The 654-508 Post.

That yesterday wasn't all it could have been is... my fault. And Showmasters, but mainly mine.

Yes, the virtual queue ticket thing was a shambles (and have they not heard of "barriers"?), but if I had a) left earlier than 7:25, and b) gotten off the 328 bus where I got off yesterday i.e. nearer the venue and walked the rest of the way, instead of riding it further DOWN the road and waiting for another bus like a lazy bastard, I'd have been further up the long, long, LONG early bird queue. And thus likely have gotten a Hayden ticket numbered considerably higher than 654. Which meant a looooooooong wait that Sunday. Especially since I a) didn't have any lunch, b) didn't have anything to drink and c) had my £20 reserved for La Panettiere's autograph.

And there were a lot of people waiting - of the four Heroes guests there she was the biggest draw (good thing I wasn't there for Patrick "buggered off at 2pm" Stewart or Dominic Monaghan). And it has to be said that Hayden's queue moved considerably slower than Jack Coleman's (or Milo Ventimiglia's or Adrian Pasdar's), which is probably (probably?) why she was asked to speed it up later on... which was bad for those of us with higher numbers. You see, I'd hoped to get her to introduce my 508th mixtape (which has her on the spine and the card) and by all accounts she'd likely have been up for it. If only I'd gotten there EARLIER!!! AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

But instead I was in the "sign-and-go" part of the day, so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed... but the "Here you go" when she signed the inside of the tape card - making this the first tape in my collection to be touched by the person it's for - was still better than nothing. Along with the smile. And she was pretty stressed out by that point, so I'm not holding it against her; if the tiny and lovely Hayden does return to one of these things, I'll be back as well.

And not mess it up this time.

And it wasn't really a loss; not only did I feel better about it once I had some fluid inside me, but I was grinning like an idiot after this: