I've already been to a Xena convention run by Creation, so the material was familiar. Video salutes to Gabrielle, Xena, and Callisto. The 10 best Xena moments and 10 best Gabrielle moments. A stump the experts segment where this time the experts missed most of the questions. An auction including items that went for several hundred dollars (props, chakram, signed portraits). And finally the guest speaker.

I must say that there were a lot more people to see Ms Leick than to see either of the Star Trek guests. When she came out there was cheering and clapping, a whoopin' and a hollerin'. She kind of basked in the glow and posed for the myriad of cameras as the flashes formed an almost continous light for a few seconds. Clearly Ms Leick enjoys putting on a show.

Once Ms Leick started interacting with the audience it was easy to see why she is so popular. Ms Leick is vivacious and playful and honest and charming and sexy and open and a lot of other things. She asked questions and answered questions ranging from the rather insensitive to the sublime. Watching her onstage it would have been very easy to let myself be enraptured as just about everyone else was.

Call it an innate sense of individuality, or a stubbornness to control my emotions, or just being jaded by other dynamic speakers, but I felt detached from the rest of the crowd. Ok, I was taking a lot of pictures and concentrating on fiddling with my camera settings to get a wide range of shots, but that's not the whole story. I came in determined not to be Hazed and lo and behold I wasn't. (Many fans describe the experience as The Haze.)

Ms Leick has a very magnetic personality, and it reminds me of the effect that Steve Jobs has with Macintosh users, or Larry Ellison has with Oracle employees. It's the kind of reality warp that makes ordinary people do and say things they wouldn't do if they were thinking normally. The kind of blind devotion that I find scary in other people.

Funny that I would be apprehensive of those kinds of followers when I have some of those same aspects myself. But for me it's a choice. Larry Ellison tells me to go and shoot Bill Gates, I'll do it with a few second thoughts. Not because I'm enamored by Ellison or because I admire him greatly, but because he's the head of the company I work for. Same if the President asked me to do something suicidal. I long ago swore to myself to obey authority, not because I believe in it emotionally but because... well, that's a rather complicated discussion.

In any case, when asked questions Ms Leick answered the speaker, and thought about her answers. She was a bit more circumspect about saying bad things about other people, but most people and especially actors are like that. Speaking of acting, she is back in the business after taking a year off, so hopefully she'll be getting more roles.

Ms Leick talked about Xena: Warrior Princess and the other actors, about some of her beliefs (she's really into Hinduism and some other eastern philosophies and raves about yoga), about fans and her personal philosophies. I can contrast the experience with yesterday. Fans treated Grace Lee Whitney with a quiet respect and she told personal stories in a comradely manner. Tim Russ was more proactive, trying to put on a show. The fans reacted accordingly by being louder and more boisterous. Ms Leick plays a role, and she admitted that onstage at a convention she is playing a role for the fans. And the fans respond by being thunderously enthusiastic and irreverant.

I was quite impressed with Ms Leick's performance. Unfortunately, there is a part of me that refuses to become deeply emotionally attached to anything. Hence why I have so many internal rules. But Ms Leick is a natural at getting and keeping people's attention and seeing her is quite an experience.