Dear Diary; Still Not Wayward
Regarding the subject: it keeps happening. One of these days, I really will make a sign and wear it around at the convention. Until then, I will be confused and awkward, and then feel bad when I figure out what's going on. (Sometimes they ask. Sometimes they don't. The times they don't, and so just assume, are definitely worse.)
Um, anyway, survived Transformers convention! Flew red eye home and am too tired to think, never mind type, anything remotely coherent. It took me four tries to get the words in that sentence in the proper order.
Our flight out on Thursday morning was delayed. Weather in Newark was apparently bad, but we were assured everything would be fine. Connecting flights would also be delayed? (Why is that sentence ended with a question mark? What are you doing up there, Brain?) Connecting flights would also be delayed. So our flight took off about forty minutes late, and then we circled for an additional twenty or so... I wasn't keeping too close a track of it. Our first flight was supposed to depart around 10:30 and land around noon, our connecting flight was supposed to leave at 1:10. We landed at 1:05. You do the math. You can probably think better than me right now. So, despite assurances of other delays, Aniko and I sprinted best we could across the massive terminal and... boarding doors are closed. Plane sat there for thirty+ minutes, but the doors were closed and we couldn't get on. That kind of burned. OH WELL there was another flight to LAX in two and a half hours and they could put us on that! So... new boarding passes in pocket, we then spent nearly an hour (combined) on hold with the shuttle service to let them know we'd be late and to find out if that even mattered too much (it didn't). Flight to California was uneventful. Boring. I doodled some FFXI-related things and read a bit, and then we finally landed and got lost looking for baggage claim because the signs leading away from where we docked kind of sucked or something. We flew Continental, but ended up at United's claim, and then we had to run around until we found the right place... But our luggage had arrived, and we found it, and we got our shuttle, and even made it to Pasadena before 9! Checked into the hotel, dropped our bags, and went to go wait to pick up our badges and my toys. Conventions can consist of an awful lot of standing around and waiting. Had some conversations with some of the other people, stood around debating whether or not I should actually call someone (ended up doing so, but it took me nearly fifteen minutes to finally go through with it. AAAAUGH PEOPLE) then they started calling for people with last names between M and ... R? Anyway, we fit that, so we got to jump ahead. Whoo! So we sped through pick-up, decided not to bother waiting in line for the at-con exclusives until tomorrow, called the people again, and then we (being Aniko, wyntir_rose, THIRD PERSON, and me, obviously) went out to dinner at a Thai place. Was good food. I was dubbed Bluestreak for my talking very fast (and sometimes very much). We also stormed Target, and I think my glasses prescription is starting to fade again. Which is fantastic, what with me not having health insurance and the only one I have any chance of getting not providing eye care (or dental). I like how I'm living in, what, the only first world country that doesn't guarantee health care in some way. ...I like how I'm suddenly talking about insurance and politics.
... By the way, if the first half of that all sounded a bit familiar, you may be remembering last year when my flight out was delayed and I missed my connecting flight. ... There is a worrying trend developing here....
Anyway, after having a fun dinner and all, Aniko and I pretty much passed out. It had been a long day, and we had to be rested for Friday!
First order of business Friday morning was hitting the club store. Bought our shirts, and I bought the Elita-1 and Razorclaw pack. I wanted (still want) the Sweeps pack, but I couldn't justify the spending. I wanted Elita more, so that is the pack I got. I may see about unloading Razorclaw to someone else, not sure yet. HAVE I MENTIONED I AM SICK OF CYBERKEYS AT ANY POINT BY THE WAY? BECAUSE I REALLY AM. Kinda wanted the third set, too, but, yeah, no, I like having food and electricity and a place to live more. So... only one set of the at-con exclusives. But the best set. pink boat pink boat pink boat
Got out in time to make it to the Animating Animated panel, which was fun, but not really that interesting, at the same time. I skipped the movie Q&A because I was afraid of someone saying something spoilery (I'm trying to steer clear of too much information, and it's going well so far. Let's see if I make it to the release date...), but Aniko stayed for it and said it was interesting. I split off to grab some food, and at some point Perceptor was wandering around. I know who it was, but I feel awkward linking to / directly naming people I don't have friended, so, uh (yeah, see above where I use THIRD PERSON instead of a name). Actually, it was Perceptor plus bonus morphobot, though I couldn't identify it at first. I asked and got a better look and then, oh, yeah, morphobot. (Because I am lame and can be shy, I did not say hello. She - the person in the Perceptor costume - probably didn't remember me from last year, anyway, so it would only have been awkward). Eventually, I just stood and waited for the dealer's room to open. Wheeee, exciting.
When they opened the doors at 2, Aniko and I filed after everyone and entered the madhouse, where I proceeded to not only obtain Universe Ratchet and Ironhide, but at only a slight markup from retail! So within, what, ten minutes, I'd found two of the top items on my list! That was exciting. Then I got a couple posters! One with Red Alert and Inferno, and one with Mirage, Jazz, and Prowl. And... actually, that was everything I bought on Friday. I didn't buy much this year. Aniko ran around looking for some of what she wanted (she managed to find everything on her list, actually!) and bought two-thirds of it (plus some other stuff because, haha, dealer's room does that to you). Optimus Prime - the truck from the movie - was back again, too. He was in the dealer's room, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't for sale
There wasn't really anything else going on that afternoon, so after I was done in the dealer's room, I dropped my stuff off at the hotel, rested a little, then set off to wander around. Had my picture taken (POLAROID whooha. I had seriously never shaken a picture before Friday evening) with a cardboard Optimus Prime ... standee thing. Had a choice of Prime or Megatron. I think I will probably always side with the one less likely to intentionally step on me (and also - it was the movie versions, and movie Megs .... didn't do anything, aside from break Jazz over his knee - not exactly like that but shut up - so meh). Went into some neat little shops - one was a used video game place where you could test play the games they had, which is a really cool idea. They even had some PlayStation games, but nothing I didn't already own. Still, nice to see them someplace other than my game shelf..
As evening fell, I wandered back into the convention center. There was a film fest at 8:30, and while I wasn't totally interested in that, MSTF was at 10, and of course I had to attend that, and the film fest seemed a good way to pass the time. I ended up hanging out with a group of people from DeviantART while I was waiting around, and they were really nice, and pretty silly, too. General fun. We watched a bit about the complete series collection coming out later this year (they completely never mentioned a price, anywhere, so I asked at their booth - they said around 150 dollars. OUCH) and some fan-made films, including Mr. Potatohead versus Transformers and Barbie versus Transformers (both ended in death and were kind of hilarious if only for the pure WTF? factor), one.... reeeeeally confusing and really short thing, Blaster and Soundwave debating which song is better, only for Stan Bush to step in and answer it for them, sssssomething else? AND THIS, which is amazing. It's a team - they animate and voice it all themselves. DR. SMOOV does incredible impressions of most of the original voice actors, while the animation models are mostly based off the Alternators and Masterpiece toy lines (and, of course, the movie line, in Barricade's case, since he doesn't exist anywhere else). Watch iiiit. ... Also some guy submitted a video of his previous BotCon experiences and then proposed to his girlfriend at the end. (She said yes.)
MSTF was fun, and after there was something else, but I was tired, so I left to go get some sleeeeep.
SATURDAY. The busy day. Didn't bother getting Weird Al's autograph, though it would've been fun to meet him, and I've met Peter Cullen, so I left my place in the line for people who haven't. Instead, I went to the IDW (comic book) panel, which was... also not that interesting, but we did get some previews of what to expect in the future, which is always neat. I can't afford to buy all the individual books, so I have to wait until the trade paperbacks come out (bummer), but still, stuff to look forward to!
After that panel, I stalked the dealer's room a bit more. Prices had all gone up (there's greater attendance, especially from general admission, on Saturday and Sunday, so prices generally go up) a bit, but I snagged a Beast Machines Tankor (now I just need Strika and I'll have all the show characters...) and, whoo! Found Heroes of Cybertron Jazz, so I snagged that up, even though he wasn't anything I'd planned on finding and so wasn't on my TO BUY list. Like you don't make lists. Also, caved and picked up a Universe Cyclonus. I have Galvatron and now Scourge, and it's just wrong to not have all three of them! (Though, of course, I get home and see that Hasbro's finally stocking him online again, gah. OH WELL, I'd rather have paid a bit more for him and still have him then not have him at all.)
There was a group of people cosplaying, and Aniko indirectly knew one of them (Lolita Optimus) from FFXI, but she was too busy having her picture taken a million times to say anything much.
Also, while I'm here talking about nothing, there were like... I don't know, all the little children in the state of California or something there. I mean, there are usually kids, but usually not that many. You could not turn around without at least five running past you.
Noon was the Weird Al and David Kaye panel, followed by the two-hour Hasbro Review panel, both of which I attended. The voice actor panels are usually fun, though sometimes you get kind of sick of people asking them to improv their character in [x] situation (heh, someone asked Al to twitter... tweet? Whatever the terminology is? Something as his character, and then we all took a quick break as he did). Hasbro definitely plans on released the rest of the Animated figures eventually (which means we may actually, finally get Arcee, which is a strange thought. Not getting one is almost a joke at this point...), and may/will pick up Classics / Universe 2.0 / WHATEVER THEY CALL IT NEXT again sometime next year. Better than never, but maaaan.... I love that line, and I really don't care too much about the movie toys, so I am sad to see it go away (again). And then I think I lurked the dealer's room between the Hasbro panel and Peter Cullen's panel.
Show closed after that, so I went back to the room and started unpackaging my toys and packing my suitcase to see how things were going for space. I'd had Aniko bring her massive duffel bag, so there was plenty of room, but the more toys we could fit in the hard suitcase, the better.
We were supposed to meet outside the convention center by 7:15 to go to the "Paramount dinner party" thing. They charged extra for it, and I wasn't really sure I wanted to go, especially after they were so quiet about what it was going to entail, but my mother told me I didn't have a choice, so... there I was. We went I think about halfway around the entire block (it was a huge block, by the way... there were a lot of us) before we found the end, and then we stood and... waited. The buses were supposed to depart around 7:15, but we didn't end up leaving until close to 8.
WE WERE ON AN INSANE BUS. It was hilarious. Oh, gosh, I can't even begin to explain it, but the way the driver phrased things was really funny. Also, he was just strange. The bus "transcended" up a hill at one point. At another point, he decided he didn't want to take the same route as everyone else and took us on a speed-tour through Chinatown... He also asked us all to look out to the right, where we'd see something that we'd know! If we couldn't see it, well, we could use our imagination. And he wanted someone to tell us what it was! USE THE POWER OF YOUR IMAGINATION TO KNOW WHAT HE IS POINTING OUT. Also, Aniko and I were sitting right in front of the guy who does Shortpacked! and a bunch of his friends, and whenever the driver wasn't giving his bizarre commentary, they were giving commentary on his commentary, and it was hilarious.
So, anyway, we get to Paramount - yeah surprise we actually went to Paramount Studios! - and... wow. It was so much fun! Pictures are below, but they had the Hasbro, Shout!, and BotCon logos on the walls in lights, as well as the Autobot and Decepticon symbols. Movie Ironhide was waiting for us inside! I... just, that is a massive truck. It could run me over and probably not notice. Seriously, just... wow.
So I geeked out at the truck for a bit, but they called us all towards the stage they'd set up pretty quick, because they had some other guests rolling in - har har, literally, we all knew - soon and we should all have a good view. I don't really know what I was expecting - someone to come up in a car, duh, but movie Ratchet with his sirens and lights all going was not it. YEE! And he brought Tyrese Gibson (... he's an actor. He plays one of the military guys in the movie) in with him. But, sorry, Ratchet is infinitely more interesting, so I darted over to look at the hummer while they had Tyrese Gibson and Peter Cullen talking on stage. Nice things were said. I looked at pretty vehicles. Then they put Stan Bush on stage, and he sounded much better than he did in 2007, thankfully. Concert didn't go that long, either, I think he did maybe five songs? So I ate dinner while that went on, then poked around a bit and ended up near the stage while things were winding down. Awards started, but then - EVERYONE WITH A BLUE WRIST BAND! Mine was not blue. Mine was yellow. The blue people were all banished to the theater.
It was actually kind of funny, I was one of literally only two people near the stage with a non-blue wrist band, so the one other guy and I just kinda looked at each other and said, "they don't love us :(" though there were a bunch of other people wearing the yellow. Just not anywhere near us. XD;
Nothing to do, then, until the blue group was done doing... whatever they were doing (everyone knows: something to do with Revenge of the Fallen...) so I went back to harass Ironhide and then Aniko started talking to the security guy making sure we crazy fans didn't use him as a gym or something, and turns out he'd worked on a bunch of Star Trek sets! So he was telling us a bunch of hilarious stories about the cast and crew members, and the time Tom Cruise pretty much made him go to a ridiculously expensive restaurant (and then paid the bill, on top of it all), and it was just a lot of fun! It was actually disappointing when they called for the rest of us to go find the theater, because I wanted to keep listening to these crazy stories.
But of course I went with the group. They took our phones and cameras and... basically everything that so much as looked as if it might be able to record, and we filed in and sat down and then they told us we were just gonna get to watch the trailers on the big screen. LET DOWN. Somebody over on the right agreed and shouted he didn't want to watch the trailer and wait a minute I know that voice, who said that, that man walking up to the stage - Michael Bay, himself! He gave us a little hello and told us the movie was going to be AWESOME, and then we got to watch a couple actual scenes! They weren't even all finished but OH MAN.
OH MAN
The little bits we saw were just... well, awesome! IT NEEDS TO BE MOVIE DAY NOW. I can't wait! (Also, apparently I'm under orders - not from Michael Bay, from Tyrese Gibson, who also says the movie will be AWESOME - to tell everyone I know with toenails to see it. So, if you have toenails, even if you don't, really, now you've been told.)
After the clips, we went back to finish off the awards and witness another proposal. (... she also said yes.) Bizarre. Guess it was the weekend for that sort of thing?
BUT THEN it was time to go back to the hotel. I packed up everything I could before passing out, because we had to check out in the morning. Woe!
Oh god it doesn't feel like this was yesterday because I haven't slept.
Anyway, there was a panel at 10 that I wanted to attend (more voice actors: Gregg Berger and Michael McConnohie), and that was a lot of fun. The Hasbro Design panel was after that, but I didn't bother hanging around. Most of it was stuff they'd shown the day before, with bonus surprised Tyrese Gibson again. Instead I got in line to meet the aforementioned voice actors. They were very nice! (What I actually thought was really, really great was, Michael McConnohie said that he'd stay as long as necessary so everyone who wanted to meet him or get his autograph could. I just thought that was really nice.) After saying hello and thank you and all sorts, I popped into the dealer's room to pick up a Dead End for my Unicron.
Since Hasbro decided to wait until I caved and bought one for a high price and without the minicon before rereleasing him. Bah!
Anyway, yeah. Minicon. MINE. He's not missing any pieces anymore.
G1 Writers panel was at 1, and of course I wasn't going to miss that. They were a riot to listen to. Also, at least one of them absolutely hated Spike, which was funnier than it should have been. Hearing their explanation for season four was also hilarious. They gave an indirect shout out to this guy, too, for his short but funny reviews of the G1 series.
Aaand then I hung out in the dealer's room again, for lack of anything better to do, until they drew for the free ride to next year's con. Then I hung around some people and made a general nuisance of myself until it was time to go get on the shuttle. Yaaay!
There was nothing to do in the terminal, so mostly Aniko and I sat around bored for nearly six hours... Flight was long and the flight attendants kept talking because people were too stupid to remember that when the BUCKLE UP light is on you are supposed to remain in your seat. I can't sleep in planes, anyway, but I didn't even get much rest... Then we got disoriented in JFK (probably largely due to lack of sleeeeeep), then we actually made it home.
AND HERE I AM. EXHAUSTED.
... and now, because I apparently need to harsh my own squee, or whatever the phrase is, man, fandom, what is wrong with some of you? During the Peter Cullen panel, one kid asked him what he thought about Optimus Prime/Megatron slash (Cullen is the voice of Optimus Prime), which was pretty stupid, but the one that really got me... (I saw somewhere this kid got escorted out, though I've no idea if that's true, nor if it was for Saturday - all remaining five minutes of it - or the rest of the weekend... Huh.)
While I was hanging around Sunday afternoon and making a general nuisance of myself (I... think I just like to say that), a group of four girls came up to us - I got two of their names and I knew who they were, but I didn't catch the other two, which is just as well, in my opinion. One of the two girls I didn't catch was bragging about how she went up to this one girl and told her that a piece of her fanfic sucks. Now, I've never read the fic in question, because it just didn't sound like something I'd enjoy, but to go up to someone and flat out tell them you think what they wrote sucks is just... meanness for the sake of being mean. (It annoyed me more than it already would have because the author's got autism and has already been ridiculed pretty heavily. There was some drama in the fanbase for a while about it, which is why I know the little that I do.)
So... yeah. You were a total ass to someone because you... didn't like their fic? ... C-congratulations...?
(And, you know, I suppose it's possible the author "started it" and I don't know the whole story, but I cannot fathom going up to someone and telling them that something I know they worked hard on and feel strongly about sucks, regardless of whatever they've done to me. And if I did lose it and do something like that, I wouldn't turn around and brag about it.)
... Yeah, so. That just upset me, is all.
Now, photos!
First, though, these aren't all great quality. People moving around all the time, poor lighting, and distance made getting shorts of some things (especially people - in fact, you'll notice I haven't put up any of the guests. That would be because all of them came out blurry) difficult. Sorry. >BotCon has better pictures up on their site, so you can always look there.
Now, to start, some neat trees I saw while wandering about.
Aniko's little Jazz figure got into all sorts of things, and nearly gave her a heart attack once when he hid and she thought she'd lost him. Here he has crawled up my back to perch on my shoulder while I was resting on the bed.
These things were back again:
Plus a new one:
Decorations from the Hasbro area of the Dealer's Room:
This one and this one have things in them that weren't in the first film, so are potentially spoilery. (Nothing not already in the trailers, though.)
Costumes!
Sideswipe and Warpath:
Shockwave:
Lolita Soundwave, Optimus, and Rodimus:
Frenzy (he actually had a CD holder/launcher, haha):
Grimlock:
Animated Arcee and Movie Jazz:
Jazz again:
Human Swindle and Lockdown:
Two different Bumblebees, both movie-model:
Aaand the G.I. Joe (well, Cobra) crew:
Lights at Paramount:
Optimus, who is still awe-inspiring:
Ironhide, who is massive:
I'm 5'7" just for a little comparison, here...
Ratchet, who is shiny-awesome:
Lights on...
And now lights off...
So, the weekend ends now with me being, effectively, mute. My throat really hurts and my voice barely works. I've no idea why. BUT BOTCON WAS AWESOME FUN. Of course.
... Now we just need to see if Aniko's US Masterpiece Starscream is ruined for ever or if she can do something about his funky hip.
EDIT:
More on BotCon over here in this entry!
Um, anyway, survived Transformers convention! Flew red eye home and am too tired to think, never mind type, anything remotely coherent. It took me four tries to get the words in that sentence in the proper order.
Our flight out on Thursday morning was delayed. Weather in Newark was apparently bad, but we were assured everything would be fine. Connecting flights would also be delayed? (Why is that sentence ended with a question mark? What are you doing up there, Brain?) Connecting flights would also be delayed. So our flight took off about forty minutes late, and then we circled for an additional twenty or so... I wasn't keeping too close a track of it. Our first flight was supposed to depart around 10:30 and land around noon, our connecting flight was supposed to leave at 1:10. We landed at 1:05. You do the math. You can probably think better than me right now. So, despite assurances of other delays, Aniko and I sprinted best we could across the massive terminal and... boarding doors are closed. Plane sat there for thirty+ minutes, but the doors were closed and we couldn't get on. That kind of burned. OH WELL there was another flight to LAX in two and a half hours and they could put us on that! So... new boarding passes in pocket, we then spent nearly an hour (combined) on hold with the shuttle service to let them know we'd be late and to find out if that even mattered too much (it didn't). Flight to California was uneventful. Boring. I doodled some FFXI-related things and read a bit, and then we finally landed and got lost looking for baggage claim because the signs leading away from where we docked kind of sucked or something. We flew Continental, but ended up at United's claim, and then we had to run around until we found the right place... But our luggage had arrived, and we found it, and we got our shuttle, and even made it to Pasadena before 9! Checked into the hotel, dropped our bags, and went to go wait to pick up our badges and my toys. Conventions can consist of an awful lot of standing around and waiting. Had some conversations with some of the other people, stood around debating whether or not I should actually call someone (ended up doing so, but it took me nearly fifteen minutes to finally go through with it. AAAAUGH PEOPLE) then they started calling for people with last names between M and ... R? Anyway, we fit that, so we got to jump ahead. Whoo! So we sped through pick-up, decided not to bother waiting in line for the at-con exclusives until tomorrow, called the people again, and then we (being Aniko, wyntir_rose, THIRD PERSON, and me, obviously) went out to dinner at a Thai place. Was good food. I was dubbed Bluestreak for my talking very fast (and sometimes very much). We also stormed Target, and I think my glasses prescription is starting to fade again. Which is fantastic, what with me not having health insurance and the only one I have any chance of getting not providing eye care (or dental). I like how I'm living in, what, the only first world country that doesn't guarantee health care in some way. ...I like how I'm suddenly talking about insurance and politics.
... By the way, if the first half of that all sounded a bit familiar, you may be remembering last year when my flight out was delayed and I missed my connecting flight. ... There is a worrying trend developing here....
Anyway, after having a fun dinner and all, Aniko and I pretty much passed out. It had been a long day, and we had to be rested for Friday!
First order of business Friday morning was hitting the club store. Bought our shirts, and I bought the Elita-1 and Razorclaw pack. I wanted (still want) the Sweeps pack, but I couldn't justify the spending. I wanted Elita more, so that is the pack I got. I may see about unloading Razorclaw to someone else, not sure yet. HAVE I MENTIONED I AM SICK OF CYBERKEYS AT ANY POINT BY THE WAY? BECAUSE I REALLY AM. Kinda wanted the third set, too, but, yeah, no, I like having food and electricity and a place to live more. So... only one set of the at-con exclusives. But the best set. pink boat pink boat pink boat
Got out in time to make it to the Animating Animated panel, which was fun, but not really that interesting, at the same time. I skipped the movie Q&A because I was afraid of someone saying something spoilery (I'm trying to steer clear of too much information, and it's going well so far. Let's see if I make it to the release date...), but Aniko stayed for it and said it was interesting. I split off to grab some food, and at some point Perceptor was wandering around. I know who it was, but I feel awkward linking to / directly naming people I don't have friended, so, uh (yeah, see above where I use THIRD PERSON instead of a name). Actually, it was Perceptor plus bonus morphobot, though I couldn't identify it at first. I asked and got a better look and then, oh, yeah, morphobot. (Because I am lame and can be shy, I did not say hello. She - the person in the Perceptor costume - probably didn't remember me from last year, anyway, so it would only have been awkward). Eventually, I just stood and waited for the dealer's room to open. Wheeee, exciting.
When they opened the doors at 2, Aniko and I filed after everyone and entered the madhouse, where I proceeded to not only obtain Universe Ratchet and Ironhide, but at only a slight markup from retail! So within, what, ten minutes, I'd found two of the top items on my list! That was exciting. Then I got a couple posters! One with Red Alert and Inferno, and one with Mirage, Jazz, and Prowl. And... actually, that was everything I bought on Friday. I didn't buy much this year. Aniko ran around looking for some of what she wanted (she managed to find everything on her list, actually!) and bought two-thirds of it (plus some other stuff because, haha, dealer's room does that to you). Optimus Prime - the truck from the movie - was back again, too. He was in the dealer's room, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't for sale
There wasn't really anything else going on that afternoon, so after I was done in the dealer's room, I dropped my stuff off at the hotel, rested a little, then set off to wander around. Had my picture taken (POLAROID whooha. I had seriously never shaken a picture before Friday evening) with a cardboard Optimus Prime ... standee thing. Had a choice of Prime or Megatron. I think I will probably always side with the one less likely to intentionally step on me (and also - it was the movie versions, and movie Megs .... didn't do anything, aside from break Jazz over his knee - not exactly like that but shut up - so meh). Went into some neat little shops - one was a used video game place where you could test play the games they had, which is a really cool idea. They even had some PlayStation games, but nothing I didn't already own. Still, nice to see them someplace other than my game shelf..
As evening fell, I wandered back into the convention center. There was a film fest at 8:30, and while I wasn't totally interested in that, MSTF was at 10, and of course I had to attend that, and the film fest seemed a good way to pass the time. I ended up hanging out with a group of people from DeviantART while I was waiting around, and they were really nice, and pretty silly, too. General fun. We watched a bit about the complete series collection coming out later this year (they completely never mentioned a price, anywhere, so I asked at their booth - they said around 150 dollars. OUCH) and some fan-made films, including Mr. Potatohead versus Transformers and Barbie versus Transformers (both ended in death and were kind of hilarious if only for the pure WTF? factor), one.... reeeeeally confusing and really short thing, Blaster and Soundwave debating which song is better, only for Stan Bush to step in and answer it for them, sssssomething else? AND THIS, which is amazing. It's a team - they animate and voice it all themselves. DR. SMOOV does incredible impressions of most of the original voice actors, while the animation models are mostly based off the Alternators and Masterpiece toy lines (and, of course, the movie line, in Barricade's case, since he doesn't exist anywhere else). Watch iiiit. ... Also some guy submitted a video of his previous BotCon experiences and then proposed to his girlfriend at the end. (She said yes.)
MSTF was fun, and after there was something else, but I was tired, so I left to go get some sleeeeep.
SATURDAY. The busy day. Didn't bother getting Weird Al's autograph, though it would've been fun to meet him, and I've met Peter Cullen, so I left my place in the line for people who haven't. Instead, I went to the IDW (comic book) panel, which was... also not that interesting, but we did get some previews of what to expect in the future, which is always neat. I can't afford to buy all the individual books, so I have to wait until the trade paperbacks come out (bummer), but still, stuff to look forward to!
After that panel, I stalked the dealer's room a bit more. Prices had all gone up (there's greater attendance, especially from general admission, on Saturday and Sunday, so prices generally go up) a bit, but I snagged a Beast Machines Tankor (now I just need Strika and I'll have all the show characters...) and, whoo! Found Heroes of Cybertron Jazz, so I snagged that up, even though he wasn't anything I'd planned on finding and so wasn't on my TO BUY list. Like you don't make lists. Also, caved and picked up a Universe Cyclonus. I have Galvatron and now Scourge, and it's just wrong to not have all three of them! (Though, of course, I get home and see that Hasbro's finally stocking him online again, gah. OH WELL, I'd rather have paid a bit more for him and still have him then not have him at all.)
There was a group of people cosplaying, and Aniko indirectly knew one of them (Lolita Optimus) from FFXI, but she was too busy having her picture taken a million times to say anything much.
Also, while I'm here talking about nothing, there were like... I don't know, all the little children in the state of California or something there. I mean, there are usually kids, but usually not that many. You could not turn around without at least five running past you.
Noon was the Weird Al and David Kaye panel, followed by the two-hour Hasbro Review panel, both of which I attended. The voice actor panels are usually fun, though sometimes you get kind of sick of people asking them to improv their character in [x] situation (heh, someone asked Al to twitter... tweet? Whatever the terminology is? Something as his character, and then we all took a quick break as he did). Hasbro definitely plans on released the rest of the Animated figures eventually (which means we may actually, finally get Arcee, which is a strange thought. Not getting one is almost a joke at this point...), and may/will pick up Classics / Universe 2.0 / WHATEVER THEY CALL IT NEXT again sometime next year. Better than never, but maaaan.... I love that line, and I really don't care too much about the movie toys, so I am sad to see it go away (again). And then I think I lurked the dealer's room between the Hasbro panel and Peter Cullen's panel.
Show closed after that, so I went back to the room and started unpackaging my toys and packing my suitcase to see how things were going for space. I'd had Aniko bring her massive duffel bag, so there was plenty of room, but the more toys we could fit in the hard suitcase, the better.
We were supposed to meet outside the convention center by 7:15 to go to the "Paramount dinner party" thing. They charged extra for it, and I wasn't really sure I wanted to go, especially after they were so quiet about what it was going to entail, but my mother told me I didn't have a choice, so... there I was. We went I think about halfway around the entire block (it was a huge block, by the way... there were a lot of us) before we found the end, and then we stood and... waited. The buses were supposed to depart around 7:15, but we didn't end up leaving until close to 8.
WE WERE ON AN INSANE BUS. It was hilarious. Oh, gosh, I can't even begin to explain it, but the way the driver phrased things was really funny. Also, he was just strange. The bus "transcended" up a hill at one point. At another point, he decided he didn't want to take the same route as everyone else and took us on a speed-tour through Chinatown... He also asked us all to look out to the right, where we'd see something that we'd know! If we couldn't see it, well, we could use our imagination. And he wanted someone to tell us what it was! USE THE POWER OF YOUR IMAGINATION TO KNOW WHAT HE IS POINTING OUT. Also, Aniko and I were sitting right in front of the guy who does Shortpacked! and a bunch of his friends, and whenever the driver wasn't giving his bizarre commentary, they were giving commentary on his commentary, and it was hilarious.
So, anyway, we get to Paramount - yeah surprise we actually went to Paramount Studios! - and... wow. It was so much fun! Pictures are below, but they had the Hasbro, Shout!, and BotCon logos on the walls in lights, as well as the Autobot and Decepticon symbols. Movie Ironhide was waiting for us inside! I... just, that is a massive truck. It could run me over and probably not notice. Seriously, just... wow.
So I geeked out at the truck for a bit, but they called us all towards the stage they'd set up pretty quick, because they had some other guests rolling in - har har, literally, we all knew - soon and we should all have a good view. I don't really know what I was expecting - someone to come up in a car, duh, but movie Ratchet with his sirens and lights all going was not it. YEE! And he brought Tyrese Gibson (... he's an actor. He plays one of the military guys in the movie) in with him. But, sorry, Ratchet is infinitely more interesting, so I darted over to look at the hummer while they had Tyrese Gibson and Peter Cullen talking on stage. Nice things were said. I looked at pretty vehicles. Then they put Stan Bush on stage, and he sounded much better than he did in 2007, thankfully. Concert didn't go that long, either, I think he did maybe five songs? So I ate dinner while that went on, then poked around a bit and ended up near the stage while things were winding down. Awards started, but then - EVERYONE WITH A BLUE WRIST BAND! Mine was not blue. Mine was yellow. The blue people were all banished to the theater.
It was actually kind of funny, I was one of literally only two people near the stage with a non-blue wrist band, so the one other guy and I just kinda looked at each other and said, "they don't love us :(" though there were a bunch of other people wearing the yellow. Just not anywhere near us. XD;
Nothing to do, then, until the blue group was done doing... whatever they were doing (everyone knows: something to do with Revenge of the Fallen...) so I went back to harass Ironhide and then Aniko started talking to the security guy making sure we crazy fans didn't use him as a gym or something, and turns out he'd worked on a bunch of Star Trek sets! So he was telling us a bunch of hilarious stories about the cast and crew members, and the time Tom Cruise pretty much made him go to a ridiculously expensive restaurant (and then paid the bill, on top of it all), and it was just a lot of fun! It was actually disappointing when they called for the rest of us to go find the theater, because I wanted to keep listening to these crazy stories.
But of course I went with the group. They took our phones and cameras and... basically everything that so much as looked as if it might be able to record, and we filed in and sat down and then they told us we were just gonna get to watch the trailers on the big screen. LET DOWN. Somebody over on the right agreed and shouted he didn't want to watch the trailer and wait a minute I know that voice, who said that, that man walking up to the stage - Michael Bay, himself! He gave us a little hello and told us the movie was going to be AWESOME, and then we got to watch a couple actual scenes! They weren't even all finished but OH MAN.
OH MAN
The little bits we saw were just... well, awesome! IT NEEDS TO BE MOVIE DAY NOW. I can't wait! (Also, apparently I'm under orders - not from Michael Bay, from Tyrese Gibson, who also says the movie will be AWESOME - to tell everyone I know with toenails to see it. So, if you have toenails, even if you don't, really, now you've been told.)
After the clips, we went back to finish off the awards and witness another proposal. (... she also said yes.) Bizarre. Guess it was the weekend for that sort of thing?
BUT THEN it was time to go back to the hotel. I packed up everything I could before passing out, because we had to check out in the morning. Woe!
Oh god it doesn't feel like this was yesterday because I haven't slept.
Anyway, there was a panel at 10 that I wanted to attend (more voice actors: Gregg Berger and Michael McConnohie), and that was a lot of fun. The Hasbro Design panel was after that, but I didn't bother hanging around. Most of it was stuff they'd shown the day before, with bonus surprised Tyrese Gibson again. Instead I got in line to meet the aforementioned voice actors. They were very nice! (What I actually thought was really, really great was, Michael McConnohie said that he'd stay as long as necessary so everyone who wanted to meet him or get his autograph could. I just thought that was really nice.) After saying hello and thank you and all sorts, I popped into the dealer's room to pick up a Dead End for my Unicron.
Since Hasbro decided to wait until I caved and bought one for a high price and without the minicon before rereleasing him. Bah!
Anyway, yeah. Minicon. MINE. He's not missing any pieces anymore.
G1 Writers panel was at 1, and of course I wasn't going to miss that. They were a riot to listen to. Also, at least one of them absolutely hated Spike, which was funnier than it should have been. Hearing their explanation for season four was also hilarious. They gave an indirect shout out to this guy, too, for his short but funny reviews of the G1 series.
Aaand then I hung out in the dealer's room again, for lack of anything better to do, until they drew for the free ride to next year's con. Then I hung around some people and made a general nuisance of myself until it was time to go get on the shuttle. Yaaay!
There was nothing to do in the terminal, so mostly Aniko and I sat around bored for nearly six hours... Flight was long and the flight attendants kept talking because people were too stupid to remember that when the BUCKLE UP light is on you are supposed to remain in your seat. I can't sleep in planes, anyway, but I didn't even get much rest... Then we got disoriented in JFK (probably largely due to lack of sleeeeeep), then we actually made it home.
AND HERE I AM. EXHAUSTED.
... and now, because I apparently need to harsh my own squee, or whatever the phrase is, man, fandom, what is wrong with some of you? During the Peter Cullen panel, one kid asked him what he thought about Optimus Prime/Megatron slash (Cullen is the voice of Optimus Prime), which was pretty stupid, but the one that really got me... (I saw somewhere this kid got escorted out, though I've no idea if that's true, nor if it was for Saturday - all remaining five minutes of it - or the rest of the weekend... Huh.)
While I was hanging around Sunday afternoon and making a general nuisance of myself (I... think I just like to say that), a group of four girls came up to us - I got two of their names and I knew who they were, but I didn't catch the other two, which is just as well, in my opinion. One of the two girls I didn't catch was bragging about how she went up to this one girl and told her that a piece of her fanfic sucks. Now, I've never read the fic in question, because it just didn't sound like something I'd enjoy, but to go up to someone and flat out tell them you think what they wrote sucks is just... meanness for the sake of being mean. (It annoyed me more than it already would have because the author's got autism and has already been ridiculed pretty heavily. There was some drama in the fanbase for a while about it, which is why I know the little that I do.)
So... yeah. You were a total ass to someone because you... didn't like their fic? ... C-congratulations...?
(And, you know, I suppose it's possible the author "started it" and I don't know the whole story, but I cannot fathom going up to someone and telling them that something I know they worked hard on and feel strongly about sucks, regardless of whatever they've done to me. And if I did lose it and do something like that, I wouldn't turn around and brag about it.)
... Yeah, so. That just upset me, is all.
Now, photos!
First, though, these aren't all great quality. People moving around all the time, poor lighting, and distance made getting shorts of some things (especially people - in fact, you'll notice I haven't put up any of the guests. That would be because all of them came out blurry) difficult. Sorry. >BotCon has better pictures up on their site, so you can always look there.
Now, to start, some neat trees I saw while wandering about.
Aniko's little Jazz figure got into all sorts of things, and nearly gave her a heart attack once when he hid and she thought she'd lost him. Here he has crawled up my back to perch on my shoulder while I was resting on the bed.
These things were back again:
Plus a new one:
Decorations from the Hasbro area of the Dealer's Room:
This one and this one have things in them that weren't in the first film, so are potentially spoilery. (Nothing not already in the trailers, though.)
Costumes!
Sideswipe and Warpath:
Shockwave:
Lolita Soundwave, Optimus, and Rodimus:
Frenzy (he actually had a CD holder/launcher, haha):
Grimlock:
Animated Arcee and Movie Jazz:
Jazz again:
Human Swindle and Lockdown:
Two different Bumblebees, both movie-model:
Aaand the G.I. Joe (well, Cobra) crew:
Lights at Paramount:
Optimus, who is still awe-inspiring:
Ironhide, who is massive:
I'm 5'7" just for a little comparison, here...
Ratchet, who is shiny-awesome:
Lights on...
And now lights off...
So, the weekend ends now with me being, effectively, mute. My throat really hurts and my voice barely works. I've no idea why. BUT BOTCON WAS AWESOME FUN. Of course.
... Now we just need to see if Aniko's US Masterpiece Starscream is ruined for ever or if she can do something about his funky hip.
EDIT:
More on BotCon over here in this entry!