The ZQ/ Heroes Connection

The Heroes fans meetup at SDCC 2010!

To all those who love sneering at us pop-culture/ comic fans having a fabulous geek-fest at Comic Con, just go talk to the hand.

Comic Con was indeed very very cool. But when you start to reflect upon that whirlwind weekend, you would realize that it wasn't so much about Comic Con itself that made the weekend memorable, it was the friendship forged and strengthened (before and after) that made it so Extra Special.

It is no different from so-called "non-geeky" folks who gather their butts down on a huge couch, drinking beer and watching sports game after game on TV (I can tell of peeps who plan and take a week-long off just to watch the English Premiere League) or those who line up their custom-made cars/ bikes on a weekend and ... well, talk about gears and wheels.

The common thing from all this human pack-like behaviour is the camaraderie built through shared experiences. For the convention goers, it consisted of those groaningly "where the frak is my coffee?" early-morning camp-outs, agonizingly boring long waits in line to see/ hear panels/ celebs, stumbling upon an awesome find at the exhibit hall, sharing the thrill of connecting/ meeting a celeb or just hanging out with your fellow geek friends. You don't need to *explain* things to your geek friends.

So through our shared love for "Heroes" and/ or as participants of the Zachary Quinto fandom, many of us looked forward to seeing each other during the Comic Con weekend. In fact, many months prior, we were already actively planning for a ZQ/ Heroes meet-up because we were eager to see each other face-to-face and compare biceps. hehehe

Our meeting point was the convention centre's hard-to-miss Grand Staircase at 7pm on Saturday, 24 July. Yep, it was the same day that unfortunate pen-stabbing (owie!) incident at Hall H occurred. By 730pm, there were already about 10 of us mingling on the staircase. @mkupman (RJ - make-up artist who was also involved with "Heroes") turned up with @nhousey as well.

Tim Kring chatting with fans

While we waited for the rest to turn up, we had a good view of people walking past us. We even spotted a rather amusing Elvis Stormtrooper and a very handsome vampire dude.

Then, a surprise guest turned up with @Firesoul and @willowpolson. It was Tim Kring - creator of "Heroes". Dragging his luggage with him, and looking a tad tired, he was nevertheless all smiles and looked interested in meeting the small bunch of us.

Tim graciously spent some time chatting with us and agreed to taking photos. I mentioned I was from Singapore and he said that some cast members visited our island for promo a couple of years back. And he said that it was too bad he had to remain at the studio for work during that promo trip.

After about 15 minutes with us, Tim said that he had to go catch his flight home. We said our goodbyes and he left soon after.

Just minutes after Tim left, a few more of us turned up right after the last panel at Hall H ended. That's when we decided to take a commemorative photo of our cute little group, before we headed to Seaport Village for dinner. (See above for our epic group pic!)

Fun at Seaport Village

Some decided to take off as they had other plans, and in the end, about 18 of us ended up at Seaport Village's open-air food court, with the help of Pineapples as beacon and guide. Seaport Village itself is a rather laid back, hippy but very pretty nightspot. I love that place! The unique shops in the village, including a grrr-arrr pirate-y shop, were all very tempting!

It was a pretty cold night out that Saturday. We were huddled up in our hoodies and bordered on shivering, but the friendship was definitely SUPER-warm :)

Some of the fun things that happened:

- @eserei27 and I downed @HardlyanAngel with 2 glasses of margaritas as very belated birthday drinks.

- @nhousey @McIsaac360 @Lady_Angelus and Zoe (who still doesn't have a Twitter and needs a spanking! ;) ) slipping off to take a ride round the historic carousel

- bunch of us chatting excitedly over the week's events and admiring the fireworks display over the bay

- @eveharmon showing off her ninja photo-bombing skills (I was *very* impressed!)

Being bad-ass at the carousel

However all too soon, the lights went out at 10pm. The stores and village started to close down so we had to say goodbyes to each other. Not after we had a bunch of more hugs and more photos!

There were some others who couldn't or didn't join us for the meetup but I had the pleasure of bumping into some of them no matter how briefly. @jhummrich for one. We bumped into each other in Ballroom 20 before a panel and gave each other a nice BIG HUG. It was so nice to finally meet each other!

The same goes to @Firesoul, @ilaam, @CalumFan1, @TsarMaxii, @Nevidge20 @KiyoMichan and many many others whom I met briefly during that weekend.

May we see each other again. Soon :)

Pimping the SArmy ;)

Thanks to @becky731 and @nhousey for some of the meetup pics!