Definitely Not a Trip to the Dentist

Finally woke up, but still a little drowsy so I’m just going to give you all a run down of what happened yesterday on the set of Veronica Mars (some things may be out of order due to lack of sleep, but I think this is everything) and fill in the details in the days and weeks to come.

First off the plane ride to San Diego was fun in a driving over potholes for four hours kind of way. On my connecting flight I sat next to a dude who must have been one pound under the limit under the weight limit where they make to buy two seats. Then after a hour and a half in Atlanta, where I ate lunch at the dirtiest table I’ve ever seen, I was going back to Cali. The plane ride was a little bumpy as the fasten seat belt light was only off for about a half an hour. I saw Walk the Line, and by saw, I mean as I was on a window seat, the overhead compartment blocked about a fourth of the screen. And I don’t think the dude beside me was too happy that I continually kept leaning over.

Upon arrival I hopped into a taxi but my driver wasn’t exactly sure where my hotel is. It’s never a good sign when your driver asks you for directions. And it didn’t really help that I couldn’t understand half the things the dude said or him with me. Luckily he guessed right and I then took a long shower, met up with my contacts from the show, and had dinner. Then I settled in for the night and caught the Closing Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics which including a performance from Avril Lavigne. Um, yeah, okay.

Unfortunately my inner clock woke me up at four AM PST, but luckily I was able to get back to sleep until 6:30. I had a nice buffet for breakfast, and headed back to the room for a shower. Then after bleeding profusely after thirty minutes after using the razor the hotel provided for me, I met up with the other bloggers on the trip. But after everything that went wrong up to that point (does anyone have fun traveling?) what came next totally made up for all of that.

We started out the day with a limo ride to the set, yes a limo. There were about nine of us in total including a reporter doing an article on the even and an official UPN photographer taking pictures of us throughout the day. We were guided around by a couple of nice ladies from the studio and network, one whom which gave me my daily "Has anyone told you you look like the dude from The Notebook" comment. Needless to say I busted out my usually, "Yeah, now if only I can hook up with a chick as hot as the chick from The Notebook." I never get tired of this. Unfortunately though, no one involved was looking for a dude from The Notebook type for an upcoming project. But anyways.

When we arrived on the set, they took us right into the courtyard set where the characters eat lunch which actually doubles as the front of the school. We walked in during rehearsal involving Beaver and Veronica. We got a seat off set about twenty feet away from the action and when they offered one of us headphones to listen in on the action I jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately they made me pass them around, but as soon as they came back around to me I claimed a monopoly on them for the rest of the visit.

We then made it inside the school and wandered around the hallway with the hall leading to the school’s office, a classroom, and the infamous bathroom, where the stall still has “Jackie is a …” written on the door that was inscribed during the last episode.

Back in our seats, I saw Ryan Hansen, or as I like to refer to him as Little Dick, come around the corner, and once he saw us he made a B-line to us and say hi. He even mention another Dickism that he just said earlier that day, and you will have to wait until the show to hear it (barring it not getting it past Standards and Practices) but I’ll just say it’s classic Dick. And who doesn’t love Dick? He even stuck around to make an extra apperence as an extra in the scene that was filming that may or may not make it into the show.

Later show creator Rob Thomas (not the dude from Matchbox Twenty, great story coming later this week on that) stopped over to quickly say hi and producer Dan Etheridge also stopped by to welcome us. They ran through the scene we watched about six times and changed the camera angle. While the moved the camera, Kyle Gallner, a.k.a. Beaver who was extremely tired came over to say hello. Then the girl of the hour herself, Kristen Bell came over to chat. Unfortunately she had to go once the cameras were set and I was unable to ask my number one burning question. Hopefully I’ll get another chance to ask that at a later date. But when it comes down to it, it was nice that the namesake of the show was able to devote anytime for us.

Once the scene was wrapped, it seemed Kyle (his grogginess in no way showed up on what I saw on the monitors) finally woke up and he and Ryan spent a couple minutes goofing around with each other, spent some more time talking to us, and took a lot of pictures with us.

Then came our tour of the sets that included Java the Hut, which looked very different in person, but that may have been due to the little lighting that they had. Then we went around to Mars Investigation then to the apartment including Veronica’s bedroom (I totally forgot to see if the Lost numbers were still around to take a picture), the little seen Keith bedroom, and the Living Room, where Rob met back up with us and then took over the tour. He then took us the police station (guess who Deputy Sacks has a file on), the penthouse suite and then took us to the new PCH hangout that will be utilized in future episodes, but I believe we saw in the scene where Weevil was kicked out of the gang.

Then came lunch with Rob where I luckily got to sit right across from him. The food was really good as I had some pasta and chicken. While eating Percy Daggs (Wallace) stopped by to pick up lunch and even chatted for us along with his mom, who is equally as nice.

After lunch we stopped by the wardrobe truck and had a chat with the Salvador, the costume designer. This is the point where Rob had to go. After hanging out at the courtyard again, we made a pit-stop at the make-up trailer which had a bunch of pictures of actors that have been on the show which was the only time they told us we were not allowed to take pictures of throughout the whole day aside when they were filming. Then I saw Jason Dohring pass by the door and then we got to go outside the trailer and have a chat with him. This got everyone else on the trip all really excited (all day all I heard was I hope we get to meet Jason, oh I was the only person there who liked chicks). After some questions and pictures it was time to leave.

We headed back to the airport, but I had to wait about six hours until the planed boarded and they wouldn’t even let me check in for another hour or so. Luckily there were a couple other people on the trip who shared my flight. So we hung out, had a couple drinks, some dinner and talked about how our wait was similar to Tam Hanks in The Terminal. On the way back to Atlanta they showed Elizabethtown and even though I watched the whole time I really can’t remember much of it. Then I said bye to my fellow travelers upon arrival as they were both from Atlanta and had to wait another hour before making it back to Ohio.

Now a wise man once said “There’s nothing wrong with Ohio except the snow and the rain,” and there was plenty of the latter on the ground when I got home. Oddly enough while watching the news in San Diego they talked about a Winter Storm that was coming but apparently a Winter Storm in California just rain. I was offended that they would call rain a Winter Storm, Winter Storms included either sleet, snow or freezing rain.

I will go into more detail including interviews and pictures in the days and weeks to come including my exclusive content. I would like to thank everyone involve in creating this set visit as well as the cast and crew who were great hosts and I hope this becomes a common occurrence especially I didn’t get to ask Kristen any questions and even though I got most of the questions asked I thought up before the visit for Rob, I’ve since thought of even more. Plus since we missed them yesterday, it would be nice to meet Keith, Weevil, Jackie or even some of the bit players like Mac, Lamb, or Clemmons. For more on the visit check out these sites that were also with me:

The Attractive Nuisance
DuckyXDale
Give Me My Remote
Magnolia
Pass the Remote
Random Acts of Television
siklilgrl
The Vast Wasteland


Oh, and one more thing, I love Dick, um, I mean REE-chard.