It's not late, ha!

[jecca_mehlota]

I said "by Friday" and teeechnically it is not Friday yet in other places! Like California! Which was where I was when I said that. So, fair's fair, right? It's not late.


...A-anyway, if anyone wants larger copies, I have those. Also, if anyone wants their picture taken down, I will, of course, respect that.)

I survived the weekend! And the flights home! And then working immediately after flying a red-eye. I have not done much besides sleep and work the last two days, but I am actually feeling awake now, so let's try and tackle this massive trip post.



FIRST: THE OBLIGATORY PICTURE OF A PIGEON:




Okay, so. BotCon. It starts with my trip out! Which is mostly uneventful, sure, but in the tradition of all my solo trips to BotCon, something went wrong. Whee! No missed connections this time, though (it happened on the last flight), so that was pretty nice. All that happened was that, once we were on the plane, they realised they had no idea where the co-pilot was, so they had to go scrambling around to locate him. Turns out they'd rearranged the schedules and no one had bothered to tell the guy, so he was on the wrong plane. Fortunately, they got him off before it departed, and then we got out of there. So I was only, like, an hour late, which was still plenty early, but, haha, good thing we decided to use okami_myrrhibis's room at the last minute, rather than mine, else she and lady_katana4544 would've had to wait around for me to finally wander in. I dumped my stuff in the room (second floor! Nice - it made escape via stairwell even easier!) (view from the window), we hung around a bit, then there was a big meet-up for dinner, so FOOD TIME. Who all was there? Myself, tainry, naggingfishwife, femme4jack, flybystardancer, okami_myrrhibis, mdnytryder, mininise28 (completely invisible, aside from a teeny bit of the amazing Ratchet plush), mmouse15, autumnconstance, and lady_katana4544. (...is that right?) (wow, coding LJ names is a pain. From here on, I'm not doing it.)



And then towards the end, someone else came in! BACKSTORY: every year for the last four years (not this year, though! Must be the haircut. That or word's finally got around), at least once per convention, someone has mistaken me for Wayward (of Insecticons.com fame). Last year, someone also mistook me for their friend "Eel". When Eel appeared at dinner, she told us how she'd just come from explaining that she was, in fact, not Wayward. So I told her of my own misadventures in being mistaken for other people - including her. And we thought that was weird and snapped each other's picture.

AND THEN WE ALL WAITED IN LINE FOR HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS uuugh FunPub. You managed to get things going fairly well last year, how'd you screw it up again? Seriously, we (well, those of us in the 7pm group with a last name starting with M) were in line just to pick up our stuff (never mind the club store) for something 3 hours. I ended up in the VIP line, haha. After that, the line for the club store was actually not so bad. I didn't actually want any of the at-con figures (well, I'd've bought a couple of them, but I really didn't want the figures that came with them, and that's a lot of money, anyway...), so I used my trip through the line to pick up all three for someone else. I just got the lithographs and the autograph cards (due to my packing being hectic - not only was it last day, but I was called into work early and then Mom was late getting into town to drop off the suitcase, haha - I managed to leave a few critical items behind, like my phone charger and my stuff to be signed).

By the time we finally got out of line, LadyKatana and I were exhausted (and Okami was already in bed, asleep. She got through the lines faster than us. Lucky!), so it was back to the room and to bed.

Friday, there was breakfast at an IHOP, but we didn't go. Instead, we dawdled around until sakon76 (well, the above was clearly a lie...) got her car into shape and arrived. Then, trip to Target! For food and other supplies. And then lunch at the Pizza Hut inside, 'cause, man, we hadn't even had breakfast yet. (So, for your moment of WTF, outside Target, there was some guy shouting into a phone. I don't remember what all he said - none of it made much sense - but I do remember one part. He was ranting about how people not speaking English was a violation of his Constitutional Rights!)

The first script reading was at 1 pm - the "Stunti-Con-Job" which was the convention comic. They had Morgan Lofting, Abby Collins (daughter of the late Chris Latta), the same guy who voiced Shockwave in 2008's reading of "Bee in the City" (whatever his name is), Gregg Berger, David Kaye, Marty Isenberg, and Neil Ross up there for it, and I really, desperately hope recordings of that show up soon, because, oh, man, it was fantastic. And there was a musical intermission, with Berger's G1 Grimlock and Kaye's Animated Grimlock singing "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" (or, rather, Anything You Can Do, Me Can Do Better). I thought I was going to choke myself laughing. It was brilliant.

(Some of us are on BotCon's site in their gallery for the first script reading! Not just once, either, but twice.

Actually, hell, here's a link to all their galleries, if you want your pictures to be of higher quality. XD; (They keep adding more, but possibly they're done now?) Anyway, my pics of the first script reading are all pretty poor, since it's really hard to get decent shots in the panel room. It's too dark for pics without the flash to go right (actually, aside from Brian ghosting around, that's not too bad), and you're too far away for the flash to do much good. Whatever, here's two more (from after the panel).

After the panel, LadyK and I just got into the autograph lines. The first one was supposed to be for David Kaye and Jack Angel but, very sadly, the poor man was ill all weekend, so he never turned up (I hope he is feeling better now!). While waiting in the first line, Marty Isenberg and Derrick Wyatt ended up forming mini lines of their own (I'm not sure how that happened) so people kept hopping out of line to talk to them (self included). And Kaye had to bust out at 3:30, but then he ended up staying over so everyone in line could get through, because he is AWESOME. They also threw Abby Collins in, with an extra card with the character she voiced in the script reading (Minerva).




Aaand then I got right back in line for Gregg Berger, Neil Ross, and Morgan Lofting. (My Friday was really uneventful, all things considered...) LadyK wanted to visit the dealer's room, so she gave her cards to Sakon (I already had Okami's, and it was two items per person) and then - MORE LINE WAITING. But we made it, whoo!







AND THEN IT WAS 5 O'CLOCK and the con closed for the day. But whatever, man, I had all my line-waiting out of the way! LadyK, Sakon, and I wandered across the street to a grocery store (with a little cafeteria area), where tf_speedwriting had a little meet-up going. I did no writing (no one is surprised)! And at 7 was the Casino Night Awards Dinner, with the free food. Most of us sat in the hall talking, rather than venturing into the casino areas. It was fun! And then we all (or, okay, some of us) got to bed at a slightly more reasonable hour. yay, sleep.

Saturday... what the hell happened Saturday morning? Did anything happen Saturday morning? I'm drawing a blank. Anyway, a bit before 11, we piled into the panel room for the tail end of the comic panel (mostly to get better seats for the Hasbro toy panel and the second script reading :3)... Toy panel was, for me, not very exciting. Sad. :(

AND THEN UGH. JERKS! They made us all leave! And of course there was a massive line for the script reading, but we got lucky and knew a few people towards the front, so we jumped the line a bit. Which, okay, normally? I would just let it be, but come on, why are you making us leave?

Oh. So you can give us all a little lottery ticket. Hooooly crap, why. WE WERE NOT AMUSED. (But, hey! I managed to briefly meet caiusmajor, which was cool!) The tickets were used to determine who'd get to voice Megatron and Bumblebee (... by the way, Prime Bumblebee only speaks in whistles and clicks and the like). I was sad that Megatron didn't end up as either a little kid or a girl. They also randomly selected a third guy to play a zombie. So, hey! I haven't been watching Prime 'cause the opening few episodes did not impress me, but the script reading was so much fun, and the episode they showed after that wasn't bad, either, and everyone all weekend kept saying how awesome it was, so I guess I need to go catch up. (Edit: Can't believe I forgot to add this! During the little Q&A session, it came out that the guy who voices Jack - not to be confused with 'Jack - really wanted to get a G1 Optimus Prime someday. Well, we all saw what came next - by the end of the session, they'd found one for him, and then Cullen signed it right there on stage! Awww)

But because I stayed to watch the episode, I missed my chance to get in the lines for Peter Cullen and Everyone Else. Cullen, eh, well, leave it for someone who's never had the chance, but it would've been fun to get the other guys. (Steve Blum's the English voice of Vincent Valentine! Good thing I didn't know he was going to be there, or I'd've had to actually print a copy of that "Dirge of Gerbils" cover my brother 'shopped up. And that would only have ended badly.)

I am not sure if it was before or after the Prime panel that I finally got into the dealer's room to take all the pictures of the pretty, pretty vehicles (cars and cosplay will be at the bottom of the entry, for those only interested in that), but regardless, I made my first (and only, ha…) Transformer purchase – sort of. One of the booths had Warpath for "only" $45, which was completely out of my price range. But! LadyK spotted some gorgeous repaints of TF:A Arcee (in green and blue), and they also had a bunch of other Generations and Reveal the Shield figures… The Arcees were only sold as a set (he quoted a couple different prices for them, I'm not sure which was the real one – 70 or 80?), but for getting the Arcees and a Perceptor (who was like 25 or 30ish? Don't recall), he'd knock the price down a little! I asked her to throw in a Warpath, and he gave her the whole bunch for the same price, so I only paid $20 for him. Nice. :3 (Now, just to spite me, he'll actually start showing up places and reappear online.)

We also played "spin the roulette wheel!" at Charter's and The Hub's booths. I got a nice bag with a game of Twister (no interest in the game, so I traded it for a pen) and a magnet. Boo, I'd wanted the poster. (It is okay, though! I went back on Sunday and got the poster!) I snagged a bunch of other free posters and such, as well. Somewhere in here, I got lost and ended up wandering on my own a bit. I ended up at the TF: Universe (not to be mistaken for the toyline / comic run / other toyline by the same name) booth, where I got another lanyard, some neat art, and a chance to play the "design your own super-generic character!" game. Whatever, it was fun. And cute to see all the little kids making totally random characters and naming them things like Autocon, Optimus, Starscream Prime, and the like.

AND THEN at 4, the 25^th Anniversary of TFTM panel! I mentioned before Jack Angel was sick all con, but, heee. Paul Eiding had turned up (just to hang out? Not sure!) and was in the audience, and they called him out and made him join them on-stage. And, as always, that panel was a lot of fun. Voice actor panels are always the best. (GUYS. No one asked anyone to play their characters ordering at the drive-through this year. Possibly the world really did end and no one noticed?) At one point, Eiding struck a ballerina pose, and I'm sure there're now pictures of ballerina Percy out there.

And then, oh, no! The convention closed down for the day! So we all scurried back to our rooms to get into our nicer clothing again and headed for dinner at the – The Yardhouse? SURE. – where we occupied two entire tables. Too many fangirls, aaaugh. Hijinks ensued, of course. …Most of them involving dragondancer515's Wheeljack plush.

(Here he is perusing the menu! He's reading up on the salads.)




… though then he just got some French fries, most of which went unconsumed.






More random photos from dinner (of people, aside from this first one):























AND THEN MASS PANIC as we heard they were letting people in and that you couldn't bring cameras or phones into the auditorium for the Hall of Fame, so some of us ran to get seats and some of us ran to stash everyone's cameras and phones, and one poor individual was left with a million bills and wads of cash (I think it was flybystardancer? Sorry 'bout that, whoever you were! ^^; ), which turned out to be a total waste, since the tip about cameras and phones was wrong. Oops.

Inside, they gave us a bag of treats and a 3D glasses face mask – your choice of Optimus or Bumblebee. We almost all went the Optimus, but they didn't fit well. Thankfully, the bag had a pair of normal glasses, as well. Also, one of the candies was a bag of peanut M&Ms, which prompted someone behind us to ask, loudly, "What if we're allergic to peanuts?!" …To which one of the security guards helpfully answered, "Then I wouldn't eat those if I were you." …Thaaaanks. XD

Wheeljack modeled the 3D options while we waited for things to get underway:









Hall of Fame was lots and lots of fun (of course). (Peter Cullen tried to sneak in, but was spotted and got a standing ovation. CAN'T GO ANYWHERE.) They played a nice video about Spielberg, and then a nice one about Bay before he got up to speech at us. Then, the robots! Ratchet, Soundwave, and Ironhide (whoo!), and then – the fan choice nominees!

… I gotta say, I was really quite impressed by what they managed to put together for Erector (his Beast Wars form was a beaver good show, guys, good show…). I have no idea how they all got through that with a straight face. XDD (And then they asked us to never make them do that again.) Thankfully, Erector didn't actually win. Waspinator did! Whoo! (Don't get me wrong, I've like to see Jazz and Grimlock and Shockwave get in, too – and this is their second year all being in the top five – but there's a pretty good chance Hasbro'll add them in automatically, anyway, so I really liked seeing it go to poor Waspinator.)

AND THE MOVIE PREVIEW WAS AMAZING. OH MAN. (They warned us not to take pictures or record, 'cause the security teams had night vision goggles. I wonder if they really did? Made a good story, regardless!)

After the HoF, we got someone to take our picture again, masks on and off (well, most of us. Some of the group had already split, not that I can blame them. It was getting late and we were getting tired).







DragonDancer had a long commute, so we'd offered her the spare space in our room for the night (okay, okay, I offered it, and hopefully that didn't tick anyone else off), so it was back to the room and to bed!

Sunday morning we'd all wanted to attend the "Making of TF:P" panel at 10, but we all had to pack and check out, and they were late getting the convention open, anyway, so by the time we got over there, they'd rearranged the schedule a bit. The panel was at 11 instead! … and all I remember is someone asking if they were planning a crossover with My Little Pony and someone else asking if Knock Out was supposed to be gay (and all the panel members paused awkwardly and finally answered, you know, we hadn't really thought about it, but now that you mention it, we'll never be able to not think about it. They went on to add that the Decepticons are very "don't ask, don't tell.") (Then they went a bit farther, and it got a bit awkward. erm. Poor choice of words, guys.)

ALSO I MISSED THE AUTOGRAPH LINE FOR ARLENE BANAS I WAS VERY SAD and then I found out later that they were letting people who just wanted her autograph through anyway and then I flipped a table FANTASTIC. :(

… yes, so, after the TF:P panel was one more voice actor panel (yeee!), which they didn't kick us out for. Paul Eiding didn't turn up, or was better hidden, 'cause he didn't get called up to join them. The highlight was probably when someone asked if any of them had done any Decepticons (as in, voiced) and Michael McConnohie responding, as Tracks, that it wasn't any of [our] business. Stunned pause, then the room burst into hysterics. THEY ENCOURAGE OUR BAD BEHAVIOR it's wonderful.


NEXT: LUNCH. I had fish tacos and they were amaziiiing omg. There used to be a place around here where you could get killer fish tacos, but the man who owned it is kind of a serial restauranter, so he got bored with it after a few months / maybe a whole year and the place closed down with no notice. I have been sad ever since.

(Wheeljack was better about eating his lunch, but was forbidden from eating the refried beans.) Also, there was a lengthy discussion about the rec room / wreck room, and how Prowl's been spelling it "correctly" for years and it's "one of those things we don't tell Optimus about" which was fun. (And many other topics, too, but it's all blurring in my head at this point, so I can't pinpoint which ones took place where. The one about Prowl and Sideswipe sharing a voice actor was twice Friday afternoon, and the others are… well, they happened?)

We dropped into the costume panel after lunch to admire the awesome cosplay, then hit the dealer's room again, where we all loitered until the con closed down (and then some…).

Then we loitered in the hall! At least until I had to split to catch my shuttle. Probably after that, too, for a bit? I wasn't there, I wouldn't know. BUT THERE WERE MORE PICTURES TAKEN.


(… guess it was a good thing 'Jack didn't get those beans?)







And then I flew a red eye and got no sleep and went to work and you already know that story.


Hmm. I know I said the other pics would be at the bottom of the page, but, uh, actually, this is pretty long, so I'm going to post them separately. Surprise!


...(but first, here are a few pics I snagged from flybystardancer's post! this one was taken after dinner and before the unending registration pick-up line. I had actually completely forgotten this happened. And this one is from the Friday night casino / dinner event. This is some/most of the crowd of us that gathered in the hallway.)



Here's a link to 'em, instead.

Comments

[flybystardancer.livejournal.com]

*waves* It was great meeting you! :D Oh man, I look so serious in so many of those dinner pics. XD And yes, I was the one who staid behind to handle the dinner Saturday. I needed to stay to pay by CC anyways (only cash I had on me was dealer room money). And my camera and phone when with you so I came up and chatted with the rest of you after the HoF. :D

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

Yes! It was so much fun meeting everyone! And, I must disagree, there. You do look a bit stunned in one, yes, but the others are all fine! (And you've got nothing on autumnconstance's "serial killer" stare.)

Oh, good! I am glad I remembered that correctly (it turns out that I am better at remembering faces with internet handles than I am with "real" names). Seriously, thank you so much for doing that, even if it did turn out to be unnecessary!

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

These are awesome! So many fun times. And your report is super detailed and reminded me of stuff I forgot.

That Tracks quote is the best on ever!

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed! (It is kind of terrifying how quickly we can forget things, isn't it? I had a little notebook to put notes in, so I cheated a bit, but I know there's a bunch of stuff that didn't even make it into that.)

[autumnconstance.livejournal.com]

God. I look like a serial killer. XDD

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you could convince people you had a bloody knife or something hidden under the table in that one picture... XD;

[autumnconstance.livejournal.com]

*chin tap* Great idea actually. >8D

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

oh, dear. I've done it now, haven't I... o_o;

[autumnconstance.livejournal.com]

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOGLE

I. WANT. IT. NOW. *___*

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

N-not my Moogle!

I need him to tend my plants and keep my Mog House in working order!


You can have your own identical one, though, how's that?

[autumnconstance.livejournal.com]

*rubs chin* Maybe...

[dragondancer515.livejournal.com]

AWESOME PICS AND COMMENTARY! Like Femme, reminded me of things I'd forgotten!

It was SO GREAT to meet you and everyone and thank you SO FREAKING MUCH for letting me crash in your room Saturday! None of Sunday would have been possible otherwise!

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

I am glad you enjoyed my massive words-and-pictures spam!

And I am also glad we had a space for you! Sunday was so awesome, it would not have been right for you to have to miss it! D:

[tainry.livejournal.com]

Heeee! I should memory your report instead of trying to write my own at this point. ;D
<3

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

XD Surely you must've got up to something I wasn't able to write ramblings about!