How embarrassment

Ok, so here is a little additional blog post that I thought I should share while I think of it.

A few years ago, Peter Jackson, the acclaimed film director, announced that he was making "The Lord of the Rings".  I watched and enjoyed these films a great deal.

DW and I watched each of the films in the cinema, and then bought the extended-release DVDs, and watched ALL the extra features and the movies again with the audio commentaries.  We watched it a lot.  We even mastered the Trivial Pursuit version.

I tell you this so that you will appreciate just how excited we were to hear that Peter Jackson's company was making "The Hobbit", the precursor to "The Lord of the Rings" and one of my favourite books as a child.

My excitement might have been slightly more than DWs.  It was slightly diminished when I heard that Guilermo del Toro was attached to direct instead of Peter.  I did enjoy "Pan's Labyrinth", directed by Guilermo, but it seemed like they were messing with a proven team.  So, it was with piqued interest that I signed in to an Internet chat at 5am on a cold Sunday morning 11 years ago to partake in a Q&A with Peter and Guilermo.

They had been collecting questions over the previous weeks and would aim to answer the top 20.  I hadn't submitted any questions but I was definitely keen to get the scoop.  Also, they did say that they would try to take extra questions if there was time.  I figured I might get lucky and think of a particularly good question that they found so intriguing and insightful that they couldn't resist.

The sign-in process was a little odd, and I found myself in a chat room that appeared to be empty - no messages, no other participants, nothing.  The title of the room was correct, but I was concerned that I hadn't signed in properly so I posted the message, "Are we starting?"

The message didn't appear, so I started to think that I should sign out and back in, when all of a sudden, names started popping up in the attendee list.  Stuff was happening.  I was in the right place.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the name I had been waiting for appeared.  Peter Jackson.

Guilermo de Toro was there as well.  Peter posted the first message to kick things off.  Apparently, it was rainy in NZ and cloudy in London.  The host of the chat, called "WetaHost" posted the first of the 20 initial questions, about the use of physical locations vs digital locations.  Both Peter and Guilermo explained their preference for physical where possible, and I was already starting to think about what my question would be.  There was a text field on the side of the chat screen where you could pose questions that they moderators would select from.  A tricky task given the number of people posting questions.

Then it happened.

I asked my question.  My one and only question.

Not the cleverly crafted question that I had been drafting on a notepad beside the computer.  Not even some stupid fanboy question.  So, what question did I ask?

bmeade: Are we starting?

Yep, my question that I posted to test if I was in the right place spat itself out into the chat room 20 minutes later and landed in front of millions of fans desperately hoping to get to ask their own cleverly crafted or stupid fanboy question.

It sat there for a couple of seconds.  I couldn't believe it.  For a moment I thought it might just be a caching problem with my chat window, until Peter answered it.

Peter Jackson: Hi bmead - we are underway, great for you to join us!

My heart sank.  Then Guilermo chimed in...

Guilermo del Toro: We are,. Welcome

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get to ask any more questions.  I was right.  I'm also pretty sure that was the largest number of people swearing at me in unison in my life.

I got to ask one question of Peter Jackson and Guilermo del Toro, and it was "Are we starting?"

To their credit, they were both very polite.

And of course, the Internet doesn't forget.  While several versions of this chat transcript are available, most have trimmed out the stupid questions, but a couple of complete versions exist.

And just in case you don't believe me, here is one such link: https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Jackson-Del-Toro-Chat-Up-Hobbit-With-Fans-8938.html

It's been 11 years, but I am starting to recover.  I won't say I see the funny side yet, but there is hope.

Thought for the Day:
I really did have a great question planned