Since I'm a crappy note taker and most of my memory sucks, let's just say one of the hilights for me was meeting Quoth, Femme, DE, Nem and the rest of the Girrrrrrlzzzzzz from the Studios USA Nutforum bungalow...

Oh yeah...and I did manage to get my picture taken with Cupid/Caesar himself, Karl Urban. (Major score on my part)

Going back to the beginning, starting Friday, I met up with Lil, aka the Queen of Handles and "10,000 other handles".
Fortunately for me her seat in the Con Center was only a couple of rows ahead and one aisle over.
Due to my traveling, I didn't get there until rather late. Unfortunately, I missed Hudson and Robert Trebor. I did get there in time for Karl and Bruce. Karl mentioned something about being hung over and wore a leather hat the entire weekend. 
After Bruce, Lil went to get some autographs and I wandered aimlessly, looking around at the crowd and all the stuff for sale. (I was particularly taken by the knives and swords that were for sale. Very nice.)  If I'd had the money, I'd have picked one up myself. I was particularly amazed to see people who had purchased them wandering about with them stuffed in their backpacks. Hello! It's a sword! It's got a sharp pointy end! It's gonna rip through your pack! The other thing that made me curious is just how these people are going to explain the Xena convention to airport security...but I digress.

After the festivities were over, Lil and I wandered around a bit and I purchased my one extravagance of the Con, Kit #4. I also got to meet and chat briefly with Sharon Delaney from Creation Entertainment, and President of the Official Xena Fan Club. That was nice to finally meet her.
Lil and I headed back to the hotel then wandered about and ended up at a restaurant with a rather forgetful waiter.  
Since neither one of us had the fundage for the Cabaret's, we wandered back to the hotel, and just shot the sh*t til about 3ish.

Saturday started out for Lil and I with a breakfast/lunch at Hooters! Our server was "Sparkles" and she was oh so eager to please! What a trip! I shan't say more. Back at the center, it was time for Adrienne, Greg Lee and Tim.
All three were wonderful, and very gracious.

The highlight of Saturday was the Nutforum meeting. There were many people there (by the way, thank you Talk Attack), most were brave enough to identify themselves and others who I think were there but just lurking. It was then I discovered the two folks sitting right next to me in my reserved seating row, were none other than Hammerhead and LAcer!
Also got to meet Merky and Pen, Lady of Shalott, XenabytheSea and a few more than I can remember.
I do remember Quoth giving me a personalized drawing on my name badge of the SuperCharger 9000 shopping cart! Wayyyyyy cool! Thank you Quoth!   (Sorry folks...inside joke)
After alot of fun and some group photos, most of us headed back to see the remaining few minutes of Claire. All I can say is AMAZING!.
After Claire was Alex Tydings. She was a kick!
After Alex was Ted.  He is such a nut!
He showed us a music video he directed and was very gracious about taking pictures with the people who had come up asking questions.
Even though these people were told not to ask for hugs, etc.

We hung around so Lil could get some more autographs and were planning on hooking up with the Girrllllllzzzzz. But by the time the autograph line thinned out, it was already late and the Girrrrrllllllzzzzz had Cabaret tix and we didn't.
So once again, Lil and I headed back to the hotel where we discussed the finer points of Xenadom.

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention about when Claire was onstage Saturday...

Apparently someone from the audience paid some $40,000 for an auctioned chakram or something, with the proceeds going to charity. Claire, as a thank you, brought her up on stage and gave her a full face liplock that lasted a good minute or two. WOW! Needless to say the crowd went wild.

Anyway, on to Sunday...

Since I knew I was going to probably have to leave a little before the festivities were to end (should have booked my flight for an hour later, but that was in Dec, so who knew?), Lil and I parked the rental car in the Con center garage early that morning. We figured by parking close to the doors I could book outta there fast.
After trying to figure out where we were going to have breakfast, we ended up at the Sheraton out on the patio in hopes we might happen upon some of the Bungalow Girrrrrrrllllllzzzzzz. No such luck. The only thing we did run across, or should say ran across us were the ants. Yuck.
Fortunately we moved to another table.

After breakfast we wandered over to the con center and made note of just how many thousands of chairs there were!
The other reason we half heartedly decided to get there a little early is because on the day before, one of the security people had told us the seats had been triple booked so we'd best get there early to make sure we'd have our seats. Most of us who had preferred seating, including me, basically said, "Yeah, try to move me from the same seat I've had all weekend! HA!"
Anyway, it turned out not to be true as far as I could see.
As we were standing around watching to see if anyone we knew wandered in, I happened to turn around and saw Karl Urban walking by. I grabbed Lil and off we went. He was still wearing that leather hat, but was very gracious and stopped for a couple of minutes to take some pics with the fans. (aka Major Score!)

A few minutes later Ted came breezing through, but apparently was in a rush, so no pics there...drat!

Eventually the room began to fill, so Lil and I split up into our own seats.

They started things off by showing some video salutes to our hero's that were very nice. Oh yeah, on Saturday, they showed a video salute to Gabrielle that was done by one of the fans that was just hysterical!

Ahem...Sunday...yes...

After the videos, Sharon came out and introduced Missy Good who received a star's welcome. I think she was a bit surprised. She spoke of how she came to write for the show and answered questions from the audience.
Missy then introduced a surprise guest, Steven Sears who came up and talked for a few minutes. Due to lack of RAM in my memory cells I couldn't begin to tell you what he talked about. 

Shortly thereafter, Ebonie Smith came onstage.  Initially there were no people in line for questions.  It seemed from my perspective that she was unsure what to do.  Finally a few people got up and things went well from there.

Then Tsianina Joelson (pronounced Cha NIN a) who played Varia, came up and was well received. Someone made the comment, while not dissing Adrienne at all, they thought Tsianina would also have made great casting as the daughter of Xena. Alot of the crowd agreed.

They then auctioned off some stuff, showed another video then Darien Takle (Cyrine) came up. This was her first con and her first visit to mainland USA. She apparently had done a play in Hawaii some time ago.
She was absolutely wonderful, and this nutball surely hopes she attends more cons. She was absolutely delightful and funny. When someone finally asked the question of just WHO is Xena's father, she proudly proclaimed it was the milkman!

A short while later Rob Field came out and showed a tribute video and after much prodding finally showed the bloopers. Hysterical. It's so funny to watch those, then go back and watch the actual episodes to see if there are any signs of the previous crack ups. Occasionally there are.

Finally the time had arrived for what we'd waited all weekend for.

Sharon got on stage, and introduced a video salute to our heroes. By this time the room was packed solid and there were people standing along the walls on either side.
(Of course this was also the day they decided to turn the air conditioning off. Finally they got the hint and turned it on)
The lights dimmed, the video played then the room went dark.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Renee' O'Connor!"

She came out wearing a blue long sleeve knit thing and black slacks. She was also proudly touting her slightly enlarged tummy. (In case you hadn't heard, she was very pregnant at the time.) Of course the crowd was in a frenzy and everyone was on their feet screaming, whistling and yelling.  What a moment!  From what little I could see, (being short and dumpy does not help in this situation), she seemed rather overwhelmed at the response.
The ovation went on for quite a few minutes then everyone finally settled down...briefly.

Sharon asked her some questions, (which in my opinion we already knew the answers to) and then asked her if she would sing. She reluctantly agreed.
The song was Donna Summers' "Last Dance", I believe.
Renee' did the best she could at it, even laughing a bit when she hit a few sour notes, then in the middle of one of the verses, we hear another unseen voice chime in...

"I need you by me, beside me, to guide me..."

We all knew it was Lucy. The crowd again went completely wild and Renee was clearly surprised. She came out from backstage and they both attempted to finish the song, although I don't think anyone heard them due to the immense thunderous ovation.
That went on for at least five minutes.

When the crowd settled down, the room was filled with the constant strobe of camera flashes. Truly a moment to remember!

Sharon again asked some questions of which I cant remember the details.  What I do remember is a question about pet peeves.  Lucy said Xena's still upset because Gab used her chakram to slice up an eel, and Renee mentioned "Xena never brushes her teeth!".  Too funny!  

One other thing that stuck in my mind was when, for a very brief moment, Lucy became Xena.  I don't remember the question but Renee was having a bit of difficulty answering it.  The next thing we hear in a very Xena like voice is, "We share everything!".  Yes, the voice was coming out of Lucy, but the tone was much deeper and no Kiwi accent whatsoever...That was pure Xena.  For one brief instant, it kinda gave me a chill.

There was a camera floating about the stage on a boom crane that Renee' kind of got a kick out of, especially when it was down at eye level. She decided to get up close and personal with it which put the crowd into hysterics. Can't wait to see the video from that camera's perspective!

One thing I do clearly remember is them talking about the ending.

While not being specific, Renee' did mention "...coming full circle" and Lucy mentioned someone had seen a rough cut of the final two episodes and cried throughout.
Personally I'm beginning to think some of those rumors floating about might be true.

They were onstage for almost two full hours, and the crowd just inhaled every precious moment of it.

They then began to sing the same song again.

Unfortunately at that time, I had to make my apologies to the poor souls in my row (including Hammer and LAcer) for having to crawl over them to make my getaway.

Naturally I get to the airport ahead of schedule and my flight was delayed. Go figure.

Overall, I had a wonderful time. I wish I had been able to afford the Caberet's and Charity Breakfasts. From what I heard they were a blast.

Be sure to check the archived version of Studios USA Message thread

Xena:Warrior Pot

In honor of the series finale, I have decided to add this:
(If you haven't yet seen the finale, you may not want to look)

BATTLE ON!!!!!!!