Actress Gigi Edgley, probably best known to American audiences as Chiana on Farscape, has another talent: fire twirling. She’s been performing at the weekly Huntington Beach street fair with (I think) her boyfriend, and plugged the show at the latest Farscape convention in Burbank last month. My parents, also Scapers, set up a trip with their fan meetup group and invited the two of us along.

Last night we carpooled down to Huntington Beach, arriving around 7:00. The fair runs Tuesday evenings from 5-9pm, and they block off several blocks of Main street near the pier for vendors, a farmer’s market, and performers. We didn’t see anyone else from the group where we were supposed to meet, but we did see someone carrying flaming torches (and someone else carrying what appeared to be a giant unicycle) on the opposite corner of the intersection.

Gigi started with a “warm-up” twirling a long pole with flames at either end, then Jamie came in juggling flaming torches. There was a tongue-in-cheek magic trick in which she made him “disappear.” Somewhere along the line he did some tricks on a normal-sized unicycle (including jumping over a kid’s legs with it) — while juggling. Then Gigi started swinging around chains with torches on the ends. The whole show concluded with Jamie juggling atop a twelve-foot-high unicycle.

After the show, Gigi recognized my dad’s Farscape hat, and came over to talk for a bit. (My parents have been to a lot of Farscape conventions, and my mom tends to go for the autograph signings and meet-the-actors events.) At this point we did run into two other people from the meetup group.

Afterward we (me & Katie, my parents, and the others from the fan group) went to dinner at Fred’s, which was…slow. We were in line by 8:00 at the latest, and didn’t get out until almost 10:30.

I can’t believe nobody’s made this comparison yet……it looks like the producers of “Lost” picked the wrong SF TV-show lead to be Alex’s mom:

Tania Raymonde (Lost)Claudia Black (Stargate SG-1)

Of course, it’s entirely possible that they might be able to land Claudia for a recurring guest spot as her “mother” (flashbacks maybe?), and thus call into question through visuals alone whether Danielle is even as right in the head as she seems to be.

Apparently Stargate: SG-1 has been canceled after 10 seasons. I wasn’t a fan, but you’ve got to admit, 10 seasons is a serious accomplishment. But I found one remark interesting:

Ironically, this is the first year since Season Four that plans were already in place, both creatively and in signed actor contracts, for another year. The show has lived on year-to-year since moving to SCI FI, with the writers forced to write a possible series finale every year — only to find the show renewed once again.

A space-based show on the Sci-Fi Channel, used to planning one year at a time, has finally decided to plan two years, only to find themselves cut off halfway through. Starring (among others) Ben Browder and Claudia Black. It sounds oddly familiar. Where could I possibly have heard something like this before?

If you’re in danger of losing your religion, try…
Sign: Faith Insurance

We saw this by the side of the road in Old Town, and both of us immediately thought of cake topping. Not something you’d want to use this for.
Empty bag of Mortar and Topping Mix

There was just something inherently amusing about seeing Xena standing at Mrs. Field’s.
Xena buys a cookie

You know, ever since the new VW Bug came out, Katie’s said that the yellow ones looked like Pikachu. Well, the Pokémon people fixed one up and were raffling it off at the con.
VW Bug done up as Pikachu... with licence plate PIKA 10

This probably belongs in with the hall costumes, but the cardboard thought balloon was a nice Farscape reference.
Cardboard thought balloon: What the Frell?

One oddity we didn’t manage to catch on virtual film was mixed into the city’s graffiti. In two places (one visible from the Blue Line trolley, one on a freeway on-ramp), someone had spray-painted the word Enron on the wall.

Taste of China sign... shaped like a hot dogThe last two were actually in San Clemente, where we stopped for coffee on the way back. We picked an exit and got off, looking for a Diedrich, Starbucks, or other coffee shop. We found a Starbucks (with a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf across the street that we didn’t notice until we got back in the car), but we passed two odd signs on the way to and from the freeway. We couldn’t get decent pictures from the car, and neither of us was in the mood to find a parking space and take the photo on foot. But I did find photos on Flickr by Brian Mitchell, under a Creative Commons license that allows me to repost them here under the same license. The first: Taste of China…in the shape of a hot dog. And practically across the street was a place advertising the Pastrami Love Burger.

Pastrami Love Burger

(Continued in Volume 3.)