Hey, everyone! I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written, but I have a good excuse, i swear! I’ve been working on the Christmas animation with my friends, as usual! I did take a break this weekend, but it was for something that, being from close to the Scranton area, i wouldn’t miss for the world. I attended the first annual “Office Convention” in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is about 20 minutes from my house.

I want to start off by saying “well done” to every person who planned the event. While I’m sure it didn’t go off without a hitch, and while I’m sure it really sucked when the first day of their outdoor festival was nearly rained out by torrential downpours…. they did a fantastic job. There were many a cast sighting, the events they had planned for everyone were awesome, and it was just an overall good time.

I have to say that this whole weekend was like we took Felix Felicis from Harry Potter. Every moment wasted, every time we went somewhere we weren’t supposed to led to us meeting a cast member or something! It was insane!

Since we are from the area, we went to register on friday. This was the most organized registration that I’ve EVER seen in my entire life. I walked in, picked up my Regional Manager badge, and then I was done! I got in line for the NBC store and i picked up a Michael Scott talking bobble head, a Dundie award (which I promptly put the “bushiest beaver” tag on) and a Michael Scott Meredith Palmer rabies awareness etc, etc shirt for larry, which is hilarious.

As we were walking out of the Radisson, someone said, “hey, there’s Phyllis”. And so it was. I walked over to her and said “Phyllis, can i get a picture with you, you are probably one of my favorite characters!” and she said “WELL THEN C’MERE!” and pulled me close to her. She’s strong! Then she said “Tell NBC that!” and Larry snapped the picture.

After this we went home and carved pumpkins, but that’s a subject for another journal entry! Actually, what the heck, here’s a picture!

The next day, we went to Scranton at about 10am and it was POURING. We had a pass for a free autograph session, but I’m really not the “OMG AUTOGRAPHS LOL!” type, and I didn’t really want to stand out in the rain with a million people, so I saw this random girl who looked like she was alone and I offered her my autograph pass.

After this, we went to the steamtown mall to get warm and dry. We hit a few shops, and then, I randomly encountered Mindy (Kelly as you Office fans know her). I got a picture with her, and I gave her an Albonshasta button, which she quickly put on her purse. If Phyllis was ONE of the nicest people in the world, she was the nicest. She talked to me like we were two pals who were geeking out about some video game or something! I told her I really admired her as a comedy writer and that she wrote my favorite episode. She said “That is the sweetest thing ever. No one ever knows that I’m a writer too, and not just ‘the actor who plays Kelly’”

I was laughing cause she said something really funny in the above picture, but for some reason I look like I was just crying. Heh.

After this, we spent some time in the mall. I didn’t want to go out in the rain at this point, because it was still pouring. We took some time to talk to a few other Office fans, and then eventually set out to where they were signing autographs. It was at this point that we ran into my friend Rebecca Fisk, and she joined our party.
The crowd for the autograph session was brutal. I wanted to get some good photos, and I did, but I felt like I was at some sort of beatles concert! Pushing, shoving, and …. man. I just wanted to get out of there. I did meet some nice girls there, one from baltimore, and … man, I forget where the other one was from, but they were both very nice and friendly. Here are a few pictures we got from the autograph session:

Above is Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration. Sorry for how blurry it is, the crowd was really pushing and shoving up a storm at this point. He was pretty funny when we saw him on Sunday at the Bloggers Breakfast. Poor guy lost his voice almost completely though.

Meredith was there too, and I have to say, her hair is the CRAZIEST color that I have ever seen in my entire life. Seriously. LOOK AT THAT COLOR! Awesome.

Jan (Melora Hardin) also made an appearance at the autograph session. Larry took this picture, and I think this picture is brilliant mainly because of the person in the background!

Angela tried to say Hi to a few of the people in the crowd, but she was immediately arrested and is currently being held by Scranton police until further notice.

We really couldn’t get to the front row at all to get any more good pictures, so we decided for some reason to head back to the steamtown mall. On our way there, we ran into none other than Angela and Ed Helms (andy) right out in front of that train shop by the steamtown mall! This I have to thank Rebecca for, because she ran into one of her friends right out in front of the train shop. I gave Ed Helms an Albonshasta button, and I also gave one to Angela. She promptly put it on her sweater and said “you drew this!? Awesome! Jenna Fischer is a really really good artist and she does this kind of stuff”. I thought that was really awesome. Also, I have to give larry credit for most of these pictures cause I obviously didn’t take them. Notice the Albonshasta button on her sweater though! ^_^

Above is Angela putting on the Albonshasta button. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Fisk.

This photo above is also courtesy of Rebecca Fisk.  The one below, Larry.

And after this, we met JIM AND PAM! … although… they’re a little flatter and a little more made of cardboard than I remember them being in the show.

We stopped by the Steamtown Mall for a little while to check out the Uncommon Stockholders meeting, but frankly, we couldn’t tell what was going on because there were so many people there! Oscar, Andy Buckley (David Wallace, CFO) and Darrell were there, but we really couldn’t figure out what it was about.

After all of this, we were exhausted. While I wanted to go to the Cast Q&A, there was no way we could. We went home, showered, and then went to the Adventure Games Halloween party, which was a lot of fun.

I came home that night, set my alarm for 7:00am and went to bed. I awoke the next morning by my dad waking me up at 6:48 saying “Larry is here”… I was like “wha?” … Apparently, I woke up at 7:48. See, my clock set itself for standard time. The whole daylight savings time thing was programmed into it, but since they CHANGED daylight savings time, it’s no longer accurate. So, yeah. I got up, didn’t even get to eat anything and we flew out the door to get into scranton in time for the Bloggers Breakfast, which I have to say, was fantastic. It was really just a whole lot of fun. Kevin was there, Bob Vance was there, Meredith was there, and Andy Buckley (David Wallace from Corporate) was there. They were all really hilarious, especially Andy Buckley who seemed more amazed that he was actually there than half of the fans. Didn’t get a lot of good pictures there because it was dark, but I did get this picture with Andy Buckley.

After this we went over to the Scranton Cultural Center. This was where the “writers block” was held with the various writers of the show, including Greg Daniels, and several others. It was very disappointing that Paul Lieberstein (Toby) was unable to be there, but BJ Novak came in his place. The writers were absolutely hilarious. I enjoyed listening to them speak about Scranton and Wilkes Barre (Kelly asked the audience “how the hell do you pronounce the name of that town!”)

The crowning moment of the Writers Block, however, was the audience question and answer portion, because I actually got to ask a question and it was cool! I also simultaneously plugged Adventure Games in Dickson City in the process. We had been trying to get a way to tell the writers that it would be hilarious if Dwight were to play D&D at Adventure Games, and this was the perfect chance. The writers asked the audience “where do you think dwight would go in scranton” and I stood up and took my chance. I also asked Mindy more about her inspiration for “the Injury”, which is my favorite episode.

After all of this was done, they showed five minutes of the episode “Branch Wars”, and the first five minutes were amazing! They actually SHOWED “The Injury” after that, but we had to go home. We are now sitting here and Larry is making Steak Marsala and I am posting to my blog.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed this account of the Office Convention and the pictures we took. Most of the credit for the pics, again, goes to Larry. To those of you who could not go, I am really sorry, because it was a great time. If they ever have another one, I’ll definitely be there! I guess it is true, and I can’t believe I’m even going to type this…. but there really ‘ain’t no party like a Scranton Party, cause a Scranton Party don’t stop’!