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I got in and out of both of the registration and the souvenir add-on toy lines in about an hour!  Holy crap, that's a huge improvement over last year.  Everything seemed to be running much more efficiently.  (For example, nobody seemed to be running a line who was over the age of 85.)

Last year I was in line for... six hours?  Yeah, six hours.  Ahahahaha.  Mind, that year's problems were related to the launch of the Revenge of the Fallen toyline, which encouraged folks to take about 30 minutes a piece to look through BotCon's stock of toys once they got up to the front of the line.  Imagine going to Walmart and having people shop when they get up to the register.   People were certainly doing that this year, but not to the same extremes.  75% of my hour was spent in the second line, even though I was the sixth person from the front of the line.  Folks looooove to ask BotCon dudes to bring them every single toy on the shelf one by one so they can look at them.  Man, those things are shelfwarming at Walmart!  Go buy them there!

But still, only one hour spent in line this year = super awesome

Check me out, u guys!!  i am TOTALLY at BotCon!  I hitched a ride in on the back of this yellow truck, I think his name is... um.. ... i think...

n e way, if you see the yellow truck guy with the backwards orange flames?  i'll be right there!  and theres this big pink scorpion guy.  lol he loves to play soccer????? we're seen together a lot, like inseparables, like we're in a big bag together, 4evah.  #BFFS!!!!!

(what is soccer???)

i also saw some lame cartoonist who like broke his glasses and had to tape them together like a NERD.  ha ha ha ha nerd

what a lamer.

lol it is me, Ravage!!!!  Cliffjumper is from a universe like yours and he says its backwards from ours??? like the decepticons are evil and the autobots are the good guys??? wts??

that is so weird

n e way, i can has trip in your universe for a bit??? yes??????  hooray!!!!

look at me!!! i am waving!!!! <3  i will be waving at you all week!!! and on the weekend too!!! i will see you on saturday and sunday and maybe on sunday two times!!!

hey look at my pal cyclonus.  huh well maybe he's not my pal because he totally shot up my boss!!!!  we'll see...

nibbles and scratches!!!!  gtg

Hey dudes!  Jonathan Rosenberg, aka The Guy Who Draws Goats And Whatnot, has a new webcomic!  It's called Scenes from a Multiverse, and it involves you, the weirdos of the Internet!  See, every week he draws a set of unrelated strips that take place on various worlds, and whichever gets the most votes returns the next week!  It's like Web 2.Oh Yeah.  Jon continues to be a true visionary, awash in unfettered creativity.

Ten hours left in my spring convention art auction!

And on Wednesday morning, me and my local buds head to BotCon.  Shortpacked! veterans know what this means, though this year the usual all-weekend-long convention strips are getting a twist.  You'll see.

If you're also going to BotCon, I've decided to be less stupid than I usually manage.  Every year I'm met by a few dozen readers wanting to know if I have books for sale!  Well, no, I don't have a dealer table at BotCon -- that's be counterproductive to my goal of Totally Geeking It Out 24/7, what with all the panels and whatnot -- but I figgered I'd plan ahead and bring a  handful of copies of Shortpacked! Book 3 with me.  I plan to have one or two on me at all times.  Y'know, be prepared!  It's like my backpack will be Shortpacked! Express, like those mini-Pizza Huts at Target.  So if you see me out and about, hand me $15 and I'll hand you a Book 3.  I'll even scribble in it for you.

Now that I've got your attention, I should remind you that there's just one day left in my spring convention art auction!

Yesterday I said Punch/Counterpunch was ambitious.  The other Transformers Collectors' Club exclusive, Shattered Glass Cyclonus, is not.  He doesn't try to have a newly tooled head that has a transformable hat, nor does he try to be a guy with two different robot modes.  He's just a redeco.

This isn't a bad thing!  In fact, it makes him a soothing beacon of light in the shadow of P/CP's unfortunate mishaps.  He's safe, so nothing went wrong.  Unlike P/CP, he didn't try to fly too close to the Sun with his glorious wax wings.

Shattered Glass (mirrorverse) Cyclonus is in Hot Rod colors.  Well, minus the flame deco, I guess, probably because Shattered Hot Rod got to keep them.  So Shattered Cyclonus is in bright red, orange, and a warm gray, just like "normal"  Hot Rod often is.  His colors were decided on before anyone knew there was a Universe Cyclonus toy to get a redeco out of, so in order to map his color layout onto the Universe Cyclonus toy, there had to be some awkward paint applications.  For example, they had to paint his upper thighs orange to match his lower thighs.  The orange paint here is applied kind of unevenly, resulting in some patchy areas there where the gray underneath shines through.  And then there's the expected problems of painting bright orange over dark red, but whatcha gonna do.

It's still a terribly attractive toy.  Not as attractive as I thought it would be, since I was expecting a slightly darker red, but still he's a pretty little dude.  I prefer him to my normal Cyclonus by a lot.  But, again, times infinity, you know me and my orange.

Shattered Cyclonus's partner is Krunix.  There's a story here, and it's long and convoluted and fannish, but I'm going to try to relay it anyway.  Back in the Marvel Comics Headmasters miniseries, Cyclonus was supposed to appear in some panels, but instead the artist drew his Targetmaster partner Nightstick in his place.  When this story got ported to the UK, they noticed the mistake, wite-outed Cyclonus's name, and put in a random new name.  So this giant purple Nightstick dude became "Krunix."  As you can imagine, Krunix is a very obscure dude.  (Or was.) (Okay, he still is.)

So years later Shattered Glass happens, and since there's so many goddamn Targetmaster partners named Nightstick, the name Nightstick gets applied to Ricochet's Targetmaster partner.  You can't also call Cyclonus's Targetmaster partner "Nightstick," since it's taken, so they grab "Krunix."  This is awesome.

Anyway, I love this toy.  Universe Cyclonus is an amazing toy in any deco, and he comes with a fanwank accessory.  I'm still of mixed minds about him, but only because of the fiction.  Shattered Cyclonus only ever did one thing.  He assassinated Megatron.  (Because normal Cyclonus is super-loyal, get it???)  And Megatron was dead.  But Primus resurrected him as Galvatron, in a new body.  A new body that is not Shattered Glass Megatron's, which is my absolute favorite toy of that year's BotCon set.  That toy is now obsolete.

So Cyclonus basically got rid of one of my favorite toys.  Screw you, Cyclonus!  *shakes fist*

In which I age Rikk's parents a little.