Don't you wish your girlfriend was a Geek, like me?
Xbox avatar - April 2010
Originally uploaded by orangerfulWhile rummaging through the disaster area that is my desk, I found the Xbox code for a PAX East hoodie for my avatar. The weather here in Maryland has been ranging from 30-80, but it was a pretty chilly night on Friday, so I dressed her up a bit before watching some MST3K on Netflix.
I can't believe PAX was 3 weeks ago! Time has just been flying by with this crazy move and stuff! But here is a rundown of the fun I had before I forget!
Thursday, we flew into Boston and Becky took us to go see "The Adding Machine" which was a weird musical based loosely on a play from the 1920s about a man who loses his job to an adding machine. Yeah, it was weird. I believe my brother described the music as "atonal" while the theater promotions guy said they prefer "dissonant".
We also stopped by the comic book store and I snagged The Guild #1 (both covers) and looked for a copy of DEMO by Brian Wood. They didn't have it, so I bought the first volume in his 'Northlanders' series...and I've read none of them. Here's hoping they are good!
Friday we met up with theoldmelody, her sister, and their other friends (whose names just went right of my head). We managed to get into Wil Wheaton's keynote speech which was funny and touching and really set the tone for the whole weekend. Then Gabe & Tycho came out for a quick Q&A session. We wandered around the convention center and checked out the stuff happening in the exhibit halls. It was really fun.
And just when I thought I had carried around the new Penny Arcade book for nothing, we ran into "Gabe" in the hallway! I asked him to please sign the book to AD because he couldn't come "because he got a job!" I said, rolling my eyes. Gabe snickered "Pffft, loser."
We stuck around until the evening so we could see the Proto-Men but they were a bit too weird for us so we didn't stay for the whole show, plus we were all exhausted from the busy morning.
Saturday, V-man wanted to sleep in so I went downtown on my own, grabbing coffee and a bagel to munch. I decided to eat while watching the people on the Freeplay Rock Band stage. Pretty much any group of 4 could go up and play. Right when I finished my breakfast, a group got up front with only 3 people and they called out "We need a singer!" - maybe it was Wil Wheaton's speech about how PAX brings us together...or maybe it was the coffee, but I jumped up on stage and sang 'Message in a Bottle' with 3 people I had never met and it was a blast.
Then I went to wander and there seemed to be a clump of people in front of some tables. I asked what was up and they said Wil Wheaton was coming out to do autographs. So I decided I would just stay in that line! Wil came out and while he was starting his autograph session, Johnathan Coulton started to bring out boxes from the back for his table. While Coulton was setting up, Scott Kurtz appeared! So I pretty much spent all my money right there. Wil was very nice - I got him to sign my Penny Arcade book next to his picture from the first PAX ever. Scott Kurtz also signed my book on his bit of artwork featured in the back. And Johnathan Coulton signed my book by his photo.
Speaking of, I told Coulton that my mom is a big fan and asked what CD I should get for her. He showed me what he had there - his greatest hits, best.concert.ever, thing-of-the-week, and a USB drive. I said "what's with the USB drive?" He said it has every single song he's every written on it. My mouth dropped open - OMFrG, that is GENIUS! I told him. He laughed. EVERY BAND SHOULD DO THIS - HEAR ME ROCK BANDS OUT THERE??? PAY ATTENTION TO THE GEEKS!!
Anyway, as you can imagine, that line of awesome was most of my afternoon. Becky came down to the center to see her co-workers/friends from MIT Gambit talk. After the talk we headed into the Classic Arcade where they had about 15 classic games set up brought over from the museum in New Hampshire. OMG so fun! Becky & I played a lot of Space Invaders. Vincent and I went around the room and tried everything - Mrs Pacman, PONG, Donkey Kong 3, and then I found out I have a pinball addiction. When I have my own house, I'm totally buying a pinball machine. This was where I spent most of the rest of that day.
I wanted to go to the Sessler/Halpern discussion on games and culture/politics, but the line was full when I got there. So I did one more Rock Band Freeplay (this band needed a bassist) and then I headed back to Becky's (T shuts down at 11 and the concerts didn't start until late so I wasn't going to risk getting stuck downtown trying to see Coulton. I'll catch him next time he tours though).
Sunday was a short day at PAX. I got there really early because I wanted to get into the X-Play panel. I also wanted to find the dang Bioware guy who was tweeting about giveaways. I managed to hunt him down and get a t-shirt (XL but it does say "ENCHANTMENT? - ENCHANTMENT!" on it, which is awesome because I had a whole conversation with Wil Wheaton about his quoting of that phrase during his keynote speech and how it would be in my top PAX memories. He said his friend actually did the voice of that character. He's also done the voice of Superman, a Bioshock Splicer...but he will be most remembered as a "retarded dwarf").
The X-Play panel didn't start until 1 but I got in line at 11:30. The line was full by 11:45. I stood next to some very nice people. A dad who brought his son to PAX as a present even though he new nothing of gaming, and a couple probably about my age who happened to be from Maryland, both avid gamers though mostly WoW. The X-Play panel was fun. After the panel, we all got in line to get autographs from Adam, Morgan, and Blair (Herter not Butler). Vincent showed up late so he couldn't get in line for the autos but he stood next to me the whole time and when we got up front I told them that my poor brother had stood with me and would really like an autograph. So Adam signed a photo "Poor Brother", Morgan just did "Vincent" and Blair was like "Vincent - your name rocks!" so he has a nice little collection.
After that I went to a CIV5 demo. It was super top secret but all I can say is 1) I'll probably need a new computer because 2) it looks awesome.
And then we went to the main theater for the PAX Finale, the final round of the Omegathon where 2 teams of 2 from the PAX crowd competed in a video game relay. It was a lot of fun to watch - first guy had to collect 50 coins in the original Mario Bros. game, next guy had to race 1500 points in a race car game (also NES I think), next guy had to clear 10 lines in Tetris (you could hear the crowd groan each time a mistake was made) and then they had to beat the final level of Contra.
And then it was all over. :-( It was a lot of fun though. Def. good practice for my Comic-Con trip in July. I would probably go again, but I'd want AD with me because I know he'd probably make me go to more stuff than I did. Or maybe just play more games.
You can see my PAX Photos on my Flickr page.