Been a while
So I'm a lazy mofo and havn't gotten off my ass to post lately.
Let's see...
So a while back CrazyJoyfulGirl aka Pet_23 wanted to get together with me again, because we both were bored and I needed my monthly fix of Alec from Dark Angel. So Friday after work I drove up to PA, picked her ass up, and drove on back to OH. We had fun talking in the car about everything and nothing, then went magazine shopping for Flaunt and TV Guide because Jensen was in both... which led to fun times in grocery store parking lots talking about Sam and Dean and the jewelry store called "Jared's". When we got back to my place we immediately started watching Dark Angel, cuz, like I said, I needed my fix.
And unfortunately, waking up at 9am, working for 4 hours, then driving for 8 is rather exhausting, so I went to bed because I was dead. And when I woke up, soulless_lover (Logan) was here, which was ok because we'd kinda talked about it a little, how I have to work on Saturdays, so if she wanted to keep Pet company while I was gone that'd be cool. So I got out my visitor's pass, told Logan to stick it in her car, and went to work.
At work, I was dying the whole time to go home, and crazily enough the power went out! Unfortunately it didn't happen until I had 5 minutes left. So that was pretty crap. When I got back, Pet and I were hungry and we convinced Logan to come with us to a local restaurant called Mike's Place ( Their website ) which is KICK ASS and really good for cheap. Plus you get TONS of food and you get to laugh at their amazing menu. The only sad thing was that I forgot to show them the castle in the back... but that just means that people will have to come back. *smirky smirk smirk*
Then we went booze shopping at the grocery store, which was exciting for Pet because apparently PA doesn't sell booze in grocery stores. I found a cool new magnet for my car of a smiley face with it's tongue sticking out a la wee!Dean in The Dean Show . I just need to sharpie on the Gene Simmons makeup and I'll totally have a smiley wee!Dean on my car.
Anyway, we went back home and Logan went to sleep while Pet and I watched the first season of Gilmore Girls. He woke up wheezing from the heat and cat hair so Pet and I made a CVS run after Pet let him use her inhaler. We took a detour on campus so that I could show her the May 4th Memorial and I described the whole thing in detail cuz I can't not, and then we went back. She woke Logan up to give him medicine and then he went back to sleep and we watched Gilmore Girls until I had to collapse.
The next morning we were hungry so we went to a chinese buffet. After fun times there, Em wanted to go book shopping, so we drove up to the mall, where I decided that I needed to buy the new X-Men game at Best Buy. After spending a buncha time there, we were walking out of the parking lot when Pet blacked out for less than a second... (she didn't even fall down, just stumbled a little but she said she'd blanked) and gained a splitting headache. We got her water at McDonalds and then I immediately drove home, thinking that it would be best if we just got her back and maybe lying down. While Pet recovered Em went outside and drew for a while, and Pet and I watched more Gilmore Girls, followed by Supernatural. Em came back and gave Pet her drawing, then went rollerblading, and came back as Jubilee, who watched Supernatural with us. Then instead of paying more money for food, I attempted and succeeded at cooking and made grilled BBQ chicken. Yay for me!
Then Pet and I settled in to watch some Smallville, which got changed when Pet mentioned how she had a movie of Christian's called Keep Your Distance... and OMG was he HOT in it. I felt soo bad for his character, but he sang! And played guitar! And Steve Carlson cameoed! Whee! We also watched Devour which is nearly as messed up as Secret Window, but had some interesting scenes with Jensen and Jensen's Dad arguing about "mom", and I thought that that must have been really weird to be acting with your real dad and spewing out lines about how you messed up "mom". Especially because who doesn't have arguments with their dad growing up? How weird would it be to have a fake one 10 years later with the same guy? I want to see behind the scenes stuff for that movie... interviews and commentaries and such... but they probably don't exist because the movie is kinda crap.
Anyway, then we changed back to SPN for a bit and I nearly fell asleep during Benders which sucked because it's my fav. episode... and then I went and crashed.
Em was gone when I woke up the next morning and Pet and I cleaned up and then I drove her home... which was fun because I totally got a Dean vibe going on... especially when we stopped at a rest-stop and I got hungry and had a breakfast of champions... a cinnamon roll, a bag of cheetos, and a coke.
The drive back sucked ass because I drove through a BAD storm... I couldn't see and I swear to God there was a wall-cloud that might have had a tornado behind it... the sky was green and the wind really picked up... but I made it through.
So that was three weeks ago. Two weeks ago...
So Em introduced me to emibailey a few weeks ago, and then Emi came to visit Em. Saturday of 2 weeks ago I drove to Grafton, met her, and drove them both back to PA to visit Pet again. We had a crazy ass time because Em had just gotten a new tattoo of Wolverine on her thigh, which was bothering her, and then Emi's back gives her problems so there was lots of chinese fire-drills in parking lots. Or just 1. Whatever.
We got to Pet's house and after lots of Squee-age and comic looking at and me watching Dark Angel, cuz again, you know... Alec fixation=Key, and hugs and cuddles and humpings and pictures... and then drinking in a circle on the kitchen floor and alcohol squirting out noses... and then taking sides vs. Hugh Jackman's hair... (he TOTALLY looks better with short hair) I went to sleep cuz I was exhausted. When we woke we went out for dinner at Ponderosa, which was Emi's first time at a buffet style restaurant if I remember her saying that correctly... and then got quick pretzels at the Mall... which was fun for me because we had "given Pet the POWER" to decide where to go, but I remembered the mall from the last time and was gonna park next to where I thought was closer but she vetoed me... but I totally used "Dude, Driver picks the spot... shotgun shuts his cakehole" on her and oooo did she give me the Look of Death. And punched me if I remember... *smirky McSmirk smirk* But yeah. Then Emi started feeling poorly so we went back... but Em helped her breathe better by convincing Emi's Warren to break his harness... which helped I guess.
We then stopped at Wal-Mart to get cream for Em's tattoo and took a detour to look around and buy clothes... and they had these hats that were like Angel's in Shroud of Ramon, so I picked one up, grabbed an ugly hawaiian shirt and introduced myself to Pet. "Herb Saunders, Boston!" and extended my hand, while Em chimed in behind me "It's Herb Saunders!" I laughed for a long time and it still makes me giggle... tho I really wasn't all that funny. I guess you had to be there. And in my mind. Yeah.
While on the way back to Pet's house from Wal-Mart, she texted me... which was funny cuz she was sitting right next to me... but that started the Great Texting War between us... and it's still not really done yet. When we got back we kinda laid around and did nothing... then some drama happened, and after a bit everything seemed to be back to relative normal, and we watched Eddie Izzard as a group, which was great fun. I love him so hard.
During that we kinda got off topic and had a discussion about tattoos and life, which was good because it kinda changed my outlook on tattoos... and on life a little. Cuz I was ashamed of what I used to be into... but Em explained it that she looked back on that stuff and just smiles and remembers those defining times in her life, which I'd never thought about that way. And honestly, it really made me think. I was ashamed that I loved Titanic and Leonardo DiCaprio and Hanson and Backstreet Boys like I used to... cuz to me now, it's like UGH! But that was during Middle School when no one knew really what they were into, and I'm now looking at it as "hey... that was middle school." It defined me during middle school... and it's not something to be ashamed of. Or maybe a little, but definitely not to the extent I had it, plus I felt guilty about it. So now I've decided that if I get a tattoo based on something that I'm into, I don't think I'll regret it, because it was what I was into at the time, and I'll remember this part of my life based off of it.
Anyway, after the convo we started Eddie again from pause, and Em fell asleep, then Emi did. So I lay down as well and Pet worked on a new LJ banner and we texted each other back and forth until she was done. Oh man it was fun. Then we went to sleep in the living room because there wasn't enough room on the bed... but halfway through the morning her ferret decided that burrowing into my blankets and biting my fingers and toes would be a WONDERFUL idea, so I went back into the bedroom planning an evil demise for the little weasel. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up we had to go because Em had to work, so we drove back and passed the same boat twice ("Emily's Boat") cuz we passed it once, then took a rest stop and caught back up to it. I took them back to Em's place, and then high-tailed it for home because I had to make it to my bank before it closed. That pretty much ended the weekend.
Then last week was my gaming convention.
We drove down to Columbus Wednesday, my friends Ben and Heather and I. That was exciting because it was beautiful skies until we got into Columbus proper, then a HUGE DELUGE decended upon us as we got lost. We finally made our way to our hotel and entered the parking lot... only for the skies to get all sunny again. That was wonderful!
I spent the whole convention texting Pet back and forth, which was fun and provided much amusement during really boring times. Like Wednesday night. Nothing was happening except we "meet and greeted" a few people, I solved problems with my Badge and got a full refund like I was supposed to, and I set up my laptop in the hotel room then delt with internet problems for four hours. I finally got a tech guy on the phone who knew what he was doing, and he informed me that I have a virus on the laptop. I downloaded an anti-virus program and it crashed the computer when I ran it... but the internet problems stopped after I rebooted so I guess it got the bits it needed. LOL
Thursday morning started bright and early for me at 8:30. I went down to the breakfast that the hotel provides (Drury Inn=Best Hotel Ever) then went off to my first game. It was a board game called Carcassonne and it's a whole lot of fun. It's a board game played with tiles and you pretty much build a kingdom and put your little serfs on it and try to get the most points. The other people playing were good fun to talk to, most of them older. I talked with a retired principal about school stuff and what I should be looking for, and also learned about two other games that I wanted to play... Killer Bunnies (or some such) and Ticket to Ride. I didn't get to play either of them though. *sadface*
From Carcassonne I went straight to Prawn! Now if you've never heard of Prawn!, let me educate you. Prawn is a Live Action RPG that takes place in a swimming pool. I am not joking. You get in your bathing suit, you go to a pool, you get in the water, and you LARP. You're given characters which are fish. The entire basis of the game is that you're a fish in a fishtank. There are Hands that make funny noises (humans talking) and they sometimes bring food (yay!) and other times grab you and take you to horrible places. These places are rumored to be a "Pot" where the water BOILS, and the "oven" which HAS NO WATER! *GASP!*
I've played Prawn for the last two years and this year I had the most fun. I was Flynn the Swordfish. Oh man I had a blast. It's hard to describe what I was doing without actually doing it, but suffice to say that I tried to speak in Shakespereian english and had my imaginary sword drawn at all times. I even ended up winning the prize for best RPing. *squee!*
After Prawn there was supposed to be a Prawn2, but there weren't enough players, so they invited us to another of their games instead which was slated for the next morning. I left and went back to the hotel, changed, and went down to help at the booth for OGO. I did that for a little bit before checking out the Vendor's Room and the Art Exibit.
The Vendor's Room was its usual craziness, chock full of stuff and more stuff. The Art Exibit was a little empty when I first looked at it, but that was cuz not all the artists had arrived yet. I did see stuff from Theresa Mather, who is AMAZING, and from Susan Van Camp. I bought a pic from Van Camp last year and still have it being shown. Theresa Mather blows my mind though. Not only are her paintings very detailed and exquisit, but she also paints on feathers. FEATHERS. She had a wolf howling on a feather and a pair of unicorn heads on another. They were AMAZING. I swear to God I'm going to buy one when I have money. She also had a grey dragon painted on a piece of obsidian that was so cool, and I fell in love with two prints that were up for bidding. One was an Emerald Dragon and the other was a Chinese Dragon that is black and has orange accents. It's gorgeous.
I bid on the emerald dragon right then, and checked it periodically. When it came to the final bidding process saturday night, the lady who had been bidding against me was standing right there and we had a war. I set my amount at $35, which she met, and so I quickly wrote a bid down on the chinese dragon for $18, and I won that instead. I'm very happy with it, and took pictures of the emerald one with my phone so I'll "have" it even though I didn't win it.
After checking out the art exhibit on Thursday, I went back to the hotel for happy hour (I repeat, Drury Inn kicks ass... 3 free mixed drinks daily from 5:30-7pm) met up with a friend I hadn't seen since December (Loafie, I miss you) and annoyed him with my constant prattle, but he's SUCH a cool guy and puts up with me. Then I went swimming again with my friends. I left early to go back up to the room and shower before watching Supernatural... but THEY DIDN'T CARRY THE NETWORK!!!! (Drury Inn = TEH SUCK) So instead I listened to one of my favorite episodes (Home) over the phone while chatting with Foxie and Pet and reading fanfiction to curb my addiction. While I was chatting, my friends came back, Heather made me a Fuzzy Navel and Ben told me where the Raspberry Vodka was, and they left again. I then drank and read fanfiction, and got drunk, and my arms starting killing me from all the swimming I did.
I ended up going to bed in such pain that I was crying, and finally Heather and Ben and Wookie came back and Heather fed me tylanol, and I slept.
I got up at 8:30am again on Friday and went down to play a game with the same people who ran Prawn, Interactivities Ink. It was called Plan Nine from Outer Space and it's based on an old 50's B-Movie of the same name. It was a blast. I got a character who only cared about punctuation and grammar (HELL YES that's me) and had a blast with it. At one point I required everyone to not use contractions when speaking. It was so much fun.
From there I went to the vendor's room and found little punchcards. Specific booths were punching the punchcards, and if you filled one out (there were about 12 booths per card) you could submit it for a change to win $5000. It was cool though, because it was in the style of World of Warcraft. The booth where you picked up the cards had a giant yellow exclamation point, and the box you put the finished cards in had a giant yellow question mark. The cards themselves were double-sided and there was a green card, a yellow card, and a red card. (based on "difficulty") On one side said the booth and the booth number, and on the other said what you were supposedly 'getting' from the booth. Once you did what they required, they punched the card and the 'item' was 'retrieved'. For example, Slugfest Games' 'item' was a Hair from a Hero, so it was great fun when you went there and asked one of the guys to shave their head. Instead they made you play a demo. But it was fun.
So I basically played demos for 3 hours, all the while trying to get together with my mom and brother to look at the new condo that my brother was thinking of buying with his girlfriend, then we were gonna go out to eat. Unfortunately it was deemed "too far" to come and pick me up at the convention center, so they left for Kent instead. And I wasted a buncha time. So I played more demos and bought a few things, then went back to the hotel room.
I assembled a deck for my X-Files CCG tourney that I was in, and went down to find that the only other person there was the guy who was running it. So I played against him... and got my ass handed to me... but mostly because I'd never played the Advanced version of the game, so my deck sucked. I learned a WHOLE bunch though, and got to be pretty good friends with him, and am now excited for next year, when I'll be ready to kick his butt. *smirk* Not really though.
After I was done with my "tourney", I wne tback to the room and a whole bunch of us when out to BD's Mongolian BBQ like we always do. It was a blast, but I only had 1 bowl because I made alot and it filled me up. Loafie had something in his second bowl that didn't agree with him and ended up being sick later, which I was sad to hear about, so he couldn't come with Heather, Ben, Raven and I to the club that they talked me into.
It was SUPPOSEDLY a goth/bdsm club, but in reality it was little more than a shit bar with shitty pool tables and 1 person whipping a guy on a rack near the door. It had far too much space, not enough people, and they were playing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on the bigscreen TVs. (Don't ask, because I didn't.) Everyone who was anyone at the club was out on the TEENY patio smoking, because Columbus is a smoke-free in public places city. So basically I got to sit in a bunch of second-hand smoke and listen to people complain about how "it used to be SO much better". Then Heather and Ben decided they wanted to leave, which was good because I wanted to leave the moment I stepped in the door, and so we then went through trying to get a cab to find the damn place while Heather and Raven were drunk PMSing, or so it seemed, and I totally wanted to go with Ben to the "vagina free zone".
We got back and I collapsed into bed... to sleep until noon on Saturday. I went down to get something to eat at the food court and met Adam, the president of a High School OGO group, (i know which one but am not gonna say to protect the innocent ;) ) and we then spent the day walking around the Vendor's Room together. I spent a whole buncha money on Tshirts, gifts, posters, card carriers, and a pink flamingo hat that's like 1.5 feet tall and made me the subject of LOTSA pictures. I got to know him a little and he's a really cool guy too. We did this until about 6pm, then we went out to dinner with Heather because she was stressing about JR, and we calmed her down, got food in her, and didn't talk about anything remotely business-like for hours, which was good for us and better for her.
Then we got her cheesecake and I went to the closing of the auction, which I already talked about. I didn't mention about my fav. 2 artists, Nigel Sade and Brian Miskelley, though. Nigel and Brian ran a booth for the past 2 years that was completely pirate themed. 2 years ago it was right across from the autograph line for Sean Astin, and they had fun ARGing at us all and gave Sean a free Pirate Bandana and labeled him the Hobbit Pirate. I bought a piece from Nigel that year and it's still being displayed as well. Last year they were both there and I talked to them a bit, mostly because I learned Nigel is from my hometown. Well this year Brian was a featured artist, but Nigel wasn't there. I was really sad! His art was there, and I was tempted to ask Brian where he was, but I didn't. (This becomes important later.)
So anyway, after the auction Saturday I stayed up with Pet for a while, then went down to play a card game called Stupidduel, which is hilarious. Then I went to play my Fav. Game EVER, MegaParanoia. Paranoia LARP. OMG. I LOVE Paranoia. ALL HAIL THE COMPUTER!!!
I really don't want to go into describing Paranoia right now, so I'll jsut describe the game. I was a Red (woo) and I met a hot boy named Jason before the game on the escalator... he was so nice and actually good looking!, and he became the Team Leader cuz he was the only Blue. It made me laugh, cuz I'm attracted to people in positions of power, and I was already attracted to him before he became the team leader. So I was assigned to Armed Forces... and got killed TWICE before the game even really began BY MY OWN TEAM MEMBERS. I was the first killed! Woo me!
The funny bits were when everyone got in a circle... and then someone was labelled a traitor so everyone drew their guns and fired... while all the reds went SHIT!!!! and dropped to the floor. OMG it was hilarious. Then it happened again and all the reds dropped to the floor, but this time acid was spreading throughout the floor so we all died anyway. It was great.
The best part was someone was playing a Scrubbot.. and he did SO WELL. OMG He was great. I can't even describe him. Maybe later.
Sunday we got up and we packed for hours, then I ran down to see if I won the $5000 dollars. I didn't. Darn. Then I called Pet and my Mom. Then we left.
And finally, I saw PotC2 last night. But I'm totally gonna talk about that in another post because I'm trying to post online, post this, talk to Pet, and watch Smallville all at the same time and I've been working on this post for SIX HOURS. I'm done. More later. Woo!
Let's see...
So a while back CrazyJoyfulGirl aka Pet_23 wanted to get together with me again, because we both were bored and I needed my monthly fix of Alec from Dark Angel. So Friday after work I drove up to PA, picked her ass up, and drove on back to OH. We had fun talking in the car about everything and nothing, then went magazine shopping for Flaunt and TV Guide because Jensen was in both... which led to fun times in grocery store parking lots talking about Sam and Dean and the jewelry store called "Jared's". When we got back to my place we immediately started watching Dark Angel, cuz, like I said, I needed my fix.
And unfortunately, waking up at 9am, working for 4 hours, then driving for 8 is rather exhausting, so I went to bed because I was dead. And when I woke up, soulless_lover (Logan) was here, which was ok because we'd kinda talked about it a little, how I have to work on Saturdays, so if she wanted to keep Pet company while I was gone that'd be cool. So I got out my visitor's pass, told Logan to stick it in her car, and went to work.
At work, I was dying the whole time to go home, and crazily enough the power went out! Unfortunately it didn't happen until I had 5 minutes left. So that was pretty crap. When I got back, Pet and I were hungry and we convinced Logan to come with us to a local restaurant called Mike's Place ( Their website ) which is KICK ASS and really good for cheap. Plus you get TONS of food and you get to laugh at their amazing menu. The only sad thing was that I forgot to show them the castle in the back... but that just means that people will have to come back. *smirky smirk smirk*
Then we went booze shopping at the grocery store, which was exciting for Pet because apparently PA doesn't sell booze in grocery stores. I found a cool new magnet for my car of a smiley face with it's tongue sticking out a la wee!Dean in The Dean Show . I just need to sharpie on the Gene Simmons makeup and I'll totally have a smiley wee!Dean on my car.
Anyway, we went back home and Logan went to sleep while Pet and I watched the first season of Gilmore Girls. He woke up wheezing from the heat and cat hair so Pet and I made a CVS run after Pet let him use her inhaler. We took a detour on campus so that I could show her the May 4th Memorial and I described the whole thing in detail cuz I can't not, and then we went back. She woke Logan up to give him medicine and then he went back to sleep and we watched Gilmore Girls until I had to collapse.
The next morning we were hungry so we went to a chinese buffet. After fun times there, Em wanted to go book shopping, so we drove up to the mall, where I decided that I needed to buy the new X-Men game at Best Buy. After spending a buncha time there, we were walking out of the parking lot when Pet blacked out for less than a second... (she didn't even fall down, just stumbled a little but she said she'd blanked) and gained a splitting headache. We got her water at McDonalds and then I immediately drove home, thinking that it would be best if we just got her back and maybe lying down. While Pet recovered Em went outside and drew for a while, and Pet and I watched more Gilmore Girls, followed by Supernatural. Em came back and gave Pet her drawing, then went rollerblading, and came back as Jubilee, who watched Supernatural with us. Then instead of paying more money for food, I attempted and succeeded at cooking and made grilled BBQ chicken. Yay for me!
Then Pet and I settled in to watch some Smallville, which got changed when Pet mentioned how she had a movie of Christian's called Keep Your Distance... and OMG was he HOT in it. I felt soo bad for his character, but he sang! And played guitar! And Steve Carlson cameoed! Whee! We also watched Devour which is nearly as messed up as Secret Window, but had some interesting scenes with Jensen and Jensen's Dad arguing about "mom", and I thought that that must have been really weird to be acting with your real dad and spewing out lines about how you messed up "mom". Especially because who doesn't have arguments with their dad growing up? How weird would it be to have a fake one 10 years later with the same guy? I want to see behind the scenes stuff for that movie... interviews and commentaries and such... but they probably don't exist because the movie is kinda crap.
Anyway, then we changed back to SPN for a bit and I nearly fell asleep during Benders which sucked because it's my fav. episode... and then I went and crashed.
Em was gone when I woke up the next morning and Pet and I cleaned up and then I drove her home... which was fun because I totally got a Dean vibe going on... especially when we stopped at a rest-stop and I got hungry and had a breakfast of champions... a cinnamon roll, a bag of cheetos, and a coke.
The drive back sucked ass because I drove through a BAD storm... I couldn't see and I swear to God there was a wall-cloud that might have had a tornado behind it... the sky was green and the wind really picked up... but I made it through.
So that was three weeks ago. Two weeks ago...
So Em introduced me to emibailey a few weeks ago, and then Emi came to visit Em. Saturday of 2 weeks ago I drove to Grafton, met her, and drove them both back to PA to visit Pet again. We had a crazy ass time because Em had just gotten a new tattoo of Wolverine on her thigh, which was bothering her, and then Emi's back gives her problems so there was lots of chinese fire-drills in parking lots. Or just 1. Whatever.
We got to Pet's house and after lots of Squee-age and comic looking at and me watching Dark Angel, cuz again, you know... Alec fixation=Key, and hugs and cuddles and humpings and pictures... and then drinking in a circle on the kitchen floor and alcohol squirting out noses... and then taking sides vs. Hugh Jackman's hair... (he TOTALLY looks better with short hair) I went to sleep cuz I was exhausted. When we woke we went out for dinner at Ponderosa, which was Emi's first time at a buffet style restaurant if I remember her saying that correctly... and then got quick pretzels at the Mall... which was fun for me because we had "given Pet the POWER" to decide where to go, but I remembered the mall from the last time and was gonna park next to where I thought was closer but she vetoed me... but I totally used "Dude, Driver picks the spot... shotgun shuts his cakehole" on her and oooo did she give me the Look of Death. And punched me if I remember... *smirky McSmirk smirk* But yeah. Then Emi started feeling poorly so we went back... but Em helped her breathe better by convincing Emi's Warren to break his harness... which helped I guess.
We then stopped at Wal-Mart to get cream for Em's tattoo and took a detour to look around and buy clothes... and they had these hats that were like Angel's in Shroud of Ramon, so I picked one up, grabbed an ugly hawaiian shirt and introduced myself to Pet. "Herb Saunders, Boston!" and extended my hand, while Em chimed in behind me "It's Herb Saunders!" I laughed for a long time and it still makes me giggle... tho I really wasn't all that funny. I guess you had to be there. And in my mind. Yeah.
While on the way back to Pet's house from Wal-Mart, she texted me... which was funny cuz she was sitting right next to me... but that started the Great Texting War between us... and it's still not really done yet. When we got back we kinda laid around and did nothing... then some drama happened, and after a bit everything seemed to be back to relative normal, and we watched Eddie Izzard as a group, which was great fun. I love him so hard.
During that we kinda got off topic and had a discussion about tattoos and life, which was good because it kinda changed my outlook on tattoos... and on life a little. Cuz I was ashamed of what I used to be into... but Em explained it that she looked back on that stuff and just smiles and remembers those defining times in her life, which I'd never thought about that way. And honestly, it really made me think. I was ashamed that I loved Titanic and Leonardo DiCaprio and Hanson and Backstreet Boys like I used to... cuz to me now, it's like UGH! But that was during Middle School when no one knew really what they were into, and I'm now looking at it as "hey... that was middle school." It defined me during middle school... and it's not something to be ashamed of. Or maybe a little, but definitely not to the extent I had it, plus I felt guilty about it. So now I've decided that if I get a tattoo based on something that I'm into, I don't think I'll regret it, because it was what I was into at the time, and I'll remember this part of my life based off of it.
Anyway, after the convo we started Eddie again from pause, and Em fell asleep, then Emi did. So I lay down as well and Pet worked on a new LJ banner and we texted each other back and forth until she was done. Oh man it was fun. Then we went to sleep in the living room because there wasn't enough room on the bed... but halfway through the morning her ferret decided that burrowing into my blankets and biting my fingers and toes would be a WONDERFUL idea, so I went back into the bedroom planning an evil demise for the little weasel. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up we had to go because Em had to work, so we drove back and passed the same boat twice ("Emily's Boat") cuz we passed it once, then took a rest stop and caught back up to it. I took them back to Em's place, and then high-tailed it for home because I had to make it to my bank before it closed. That pretty much ended the weekend.
Then last week was my gaming convention.
We drove down to Columbus Wednesday, my friends Ben and Heather and I. That was exciting because it was beautiful skies until we got into Columbus proper, then a HUGE DELUGE decended upon us as we got lost. We finally made our way to our hotel and entered the parking lot... only for the skies to get all sunny again. That was wonderful!
I spent the whole convention texting Pet back and forth, which was fun and provided much amusement during really boring times. Like Wednesday night. Nothing was happening except we "meet and greeted" a few people, I solved problems with my Badge and got a full refund like I was supposed to, and I set up my laptop in the hotel room then delt with internet problems for four hours. I finally got a tech guy on the phone who knew what he was doing, and he informed me that I have a virus on the laptop. I downloaded an anti-virus program and it crashed the computer when I ran it... but the internet problems stopped after I rebooted so I guess it got the bits it needed. LOL
Thursday morning started bright and early for me at 8:30. I went down to the breakfast that the hotel provides (Drury Inn=Best Hotel Ever) then went off to my first game. It was a board game called Carcassonne and it's a whole lot of fun. It's a board game played with tiles and you pretty much build a kingdom and put your little serfs on it and try to get the most points. The other people playing were good fun to talk to, most of them older. I talked with a retired principal about school stuff and what I should be looking for, and also learned about two other games that I wanted to play... Killer Bunnies (or some such) and Ticket to Ride. I didn't get to play either of them though. *sadface*
From Carcassonne I went straight to Prawn! Now if you've never heard of Prawn!, let me educate you. Prawn is a Live Action RPG that takes place in a swimming pool. I am not joking. You get in your bathing suit, you go to a pool, you get in the water, and you LARP. You're given characters which are fish. The entire basis of the game is that you're a fish in a fishtank. There are Hands that make funny noises (humans talking) and they sometimes bring food (yay!) and other times grab you and take you to horrible places. These places are rumored to be a "Pot" where the water BOILS, and the "oven" which HAS NO WATER! *GASP!*
I've played Prawn for the last two years and this year I had the most fun. I was Flynn the Swordfish. Oh man I had a blast. It's hard to describe what I was doing without actually doing it, but suffice to say that I tried to speak in Shakespereian english and had my imaginary sword drawn at all times. I even ended up winning the prize for best RPing. *squee!*
After Prawn there was supposed to be a Prawn2, but there weren't enough players, so they invited us to another of their games instead which was slated for the next morning. I left and went back to the hotel, changed, and went down to help at the booth for OGO. I did that for a little bit before checking out the Vendor's Room and the Art Exibit.
The Vendor's Room was its usual craziness, chock full of stuff and more stuff. The Art Exibit was a little empty when I first looked at it, but that was cuz not all the artists had arrived yet. I did see stuff from Theresa Mather, who is AMAZING, and from Susan Van Camp. I bought a pic from Van Camp last year and still have it being shown. Theresa Mather blows my mind though. Not only are her paintings very detailed and exquisit, but she also paints on feathers. FEATHERS. She had a wolf howling on a feather and a pair of unicorn heads on another. They were AMAZING. I swear to God I'm going to buy one when I have money. She also had a grey dragon painted on a piece of obsidian that was so cool, and I fell in love with two prints that were up for bidding. One was an Emerald Dragon and the other was a Chinese Dragon that is black and has orange accents. It's gorgeous.
I bid on the emerald dragon right then, and checked it periodically. When it came to the final bidding process saturday night, the lady who had been bidding against me was standing right there and we had a war. I set my amount at $35, which she met, and so I quickly wrote a bid down on the chinese dragon for $18, and I won that instead. I'm very happy with it, and took pictures of the emerald one with my phone so I'll "have" it even though I didn't win it.
After checking out the art exhibit on Thursday, I went back to the hotel for happy hour (I repeat, Drury Inn kicks ass... 3 free mixed drinks daily from 5:30-7pm) met up with a friend I hadn't seen since December (Loafie, I miss you) and annoyed him with my constant prattle, but he's SUCH a cool guy and puts up with me. Then I went swimming again with my friends. I left early to go back up to the room and shower before watching Supernatural... but THEY DIDN'T CARRY THE NETWORK!!!! (Drury Inn = TEH SUCK) So instead I listened to one of my favorite episodes (Home) over the phone while chatting with Foxie and Pet and reading fanfiction to curb my addiction. While I was chatting, my friends came back, Heather made me a Fuzzy Navel and Ben told me where the Raspberry Vodka was, and they left again. I then drank and read fanfiction, and got drunk, and my arms starting killing me from all the swimming I did.
I ended up going to bed in such pain that I was crying, and finally Heather and Ben and Wookie came back and Heather fed me tylanol, and I slept.
I got up at 8:30am again on Friday and went down to play a game with the same people who ran Prawn, Interactivities Ink. It was called Plan Nine from Outer Space and it's based on an old 50's B-Movie of the same name. It was a blast. I got a character who only cared about punctuation and grammar (HELL YES that's me) and had a blast with it. At one point I required everyone to not use contractions when speaking. It was so much fun.
From there I went to the vendor's room and found little punchcards. Specific booths were punching the punchcards, and if you filled one out (there were about 12 booths per card) you could submit it for a change to win $5000. It was cool though, because it was in the style of World of Warcraft. The booth where you picked up the cards had a giant yellow exclamation point, and the box you put the finished cards in had a giant yellow question mark. The cards themselves were double-sided and there was a green card, a yellow card, and a red card. (based on "difficulty") On one side said the booth and the booth number, and on the other said what you were supposedly 'getting' from the booth. Once you did what they required, they punched the card and the 'item' was 'retrieved'. For example, Slugfest Games' 'item' was a Hair from a Hero, so it was great fun when you went there and asked one of the guys to shave their head. Instead they made you play a demo. But it was fun.
So I basically played demos for 3 hours, all the while trying to get together with my mom and brother to look at the new condo that my brother was thinking of buying with his girlfriend, then we were gonna go out to eat. Unfortunately it was deemed "too far" to come and pick me up at the convention center, so they left for Kent instead. And I wasted a buncha time. So I played more demos and bought a few things, then went back to the hotel room.
I assembled a deck for my X-Files CCG tourney that I was in, and went down to find that the only other person there was the guy who was running it. So I played against him... and got my ass handed to me... but mostly because I'd never played the Advanced version of the game, so my deck sucked. I learned a WHOLE bunch though, and got to be pretty good friends with him, and am now excited for next year, when I'll be ready to kick his butt. *smirk* Not really though.
After I was done with my "tourney", I wne tback to the room and a whole bunch of us when out to BD's Mongolian BBQ like we always do. It was a blast, but I only had 1 bowl because I made alot and it filled me up. Loafie had something in his second bowl that didn't agree with him and ended up being sick later, which I was sad to hear about, so he couldn't come with Heather, Ben, Raven and I to the club that they talked me into.
It was SUPPOSEDLY a goth/bdsm club, but in reality it was little more than a shit bar with shitty pool tables and 1 person whipping a guy on a rack near the door. It had far too much space, not enough people, and they were playing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on the bigscreen TVs. (Don't ask, because I didn't.) Everyone who was anyone at the club was out on the TEENY patio smoking, because Columbus is a smoke-free in public places city. So basically I got to sit in a bunch of second-hand smoke and listen to people complain about how "it used to be SO much better". Then Heather and Ben decided they wanted to leave, which was good because I wanted to leave the moment I stepped in the door, and so we then went through trying to get a cab to find the damn place while Heather and Raven were drunk PMSing, or so it seemed, and I totally wanted to go with Ben to the "vagina free zone".
We got back and I collapsed into bed... to sleep until noon on Saturday. I went down to get something to eat at the food court and met Adam, the president of a High School OGO group, (i know which one but am not gonna say to protect the innocent ;) ) and we then spent the day walking around the Vendor's Room together. I spent a whole buncha money on Tshirts, gifts, posters, card carriers, and a pink flamingo hat that's like 1.5 feet tall and made me the subject of LOTSA pictures. I got to know him a little and he's a really cool guy too. We did this until about 6pm, then we went out to dinner with Heather because she was stressing about JR, and we calmed her down, got food in her, and didn't talk about anything remotely business-like for hours, which was good for us and better for her.
Then we got her cheesecake and I went to the closing of the auction, which I already talked about. I didn't mention about my fav. 2 artists, Nigel Sade and Brian Miskelley, though. Nigel and Brian ran a booth for the past 2 years that was completely pirate themed. 2 years ago it was right across from the autograph line for Sean Astin, and they had fun ARGing at us all and gave Sean a free Pirate Bandana and labeled him the Hobbit Pirate. I bought a piece from Nigel that year and it's still being displayed as well. Last year they were both there and I talked to them a bit, mostly because I learned Nigel is from my hometown. Well this year Brian was a featured artist, but Nigel wasn't there. I was really sad! His art was there, and I was tempted to ask Brian where he was, but I didn't. (This becomes important later.)
So anyway, after the auction Saturday I stayed up with Pet for a while, then went down to play a card game called Stupidduel, which is hilarious. Then I went to play my Fav. Game EVER, MegaParanoia. Paranoia LARP. OMG. I LOVE Paranoia. ALL HAIL THE COMPUTER!!!
I really don't want to go into describing Paranoia right now, so I'll jsut describe the game. I was a Red (woo) and I met a hot boy named Jason before the game on the escalator... he was so nice and actually good looking!, and he became the Team Leader cuz he was the only Blue. It made me laugh, cuz I'm attracted to people in positions of power, and I was already attracted to him before he became the team leader. So I was assigned to Armed Forces... and got killed TWICE before the game even really began BY MY OWN TEAM MEMBERS. I was the first killed! Woo me!
The funny bits were when everyone got in a circle... and then someone was labelled a traitor so everyone drew their guns and fired... while all the reds went SHIT!!!! and dropped to the floor. OMG it was hilarious. Then it happened again and all the reds dropped to the floor, but this time acid was spreading throughout the floor so we all died anyway. It was great.
The best part was someone was playing a Scrubbot.. and he did SO WELL. OMG He was great. I can't even describe him. Maybe later.
Sunday we got up and we packed for hours, then I ran down to see if I won the $5000 dollars. I didn't. Darn. Then I called Pet and my Mom. Then we left.
And finally, I saw PotC2 last night. But I'm totally gonna talk about that in another post because I'm trying to post online, post this, talk to Pet, and watch Smallville all at the same time and I've been working on this post for SIX HOURS. I'm done. More later. Woo!