The first guest to appear was Willa O'Neill, who has appeared in several roles in both Hercules and Xena, most notably as Gabriel's sister Lila. I think Ms O'Neill is a native New Zealander -- she certainly has the accent. She is quite funny and engaging and interacted well with the audience. Unfortunately I don't remember much of what she said; curse my faulty memory! I do remember her being asked about a web site, and she said that people offered to build an official web site or an official fan club but never followed through. She wants to create an official web site, although right now she's having trouble getting her domain name (willaoneill.com) back from one of the companies that she was working with on a failed venture.

She has a good singing voice and sang a bit of a song for the audience. I also saw a video of the cabaret show in Pasadena which she sang in (they showed some extra videos during the autograph signing, which takes the better part of two hours).

Ms Leick was the second guest of the day. Wearing a somewhat revealing red dress she immediately captured the audience as she usually does. (Ms O'Neill wore a long sleeved top and pants with suspenders). Let's see what I can remember. Ms Leick offered Hershey Kisses to the audience (actually they were Hershey Hugs) and then proceeded to throw them in handfuls at the audience. She has a good throwing arm and nailed some people quite well, unintentionally of course but when you throw that many objects someone is bound to get hit on the face. After that she let a crowd form up so that she could hand out the rest.

A little girl gave her a bouquet of flowers. A guy dressed up as Cupid asked to kiss her and she did (he also kissed Willa O'Neill -- he said he does this at all the cons, the guy later got second place in the costume contest as Dark Cupid). One fan from Phoenix came up and she immediately made some sort of comment and totally rattled him. He forgot what he wanted to ask and stammered along as his friend beside him and the audience enjoyed his embarrasment. I met the guy and his friend at the Sunday Breakfast and his friend's name is Chance but I forgot the first guy's name.

Ms Leick said that she was doing and teaching yoga -- and no, she wasn't going to demonstrate a move that wowed the crowd in London. She did try to teach an audience member one simple move (involving being on all four and sticking your butt in the air) which she had to demonstrate properly. One guy with a USS Defiance t-shirt gave her lots of gifts from that club and thanked her for being an inspirational role model to his daughter. Another man gave her a "Hudson Leick Parking Only" sign which looks very much like an official "No Parking" red and white sign. She also a big teddy bear and a bunch of other gifts.

She did her usual scream, without the microphone. She introduced Zeb, a New Zealander who she had flown in. Zeb wrote her a 13-page fan letter and Ms Leick was impressed enough to call Zeb and they've become friends. Ms Leick was in a playful mood, chiding Wesser because he looked really tired and saying hello to David and Mike Ownby. Most of the audience of course didn't know what was going on. She did say that Renaissance had offered her a role in Cleopatra 2525 but then the show got cancelled.

In the autograph session I didn't get any autographs. Normally I don't but this time I wanted Ms Leick to add "Happy Birthday Michael" to one of Marty Slater's paintings that he had her sign in Toronto. But I chickened out. I just couldn't bear to go up there and ask that, since we're not supposed to request anything other than a signature. And I didn't have a picture of Willa O'Neill for her to sign (the autographs are done on one session so you go from one guest to the other) and I thought it'd be rather rude to ignore her and go straight to Ms Leick's end of the table -- but that's just another rationalization to justify my cop out.

This time I actually stuck around for the photo session, well I had to give a ride to Sarah and she definitely wanted to stay. It was a long wait because the autographs have to be done first and that takes forever. Eventually though Ms O'Neill and Ms Leick did photographs. Both were playful and conversational throughout the session, occassionally dancing to the piped-in music. Ms Leick is a bit more daring in photographs, letting people carry her and doing some rather suggestive poses. Ms O'Neill also seemed to be having fun, though not quite as uninhibited as Ms Leick.

After a full day I drove Sarah to her friend's place and drove home. It was a great first day but I had to eat and get to sleep. Tomorrow was the Sunday Breakfast which started at 10:00 which meant getting to San Francisco before 09:00 so that I can pick up Sarah then drive to Belmont and pick up Christine then get to Palo Alto in time for the breakfast. I did miss the Xena episode which everyone was talking about the next day. Sigh, I'll watch it on tape later.