Jecca Mehlota (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jecca_mehlota) wrote2010-07-02 03:51 am
jecca_mehlota) wrote2010-07-02 03:51 am
ROBOTS.
FINALLY.
Not that there's much to say about Thursday that didn't already get mentioned in the middle post. I STOOD IN LINE. I GOT TOYS. Standard package pick-up, really. I did not get to jump the line on account of my last name this year. There were A MILLION people in the C-H-or-whatever-letter line, though, wow. They had to open a new station just to deal with them. When I was in school, the first letter of my last name (M) was the most common. Practically half the class had last names starting with M. Not so at BotCon! it is kind of a nice change-up, really.
So, yeah, box with toys I don't want, free toy I also do [did] not want, badge, dinner sign-up, t-shirt, and then ran screaming from the club store. ESCAPE! Run to Epcot! Hooray, safe.
FRIDAY MORNING, though, I had to get up early because there were actually a few things I wanted to pick up from the club store. Argh. OH WELL, if you get up fast enough, the lines really aren't too terrible, and it beats waiting for hours the night before. The guy who ended up helping me was from Rutland (Vermont), which was pretty cool. Anyway, I picked up the lithograph - they only had autographed versions left, which are 20 dollars instead of ten, but he let me have it for the price of an unsigned one, yay. Aaaand, because I am a sucker, I bought the Double Punch / Scorch two pack. Because Scorch came with Shattered Glass Ravage! eee. So then I spent the weekend trying to get rid of it all and was largely unsuccessful, aside from the free figure and Scorch. I got out in time to get in line for the Takara Tomy panel, but was starved and decided I didn't care that much. So instead I went back to the hotel to drop off my new stuff, and ran into Mom, who hadn't left for... whatever she was doing that day. We went down and had yoghurt and fruit, and then she went off to ... hit Disney Downtown or something, I guess, and I went over for the Bob Budainsky panel, wherein we learned strange things about Transformers. The Ark was originally called Aunty, Starscream was originally called Ulchtar, Ratchet was originally female (was that in the Shout! factory release? Seems like I'd heard it before), bunch of other random stuff... not sure how much of it was already known, but some of it was certainly new to me, anyway.
The Film Fest was right after, so I stayed in the panel room and watched some ... truly terrible fan-films, as well as some really good and/or funny ones. The NGSMOOV one actually did not win this year! It looked amazing, but - to me, anyway - it felt... cut off? Maybe to fit the time limit, I don't know. I'm not sure who won, I didn't attend that panel.
1 pm was lunch hour (since we have a designated slot for that on Friday...) so I - and a lot of other people - stormed one of the little places right there in the Dolphin, called Picabu, which wasn't hideously over-expensive and at least had the potential to be fast. I bought a pre-made sandwich, so I did actually get my food in a timely manner. Tables were full, but a nice woman let me occupy a corner at hers while she waited over twenty minutes for a hot dog. A HOT DOG. Dude, that's like 30 seconds in the microwave, how did they manage to make it take over twenty minutes? I don't know. After she left, I let some other people use the table, and they both waited a ridiculous amount of time for their food, as well. And of course we were all anxious to go GET IN LINE TO GET IN THE DEALER'S ROOM WHOOOO, 'cause that opened at 2. And we all wanted to SPEND MUNNY. Or something, I don't know. Get the bestest item for the awesomest price. Also there was nothing else going on for the rest of the day. Autographs were in the dealer's room, too, which was kind of a strange change. I bought... uh, every figure I bought for myself on Friday (a gaggle of Robot Heroes) and some pins (for myself and a couple other people), as well as TF:A Jazz for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mysticeden. I really liked the guys I bought him from. They were nice, and when I asked if they had a TF:A Prowl or Bumblebee, they even gave me answers. No 'Bee, but they did have a Prowl, but he was buried in a box that they weren't even opening until Saturday. So I said I WOULD BE BACK. And then I ran away. Oh, also, very early this morning, I got rid of the attending freebie. Yay. There's one down. (I didn't ditch Scorch until Sunday afternoon, though I found a buyer Friday evening. We just never managed to connect.) Also at some point I swung by the Activision booth where they had War for Cybertron playing. I did not try it, but as I had already heard amazing things about it, I thanked the director there for finally making a Transformers game that did not make me want to put my controller through the screen. He said he'd heard that a lot today and signed a poster. It is two-sided. I did not manage to sneak back and get a second one, alas, so if it goes up, I'll probably have Megatron to the wall, since he since he signed the Prime side.
Stood in line at one point and said hello to Stan Bush (I always feel bad for him how no one wants to go get his autograph. XD He's very nice, anyway) and Paul Eiding, who was delightful. The line for Scott McNeil was even longer, and I met him a few years back at Otakon, and I'd brought nothing for him to sign, anyway. Was fun to watch him be completely insane at other people, though. Sales room - and the convention - closed at 5, AND THEN MAGIC KINGDOM, SEE PREVIOUS POST.
Saturday! Oof, busy. I did not bother trying to get Peter Cullen's autograph (though I did want to get him to sign my Matrix of Leadership DVD booklet thing. Maybe some other year when I wasn't up to 4 am that morning), but I wanted to go to the Hasbro panel, which was at 10, so I still had to get up earlier than I wanted to. HASBRO PANEL PROMISED AWESOME THINGS, and I didn't stick around for the questions. (By the way, there were two Hasbro panels back-to-back, so I was in the room for close to two hours. Some TWIT took pictures - with the flash! - during the first one, despite explicit instructions to Not Do That, and he got kicked out, and then we had another big speech before the second half.) You'll be able to find better summaries of those on a proper site, where they had people taking notes and such. I skipped the Activision panel because I was afraid of spoilers, instead choosing to hang out in the dealer's room and not eating lunch. Swung by the booth from Friday to ask about TF:A Prowl, but they couldn't find him, so they said I could come back later and they'd find him and hold him for me. Yay! So that's what happened there, eventually. ... It's a sorry comment on the state of some of the fandom mentality, here, but I feel obligated to point out that if anyone is reading this and going NOOO GRRR JECCA'S FRIEND SHIPS PROWL/JAZZ WHICH IS WHY SHE WANTED THE TOYS actually, no, she doesn't? She just... happens to like both characters. REALLY, GUYS, THAT HAPPENS.
At 1 pm, there was a panel with (oh, hey, here, let me IMDB these guys for you, because I pretty much guarantee that if you've ever watched or played anything, you've heard at least one of them) Paul Eiding and Scott McNeil and they are hilarious together. ... Well, okay, Scott is hilarious all on his own, but Paul Eiding was also amazing and wonderful. This was actually his (Paul Eiding's) first convention, so I'm glad they had someone with a lot of experience, because I think that has to make it easier, having someone who knows what's going on and how to roll with the crazy, crazy fans. Also, Metal Gear Solid (Eiding as Campbell) met Beast Wars (Rattrap), and it was funnnnyyy, though Scott didn't get the "Rattrap. RAAAAATTRAAAAAAAAP" joke.
They were followed by the Peter Cullen panel, which, thankfully, did not have a repeat of last year's "how do you feel about Optimus/Megatron?" question that apparently got the kid kicked out of the convention. Peter Cullen is adorable, but I think we confuse him somewhat, because half the time, he has to have the question repeated / probably rephrased using Non Fan Terminology before he can answer it. SOMEHOW THIS IS ALSO ADORABLE? I don't get it, either.
Hey, hey, guys. If you can handle shoddy sound and extreme bursts of applause, audio of Saturday's Paul and Scott and Peter Cullen! shhhh.
Collector's Club Roundtable I had no interest in (I'm a member, but meh?), and the IDW panel I was afraid would annoy me (I've have an extreme love/hate - mostly hate, these days - relationship with their comic run for the past couple years, now, sadly. They started so well, and parts of it I still love, but I am pretty sure I'm never going to actually read the Ongoing), so BACK TO THE DEALER'S ROOM! Where I bought a cool necklace (shortly before they closed). Before that, I went through the Autobot Alliance Academy they had set up in the back, where they give you a Nerf gun and let you shoot Decepticons that pop up and attack! I only missed Megatron, right at the end, because he alarmed me [right? right?]. Actually, haha, the gun I started with didn't work, but since I made a good show of aiming and trying to shoot the first two or three targets, and probably because I hit the ones I was actually able to shoot at, I was awarded the kills, anyway. (While I was in line for that, one of the manymanymany people who've mistaken me for Wayward over the years recognised me (after someone else asked if I was the Blurr - there was an Animated Blurr walking around, but I never got a good picture - and I said, no, but I must have one of those faces, because people are always mistaking me for someone else. The guy asked, "like Wayward?" I was like, oh hi).
ALSO THERE WAS A 2010 CAMARO THAT YOU COULD POKE AND SIT IN AND okay it wasn't actually Bumblebee, not Autobot symbol or anything, but it was still pretty damn sweet. Inside the car! [oh hey the pictures are back] Car from the back. And there were these stand-up things next to him (as well as the big Bumblebee statue from last year, but I didn't take its picture). The pictures on the back were different, but I was all about the battery conservation, since it was my sole working pair and it had to last me the rest of the weekend.
Eh. PICS! Not all from Saturday, but mostly.
TF:A Prowl costume, taken from the autograph line Friday afternoon.
KING STARSCREAM IS HUGE I don't know how that guy managed to walk in that, but walk he did.
SPIKE IS GOING TO DIE
'Screamer and a bunch of humans / as robots. Left to right we have Sunstorm; Spike down on the ground; ... possibly Dr. Arkeville, I'm honestly not sure; another Starscream; and Animated Yoketron.
Same group, but with Raoul on the left, since he didn't fit in the last picture.
Deadpool is not a Transformer. Facebook keeps turning this photo sideways and I can't figure out why, but, you know, considering who it's of, I can't quite be surprised...
There was also a really awesome Galvatron! And a smaller Starscream with the cape and crown. When I told them (Galvatron and her friends at the booth where I bought the Autobot charm necklace) about the Starscream, they (well, Oasis - with the penguin. I remembered her after she pointed the penguin, I met her briefly in 2007. Also I read AND EVEN REVIEWED her stuff way back when, but her FF.net name is different, so I made that connection later, and I don't quite remember how) ran off and retrieved him for a photo op, and I took a picture, but my batteries said SCREW YOU and stopped working (this is all in the wrong order. After this, I put in my last pair, and then later I went and found the Camaro et al and was afraid to take pictures of it because LAST SET OF BATTERIES. Oh, well. Ugh. Don't feel like rearranging all the paragraphs!) so I don't have a copy of it! I WAS SO SAD WHEN I DISCOVERED THIS! Also, there was a small child who was just... amazed by the (smaller) Starscream. This one was also wearing a full-body costume, and the little girl just didn't seem to know what to make of it! She just staaaaared, it was adorable and hilarious. I am really bummed that picture didn't save, though.
ALSO! The person I bought the necklace from (she has an Etsy shop, and she was very nice) knew Mackinac Island! That always makes me go yay. (Also, "Helpful Cat Creations" is seriously the best name for a craft-maker's shop EVER. I laughed.)
Actually, everyone at that booth was really awesome and nice, and seemed really fun. Part of me wanted to be all, hey, you guys seem really awesome, let's be friends? :D :D? And the rest of me was like, that is so creepy, god, stop bothering them, you're probably annoying. SO I LEFT. And now I feel lame, because I real have no idea who any of them even were or how to contact them (aside from through the one Etsy shop, which would be weird and HAHA LIKE I WOULD, ANYWAY ~___~).
AND THEN THE DEALER'S ROOM CLOSED AND I WENT BACK TO THE ROOM and Mom and I went swimming, though the pool water was really too warm. And then HALL OF FAME AWARDS DINNER YAY.
Except, you know, I was having a fit of SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS YAY I SUCK, so mostly I stood in a corner and wished I knew someone so I could go all CLIIIING at them and be all I AM AFEARED OF THE CROWD HELP. Instead I got mistaken for someone's friend! ... Eel? I don't know. The girl asking me had the most amazing neon yellow hair ever. I wonder if she dyes it just for BotCon or if she always wears it like that. o.O Then they finally let us in the FOOD ROOM and I wandered around feeling utterly useless and lame until the guy from before (who thought I was Wayward last year) waved me over, 'cause their table had room. I ended up sitting next to the girl who makes these OMGADORABLE (I WANT ONE OH MAN XD) things, and spent most of the time chatting with her and two other girls while we waited for things to get going.
Dinner was a salad, then chicken with... stuff on it, as well as some mashed potatoes and a carrot and a baby SQUASH OF SOME KIND that Mom managed to identify from the picture I took of it, and then some weird strawberry-whatever thing for dessert that I almost didn't get 'cause I eat too slow.
Oh. Up on the stage they had standees of the four known robot inductees.
They started things during the main course, while we were still all going AAAA WHICH FORK??? (since there there three...). First, [uh, I think? Maybe they showed the bot videos first??] the humans. Kojin Ohno could not make it, so they showed their little video of him, then his representative came up to accept it and give a speech. Then Yoke-san (Hideaki Yoke) was presented with his award. Then Bob Budiansky was given his, and lastly, Peter Cullen. So here's that. HERE IS ONE MORE.
And then they had awesome videos for each inducted Transformers character, each with a different song. All very nice.
AND THEN OH. You already know who won, but! Each nominee had their own song and video, too (and Soundwave's was, hilariously, "I Love Rock N'Roll", and when they got to that line, they used a clip of him pointing at the screen, then, at, "put another dime in the jukebox, baby," pointing offscreen at something. [It's a complete clip from the series. They didn't need to edit it to that, which made it just PERFECT]), and then they were all HOW CAN WE KEEP YOU IN SUSPENSE EVEN MORE?! And didn't tell us before rolling the winner's VICTORY video, so I think we were all holding our breath at this point. (I voted solely for Dinobot, because Beast Wars is amazing, and as much as I love G1 and would have loved to see any of the other four in, as well, I thought it would be nice to see acknowledgment of something besides G1. And, hey, I came into the fandom through Beast Wars. But I WAS NOT expecting Dinobot to actually win. My bets were on Grimlock or Soundwave. (My second choice was Jazz, who was tied with Shockwave for third-most-likely to win.) BUT NO IT WAS DINOBOT and half the room exploded with cheers, self included in that, there. So, yeah, that was awesome. They didn't have Scott McNeil come up and say something, which might've been fun, and, hey, he was there and all! (Apparently he was tearing up, though, so maybe it was for the best they didn't offer? XD) And then we all got one of these things and then it was over! (Actually, since they'd had kind of some funny technical glitches, they replayed a couple of the character videos and - actually, yeah, I think they rolled the videos for the Transformers characters before they did the humans.)
AND THEN I WENT BACK TO THE ROOM AND packed.
SUNDAY! Finished packing, we checked out and had our bags put into holding, and, since Mom couldn't figure anything better to do, I ran off to the second Bob Budiansky panel (which he said right out was just a rehash of Friday's) [psst] while Mom went off to get walk-in registration. I would've gone with her but THE LAST HASBRO PANEL WAS AFTER I wanted to have a good seat... and you never know, maybe there would've been something new?
HASBRO PANEL WAS AWESOME they showed us stuff from Generations (WE GET A NEW PERCEPTOR OMGYAY. Though I'll admit OMGYAY was my response to a lot of things), but what was MOST AWESOME was when they started talking about the Original Thirteen (which is an aspect of the mythology that I, for whatever reason, really, really like), with their whole "Once Upon a Time on Cybertron" project. They confirmed Alpha Trion and the Liege Maximo (he'd been debatably canon before then), and APPARENTLY The Fallen's name is no longer lost to time, for once he was Megatronus!
They showed us Megatronus before they showed us the picture (oh, they had some really pretty images, but of course no photography allowed) of The Fallen, but it was pretty obvious right off who he was.
I didn't want to attend the costuming panel, so Mom and I headed for - where else... - the dealer's room after rolling our eyes through a few questions, and mostly we just wandered around and she went "woah" at everything. ALSO I SAT IN THE CAMARO AGAIN. So did Mom. We looked at the art contest entries, I took a few pictures.
THIS ONE IS SAD D:
He'sLockdown Batman
Teeny G1 Predacons and Predaking
Verity!
This custom Jazz figure took 1st
There were a bunch of other neat ones, too, but, as I've said - BATTERY CONSERVATION.
Then we had lunch (hot dogs from the snack vendor who'd pitched camp in the hall outside the dealer's room - brilliance, that) and went back up to the panel room for the second/final panel with Paul and Scott. [yep.]
After that, we went and crashed the Hot Wheels convention next door (which was also winding down, but they had some beautiful cars inside that Mom and I wanted to look at). Since we were attending BotCon, we were allowed in for free. Though apparently it didn't work in reverse? Go figure.
SO PRETTY
Also neat
Aggressively purple
A truck
Three wheels!
Massive engine
LOOOW rider
A cheetah! It was for sale, too.
And then we waited in the dealer's room for the drawing for the two trips to next year's con (I didn't win, go figure), and then we went out and got our bags and got on the shuttle and got to the airport and... had pizza and ice cream... went through security and either my glasses or my watch pissed off the bomb detector, so I was subjected to the most useless patdown in all of existence (I actually suspect it was sort of an every-other-person thing, because that WAIT HERE UNTIL PROVEN TO NOT BE A TERRORIST box filled up awfully fast). The woman lightly (I mean, I barely felt it) ran her hand along the sides of my arms, my stomach, and my back, and then kind of poked my knees but not really (she didn't even check my pockets? GUYS, WHEN MY PATHETIC LOCAL AIRPORT HAS A BETTER SYSTEM THAN YOU, MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED). And I managed to refrain from sighing and shaking my head until after they'd sent me away. (The girl behind me was wearing nothing but a light sundress, so I seriously don't know what was with their system.) It as hilariously failtastic, and has only contributed to my maddening urge to make terrible jokes about security while waiting in airports. I'm going to get myself shot somehow.
Flight home was uneventful - oh, haha, one of the channels JetBlue gets was actually showing the 2007 movie. Mom watched it, I tuned in for some of the more interesting parts but mostly occupied myself with other things.
WHEN I GOT OFF THE PLANE I NOTICED there had been someone else on the flight who had been to BotCon! That's a first, never seen a fellow Vermonter at the con and never actually run into a fellow con-goer while in transit.
Ah, also, you may have gathered from an earlier entry, but my father decided he didn't want not be smoking anymore (again), so. (Seriously, what the hell, HE DOES THIS. When he and Mom met, he'd already quit. She says all the time she'd never have married him had she known he'd CELEBRATE [x amount of time] WITHOUT SMOKING by freaking LIGHTING UP and getting addicted all over again.
Yay, my family.
...SO. STUFF WHAT I BOUGHT.
My awesome necklace. Much as I love the Decepticons (not that I don't love the Autobots. I LOVE EVERYONE ♥ ), I must admit to myself that I am an Autobot at heart. ALL OF MY FRIENDS PICK DECEPTICON WHAT THE HECK IS THAT ABOUT. You're all mad. (The person who made these actually explained to me all about how she does it, and how much work it was creating all TEN MILLION pieces she'd done for the con. This was the person who knew about Mackinac, not Galvatron or Oasis.)
My new Robot Heroes. I was actually only going to get the two Beast Wars sets, but the guy offered me the third one for cheap and I said SURE WHY NOT. So, three new movie ones, too. (In order, left to right: Movie Prime, Movie Ironhide, Movie Starscream, Waspinator, Silverbolt, Rhinox, and Transmetal Megatron.) (WHY YES, I DO HAVE FFXI RUNNING ON THE COMPUTER WHY DO YOU ASK MORE ON THIS LATER)
Disney souvenirs, though not including the shirts. I didn't actually take pictures of the shirts. Pixar lamp, the AMAZING Mickey-trooper, and then my lucky cat (protection from illness and evil spirits), lucky owl (artistic sense MAYBE IT WILL BRING MY WORDS BACK?), and other lucky cat (patience. Oh, Lord).
And the other stuff. Shattered Glass Ravage, who's looking at my other pins. Starting at the top, clockwise: Cybertron, Predacon symbol, Maximal symbol, and TARDIS! HEE! I actually bought two Predacon pins, but one was for a friend, and then there was a Decepticon pin, too, which flew out with TF:A Jazz and Prowl.
SO YEAH FFXI! Plane landed, father picked us up, took us back to the house, stuff, blahblah, I kick open my computer to check my e-mail and whatever before throwing myself into bed, and - instead, my brother TACKLES ME over AIM almost as soon as it starts up.
You see, every year (sometimes multiple times), in Final Fantasy XI, they hold the Mog Bonanza, which is basically the Vana'diel lottery. You can buy up to 10 marbles (at 2k each, and I'm a stupid face and always buy all 10 on all three characters), and OF COURSE THEY DON'T STACK, so your inventory space is all destroyed, but, anyway, you put a five digit number on each marble (so even if you just wanted 1, your number would actually be 00001), and then a bit later SE draws 5 numbers, and depending on how you match, you win different prizes! For fifth prize, you just need the last digit of your number to match. If you buy your numbers right, you'll always win at least rank 5. Because of this, the prizes for rank 5 are always pretty simple. For fourth, the last two; for third, the last three; for second, the last four; and for first, you need to match all five digits. Here's all the official stuff.
My brother and I know each other's log in information, and he'd been using my character to run some stuff while I was gone, and he'd been unable to resist checking my numbers. APPARENTLY. I won FOUR TIMES. 5th (obviously, and on each character), 4th on Hisime, 3rd on Ayarei, and then 2nd on Hisime again. OMG! I had a fit of hysterics a bit.
For the 5th place wins, I picked a little statue furnishing for my Mog Houses on each character. 4th place, I went for an ore that sold for 300k gil, because the Blau Dolch market crashed while I was away, too, so I logged in and bought one and then had no money (and, in fact owed my brother 200k...). BUT YAY! Instead turn around! For 3rd, I actually really wanted Trotter Boots for my THF, but they're exclusive - you can't trade them or sell them, and of course Aya is not Hisi, and there would be no point in her getting them! So, whee. There was an item my brother had already told me he really wanted, but there was another item that sold for more than the Hermes' Sandals, so I picked that, gave it to him to sell, and so then he bought his boots and kept the remaining 100k because I owed him for the dagger and actually CONSIDERING THE BOOTS COST 800k MAYBE WE WERE EVEN ALREADY ugh too late, oh, well. I was so damn tired, I can't really hold it against myself that I wasn't thinking things through all the way. Aaand, then 2nd... the gil prize (which is, really, the only one I had any use at all for - which isn't true, because there were two body armor pieces that are amazing and I might have liked, but I can't equip either of them, yet, anyway, and, I don't know) was 4.2 million, which is pretty sweet, that'll buy me lots f nice new gear, so, hey, let's go for that, right? WAIT!! Says my brother. Two of the items you can get are sellable! And one of them sells for up to 10 MILLION!!
And I said WOAHMG GIVE IT TO MEEEEE and he said oh also your flatmate has totally been wanting those for all of time and I said AUGH MORAL DILEMMA.
So I ended up getting the Herald's Gaiters and sold them to Aniko for 5million (slightly more than the gil award, but still less than the freaking ridiculous price they go for), and so now they both have +12% movement speed and I don't have Trotter's (*cry*) or as much gil as I could have gotten, and I would be lying if I denied that the deep, dark pit of my heart is vaguely bitter in suspecting that if anyone I knew had won like that, I wouldn't have got anything from it and that I am perhaps kind of a sucker (honestly it's not like I fault them for it, but one can't exactly logic the irrational part of one's brain into submission or I'd've managed it years ago), but, you know, whatever, they're happy, and I still have 5 MILLION GIL (which is 5 times the most I've ever had, and I only had the million because someone I knew quit the game and sold all his stuff and split the gil among his friends, so that was sad, not happy) to buy awesome stuff I CAN wear now with, so. I'm happy, too!
AND ANYWAY WHOOO I WON THE IN-GAME LOTTERY FOUR TIMES.
HOORAY WE ALL SURVIVED. NOW I CAN FINALLY GO TO BED. Because I was stupid and said NO FINISH THE ENTRY.
Though, I swear I keep hearing something moving around outside and it's really freaking me out, so maybe I won't be sleeping as much as I'd like. Boo.
Not that there's much to say about Thursday that didn't already get mentioned in the middle post. I STOOD IN LINE. I GOT TOYS. Standard package pick-up, really. I did not get to jump the line on account of my last name this year. There were A MILLION people in the C-H-or-whatever-letter line, though, wow. They had to open a new station just to deal with them. When I was in school, the first letter of my last name (M) was the most common. Practically half the class had last names starting with M. Not so at BotCon! it is kind of a nice change-up, really.
So, yeah, box with toys I don't want, free toy I also do [did] not want, badge, dinner sign-up, t-shirt, and then ran screaming from the club store. ESCAPE! Run to Epcot! Hooray, safe.
FRIDAY MORNING, though, I had to get up early because there were actually a few things I wanted to pick up from the club store. Argh. OH WELL, if you get up fast enough, the lines really aren't too terrible, and it beats waiting for hours the night before. The guy who ended up helping me was from Rutland (Vermont), which was pretty cool. Anyway, I picked up the lithograph - they only had autographed versions left, which are 20 dollars instead of ten, but he let me have it for the price of an unsigned one, yay. Aaaand, because I am a sucker, I bought the Double Punch / Scorch two pack. Because Scorch came with Shattered Glass Ravage! eee. So then I spent the weekend trying to get rid of it all and was largely unsuccessful, aside from the free figure and Scorch. I got out in time to get in line for the Takara Tomy panel, but was starved and decided I didn't care that much. So instead I went back to the hotel to drop off my new stuff, and ran into Mom, who hadn't left for... whatever she was doing that day. We went down and had yoghurt and fruit, and then she went off to ... hit Disney Downtown or something, I guess, and I went over for the Bob Budainsky panel, wherein we learned strange things about Transformers. The Ark was originally called Aunty, Starscream was originally called Ulchtar, Ratchet was originally female (was that in the Shout! factory release? Seems like I'd heard it before), bunch of other random stuff... not sure how much of it was already known, but some of it was certainly new to me, anyway.
The Film Fest was right after, so I stayed in the panel room and watched some ... truly terrible fan-films, as well as some really good and/or funny ones. The NGSMOOV one actually did not win this year! It looked amazing, but - to me, anyway - it felt... cut off? Maybe to fit the time limit, I don't know. I'm not sure who won, I didn't attend that panel.
1 pm was lunch hour (since we have a designated slot for that on Friday...) so I - and a lot of other people - stormed one of the little places right there in the Dolphin, called Picabu, which wasn't hideously over-expensive and at least had the potential to be fast. I bought a pre-made sandwich, so I did actually get my food in a timely manner. Tables were full, but a nice woman let me occupy a corner at hers while she waited over twenty minutes for a hot dog. A HOT DOG. Dude, that's like 30 seconds in the microwave, how did they manage to make it take over twenty minutes? I don't know. After she left, I let some other people use the table, and they both waited a ridiculous amount of time for their food, as well. And of course we were all anxious to go GET IN LINE TO GET IN THE DEALER'S ROOM WHOOOO, 'cause that opened at 2. And we all wanted to SPEND MUNNY. Or something, I don't know. Get the bestest item for the awesomest price. Also there was nothing else going on for the rest of the day. Autographs were in the dealer's room, too, which was kind of a strange change. I bought... uh, every figure I bought for myself on Friday (a gaggle of Robot Heroes) and some pins (for myself and a couple other people), as well as TF:A Jazz for
mysticeden. I really liked the guys I bought him from. They were nice, and when I asked if they had a TF:A Prowl or Bumblebee, they even gave me answers. No 'Bee, but they did have a Prowl, but he was buried in a box that they weren't even opening until Saturday. So I said I WOULD BE BACK. And then I ran away. Oh, also, very early this morning, I got rid of the attending freebie. Yay. There's one down. (I didn't ditch Scorch until Sunday afternoon, though I found a buyer Friday evening. We just never managed to connect.) Also at some point I swung by the Activision booth where they had War for Cybertron playing. I did not try it, but as I had already heard amazing things about it, I thanked the director there for finally making a Transformers game that did not make me want to put my controller through the screen. He said he'd heard that a lot today and signed a poster. It is two-sided. I did not manage to sneak back and get a second one, alas, so if it goes up, I'll probably have Megatron to the wall, since he since he signed the Prime side.Stood in line at one point and said hello to Stan Bush (I always feel bad for him how no one wants to go get his autograph. XD He's very nice, anyway) and Paul Eiding, who was delightful. The line for Scott McNeil was even longer, and I met him a few years back at Otakon, and I'd brought nothing for him to sign, anyway. Was fun to watch him be completely insane at other people, though. Sales room - and the convention - closed at 5, AND THEN MAGIC KINGDOM, SEE PREVIOUS POST.
Saturday! Oof, busy. I did not bother trying to get Peter Cullen's autograph (though I did want to get him to sign my Matrix of Leadership DVD booklet thing. Maybe some other year when I wasn't up to 4 am that morning), but I wanted to go to the Hasbro panel, which was at 10, so I still had to get up earlier than I wanted to. HASBRO PANEL PROMISED AWESOME THINGS, and I didn't stick around for the questions. (By the way, there were two Hasbro panels back-to-back, so I was in the room for close to two hours. Some TWIT took pictures - with the flash! - during the first one, despite explicit instructions to Not Do That, and he got kicked out, and then we had another big speech before the second half.) You'll be able to find better summaries of those on a proper site, where they had people taking notes and such. I skipped the Activision panel because I was afraid of spoilers, instead choosing to hang out in the dealer's room and not eating lunch. Swung by the booth from Friday to ask about TF:A Prowl, but they couldn't find him, so they said I could come back later and they'd find him and hold him for me. Yay! So that's what happened there, eventually. ... It's a sorry comment on the state of some of the fandom mentality, here, but I feel obligated to point out that if anyone is reading this and going NOOO GRRR JECCA'S FRIEND SHIPS PROWL/JAZZ WHICH IS WHY SHE WANTED THE TOYS actually, no, she doesn't? She just... happens to like both characters. REALLY, GUYS, THAT HAPPENS.
At 1 pm, there was a panel with (oh, hey, here, let me IMDB these guys for you, because I pretty much guarantee that if you've ever watched or played anything, you've heard at least one of them) Paul Eiding and Scott McNeil and they are hilarious together. ... Well, okay, Scott is hilarious all on his own, but Paul Eiding was also amazing and wonderful. This was actually his (Paul Eiding's) first convention, so I'm glad they had someone with a lot of experience, because I think that has to make it easier, having someone who knows what's going on and how to roll with the crazy, crazy fans. Also, Metal Gear Solid (Eiding as Campbell) met Beast Wars (Rattrap), and it was funnnnyyy, though Scott didn't get the "Rattrap. RAAAAATTRAAAAAAAAP" joke.
They were followed by the Peter Cullen panel, which, thankfully, did not have a repeat of last year's "how do you feel about Optimus/Megatron?" question that apparently got the kid kicked out of the convention. Peter Cullen is adorable, but I think we confuse him somewhat, because half the time, he has to have the question repeated / probably rephrased using Non Fan Terminology before he can answer it. SOMEHOW THIS IS ALSO ADORABLE? I don't get it, either.
Hey, hey, guys. If you can handle shoddy sound and extreme bursts of applause, audio of Saturday's Paul and Scott and Peter Cullen! shhhh.
Collector's Club Roundtable I had no interest in (I'm a member, but meh?), and the IDW panel I was afraid would annoy me (I've have an extreme love/hate - mostly hate, these days - relationship with their comic run for the past couple years, now, sadly. They started so well, and parts of it I still love, but I am pretty sure I'm never going to actually read the Ongoing), so BACK TO THE DEALER'S ROOM! Where I bought a cool necklace (shortly before they closed). Before that, I went through the Autobot Alliance Academy they had set up in the back, where they give you a Nerf gun and let you shoot Decepticons that pop up and attack! I only missed Megatron, right at the end, because he alarmed me [right? right?]. Actually, haha, the gun I started with didn't work, but since I made a good show of aiming and trying to shoot the first two or three targets, and probably because I hit the ones I was actually able to shoot at, I was awarded the kills, anyway. (While I was in line for that, one of the manymanymany people who've mistaken me for Wayward over the years recognised me (after someone else asked if I was the Blurr - there was an Animated Blurr walking around, but I never got a good picture - and I said, no, but I must have one of those faces, because people are always mistaking me for someone else. The guy asked, "like Wayward?" I was like, oh hi).
ALSO THERE WAS A 2010 CAMARO THAT YOU COULD POKE AND SIT IN AND okay it wasn't actually Bumblebee, not Autobot symbol or anything, but it was still pretty damn sweet. Inside the car! [oh hey the pictures are back] Car from the back. And there were these stand-up things next to him (as well as the big Bumblebee statue from last year, but I didn't take its picture). The pictures on the back were different, but I was all about the battery conservation, since it was my sole working pair and it had to last me the rest of the weekend.
Eh. PICS! Not all from Saturday, but mostly.
TF:A Prowl costume, taken from the autograph line Friday afternoon.
KING STARSCREAM IS HUGE I don't know how that guy managed to walk in that, but walk he did.
SPIKE IS GOING TO DIE
'Screamer and a bunch of humans / as robots. Left to right we have Sunstorm; Spike down on the ground; ... possibly Dr. Arkeville, I'm honestly not sure; another Starscream; and Animated Yoketron.
Same group, but with Raoul on the left, since he didn't fit in the last picture.
Deadpool is not a Transformer. Facebook keeps turning this photo sideways and I can't figure out why, but, you know, considering who it's of, I can't quite be surprised...
There was also a really awesome Galvatron! And a smaller Starscream with the cape and crown. When I told them (Galvatron and her friends at the booth where I bought the Autobot charm necklace) about the Starscream, they (well, Oasis - with the penguin. I remembered her after she pointed the penguin, I met her briefly in 2007. Also I read AND EVEN REVIEWED her stuff way back when, but her FF.net name is different, so I made that connection later, and I don't quite remember how) ran off and retrieved him for a photo op, and I took a picture, but my batteries said SCREW YOU and stopped working (this is all in the wrong order. After this, I put in my last pair, and then later I went and found the Camaro et al and was afraid to take pictures of it because LAST SET OF BATTERIES. Oh, well. Ugh. Don't feel like rearranging all the paragraphs!) so I don't have a copy of it! I WAS SO SAD WHEN I DISCOVERED THIS! Also, there was a small child who was just... amazed by the (smaller) Starscream. This one was also wearing a full-body costume, and the little girl just didn't seem to know what to make of it! She just staaaaared, it was adorable and hilarious. I am really bummed that picture didn't save, though.
ALSO! The person I bought the necklace from (she has an Etsy shop, and she was very nice) knew Mackinac Island! That always makes me go yay. (Also, "Helpful Cat Creations" is seriously the best name for a craft-maker's shop EVER. I laughed.)
Actually, everyone at that booth was really awesome and nice, and seemed really fun. Part of me wanted to be all, hey, you guys seem really awesome, let's be friends? :D :D? And the rest of me was like, that is so creepy, god, stop bothering them, you're probably annoying. SO I LEFT. And now I feel lame, because I real have no idea who any of them even were or how to contact them (aside from through the one Etsy shop, which would be weird and HAHA LIKE I WOULD, ANYWAY ~___~).
AND THEN THE DEALER'S ROOM CLOSED AND I WENT BACK TO THE ROOM and Mom and I went swimming, though the pool water was really too warm. And then HALL OF FAME AWARDS DINNER YAY.
Except, you know, I was having a fit of SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS YAY I SUCK, so mostly I stood in a corner and wished I knew someone so I could go all CLIIIING at them and be all I AM AFEARED OF THE CROWD HELP. Instead I got mistaken for someone's friend! ... Eel? I don't know. The girl asking me had the most amazing neon yellow hair ever. I wonder if she dyes it just for BotCon or if she always wears it like that. o.O Then they finally let us in the FOOD ROOM and I wandered around feeling utterly useless and lame until the guy from before (who thought I was Wayward last year) waved me over, 'cause their table had room. I ended up sitting next to the girl who makes these OMGADORABLE (I WANT ONE OH MAN XD) things, and spent most of the time chatting with her and two other girls while we waited for things to get going.
Dinner was a salad, then chicken with... stuff on it, as well as some mashed potatoes and a carrot and a baby SQUASH OF SOME KIND that Mom managed to identify from the picture I took of it, and then some weird strawberry-whatever thing for dessert that I almost didn't get 'cause I eat too slow.
Oh. Up on the stage they had standees of the four known robot inductees.
They started things during the main course, while we were still all going AAAA WHICH FORK??? (since there there three...). First, [uh, I think? Maybe they showed the bot videos first??] the humans. Kojin Ohno could not make it, so they showed their little video of him, then his representative came up to accept it and give a speech. Then Yoke-san (Hideaki Yoke) was presented with his award. Then Bob Budiansky was given his, and lastly, Peter Cullen. So here's that. HERE IS ONE MORE.
And then they had awesome videos for each inducted Transformers character, each with a different song. All very nice.
AND THEN OH. You already know who won, but! Each nominee had their own song and video, too (and Soundwave's was, hilariously, "I Love Rock N'Roll", and when they got to that line, they used a clip of him pointing at the screen, then, at, "put another dime in the jukebox, baby," pointing offscreen at something. [It's a complete clip from the series. They didn't need to edit it to that, which made it just PERFECT]), and then they were all HOW CAN WE KEEP YOU IN SUSPENSE EVEN MORE?! And didn't tell us before rolling the winner's VICTORY video, so I think we were all holding our breath at this point. (I voted solely for Dinobot, because Beast Wars is amazing, and as much as I love G1 and would have loved to see any of the other four in, as well, I thought it would be nice to see acknowledgment of something besides G1. And, hey, I came into the fandom through Beast Wars. But I WAS NOT expecting Dinobot to actually win. My bets were on Grimlock or Soundwave. (My second choice was Jazz, who was tied with Shockwave for third-most-likely to win.) BUT NO IT WAS DINOBOT and half the room exploded with cheers, self included in that, there. So, yeah, that was awesome. They didn't have Scott McNeil come up and say something, which might've been fun, and, hey, he was there and all! (Apparently he was tearing up, though, so maybe it was for the best they didn't offer? XD) And then we all got one of these things and then it was over! (Actually, since they'd had kind of some funny technical glitches, they replayed a couple of the character videos and - actually, yeah, I think they rolled the videos for the Transformers characters before they did the humans.)
AND THEN I WENT BACK TO THE ROOM AND packed.
SUNDAY! Finished packing, we checked out and had our bags put into holding, and, since Mom couldn't figure anything better to do, I ran off to the second Bob Budiansky panel (which he said right out was just a rehash of Friday's) [psst] while Mom went off to get walk-in registration. I would've gone with her but THE LAST HASBRO PANEL WAS AFTER I wanted to have a good seat... and you never know, maybe there would've been something new?
HASBRO PANEL WAS AWESOME they showed us stuff from Generations (WE GET A NEW PERCEPTOR OMGYAY. Though I'll admit OMGYAY was my response to a lot of things), but what was MOST AWESOME was when they started talking about the Original Thirteen (which is an aspect of the mythology that I, for whatever reason, really, really like), with their whole "Once Upon a Time on Cybertron" project. They confirmed Alpha Trion and the Liege Maximo (he'd been debatably canon before then), and APPARENTLY The Fallen's name is no longer lost to time, for once he was Megatronus!
They showed us Megatronus before they showed us the picture (oh, they had some really pretty images, but of course no photography allowed) of The Fallen, but it was pretty obvious right off who he was.
I didn't want to attend the costuming panel, so Mom and I headed for - where else... - the dealer's room after rolling our eyes through a few questions, and mostly we just wandered around and she went "woah" at everything. ALSO I SAT IN THE CAMARO AGAIN. So did Mom. We looked at the art contest entries, I took a few pictures.
THIS ONE IS SAD D:
He's
Teeny G1 Predacons and Predaking
Verity!
This custom Jazz figure took 1st
There were a bunch of other neat ones, too, but, as I've said - BATTERY CONSERVATION.
Then we had lunch (hot dogs from the snack vendor who'd pitched camp in the hall outside the dealer's room - brilliance, that) and went back up to the panel room for the second/final panel with Paul and Scott. [yep.]
After that, we went and crashed the Hot Wheels convention next door (which was also winding down, but they had some beautiful cars inside that Mom and I wanted to look at). Since we were attending BotCon, we were allowed in for free. Though apparently it didn't work in reverse? Go figure.
SO PRETTY
Also neat
Aggressively purple
A truck
Three wheels!
Massive engine
LOOOW rider
A cheetah! It was for sale, too.
And then we waited in the dealer's room for the drawing for the two trips to next year's con (I didn't win, go figure), and then we went out and got our bags and got on the shuttle and got to the airport and... had pizza and ice cream... went through security and either my glasses or my watch pissed off the bomb detector, so I was subjected to the most useless patdown in all of existence (I actually suspect it was sort of an every-other-person thing, because that WAIT HERE UNTIL PROVEN TO NOT BE A TERRORIST box filled up awfully fast). The woman lightly (I mean, I barely felt it) ran her hand along the sides of my arms, my stomach, and my back, and then kind of poked my knees but not really (she didn't even check my pockets? GUYS, WHEN MY PATHETIC LOCAL AIRPORT HAS A BETTER SYSTEM THAN YOU, MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED). And I managed to refrain from sighing and shaking my head until after they'd sent me away. (The girl behind me was wearing nothing but a light sundress, so I seriously don't know what was with their system.) It as hilariously failtastic, and has only contributed to my maddening urge to make terrible jokes about security while waiting in airports. I'm going to get myself shot somehow.
Flight home was uneventful - oh, haha, one of the channels JetBlue gets was actually showing the 2007 movie. Mom watched it, I tuned in for some of the more interesting parts but mostly occupied myself with other things.
WHEN I GOT OFF THE PLANE I NOTICED there had been someone else on the flight who had been to BotCon! That's a first, never seen a fellow Vermonter at the con and never actually run into a fellow con-goer while in transit.
Ah, also, you may have gathered from an earlier entry, but my father decided he didn't want not be smoking anymore (again), so. (Seriously, what the hell, HE DOES THIS. When he and Mom met, he'd already quit. She says all the time she'd never have married him had she known he'd CELEBRATE [x amount of time] WITHOUT SMOKING by freaking LIGHTING UP and getting addicted all over again.
Yay, my family.
...SO. STUFF WHAT I BOUGHT.
My awesome necklace. Much as I love the Decepticons (not that I don't love the Autobots. I LOVE EVERYONE ♥ ), I must admit to myself that I am an Autobot at heart. ALL OF MY FRIENDS PICK DECEPTICON WHAT THE HECK IS THAT ABOUT. You're all mad. (The person who made these actually explained to me all about how she does it, and how much work it was creating all TEN MILLION pieces she'd done for the con. This was the person who knew about Mackinac, not Galvatron or Oasis.)
My new Robot Heroes. I was actually only going to get the two Beast Wars sets, but the guy offered me the third one for cheap and I said SURE WHY NOT. So, three new movie ones, too. (In order, left to right: Movie Prime, Movie Ironhide, Movie Starscream, Waspinator, Silverbolt, Rhinox, and Transmetal Megatron.) (WHY YES, I DO HAVE FFXI RUNNING ON THE COMPUTER WHY DO YOU ASK MORE ON THIS LATER)
Disney souvenirs, though not including the shirts. I didn't actually take pictures of the shirts. Pixar lamp, the AMAZING Mickey-trooper, and then my lucky cat (protection from illness and evil spirits), lucky owl (artistic sense MAYBE IT WILL BRING MY WORDS BACK?), and other lucky cat (patience. Oh, Lord).
And the other stuff. Shattered Glass Ravage, who's looking at my other pins. Starting at the top, clockwise: Cybertron, Predacon symbol, Maximal symbol, and TARDIS! HEE! I actually bought two Predacon pins, but one was for a friend, and then there was a Decepticon pin, too, which flew out with TF:A Jazz and Prowl.
SO YEAH FFXI! Plane landed, father picked us up, took us back to the house, stuff, blahblah, I kick open my computer to check my e-mail and whatever before throwing myself into bed, and - instead, my brother TACKLES ME over AIM almost as soon as it starts up.
You see, every year (sometimes multiple times), in Final Fantasy XI, they hold the Mog Bonanza, which is basically the Vana'diel lottery. You can buy up to 10 marbles (at 2k each, and I'm a stupid face and always buy all 10 on all three characters), and OF COURSE THEY DON'T STACK, so your inventory space is all destroyed, but, anyway, you put a five digit number on each marble (so even if you just wanted 1, your number would actually be 00001), and then a bit later SE draws 5 numbers, and depending on how you match, you win different prizes! For fifth prize, you just need the last digit of your number to match. If you buy your numbers right, you'll always win at least rank 5. Because of this, the prizes for rank 5 are always pretty simple. For fourth, the last two; for third, the last three; for second, the last four; and for first, you need to match all five digits. Here's all the official stuff.
My brother and I know each other's log in information, and he'd been using my character to run some stuff while I was gone, and he'd been unable to resist checking my numbers. APPARENTLY. I won FOUR TIMES. 5th (obviously, and on each character), 4th on Hisime, 3rd on Ayarei, and then 2nd on Hisime again. OMG! I had a fit of hysterics a bit.
For the 5th place wins, I picked a little statue furnishing for my Mog Houses on each character. 4th place, I went for an ore that sold for 300k gil, because the Blau Dolch market crashed while I was away, too, so I logged in and bought one and then had no money (and, in fact owed my brother 200k...). BUT YAY! Instead turn around! For 3rd, I actually really wanted Trotter Boots for my THF, but they're exclusive - you can't trade them or sell them, and of course Aya is not Hisi, and there would be no point in her getting them! So, whee. There was an item my brother had already told me he really wanted, but there was another item that sold for more than the Hermes' Sandals, so I picked that, gave it to him to sell, and so then he bought his boots and kept the remaining 100k because I owed him for the dagger and actually CONSIDERING THE BOOTS COST 800k MAYBE WE WERE EVEN ALREADY ugh too late, oh, well. I was so damn tired, I can't really hold it against myself that I wasn't thinking things through all the way. Aaand, then 2nd... the gil prize (which is, really, the only one I had any use at all for - which isn't true, because there were two body armor pieces that are amazing and I might have liked, but I can't equip either of them, yet, anyway, and, I don't know) was 4.2 million, which is pretty sweet, that'll buy me lots f nice new gear, so, hey, let's go for that, right? WAIT!! Says my brother. Two of the items you can get are sellable! And one of them sells for up to 10 MILLION!!
And I said WOAHMG GIVE IT TO MEEEEE and he said oh also your flatmate has totally been wanting those for all of time and I said AUGH MORAL DILEMMA.
So I ended up getting the Herald's Gaiters and sold them to Aniko for 5million (slightly more than the gil award, but still less than the freaking ridiculous price they go for), and so now they both have +12% movement speed and I don't have Trotter's (*cry*) or as much gil as I could have gotten, and I would be lying if I denied that the deep, dark pit of my heart is vaguely bitter in suspecting that if anyone I knew had won like that, I wouldn't have got anything from it and that I am perhaps kind of a sucker (honestly it's not like I fault them for it, but one can't exactly logic the irrational part of one's brain into submission or I'd've managed it years ago), but, you know, whatever, they're happy, and I still have 5 MILLION GIL (which is 5 times the most I've ever had, and I only had the million because someone I knew quit the game and sold all his stuff and split the gil among his friends, so that was sad, not happy) to buy awesome stuff I CAN wear now with, so. I'm happy, too!
AND ANYWAY WHOOO I WON THE IN-GAME LOTTERY FOUR TIMES.
HOORAY WE ALL SURVIVED. NOW I CAN FINALLY GO TO BED. Because I was stupid and said NO FINISH THE ENTRY.
Though, I swear I keep hearing something moving around outside and it's really freaking me out, so maybe I won't be sleeping as much as I'd like. Boo.