Chuck versus Tronfest 2010
It started out like any day in Los Angeles. There was a homeless man begging for money when I walked to the local Starbuck's for my morning coffee and bagel, there was tons of traffic and police activity. There was no silent area. The city was bustling as usual. And I? Well I was late picking Sarah up. You see, I needed to be out of the house by 8 in order to get to The Meeting Room for Tronfest 2010.
Today was my chance to become known...sort of. You see, Tronfest 2010 was today. It was this charity Wii-golf tournament where the winners would get to meet the cast and possibly win get a Nintendo Wii. The object was to gain awareness of Tron's American Heart Association donation campaign and to gain hype about the new Tron sequel that was being released soon.
But to understand Tronfest, I guess I need to explain where my obsession with Tron started. It all originally when I was young when I saw the movie with my father, but my mega-obsession started about eight months or so ago.
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Sarah had just been over to cement our 'cover'. Ever since I downloaded the second Intersect into my head, things have been less stellar for me in the relationship department.
I flunked out of spy school and then some traumatic stuff happened and BAMN! Sarah can't be with me anymore. I had to continue training here Burbank with Sarah and Casey while still working at the BuyMore.
I tried getting back in the saddle, but every girl seemed to fall short. So to take my mind off of Sarah and our relationship drama, I started following these mega-Tron fans on the Internet.
At first it was cool, recalling all the cool and awesome parts of the movie that I loved as a child. I first posted on the forum . It seemed harmless, right?
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Wrong. With the mention of one character, I had a mass of people responding to me asking for clarification and my opinion on other Tron matters. It felt good to belong somewhere, somewhere where people didn't care about my curly animal hair, or my spy training, or the Intersect. The people on forum cared about Tron, and so did I.
After I started posting on Tron forum, I began learning about little grass roots campaigns meant to bring people together. It sounded amazing. I couldn't go to Comic-Con 2009 because I still had spy training, but I could help make the movie more popular.
Yep, Chuck Bartowski created a Twitter account. If Morgan knew I had a Twitter, well that would be as bad as if I had a Zune.
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I logged onto Twitter for the first time today. I had yet to tell anyone other than Casey of my knew hobby because I was embarrassed. A grown man theorizing about Tron on the Internet, he must have no life. I didn't want people to think even less of me, especially Sarah.
I was searching around Twitter for some other people from the forums. Once I found one person, I had found the entire gang. There were some college students, some teenagers, some fathers, some mothers, and some people just like me!
I read along the discussion about people going to Comic-Con 2009 and ways I could help. The day of the Con I had training and then a surveillance mission. I told my Twitter friends all about my old Stanford days and life as a BuyMore employee. I told them about my not-so-fake-relationship with Sarah. It was all oddly cathartic.
Some people were romantics, some people were cynics, and some people were just nuts!
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I had created this routine of going home after each mission and catching up on the day's Twitter news. It helped me wind down from the days work and sometimes there was interesting news.
I remember this day's news was about the possibility of meeting the cast and helping the less fortunate at the same time. It sounded like a great idea. I was being asked my opinion about the idea by some of the mega-Tron fan higher ups. I was in the middle of my 140-character tweet when Sarah slid through the Morgan door.
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"Damn it!" I shouted.
I forgot to mention that at the time I was holding a cup of coffee too, and let's just say my lap didn't have a fond welcoming party for the hot coffee all over it.
"Umm Hi, Chuck...Listen I know things have been hard on you lately and I just wanted to give you this," Sarah said.
I was surprised by her appearance. Things had not been good with us lately. I was always blaming her or she was always blaming me. She went back to her pre-Chuck Bartowski Sarah Walker, and I went back to being in a slump.
She walked over to me and handed me a wrapped box. "Sarah, this is unexpected, but thank you." I took the box and sat on my bed. I contemplated leaving it there and ignoring her, but that would have been the old Chuck's way of handling the Chuck & Sarah saga.
You see, on this day my friends on Twitter to told me to stop being such a downer and just take my life by the horns with respect to my situation with Sarah. So I decided to do that. On November 17, 2009 Chuck Bartowski took his life [most of it] by the horns.
"Sarah take a seat. I want to talk to you..and it's just better for the both of us if we are sitting." Yes! I had done it, I had taken the first step. Sarah just needed to say yes to my request and then I would be one step closer to being myself again.
"OK Chuck, but I want you to open your present first. Please?" she asked.
"Sure." I patted the spot next to me and she moved across the room and sat. My curiosity was starting to nag at me so I quickly un-wrapped the box and was shocked to see the contents.
Original Tron film can.
Tron.
My new hobby.
Tron.
Sarah.
The give I love.
I was in shock for a while until I couldn't contain myself anymore. I took Sarah's face in my hands and just kissed her. I was so happy. She must have known what I had been going through. She had to have known or otherwise I'm pretty sure she would still have her shirt on and she wouldn't be....well you know. Gentlemen don't kiss and tell.
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After that day with Sarah, I definitely had gotten my mojo back. A few weeks after we first got together, things were still going strong. Nothing had changed in the spy world, but I now had someone to share it with. She obviously knew about my mega-Tron obsession, so I introduced her to the forums and Twitter.
What I hadn't known was that Sarah was one of my Twitter friends already. She had found out about my hobby early on and was one of the people that was giving me advice! I didn't think my day could have gotten any better.
Then I got the notification. Tronfest 2010 in Los Angeles. A Wii-golf tournament benefitting the American Heart Association and the top winners getting to meet the cast.
I asked Sarah to come with me as my real girlfriend and as my spy protection. You see, neo-Intersect didn't work like the old one nor did it work all the time. It seemed to perform best when I was with Sarah. Casey nagged me about having 'performance anxiety'. If he only knew how wrong he was. I should have given him a Christmas present he would have enjoyed. One night with the in-house surveillance on. Ha!
Back to the story.... I signed Sarah and I up the moment I could for Tronfest. I got on Twitter and joined my friends in the collective internet-high fives and squee's.
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'Twas the night before Tronfest 2010 and where was I? Stuck in the emergency room with Sarah waiting on Morgan. You see when you have a kickass-ninja-spy girlfriend who likes her nightly-recreation; things can get messy quickly when an old friend tries to break into the house.
Yes, that would be Morgan Grimes sneaking into the apartment while Sarah and I were...otherwise unavailable. Morgan crashed into the table and Sarah, thinking it was someone trying to capture me, ran into the hall and threw her knife into Morgan's foot.
My first reaction was, wow. She looks amazing from behind. And then my second reaction being, shit. I explained to Morgan the cover story that Sarah had come up with to please Morgan. Sarah always keeping a knife near by because as a child a mid-night intruder killed her mom.
Would I ever buy that? Hell No. Did Morgan Grimes? Absolutely positively yes.
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So that brings me back to the present. I just picked up Sarah and now we're on our way to The Meeting Room for Tronfest 2010. I really hope I win the Wii because Sarah has been lagging in her video-game quota and I need to make sure I don't let her down.
We get to meet cast from the original movie, like Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, and Jeff Bridges; and some of the members of the Tron Legacy cast, like Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and John Hurt.
As I drive along the Santa Monica Freeway, I can only take a look back at everything that has come together in the last eight months. I got the girl. I got the friends. I got the life. When I pull into the parking lot I can only thank God for allowing all these crazy events in my life to lead me to one place. Tronfest 2010!
I take Sarah's hand in mine, "Here we go!" I open the door for her, "After you, milady."
We enter the building and she turns around, "You are such the biggest geek!"
"Nerd," I say, "I still prefer nerd. And it is this nerd that you fell in love with, so let's go win us a Wii before someone else wins." I pull her into my arms and hurry into the main hall where we will get our pairings for the tournament.
In that moment, when I see Sarah waiting in line at Tronfest 2010 to get out registration information, that I feel like I finally know what I want in life and the feeling is overwhelming.
A/N: I don't own Chuck, Chuckfest 2010, or any part of Tron. I wrote this pretty quickly once I got the idea in my head. Thanks for reading and make sure you watch the premiere of Season 3 of Chuck Jan. 10 at 9 EST on NBC!!
