Y'all. There are moments in your life you will treasure forever. The birth of your children. Your wedding. Meeting the prop master from Doctor Who Nick Robatto. For those of you who aren't Doctor Who fans you may want to skip this post...there will be a lot of squeeeing on my part.

On Saturday I sat in on a panel about Brit Costuming. Yes, I dressed as my version of Harry Potter's Dolores Umbridge. On the panel was Nick and he discussed how Matt Smith broke the 11th Doctor's sonic screwdriver only moments after Nick delivered it to the set. He also showed off some of his other creations and mentioned that he had a shop set up in the merchandise rooms.

The panel was set to show off your costume you created or bought. The room was packed and hosts called out people from the audience to come up front and discuss their costumes. The room was filled with Doctor Who characters and I was certain I would not get selected. But. I was!

So I described what I did to make my costume, my hat (which was one of Tobey's baseball caps that I ripped apart and embellished and my wand that I made from a piece of paper and 4 sticks of hot glue. A special thanks to Peanut who sent me a uTube link on the how to - sorry I can't find the link at the moment - Google it :)

Anyways. My wand got passed around the panel and to some of the audience members and everyone oohhhed and awwwed over it. After the panel was over I had several picture requests and got several comments from folks about how funny and great my presentation was. I tried to get to the front to see Nick and his toys but it was too crowded so I left. And I went to the merch shops to look for Nick's shop - come to find out I had walked past it about 4 millions times and never noticed it before.

One of the items Nick mentioned in the panel was a watch he made based on the Vortex Manipulator design. And he had them in his shop. For $119. *gulp* I thought "when am I going to get a chance like this again?" - so I bought one and it is the coolest thing ever. Ever! Oh, did I mention that Nick was back at his shop? Well he was. He came up for a chat while I was picking out my watch and asked to see my wand because he didn't get a chance to see it at the panel. So the prop master from Doctor Who checked out my wand and he had nothing but praise for it *squeeee*



He gave my watch a once over before it was to be packaged up and wouldn't you know it the thing had a 'dodgey rivet' and would I mind if he fixed it? Um. THE prop master from Doctor Who wants to fix my watch! Sure - go ahead - take your time Mr. Prop Master from Doctor Who!


So here he is fixing that blasted dodgey rivet. When I took the pic he asked if his eyes came out red - it must be a problem for him! About 15 minutes later he had the rivet problem solved and brought the watch back to the counter. He showed me how it worked I inquired if it had a instruction booklet and he said yes. Then. Then he asked if I would like him to set it for me. Um. THE prop master from Doctor Who wants to set my watch! Sure!! He pulls out his iphone and sets my watch to his time and I asked if I could get a picture with him and he obliged.

And here we are. Me and Nick Robatto. I told him he made my Con and he blushed and I was all fan girl about the whole situation. I am nothing but cool under pressure wearing a wool suit in 90 degree weather.


And finally I was able to get out of my costume and Tobey snapped this picture of me, a hot sweaty mess, with my new Vortex Manipulator Watch. And let me tell you friends - it is the coolest thing on the planet. When I showed it to my brother Matt Damon yesterday he said you had to have a math degree to be able to tell the time. I'll try and snap a pic of the thing all lit up - that is once I get unpacked (almost done) and I have all the laundry washed (almost done) and I rest up a bit (will need weeks to recover).

Oh and here is the link to Nick's store - from there you can also get to his Etsy store:
Rubbertoe Rayguns

~ame

on Tuesday, September 04, 2012