OTFCC 2004 - Daniel "Suspy" Suh

Wednesday

Landed at O'Hare on time and met up with Star Saber, Arcee, and their daughter Starcee, my roommates for the night. We went and got the rental car, checked into our room at the Radisson, then braved the insanity of afternoon traffic to make it to Navy Pier. There we hooked up with Bluestreak 7 and ate dinner, then basically wandered around the place for most of the evening. I went on the ferris wheel with Starcee only to rediscover my fear of heights.

Thursday

Star Saber, Arcee, Starcee, and myself visited the Lincoln Park Zoo in the morning. We saw camels, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, bears, tons of birds and reptiles, gorillas, and even a chimpanzee named OPTIMUS PRIME! He was born on Feb. 9, 1999, spends much of his time interacting with his half-siblings, Hank and Nana, is independent and confident for his age, and has a slightly round body and often has a disheveled head of hair.

After lunch, we returned to Rosemont and to the Doubletree hotel. Soon we were cavorting with a vast chunk of the #wiigii! crew: Blue, Megatron33, Perc, Picard42, superspy, Fang, Lynxor, SwiftEagle & Quetzalcoatyl, Monocle, McFly and his dorky little brother, Windchaser, Ben Yee, John DeLuna, Robert Powers and his hippie summer lover Dejio, Thylacine 2000, Robowang, Tim, Obsequiosity, MousePad, Billy, and gods only know who else (Walky, LiquidVelcro, and Trixter were busy with final OTFCC preparations). Some other guy in the lobby had E-Tow-Line and Robot Masters Megatron with him. Tow-Line I love to pieces, but RM Megs has a miserable robot face and a T. rex mode suffering from a serious case of scoliosis.

Following dinner at Giordano's and a dip in the hotel's over chlorinated pool, we all congregated on the mezzanine level and spent the rest of the evening and most of the night just hanging out and chatting. I jokingly called M_Sipher Xiphos, and in response, Siph attempted to break my neck.

I had a pretty good sleep on the floor in my new room at the Doubletree with Spy, McFly, and his brother. Shows that I've come a long, long way from that horrible sleep at Fletch's way back in 2000.

Friday

In an remarkable feat of coordination and efficiency, no less than 27 of the #wiigii! crew boarded a train and a bus to the Shedd Aquarium. We gazed in awe at a giant anaconda (very well concealed), ethereal jellyfish floating serenely in their tank, grinning moray eels, lots of zebra, blacktip, leopard, and whitetip reef sharks, a sawfish, a giant grouper that had successfully undergone chemotherapy for a brain tumour (seriously!), a magnificent giant octopus, and giant spider crabs.

Around noon, I dashed over to the Field Museum of Natural History and found Lithrael, my fifth roommate, who had just flown in that morning and whom I had planned to meet earlier, but due to a malfunctioning cell phone, didn't. Anyway, we couldn't get back into the Shedd due to the lineup, so we just toured the Field with what time we had left. I managed to get some nice shots of Sue the Tyrannosaurus rex before the batteries in my digicam died.

At about a quarter to two, the two of us rejoined the #wiigii! crew and we managed to make it back to Rosemont in order to preregister at the enormous Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. We found the long-lost Rob Gerbracht, formerly known as Tengu, working one of the tables. Although I've long been an admirer of Tengu, I'd never actually met him in person until that day. He was polite and friendly, but the fact that he no longer liked to be referred to as 'Tengu' indicated to me that he wasn't intending on coming back to #wiigii! or ATT any time soon. Still, can't fault the man for having a life.

We all picked up our convention badges, observed Lith doing a little celebratory dance, and then went back to the Doubletree to meet some newly arrived old friends: Hooper_X, Robo_Rob, Tierney, Finback, and Hoop's wacky crazy girlfriend, Wendy. It was awesome seeing my main man from down unda, Fin, but 'e kept feeling sick all weekend long, the bugga. Oh, and Bryce also showed up, looking like a reject from Jackass or Trailer Park Boys.

So how was the murder mystery dinner, you ask? Well, it wasn't what I'd deem great. The food consisted of mediocre pizza cut into tiny squares and slimy-looking sausages that I dared not touch. The murder mystery characters were named after candy bars instead of TFs, which I believe was attributed to the fact that it would've been way too expensive to rewrite the script that way. But on the positive side, our table had a good time chatting and drawing various pictures instead of bothering to try and solve the mystery. The actors all did a very good job, quite entertaining. And the dinner exclusives consisted of prints autographed by none other than Peter Cullen and Frank Welker! So while it wasn't a spectacular night, it wasn't a disaster by any means either.

As well, I got to talk to Scott McNeil and Bob Budiansky. Scott was every bit as lovable as he was when I first met him in 2001, and plus he remembered the crew from #wiigii! Bob was polite and friendly, but he also had a very business-like air to him that suggested he really wasn't into the whole TFs thing at all.

Later that night, a bunch of us hit up a local strip club. In a nutshell, it was pretty much your typical stripping establishment: very dark, very smokey, and full of expensive watered down alcohol and silicon-enhanced girls who were VERY upfront about trying to get money out of you. A fine time was had by all.

Saturday

Woke up around 10 AM, showered, dressed, had a single pastry from the coffee shop downstairs, then joined a bunch of #wiigii!ers and headed over to the convention. We missed the Budiansky/Furman/Wildman panel, but I've already heard enough from Furman to last me a lifetime, and I reckon Bob didn't say anything he didn't already say in one of the online interviews he did awhile back.

The first thing we all did upon entering the massive dealer room was fill out those survey forms from Hasbro in order to get our exclusive blue and purple Energon spears. The survey was surprisingly long, at least five pages, and I don't really recall too many of the questions it asked, but I do remember requesting for a new Big Daddy toy. We browsed around for a bit, then went and got seats for the MSTF panel. As in previous years, it was hosted by the distinguished trio of M "Don't Ever Question Me!" Sipher, Doug "There Is Just Plain No Need For Sex" Dlin, and Phil "He Always Comes To Lover's Lane Alone" Zeman. First they offered us an amusing appetizer in the form of the Playskool Go-Bots eps "Typhoon Twister" and "Arctic Ice Spill." Then it was the main laugh course, all three episodes of "More Than Meets The Eye," hosted by the repellent Tommy Kennedy and a really, really tacky PM Optimus Prime puppet.

Watching MTMTE be subject to such brutal scrutiny, it made me realise just what a lame series G1 truly is. Fanboys today bemoan annoying humans, bad animation, and weak plotlines, yet MTMTE has all that in spades. By far the funniest moment was during the "outtakes," where they had Cliffjumper talking profanity while shooting repeatedly at Meggy. See, a few years back, Casey Kasem was accidentally recorded chewing out his staff in the studio. So now you had Cliffjumper shooting at Meggy while snarling about how "This is bull@#$, nobody cares ... these guys are from England and who GIVES a @#$?"

Hound: Now you've done it!
Cliffjumper: Oh, !@#$ yourself.

And given that two of the hosts were part of the #wiigii! hive mind, it was inevitable that the script was full of YOUR MOM and I'M BATMAN jokes. At first only our crew understood the humour of it, but soon everyone was chortling along with us. Best damn MSTF yet. As soon as it ended, I went and picked up my exclusive Megazarak toy (which is suh-weet), then rushed back for the Hasbro panel.

Now, I'm not even gonna try going through all the items that were covered in the Hasbro panel, but I will say that there wasn't really anything on the movie or Cybertron, as it's way too soon for either. I'll also say that Omega Sentinel looks very nice and I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE that we're getting reissued and recoloured Seacons in Energon. As well, Aaron Archer stated that the reason we're getting blue Alternators Tracks is because the yellow plastic is too translucent. Okay. The questions fans submitted ranged from intelligent to inane, with probably the lamest being someone complaining about why "the Decepticons don't have action features like the powerlinxing Autobots?" Right, because it's not like hyper power is considered a gimmick, no sir.

As soon as the panel concluded, we went to Wendy's. During lunch, Kyde counted something like 60 paint aps on my Megazarak, which is pretty damned impressive. Upon returning to the convention centre, we took a gander at the newly stocked Hasbro display booth. Energon Grimlock and Swoop are even bigger than I thought, slightly larger than Deluxes. Their combined mode is a bit iffy, but I'd have to play with it before making any final call. The Air and Construction Teams totally kick ass even without the bonuses of forming Superion Maximus and Constructicon Maximus respectively. The Hasbro version of Kicker comes with a king-sized High Wire, which alone will make the set worth owning. Alpha-Q is very strange in that he's a non-transforming statuesque action figure on wheels. I can easily picture him ending up a shelfwarmer. Alternators Swindle is absolutely fantastic and I wish to no end that I didn't already own Hound instead. I'll probably get Swindle anyway, but I'm annoyed about owning two Wranglers.

I think nearly everyone in the #wiigii! hive mind skipped out on the Dreamwave and "How to Draw Transformers" panels, since we're pretty much united in the belief that the current roster's talent well is too shallow to drown a toddler in. We basically just milled around the dealer room some more, then hung out in the mezzanine at the Doubletree until it was time for the script reading next door at the Holiday Inn O'Hare.

Following an impressively long and loud performance by Vince DiCola, Scott McNeil, Mike McConnohie, and Dan Gilvezan wowed and amused us all with their unquestionable talent. Mouth04 was back again, but this time he actually did a fairly decent job. Sadly, the same could not be said for the two fans who won the voice acting contest. One was this girl who was supposed to be Spychanger Optimus Prime (yeah, I don't get it either). She seemed a little nervous about being there in the first place, plus she didn't really try to make the voice distinctive in any way. And the other fan, a scrawny, squeaky guy who was supposed to be playing Ruination, was just flat-out bad.

Afterwards, a ton of us headed over to Giordano's for dinner. At one point while we were eating, Scott came into the restaurant and we chatted him up a little bit. He informed us that he'd recently quit smoking cigarettes, which I know from experience can be pretty damn difficult. He also claimed to have given up alcohol, but I found that more hard to believe.

Once we were all gathered in the mezzanine again, we played a couple rounds of Paper Telephone. Basically, everyone got a sheet of blank paper and a pencil and writes a single phrase at the top, any phrase really. He or she then passed the sheet to the person next to them, who drew a rendition of that sentence. For example, one of my sentences was "Perc received a stunning lap dance from Phil." I passed it on to Thy, who drew a picture of just that. Thy then folded over the top of the sheet so that the next person couldn't see what I had originally written. Instead, they had to write down what they thought was going on in Thy's drawing. The game continued in this manner until we had gotten our original sheets back and read/described them to the group.

Sadly, my words cannot do proper justice to the sheer fun and hilarity of this game. We laughed and laughed till some of us were nearly crying our eyes out. At the end, Blue took custody of all the sheets and promised to scan them, but that's gonna be one bigass task.

I should also mention that there was a big wedding going on downstairs that night, with entertainment provided by that overweight black guy from American Idol. You know, the one who won, but somehow that skinny Clay kid got all the fame and fortune? Anyway, like most weddings, this one had liquor flowing like a busted reservoir, and around two in the morning or so, those of us who were still hanging around the mezzanine were joined by a most entertaining person indeed. A bridesmaid, apparently. Short, blonde, and a little on the chunky side, and abso-fucking-lutely HAMMERED. Seriously, I hadn't seen pissed drunkeness like that since my days as an undergrad. She asked us which room the wedding party was taking place in, so I, like the considerate fellow I am, gave her Hoop's room number! After she finally came back downstairs from my wild goose chase (Wendy answered the door and turned her away), she sat herself down and started complaining about her swollen feet and bragging about how she possessed a cock. She felt up the dent in Bryce's chest, which freaked her out even more.

Soon we were joined by another equally pissed drunk, yet significantly more attractive bridesmaid, this one a tall brunette. She asked us what the fuck we were all doing there and I told her we were Job's Sons and Daughters, that we were attending an annual prayer gathering, and we lived lives of celibacy. She asked me if I wanted to stop being celibate(!!!), but I politely declined. Not because she wasn't pretty damn attractive and probably great in bed, but because I just think taking advantage of any inebriated female is just plain creepy and wrong. She did however entertain us all by yanking down the top of her companion's dress, exposing some ample boobies. Blondie, not to be outdone, then proceeded to dash around the mezzanine with her dress pulled way up, exposing a cellulite-laden tattooed ass. Pretty nasty, really, yet highly amusing nonetheless. Then the hotel night manager came up and told our group to go to our rooms. We're all pretty sure he ended up fucking both those girls, or at least tried to.

Saturday was indeed one helluva day.

Sunday

Sunday was probably the most relaxed day of the convention, for me at least. I got up around nine-ish or so and headed over to the convention centre with Lith. She and I and Dej ended up grabbing a small bite to eat at the snack bar in the dealer room. Did I mention what a couple of sweethearts they are? Next I hooked up with Windy and Megs and some other folk and we went to the art room. Sipher's HOC Homebaked were a marvel to behold: roughly 70 HOC painstakingly recoloured as new characters and displayed in a nice big wooden and clear plastic case. And Monocle had his two music videos playing: an Arcee one to the tune of "Barbie Girl" and a Toaster-With-Boobs one to the tune of "Electric Barbarella." In addition, there was another video done by some other fan in which his 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime stages a revolt among his toy collection in order to trek across town and visit his lover, a Sailor Moon doll. Funny stuff.

At some point that day, I made my only two actual purchases in the dealer room. The first was a Thrust/Motorcycle Drone stand made by the Lukis Brothers, the second was a Zoids Dark Spiner. I also bought my first ever Xevoz set off Perc, a Grim Skull with Inferno Fury parts.

The VA panel wasn't much different from the last four VA panels I've attended over the years. Scott, Dan Gilvezan, and Mike McConnohie discussed their characters (Dan was very proud to play the kid-friendly Bumblebee), fielded various questions (I am REALLY getting tired of that drive-through window routine), and offered all sorts of interesting anecdotes (it's hard to tell if they really resent Wally Burr or not, Chris Latta had a tendency to sweat a lot in the studio). I challenged Scott to do a conversation between Waspinator and Mer-Man from the now-defunct new MOTU. He actually succeeded in doing it!

Hmmmm, what else did I do? Pretty much just milled around the dealer room with friends and ate a rather lame lunch in the food court at the Holiday Inn. Oh, and I showed Aaron Archer and Michelle Field my photo of Optimus Prime the chimp from the Lincoln Park Zoo. They were both highly amused.

Finally it was time for the Organizer's Panel, which I must admit I'd been dreading up to that point. After all the controversy that'd gone down over the past year, I was pretty certain that some socially-maladjusted schlemiel was gonna wreck the panel by standing up and screaming profanities. My fears weren't alleviated much upon entering the room and finding Glen in the midst of an angry commentary. My initial reaction was something like, "Oh no, somebody asked a loaded question, didn't they?" But it turned out that Glen was lashing out against some unknown cowards who had sent him emails containing personal attacks against his family. Sickening, no? Glen concluded his angry, yet 100% justified response to his gutless attackers by stating that "You are all very mean people," to which there was heartfelt applause.

From there, the panel picked up and went astonishingly well. Far from insults and accusations, lots of people stood up and thanked Glen for a fun-filled weekend. Glen said that Sentinel Maximus is ready to be shipped and that it's in Hasbro's ballpark as to when they'll be sent out. Hoop, in typical fashion, rushed up to the mike a couple of times and in the following order, thanked Glen for finding Tengu, remarked that people who bitch about "Glencon" don't know what they're missing, announced that he's Batman, and asked why fans of transforming robots are so bloody terrified of change. I myself got up and thanked Glen and all his staff for what I considered to be a job well done, especially Tengu, Malin, Trix, LV, Walky, and Fang. I also complimented Glen on getting things done despite the concerted efforts of slanderers on message boards.

Then Professor Smooth of Seibertron.com came up to the mike and essentially threatened to post falsehoods on his rumours page if Glen didn't give him a straight answer regarding the future of the convention. Glen very politely responded that he intended on bidding for the convention license, but there's really no telling what'll happen with OTFCC's future for awhile. Considering that Smooth was responsible for spoiling last year's OTFCC exclusives, and considering that he had previously boasted online that he was going to call Glen a "lying thief" to his face at this year's convention, I thought Glen was quite the bigger man for being so cordial to someone so unsavory.

Trix read out the winners of the art contest. Lynx's "A Quickstrike Life" won for Best Diorama, Mon's videos came in second place (aww), and Sipher deservedly won Best Overall and Best 3D for his awesome HOC Homebaked. Siph also finally gave in to his burning man love for Glen after the latter complimented him on success of the MSTF panel. Siph raced over to the table with his arms wide open, then turned around at the last second, perhaps feeling uncertain about expressing his love in front of such a large crowd. But then Glen raced up behind Siph, seized him in a bearhug, and spun him around. The two then fell behind the desk, where I can only assume they locked manly lips. So romantic.

Towards the end of the panel, Glen announced that he in fact was Batman. That along, IMHO, proves that despite all angry claims to the contrary, he is indeed still a fan like you and me.

And with that, OTFCC 2004 was officially concluded. On the whole, I thought it had been a positive success. The dealer room was nice and big and well-organised. The panels were fun and informative. The mystery dinner was also fun in spite of less than spectacular food. The comics and Megazarak are great. But most of all, the people I roomed and swam and ate and hung out and played games and went to a pier, a zoo, an aquarium, a museum, and titty bar with were the absolute best in the entire world. Would I attend OTFCC again next year, with 3H Productions running the show? In a New York minute (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean).

A whole ton of us hit the swimming pool one last time that evening. There was me, Lith, Windy, Fin, Forky, Megs, Phil, Rob Powers, Dejio, John DeLuna, McFly, and Spy. This was probably the most fun pool session of the weekend, given that for once there wasn't a ton of little kids splashing around in that tiny waterhole with us. Around eight-ish, our party went to Steak N' Shake for dinner. Me, Rob, Dej, Lith, and Fin were all riding in Rob's dinky little car, and I remarked on what a cool crew we made. Kinda made me wish we were embarking on a cross-country road trip. By very good timing, we arrived just as another #wiigii! party was leaving their table. On the way out, Siph gave me a RID Megabolt in exchange for a Terranotron I gave him for a kitbashing project awhile back.

A good chunk of the evening was spent in the mezzanine once again, chatting, drawing in our sketchbooks, updating convention reports, and reading through the Wreckers and Universe comics. I must say, after so much Dreamwave, it was really great to read TFs comics that featured good plots, proper proportions and perspective, and clear layouts. I was also EXTREMELY pleased to discover that four of the Dinobots and at least one Beast Mutant actually survived the mass slaughter from Wreckers#2. Thank you, Tengu!

Later that night, a bunch of us played an INSANELY amusing game of Catchphrase, a kind of "guess the person, place, thing, or phrase" game. I seriously thought Doug Dlin was gonna have a heart attack a couple of times when he doubled over with laughter. By far the funniest moment of the entire night was when LV gave the following clue to "Mount Vernon":

"What Ernest P. Worell would do if he were gay."

Slowly but steadily, our group began heading off to bed. The last of us ended the game and all bid each other goodnight around 3:30 AM. Once we were back in our room, Lith mentioned how jealous she was of me for having the Frank Welker-autographed print. I told her she was welcome to have it, both as a make-up gift for the confusion at the Field on Friday and because I really hate G1 Meggy, both as a toy and a character. Lith's face positively lit up like a Christmas tree.

After roughly four hours of sleep, Lith and I bid our other roommates a silent farewell and left to catch the shuttle to O'Hare (I had an 11:15 AM flight and hers was supposed to be at 11AM). We said goodbye to Walky, Steve-o, and Fang on our way out the door. A ride to O'Hare, check-in, breakfast at Chili's, another flight spent snoozing and listening to soundtrack music, and I was back in Ottawa once again.

The goodies acquired over the course of my trip this year were:

Sue the T. rex plushie
Lego Bionicle Makuta set
Xevoz Grim Skull w/Inferno Fury parts
Zoids Shadow Fox
Zoids Dark Spiner
Thrust/Motorcycle Drone Stand
RID Megabolt
Universe Skydive
Universe Megazarak
Energon Landmine
Energon Tidal Wave
Energon Downshift
Transformers: Universe #2
Transformers: Universe #3
Transformers: Wreckers #2 (expanded edition)
Transformers: Wreckers #3

Deepest thanks go out to all my true friends and pals and business associates and homies in #wiigii! It just isn't a convention without all you nutty bastards. Special thanks go out to my roommates, first Star Saber, Arcee, and Starcee, then Lith, Spy, McFly, and his dorky little brother, David.

And with that, my OTFCC 2004 report is finally over. See you next year.