through. Whatta guy ^_^ If you ever get the opportunity to meet him, you totally should, as he is very fan-friendly.)

9:40pm - We're heading towards the exit, and I have to pay for my book and all that, and then we head out of the building to go out to the car, and that was it! After that, we dropped Zach off to stay with an old friend of his that was in Beaverton (who seemed like a cool fellow for the whole 2 minutes I spent in his company), stopped for a late dinner, and then made the trek back home. It was great fun. I'm very happy I went.

Quote of the day: "Hey, now I've met TWO famous, non-Star Trek people!" --me to Felicia, as we left Powell's.

P.S. Special thanks to maigrey for warning me to go early... I probably wouldn't have gotten in had I not been warned in advance! :D