Yes, it's true, the winners of the WonderCon 2008 Masquerade Lucasfilm Award just happen to be Star Wars Bloggers! Well, three bloggers and a spouse... close enough.

Jedi Master Mina, Hansgirl, Grampy-Wan and I competed in the WonderCon Masquerade. So what you say? Well, it was the first time for all of us, in any sort of costume contest... And we converged upon Coruscant from three distant points in the galaxy without benefit of in-person planning or rehearsal or costume fittings...

The whole deal was co-coordinated by email, IM's, phone calls, and a last minute practice session on Saturday afternoon!

This wasn't just a walk-across-the-stage type of costume contest, this was a presentation style show. We had 2 minutes... sound like a short time? When you're rehearsing, it's an eternity.... But on stage it went fast... even when one is out of step...

I take credit for the costuming, because I did make them all myself. And I created the music track... but BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE for Hansgirl for choreographing a dance to fit my poor edit of Meco's 1970's disco style "Star Wars" theme and trying teach JMM and I the steps... (we loved the clashing saber parts the best).

And of course a BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE for Jedi Master Mina and myself for not falling down, passing out, running into each other, or tripping over the curtains and falling off the stage....

Here we are pre-performance.... Jedi Master Mina (as herself), Hansgirl as Princess Leia, Grampy-Wan as Yoda and me as Mara Jade Skywalker. And here we are post prize winning! Yes, the bicycle was the prize... supposedly it's very valuable.... Or so the M.C. says that Steve Sansweet says.... I'm certain they're joking, and a rather cruel joke at that...it seems like an odd prize to give to convention goers that MIGHT BE FROM ANOTHER STATE! Good thing we didn't fly in....

On a side note, Grampy-Wan paid homage to his hero this morning, in spite of a great Force wind blowing... and I posed with the Master, too...

In other bits of Convention news....

Met up with Nob01 and the expectant Pidluk... I have visions of baby Jedi costumes dancing in my head...

Friday I got a snuggle from Richard Hatch of Battlestar Galactica fame... I had such a crush on him back in 1979... almost as big as the one I had on Mark Hamill... and I was no giggling teenager back then, either....

And here is the face behind the greatest Fan Film ever, Hardware Wars... Ernie Fosselius himself, along with Artie Deco and the Wookie Monster...

Also, I learned a bit about droid building, mold making, and the secret of industrial strength Velcro...

We saw several Star Wars Fan Films, a couple of cool trailers for action movies, heard a couple of great guests and got WOWED by the Indiana Jones and Clone Wars trailers shown on a big screen!

Sadly, we did not hear any news of the fate of the next Star Wars Celebration.... So they're having one in Japan, BFD.... It's all such a long way from here....

BUT FRIENDS & STAR WARS ARE FOREVER!

UPDATE:
If you really MUST see, check out You Tube "Weird Star Wars" although the ending is missing.... or "Costume Ball 2008" where we appear at 1:10 into the video...

UPDATE #2: Found another video!