Month: July 2010

  • Botcon: Hall o’ Fame …

    This year Hasbro decided to create the Transformers Hall of Fame.  In this inaugural class would be both Transformers and various humans who helped the franchise become the franchise.  The humans who were selected I would all agree with their induction.  For the actual Transformers they selected Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream and Bumblebee, of which I’m OK with.  For the fifth Transformer spot, fans got to select the possible group (Soundwave, Grimlock, Shockwave, Jazz and Dinobot) as well as vote the group favorite in.  Everyone thought it would be a battle between Soundwave and Grimlock.  But no somehow, Dinobot won.  Sure he was a great character in Beast Wars but that was it.  I personally thought Soundwave should have won.  I mean he in superior.

    Part of the ceremony was having a fancy sit down dinner.  Unlike before where the Botcon Saturday night dinner would be buffet style and pretty much horrible.  This was catered by Disney and was pretty good.  The main course was a breaded chicken breast with mashed potatoes and a side of vegetables.  (I don’t recall what that green sauce was but it wasn’t that bad).  For dessert it was a raspberry tort that was pretty awesome.

  • Botcon 2010: Cosplay Fun …

    Part of the fun of going to Botcon is seeing the various fans dress up in their favorite Transformer characters.  Sure, SDCC has more cosplayers but most are based after humanoid characters whether from anime, comics, video games or other media.  Transformer cosplayers have to bring extremely bulky items from their house to the convention and vice versa.

    Unfortunately, there weren’t that many this year but here are a sampling.  Yes, Starscream is close to 10′ tall.

     
     

    So the guy in the TMNT Shredder outfit wasn’t really a cosplayer but a buddy of mine from Japan who bought the jacket from Stylin Online.

  • Botcon 2010 – The Customization Experience …

    Probably one of the coolest things that happened this year was that I got into the Transformers Customization class.  I’ve dabbled in modifying and painting my own Transformers to create different characters and so this class is supposed to be like that.  Before this year the main way to register for the convention was to FAX your form to Fun Publications.  Yes, FAX your registration and they only have one FAX line to handle a bazillion people trying to register.  The customization class is limited to two twenty-five classes split between two days.  So yeah, it’s pretty hard to get in.

    However, this year they implemented an online registration.  By God’s grace I was able to register within minutes  of the announcement and snag a spot in one of the classes.  When one thinks customization most think painting or modification of an existing Transformer.  This class however is more like model building.  They give you the parts on a spruce, like a model kit you could buy from the store, assemble it, and paint it if you want.  Ultimately, it just becomes an extra exclusive Transformer that you have in your collection because the figure will be a repaint of an existing available Transformer.

    The theme for this year was G2 Redux, which for those that don’t know, after Transformers started to lose their popularity in the early 90′s Hasbro tried to reboot the franchise and called it Generations 2.  When you look at the G2 Transformers they all got funky colors or were horrible blocks with arms and legs.  But there was one character in the comic book, G2 Black Sideswipe who played a key role in the series.  When FunPub announced the theme for this year and what figures would be available to purchase everyone was wondering why there was no Black Sideswipe. 

    Short story, they couldn’t make him for the main toy set.  However, they were lucky enough to make a batch for the customization class.  Oh how the fandom cried foul!!!  It was like getting hit by a million screams from the nerd rage because there are less than 75 of these guys in existence.  And because FunPub is an official outlet for Hasbro stuff, the black Sideswipe is now an official Hasbro Transformer.  (FunPub had made extra kits for spare parts if anyone needed it during the class.)

    I doubt I’ll ever be able to get into another class so I’ll cherish the experience.  The amount of knowledge gained for my own customizations was minimal but that’s OK.  I’ve got an official G2 Black Sideswipe. 

  • About A Month Ago …

    One of the greatest events happened in our life time.  That would be Botcon 2010 in Orlando, Florida.  This year Chewy went to the Con with me to enjoy all the benefits of standing in line and standing in more lines and standing in lines while reading the paper.  We got to Orlando a few days before the convention to take in the sights and sounds of Walt Disney World. 

    Since it was late June it was HOT outside and there were too many people standing in line at the park.  I guess we’ve been spoiled since the last time we went was in November when no one was really at the park.  It was typical to stand in line for 30+ minutes per ride.  Or in the case of trying to ride the new Toy Story 3 ride at Hollywood Studios (aka MGM) it was 180 minutes.  Yes, over two hours to enjoy the 3D pop-shooting ride.  Absolutely CRAZY!  But it is a fun ride.

    With Chewy along for the ride and time being spent in the Disney parks I thought it would be best to  stay at the  convention hotel as it would provide easier transportation to and from the parks and make it easier on us during the convention.  We were fortunate to stay at the Swan hotel where the lady at the front desk gave us a room with exercise equipment!  No, it wasn’t because she thought we were the stereotype “Comicbook guy” and needed to exercise but she had lived in Virginia and was delighted to see someone else from the area. 

    Unfortunately, even though I had originally reserved the correct hotel, we did a broad reservation since we weren’t sure of our plans.  When we did figure things out and I made the change in the reservation they must have changed us to the alternate hotel.  So really, we paid all that money and we still didn’t stay at the convention hotel but the alternate convention hotel which was a five minute walk to the convention hotel.  Ah well, the Swan was still a nice hotel.

  • 3.6 …

    No, that wasn’t my GPA in college or in High School.  (Yeah I don’t fit that intelligent Asian stereotype too well)  That was the magnitude earthquake that hit our area yesterday morning at 5:04am.  Highest magnitude earthquake ever (since they’ve been recording them that is) in this area.  It woke me up as it rattle us around in bed.  Which was sad because I was supposed to wake up early anyways for a business trip.  First I thought it was the alarm and it wasn’t.  Then I asked Chewy if it was an earthquake and she said no car alarms were going off.  I thought it was truck or a low-flying jumbo jet flying by.  Then as I got ready for my trip Chewy found out it was an earthquake with the epicenter in the neighborhood I almost bought a house in!  A buddy of mine was telling me the epicenter was about 1,500 feet from their house.  Incredible and weird to say the least.

    As for now, I’m just throwing out my own conspiracy theory (this is what happens when it takes you 3+ hours one-way to drive to your business trip location) to at least say you heard it here first.  BP just put that new cap onto the well less than 24 hours before the earthquake.  They’re currently monitoring the well to see if there will be an increase or decrease in pressure after the well was cap.  Well conservation of energy tells us that there has to be a change in energy somewhere.  The out flow of oil and gas (in this case outward pressure) was stopped at the well so it has to go somewhere.  That change in pressure is what caused the earthquake to happen.  And so you have it.  The earthquake was BP’s fault. 

  • A Month Ago …

    That was my last entry.  Then silence.  Not like 300 years of silence but a month.  It’s not like interesting stuff didn’t happen in my life in the world.  I was still trying to keep track of a few things that peaked my interested but transferring them to here, well, didn’t happen.  Oh well.  The world kept on spinning and I found time for other things like going to Botcon in Orlando!!!  The wife accompanied me this year and helped stand in line for me.  I’ll do a separate post about it once I pull the pictures off the camera (did I take pictures?)