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My Full Botcon Report :
Driving from
Near Philadelphia to Fort Wayne doesn't seem like fun.
According to Mapquest.com, it's going to take me almost 13 hours to make
this trip,
but I really want to go.
So, on Thursday, I load up the truck, fill up my tank,
and hit the PA turnpike.
Seven hours later, and $13.80 in tolls, I hit the
wonderfully FLAT state of
Ohio. Three more hours, and 7.00 in tolls, I decide
to call it a night and
crash at the cheapest hotel I can find which turns out to be the
wonderful Motel 8. Woohoo.
What a bargain; 38.00 bucks a night, and man do you
get your money's worth: 1
pillow, 1 bar of soap, 2 towels, and a remote for your 5
channels. (Still better than my hotel from Botcon 1999.) But,
hey....FREE HBO. I
watch a little TV while
unwinding from my drive, then it's lights out.
Buzz...9am comes
quickly. I re-load the truck up, fill my tank for the 3rd
time, and it's time to hit
the local stores. Walmart...nadda...Target...nothing...
Toys R.Us...Bingo...score an Ultra Jetstorm and T-Wrecks (man, gotta ask
the
Hasbro fan panel what two year old comes up with these names!!) I'm back
on the road -
2 more hours to Fort Wayne. I get a little lost on the way but it's
still an easy
drive. I find my way to the convention center and hotel. I check into my
room
(311), drop my bags on the floor, and survey the view. I have to admit,
this place
is much nicer than my room at Botcon 99 and the convention center is a
lot more
spacious. I grab my registration form and hit the pre-reg line; or
should I
say lack of pre-reg line.
3H did a major overhaul on the pre-reg pickup and I get my
badge in within 2 minutes instead of the massive wait from last year.
(Nice
going, 3H). After getting
my badge, I decide to see what everyone is doing. I do a
little trading/buying. I finally get my weapons for Wreck-Gar, (only one
of
my first Transformers and
he's been naked the whole time =) ). About an hour
passes, then the art room opens for people to set up and the video room
opens. Great selections in
the video room but I decide to skip Gen 1 and go for
some Masterforce. I watch a
few eps then I wander over to the MIB Collectibles's
pathetic attempt to boycott Botcon and hold their own mini-con. I laugh
at
the $400 for a set of 99
exclusives while walking away. So, I go back down to
the art room, where I run
into Mike from last year. He's a nice guy whom I played
cards with while waiting
for dealer room to open. We decide to camp the dealer line
tomorrow. Nothing else going on, so I decide to finish setting up my
room,
and then take a nap. After
passing out on the bed, I finally wake up at around 10pm.
I'm feeling hungry,
so I decide to go get a pizza. Wandering downstairs, I find Dai
Atlas coming out of the
dinner, so we have a little chat and decide to chill at
his room with LP,
Silverwynd and Leemer. We order a Pizza, which we all split while
talking about the new exclusives, Shokaract and Apelinq.
The alarm
comes very early when you crash at 3am, so I drag what's left of
my butt out of bed and jump in the shower. (Gotta hurry, told everyone
I'd be
first in line to the dealer room.) I'm downstairs at 6:20am to find
about
30 people ahead of me!!!!
(Note to self: next year, get up at 5am). I find
Mike and we sit down to watch a little beast wars on DVD while talking
about the
whole spqqky controversy. Darcon comes over and we hang out for a little
bit. For some reason, the
time in line flies this year and at 9am the dealer room
opens to a flood of people buying everything they can get their hands
on. After 4
hours of fighting in the dealer room, I walk away with close to twenty
items. I need a little break, so I decide to take it easy and listen in
on the voice
actors panel with Ian Corlett (Cheetor), Venus Terzo (Blackarchnia), and
Alec Willows (Tarantulas). No groundbreaking news, just a fun time
listing to
how they do what they do and why. After the voice actors panel is the
Hasbro
panel. Again, nothing amazing, not because of lack of news, but because
Hasbro always sends stooges that either have no knowledge of anything,
or won't
share anything. Oh well. After the Hasbro panel, its back to the dealer
room to
part with some more cash. After that, it's time for the Cybcon (Mailing
List)
Pizza Party back at DA's room. Big turnout this year, nineteen people I
believe,
including John Deluna from the ATT Buzz and HellBat D-331
(dressed as
Ramjet) from England! Nice to finally put some faces to people's names.
At around
7:30, we walk across the street to the theater, where after 16 years I
finally
get to see TF:TM on the big screen. Wow, I was blown away. I've seen the
movie
about 50 times on VHS but it's just not the same; the sound was
incredible. After the
movie, the Cybcon party finishes and I decide to turn in early to get to
the
dealer room early on Sunday.
I get to the dealer room at 9am. Not
much going on at first. Then
there's a big rush to the Japanese table. So I run over to see what all
the ruckus is
about. Wow, the dealers opened a box with about 12 sealed Headmasters
heads
and 3 sets of the rare Japanese cassettes. At this point, I'm jumping
over
people, kicking old ladies to the curb (just kidding) trying to get
there
fast enough. Well, turns out, to buy them we have to fight each other in
paper-rock-scissors. So, I jump in line and start waving my fists about.
After losing 6 in a row (scissors SUCK!), I finally win the right to buy
my first
Headmaster head. I wade back in line because I REALLY want the one set
of
tapes. I win the first round but get knocked out in second round when I
use
rock and I got papered...oh well... still good fun. I finish wandering
around
the dealer room trying to find the last five items to complete my Gen1
set. No luck. The con is winding down at this point. I run into Leemur
again, and we wander around, fighting with asswipe, rude dealers, then
go sit in on the
3H panel. No news of Botcon next year or a date. Just thanks from the 3H
people and some general questions were answered.. All in all, it was a
Great con.
I'm looking forward to next year.
Thanks for Reading
Groo215 |
