Quezovercoatl's Super Doki-Doki Love-Love Botcon 2000 Report
Friday, July 28th: Botcon At Last!
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The day began bright and early, with a general meeting of People Who Hang Out In The IRC Channel #wiigii!. I was pleased to meet Windchaser and Walkerton, possibly the cutest kids at Botcon. I was less pleased to discover that Walkerton has a habit of mooning the camera whenever it is directed at him. Below is a rare photograph without Walkerton's bottom showing. Also missing is fellow Canadian Dalmatian's friend, henceforth referred to as Dal's Pal. He seemed to be a very nice fellow, and it was a pity that he felt the need to duck out of any group photos being taken. Dal's Pal, if you're reading this, try to be more outgoing and obnoxious next Botcon! It's a great way to blend into the crowd!
A rather blurry photo of the folks with whom I chiefly hung out.
From left to right: Windchaser, Walkerton, SwiftEagle, Lithrael
Dalmatian, Picard42 with Ronald MaCawnold, Thylacine 2000, Perceptor (TFWW).
Seated: Monocle (Prince of Darkness)
On the Table: Windchaser's Kireihana plushie, and some of the Swedish McDonalds Transformers
(HamBengal-er, BirdieClaw, and Grimorca, I think).
And then... nothing much happened. We piled into Walkerton's jeep and the Tri-state Botcon Van
*,
headed for the nearest mall, and somehow managed to pick up roving reporter
Skyjammer on the way.
Skyjammer spent most of Botcon behind a video camera, and so I don't believe I have any photos of
him at all. Next year, though... Next year...
At the mall, nothing much continued to happen. We scavenged for talking Mojo Jojo dolls at
J. C. Penney's, we had lunch at the legendary Chick-Fil-A restaurant (who claims to have invented
the chicken sandwich), and we did some internetty stuff at a free computer terminal near the
food court. Pic and Windchaser (and possibly Walkerton) and I ate our lunches at this cute
little apple-core-shaped table, perched on worm or leaf-shaped stools and listening to the
Disney tunes that were being piped through it... until we got chased off by some mall people.
Fascists.
After lunch, we headed back to the parking lot. And realized that we had lost Lithrael. And
ran back to the food court. And found Lithrael. And headed back to the parking lot. That's
how exciting the Grand Botcon Excursion to the Mall was.
Around noon, we went back to the hotel to line up for registration (scheduled to begin at 1 PM).
For reasons known only to the organizers, it was deemed a "good idea" to have the line up
outside the hotel, in the blistering heat.
Despite the fact that it could have easily
been pouring rain or hailing or sleeting outside.
But that was not our concern at the time. Our concern was the oppressive heat, and the hour-and-
fifteen minute long wait that lay ahead. "Fifteen Minutes" was to become the mystical number of
Botcon; almost everything began a quarter-hour later than it was supposed to. Coincidence, or
sinister 3H plot? Who knows?
In any case, the heat-problem was somewhat mollified by a "good idea" of our own; #wiigii! staked
out a nice spot in the shade, and waited as people came and filled in the gap between us and the
line-up proper (already sizeable, to my convention-virgin eyes; later, when I looked behind me
and could not see the end of the line, I realized what the words "long line-up" really mean).
Siesta time for the #wiigii! gang.
A brighter pic of the same.
From left to right-- er, it's kinda jumbled up, so I'll try to explain as best I can.
White Pants Man = (???)
Red Shirt Guy = Walkerton
Black T-shirt Man Leaning On Wall = Perceptor (TFWW)
Crouching Lass in Light Blue Top = Windchaser
Elbow and Bowed Head, leaning on wall = (probably) Dalmatian
Greenish Cobra-sigil cap and head = Lithrael
Blue Plaid Shirt Man = Monocle
People eased their tedium in various ways. I played Pokemon, and traded some of my Pokemon Gold
characters with Windchaser's Pokemon Silver characters. (Thankies, Windy!) Lithrael and others
sketched stuff. Some people were reminiscing over past Botcons, while others just generally hung
out. When the doors to the Hallowed Halls of Hilton finally opened, a sigh of relief whispered
through the crowd (and was immediately drowned out by the hoots and hollers of "WOOHOO!"
"WIIGII!"). Botcon was beginning in earnest.
Having never been to a convention before, I don't know whether this year was normal or above par,
in terms of line-up time and the registration process. We were filed into lines according to our
order of registration, and received our pre-registration packets in an orderly manner. At another
table, we were handed our t-shirts and our choice of a plain string or a fancy clip-on lanyard
for our Botcon ID tags. I opted to go for the free-of-charge string, and spent most of Botcon
with the string wound tightly around my wrist and fingers...
Until I lost it on the very last day. Ah well, c'est la vie. Amazingly, the Botcon folks
managed to spell "Quezovercoatl the Feathered Boa" correctly... yet misspelled Dalmatian's name
for the third or fourth year running. Hurrah for literacy!
After Registration, the members of #wiigii! gather in the Fort Wayne Hilton lounge area and
block all traffic.
As seen above, this marked the beginning of a #wiigii! trademark. Due to the large number of
people in our group (in total, we ranged from 20 to 30 people in number, as we grew larger
and larger like some horrible killer amoeba, sucking any and all notable likeable Transfans
into our numbers... Hi Bobbi Carothers!), we were a veritable walking/crouching fire hazard,
blocking all traffic and egress as we hunkered down to chat, make rude noises, or Just Because.
We weren't the only ones taking up floor space as we meet-and-greet-ed various people coming out
of the registration area, but we were probably the loudest, and probably the only group to
continue doing this throughout all of Botcon, until it had been over for several hours.
After what felt like hours of this chaotic "ALAN!!" and "ROB!!!!!!" business, as well as chit-
chat, people walking over to inspect Echowarrior, and a whole lot of noise, the sheer agony
caused by my blister-inducing shoes drove me to depart for a while. (But not before helping
SwiftEagle put his beautiful William A. Rendfeld-approved Echowarrior kitbash on display in the
Art Room.) While I hid out in my hotel room and tried to relax, other (more responsible) folks
went to get some food for us to munch on during the even longer wait tomorrow morning for the
Dealer Room.
When I had recovered from my agonized feet and general discomfort, my partner and I went to look
for cool people with whom to hang out. We were disoriented by the elevator and not at all sure
where the 24-hours-a-day Video Rooms (the most likely hang-out for kewl Transfans... or not)
were, and so I was immensely relieved to find a crude sign that read "TRANSFORMERS" and had an
arrow pointing off to one of the tiny rooms on the side of the elevator. Although my sagacious
partner noted that Botcon was unlikely to be taking place in such an out-of-the-way area, we
followed the arrows...
And encountered the sheer horror of the Men In Black mini-convention.
There, I was shocked and horrified to find the sleaziest cariacature of commercialism and
capitalism that I have ever seen outside of The Adventures of Captain Planet. I was
fully expecting the oily fellow behind the counter of toys to turn around and say:
"While I play a sleazy no-good-nik on the show, I'm really a nice guy off-screen. Isn't that
right, Skull?"
But he never did, and he never did.
Aside from hawking over-priced toys and heaps of "TransCan"/"TrampCan" exclusive Batimus Primals,
the jolly (greasy) folks were offering free water and pretzels at their little party (scheduled
to be held during the Botcon kick-off dinner). Although I'm not much into the "buying toys"
aspect of Transformers, the entire experience left me feeling all creepy-crawly, and I was
immensely relieved when we escaped the area and found some buddies with whom to share our tale
of horror.
All in all, we made perhaps three trips to the strange miniature MIB convention, since everyone we encountered wanted to see it themselves. After everyone's morbid curiosity was sated, we blocked exits near the Video Rooms and chatted. I managed to deliver a hand-crafted Echowarrior plushie to my buddy Megatron33, and I showed off my Botcon Surprise, a teeny tiny baby Echowarrior.
From top to bottom: Echowarrior, Echocia, and Baby Echowarrior.
Soon, it was time for us to return to our hotel rooms, shower, put on our fanciest duds and get
all prettified for the annual Botcon Semi-Formal Dinner (Now With Multiple Courses!). My mother
would like to take this moment to express her disappointment that I do not have any photos of
myself in my lovely semi-formal long dress. If anyone has any semi-decent photos of me from
the dinner line-up, I would be grateful if you could let me know.
Entry into the dining room was, again, delayed by 15 minutes. We spent most of that time
wondering out loud what the Botcon Exclusives would be (aside from what had already been
leaked to the online community). Well, the other people I hung out with wondered out loud about
the Exclusive toys. I wondered and fretted out loud about my Vegetarian Pasta dish, as the
prospect of it not being Vegetarian Lasagne was driving me to distraction.
When we trailed our ways to the lovely round tables (I sat with Megatron33, Thylacine2000,
SwiftEagle, PerceptorTFWW, Dalvatron [who was wearing a waiter's uniform for no discernable
reason], Monocle, and a gentleman from Venezuela whose name I did not catch), we were greeted
by what appeared to be medium-sized pizza boxes. These turned out to be the Botcon Dinner
Exclusives... a toxic platter warning us not to consume any food placed upon it!!!
Oh, and it
had a picture of Megatron and Optimus Prime on it. But I was mostly interested in the toxic
aspect, and spent a happy while imagining other poisonous eating utensils they could give us
next year. Cyanide-laced collectible spoons, anyone? Maybe a strychnine-rimmed commemorative
mug?
The welcome speech by the most talkative member of 3H was mercifully short. I can't remember
if we were introduced to our meal or to the Botcon guests first, but in any case I was profoundly
relieved to dig into my salad and my... interesting... Seafood Louis (a mishmash of artificial
crab meat and some kind of mayonaisse-esque white sauce). The vegetarian pasta turned out to be
rotini, and some of the carnivores at the table professed an interest in helping me finish off
the yummy pasta twirls. However, they ignored my later pleas for someone to take some of the
pasta when I was full. Traitors...
Although I was chiefly there to enjoy the food and enjoy looking at people all dressed-up, I was
happy to see that people were happy to see the Botcon Exclusives. At first, I thought that
Glen Hallit was saying that the Botcon Exclusives were a totebag and a Supreme Cheetor poster
that Hasbro had given them for free, but it turned out that those were... um... I'm honestly not
sure what that was all about, but apparently that's not what we all shelled out big bucks for,
so I was happy to hear that.
The Exclusives were Shokaract, a pretty/gaudy Rampage repaint, and
the oddly named Apelinq (which I kept misreading as Apeling). Apelinq was quickly dubbed
Christmas Ape due to his cheery red-white-green-ish colour scheme, and Shokaract was quickly
worshipped due to the people grovelling before the Dinner Exclusive Botcon Comic. Apparently the
comic was really kewl, and the dinner attendees got a special variant cover.
As soon as everyone had finished dinner, we more or less surged towards the exit to grab our
sneak preview exclusive toys. I sort of wanted to go and get autographs from the voice actors,
but was convinced that it would be really tacky to invade their privacy while they were having
dinner/dessert.
I don't know what happened next.
Could this be the end of our heroine? Find out on Saturday!
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