MichaelandChrissy.com

Chrissy and I sat in line to meet Peter Cullen today. He signed my Hard Hero bust of Optimus Prime three times: once on the box, once on the front of the statue, and once on the back of the statue (because he screwed up the signature on the front). And then the silver ink didn’t dry very quickly, so I managed to put my thumb right on the front signature. I haven’t bothered to look at the back signature to see if I screwed that one up too.

Chrissy got both of our programs signed, and those turned out wonderful. We got signatures from all the voice actors. In retrospect, I would have been happier having Peter Cullen sign my Optimus Prime montage poster from Botcon 1998, but it’s deep in storage and I didn’t want to dig it out before we left. Oh well, I?m sure this is not the last time that I’ll meet Peter Cullen.

Unbeknownst to me, Chrissy got me a Japanese MP-03 Starscream and an MP-04 Convoy for Sweetest Day. I was in the Hasbro presentation, finding out that I already knew about all of the toys coming out in the next year (up to the movie, which they wouldn’t discuss), and Chrissy was having trouble trying to explain to Scott McNeill that she had no idea who he played on Beast Wars (I guess he went through each voice until she recognized Rattrap). After dissing Scott, she snuck off to the dealer room to hook me up. She’s the best! She got the last Starscream in the dealer room, and got a great deal on Convoy.

We had to get back to Aiden as quickly as possible (we both missed him very much), so we left the convention right after the Hasbro presentation. We had already checked out, so we made a bee-line for the car. We made good time on the trip home, even after stopping at a couple of outlet malls along the way. There’s an hour time difference between Highland and Lexington, so we got home a little earlier than we expected. It was a great trip.

The Dealer Room opened to registered guests today from 2 PM to 5 PM. I seem to have spent way too much money. I didn’t have any Headmasters or Targetmasters, so I went out hunting for deals on those figures. I got a bunch of Pretender robots for a dollar each, but a couple of them are missing feet (what did you expect for a dollar?). I also found some missing heads for some of my older dismembered headmasters. I think that Squeezeplay is my new favorite Headmaster, even if he is still missing his tail.

They had a midnight screening of the newly remastered wide-screen edition of the Transformers movie on Friday night. Chrissy and I stood out in the rain for half an hour to see it. It was a lot cleaner and brighter than the DVD edition that I have now, and it was the first time that Chrissy had seen the entire movie all the way through (she normally sleeps through it). Sony BMG plans to put Scramble City on the 2-disk set as an extra, as well as three languages and two or three commentary tracks. All good stuff, so I’ll have to pick up a copy of the DVD when it comes out.

Chrissy and I drove down to Lexington, Kentucky for Botcon 2006. I signed Chrissy up for the Primus package, so we needed to get to the Lexington Convention Center by 8 PM to pick up our exclusive figures. We both got the box set and the two exclusive sets: Megatron/Waspinator and Laserbeak/Buzzsaw. As a freebie for attending, they gave us a choice of a 2006 Tigatron or a 2005 Flame War figure. Since I had Chrissy with me, I got one of each. And I got a t-shirt.

Images from the TF movie are leaking out, and it has become very plain why it will be a disappointment. As cool as it would have been to have seen real cars turn into real robots that look and talk like the characters from my favorite childhood cartoon, that is how much it will suck when this does not happen. For example, here is what Jazz will look like in the movie:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=111306

And here is what Jazz should look like:

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Jazzg1.jpg

Two very different designs. Does the movie Jazz look like he could have, at one time, been a car? No, not really. Will he be voiced by Scatman Crothers? Most likely not, since he died in 1986, shortly after voicing the original TF movie. But the point is that this will not be the Jazz that I would like to see on the big screen.

I had always heard that new babies bring a terrible lack of sleep to your life. I can’t imagine why that would be, since I sleep through the night like a, um, baby. Unfortunately, Chrissy doesn’t get that luxury.

Aiden has been waking up hungry from his near-constant napping every three hours or so, even when everyone else would rather be sleeping. He is bottle-fed, so I try to feed him as much as possible (doin’ my part, man!), but Chrissy takes the late-night feedings so that I can wake up in the morning for work. She’s the best.

I don’t have to wake up early on the weekends though, so it’s not inconceivable for me to be up at 3 AM with the baby on a Saturday night. Aiden has been fairly good natured, eating and then quickly falling back to sleep after his changing and burping. And I enjoy the bonding time.

I knew that I would need to open some of my mint-in-package Transformers if they were all going to fit on the oak display shelves, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Chrissy, however, has no such problems…

Rip, tear, and devalue. She loves it. I’ll get the ones in the bigger boxes, since she’s still recovering from surgery and all. I just needed her to show me the way, just like in Figure Club.

More photos in the gallery, including shots of full shelves!

It has been a week since Aiden has come home, and I feel like I’ve survived the trial by fire. Prior to Aiden’s birth, I very rarely even held a baby. I had fed a baby once (Chip’s son, Ryan), but I had never successfully burped a baby (Ryan refused to budge). I didn’t even like being in the same room as a baby, for fear that someone would ask me to hold it or, god forbid, change a diaper (which was a completely foreign concept).

But the strange stories that people tell turned out to be true after all. Once you have your own baby, all these things come naturally. It wasn’t even an issue. Curdled baby vomit, seedy yellow-green feces, high-pitched wailing — it comes and you take care of it. I’m shocked at how easy it seems now. Two weeks ago, I was worried to death that I’d have no clue what to do, and now I feel like SuperDad.

My good friend Chip had triplets about five months back, and of the three there was a very small little girl named Lauren. Lauren unfortunately had heart problems that required several surgeries, at least one of which only offered a 50% chance of survival. She had a few other health problems as well, and had to be fed through a tube in her nose. Despite all of her health issues, she was a very happy baby that smiled often and seemed to be determined to pull through.

Chip called today to tell us that Lauren passed on. I had only seen the triplets twice, but my heart went out to the little girl. It was very painful to hear of her death, like a physical blow. Having spent the last week bonding with my own baby, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to lose him. The services will be on Saturday, and Chrissy and I will be there.

Aiden came home today. The nursery is all set up for him, we have 24 bottles of Nestle Great Start formula (a one week supply, as far as I can tell), a pile of burp rags and receiving blankets, and a much better idea of what to do with babies than three days ago.

Chrissy is making a miraculous recovery for someone who just underwent abdominal surgery. She was standing up the next day, and walking around on the day after that. Once she made a doody, the hospital was more than happy to send her on her way (they make you do that before you can go). And honestly, we were happier to be home together with Aiden than we were in the hospital.