BotCon discussion, on the ground and after the fact

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Dominic
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BotCon discussion, on the ground and after the fact

Post by Dominic »

Starting the thread for JT.


Another friend of mine called to tell me that he and somebody else have Bumblespuds, and want to start a bidding war for them.

Dom
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Mirage
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Re: BotCon updates

Post by Mirage »

Whew-- tired already.

Caught the EARLY flight out of Wichita, then connected to Memphis (wow-- the complete opposite direction? Really?), RAN to make the connecting flight to LA, taxied out... only to be told of an "indicator light" that wouldn't go away, so it was back to the terminal where we sat for half an hour. Once we got back, a few new passengers mysteriously joined us and we were quickly on our way. Hmm... did someone throw a big enough temper fit that the plane left without them, and the airline was SO sorry they made us come back for them? I dunno, I would hope not, but that's what a couple of my fellow passengers theorized anyway. To be fair, we did see a couple of maintennance guys go into the cockpit. But then they said the light was "nothing we needed" and we eventually took off. Draw your own conclusions.

Got to LAX nearly an hour late, but still got a shuttle, thank Primus. Then spent the better part of the afternoon following my friend and his wife around shopping in Pasadena, then came back to check in to my hotel. And here I am.

Next: Registration pick-up. Dinner. Parts party? Bars? Who knows?

But... when do I sleep? :shock:
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Dominic
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Re: BotCon updates

Post by Dominic »

You can sleep when you get home.

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Mirage
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Re: BotCon updates

Post by Mirage »

(Should we merge the two Botcon threads?)

Dear God, that LINE WOULD NEVER END. Six hours I stood in line last night, which is the longest I've stood in line for anything that I can remember. The "bastard" registration letter thing really sucked-- it was the first time I've heard that some registrations are better than others (this year anyway) and they should've just had separate lines for each one rather than repeatedly shuffling the lesser people to the back. Arrrggghhh.

The real delay, though, was due to processing everyone's wants for the dang movie figures. They gave us an order form to fill out in line to expedite the process. Problem was, the form only listed what quantities you wanted of each size class, without listing which characters were available. So people would fill out their forms, then hem and haw over which characters they wanted when they got there-- and in many cases, I'm sure, changed their order forms enough that filling it out ahead of time was pointless anyway. Double arrrrggghhh.

I could give a crap, personally. I'll buy what few movie toys I actually want when I get home. I just wanted my friggin' souvenier toys!!

AND NOW THE PUNCHLINE: The exclusivity of these movie figures? The reason for all this madness? The silly little gold foil sticker, stating that you, a very special person, were (sort of) one of the very first people to buy the movie figures at the very special Botcon 2009 25th Anniversary Celebration?

It isn't even ON the boxes. You have to put it on yourself. They give you a little label sheet when they give you your toys. That's right, folks: The Botcon movie toys are NO different from the ones you'd buy at Wal-Mart. After standing in what could only be a MUCH, MUCH shorter line.

So, in short, there was no drinking last night, there was barely even eating. I had to stumble down the street from my hotel to a dodgy all-night burger joint, side-stepping people sleeping in doorways along the way, then stumble back to my hotel, play with my exclusives a while (of course) then crashed for a while. Then woke up earlier than I wanted to because I'm still living on Central time.

IT WAS FUN, THOUGH!

Oh, and here's some pictures:

http://s591.photobucket.com/albums/ss35 ... on%202009/
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Re: BotCon updates

Post by onslaught86 »

Wow, foil sticker. Um. I know, hold onto it, then stick it on something from the next wave, and hock it off as L@@K R@RE!!

How're the exclusives? I want me a Skyquake and a Banzaitron, baaaadly. Maybe Razorclaw too, but I have a real sentimental attachment to Skyquake. Gonna fetch a pretty penny on the aftermarket, methinks. Sigh!
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Re: BotCon discussion, on the ground and after the fact

Post by Dominic »

The real delay, though, was due to processing everyone's wants for the dang movie figures. They gave us an order form to fill out in line to expedite the process. Problem was, the form only listed what quantities you wanted of each size class, without listing which characters were available. So people would fill out their forms, then hem and haw over which characters they wanted when they got there-- and in many cases, I'm sure, changed their order forms enough that filling it out ahead of time was pointless anyway. Double arrrrggghhh.

Amazing. I wish I was at the show for that alone.

Really. Who thought that was a good idea? I am betting Master Collector was trying to encourage case-sales. Imagine putting the "exclusive" stickers on a whole case of toys. Heh, you could sell the stickers alone on EBay though.


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138 Scourge
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Re: BotCon discussion, on the ground and after the fact

Post by 138 Scourge »

I've been a lil' out of the loop about the BotCon 'sclusives for this year, so some of these are a surprise. Sooo...

Wow, the pink Thunderblast is friggin' awesome. I never got around to picking her up in Cybertron, but man, had that color scheme been available...

Razorclaw is also amazing. See, I figured that there'd be a Razorclaw repaint at some point, didn't picture that it'd be a 'Con exclusive. Nice one. Heh, now I feel dumb for having not gotten the "Legends" variety.

And finally...holy balls, is that a small ARMY of Scourges? :o What, like, two Sweeps were another souvineir thing? Wow, that's gorgeous. I'm envious, truly I am.

The other guys, not bad either, but those are god damn RAD!
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Re: BotCon discussion, on the ground and after the fact

Post by Mirage »

All the exclusives are pretty cool-- even the ones that seemed lame in pictures came out really nice in person-- the possible exception being Elita-One, who's just a vomitous mass of pinkness no matter how you cut it. The 2007 comic promised a much nicer-looking figure, and they kinda dropped the ball. Razorclaw's great, though.

As for today, it was about half panel-hopping and half dealer room scouring. In between though, I met JT for lunch. Yep, we finally met up in person and you know what? I wasn't the slightest bit disappointed. :)

I managed to rake in the following:

Henkei Red Alert
Henkei Hot Shot
Henkei Smokescreen
Henkei Dinobot
Encore Trailbreaker
Club Nightbeat

And perhaps my proudest achievement of the day, Skygarry MISB for 100, from Fumhiko's table. Boo to the Yah. :D

Now-- my kingdom for a Metals Megatron...

Once the dealer room shut down, I dropped off my stuff and we headed out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. And dessert, of course. Then it was back to check out the Shout! G1 DVD presentation (I thought they were going to show actual episodes, but... nope! A nice featurette, though.) Then I said my goodbyes to JT and crashed the 2005 parts party. Didn't score anything but a set of Blitzwing weapons, but hey-- didn't have em before.

Now it's off to sleep, for morning brings an encounter with Lord of All Geeks, Weird Al Yankovic!

I uploaded a couple of more photos, but my crappy camera has decided to crap even more and lose half the pictures I took today, including the autograph guests. Damn.

http://s591.photobucket.com/albums/ss35 ... on%202009/
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Re: BotCon discussion, on the ground and after the fact

Post by JediTricks »

My brain hurts. In order to avoid trying to shoot around the public attendance crowds on Sat and Sunday, I shot EVERYTHING today and had to organize it, re-orient it, and upload to ActionFigs.com where thankfully Steve is doing the final posting (I can barely think straight). I didn't sleep well last night, woke up at 8:30 when I normally wake around 11, and was there until midnight. I have 2 incomprehensible write-ups from the panels for Animated (which ran super long) and Orci & Kurtzman's panel, which impressed me far more than I expected (but they're still hacks), I'll try to turn those into less incomprehensible mush in the next few days. I also met Yee super quick, shook his hand.

Here's the coverage I took, it's one-man-army style (nobody to block for me, nobody to hold my gear, nobody to remind me to shut off my damn over-eager autofocus) and with 479 images, there wasn't a lot of time for intricate closeups, but here it is going up as I type:

http://photos.actionfigs.com/showgallery.php?cat=4299

It was great meeting you and your friends Mirage! Good suggestions for lunch and dinner, I had a good time hanging with ya's.
MSTF was kinda cute actually, they skewered a G1 episode, a BW ep (Code of Hero), an Animated ep, and 2 of those ridiculous "Action Blast" webisodes for Universe. But my brain imploded about 2/3rds in. Hope you guys had fun at the parts-swap party! I barely made the drive back.

Now I sleep so that I may do damage to Botcon tomorrow! :p


I doubt I'll get a chance to look, but if you guys post pic wants, I'll see what I can do tomorrow or more likely Sunday.
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Onslaught Six
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Re: BotCon discussion, on the ground and after the fact

Post by Onslaught Six »

JediTricks wrote:Here's the coverage I took, it's one-man-army style (nobody to block for me, nobody to hold my gear, nobody to remind me to shut off my damn over-eager autofocus) and with 479 images, there wasn't a lot of time for intricate closeups, but here it is going up as I type:

http://photos.actionfigs.com/showgallery.php?cat=4299
These are WAY better than the unfocused, flash-reflection crap the other sites are putting out. Awesome.

Who're the three Universe Ultra repaints? One looks very Mega Octane-ish but he has an Autobot logo, and a big crossed-out 'Con logo.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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