Liebster Award #? Who's Counting, Right?

Quiggy at The Midnite Drive-In nominated me for the Liebster Award.  Thank you, Quiggy!  I'm sorry it took me several weeks to finally post this.

Of course, for the Liebster, you're supposed to answer 11 questions from the person who gave you the award, then make up 11 new questions and tag 11 people, etc.  Here are my answers to Quiggy's questions:

1. What is your favorite genre of movie?  Westerns!  They are my happy place :-)

2. And what movie do you consider to be the paragon of that genre?  The Magnificent Seven (1960)

3. With which actor or actress, living or dead, would you most like to have a one-on-one (strictly platonic) dinner and conversation date?  At the moment, Alan Ladd, obviously.  I want to hug him (hugs can be platonic!) and reassure him he's a good actor and will not be forgotten.

4. If you were an actor or actress, which movie character would you most like to have played?  How to choose?  Oh, I'll just say I'd love to have played Maureen O'Hara's role opposite John Wayne in The Quiet Man (1952).

5. What is your favorite movie opening sequence, and, on the other side of the coin what is your favorite movie ending?  I love the way The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) opens, with Cold War headlines and retro opening titles giving way to grainy '60s-style footage of East Berlin that pans over the city and focuses in on Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill).  It's such a downright groovy way to kick the film off.

As for a favorite movie ending, um... I love a lot of movie endings.  Okay, just to pick one, I love how Gunfight in Abilene (1967) ends very similarly to High Noon (1952), with the sheriff having dispatched the bad guy, standing in the empty street with his love interest at his side -- only in Abilene, he doesn't drop his tin star in the dirt, he's proud to be the sheriff.  It's a nice nod to the earlier film, while ending quite differently.

6. Which movie was the worst remake ever, and which one was the best?  There are a lot of bad remakes out there, and I'm not sure I can (or want to) choose a worst.  Sabrina (1995) is the best remake I have ever seen.  The original lacks chemistry, humor, and charm, but the remake has all of those in spades.

7. If you were a director, which movie would you like to direct? It can be one that hasn't been made yet or it could be a classic in which you replaced the actual director.  I want to write, direct, cast, and produce a movie version of The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery.  I would cast Michael Fassbender as Barney Snaith, and I think maybe Elizabeth Henstridge as Valancy Stirling.

8. On average, how many new movies ("new" to you, not necessarily new theatrical releases) do you watch in a month?  Two or three, usually.  More in the summer, when I go to the theater more often.  But I only watch four or five movies at home most months, and often it's less than that, so yeah... not a ton.  That's why my TBW pile grows instead of shrinking.

9. List at least one actor, actress or director you thought SHOULD have been given the Oscar as opposed to the one who did. Specify which movie they should have gotten said Oscar.  I've always been horribly upset that Harrison Ford did not with the Best Actor award for Witness in 1985.

10. Which movie has the best dialogue (meaning most eminently quotable)?  I quote so many movies!  So Very Many.  I'll just go with The Avengers (2012) on this one, cuz Joss Whedon writes the best dialog ever ever ever ever, and that's one of the movies I quote most.

11.Which of your movie blog posts is the one of which you are most proud?  Probably my totally made-up review of the fake film noir version of Hamlet, Murder Most Foul.  It was soooooo much fun to imagine up, find photos for, and write.  I just wish it really existed!

(You KNEW I'd slip a photo of Ladd in here somewhere, right?)

Okay, I'm also supposed to list 11 facts about myself that I think are interesting.  It's hard coming up with new facts all the time, so I'm sorry if I repeat some I've used previously.

1.  I named my first dog "Spunky" after a book by Janette Oke.
2.  I named my second dog "Lucas" after the main character on the show The Rifleman.
3.  I named my third dog "Westley" after the main character in The Princess Bride.
4.  I like listening to vinyl records.
5.  I went to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, GA, in 1996.
6.  I collect Coca-Cola merchandise and decorated my kitchen with some of it.
7.  My MBTI type is ISFJ.
8.  I love Wolverine more than Thor.  (Try not to faint.)
9.  I've eaten bear, moose, and elk.
10.  I love playing with Legos.
11.  My middle name and my daughters' middle names all end with an 'e'.

I hope those were interesting.  Now to tag 11 bloggers!

Captured by the Word (Eowyn)
Classic Film Observations and Obsessions (Jocelyn)
Classic Forever (Millie)
A Free Mind (SW)
A Girl's Place (Rachel)
J and J Productions 1809 (James)
An Old-Fashioned Girl (Rose)
Phyllis Loves Classic Movies (Phyl)
Preppies of the Apocalypse (Morgan)
Silents and Talkies (Kate Gabrielle)
Sunshiny Corner (Miss March)

Play if you want to!

Here are the 11 questions I want YOU to answer:

1.  Is there a movie that has really yummy-looking food in it that you'd love to eat?
2.  What era do most of your favorite movies take place in?
3.  What two actors/actresses have you always hoped would make a movie together, but didn't/haven't yet?
4.  If money and time and supplies (and crafting ability) were not considerations, what movie character would you love to cosplay or dress up like for Halloween?
5.  Have you ever cosplayed or dressed up like a movie or TV character for Halloween?
6.  What movie would your friends/family be surprised to learn you truly enjoyed?
7.  What's one book you hope no one ever makes into a film?
8.  Do you know the Wilhelm Scream when you hear it?
9.  When a character onscreen has to hold their breath, to you try to hold your breath to match theirs?
10.  What upcoming movies (or TV series) are you excited about?
11.  What are some of your favorite movie-oriented blogs?  (Or just blogs that post movie reviews sometimes.)

If I didn't tag you, but you want to answer these questions anyway, feel free to do so in the comments.  Or on your own blog -- you can ask me for an "official" tag if you want to :-)

Star Trek Convention AAR -- Sunday

Sunday was the last day of the convention, and we managed to pack plenty of fun into it.

To begin with, we dressed in our costumes again.  DKoren did my hair in a different way this time, with a braid on either side that went up and around a ponytail.  I thought it was way more impressive and interesting than Saturday's hair, but I got way fewer people saying, "Wow, cool hair!" about it -- only one that I can recall, and Saturday I got at least a dozen.  But there were fewer people around on Sunday, so maybe that was it.

Anyway, we crammed our feet back into our boots and went to get our photos taken with Jonathan Frakes.  Of course, he is most famous for playing Riker on Star Trek:  The Next Generation, but several years earlier, he appeared in one episode of the Disney TV show Five Mile Creek, where he played Adam Scott, husband to series regular Maggie Scott (Louise Caire Clark).

My family discovered Five Mile Creek on VHS when I was in single digits, and for years, we would rent one video tape (which contained two episodes) every Friday night and watch both eps while eating pizza -- it was a huge tradition.  I still count Five Mile Creek as one of my absolute favorite TV shows, as one of my top ten favorite western shows.  So, long before I ever saw an episode of TNG, I had seen the FMC episode "Gold Fever" multiple times.  To me, Jonathan Frakes is first Adam Scott, then William Riker second.

So anyway, last Sunday, we waited in line to get our photos taken with Jonathan Frakes, nursing sore feet, but feeling pretty chill nonetheless.  I wasn't really nervous at all, unlike the day before, and we had a lot of fun waiting in line.  Helped that the line was a lot shorter too, as Frakes had done previous shoots already.

He arrived a few minutes before his shoot was scheduled to start, photo bombed someone else's shoot with another Trek actor, and then sort of rambled around the room, checking out peoples' photos from other sessions that hadn't been picked up yet, taking selfies with people, chatting, generally being very approachable and affable.

So when it came time to get our photos taken, DKoren and L went first, since I'd gone first the day before.  And when it was my turn, I didn't really say anything when I walked up, just kind of stood next to him and smiled, and he put his arm around me, and that was nice.  But then after they snapped the shot, I said, "Thanks," he probably said, "You're welcome" or something, and as I walked off, I turned a little and said, "I've always liked you on Five Mile Creek."  And he said, "Wow!  Really?  Man, that takes me WAY back!  You've seen that?  Cool!"  And I just grinned and said, "Yup!" and walked off to join DKoren and L, who were probably grinning and giving me thumbs up or something for talking to him, but I was busy making sure I didn't trip over my own feet and don't remember what their reaction was.

And I had come to regret not sitting in the captain's chair the day before when we visited the little photo op place, so we went back there and I got to sit in it after all, which has been a dream of mine for decades, really.  It was a very comfy chair, made me feel very commanding.

I will admit that, ever since becoming a Captain Kirk fan and deciding I really just needed a captaincy of my own, I have made it a habit to sit in any chair with arms just the way Kirk sits in his, arms on the chair, shoulders back, head high, ready for anything.  So it felt deliciously natural to take that seat and make it my own.  For a minute or two, anyway.

I didn't realize it at the time, but you could actually push the buttons, and they would make noise.  Some people asked us to take their pictures in it right after me, and they tried all the buttons out.  The hailing button made the little whistle noise, and the red alert button made the siren noise -- it was cool!  I made sure to get a close-up of the right instrument panel just because it plays such a pivotal role in my favorite episode, Shore Leave:

We also spent a bunch of time just standing around by a wall in our costumes, just chilling, absorbing a few more convention vibes.

(Photo courtesy of DKoren)

I do not know why -- maybe it's because there were a lot fewer people in costume that day.  Or maybe because there were a lot of people there on Sunday who hadn't been able to get tickets for the rest of the weekend, so they were all excited by people in costume because they hadn't been seeing costumed people for days on end.  Or maybe it's because there didn't seem to be a lot of groups of women in costume together, and here were three of us together.  Or maybe it's because we clearly weren't doing anything important, so it was easy to interrupt us.  Or maybe it's because DKoren and L in particular looked very foxy in those uniforms.  But for whatever reason, we had loads and loads of people stop and ask to take our picture!  Random people!  Sometimes just one, and then sometimes, when one person was taking a picture of us, several more people would stop and ask if they could as well.  It was hilarious!  We stood there for like an hour, texting family, checking email, chatting with each other, and at least twenty people stopped and got our picture.  After the first few, we would kind of bust up every time someone would ask to take a photo, and I'm sure they wondered what the joke was, hee.

Anyway, we eventually went back to our room to change, chilled in the pool area a while, where we got a wee widdle bit sunburned (WHY was there no clock in the pool area???).

That day, we ate an early supper.  Really early.  Like, at 3pm.  Then L stayed in the room and had some quiet time while DKoren and I went to get a box for me to mail a bunch of stuff home in, since I bought some souvenirs for myself, my kids, my brother, and a friend, and there was no way everything was fitting in my luggage.  We also took one last spin through the convention center, where they were packing things up.  It was quiet, but still had such a happy vibe that we weren't saddened at all by seeing it all packed up.  One thing I forgot to post about earlier was the cool poster they had in memory of Anton Yelchin.  You could write a personal message on it, which we did, along with thousands upon thousands of others.  Here's what it looked like:

(Photo courtesy of DKoren)

That night, we watched our last Pushing Daisies episode early, then went back down to our favorite restaurant (the only one we ate at all weekend) for dessert.  We'd wanted their chocolate lava cake as a special way to sort of cap off our incredible time together, but they were out of it :-b  So we ordered apple pie instead, and um... they brought us this:

It was like apple pie stuff fried on a skillet, with ice cream on top, and then after they brought it to the table, they poured caramel sauce over it, which then caramelized on the skillet and became basically inedible because it was so chewy.  And the pie crust kind of burned.  But the ice cream was yummy.

We hit our beds early that night and slept for a good ten hours, so exhausted by the incredible weekend.  The next day, DKoren and L dropped me off at the airport, I flew home, and that was the end of the adventure.

DKoren and L, thank you both so, so much for inviting me to attend with you this year!  You've given me countless wonderful memories, and I really hope we can do this again sometime soon.  It was beyond fun.  I miss you both.

"The Glass Key" (1942)

The Glass Key (1942) is based on a Dashiell Hammett novel of the same name, and is actually the second film adaptation -- an earlier one made in 1935 starred George Raft (quick, someone get DKoren a swooning couch!).  Orson Welles also adapted it for the radio in 1939 for his excellent show The Campbell Playhouse (listen to it here on YouTube).  This version has a screenplay by Jonathan Latimer, who also wrote on of my guiltiest semi-noir pleasures, Plunder of the Sun (1953), as well as many episodes of Perry Mason.  The film is directed by Stuart Heisler, who mostly directed westerns, but does a serviceable job here as well.

I read the novel about a decade ago, but I read all of Hammett's novels in a row at that same time, and now I mix most of them up in my head, except for The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man.  Which means I should re-read them all one day, I suppose.  At any rate, I won't be speaking here to whether or not this is faithful to the novel, just how the movie works on its own.

So there's this guy named Paul Madvig (Brian Donlevy) who is some kind of crooked political figure.  I have never managed to figure out what he is -- some kind of city official or something?

He has ties to bad guys who run nightclubs and speakeasies (this seems to take place during Prohibition), but he decides to support a "reform party" candidate's bid for governor because he falls in love with the candidate's daughter, Janet (Veronica Lake).

Of course, this makes all his old buddies in the underworld sore because he starts working against them.  Not only that, but Madvig's right-hand-man, Ed Beaumont (Alan Ladd) sees that Janet is only stringing Madvig along to get his support for her father.  So Beaumont tries to convince Madvig to quit pursuing Janet and stop angering his old buddies, but Madvig is besotted.

Also, Madvig's sister Opal (Bonita Granville) is running around with Janet's brother Taylor (Richard Denning), who owes Madvig's erstwhile pals a lot of money.

Then Taylor (Janet's brother) turns up dead.  Beaumont discovers his body and thinks Madvig killed him to keep him away from his sister (Madvig's, not Taylor's or Beaumont's -- I know this is a little convoluted, but please try to keep up).

Madvig thinks Beaumont killed Taylor to separate Madvig and Janet.  Janet thinks Madvig killed her brother, Opal is convinced he did it to keep her away from Taylor, and the police start to think he did it too.  Especially when someone starts sending anonymous notes to the police, the newspapers, and everyone else involved.

Then Madvig's old pals decide that the way to get at Madvig is to corrupt his right-hand-man, Ed Beaumont.  When dear Beaumont turns out to be thoroughly loyal to his boss (and I've never figured out why he's so loyal, I just go with it cuz Alan Ladd plays "loyal" very convincingly), they turn him over to a sadistic thug named Jeff (William Bendix), who beats poor Beaumont up very enthusiastically and thoroughly.  And then beats him some more.

And keeps on beating him, just because Jeff likes to beat people up, especially Beaumont.

Beaumont cleverly escapes, starts putting puzzle pieces together, figures out who did kill Taylor, finds a way to keep Madvig safe from the underworld, and generally fixes everything.  Except he and Janet fall for each other, even though she accepted Madvig's proposal.  But, in the end, that turns out okay too.

As you can tell, this is kind of a tangled film.  I've watched it several times now, and I still haven't figured out a few things, as I mentioned.

One of my favorite moments is the spot where Beaumont gets mad at Madvig for being so thick, they have a big argument, and Beaumont smashes a beer glass and threatens Madvig with it.

It's kind of an unexpected moment, and I think it's mostly there so you suspect Beaumont has turned his colors in the next scene.  But it also lets you know that Beaumont is a Tough Guy so that the beatings he takes later on carry more weight.  And especially so that Ladd's finest scene holds even more emotional punch.

I mentioned earlier that Jeff (William Bendix) beats Beaumont beyond all reason.  Beaumont escapes, but later encounters Jeff again and has to try to get some information out of him.  Jeff is mostly drunk, but still very menacing.  They highlight the fact that Bendix is taller, broader, and beefier than Ladd, to good effect.

Jeff says friendly things to Beaumont because there are people around, but he gets gradually scarier and scarier.

And Alan Ladd does a brilliant job of looking like a terrified man trying to appear unconcerned.  He goes very still and watchful and wary.  Jeff takes Beaumont upstairs to a private room above the speakeasy "for a drink," and Beaumont looks increasingly frightened.

This is speculation, because noir made under the Hays Code makes you read between the lines a lot to get the nastier aspects of a story, but I get the feeling that Jeff did -- or threatened to do -- more than just beat Beaumont while he was a captive.  The level of fear in Beaumont's eyes when Jeff gets him in a room alone is stronger than I would expect if he was anticipating "only" a beating.

Beaumont gets hold of a glass bottle and toys with it, reminding us of that beer-glass-smashing scene, reassuring us and himself that he has a weapon if he needs one.

In the end, it's his own fear as much as the hulking Jeff that Beaumont has to conquer, and Ladd plays that scene beautifully.

Studio execs saw how well Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake had played off each other in This Gun for Hire (1942) and quickly put them in another film noir together.  Unfortunately, this film as a whole isn't as good as its predecessor, at least not in my Alan Ladd-loving opinion.  Ladd feels here as if he hasn't quite grown into his trench coat and fedora -- he has to work hard to convince me he's super-duper tough in this, whereas in Gun I had no trouble believing he was scary-tough, maybe because he also had a little-boy-lost thing going on to balance him out.  He's stiffer in many scenes here, like he's trying too hard because he knows he's supposed to be a star now.

Or maybe it just feels that way to me.  He has some excellent scenes too, as I've discussed, but overall he doesn't have the same relaxed, comfortable presence throughout that he displays by the time The Blue Dahlia (1946) rolls around a few years later.

Still, this is an enjoyable bit of early-'40s noir, and worth seeing.

Is this movie family friendly?  No.  While the violence is mostly implied, it can be brutal.  I have a hard time watching the beating scenes -- they feel worse to me than anything Russell Crowe dishes out in L.A. Confidential (1997), if you can believe that.  Partly it's because Alan Ladd is my current celluloid beloved, but mostly it's just squirm-inducing filmmaking.  Which means it was well-made, but not for kids or sensitive folks.

This is my second entry into the Film Noir Blogathon hosted by Quiggy at The Midnite Drive-In.  This has been an amazing event, and if you're at all interested in film noir, you definitely want to check out the incredible variety of posts people are contributing.  I know I'll be working my way through them for days to come.

Star Trek Convention AAR -- Saturday

On to Saturday!  Or, as I called it in my head, ShatnerDay.

DKoren, L, and I ate a quick breakfast in our room, then started getting into costume, doing hair and make-up, and so on.

(Photo courtesy of DKoren)

Because that was the day we were going to wear our classic Star Trek uniforms.  The day we would get our photos taken with William Shatner.  The day we would learn just how much our feet could hate us.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

(Photo courtesy of DKoren)

DKoren did my hair.  Originally, we had planned that I would wear it up on top of my head somehow, but I got so many compliments on it on Friday when we were just walking around, not even in costume, that we decided it should be down, but still fancy.  Here's what she came up with:

This is a worse picture, but shows you a bit better how she did it -- she made a braid on my left and right sides, above the temples, and one in the center of the back, and then braided them and the leftover hair together in one loose, complicated braid.

I loved that it kept my hair out of my face, but still looked sort of futuristic, while showing off that yes, I really do have that much hair.

 And then, out we went into the world, dressed as Starfleet officers, complete with purses that looked like tricorders.

I'm not sure what it is about a costume, but being disguised in any way gives me a boost of bravado.  Did I mind walking amid thousands of strangers in the shortest skirt I had ever worn?  Nope!  (We did all have matching shorts underneath, and nylons.)  It was pure fun.  At least, until my feet started to protest -- I don't wear high heels pretty much ever (and neither to L and DKoren), so that was the one drawback to being in uniform, but really, it was a minor one in the end.  And, once again, I'm getting ahead of myself, because for the first few hours in costume, we were just sitting down anyway.  We went back to the venue I talked about in the earlier posts and saw three panels/interviews in a row.

First up were Star Trek:  The Next Generation's Michael Dorn (Worf), Marina Sirtis (Troi), and Jonathan Frakes (Riker).  They were highly amusing, especially when Sirtis got all annoyed that 90% of the questions from the audience were for Frakes, who spent much of the panel wandering the platform, talking to fans on the sidelines, and then playing with the little Trivial Pursuit game set up at the moderator's desk.  He asked the others a couple of questions from the game cards and was generally relaxed, cheerful, and hilarious.  Michael Dorn spent most of his time chuckling at the other two.

Here's a shot of a big screen so you can see them better.

Next up was Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Chekov on the original series.  I was so pleased by how spry and intelligent and enthusiastic he was.

He sat down at first, but then got up after a few minutes and paced the stage most of the time.  He did some awesome impressions of other cast members, which were such fun.

 And then, it was William Shatner's turn.  (Do I have to tell you that he played Captain Kirk on the original series?  I hope I don't.  But I will, I guess, just for the very-very-very-non-Trek-oriented readers.)

Now, I honestly did not go to this convention solely to see, hear, and meet William Shatner.  I didn't.  But him being there was a big deal for me.  You see, I fell in love with Star Trek as a young teen -- even before I fell in love with Combat!.  We're talking like 13 years old.  Very young, just beginning to figure out who I was and wanted to be.  And Captain Kirk was a HUGE part of my formative years.  Until I got to college, and C! edged it out, Star Trek was my favorite TV show, hands-down.  And Captain Kirk was my favorite character -- I didn't start out having a crush on him so much as just wanting to BE him.  I wanted to have that calm, that courage, that leadership ability, and yes, that power.  I wanted a captain's chair all my own.

As I got older, I added a crush on the character to my hero-worship, but to this day, I would much rather be like Captain Kirk than be liked by Captain Kirk, if that makes sense.

I've seen William Shatner in quite a few other things besides Star Trek, from a favorite episode of The Big Valley ("A Time to Kill") to Third Rock from the Sun to his turn as Professor Bhaer in the 1970s Little Women.  I find him utterly charming on-screen, I really do.  And in person, he was just as charming.  Funny, witty (not the same thing!), intelligent, kind, passionate... I was enthralled, as you can tell.  For more than an hour, he reminisced not only about Star Trek and the friendships he made while filming it, but about his horse-racing, recent TV projects, books he's working on, theoretical physics, and so much more.  He answered questions from fans graciously, sometimes even warmly, and I came away from that hour more firmly a fan of him than I had ever been before.

And then, of course, the icing on the cake -- we stood in line for almost 2 hours (in those boots!) and got our photos taken with him.  Which was a breathless experience, in a way -- I spent lots of time psyching myself up for the 30 seconds I'd be in his presence.  I spent months figuring out exactly what I would say, because I knew I'd have time to say one sentence, they'd snap the photo, and off I'd go.  Which is precisely how it went.

Mr. Shatner was sitting on a stool for his photos (he took hundreds of them that day, and he's in his mid-80s, so I'm really glad he could sit and be at least a little comfy) and, when it was my turn, I followed the attendants' instructions to stand next to him, and he turned a little and looked right in my eyes, and I smiled and said the sentence I had rehearsed for so long:  "Thank you for everything, Mr. Shatner."  He smiled back, we turned to the camera, they snapped the shot, and then he said, "Thank you."  I said, "No, thank you" as they moved me off, and it was DKoren and L's turn for their photo.

And that was it.  That was my few seconds meeting William Shatner.  And those were some pretty magical seconds, I have to say.  I actually spoke a whole sentence without sounding like a loony, I didn't trip and fall over, and he was as sweet and kind as could be, considering he only spoke two words to me.  He didn't really say anything to the person before me, and they didn't say anything either, so I feel like, hey, I'm really proud I said my one well-rehearsed sentence.  It was only six words, but they meant a great deal for me, and I hope he understood that what I really meant was, "Your character, Captain Kirk, helped me become who I am today, and your performances have brought me countless hours of joy and fun and learning.  My life is richer because of the way you did your job."  That's what "everything" meant, anyway.

So after that, we wandered all over the convention, getting our pictures taken in lots of different settings, really enjoying our costumes.

(In the transporter)

There were TONS of people in costume that day -- they'd held a costume contest on Saturday morning, so people still had all sorts of spiffy outfits on from that, but there were also just loads of people like us in plain old uniforms from all different series.  I feel like most of the uniforms were either from TOS or TNG, though I might be wrong on that.

(Jumping out of the Guardian of Forever)

Most of the people who weren't in a costume of some sort had at least some kind of Trek-related t-shirt on, and it was overall just so cool to see so many people proclaiming their love of Star Trek via their clothing.  Maybe I'm weird in thinking that was cool, but whatever, it pleased me.  There were a few people in costumes that we couldn't quite figure out how they were supposed to pertain to Trek (like the guy in a super-cool, super-authentic WWII ETO get-up.  Is there an ep somewhere that involves WWII?  We couldn't think of one), but mostly, it was all Trek, all the time.

(And then there was the remote-control, full-size R2-D2 in the vendor room...)

We wound up at the room they'd decorated as Quark's Bar, where they had a replica of the original Captains' Chair set up in front of a backdrop that looked like the bridge.  A guy dressed as Harry Mudd obligingly took our photos and flirted in a Mudd-like way with us, which was highly amusing.  And I suddenly decided there was no way I could sit in that chair in a ladylike manner in that short skirt and those high boots.  So I declined to try it out, and let DKoren and L take turns in it instead.

Then we decided that the guy cosplaying as Harry Mudd was so hilarious and perfect (I mean, he offered to find us lonely miners for husbands, but he said he'd have to pay us because we didn't need his Venus drug -- how funny and in-character and sweet is that?) that we stalked him until we could get our picture taken WITH him instead of just him taking our photos with our cameras/phones.

As you can see, he was most happy to oblige.

DKoren and I had to stay in our costumes until well into the evening so we could get our photos taken on the recreated set of the bridge, which we'd paid for.  We decided we had to do something wacky and fun instead of just smiling, because that would be boring and pedestrian.  And we refuse to be either of those things.  So we pretended the ship had just been hit and we were trying to stay at our posts:

(Chekov has always been one of my favorite characters, so DKoren graciously let me sit at his post.)

And then our feet hurt too much to bear anymore, so we went back to our room and soaked our feet in the bathtub because they closed the pool area at 6pm at that hotel (so drunk people don't drown in it, I guess), so we couldn't soak in the hot tub.

And we learned that if anyone ever tried to boil DKoren alive, she would survive, because she can withstand torturous water temperatures, and even claims they are "cool and pleasant."  So now we know what her superpower is.

We ended the day with jammies and Pushing Daisies again, because by then it was a ritual.  And I think this was the day I fell asleep in the middle of an episode, oops.  But they graciously rewatched it with me the next day so I wouldn't stay in suspense.