Jecca Mehlota (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jecca_mehlota) wrote2009-06-03 09:56 pm
jecca_mehlota) wrote2009-06-03 09:56 pm
My summer is awesome.
Here are some things from the weekend I wanted to mention but forgot, in my sleep-deprived haze:
(First BotCon entry here, for those who missed it.)
On the flight to California, they served us food. Salad, baby carrots, and, wtf, a turkey-dog wrapped in a croissant. I got nothing for that. It intimidated me, but I was hungry, so I tried to eat some of it. It was not tasty. (On the flight back, they gave us a choice of a pack of peanuts or cookies, and charged for everything else, but I was too tired to be hungry, and Aniko and I had eaten while waiting for our flight, anyway.)
Stan Bush and Vince DiCola are both very nice, and also very deaf. Which is kind of hilarious. I guess that happens when you make rock music for a living.
Gregg Berger and Michael McConnohie's and the G1 writers' panels were both hilarious. I am not sure I made that clear. Weird Al and David Kaye's panel was funny, too, but not at the level as the other two.
From the panels:
Some funny bits from the panel with David Kaye and Weird Al.
More from the same panel, maybe some overlap, didn't watch them back to back.
Weird Al is asked to do an impression of Megatron. He replies, "Hi, I'm Megatron!" ... in his Wreck-Gar voice. I'm not sure if the next person had caught on or not, but someone asked him to do an impression of Optimus Prime, so he answers, "Hi, I'm Optimus Prime!" In the Wreck-Gar voice.
"What do you use on your hair?"
"What do I use on my hair? ... A comb?"
There were several questions asking where he found inspiration for Wreck-Gar, and how he came up some of the lines, and the sort. To his credit, he kept coming up with new ways to answer, "I read the script."
There was also an unfortunate incident with someone admitting that, while they don't know much about Weird Al's work, they're quite fond of [some song]. Which was actually done by someone else. Awkward.
I'd heard most of David Kaye's stories already, though the Optimus / Megatron name confusion is still pretty funny. (He played Megatron in almost every series since Beast Wars, except when they cast him as Prime in Animated. Cue Kaye always reacting to the Megatron prompts and ignoring the Optimus Prime ones.)
There is a looong history of someone asking the voice actors (aside from Peter Cullen, anyway) to do their characters at a drive-through at the panels. (They made a joke of it in the 2008 voice skit.) Kaye and Weird Al's rendition is in the clip. And, of course, Berger and McConnohie were asked. Except they said no (politely, and with a good excuse), and I nearly fell out of my chair trying not to laugh. 'Bout time someone took a stand!
Also from the Berger and McConnohie panel, 'when you're schizophrenic, you're never really alone.' McConnohie kept dropping into Tracks' voice, which made things extra hilarious. (Someone asked what Tracks' alt-mode would be if he wasn't a Corvette and Tracks got offended and demanded to know what was wrong with the questioner. Tracks also refused to get into an argument with Grimlock because it would be bad for his shine. Cosmos and Jetfire/Skyfire/oh whatever had a conversation. Skyfire unsettled Cosmos. Cosmos thought Skyfire was a passenger plane... Skyfire wondered if he still had ice on his wings.) They had several stories about Frank Welker (hissing sounds that baffled everyone... one time he stepped into a phone booth, entered coins and dialed, had a conversation with a person you could just barely hear over the phone, hangs up... Everyone looks over and and... there's Welker, on his stool. "It was this or college."). (Scatman Crothers may or may not have had a ukulele that he brought with him on occasion.... I can believe that. He was an amazing person.)
During Peter Cullen's panel, I think something like half the people in line to ask a question just wanted an autograph or a photo or a handshake or a hug, and it was kind of funny to watch the staff member up there with him get more and more annoyed as it went on, but at the same time I felt where he was coming from - it was the panel, not the autograph session. I mean, it's Peter Cullen, and he's so wonderful to tolerate us the way he does (...he at least acts as though he sincerely appreciates us, and it is really great to hear him talk about his thoughts on Prime and the fanbase's reaction to Prime. He really does seem genuinely touched by it), and he's the voice of Prime and a lot of people respect him, and of course I understand being upset at missing the autograph line cut-off. It was just also a bit annoying to have a bazillion people in a row go, "actually, I just wondered if you could sign this." Whine, whine, whine. (I'm glad he was so willing to keep signing and giving hugs and whatall, though. Very kind of him!)
Highlights included Optimus and Eeyore declaring their friendship (Cullen voices them both); Cullen telling us about the old English butler in his head who is constantly insulting him; someone asking how to get into voice acting (SOMEONE ALWAYS DOES) and Cullen telling him with a voice as high as his, he should just forget about it (in jest); someone giving him a KARR figure and him later playing with it while doing a dialogue between Ironhide and KARR; and this question and answer:
"What is Optimus Prime's best pick-up line?"
"Nice shine."
And the writers' panel was just full of ridiculous stories that I can't really shorten without losing everything. Though hearing the story of what happened with season four was probably the best part. It was supposed to be a five-parter, they cut it to three, and they had to introduce 120 new characters (or approximately one character every 21 seconds). So they left in the intros and the action sequences and cut out the dialogue and explanations. I think I mentioned most of the best stuff in the other entry, anyway.
A clip from the panel.
From the party, here's Tyrese meeting Peter Cullen.
A clip of one of the (multiple) times Stan Bush performed The Touch. You can't tell here, but everyone near the stage is shouting along.
On our drive back to LAX on Sunday afternoon, two of the other people in the shuttle were also coming from the convention. As we rode along, a bright yellow Lamborghini raced past us! No idea what model. The thing was nearly flying, it was going so fast. I was in the back, and I knew what it was as soon as its nose appeared in the window, but I'd still barely gasped out, "Lambo!" before it had passed us. (And, though of course we were all thinking it, it was not me who muttered something about Sunstreaker.)
You've all probably heard about the Air France plane that first went missing and then turned up in pieces. Aniko and I were in the air when the news started reporting on that, and since Delta has screens, Aniko was actually watching the news. She's not good on planes, but fortunately, the news helped somewhat in that, hey, statistically, now we were totally in the clear. Which is hilarious, but also unfortunate.
I had completely lost my mind by the time our plane touched down in New York and was babbling mindlessly. I don't even know what about. However, the woman sitting in front of us came up after we'd all deplaned and told us we'd been immensely entertaining to listen to, so, haha, at least I wasn't annoying everyone?
Also, Aniko managed to buy at least two toys with weird problems. Alternators Smokescreen was an easy enough fix... somehow his arms were attached to the wrong shoulders. Masterpiece Starscream has the wrong piece in his ...left? hip, so he doesn't fit into jet mode properly, and he can't quite stand because he's slightly lopsided. Nothing to be done about that at all.
... Also, Jazz-busts are now hilarious.
See. 'Cause he has no legs.
And in the movie...
...... yeah. It's an unfortunate type of hilarity.
Anyway, my new field placement started today! AT 8:30 AND BY THE WAY I HAD TO DRIVE FORTY MINUTES TO GET THERE so I had to crawl out of bed at 7 am and I'm still recovering from the flight home, but I made it. IT IS SO AWESOME.
We went out on a boat and drove around and I got to do stuff already! No standing around stupidly this time, they put me right to work putting things in the lake and taking them back out, and dropping them in the lake, and hauling them back out, and tossing things in the lake and heaving them out again and THROWING THEM IN THE LAKE AND THEN PULLING THEM UP AND TAKING THE SAMPLE AND we saw some great blue herons in their nests at the top of some dead trees, and a bunch of fish clearly not adapting well to living in the lake-proper instead of the hatchery they must have been from, and also there were spiders all over the boat augh, and oh man, I am so excited and grateful, but I am seriously going to have blisters the size of China growing on my hands in a week's time ow.
I GO BACK AT 9:30 TOMORROW. Not nearly as far, though. I had to go to Waterbury to do some paperwork and stuff, but they'll be picking me up from a much closer location from now on.
SOEXCITED. (Too excited for the space key, evidently.)
And, while we're on the subject, SQUEENIX I HATE YOU.
WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY
THE ONLY GOOD THING HERE IS THAT I DIDN'T SEE ANY TARUTARU IN THE TRAILER AND I COULD LIVE WITH NO TARUTARU BUT AAGERHJKTLGEMNH
(And that's all beyond that they're promoting XIV before XIII is out...)
(First BotCon entry here, for those who missed it.)
On the flight to California, they served us food. Salad, baby carrots, and, wtf, a turkey-dog wrapped in a croissant. I got nothing for that. It intimidated me, but I was hungry, so I tried to eat some of it. It was not tasty. (On the flight back, they gave us a choice of a pack of peanuts or cookies, and charged for everything else, but I was too tired to be hungry, and Aniko and I had eaten while waiting for our flight, anyway.)
Stan Bush and Vince DiCola are both very nice, and also very deaf. Which is kind of hilarious. I guess that happens when you make rock music for a living.
Gregg Berger and Michael McConnohie's and the G1 writers' panels were both hilarious. I am not sure I made that clear. Weird Al and David Kaye's panel was funny, too, but not at the level as the other two.
From the panels:
Some funny bits from the panel with David Kaye and Weird Al.
More from the same panel, maybe some overlap, didn't watch them back to back.
Weird Al is asked to do an impression of Megatron. He replies, "Hi, I'm Megatron!" ... in his Wreck-Gar voice. I'm not sure if the next person had caught on or not, but someone asked him to do an impression of Optimus Prime, so he answers, "Hi, I'm Optimus Prime!" In the Wreck-Gar voice.
"What do you use on your hair?"
"What do I use on my hair? ... A comb?"
There were several questions asking where he found inspiration for Wreck-Gar, and how he came up some of the lines, and the sort. To his credit, he kept coming up with new ways to answer, "I read the script."
There was also an unfortunate incident with someone admitting that, while they don't know much about Weird Al's work, they're quite fond of [some song]. Which was actually done by someone else. Awkward.
I'd heard most of David Kaye's stories already, though the Optimus / Megatron name confusion is still pretty funny. (He played Megatron in almost every series since Beast Wars, except when they cast him as Prime in Animated. Cue Kaye always reacting to the Megatron prompts and ignoring the Optimus Prime ones.)
There is a looong history of someone asking the voice actors (aside from Peter Cullen, anyway) to do their characters at a drive-through at the panels. (They made a joke of it in the 2008 voice skit.) Kaye and Weird Al's rendition is in the clip. And, of course, Berger and McConnohie were asked. Except they said no (politely, and with a good excuse), and I nearly fell out of my chair trying not to laugh. 'Bout time someone took a stand!
Also from the Berger and McConnohie panel, 'when you're schizophrenic, you're never really alone.' McConnohie kept dropping into Tracks' voice, which made things extra hilarious. (Someone asked what Tracks' alt-mode would be if he wasn't a Corvette and Tracks got offended and demanded to know what was wrong with the questioner. Tracks also refused to get into an argument with Grimlock because it would be bad for his shine. Cosmos and Jetfire/Skyfire/oh whatever had a conversation. Skyfire unsettled Cosmos. Cosmos thought Skyfire was a passenger plane... Skyfire wondered if he still had ice on his wings.) They had several stories about Frank Welker (hissing sounds that baffled everyone... one time he stepped into a phone booth, entered coins and dialed, had a conversation with a person you could just barely hear over the phone, hangs up... Everyone looks over and and... there's Welker, on his stool. "It was this or college."). (Scatman Crothers may or may not have had a ukulele that he brought with him on occasion.... I can believe that. He was an amazing person.)
During Peter Cullen's panel, I think something like half the people in line to ask a question just wanted an autograph or a photo or a handshake or a hug, and it was kind of funny to watch the staff member up there with him get more and more annoyed as it went on, but at the same time I felt where he was coming from - it was the panel, not the autograph session. I mean, it's Peter Cullen, and he's so wonderful to tolerate us the way he does (...he at least acts as though he sincerely appreciates us, and it is really great to hear him talk about his thoughts on Prime and the fanbase's reaction to Prime. He really does seem genuinely touched by it), and he's the voice of Prime and a lot of people respect him, and of course I understand being upset at missing the autograph line cut-off. It was just also a bit annoying to have a bazillion people in a row go, "actually, I just wondered if you could sign this." Whine, whine, whine. (I'm glad he was so willing to keep signing and giving hugs and whatall, though. Very kind of him!)
Highlights included Optimus and Eeyore declaring their friendship (Cullen voices them both); Cullen telling us about the old English butler in his head who is constantly insulting him; someone asking how to get into voice acting (SOMEONE ALWAYS DOES) and Cullen telling him with a voice as high as his, he should just forget about it (in jest); someone giving him a KARR figure and him later playing with it while doing a dialogue between Ironhide and KARR; and this question and answer:
"What is Optimus Prime's best pick-up line?"
"Nice shine."
And the writers' panel was just full of ridiculous stories that I can't really shorten without losing everything. Though hearing the story of what happened with season four was probably the best part. It was supposed to be a five-parter, they cut it to three, and they had to introduce 120 new characters (or approximately one character every 21 seconds). So they left in the intros and the action sequences and cut out the dialogue and explanations. I think I mentioned most of the best stuff in the other entry, anyway.
A clip from the panel.
From the party, here's Tyrese meeting Peter Cullen.
A clip of one of the (multiple) times Stan Bush performed The Touch. You can't tell here, but everyone near the stage is shouting along.
On our drive back to LAX on Sunday afternoon, two of the other people in the shuttle were also coming from the convention. As we rode along, a bright yellow Lamborghini raced past us! No idea what model. The thing was nearly flying, it was going so fast. I was in the back, and I knew what it was as soon as its nose appeared in the window, but I'd still barely gasped out, "Lambo!" before it had passed us. (And, though of course we were all thinking it, it was not me who muttered something about Sunstreaker.)
You've all probably heard about the Air France plane that first went missing and then turned up in pieces. Aniko and I were in the air when the news started reporting on that, and since Delta has screens, Aniko was actually watching the news. She's not good on planes, but fortunately, the news helped somewhat in that, hey, statistically, now we were totally in the clear. Which is hilarious, but also unfortunate.
I had completely lost my mind by the time our plane touched down in New York and was babbling mindlessly. I don't even know what about. However, the woman sitting in front of us came up after we'd all deplaned and told us we'd been immensely entertaining to listen to, so, haha, at least I wasn't annoying everyone?
Also, Aniko managed to buy at least two toys with weird problems. Alternators Smokescreen was an easy enough fix... somehow his arms were attached to the wrong shoulders. Masterpiece Starscream has the wrong piece in his ...left? hip, so he doesn't fit into jet mode properly, and he can't quite stand because he's slightly lopsided. Nothing to be done about that at all.
... Also, Jazz-busts are now hilarious.
See. 'Cause he has no legs.
And in the movie...
...... yeah. It's an unfortunate type of hilarity.
Anyway, my new field placement started today! AT 8:30 AND BY THE WAY I HAD TO DRIVE FORTY MINUTES TO GET THERE so I had to crawl out of bed at 7 am and I'm still recovering from the flight home, but I made it. IT IS SO AWESOME.
We went out on a boat and drove around and I got to do stuff already! No standing around stupidly this time, they put me right to work putting things in the lake and taking them back out, and dropping them in the lake, and hauling them back out, and tossing things in the lake and heaving them out again and THROWING THEM IN THE LAKE AND THEN PULLING THEM UP AND TAKING THE SAMPLE AND we saw some great blue herons in their nests at the top of some dead trees, and a bunch of fish clearly not adapting well to living in the lake-proper instead of the hatchery they must have been from, and also there were spiders all over the boat augh, and oh man, I am so excited and grateful, but I am seriously going to have blisters the size of China growing on my hands in a week's time ow.
I GO BACK AT 9:30 TOMORROW. Not nearly as far, though. I had to go to Waterbury to do some paperwork and stuff, but they'll be picking me up from a much closer location from now on.
SOEXCITED. (Too excited for the space key, evidently.)
And, while we're on the subject, SQUEENIX I HATE YOU.
WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY
THE ONLY GOOD THING HERE IS THAT I DIDN'T SEE ANY TARUTARU IN THE TRAILER AND I COULD LIVE WITH NO TARUTARU BUT AAGERHJKTLGEMNH
(And that's all beyond that they're promoting XIV before XIII is out...)