I've just returned from another BotCon. It was a blast, to put it mildly and I'm still smiling--albeit a smidge sadly--remembering all that I've done. However, the one thing I didn't do was buy a lot of toys, which seems a little strange. After all, this is a Transformers convention; shouldn't toy-buying be at the top of the "to do" list?
In my case, it's not about the toys.
In the years I've gone to the convention, it's become less about the toys I may buy and more about the people I see. I've made friends at BotCon, life-long friends who have stuck with me through thick and thin. Sure, I buy some toys while I'm there--the moment I see a Bumblebee I'm reaching for my wallet--but I'm there because of my friends. That, to me, is the heart and soul of the convention.
I'll post a proper report in the next few days. We had wi-fi trouble at our hotel which is why I couldn't blog. But rest assured, I will post my report as soon as I can. As for now, I'm counting down the days until the next BotCon.
To my Transfan friends: It's been a blast. I can't wait to see you next year.
--Weasel
Showing posts with label BotCon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BotCon. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Not Long
My suitcase is packed. My new shoes are laced and ready. And we have less than a week until we pack the car.
BotCon, here I come.
--Weasel, "Yep, I seriously need this."
BotCon, here I come.
--Weasel, "Yep, I seriously need this."
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Things I Learned at BotCon Part 1
-People in Texas have no clue how to drive.
-Cross country roadtrips are a lot of fun.
-No matter where you go, there you are. And so is the local Walmart.
-There is no sleeping during a convention. Eating is optional, too.
-Baseball players can be tempermental. Just ask the pipes that run near the dugout in the Rangers' ballpark.
-Cowby Stadium is freaking huge.
-The best way to make a new friend is to crack a joke.
-The best way to greet an old friend is with a hug.
-Manischewitz tastes a lot better than I remember. Also...
-I can't hold my alcohol well. Total lightweight over here!
-The book depository still exists and it has a museum. I didn't go in, as the entire building had an aura of heartbreak around it. I'm not kidding. I simply walked near that building and could feel an awful wave of sadness washing over me.
-Action Figure Therapy is completely screwed up yet utterly hilarious. You are warned: it's also very NSFW!
-By the time you have your route to and from the 'Con memorized, it's time to go back home.
-Garry Chalk has seen some of his former Stargate SG-1 castmates at conventions.
-David Kaye wished that the Brewers had gone farther in the series last year, as he hates the Cardinals. David Kaye is basically awesome.
-Peter Cullen has a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve at BotCon.
-If you're not careful, sitting in on Mr. Cullen's panel can cause watering of the eyes. I teared up quite a few times; not a joke.
-Dan Gilvezan is quite the smart aleck. That is one of the many and sundry reasons that he is freaking amazingly awesome.
-Buster Jones is quite the snazzy dresser, not to mention a very sweet soul.
-When I'm hungry, I can pack away cheesecake like there's no tomorrow.
-I am a complete failure at building an action figure, but I love cleaning up the mess that's left behind. I am basically very odd.
-In the 80s, Dan Gilvezan used to buy Bumblebees and give them to kids. He now wishes he had kept at least one of them. I wish I had been one of those lucky kids getting a Bumblebee from Bumblebee...!
-Bingo is a lot of fun. More so than gambling.
-The best conversations happen in the Dealer Room or the Autograph Line.
-All a hotel really needs is a decent bed and wi-fi and I'm happy.
-The Convention is life. No exceptions.
-It's always over too soon.
-Next year can't come soon enough.
-Washing post-convention laundry is depressing.
-But packing for the next con is tons of fun.
And lastly,
-No matter what happens, I'll be there next year. Believe it.
-Cross country roadtrips are a lot of fun.
-No matter where you go, there you are. And so is the local Walmart.
-There is no sleeping during a convention. Eating is optional, too.
-Baseball players can be tempermental. Just ask the pipes that run near the dugout in the Rangers' ballpark.
-Cowby Stadium is freaking huge.
-The best way to make a new friend is to crack a joke.
-The best way to greet an old friend is with a hug.
-Manischewitz tastes a lot better than I remember. Also...
-I can't hold my alcohol well. Total lightweight over here!
-The book depository still exists and it has a museum. I didn't go in, as the entire building had an aura of heartbreak around it. I'm not kidding. I simply walked near that building and could feel an awful wave of sadness washing over me.
-Action Figure Therapy is completely screwed up yet utterly hilarious. You are warned: it's also very NSFW!
-By the time you have your route to and from the 'Con memorized, it's time to go back home.
-Garry Chalk has seen some of his former Stargate SG-1 castmates at conventions.
-David Kaye wished that the Brewers had gone farther in the series last year, as he hates the Cardinals. David Kaye is basically awesome.
-Peter Cullen has a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve at BotCon.
-If you're not careful, sitting in on Mr. Cullen's panel can cause watering of the eyes. I teared up quite a few times; not a joke.
-Dan Gilvezan is quite the smart aleck. That is one of the many and sundry reasons that he is freaking amazingly awesome.
-Buster Jones is quite the snazzy dresser, not to mention a very sweet soul.
-When I'm hungry, I can pack away cheesecake like there's no tomorrow.
-I am a complete failure at building an action figure, but I love cleaning up the mess that's left behind. I am basically very odd.
-In the 80s, Dan Gilvezan used to buy Bumblebees and give them to kids. He now wishes he had kept at least one of them. I wish I had been one of those lucky kids getting a Bumblebee from Bumblebee...!
-Bingo is a lot of fun. More so than gambling.
-The best conversations happen in the Dealer Room or the Autograph Line.
-All a hotel really needs is a decent bed and wi-fi and I'm happy.
-The Convention is life. No exceptions.
-It's always over too soon.
-Next year can't come soon enough.
-Washing post-convention laundry is depressing.
-But packing for the next con is tons of fun.
And lastly,
-No matter what happens, I'll be there next year. Believe it.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Convention Laundry
Current song stuck in my head: I'll Be Over You by Toto
My last load of laundry is washing: it's a load of whites. Unlike last year, I'm actually doing the laundry well in advance. Once it's done, it'll be packed and will stay in the suitcase, ready for the next convention.
It's hard to believe that the convention is over. I'm heading back to work tomorrow, which will be a huge shock.
Getting back to the real world sucks. I hate it, honestly. But what keeps me going? The fact that next year, there will be another BotCon.
It's that fact that keeps me from losing what little sanity I have left, that keeps me going through the long dark winter days and helps me keep my temper when I'm dealing with the rude and irrational holiday shoppers every year in December. It may sound crazy, but BotCon is the tonic that soothes my nerves and gives me a chance to recharge. It'll be a long wait until next year's convention, but it'll be well worth it.
See you next year.
--Weasel
My last load of laundry is washing: it's a load of whites. Unlike last year, I'm actually doing the laundry well in advance. Once it's done, it'll be packed and will stay in the suitcase, ready for the next convention.
It's hard to believe that the convention is over. I'm heading back to work tomorrow, which will be a huge shock.
Getting back to the real world sucks. I hate it, honestly. But what keeps me going? The fact that next year, there will be another BotCon.
It's that fact that keeps me from losing what little sanity I have left, that keeps me going through the long dark winter days and helps me keep my temper when I'm dealing with the rude and irrational holiday shoppers every year in December. It may sound crazy, but BotCon is the tonic that soothes my nerves and gives me a chance to recharge. It'll be a long wait until next year's convention, but it'll be well worth it.
See you next year.
--Weasel
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The BotCon 2012 Update Part 3
Current song stuck in my head: The Humbling River by Puscifer.
So today is Sunday, which means the 'Con is over. Am I sad? Yes. But it isn't as bad as it has been in previous years. I'll get to that later. Right now, it's time to sum things up.
April 28, 2012 Saturday
We got up and headed out at a time that we thought was early enough to beat some of the 'Con traffic, but it appears we were wrong. When we got to the parking lot at the Hyatt, the attendants were placing a large 'Lot Full' sign at the entrance. Thankfully, we were able to scoot in and park.
Prime, DA and I headed to the panel room to take in the first panel of the day: Dan Gilvezan and Buster Jones. You know damn well there was no way I was missing a panel with Dan. He’s just too awesome to miss.
It was a great panel and a lot of fun. Dan was hilarious as always and Buster was a good sport about everything. I think Buster was a little surprised at how much we as fans love him and his work. So if you missed the panel, you really missed out.
After that, I hit the club store to buy another BotCon convention comic and hit the line for the noon autographs. That session was for Dan, Buster and Simon Furman. Now, I’d already gotten Mr. Furman’s signature on a pair of comic books but I had a third that needed to be signed and I also wanted a sig from him along with Buster and Dan on my extra Con program. I think that may be a bit of a tradition now: grab an extra program, get a whole slagload of sigs on the cover. Hey, it’s easy to carry and isn’t expensive so why not? (^.^)
I got autographs from all three: Simon was gracious as always and Dan was just a huge sweetheart. I mean that. He is perhaps the sweetest, most charming and funniest guy you will ever meet. A true class act. As to how he puts up with crazy fangirls like me, I can’t even begin to fathom, but he does and I appreciate that. Buster was also wonderful: I thanked him for his work on Transformers as well as that on The Real Ghostbusters. He said he remembered his work on Ghostbusters and thanked me for my kindness. He was truly sweet.
After the autographs, I went back to the panel room and sat in for the Transformers Club roundtable and the Hasbro panel. Epic reveals in each, but they’re all over the net by now so there’s no point in mentioning them. Once those two panels were finished, Prime, DA and I stuck around for one of the most popular guest panels at BotCon:
Peter Cullen.
Before you ask, yes, I have met him and he is amazing. When he greeted us in the panel room, the man nearly brought me to tears: as he looked at the crowd, he said he saw so many familiar faces and we were one. We were family.
I admit it, my eyes were misting over at that point. To hear him, the voice of Optimus Prime, proclaim us as family…all I can say about it is ‘wow’. It’s truly overwhelming.
Once Mr. Cullen’s panel drew to a close, the three of us got ready for the Cocktail Reception, Dinner, Hall of Fame Ceremony and Casino night. Prime and I didn’t hit the alcohol all that much and neither one of us did so well at gambling (well, I stuck to bingo) but that wasn’t the biggest surprise of the night. No, the big surprise of the night was the fan’s choice Hall of Fame inductee. The choices were Arcee, Sky-Byte, Beast Wars Megatron, Rodimus and Wheeljack. The winner?
Wheeljack. I was more than a little surprised.
After the festivities were over (and DA, Prime and myself got tired of looking at scantily dressed girls attending a dance), we headed back to the hotel and crashed.
April 30, 2012 Sunday
The crowds weren’t as thick today; it was as if the Con’s ending was hovering like some vast, predatory bird on the fringes of the day. The three of us didn’t have to deal with the parking issue today and the lot didn’t seem quite as full. After parking, we headed to the panel rooms for the live script reading of Bee in the City 2.
If you missed it, you may be in luck—Pete Sinclair has said that it will be posted to YouTube. When it is, I will link it as you have to watch it to enjoy it. But it was a hoot!
Once that was done, I dashed to the Dealer Room to get the autographs of David Kaye and Garry Chalk. But we also had Abby Collins there as well and I got her signature too.
When I got out of the line for that, I loitered around a bit and waited for the last autograph session, another one with Dan Gilvezan and Buster Jones. You know how you’re at a function and you see that one person at the head of the line and you kinda hate them a little? Yeah, I was that person! I was first in line for that autograph session! I got Dan to sign my name badge and had him sign an ornament for a friend of mine who was volunteering at the show. (Hey, I owed her big time!) I also got Buster to sign it too. Happy? Oh yeah, I was.
I caught up with DA afterward and we talked; eventually we ran into Prime and we made our way to the Activision booth to see a demo of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. The game looks amazing, but pardon me a moment, for I must rant.
mini rant
Alright people, signs are posted for a damn good reason. I don’t care if you think your kid hanging off a statue isn’t going to hurt the statue--if it says don’t touch, then your kid shouldn’t be climbing on it. Seriously, do you let your kid play in the middle of the damned street thinking, "Hey, little junior dumbass is smart enough to get outta all them there cars’s way. Kid’ll be fine."? Sure he will…then the little dipshit gets hurt and YOU feel the need to sue someone because YOU are a fucking moron. If you are that damned stupid, do us all a favor and adopt a damn goldfish. Or better yet, raise a Chia plant. If either one of those get hurt or die because of your own idiocy, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. And for the love of Primus, remain a shut-in and stay out of the public eye. We’re tired of dealing with you.
/end mini rant
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, better.
Anyway, after that, we all got posters. A raffle or two later and the Dealer Room was shutting down, as was the Con. Prime, DA and I wandered around, found Asuza-san’s table and took a look. Asuza let me have a Bumblebee toy for free and we bought a pair of Japanese Happy Meal toys from him. Awesome!
After chatting with some of our friends, the three of us headed outside and to my shock there’s Dan Gilvezan just outside the hotel. So I took the opportunity to hug both him and his wonderful wife and tell them goodbye. He said we’d see each other again, as I’m not getting rid of him that easily. Oh, yeah, huge grin on my face!
We got back to the hotel, chatted and around 7:15, took DA to the airport. We said our farewells, I hugged him good-bye and it looked as though some tears may fall. Well, until Prime yelled, "Stop crying!" We all had a good laugh at that one.
I’ve had dinner and now I’m going to bed. Yeah, I am sad that the Con is over, but not as badly as I have been in past years. As of right now, I’m wondering where our next reunion will be held. I can’t wait to see the rest of the family again.
--Weasel
So today is Sunday, which means the 'Con is over. Am I sad? Yes. But it isn't as bad as it has been in previous years. I'll get to that later. Right now, it's time to sum things up.
April 28, 2012 Saturday
We got up and headed out at a time that we thought was early enough to beat some of the 'Con traffic, but it appears we were wrong. When we got to the parking lot at the Hyatt, the attendants were placing a large 'Lot Full' sign at the entrance. Thankfully, we were able to scoot in and park.
Prime, DA and I headed to the panel room to take in the first panel of the day: Dan Gilvezan and Buster Jones. You know damn well there was no way I was missing a panel with Dan. He’s just too awesome to miss.
It was a great panel and a lot of fun. Dan was hilarious as always and Buster was a good sport about everything. I think Buster was a little surprised at how much we as fans love him and his work. So if you missed the panel, you really missed out.
After that, I hit the club store to buy another BotCon convention comic and hit the line for the noon autographs. That session was for Dan, Buster and Simon Furman. Now, I’d already gotten Mr. Furman’s signature on a pair of comic books but I had a third that needed to be signed and I also wanted a sig from him along with Buster and Dan on my extra Con program. I think that may be a bit of a tradition now: grab an extra program, get a whole slagload of sigs on the cover. Hey, it’s easy to carry and isn’t expensive so why not? (^.^)
I got autographs from all three: Simon was gracious as always and Dan was just a huge sweetheart. I mean that. He is perhaps the sweetest, most charming and funniest guy you will ever meet. A true class act. As to how he puts up with crazy fangirls like me, I can’t even begin to fathom, but he does and I appreciate that. Buster was also wonderful: I thanked him for his work on Transformers as well as that on The Real Ghostbusters. He said he remembered his work on Ghostbusters and thanked me for my kindness. He was truly sweet.
After the autographs, I went back to the panel room and sat in for the Transformers Club roundtable and the Hasbro panel. Epic reveals in each, but they’re all over the net by now so there’s no point in mentioning them. Once those two panels were finished, Prime, DA and I stuck around for one of the most popular guest panels at BotCon:
Peter Cullen.
Before you ask, yes, I have met him and he is amazing. When he greeted us in the panel room, the man nearly brought me to tears: as he looked at the crowd, he said he saw so many familiar faces and we were one. We were family.
I admit it, my eyes were misting over at that point. To hear him, the voice of Optimus Prime, proclaim us as family…all I can say about it is ‘wow’. It’s truly overwhelming.
Once Mr. Cullen’s panel drew to a close, the three of us got ready for the Cocktail Reception, Dinner, Hall of Fame Ceremony and Casino night. Prime and I didn’t hit the alcohol all that much and neither one of us did so well at gambling (well, I stuck to bingo) but that wasn’t the biggest surprise of the night. No, the big surprise of the night was the fan’s choice Hall of Fame inductee. The choices were Arcee, Sky-Byte, Beast Wars Megatron, Rodimus and Wheeljack. The winner?
Wheeljack. I was more than a little surprised.
After the festivities were over (and DA, Prime and myself got tired of looking at scantily dressed girls attending a dance), we headed back to the hotel and crashed.
April 30, 2012 Sunday
The crowds weren’t as thick today; it was as if the Con’s ending was hovering like some vast, predatory bird on the fringes of the day. The three of us didn’t have to deal with the parking issue today and the lot didn’t seem quite as full. After parking, we headed to the panel rooms for the live script reading of Bee in the City 2.
If you missed it, you may be in luck—Pete Sinclair has said that it will be posted to YouTube. When it is, I will link it as you have to watch it to enjoy it. But it was a hoot!
Once that was done, I dashed to the Dealer Room to get the autographs of David Kaye and Garry Chalk. But we also had Abby Collins there as well and I got her signature too.
When I got out of the line for that, I loitered around a bit and waited for the last autograph session, another one with Dan Gilvezan and Buster Jones. You know how you’re at a function and you see that one person at the head of the line and you kinda hate them a little? Yeah, I was that person! I was first in line for that autograph session! I got Dan to sign my name badge and had him sign an ornament for a friend of mine who was volunteering at the show. (Hey, I owed her big time!) I also got Buster to sign it too. Happy? Oh yeah, I was.
I caught up with DA afterward and we talked; eventually we ran into Prime and we made our way to the Activision booth to see a demo of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. The game looks amazing, but pardon me a moment, for I must rant.
mini rant
Alright people, signs are posted for a damn good reason. I don’t care if you think your kid hanging off a statue isn’t going to hurt the statue--if it says don’t touch, then your kid shouldn’t be climbing on it. Seriously, do you let your kid play in the middle of the damned street thinking, "Hey, little junior dumbass is smart enough to get outta all them there cars’s way. Kid’ll be fine."? Sure he will…then the little dipshit gets hurt and YOU feel the need to sue someone because YOU are a fucking moron. If you are that damned stupid, do us all a favor and adopt a damn goldfish. Or better yet, raise a Chia plant. If either one of those get hurt or die because of your own idiocy, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. And for the love of Primus, remain a shut-in and stay out of the public eye. We’re tired of dealing with you.
/end mini rant
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, better.
Anyway, after that, we all got posters. A raffle or two later and the Dealer Room was shutting down, as was the Con. Prime, DA and I wandered around, found Asuza-san’s table and took a look. Asuza let me have a Bumblebee toy for free and we bought a pair of Japanese Happy Meal toys from him. Awesome!
After chatting with some of our friends, the three of us headed outside and to my shock there’s Dan Gilvezan just outside the hotel. So I took the opportunity to hug both him and his wonderful wife and tell them goodbye. He said we’d see each other again, as I’m not getting rid of him that easily. Oh, yeah, huge grin on my face!
We got back to the hotel, chatted and around 7:15, took DA to the airport. We said our farewells, I hugged him good-bye and it looked as though some tears may fall. Well, until Prime yelled, "Stop crying!" We all had a good laugh at that one.
I’ve had dinner and now I’m going to bed. Yeah, I am sad that the Con is over, but not as badly as I have been in past years. As of right now, I’m wondering where our next reunion will be held. I can’t wait to see the rest of the family again.
--Weasel
Saturday, April 28, 2012
The BotCon 2012 Update Part 2
So here we are again, with a second day of action at BotCon 2012!
Okay, we got up at 7:30 or so, got dressed and ready and were out the hotel by 9:20. After fueling up, we got to the Hyatt and hit the MSTF panel. Although we were only able to catch the end of the panel, it was still pretty fun. Afterwards, we stayed for the Transformers Filmfest, which had some pretty good entries. We all voted and in the end, the winning entry was one called "Starting Them Young". It was super-cute, trust me. After that, I decided to go ahead and head to the Autograph line. Prime thought I was slightly cracked, but I thought it was a good idea.
Turned out I was right. The line for the Autograph session was combined with the line for the private Dealer Room experience. By the time I got there, it was pretty blasted long. But I hung out, DA dropped by bearing Starbucks (Mocha Frappuccino!) and we chatted while watching bits and pieces of Transformers: Dark of the Moon on his iPad. Prime caught up to us and the fun began a little bit later: the doors to the Dealer Room were opened!
Prime completed our door prize forms and I went directly to the Autograph line. It wasn't a long wait and I got two comics signed by Simon Furman. I didn't get Garry Chalk or David Kaye's autographs yet, but there's still time. Afterwards, I wandered the Dealer room and spotted a table were none other than Dan Gilvezan was seated; he was selling signed copies of his book Bumblebee and Me. Did I buy one? You bet! Did I chat with him? Better believe it! Did I giggle like a crazed fan girl? Well, it's me. Of course I did! XD
After that, I walked around the Dealer room with Prime and we bought little plastic robots and other awesome things. So much fun it hurt. But at five o'clock, the Dealer room closed so Prime, DA, Stogie and I headed out, met up with Shawn and spent the rest of the evening hanging out until we broke it up around 10.
It's been fun. A lot of fun. And this is why I come to the convention every year--it's not about the toys, it's about the people. Seeing my friends and hanging out with them makes it worth it.
Don't expect an update tomorrow night. We have a truly long day ahead and I probably won't be getting back here until about 1 or so in the morning. There will be an update on Sunday, though.
Until then, this has been
--Weasel, signing off for now.
Okay, we got up at 7:30 or so, got dressed and ready and were out the hotel by 9:20. After fueling up, we got to the Hyatt and hit the MSTF panel. Although we were only able to catch the end of the panel, it was still pretty fun. Afterwards, we stayed for the Transformers Filmfest, which had some pretty good entries. We all voted and in the end, the winning entry was one called "Starting Them Young". It was super-cute, trust me. After that, I decided to go ahead and head to the Autograph line. Prime thought I was slightly cracked, but I thought it was a good idea.
Turned out I was right. The line for the Autograph session was combined with the line for the private Dealer Room experience. By the time I got there, it was pretty blasted long. But I hung out, DA dropped by bearing Starbucks (Mocha Frappuccino!) and we chatted while watching bits and pieces of Transformers: Dark of the Moon on his iPad. Prime caught up to us and the fun began a little bit later: the doors to the Dealer Room were opened!
Prime completed our door prize forms and I went directly to the Autograph line. It wasn't a long wait and I got two comics signed by Simon Furman. I didn't get Garry Chalk or David Kaye's autographs yet, but there's still time. Afterwards, I wandered the Dealer room and spotted a table were none other than Dan Gilvezan was seated; he was selling signed copies of his book Bumblebee and Me. Did I buy one? You bet! Did I chat with him? Better believe it! Did I giggle like a crazed fan girl? Well, it's me. Of course I did! XD
After that, I walked around the Dealer room with Prime and we bought little plastic robots and other awesome things. So much fun it hurt. But at five o'clock, the Dealer room closed so Prime, DA, Stogie and I headed out, met up with Shawn and spent the rest of the evening hanging out until we broke it up around 10.
It's been fun. A lot of fun. And this is why I come to the convention every year--it's not about the toys, it's about the people. Seeing my friends and hanging out with them makes it worth it.
Don't expect an update tomorrow night. We have a truly long day ahead and I probably won't be getting back here until about 1 or so in the morning. There will be an update on Sunday, though.
Until then, this has been
--Weasel, signing off for now.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
The BotCon 2012 Update
(Bear with me, as I am completely exhausted. It's been a tiring few days. But it's also been loads of fun!)
I'm now currently in the great state of Texas, on vacation and ready to party at BotCon 2012. It's been quite an interesting few days, as you will see.
April 22, 2012 Sunday
Prime and I left a bit later than we would have liked; we had some last-minute packing (that I still unintentionally screwed up, in the end) and got a bit held up. But once we had that squared away, we loaded up Scamper and were on our way.
The drive itself was uneventful--we spent most of it listening to the Brewers game on 620 WTMJ-AM, the Brewers Radio Network flagship. They have a great signal, too. It wasn't until we were driving through the southern region of Illinois that the signal got bad enough to make us listen to something else, and by that time, we had already listened to the Crew lose to the Rockies (DAMMIT!) and heard Brewers Extra Innings in its entirety. Not fun, the losing part, but what are you going to do?
The rest of the trip again, was completely uneventful--although when we hit Saint Louis, the exit we took ran right next to Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals, whom I do not like. At all. But the rest of the drive through Missouri was pretty decent and we got to our halfway point--Eureka--without incident. Prime and I checked into our hotel, hit a Walmart for the heck of it then came back to our room, ate and after buying tickets to the Texas Rangers game in Arlington, crashed. All in all, not a bad first day for a two-day road trip.
April 23, 2012 Monday
Prime had decided the night before that if we really wanted to hit the Rangers game, we'd have to leave a bit early. So we were packed, out the door and checked out of the hotel by 7:25. We got sidetracked and had to stop at another Walmart to grab a few things (mainly the dry goods foods, which somehow I had ALSO forgotten; Prime, however, had veered off to toys and returned with a couple of new electronic Bumblebee greeting cards, the Transformers Bot Shots series 2 Super-Bot, Bumblebee, and a Transformers Prime Arcee, then found a Bumblebee T-shirt I didn't already have, on clearance--he certainly can work a store), then get back on the road proper.
This time the drive was a bit more difficult--when we hit Oklahoma we were stuck on a US highway and not an interstate. So we'd cruise along at decent speed, have to drop down to 35 or 40 miles per hour when coming upon a town, and then ramp back up once past the town line. Just kind of annoying. Once we arrived in Texas, we could actually use an interstate highway, but that may not have been such a great thing.
People in Texas drive like idiots. I mean that. If they don't try and sideswipe you while merging into traffic, they will try and tailgate you. Or worse. I have never seen such Primus-awful behavior before. So if you ever come down to Texas, do not drive if you can help it. I do not kid.
After going through the traffic from hell, Prime and I arrived at our hotel and tried to check-in. Notice how I said "tried".
We were left standing at the front desk for about twenty minutes. There was no one there. There was absolutely no one in the lobby. Prime was getting irritated, I was getting irritated, it was not a pretty situation in the least. But finally someone came up and checked us in. Prime then asked where the hotel's business center was located, as we had to print off the tickets to the Rangers game.
This hotel doesn't have one. The blasted website wasn't truthful, it would seem.
Thankfully, the man running the desk had a printer and printed them off for us, so we grabbed them and dove back into the wonderful world of Texas road apathy.
We finally got to the ballpark at Arlington, but between the accepted horrible ballpark day-of-event traffic jam and their parking situation, we didn't get to our seats until the fourth inning. Once we grabbed some food and found our section, we headed to our seats. I had no problem sitting down, while Prime ran into a snag.
Someone was sitting in his chair. So Prime asked the guy to move. Here's where it gets ridiculous: the guy refused. He didn't want to get up and wanted to stay sitting in Prime's seat. Prime pointed out that he had the ticket to that seat and the guy still wouldn't move. But Prime was persistent and finally got to sit down.
I'm still in shock over this little incident: we've had people at Miller Park sit in other seats, but when the occupant returns/arrives, they will get up and go to their assigned seat. How difficult is this for someone to grasp? News flash: it isn't. So, yes, by now I have figured that Texas may have an abnormally high population of impolite jerks.
As for the game, it certainly was different--this was an American League game so we had a Designated Hitter for both teams. Also, they'll sing "Deep In the Heart of Texas" between the fifth and sixth inning and have an Ozarka Water "Dot race". Um, Arlington? Milwaukee does it waaaaaaaay better. The Sausages in the Miller Park Sausage Race can actually run and not shuffle. Just sayin'.
As for the game, the stupid Yankees won. And Mariano Rivera got another save, which I had no desire to see. (Trevor Hoffman is the all-time saves leader in my book!)
Once the game was over, Prime and I headed back to Scamper, hit a gas station to refuel and came back to the hotel where we crashed. All in all, a pretty decent day.
April 24, 2012 Tuesday
I slept until 11:30, I was that exhausted. But once I was up, I ate breakfast while Prime worked around online a bit. Prime got up with our friends Shawn (he likes fried chicken) and Stogie, and we headed out to shoot the slag with them for a while. We got to the Hyatt, met Ravyn, hung out for a while and then headed up to the room set aside for the Customization Class to help set it all up. After we got everything ready, we hung out with Shawn for a little longer--I got a bit tipsy on some Manischewitz Shawn brought--then we all broke it up for the night and went to our respective hotel rooms.
April 25, 2012 Wednesday
Here's where Prime and I split ways, so to speak: he's help with the Customization Class this year; I had a tour to take. While Prime helped people put together their toy--Shattered Glass Longarm, or, with a little bit of custom part addition, Classics Shockwave--I was wandering through Rangers Ballpark and seeing the immense Cowboys Stadium. I tried not to go too overboard on the souvenirs, but I ended up spending $33 on pins! Four came from the Ballpark at Arlington: a Texas Rangers logo pin, a 40th anniversary pin, a Nolan Ryan pin and a series pin for the Yankees/Rangers games. At Cowboys Stadium, I simply grabbed a Cowboys logo pin, which was clearance priced for $2. Talk about fun.
When I got back to the Hyatt, Prime was still helping out with the class. It seems that things were going a bit slower than everyone had thought, so I hung around with Prime and tried to be helpful. Once 7PM rolled around, Prime suggested I head down to pick up our pre-registration items, so I headed downstairs, hung out and got in line.
The wait was longer than the pick up. Usually, the pre-reg pick up starts pretty late but this time it was ahead of schedule and I was done pretty quickly. Prime came downstairs alongside the other class staffers to chat with me and we saw Karl Hartman. We chatted, I hugged Karl and had fun, as always.
Once I had our stuff, we all headed back to the classroom, helped clean up and set up for tomorrow, then went out for a quick bite of dinner. While we were out, DA called and said he was on his way. He met up with us, I hugged him, and we all sat around talking and goofing off until midnight. But all good things come to an end, so we headed back to our rooms and turned in for the night.
April 26, 2012 Thursday (Today)
Since there was nothing on my schedule, I had a chance to actually sleep in again, which I did. I got up around 11:30, got dressed and called Prime about an hour or so later. Seems he was on a food run for the class staff, so I asked if he could pick me up and drag my tail to the hotel. Today was the first day of sales at the Club Store and I didn't want anything to sell out before Prime had finished with today's project. You don't want to recommend getting between Stogie and his food (he's not himself when he's hungry, and Snickers doesn't satisfy like everyone thinks it does), but I wore him down on it, so I was taken to the Hyatt. We met up with DA and I spent a long time chatting with him, blowing time until I would have to stand in line again.
At around 4PM, I ran upstairs to the classroom, got a list from Prime and the necessary cash, then went downstairs to get in line for the store. I made pretty good time and was the fourth person in the cash line so I thought that things would go off without a hitch tonight.
Not so.
About thirty minutes before the doors opened, I got to take a glance at the sales sheet. It seems that the sales of the Souvenir sets were limited to one per person. That was a problem, as we needed a second one of the sets for a friend in the UK. So I called Prime, told him about it and he said he'd be down to help. At around 5:55 he showed up, we chatted, he filled out my sheet and I tried to hunt down another order form to no avail. It didn't really matter, though. We didn't get into the store until around 6:25. Once inside, Prime got an order form and filled it out while we waited to be helped.
Getting the toys didn't take too long and we were done in about ten minutes. Once that was finished, we headed back to the classroom, I helped clean and pick up any useful items and we broke it up for the night.
Tomorrow the convention actually starts and I can barely wait. I'll be getting autographs, buying toys, acting like a fool, hanging with my friends, you name it. It'll be great, as always. So until tomorrow's post, good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night!
--Weasel, having too much fun as it is
I'm now currently in the great state of Texas, on vacation and ready to party at BotCon 2012. It's been quite an interesting few days, as you will see.
April 22, 2012 Sunday
Prime and I left a bit later than we would have liked; we had some last-minute packing (that I still unintentionally screwed up, in the end) and got a bit held up. But once we had that squared away, we loaded up Scamper and were on our way.
The drive itself was uneventful--we spent most of it listening to the Brewers game on 620 WTMJ-AM, the Brewers Radio Network flagship. They have a great signal, too. It wasn't until we were driving through the southern region of Illinois that the signal got bad enough to make us listen to something else, and by that time, we had already listened to the Crew lose to the Rockies (DAMMIT!) and heard Brewers Extra Innings in its entirety. Not fun, the losing part, but what are you going to do?
The rest of the trip again, was completely uneventful--although when we hit Saint Louis, the exit we took ran right next to Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals, whom I do not like. At all. But the rest of the drive through Missouri was pretty decent and we got to our halfway point--Eureka--without incident. Prime and I checked into our hotel, hit a Walmart for the heck of it then came back to our room, ate and after buying tickets to the Texas Rangers game in Arlington, crashed. All in all, not a bad first day for a two-day road trip.
April 23, 2012 Monday
Prime had decided the night before that if we really wanted to hit the Rangers game, we'd have to leave a bit early. So we were packed, out the door and checked out of the hotel by 7:25. We got sidetracked and had to stop at another Walmart to grab a few things (mainly the dry goods foods, which somehow I had ALSO forgotten; Prime, however, had veered off to toys and returned with a couple of new electronic Bumblebee greeting cards, the Transformers Bot Shots series 2 Super-Bot, Bumblebee, and a Transformers Prime Arcee, then found a Bumblebee T-shirt I didn't already have, on clearance--he certainly can work a store), then get back on the road proper.
This time the drive was a bit more difficult--when we hit Oklahoma we were stuck on a US highway and not an interstate. So we'd cruise along at decent speed, have to drop down to 35 or 40 miles per hour when coming upon a town, and then ramp back up once past the town line. Just kind of annoying. Once we arrived in Texas, we could actually use an interstate highway, but that may not have been such a great thing.
People in Texas drive like idiots. I mean that. If they don't try and sideswipe you while merging into traffic, they will try and tailgate you. Or worse. I have never seen such Primus-awful behavior before. So if you ever come down to Texas, do not drive if you can help it. I do not kid.
After going through the traffic from hell, Prime and I arrived at our hotel and tried to check-in. Notice how I said "tried".
We were left standing at the front desk for about twenty minutes. There was no one there. There was absolutely no one in the lobby. Prime was getting irritated, I was getting irritated, it was not a pretty situation in the least. But finally someone came up and checked us in. Prime then asked where the hotel's business center was located, as we had to print off the tickets to the Rangers game.
This hotel doesn't have one. The blasted website wasn't truthful, it would seem.
Thankfully, the man running the desk had a printer and printed them off for us, so we grabbed them and dove back into the wonderful world of Texas road apathy.
We finally got to the ballpark at Arlington, but between the accepted horrible ballpark day-of-event traffic jam and their parking situation, we didn't get to our seats until the fourth inning. Once we grabbed some food and found our section, we headed to our seats. I had no problem sitting down, while Prime ran into a snag.
Someone was sitting in his chair. So Prime asked the guy to move. Here's where it gets ridiculous: the guy refused. He didn't want to get up and wanted to stay sitting in Prime's seat. Prime pointed out that he had the ticket to that seat and the guy still wouldn't move. But Prime was persistent and finally got to sit down.
I'm still in shock over this little incident: we've had people at Miller Park sit in other seats, but when the occupant returns/arrives, they will get up and go to their assigned seat. How difficult is this for someone to grasp? News flash: it isn't. So, yes, by now I have figured that Texas may have an abnormally high population of impolite jerks.
As for the game, it certainly was different--this was an American League game so we had a Designated Hitter for both teams. Also, they'll sing "Deep In the Heart of Texas" between the fifth and sixth inning and have an Ozarka Water "Dot race". Um, Arlington? Milwaukee does it waaaaaaaay better. The Sausages in the Miller Park Sausage Race can actually run and not shuffle. Just sayin'.
As for the game, the stupid Yankees won. And Mariano Rivera got another save, which I had no desire to see. (Trevor Hoffman is the all-time saves leader in my book!)
Once the game was over, Prime and I headed back to Scamper, hit a gas station to refuel and came back to the hotel where we crashed. All in all, a pretty decent day.
April 24, 2012 Tuesday
I slept until 11:30, I was that exhausted. But once I was up, I ate breakfast while Prime worked around online a bit. Prime got up with our friends Shawn (he likes fried chicken) and Stogie, and we headed out to shoot the slag with them for a while. We got to the Hyatt, met Ravyn, hung out for a while and then headed up to the room set aside for the Customization Class to help set it all up. After we got everything ready, we hung out with Shawn for a little longer--I got a bit tipsy on some Manischewitz Shawn brought--then we all broke it up for the night and went to our respective hotel rooms.
April 25, 2012 Wednesday
Here's where Prime and I split ways, so to speak: he's help with the Customization Class this year; I had a tour to take. While Prime helped people put together their toy--Shattered Glass Longarm, or, with a little bit of custom part addition, Classics Shockwave--I was wandering through Rangers Ballpark and seeing the immense Cowboys Stadium. I tried not to go too overboard on the souvenirs, but I ended up spending $33 on pins! Four came from the Ballpark at Arlington: a Texas Rangers logo pin, a 40th anniversary pin, a Nolan Ryan pin and a series pin for the Yankees/Rangers games. At Cowboys Stadium, I simply grabbed a Cowboys logo pin, which was clearance priced for $2. Talk about fun.
When I got back to the Hyatt, Prime was still helping out with the class. It seems that things were going a bit slower than everyone had thought, so I hung around with Prime and tried to be helpful. Once 7PM rolled around, Prime suggested I head down to pick up our pre-registration items, so I headed downstairs, hung out and got in line.
The wait was longer than the pick up. Usually, the pre-reg pick up starts pretty late but this time it was ahead of schedule and I was done pretty quickly. Prime came downstairs alongside the other class staffers to chat with me and we saw Karl Hartman. We chatted, I hugged Karl and had fun, as always.
Once I had our stuff, we all headed back to the classroom, helped clean up and set up for tomorrow, then went out for a quick bite of dinner. While we were out, DA called and said he was on his way. He met up with us, I hugged him, and we all sat around talking and goofing off until midnight. But all good things come to an end, so we headed back to our rooms and turned in for the night.
April 26, 2012 Thursday (Today)
Since there was nothing on my schedule, I had a chance to actually sleep in again, which I did. I got up around 11:30, got dressed and called Prime about an hour or so later. Seems he was on a food run for the class staff, so I asked if he could pick me up and drag my tail to the hotel. Today was the first day of sales at the Club Store and I didn't want anything to sell out before Prime had finished with today's project. You don't want to recommend getting between Stogie and his food (he's not himself when he's hungry, and Snickers doesn't satisfy like everyone thinks it does), but I wore him down on it, so I was taken to the Hyatt. We met up with DA and I spent a long time chatting with him, blowing time until I would have to stand in line again.
At around 4PM, I ran upstairs to the classroom, got a list from Prime and the necessary cash, then went downstairs to get in line for the store. I made pretty good time and was the fourth person in the cash line so I thought that things would go off without a hitch tonight.
Not so.
About thirty minutes before the doors opened, I got to take a glance at the sales sheet. It seems that the sales of the Souvenir sets were limited to one per person. That was a problem, as we needed a second one of the sets for a friend in the UK. So I called Prime, told him about it and he said he'd be down to help. At around 5:55 he showed up, we chatted, he filled out my sheet and I tried to hunt down another order form to no avail. It didn't really matter, though. We didn't get into the store until around 6:25. Once inside, Prime got an order form and filled it out while we waited to be helped.
Getting the toys didn't take too long and we were done in about ten minutes. Once that was finished, we headed back to the classroom, I helped clean and pick up any useful items and we broke it up for the night.
Tomorrow the convention actually starts and I can barely wait. I'll be getting autographs, buying toys, acting like a fool, hanging with my friends, you name it. It'll be great, as always. So until tomorrow's post, good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night!
--Weasel, having too much fun as it is
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Epic YES!!
So guess who's coming back to BotCon? C'mon, take a guess!
Okay, give up? Dan! He's coming back! :insert girlish giggle here: I can't wait to get to Texas this April!
--Weasel, jumping up and down in joy.
Okay, give up? Dan! He's coming back! :insert girlish giggle here: I can't wait to get to Texas this April!
--Weasel, jumping up and down in joy.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Son of the Return of the Revenge of the Dark of the Random Thoughts
Been a while since I've done one of these guys; I may be a little rusty so bear with me.
Current song stuck in my head: In Between by Linkin Park
* The holidays are over. No more crowds. Now all we have to worry about is the Super Bowl. If Green Bay makes it, my store will be a ghost town.
* So the locale for BotCon 2012 was announced and we're going back to Texas. I can hear Prime booing and hissing in the background as I type this, but I seriously wanted to go back to California. It's nice there. Ah well, maybe next year.
* I'm still trying to Masuda Method myself a shiny Golett and I am failing massively. I've hatched 725 eggs and haven't seen my little Guardian. Yes, I have the name picked out for "him"; do not ask. Before you ask just what I'm doing with all the hatchlings, uh... I kinda don't keep them. I turn off the power so I'm not forced to release any of them. Yes, I'm a total wuss but I refuse to abandon something so cute! (I can't help it; the the little bugger is adorable.) Even worse? I'll have to restart the whole process again as I want a shiny Golurk and Guardian will not be evolving. Oh no, I'm completely not insane over here...
* We've had a grand total of maybe an inch and a half of snow this season. Either we're not going to get a whole lot, or we're going to get slammed with three blizzards in a freaking row in the middle of February. But no, no real white Christmas over here. Not awesome.
* On the 29th, Prime and I will be heading to Brewers on Deck. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. (Autographs and players and swag and all things baseball!)
* I have an extra day off this week. Seems the home office said we couldn't go over forty hours and our holiday pay counted as part of our scheduled time so I got myself a third day off. Not complaining about it, believe me.
* Prime, being the awesome wonderful guy he is, got me Bubble Power™ She-Ra® and Swiftwind™ for Christmas. I haven't squealed so much in a very long time. (The eight-year-old in me was very happy, trust me.)
* We have a Ninja blender in our kitchen now. So we can make smoothies and milkshakes and mixed drinks galore. Now I need to figure out just how to make a Mocha Frap like Starbucks and life will be officially awesome.
And that's about it. Tune in next time when I decide to root around the wrinkles of my brain stem and slap together more random crap like this. Until then, this has been...
--Weasel, "Over and out."
Current song stuck in my head: In Between by Linkin Park
* The holidays are over. No more crowds. Now all we have to worry about is the Super Bowl. If Green Bay makes it, my store will be a ghost town.
* So the locale for BotCon 2012 was announced and we're going back to Texas. I can hear Prime booing and hissing in the background as I type this, but I seriously wanted to go back to California. It's nice there. Ah well, maybe next year.
* I'm still trying to Masuda Method myself a shiny Golett and I am failing massively. I've hatched 725 eggs and haven't seen my little Guardian. Yes, I have the name picked out for "him"; do not ask. Before you ask just what I'm doing with all the hatchlings, uh... I kinda don't keep them. I turn off the power so I'm not forced to release any of them. Yes, I'm a total wuss but I refuse to abandon something so cute! (I can't help it; the the little bugger is adorable.) Even worse? I'll have to restart the whole process again as I want a shiny Golurk and Guardian will not be evolving. Oh no, I'm completely not insane over here...
* We've had a grand total of maybe an inch and a half of snow this season. Either we're not going to get a whole lot, or we're going to get slammed with three blizzards in a freaking row in the middle of February. But no, no real white Christmas over here. Not awesome.
* On the 29th, Prime and I will be heading to Brewers on Deck. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. (Autographs and players and swag and all things baseball!)
* I have an extra day off this week. Seems the home office said we couldn't go over forty hours and our holiday pay counted as part of our scheduled time so I got myself a third day off. Not complaining about it, believe me.
* Prime, being the awesome wonderful guy he is, got me Bubble Power™ She-Ra® and Swiftwind™ for Christmas. I haven't squealed so much in a very long time. (The eight-year-old in me was very happy, trust me.)
* We have a Ninja blender in our kitchen now. So we can make smoothies and milkshakes and mixed drinks galore. Now I need to figure out just how to make a Mocha Frap like Starbucks and life will be officially awesome.
And that's about it. Tune in next time when I decide to root around the wrinkles of my brain stem and slap together more random crap like this. Until then, this has been...
--Weasel, "Over and out."
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
COMMUNICATIONS INTERRUPT: TOO MANY DOG TAGS
WingTacker (thank Primus for the Multiforce; twelve W names with which I can run) has obviously been slacking off here. Understandable, I suppose; still filling notebooks with that horrendously illegible scrawl of hers (won't just buy the cheapest ones, either), spending moronic amounts of time looking for GTS Pokémon trades (it IS moronic when it's happening well after midnight and the alarm clock's gonna sound around 0700), mooning over the Brewers and the latest player to jump off the train (Jerry Hairston just signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers). Y'know. The usual.
Black Friday passed uneventfully for both of us. The 'open' times for stores poking into Thanksgiving late-night meant that all the nigh-solipsistic assholes, the nutbars who do all their holiday shopping then, and the people who were just looking for one or two deals and preferred not to risk missing out on 'em...they were pretty much all gone by 0300 Friday. WingTacker hadda be in at 0645. Fairly quiet shift. Me--I am a charter member of the third group listed above. No dues to pay this year, though--the entirety of Transformers offerings, this year, consisted of old stock, taped together and stickered with a fluorescent yellow SPECIAL VALUE starburst label. Shipped like that from Hasbro--I've seen the case boxes. Generally gotta put a little more effort into the repackaging to get me to bite.
So I stayed home and bought a Ninja. Hasn't arrived yet...
Took WingTacker to see Pokémon the Movie WHITE: VICTINI AND ZEKROM on Sunday. Limited engagements, bleh. Four whole theaters in Wisconsin showing it (once a day for two days), all in the Milwaukee area.
Whatever. I can drive that in my sleep BUT DIDN'T BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE IRRESPONSIBLE. Yomped around the area a little bit, afterward, hoping to find a Transformer that's been sighted in the state and is being snapped up about as quickly as its predecessor.
And BotCon just horked up the dates and location for the 2012 convention. Hopefully, Dallas in late April will be nothing like Dallas (Frisco, whatever, blah frickin' blah) in late September 2005. I'm missing DairyCon for the first time ever for this. Kinda sucks, but then, some of the behind-the-scenes drama is making me feel...somewhat less bad about it.
+++PRIME OUT+++C'EST LA VIE+++
Black Friday passed uneventfully for both of us. The 'open' times for stores poking into Thanksgiving late-night meant that all the nigh-solipsistic assholes, the nutbars who do all their holiday shopping then, and the people who were just looking for one or two deals and preferred not to risk missing out on 'em...they were pretty much all gone by 0300 Friday. WingTacker hadda be in at 0645. Fairly quiet shift. Me--I am a charter member of the third group listed above. No dues to pay this year, though--the entirety of Transformers offerings, this year, consisted of old stock, taped together and stickered with a fluorescent yellow SPECIAL VALUE starburst label. Shipped like that from Hasbro--I've seen the case boxes. Generally gotta put a little more effort into the repackaging to get me to bite.
So I stayed home and bought a Ninja. Hasn't arrived yet...
Took WingTacker to see Pokémon the Movie WHITE: VICTINI AND ZEKROM on Sunday. Limited engagements, bleh. Four whole theaters in Wisconsin showing it (once a day for two days), all in the Milwaukee area.
Whatever. I can drive that in my sleep BUT DIDN'T BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE IRRESPONSIBLE. Yomped around the area a little bit, afterward, hoping to find a Transformer that's been sighted in the state and is being snapped up about as quickly as its predecessor.
And BotCon just horked up the dates and location for the 2012 convention. Hopefully, Dallas in late April will be nothing like Dallas (Frisco, whatever, blah frickin' blah) in late September 2005. I'm missing DairyCon for the first time ever for this. Kinda sucks, but then, some of the behind-the-scenes drama is making me feel...somewhat less bad about it.
+++PRIME OUT+++C'EST LA VIE+++
Friday, August 12, 2011
Friday Photoblog: "Closin' It Down" Edition
A pair of BotCon staffers, getting ready to shut things down.
(I always hate that moment.)
Friday, July 29, 2011
Friday Photoblog: "Friendly and Helpful" Edition
Pete and Shawn, answering questions at the info booth.(One of these years, I'm gonna have to volunteer...)
Friday, July 22, 2011
Friday Photoblog: "So Very Theatrical" Edition
The entrance to the Paramount theatre where we saw a bit of footage from Revenge of the Fallen.(Devastator still scares the slag out of me to this day...)
Friday, July 15, 2011
Friday Photoblog: "Party Down" Edition
A shot of the Paramount Party, from BotCon 2009.(First time I've ever been on a movie lot. Way too awesome for words.)
Friday, July 01, 2011
Friday Photoblog: "Dropping a Log" Edition
The Lincoln Log display at Hasbro. From BotCon 2007.(It's been years since I've seen any of these...)
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Leaving on a Jetfire Plane
As I begin this post, I’m still in LAX, watching night fall. It is now exactly 8:10PM and I’ve been here at the airport for nearly six hours. Our flight won’t leave until 11:15, so I’m typing this out to keep the boredom at bay and to keep myself awake. I’m a little surprised, though. Usually, I’m so exhausted after the convention that I cannot keep my eyes open. But I’m fine right now. As to how I’ll be when we finally land in Milwaukee may be a different story entirely.
If the alarm went off this morning in our hotel room I never heard it; I was simply too tired to respond. But at around quarter to nine, I heard Prime stirring about and he told me to get up. It took a lot of strength to sit up in bed, push away the warm, cozy blankets, tuck Slumblebee into a nice safe bag pocket and stumble to the bathroom but I somehow managed to do so.
It didn’t take me long to get myself dressed and ready but by the time I was done, Prime was gone. He had taken a load of our BotCon loot to the local post office and was shipping it. In his absence I finished packing our luggage.
Since I had done a lot of packing the night before, it didn’t take me terribly long. All I really had to do was put my PJs away, get the rest of Prime’s clothes stowed in his suitcase, pack the toiletries and electronics, and clear out the mini-fridge. I was done in the matter of a half an hour or so and had just enough time to make one quick blog post before we would take down Alexa-1. After I had typed out my quickie, the phone rang. It was Prime.
He was running a bit behind and needed me to change the pick-up time for our SuperShuttle van. I told him I would, so I hit my email, loaded up the message, got our confirmation number and made the call.
I’ve often said I don’t have the world’s best luck with this sort of thing. Every single time I try to do something like this, it blows the slag up in my face. Today was no exception. The agent I got was slightly incompetent; she had no idea what the slag she was doing and said we were locked into our original pick-up time. Since I made the call on my cell and it was damn near out of minutes, I had to relent. Thankfully, Prime had made his first return from the Post Office and so said that he’d take care of it.
What took me nearly twenty minutes he had done in eight--six of which were spent on hold. He got someone who was competent, apparently.
Now that we had a bit more leeway, Prime took the second and last load of loot down to the post office and I checked us out of the hotel. After turning in our keycards, I hung around the hotel lobby and read the copies of USA Today and Time magazine that were there. When Prime finally returned, it was about ten ‘til one and I was slightly freaked out. I was a bit nervous that he may not have been able to make it on time, but Prime is in fact unbearably awesome, so I should have known better. He came bearing gifts: a footlong turkey and pepper jack sub from Subway and a pair of orange Fantas. We split the sub (his half had cilantro, and he is now slightly miffed that our local franchises don’t have it available; he’d get it ALL THE TIME if they did) and started drinking our sodas; at three minutes ‘til the hour our shuttle arrived.
Prime was greeted by the driver, who then took our bags and loaded us up. In the matter of a few minutes, we were on our way.
We picked up a few more passengers on our trip here, not including the three that were already in the shuttle. It was a full van by the time we were on the freeway. I’m surprised we even had any room to breathe. Other than that, the trip to the airport was uneventful, save for Prime nearly nodding off at a couple of points. (I do not blame him in the slightest; there were times that I felt like dozing off, too.) Once we got to the airport and got dropped off, we headed in to get our boarding passes printed out. Didn’t have to worry about checking in, as we did it electronically last night. We even got our seat assignments.
It took a bit to finally get to an Air Tran kiosk to print out the passes; some were being used, someone was trying to use one but failing and someone else was checking his bag and blocking another. The irritating thing is Prime and I were in line for that last kiosk, but some jackass cut around us and started using the thing as his fellow traveler was checking the last of his luggage. Yeah, thanks for that, by the way. We totally weren’t in slagging line for that kiosk. Jackwagon. After he was done, we got ours printed and headed to security.
LAX has really improved their security over the last couple of years. The last time Prime and I were here, we needed a bin for damn near every item in our possession: one for Alexa, one for Prime’s wallet, one for my wallet, etc. this time, we needed only two. That’s a vast improvement. We were done in a few minutes. It probably would have been slightly quicker if I hadn’t opted out of the body scanner, but I don’t want to risk getting some weird ass cancer later on in life.
After we went through security and got our stuff, we headed to a nearby Starbucks and got a pair of fraps and sandwiches. I got Mocha and a turkey and cheddar while Prime got Mocha Coconut and a chicken ciabatta sandwich.
Now, I know what you may be thinking: Didn’t you just eat, like, a couple of hours ago? Technically, yes. But we’ve both been running on empty for damn near the whole trip. Yesterday, all I had was a cheese Danish, a dish of chocolate gelato and some popcorn. That was it. This is the most food Prime and I have consumed within the span of five days. And don’t get me started on the lack of sleep either. But again, I digress.
I think DA may have created a couple of monsters. Prime was loving his frap while I was in heaven sipping mine. Mocha = Awesome. I don’t really do the coffee thing but I make the exception for Starbucks. A Starbucks frap always puts a huge smile on my face.
We ate, Prime read, and then Prime tried booting up Alexa-1 and surfing the net. As always, the free Wi-Fi at the airport refused to let us do anything web based, so I grabbed Lexi and started up a blog post. (It’s the monstrously long previous entry that you may have read.) Prime finished his book and while I was tapping away, he went to a nearby bookstore and bought two more. As you can imagine, Prime is a voracious reader. He’s already finished one and he’s started on the other. Man does love a good book.
At around 8:30 Prime made another food run; this time it was Burger King. He got a chicken Tendercrisp sandwich while I scarfed a bacon double cheeseburger. I don’t often eat a lot of meat but my body seems to be craving protein right now. Who the slag am I to argue? By that time it was getting dark. It’s been noisy here in the airport; each and every announcer for the various flights have been doing their best to scream each other down. The passengers aren’t nearly as loud as some of these people.
It’s 9:45 right now and we’ll be on our way in an hour and a half, give or take. I’m still not tired. Usually by this time I am completely slagged and simply can’t stay awake. I’m remarkably lucid right now. I must have gotten a nice chunk of sleep last night or the food is doing me some good. I had originally thought that I might spend most of my hours here at LAX languishing in a seat and fitfully dozing. But that hasn’t happened. Instead I’m sitting here, blogging about my evening. That’s a really nice change. It seems to be helping my mood quite a bit.
I also can’t help but be surprised at just how busy LAX is even at night. It’s completely dark and there are still a lot of people here. It’s noisy and busy and almost alien to me. I admit, I live a quiet life and I prefer to be home at this hour and not an airport. But I’m not really going to complain; this is the most traveling I’ve done in my lifetime. It does feel good to see a different area of the country and get just a little homesick.
I can’t wait to scratch the cat behind the ears, though.
10:05PM and the place is a zoo again; we have two different announcers calling for two different flights, while other passengers are disembarking from their aircraft and filing through the terminal. Some are chatting with their friends and family members while others are chatting on cellphones. Still others are simply striking up conversations with fellow travelers. It’s a noisy, chaotic affair, traveling.
And I’m starting to enjoy it immensely. Even though I’m apart from the chaos, simply sitting in my seat typing I’m enjoying this craziness. But after a few minutes, everything settled down again.
We boarded our plane at 10:30. Our flight was uneventful; Prime and I listened to MLB Radio on XM. I slept for most of the flight until I heard an ad on the radio proclaiming, "This game belongs to Trevor Hoffman!"
Seems they had interviewed him sometime back. Now I wish I had XM, just so I can listen to MLB Radio. XD
Our drive back was just as uneventful. When we got home, Prime and I simply crashed. I was exhausted, but never happier.
I’m slowly coming down off the high. In a few days time, I’ll be back at work but that’s okay. I have the memories, some of which I’ll be able to post here as photoblogs. And of course, there’s always next year.
--Weasel, headed back to the real world with a smile on her face
If the alarm went off this morning in our hotel room I never heard it; I was simply too tired to respond. But at around quarter to nine, I heard Prime stirring about and he told me to get up. It took a lot of strength to sit up in bed, push away the warm, cozy blankets, tuck Slumblebee into a nice safe bag pocket and stumble to the bathroom but I somehow managed to do so.
It didn’t take me long to get myself dressed and ready but by the time I was done, Prime was gone. He had taken a load of our BotCon loot to the local post office and was shipping it. In his absence I finished packing our luggage.
Since I had done a lot of packing the night before, it didn’t take me terribly long. All I really had to do was put my PJs away, get the rest of Prime’s clothes stowed in his suitcase, pack the toiletries and electronics, and clear out the mini-fridge. I was done in the matter of a half an hour or so and had just enough time to make one quick blog post before we would take down Alexa-1. After I had typed out my quickie, the phone rang. It was Prime.
He was running a bit behind and needed me to change the pick-up time for our SuperShuttle van. I told him I would, so I hit my email, loaded up the message, got our confirmation number and made the call.
I’ve often said I don’t have the world’s best luck with this sort of thing. Every single time I try to do something like this, it blows the slag up in my face. Today was no exception. The agent I got was slightly incompetent; she had no idea what the slag she was doing and said we were locked into our original pick-up time. Since I made the call on my cell and it was damn near out of minutes, I had to relent. Thankfully, Prime had made his first return from the Post Office and so said that he’d take care of it.
What took me nearly twenty minutes he had done in eight--six of which were spent on hold. He got someone who was competent, apparently.
Now that we had a bit more leeway, Prime took the second and last load of loot down to the post office and I checked us out of the hotel. After turning in our keycards, I hung around the hotel lobby and read the copies of USA Today and Time magazine that were there. When Prime finally returned, it was about ten ‘til one and I was slightly freaked out. I was a bit nervous that he may not have been able to make it on time, but Prime is in fact unbearably awesome, so I should have known better. He came bearing gifts: a footlong turkey and pepper jack sub from Subway and a pair of orange Fantas. We split the sub (his half had cilantro, and he is now slightly miffed that our local franchises don’t have it available; he’d get it ALL THE TIME if they did) and started drinking our sodas; at three minutes ‘til the hour our shuttle arrived.
Prime was greeted by the driver, who then took our bags and loaded us up. In the matter of a few minutes, we were on our way.
We picked up a few more passengers on our trip here, not including the three that were already in the shuttle. It was a full van by the time we were on the freeway. I’m surprised we even had any room to breathe. Other than that, the trip to the airport was uneventful, save for Prime nearly nodding off at a couple of points. (I do not blame him in the slightest; there were times that I felt like dozing off, too.) Once we got to the airport and got dropped off, we headed in to get our boarding passes printed out. Didn’t have to worry about checking in, as we did it electronically last night. We even got our seat assignments.
It took a bit to finally get to an Air Tran kiosk to print out the passes; some were being used, someone was trying to use one but failing and someone else was checking his bag and blocking another. The irritating thing is Prime and I were in line for that last kiosk, but some jackass cut around us and started using the thing as his fellow traveler was checking the last of his luggage. Yeah, thanks for that, by the way. We totally weren’t in slagging line for that kiosk. Jackwagon. After he was done, we got ours printed and headed to security.
LAX has really improved their security over the last couple of years. The last time Prime and I were here, we needed a bin for damn near every item in our possession: one for Alexa, one for Prime’s wallet, one for my wallet, etc. this time, we needed only two. That’s a vast improvement. We were done in a few minutes. It probably would have been slightly quicker if I hadn’t opted out of the body scanner, but I don’t want to risk getting some weird ass cancer later on in life.
After we went through security and got our stuff, we headed to a nearby Starbucks and got a pair of fraps and sandwiches. I got Mocha and a turkey and cheddar while Prime got Mocha Coconut and a chicken ciabatta sandwich.
Now, I know what you may be thinking: Didn’t you just eat, like, a couple of hours ago? Technically, yes. But we’ve both been running on empty for damn near the whole trip. Yesterday, all I had was a cheese Danish, a dish of chocolate gelato and some popcorn. That was it. This is the most food Prime and I have consumed within the span of five days. And don’t get me started on the lack of sleep either. But again, I digress.
I think DA may have created a couple of monsters. Prime was loving his frap while I was in heaven sipping mine. Mocha = Awesome. I don’t really do the coffee thing but I make the exception for Starbucks. A Starbucks frap always puts a huge smile on my face.
We ate, Prime read, and then Prime tried booting up Alexa-1 and surfing the net. As always, the free Wi-Fi at the airport refused to let us do anything web based, so I grabbed Lexi and started up a blog post. (It’s the monstrously long previous entry that you may have read.) Prime finished his book and while I was tapping away, he went to a nearby bookstore and bought two more. As you can imagine, Prime is a voracious reader. He’s already finished one and he’s started on the other. Man does love a good book.
At around 8:30 Prime made another food run; this time it was Burger King. He got a chicken Tendercrisp sandwich while I scarfed a bacon double cheeseburger. I don’t often eat a lot of meat but my body seems to be craving protein right now. Who the slag am I to argue? By that time it was getting dark. It’s been noisy here in the airport; each and every announcer for the various flights have been doing their best to scream each other down. The passengers aren’t nearly as loud as some of these people.
It’s 9:45 right now and we’ll be on our way in an hour and a half, give or take. I’m still not tired. Usually by this time I am completely slagged and simply can’t stay awake. I’m remarkably lucid right now. I must have gotten a nice chunk of sleep last night or the food is doing me some good. I had originally thought that I might spend most of my hours here at LAX languishing in a seat and fitfully dozing. But that hasn’t happened. Instead I’m sitting here, blogging about my evening. That’s a really nice change. It seems to be helping my mood quite a bit.
I also can’t help but be surprised at just how busy LAX is even at night. It’s completely dark and there are still a lot of people here. It’s noisy and busy and almost alien to me. I admit, I live a quiet life and I prefer to be home at this hour and not an airport. But I’m not really going to complain; this is the most traveling I’ve done in my lifetime. It does feel good to see a different area of the country and get just a little homesick.
I can’t wait to scratch the cat behind the ears, though.
10:05PM and the place is a zoo again; we have two different announcers calling for two different flights, while other passengers are disembarking from their aircraft and filing through the terminal. Some are chatting with their friends and family members while others are chatting on cellphones. Still others are simply striking up conversations with fellow travelers. It’s a noisy, chaotic affair, traveling.
And I’m starting to enjoy it immensely. Even though I’m apart from the chaos, simply sitting in my seat typing I’m enjoying this craziness. But after a few minutes, everything settled down again.
We boarded our plane at 10:30. Our flight was uneventful; Prime and I listened to MLB Radio on XM. I slept for most of the flight until I heard an ad on the radio proclaiming, "This game belongs to Trevor Hoffman!"
Seems they had interviewed him sometime back. Now I wish I had XM, just so I can listen to MLB Radio. XD
Our drive back was just as uneventful. When we got home, Prime and I simply crashed. I was exhausted, but never happier.
I’m slowly coming down off the high. In a few days time, I’ll be back at work but that’s okay. I have the memories, some of which I’ll be able to post here as photoblogs. And of course, there’s always next year.
--Weasel, headed back to the real world with a smile on her face
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Back Home
So we're home, Prime and I. I'll make a nice juicy pair of posts later today; one is already written. Right now, sleep.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Update
Today is the travel day, so this is the only post you will see. Expect the final chapter posted either Tuesday or Wednesday. Prime and I are on a red-eye; we will be slagging exhausted.
--Weasel
--Weasel
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Cockblocked
Today, the general public was allowed to attend our festivities. We had quite a few people show up and it got pretty crowded in the Convention center. But that didn't matter to me; I was having way too much fun.
Prime and I got up and dressed at around 7:30 this morning. After we were ready, we, along with DA headed out to the bus stop and hit the road. When we got to the festivities, we split up; Prime hit the Dealer Room while I scoped out the autograph line.
There were already people lining up for Peter Cullen, even though he wasn't going to start signing until 2PM. Yes, he is quite loved by the fandom. Trust me when I say this.
However, the lining up was all for naught; no one would be allowed to line up until 1PM. So, I headed into the panel room and took in the last little bit of the TF comic panel. Since I wouldn't be able to get in line anytime soon, I stuck around for a couple of panels.
The first I sat through was the Hasbro toy panel. Lots of good reveals and lots of screaming from my wallet. I will be so broke this summer it isn't even funny. And it won't let up through the fall and winter--in December we get our first TF: Prime toys.
After that panel was done, I slipped out the room and got a call from Prime. Everyone was lining up for the live script reading, so I jumped in as well. That was a panel that I was glad I didn't miss.
We had a bunch of the cast from TF: Prime, including all three of the kids, Steve Blum, Peter Cullen, and Ernie Hudson. They were reading an episode that had already aired, but it was fun to watch.
The cast kept it really lighthearted; there were several Ghostbusters references made that had Ernie Hudson cracking up laughing. We, the audience ate them up as well. Honestly, I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long while. Once the reading was done, there were a few questions from the audience and something amazing happened.
Josh Keaton mentioned that he wanted to hit the Dealer room and grab a G1 Optimus Prime. Seems he's a Transfan as well. So, out of the blue, a few of the fans gave Josh a Japanese G1 Optimus Prime re-issue... which Peter Cullen signed right then and there. A really heartwarming moment. I'm still smiling just thinking about it.
Once the audience questions were done, they showed an ep of TF: Prime but I slipped out and hit the autograph line. I was hoping to get a signature from all the cast members but it didn't really turn out that way. But I can't really complain about that. Here's why.
The first line was for Steve Blum. The line was incredibly long and there were quite a few fangirls hanging out in it. Seems Steve's a hit with the fangirls. But I can see why. When I got to the front of the line and got my BC11 comic autographed, I noticed the tee shirt Steve was wearing. It was a grey shirt that said, "Chicks dig giant robots." When I read that, "Oh man, I love your shirt! That show was awesome!" To which Steve replied, "You remember it?!" I said yes, I did and I got all the jokes in it. It was one of my favorite shows.
Here's where it gets awesome. Steve Blum got out of his seat and hugged me. I got hugged by Steve Blum! Somewhere, some poor fangirl is screaming in rage because of this. XD
Once I had gotten Steve's autograph, I tried to hit one of the other lines. Most of the others were already capped, but I got very lucky and was able to get in line for Andy Pessoa, the voice of Raf. Raf's my favorite kid from the show, so I had to get his autograph. I'm glad I did. I don't think he was getting a lot of love from the fans and that's not fair. Raf is freaking awesome.
Afterward, I caught up with Prime and DA in the panel room and took in a couple of panels. These were the Club Roundtable and the G1 voice actors' panel. I enjoyed both, but took a lot of what the VAs were saying about breaking into voice acting to heart. I'm not trying for that field, but I am trying to get a book published, so a lot of what they said stayed with me. I just have to remember it.
Once the VA panel was done, the show was over for the day, so we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the Hall of Fame presentation. Once ready, we went back to the Auditorium to take in the awesome.
We got to see a nice long sneak peak of Transformers: Dark of the Moon; it looks freaking amazing. I just hope there's enough comedy to take the edge off; at a couple of points I felt a bit like screaming.
One of the human inductees made it to the event and it was Michael Bay. I gotta respect the guy now; he mentioned that Bumblebee was one of the most sympathetic characters in the movies. Mr. Bay, you are the man.
We watched the various videos for the Transformer inductees and we were treated to videos of the fan choice 'bots. There were cheers for everyone else, but not many for Erector.(Gee, I wonder why... *coughcoughDICKJOKEcoughwheezeSTUPIDASHELL*) Then the winner was announced.
WASPINATOR!
The "Erector set" got fucking cockblocked and I for one am damn glad. (Aaron Archer himself said he hoped they wouldn't have to put together another video like the one for Erector. Hint, hint, you morons: the joke wasn't fucking funny so don't fucking do it again. Get it?) After the ceremony and the rejoicing, we headed back to the hotel.
Sunday's the last day. It's going to be hard, but I'm going to enjoy it as best as I can. But really, I don't want to come down form this. It's been far too great.
--Weasel
Prime and I got up and dressed at around 7:30 this morning. After we were ready, we, along with DA headed out to the bus stop and hit the road. When we got to the festivities, we split up; Prime hit the Dealer Room while I scoped out the autograph line.
There were already people lining up for Peter Cullen, even though he wasn't going to start signing until 2PM. Yes, he is quite loved by the fandom. Trust me when I say this.
However, the lining up was all for naught; no one would be allowed to line up until 1PM. So, I headed into the panel room and took in the last little bit of the TF comic panel. Since I wouldn't be able to get in line anytime soon, I stuck around for a couple of panels.
The first I sat through was the Hasbro toy panel. Lots of good reveals and lots of screaming from my wallet. I will be so broke this summer it isn't even funny. And it won't let up through the fall and winter--in December we get our first TF: Prime toys.
After that panel was done, I slipped out the room and got a call from Prime. Everyone was lining up for the live script reading, so I jumped in as well. That was a panel that I was glad I didn't miss.
We had a bunch of the cast from TF: Prime, including all three of the kids, Steve Blum, Peter Cullen, and Ernie Hudson. They were reading an episode that had already aired, but it was fun to watch.
The cast kept it really lighthearted; there were several Ghostbusters references made that had Ernie Hudson cracking up laughing. We, the audience ate them up as well. Honestly, I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long while. Once the reading was done, there were a few questions from the audience and something amazing happened.
Josh Keaton mentioned that he wanted to hit the Dealer room and grab a G1 Optimus Prime. Seems he's a Transfan as well. So, out of the blue, a few of the fans gave Josh a Japanese G1 Optimus Prime re-issue... which Peter Cullen signed right then and there. A really heartwarming moment. I'm still smiling just thinking about it.
Once the audience questions were done, they showed an ep of TF: Prime but I slipped out and hit the autograph line. I was hoping to get a signature from all the cast members but it didn't really turn out that way. But I can't really complain about that. Here's why.
The first line was for Steve Blum. The line was incredibly long and there were quite a few fangirls hanging out in it. Seems Steve's a hit with the fangirls. But I can see why. When I got to the front of the line and got my BC11 comic autographed, I noticed the tee shirt Steve was wearing. It was a grey shirt that said, "Chicks dig giant robots." When I read that, "Oh man, I love your shirt! That show was awesome!" To which Steve replied, "You remember it?!" I said yes, I did and I got all the jokes in it. It was one of my favorite shows.
Here's where it gets awesome. Steve Blum got out of his seat and hugged me. I got hugged by Steve Blum! Somewhere, some poor fangirl is screaming in rage because of this. XD
Once I had gotten Steve's autograph, I tried to hit one of the other lines. Most of the others were already capped, but I got very lucky and was able to get in line for Andy Pessoa, the voice of Raf. Raf's my favorite kid from the show, so I had to get his autograph. I'm glad I did. I don't think he was getting a lot of love from the fans and that's not fair. Raf is freaking awesome.
Afterward, I caught up with Prime and DA in the panel room and took in a couple of panels. These were the Club Roundtable and the G1 voice actors' panel. I enjoyed both, but took a lot of what the VAs were saying about breaking into voice acting to heart. I'm not trying for that field, but I am trying to get a book published, so a lot of what they said stayed with me. I just have to remember it.
Once the VA panel was done, the show was over for the day, so we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the Hall of Fame presentation. Once ready, we went back to the Auditorium to take in the awesome.
We got to see a nice long sneak peak of Transformers: Dark of the Moon; it looks freaking amazing. I just hope there's enough comedy to take the edge off; at a couple of points I felt a bit like screaming.
One of the human inductees made it to the event and it was Michael Bay. I gotta respect the guy now; he mentioned that Bumblebee was one of the most sympathetic characters in the movies. Mr. Bay, you are the man.
We watched the various videos for the Transformer inductees and we were treated to videos of the fan choice 'bots. There were cheers for everyone else, but not many for Erector.(Gee, I wonder why... *coughcoughDICKJOKEcoughwheezeSTUPIDASHELL*) Then the winner was announced.
WASPINATOR!
The "Erector set" got fucking cockblocked and I for one am damn glad. (Aaron Archer himself said he hoped they wouldn't have to put together another video like the one for Erector. Hint, hint, you morons: the joke wasn't fucking funny so don't fucking do it again. Get it?) After the ceremony and the rejoicing, we headed back to the hotel.
Sunday's the last day. It's going to be hard, but I'm going to enjoy it as best as I can. But really, I don't want to come down form this. It's been far too great.
--Weasel
Saturday, June 04, 2011
You've gotta know when to hold 'em...
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done.
Click the title for musical accompaniment, if you'd like.
So today (technically yesterday) was the first real day of the Con. Prime and I got up, got ready and headed out to the 'Con. We got out and about a bit after noon, which was fine by me because the first autographs didn't start until 2. We ran into DA, chatted a bit and I got in line for the first autograph session. The guys decided to take in the live script reading that was happening at around 1PM.
Today Jack Angel was supposed to sign at 2, but he wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it. So in his place, Abby Collins was signing autographs. Who is Abby Collins? She's the daughter of a rather well-known but deceased voice actor. Seems she's trying to break into the voice acting biz and read the part of Minerva.
Oh yeah, when that came out, A LOT of fans were having minor strokes and coronaries. Her father is quite well loved by the fandom, even though many of us never had the chance to meet him. So there were a lot of excited and happy fans. Oh yes, I got Ms. Collins autograph and I truly hope she makes it in voice acting; she truly is a sweet person.
After that, I waited around for the second autograph session, ran into DA and we hung around in line and shot the shit. DA had a mild freakout when he saw the giant Grimlock costume; I got a kick out of the kid who was dressed as Wheelie. He even had a slingshot and nailed someone who was dressed as Devastator a couple of times. (Little bot's got some ball bearings, I tell ya.)
After I got my autographs, I headed into the Dealer Room, called Prime and met up with him. He was near a gigantic Transformers: Prime Optimus Prime statue. I got a couple of shots of that, spun the big wheel that was on display there and won a Transformers: Prime poster. Then, I took to wandering.
Stopped by the Kre-O booth and entered for a chance to win a Kre-O Bumblebee. I also got a Kre-O Optimus Prime figure and told the guy at the booth that if they ever needed to get rid of the big Bumblebee figure they had on display, I'd take him. He would be worshiped, of course. The guy laughed and said, "Oh, I bet you would." I think my reputation is starting to proceed me.
Before we were kicked out at 5, I got to take a few shots of the Autobot vehicles from the movie, caught up with Prime and got a pair of lanyards from the Transformers Universe video game booth. But at five, we all had to leave. Before I headed out, I ran back to the Bumblebee Camaro and said my good-byes and promised him that I would see him the next day.
After a brief stopover at our hotel, we got ready for Casino Night and went back to the Convention center. Prime went into the actual game room to earn some creds for the auction while I played bingo.
I tried, but I didn't win. I was hoping to win the 2008 Shattered Glass Rodimus for Prime but it didn't pan out. I really would have loved to get that figure; I've put Prime through enough hell and he deserves something for his time and trouble. Oh well, maybe next time.
Prime had amassed $800 in casino money, but it did us no good. We couldn't win a slagging thing at the auction. Again, maybe next year.
Once that was over, we ran into Shawn, hung out with him for a bit then headed back to our hotel. It's getting late and my stupid ass really should be in bed (gotta get up early) but you know me. I have to blog.
I'm happy. Dear Primus, I am happy. I feel so much better. I really wish this wouldn't end. But honestly, having this only once a year makes it extremely precious to me. Once a year I get to recharge my batteries and escape the slag that is reality. To have something like this to look forward to is a great help.
Two more days. I intend to enjoy the hell out of them. Until next time.
--Weasel
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done.
Click the title for musical accompaniment, if you'd like.
So today (technically yesterday) was the first real day of the Con. Prime and I got up, got ready and headed out to the 'Con. We got out and about a bit after noon, which was fine by me because the first autographs didn't start until 2. We ran into DA, chatted a bit and I got in line for the first autograph session. The guys decided to take in the live script reading that was happening at around 1PM.
Today Jack Angel was supposed to sign at 2, but he wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it. So in his place, Abby Collins was signing autographs. Who is Abby Collins? She's the daughter of a rather well-known but deceased voice actor. Seems she's trying to break into the voice acting biz and read the part of Minerva.
Oh yeah, when that came out, A LOT of fans were having minor strokes and coronaries. Her father is quite well loved by the fandom, even though many of us never had the chance to meet him. So there were a lot of excited and happy fans. Oh yes, I got Ms. Collins autograph and I truly hope she makes it in voice acting; she truly is a sweet person.
After that, I waited around for the second autograph session, ran into DA and we hung around in line and shot the shit. DA had a mild freakout when he saw the giant Grimlock costume; I got a kick out of the kid who was dressed as Wheelie. He even had a slingshot and nailed someone who was dressed as Devastator a couple of times. (Little bot's got some ball bearings, I tell ya.)
After I got my autographs, I headed into the Dealer Room, called Prime and met up with him. He was near a gigantic Transformers: Prime Optimus Prime statue. I got a couple of shots of that, spun the big wheel that was on display there and won a Transformers: Prime poster. Then, I took to wandering.
Stopped by the Kre-O booth and entered for a chance to win a Kre-O Bumblebee. I also got a Kre-O Optimus Prime figure and told the guy at the booth that if they ever needed to get rid of the big Bumblebee figure they had on display, I'd take him. He would be worshiped, of course. The guy laughed and said, "Oh, I bet you would." I think my reputation is starting to proceed me.
Before we were kicked out at 5, I got to take a few shots of the Autobot vehicles from the movie, caught up with Prime and got a pair of lanyards from the Transformers Universe video game booth. But at five, we all had to leave. Before I headed out, I ran back to the Bumblebee Camaro and said my good-byes and promised him that I would see him the next day.
After a brief stopover at our hotel, we got ready for Casino Night and went back to the Convention center. Prime went into the actual game room to earn some creds for the auction while I played bingo.
I tried, but I didn't win. I was hoping to win the 2008 Shattered Glass Rodimus for Prime but it didn't pan out. I really would have loved to get that figure; I've put Prime through enough hell and he deserves something for his time and trouble. Oh well, maybe next time.
Prime had amassed $800 in casino money, but it did us no good. We couldn't win a slagging thing at the auction. Again, maybe next year.
Once that was over, we ran into Shawn, hung out with him for a bit then headed back to our hotel. It's getting late and my stupid ass really should be in bed (gotta get up early) but you know me. I have to blog.
I'm happy. Dear Primus, I am happy. I feel so much better. I really wish this wouldn't end. But honestly, having this only once a year makes it extremely precious to me. Once a year I get to recharge my batteries and escape the slag that is reality. To have something like this to look forward to is a great help.
Two more days. I intend to enjoy the hell out of them. Until next time.
--Weasel
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