The Aftermath

Folks, I'm not gonna lie to you...this was probably the most fun I've had at a convention since GenCon Indy 2004. It's not that I haven't had fun at all the cons in between - to the contrary, there have been some great times. They didn't have the same feel, though. Not even close. Now that I've been back for a while and had the long-ish weekend to recover I've had plenty of time to think about why it was so enjoyable, and here's what I've come up with.

1) There was sufficient late-night drinking and laughs.

2) I got there early enough to enjoy the night before.

3) I wasn't in demo hell. It's not that I don't think I should have to demo. It's part of the gig and I accept it. Given the opportunity, though, I much prefer to be in the tournament hall than at the booth and I very much look forward to producing a second game so more time can be spent in the t-hall.

4) Hangin' with Ohio State girls after an Ohio State win (Go Bucks!)

5) Disney at the holidays. Or even just Disney period.

6) Product moving off our shelves and, more importantly, off other merchants shelves as well. Even singles were selling steadily and eBay prices moved up nearly $50 over the weekend - very nice!

7) Buca and Beer!

8) Watching a golden schlong get stolen by a teenage dork chickenshit doped up on E to change the life of a fabulously hot hollywood chick

And while all of the aforementioned qualities certainly helped make the con as enjoyable as it was, they pale in comparison to the next two...

8) I got to play some. And not just in tournaments, but in the exhibit hall, too. Greg took me over to the UDE booth to take a demo of some element air masters game or somethin-or-other in order to get a playmat. It didn't matter what the game was or the license behind it. I just enjoyed kicking his ass and celebrating (seriously, one of the steps in the game is celebrating...WTF?) aka doing stupid white boy chair dance after I slapped him around. Truth be told, I was so lucky that game that I probably could have gone to Vegas and paid for Joyride's complete convention expenses with my winnings. The Nightmare Before Christmas game was okay - nothing I'd play but the license alone will push some sales to fandom. What was more fun was watching the makers of it work so hard to push it. That booth was busy all con long. Congrats gentlemen, I wish you well. Watching people beat the crap out of each other (by accident - they're terrible fighters) with foam swords was hilarious! But some of the most fun in the exhibit hall (outside of gawking at the corsett both) was had at the AEG booth where one of their employees told me while demoing City of Heros that the company was in poor financial straights and if the owner didn't pony up personal funds then the game might not get printed. GOOD JOB, DUDE! Way to instill confidence in a potential player! That was almost as fun as the demo itself - neat game, much fun! I love playing and being around games, and that's why I go to these gigs. Good times.

9) The people. T-Mac and J-Dub. Colson. Vinson and Greg. New Guy Ophir. Vinson's SoCal gaming crew. Joey and Stephen. Silent Beal. Andy Lupp, Bojo, and Kyle. Dawn. Many of the people that helped make it fun when I started combined with some new faces that were great to meet and talk with. I really wish they all could have been there...Sonny, Girard, Mark, Chuck, Hayden, Latneau, Kim, Evans, Kirk, Marcus, and all the other fun gamerfolk I've met along the way. Maybe that'll happen again sometime. But yes, the people helped to make it fun.

Thanks for for the great time, and I'll see you all at the next con!

It's Showtime!

I'm off to be a jSlut at GenCon SoCal. Have fun, and see you all on Monday!

Speaking of wasting time...

Try this for just two minutes and see if you're not addicted...

My highest so far is 146 squares and 17642 points while dancing to the square groove...

Sheria's Story

I was just transfering cards today from folder to folder and came across my Wars foily sets. :-( I miss Wars. Fun game, even if I hardly ever got to play it. It made my mind work.

What I'd love to know, though, is what ever happened to Sheria? Last we knew one of the CiSyn (I think that was there name?) guys identified her as a potential kizen and whisked her away. She was kind of a silent assassin type, it seemed, and her little dive-roll-and-fire move was purty sweet - in fact, I named my monk after her! She and Hicks had the most compelling stories, IMO. If any of y'all have "the rest of the story," drop me a line.

Another world

Right now it seems like WoW, City of Heroes, and Guildwars are the big MMOs with DDO looming in the near future. I might play DDO (emphasis on might - my graphics card might need upgrading for better detail/refresh rate). I was never a Warcraft fan, though, nor a big superhero guy. And by the time Guildwars came out I was already hooked into Ragnarok, a quirky little anime MMO that's lo-tech and all kinds of fun. While it doesn't have a lot of the eye candy, it's definitely another world, and a very large and detailed one at that. You can even get married, if that's your thing (don't get weirded out - there are gameplay reasons to do this), and even go on a honeymoon! A buddy of mine did this once and the wedding presents he got were sick...they received almost 100M worth of gear (a good, moderately upgraded and customized weapon would cost 500k-1M)!

Right now I'm building a monk, but to do so you have to be a little healing guy first so it's rough/slow goings to start out. The cool thing is that by the time I get finished I'll be beatstick that can heal and buff itself severely with access to every type of attack. The bad thing is that until that time I can't hardly wear armor and I have to heal myself after each monster I beat. I can solo, but if I get aggro'd (or if a f'n newb runs a swarm to me) then I have to warp away. That's neet.

One day I'll post screenshots of my monk. Until then, if any of you have a spare Whisper card, can I have it? ;-)

Hodgepodge

-90 degrees is too damn hot for an American November day. I don't necessarily want 36 inches of fresh powder, either, but forgive me if I long for fall temperatures that actually feel like fall temperatures.

-There are certain buzzwords that seem to capture the minds and hearts of business professionals. People in the IT industry seem to like the words "robust" and "solution" quite a bit recently; generaly speaking, I don't want these words to be remotely associated with the software I use. For one, when a company markets its software as a "solution," often times it ends up becoming the "problem." Either the business becomes entirely dependant upon it so that if it goes down then work grinds to a halt OR they can't get it to work in the first place. As for robust...well, the only thing "robust" software seems to do is cost the buyer ten times as much. Screw that. I don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to be pissed of at my software. Bill Gates already saw to that.

-It looks like Thursday night is gonna be poker night. Not a guarantee yet, but if I go then it would be a bunch of people from work drinking beer and attempting to play cards. If their drunken poker skill resembles their sober fantasy drafting skills in the least then I *should* finish no lower than second. That being said, someone will probably go heads up with me on a jackass call and win on the river. That'd be fitting.

-I'm so glad hockey is back! Go Coyotes! They haven't won a playoff series for around twenty years now but I don't much care at the moment. Just being able to see the players throw around the puck again is refreshing.

-I'll never again take a full night's sleep for granted after last week. Not being able to sleep through the night for 7 out of 8 nights just sucks. Knowing that parents of newborns go through similar streaks for months makes me somewhat surprised that any of us are even lived through infancy.

Charlie Brown's revenge

If you've read much of the Peanuts strip at all, you know that Chuck's a fan of sports. He plays baseball quite regularly...maybe not very well, but he still plays. But I think his secret passion is football, or at least getting revenge on that bitch-of-a-Lucy character. Lucy asks if Charlie wants to kick the football, Charlie says yes, she holds it, and he runs up to kick it only to have it yanked away at the last second yield terrible results and inevitably landing on his back, or if he really put his leg into it, his head. In fact it's a wonder Charlie Brown didn't end up in a wheelchair from all the falls he took, but I guess bones and organs are remarkably durable in the cartoon world. In any case, seeing that happen over and over as a child really made me angry. I mean REALLY angry!!! All he wanted to do was kick the ball, and that lying sack-o-crap Lucy would continually yank it away. Now, let's not overlook Charlie Brown's part in this...you figure after not more than 4 bad falls he'd have learned to find another holder (man, can you imagine what would happen to a holder in the NFL if he yanked the ball away like that?). He has a certain responsibility to himself to ensure he's not suckered repeatedly. Nonetheless, I still blame Lucy the Liar. If she doesn't yank that ball away...if she lets him kick it even ONCE, who knows how different Charlie's life might have turned out! I swore until weeks after Charles Schultz's death that he had a comic strip already written hidden away in some safe where Charlie finally kicked the ball, only to be printed upon his death. Damn you, Charles! You proved me wrong!

Charlie Brown, if you're out there, I hope you kick that ball some day, and when you do, I hope you drive it so far up Lucy's ass that it pops out her mouth.

My new mission in life

Searching for the world's best-tasting pie.