Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul has managed to smash his $500,000 goal for the week three days early. Now he’s trying for a million.

The flash animation shows his incoming donations in real-time. At the time of this writing he has just over $700,000 in donations. Neat.

The third day of DragonCon continued with more of the same, with some new panels thrown into the mix on game design and programming.

• Tara McPherson and William Stout competed head to head to win this year’s “7th Annual Iron Art Competition,” presented in a format similar to Iron Chef, but with art instead of food. In previous years, Adam and I attended the Digital Iron Artist competition, so we though it’d be interesting to see the competition applied to more traditional art forms. Hosted by Michael Winslow, an American actor and comedian known as the “Man of 10000 Sound Effects.”
• In “Fundamentals of Game Programming,” Dr. Jalal Raissi of DeVry University, discussed the various programming areas within the video game industry including: game play, graphics, input, network, physics, sound, tools, user Interface, lead programming and more.
• Met the guys behind the voices of Adult Swim, including Doc Hammer and Dana Snyder. The panel had provided some upcoming previews of Cartoon Network cartoons, as well as the Aqua Teen Hunger Force video game.
• The “Artificial Intelligence in Gaming” panel, also from DeVry University, presented several common undergraduate algorithms in AI, including the popular Dijkstra’s algorithm.
• In “Voice Acting,” the voices behind your favorite Anime shows congregate to discuss what it takes to become a voice actor. Members from Robotech, Full Metal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell, Crusher Joe, and more. Michael Brady, C. Martin Croker, George Lowe, and Vic Mignogna were guest speakers for this panel.

It’s hard to believe, but this is my fourth year in a row at DragonCon, once again joined by Adam. This year I preregistered for the event and as a result did not have to ensure the long waiting time normally encountered when obtaining event passes.

Unfortunately, the event was unusually crowded this year, and we were surprised that we were unable to attend many of the panels because they had reached capacity. We also managed to once again miss James Phelps and Oliver Phelps, better known as the Weasley twins from Harry Potter, because of scheduling conflicts.

• This year we made an effort to attend the DragonCon Parade itself, where various costumed people marched around the block to show off their obsession with science fiction.
• I missed part of Grandmaster Musashi’s martial arts panel last year, and this year caught the whole thing. Grandmaster Musashi uses sword, walking stick, and empty hands to do some amazing things.
• Ron Glass and Mark Sheppard discussed their experiences as actors on the science fiction series Firefly and its sequel film Serenity.
• In “9/11 Conspiracy Theories and Other Internet Hoaxes”, Dr. Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, surveys of some of the top hoaxes and conspiracy theories driven by bloggers and YouTube home documentaries. I found this panel to the most educational of the day.
• The “Star Trek Guest Stars” panel featured John de Lancie (Q) and Barbara Luna (Marlena) as they talked about their plans after Star Trek and answered questions from the audience.
• The “Stargate Guest Mega Panel” offered a free-wheeling hour with a whole bunch of Stargate actors, including Vanessa Angel, Alexis Cruz, Louis Gossett Jr., Christopher Judge, Paul McGillion, Jason Momoa, Corin Nemec, Robert Picardo, Michael Shanks, and Marcia Patterson.