BotCon '96 - Phil "SkyJammer" Zeman

Just when you thought the reviews of BotCon 96 were over, here I come to bore you to death once again.

Seeing as I stayed Friday night through Monday morning at the Ramada, I probably experienced BC96 a bit differently than other have. Here's a day-by-day report.

Friday

I leave Milwaukee about 2:30, get to Libertyville, IL around 3:30 -- I made excellent time and I didn't get lost. Amazing. =-) I wait about 10 minutes for Doug Vander Hoek to show up, then we head over to a friend's house to drop off his car. No problem, we find the house after only making one wrong turn. =-)

We leave the house at about 4:20 or so. Since my A/C is broken, we have the windows down. So when we hit a bump it wasn't hard to hear the lound "CLINK!"

"What was that?" I look in my mirror and see nothing. We go a little further. "CLINK!" I stop the car, get out, and look under it. See nothing. Pray it's nothing.

We go a little further, and then go over train tracks. "CLINK! CLINK!" We pull into a McDonald's and see a piece of sheet metal hanging from the underside of my car. Doug investigates a little more and it falls off. We assume it to be a heat shield and decide it's okay to go on. [Note -- it was just a heat shield. Piece of junk car.... =-)]

We also had fun trying to find a way back to I-94, seeing as we could there was a NORTH onramp, but no SOUTH. D'oh! We look at the map, Doug makes the call and we get to the highway, and proceed to get stuck in Chicago traffic. Oh, yay.

Around 6:00 or so we pull into the Ramada. We park the car and head towards the lobby. I'm thinking, "So how will we find Steve Stonebraker?" And, lo! There he was, walking from the front door. "Are you hear for BotCon?" he asked. "Yep, are you Steve?" "Yep." Easy. We check in, I have a quick dinner, and then we decide to go to the Clarion to get our stuff.

I had a Dealer's Day pass, Doug didn't, and Steve didn't preregister. So I was the only one to get in for a while, and I tell them I'll look for what they want and come back in a 1/2 hour. We do so, and then Doug upgrades his pass and now he's in, buying up a storm. Meanwhile, I'm visiting with Raksha, Magic (Eva), Robert Jung, Diana Calder. I stop buy Sipher's booth to let him know Doug Dlin will be there. Meanwhile, Diana is getting back at me for what I did last year. "Buy stuff, Phil!" she says. And I finally do -- a Slag with no weapons for $5, and a complete but loose Ultra Magnus for $15. About the only thing wrong with Magnus is that he had a lot of dust. I could have gotten one without dust for $25. I think I'll manage.

Whoops! It's now 10:00, time to go watch the movie! I head down, drop off my stuff, talk with people, laugh as Men in Black show their "new copy" that looks worse than my copy on my Beta tapes at home. =-) Can't get the lights off, but they finally get the remote control and fix the tracking, plus get the lights. I enjoy my cake, sans water or fork (but I do have a plastic knife! Where's a spork when you need one?)

Now, I missed last year's showing of the Movie, so I missed the MST3K-like session last time around. I wasn't going to miss it. So, I *ENJOYED* the comments going back and forth, mainly because it was the first time I had ever watched the movie like it. In retrospect, it was excessive. But at the time, I enjoyed it. Next year, though, I agree. Have two showings, script it out, etc.

Or we could read through that parody of the movie posted here a long time ago. =-)

Afterwards, we see Unicron. I enjoy the toy only because it's the Unicron prototype. It's cool to see stuff like that. The toy is exactly how I described how it should be when I wrote a letter to Hasbro so many years ago. I told them how it should look like, and that's how it does: It's a beachball with horns (which is rather ironic, seeing as there was a beachball with horns on sale. =-) ) and it's dorky looking. But it's cool that they were able to show us why it was never released. =-)

Then it's time to go back to the hotel=-- hey, Doug Dlin! Nice to see you made it from Greyhound! We go back to the Ramada, and Doug shows us his booty that he brought -- cool Japanese toys. I'm afraid to touch them simply because in my exhausted state, I'm liable to drop them. We then pack them up and go to bed.

Saturday

We set our alarm for 7:30 or so. Get up about 8:30. Head to the "Pine Grove" for breakfast. Then it's off to the Clarion again. We spend the entire day there, with me going to Mickey-D's for a lunch run. Doug Vander Hoek gets up a bit later and meets us there and buys, buys, buys. I just walk from table to table, seeing lots of enticing but expensive stuff (Star Convoy, God Gin Rai....) Doug Dlin is showing people Dojinshi #2. I have no idea where Steve Stonebraker is.

We watch "Beast Wars" and it's nice to see a clear copy on a big screen TV. We see the Kenner presentation and I have not felt this excited about Transformers in a long time. It's like 1985 again, and darn it, I'm proud to be a Transformers fan. That's my exact feeling. I won't go into the Kenner presenation since other people (Kendrick, Olatunji, _et al_) have done it.

Somewhere I spot Kendrick and give him something I wanted to at BotCon 95 - an old GI Joe figure I bought for some reason but never opened. I give it to him, and he seems a bit surprised there are no strings attached. I have no use for it, and I'm sure not going to expect anything in return. But later he finds me and then asks if there's any of his stuff I want. I look and find a somewhat cool Action Master [I forget his name at the moment, and since I'm not home when I'm typing these words, it's impossible for me to check. Rad, maybe. I dunno.].

I mingle some more, just talk and look and buy. I overhear that there will be a dinner run at 5:30, so I tell Doug, Doug, and Steve.

At 5:30 we're waiting for some people. Doug Vander Hoek and Steve are nowhere to be found. We send Lizard and Robert Jung up to Raksha's room to get them to go. So it's myself, Doug Dlin, Raksha, Eva, Cosmos, M Sipher, Lizard, Hex, Hex's girlfriend, Hex's sister, Kishar (? -- forgive the spelling), Diana Calder, the Nixtr, Stanley Lui, Lia Brown, and several others whom I'm forgetting and will probably want to kill me for forgetting their names. =-) We pile into 3 cars and a minivan, and go on the trek for food, so wonderfully described by Robert Jung (and probably others)in previous posts. To summarize -- we park in a lot, we use "Eenie meenie minie moe" to make one decision, we wave at everyone, then we jaywalk to Little Caesar's across the street. We eat, drink, be merry, and scare the hell out of the customers as we storm the K-Mart.

Most memorable times:
The Rumble Chopper -- a large red motorcycle that vibrates rather.... uniquely.
No Beast Wars -- cause they've all sold out!
Just us scaring customers.

We leave, wondering what to do. Some people say to find a Toys 'R' Us. That's GOTTA happen next year. =-) We decide to go back to the hotel to decide.

We get back and try to find a VCR so Doug Dlin can pop in his compilation tape full of Japanese clips. Lots of people head up to Robert's room to just talk and have fun. We soon join them. Doug Dlin shows us his Japanese toys again, there are donuts, and lots and lots of fun. Then we head down as we can use the big screen TV for Doug's tape. After watching that, we head back to the Ramada. Get to sleep about 2:30. A darn good day.

Sunday

Sunday begins like Saturday -- we don't want to wake up. =-) But we do, and again, we head over to the Clarion, buy, buy, snag free stuff, listen to Men In Black's spiel about Robo-Con 97. Seems like a lot of gimmicks without much substance, if you ask me. I play the Nintendo 64 there. I WANT ONE.

Tim Finn yells out "Laser Optimus Prime for $10!" I think, that's cheaper than at Kay-Bee! I immediatle run over and snag it. Woo-hoo! I got one! I turn and see Hex's girlfriend giving me such a look. "What, was I too fast?"
"I promised a 9-year old I'd come back with one."
"Um... there ARE others, you know."
"Yeah, but they're too expensive."
Tim says he'd buy it back from me and sell it to her for $12. After trying to put me on more of a guilt trip, she says, "I'll buy it from you for $12." What the hell; I just made $2 and I was planning on buying it when I got back anyway. I can wait. So I do it.

Hex, my friend... watch out for her and those piercing eyes.... Now I know what it feels like to be under the thrall of Mindwipe. =-)

I have lunch in the hotel restaurant with Diana and Steve. We were to be joined by the Nixtr, but he had several.... things to take care to. Nixtr -- you know what I'm talking about. =-)

We wait for the Art Show Contest results. The Yarnmasters won? Wow.... I rather liked Robert's Jetfire, Circuit Breaker, and the HeadMaster Megatron, but hey, that's the beauty of a democracy.

And then the auction for Toys for Tots -- this was a BEAUTIFUL showing by Transfandom. Yeah, lots of the dealers will try to resell, but still.... $5730 in about 50 minutes time? I felt just like Marine Chris -- wow! Nice job, TFers!

And then the con is over. =-( But wait, there are still fans there! We order pizza, which Stanley Lui and Lia Brown have to take with them as they have to catch the shuttle to the airport. Doug Dlin, meanwhile, entertains myself, Doug Vander Hoek, Steve Stonebraker, Carrie Brown, Raksha, Magic, Tony Buchannan (sp?), and several others, I think, as he reads from a book entitled "Anguished English". GET THIS BOOK. I've not laughed as hard as I did that night in a long time. We spend about 4 hours in the Clarion lobby reading and talking. Tony gets some comments about BC96 for "Auto- Update". Then Raksha and Magic leave at 10:00 or 11:00 or so to go back home. Yikes. The rest of us go back to our room where we learned we can hook up a camcorder to the TV. Tony shows his clips tape. I show Doug Vander Hoek's BotCon 95 tape. We then decide it's late and we need to get some sleep.

Monday

We oversleep and end up leaving about an hour and a half later than we wanted to, but hey, that's the fun, right? Steve Stonebraker leaves before us, and Doug Vander Hoek and I leave Doug Dlin at the hotel. We make our way back to Libertyville, where I drop Doug off. I then head back to Milwaukee, where I have to go directly to work. Couldn't swing a full day off. And that half day was torture. But oh well.

My Loot

Slag for $5
Ultra Magnus for $5
An Action Master -- traded with Kendrick
A Monsterbot (not sure which) -- free; caught it in the air
Double Clutch for $2 (going to repaint this guy.)
A weaponless Strafe -- traded it to Steve for a Slingshot. We both caught the toys in the air. I may repaint it as SkyJammer.
Scattershot -- $7. No weapons, but I then see this as a better SkyJammer
Computron -- $45. Yeah, a bit pricey, but the cheapest one I could find.
Cheetor -- $30. Blue eyes. Yeah, expensive, but I can't find ANY around here, so might as well be the rarer one. I'm going to play with it any way.
Go-Bot classics -- $9. Actually, Raksha picked this up at Odd Lotts for me and I just got them here. But what the heck.
Optimus Primal -- uh, gee, guess I should include this one.
BotCon 94/95 video -- $20. The only thing I bought from Tony Preto. And hey, it's got people I recognize now! And for those of you who have it, when the Quizmaster says "Kill that man" for whistling the Jeopardy theme? Yours truly was the one doing it. I had forgotten that....
Black hat and pins -- $10 for the pins, $12 for the hat. This hat I'll wear in public. The black hat is just a good look.
Fortress Minimus -- $20. A small Fort Max with what I think I can repaint as SPIKE for my Spike-less Fort Max. (Anybody got a picture of Spike I can use for a repainting guide?) It's cheap, it's cheesy, it doesn't transform well. But it just appealed to me. And besides... I got a Spike.

Final Thoughts

The "organized" portion of BC96 was not as good as BC95. No separate video room. The display room/art room was smaller. For professionals, I would have expected better.

The auction was a great idea. This has to be continued.

But although it wasn't as "good" as last years, I had more fun outside the con. I got to meet some new people (and now recognize them from BC95). I got to know people I met last year better. And I just had fun.

Thanks fellow BotConners!