(no subject)
This was written Saturday night but I had trouble posting it from the hotel's crap Internet connection. Home now; more later.
Finished the expo floor today, more or less. There were a couple of less promising booths we skipped once time started to get tight; we may drop by those as part of a cleanup-run on Sunday, but I'm just as likely to spend that day revisiting some vendors whose stuff I'd actually liked and making purchases, within my budget. OK, quite outside of my budget, since my budget is $0. Maybe I'll just play more games instead.
Anyway, another great day of shmoozing, much like yesterday was. I have dozens of followup conversations to have as soon as we get home. I already have have Monday planned: me, a laptop, and the Diesel Cafe's wifi. And the stack of other peoples' business cards that radiotelescope has collected, with notes by me or him on the back of each one describing the vendor, their game, their reaction to Volity, and things we should mention when we contact them.
Socializing: all the rabbits were awesome and sometimes knew me better than I knew them but that's OK, and appropriately symptomatic of my efforts to make noise with Volity.
I said hello to uilos and jazzfish and ubiquity and other folks I basically only see at Origins. But all this being said, I haven't really hung out in the Big Experiment much this year. Both Friday and Satuurday I kind of felt done with people after spending nearly a full work-day on my feet pitching at game vendors in a noisy expo hall, and I predict that Sunday will be a rush of followups and whatever last licks of publicity I can get in.
Another factor is that the Looney space somehow wasn't as appealing as it has been in previous years. I remember in 2002 and 2004 it made clever use of brought-in tables, screens and other separators to section off the room into different areas while still keeping it all open. This time, it was much closer to being just another big room with tables, like all the other event rooms. This is too bad. I should mention this to someone.
Last night misuba showed me were the beer was, and I did enjoy this very much, though it made me miss the semi-surprise wedding of two Looney fans. daerr, who happened to be standing around bemused while it occurred, got a gift of four special marriage-themed Fluxx cards, and there was so much cake that it lasted into today and I finally had a slice after the Nth person reminded me that HEY THERE'S CAKE.
And you know, being casually invited into the Rabbit Area to partake of day-old wedding cake made me a little mushed out inside. I always write something after every Origins about how stupidly included I feel, and I feel like that again this year even though I didn't do any Looney demoing (beyond playing in a couple Giant Pyramid games and chatting about them in a rabbity way with onlookers).
And the rabbits tended to call me "jmac" which I like a lot too. For various reasons I've been answering increasingly to "Jason" lately; that is, there is an increase in the number and frequency of people around me who call me that. And that is a perfectly fine thing to call me... but I found myself unexpectedly delighted at having a roomful of nice people spontaneously use my nickname. It's nice to know that I still like it, too.
Finished the expo floor today, more or less. There were a couple of less promising booths we skipped once time started to get tight; we may drop by those as part of a cleanup-run on Sunday, but I'm just as likely to spend that day revisiting some vendors whose stuff I'd actually liked and making purchases, within my budget. OK, quite outside of my budget, since my budget is $0. Maybe I'll just play more games instead.
Anyway, another great day of shmoozing, much like yesterday was. I have dozens of followup conversations to have as soon as we get home. I already have have Monday planned: me, a laptop, and the Diesel Cafe's wifi. And the stack of other peoples' business cards that radiotelescope has collected, with notes by me or him on the back of each one describing the vendor, their game, their reaction to Volity, and things we should mention when we contact them.
Socializing: all the rabbits were awesome and sometimes knew me better than I knew them but that's OK, and appropriately symptomatic of my efforts to make noise with Volity.
I said hello to uilos and jazzfish and ubiquity and other folks I basically only see at Origins. But all this being said, I haven't really hung out in the Big Experiment much this year. Both Friday and Satuurday I kind of felt done with people after spending nearly a full work-day on my feet pitching at game vendors in a noisy expo hall, and I predict that Sunday will be a rush of followups and whatever last licks of publicity I can get in.
Another factor is that the Looney space somehow wasn't as appealing as it has been in previous years. I remember in 2002 and 2004 it made clever use of brought-in tables, screens and other separators to section off the room into different areas while still keeping it all open. This time, it was much closer to being just another big room with tables, like all the other event rooms. This is too bad. I should mention this to someone.
Last night misuba showed me were the beer was, and I did enjoy this very much, though it made me miss the semi-surprise wedding of two Looney fans. daerr, who happened to be standing around bemused while it occurred, got a gift of four special marriage-themed Fluxx cards, and there was so much cake that it lasted into today and I finally had a slice after the Nth person reminded me that HEY THERE'S CAKE.
And you know, being casually invited into the Rabbit Area to partake of day-old wedding cake made me a little mushed out inside. I always write something after every Origins about how stupidly included I feel, and I feel like that again this year even though I didn't do any Looney demoing (beyond playing in a couple Giant Pyramid games and chatting about them in a rabbity way with onlookers).
And the rabbits tended to call me "jmac" which I like a lot too. For various reasons I've been answering increasingly to "Jason" lately; that is, there is an increase in the number and frequency of people around me who call me that. And that is a perfectly fine thing to call me... but I found myself unexpectedly delighted at having a roomful of nice people spontaneously use my nickname. It's nice to know that I still like it, too.