BotCon 98

Ahh, Botcon 98. My first one. But definately not my last. An experience to remember. Like a kid in a candy store, I had visions of TFs in my head as I pranced around in the dealer's room. (And believe me, when you're as big as I am, prancing's NOT an easy thing to do!) :-) I always thought that this was going to be some way for me to re-visit my childhood, but there is no way my young mind would ever have concieved of such a grand place... The hopes of a child, coupled with the income of an adult with very few other bills. It was a dream come true. I spent money foolishly that weekend. But I came home with a lot of goodies. And I learned that maybe I'm not as insane as I once thought about these toys. Heck, I'm pretty darn near normal, from a certain point of view. I think what's more disturbing is how many of us there are. Seeing my soul reflected back at me from so many faces makes me stop and wonder: as large as this has become, is this possibly a new religious experience? Or is it just excellent marketing by some executives in Hasbro back in the 1980s? A story-and-toy tie in, with such a pervasive media as television, must have had some effect. How did Transformers get such a large following? And why are we all a part of it? Luckily, I found a new box of toys to look through, and was able to abandon such questions for a later time.

Onward to the photos! I FINALLY got the pics back from the developers. Guess they forgot how to spell my name. Fred is a pretty hard one to spell, I guess. In any event, here's the first, and my fav pic of Botcon. The person to the right is obviously me, and to the left we have the esteemed Gary Chalk, the voice actor for Optimus Primal in the Beast Wars cartoon series. You can't tell by the pic, but this man is BIG! He could snap most people in half with his bare hands...gee, I guess that might mean I'm a big guy too, eh? :-) Hehe. Good thing I'm one of the good guys... This next photo pretty well sums up my entire weekend in California: down on my hands and knees scrounging for little bits and pieces of TFs. I lived in the dealers room. I heard rumors that there were other things at this convention, and I even remember signing up for them. But I never got there. In my mind, what could be more important than the toys? And if you want to find out what everyone did AFTER the BotCon 98 convention, why not take a look here?