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So Much to Do

Wednesday, January 31st, 2018 No comments

The year has gotten off to a busy start. As usual, there’s so much to do and not enough time to do it. I’ve known for years that I’ve havd too many hobbies, but I’ve had people comment on it recently.

I’m getting some stuff set up for photography. I want to start painting again. I’ve started playing guitar again. There’s gaming stuff that I want to do.

It’s going to be a busy year. Stay tuned.

 

Summer Begins

Monday, July 31st, 2017 No comments

Portland Pride 2017
I’ve probably said this before, but here in Portland we say that summer officially begins on July 4. By then we can be pretty sure the rainy season is over. This summer has gotten off to a great start so far.

The gaymer meet up has been fun this month. We’ve had good turnout this month and last and it’s been a lot of fun playing with new and old members. We’ve got some ideas for new events that we want to try soon.

On the 4th, my friend who recently changed his named to Xander (formerly Kysen, formerly Alex) went on a hike/photo taking adventure with his friend David. Xander and I started doing this in April I believe. It’s fun exploring the city on foot and we’ve gotten some pretty great photos.

The following week Xander and I went to see Blondie and Garbage at Edgefield Amphitheater. It’s the first time I’ve been to this venue since I saw Foster the People there in 2012. It was a great show! Both bands sounded great. Shirley Manson is a queen. I’m more of a Garbage fan than a Blondie fan, but I think I had more fun during Blondie’s set.

The next day I went to my first Hillsboro Hops game. I had bought tickets to games before, but ended up not going. I won a ticket to this game from work. Intel had it’s own tent area where we could eat and hang out. I didn’t stay in that area long because I wanted to watch some of the game. The Hops weren’t doing well and I had other things to do that night, so I ended up leaving about halfway through.

The following week I went to my first Portland Timbers game. Once again I won tickets from work. I rode the MAX into town for the game, because I didn’t want to deal with parking at the stadium. There were a lot of Timbers fans on the game. The atmosphere inside the stadium was excellent. I can see myself going to more games in the future. I left at halftime to beat the crowd back home. It was a pretty lopsided loss for the Timbers.

Spider-Man and Girls Trip were good movies. I plan to see Dunkirk and Atomic Blonde soon. It’s been nice having a movie buddy (Xander) so I don’t have to see movies alone and I have someone to talk to the movie about when it’s over.

I’ve starting exercising again on a regular basis. I’m not back up to 6 days a week like I used to do. Most of my workouts are at the gym at work, but sometimes I go to my old gym. I even went on a bike ride with Xander one day. Now I just need to start eating healthy again.

I have so much more stuff that I want to do this summer. I probably won’t get to it all this year. I remembered yesterday how bored and lonely I felt in Mississippi before I left. I’m glad to have so many options for how to spend my free time.

Christmas 2016

Saturday, December 31st, 2016 2 comments

The Christmas season has been fun this year. Even though the snow was an inconvenience at times, it was nice getting an unusually high amount of it for Portland this year.  I’ve spent a lot of time at home due to the snow and the fact that people work from home a lot during the holidays.

I didn’t have trouble getting into the spirit after the great Friendsgiving I had at my friends Matt and Zach’s place.  I may have dialed things back a bit because I’m living with someone who is not really into Christmas.  I think Kysen was going through some emotional stuff at the Friendsgiving celebration, but he had a good time.  We even went to see a movie that night. During the Christmas season, I still listened to music, sang songs, watched Christmas specials, etc., but I didn’t do it much around him. He was a good sport and tolerated it when I did.

We decided we would have more of a Solstice celebration. We decorated a little potted tree that Kysen normally keeps in his room.  We crafted some ornaments and even hung John Lennon and Yoko Ono sock puppets on it.  We took a photo in front of the tree with Reese, who wouldn’t be still.  We put the tree up the night of my accident. A little later that night, Kysen got a piece of headlight from my old car and put it at the base of the tree.
Family Christmas photo

I gave Kysen his gifts on December 21. He gave me my Solstice gift on my birthday because my birthday present hadn’t arrive in the mail yet. He gave me my birthday present on Christmas eve because it came in the mail that day.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were on a Saturday and Sunday.  We spent Saturday grocery shopping, art supply shopping for a class I’m taking soon [I think I forgot to write about the class I took in the fall], and getting some stuff for a tank Kysen bought (I think he got it the day before). I actually got a nano tank while we were out.  We spend Saturday organizing and cleaning and getting the tanks ready for fish. We had salmon and rice that Kysen cooked for dinner. One Sunday we finished organizing and were really lazy for the rest of the day. Kysen did some painting and I played video games. I used my slow cooker for maybe the second or third time to make Indian food. It turned out well. We watched Sausage Party while we ate.

What did I get for my birthday and for Christmas:

  • a homemade candle
  • a mermaid bathroom hook
  • Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
  • Weird Oregon: Your Travel Guide to Oregon’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
  • 12-month PlayStation Plus membership card
  • a Broadcast tank top
  • Game of Thrones shot glasses
  • Imploding Kittens (the Exploding Kittens expansion)
  • Drawing the Head & Figure
  • a bag of cleaning rags
  • a Super Mario Christmas tree ornament
  • a video game centric drinking cup
  • MacBook Pro (gift to myself)

It wasn’t a traditional Christmas, but it was great to spend it with someone I care about. We spoke the other night about New Year’s Eve. Neither of us have plans, but we’ll figure out something.

This year has been a mixed bag.  Some of it’s been really great, and some of it’s been really difficult.  Life is still good though.  I met all the goals I set for myself last year. I think the last time I met all my goals for the year, I didn’t set any goals for the following year.  I think I’ll just wait a few weeks and see if I want to set any goals for 2017.

I hope everyone has a happy New Year.  Take care of yourself.

PDX Gaymers

Wednesday, December 28th, 2016 No comments

I started getting involved with the PDX Gaymers  meetup group either early last year or the end of 2014.  It’s mostly a tabletop gaming group which holds events at different places around town.  I’ve met a lot of people through this group.  I “met” Kysen at one of my first meetups with them last years.  I have “met” in quotes because we just recently realized that we met each other briefly a few years ago at a going away brunch for someone I knew.

I became an event organizer and hosted a few events in the western suburbs where I live.  Those events didn’t have a high attendance. I think most members live in the city and prefer events there.  I also hosted a an event at a video gaming place in Milwaukie. They were very welcoming and wanted to be inclusive of the entire Portland community. They have since gone out of business. I wish I had hosted more events there, but it was so far out of my way that I had trouble finding the time or motivation to go there. Now it wouldn’t be a problem. I went to that part of town a lot when Kysen lived there, so it doesn’t seem like a big deal now.

A few months ago, the owner of PDX Gaymers sent a message to members explaining that he was too busy to run the group because he had recently become a business owner. I didn’t hear anything update after a while, do I talked to Kysen about it.  Kysen has been hosting a monthly game night at the Q Center since last year.  It’s the only monthly meeting of this group that I attend on a regular basis. Kysen and I decided that we would take over leadership of the group.  We thought the group served a great purpose of maintaining a safe space for gaymers to get together and it would be a shame if it went away.  The previous owner was okay with it, so Kysen and I officially took over on October 1.  Since one person has to be listed as owner/organizer, we decided that would be me. I made Kysen c0-organizer.

Running the group is easy. I don’t think the previous owner really did anything except pay the twice annual fees to Meetup. I hadn’t seen him at an event in a long time.The people who host the events do most of the work, which is still very little.  Kysen and I did have to deal with one conflict before we took over, but since then it has been quiet.

I think the group is pretty good.  We have 2 monthly events that take place in public places.  Occasionally one of our event hosts will host a game night in his home. I do want to find a replacement for one of our monthly events that dropped off because the host was too busy to continue it.  Also, I want some more video game based events since we haven’t had anything like that in over a year and I see that a lot our members like video games as well. We have about 850 members and membership has been slowly increasing since we took over.  Hopefully, things will continue to run smoothly and people continue to have fun gaming together.

[I just had an idea to send out a survey to get an idea of what people want.]

Christmas 2015

Thursday, December 31st, 2015 No comments

Another Christmas has passed and another New Year is coming. I was thankful not to spend Christmas alone this year. Thanksgiving was a little tough. Seeing everyone post pictures of food and family while I was sitting at home playing Fallout 4 was a little sad.

Luckily, my friend Joel invited me to a Christmas dinner party that he was going to. He’s in the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus and some of them had a fun party that night. My company and my runner’s group had Christmas parties the week before, so this was my third one this year.  I had a great time and it was fun connecting with new people.

What did I get for Christmas?

  • Blue Snowball microphone
  • Star Trek shirt
  • The Firefly board game
  • A wooden box that I plan on painting and keeping stuff in
  • A pair of briefs
  • Guitar Hero Live
  • Game of Thrones coloring book
  • Game of Thrones season 4 soundtrack

I hope I remembered everything. I’ll be getting something from my sister and family later.

This year I decided to end my tradition of watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy in December. It’s just becoming harder and harder to find the time and this December I was trying to re-watch all of the Star Wars movies (The Force Awakens was awesome, btw). Last year was I believe the 10th consecutive year, so it’s probably a good time to end it. I’m a little sad because my favorite traditions are ones that I’ve started myself. I always said that the year couldn’t really end until I heard that Annie Lennox song at the end of the third movie, which I always watched on New Year’s Eve.

I think I stopped setting goals for the upcoming year after I moved to Portland. In case I’ve never said this before, I hate calling them resolutions. I posted some 2016 goals on Facebook the other day and figured I would post them here to make them easier to find. Some are repeats of things I did this year. #1 will be completed on January 1 and #2 may happen before the end of basketball season.
1) Go on at least 1 real date
2) Attend at least 1 pro sports event
3) Get more sleep
4) Get organized again
5) Keep doing the good things I started this year
6) Take more pictures
7) Not forget about this list

Usually I don’t do out on New Year’s Eve, but I am tonight. It might be the first time I’ve ever done so. I’m going to a private party at my friends Ez and Andrew’s place. I was also invited to hang out with the Chorus people I spent Christmas night with, but I had already committed this one. It should be a great time. I guess this will end my tradition of buying a bottle of wine for myself on New Year’s Eve.

I had such a great 2015. I put myself out there more and made many new friends. I don’t have a lot to complain about, and what I do I hope to change in 2016. I hope everyone has a happy and successful 2016.

PAX 2014

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014 No comments

For the third year in row, I took a Labor Day weekend trip to Seattle for P.A.X.  This was the 10th year of PAX and my 3rd year there.

On Thursday, I left  work around mid-day.  I offered a ride to people on the PAX forums and one person took me up on that.  His name was Jake.  I had told him that I wanted to leave at 2:00, but he didn’t arrive until 3:30. He was a nice guy, but between him arriving late and the horrible traffic going north to Seattle, I missed the event on the Microsoft campus that I wanted to go to that night.  I could have made most of it if we had left on time.  He was also one of my roommates for the weekend.  I used to forums to find roommates again.  You never know what you’re going to get.  I slept on the floor in a sleeping bag all weekend.  The person who booked the room seemed reluctant to ask for extras keys at first, so until Saturday I had to rely on other people to let me in the room. I saw one roommate this first day.  He was the one who initially let us into the room.  I never heard from him again after that.  I think he flaked out without paying his share of the room.  I didn’t have to pay extra because of that.  This might be the last year I use the forums to find roommates.  Maybe I’ll be able to convince some friends to go next year.  Probably not.
Hotel Room View

On Friday, I got up to go line up in the queue room.  I have to do the queue at least once every year.  The first day is the best day to do it because of all the excitement.  When they let us in, I went around looking at all the sites.  It’s sensory overload in there.  There weren’t a lot of big time games that I was interested in checking out, so I was more interested in the cosplayers.  I did get a Patrick Rothfuss pin for a coworker and I also got the same one for myself.  After I while I walked over to Benaroya Hall for the Rooster Teeth panel.  I caught the end of the opening panel with Mikey from Gearbox.  After some more time back in the convention center I went to see a panel called “Queer Visibilty in Tabletop Games”.  That night I went to the WildStar party.  There were some members of my MMO guild there who recognized me.  It turned out that they are also from Portland.
Queue Room

On Saturday, I hung around the convention center some more.  I got actually got to play a game or two, but nothing that had a long line.  At this point I had started to hear about some indie games that I needed to check out and I was starting to get more excited about games.  Every year I find out about some indie games that I probably wouldn’t have heard of if not for PAX.   Sometime this day, I got League of Legends skins for a friend that asked me to get one for him.   I went to the Firaxis panel.  While in line, some guys got me to play Spaceteam with them on our phones.  I had never heard of it, but I have heard of games like it.  It was a blast.  I always like playing games with random strangers like that.  I brought a board game with me to PAX for situations like that, but never got to use it.  In the panel, Firaxis showed off the next Civ game.  That’s going to be so much fun. Later I went to the Major Nelson Radio panel.  It’s always fun.  They had a guy from Insomniac Games talking about their upcoming game Sunset Overdrive.  I had never heard of it until PAX.  At the end, they said that they had a bus outside that seats 40 people.  If you get on the bus, you get a free dinner at Lil Woodys, a burger place.  Apparently, this bus was taking people back and forth all weekend, but those people had to pay for their own meals.  I didn’t rush outside.  I walked at a leisurely pace.  I ended up being the 45th in line, with about 15 people behind me.  I was a little disappointed, but it wasn’t a big deal.  I overheard Jeff Rubenstein, who was on the panel and helped plan this free dinner thing, tell the bus people to come back after they dropped everyone off and pick up the remaining people.  He said that he would pay the difference.  Pretty sweet!  To show my appreciation, I pre-ordered the game on the way to Woodys.  I’ve seen footage of it since and it looks pretty cool.  The burgers at Woodys were great.  The fries seemed a little undercooked.  That night I met up with some of my guild members, different ones from the night before.  They play some of the same games that I do, but I wasn’t familiar with them.  They’re really nice and I had a great time.
Sunset Overdrive Bus

On Sunday I got up very early to go to the Gearbox panel in Benaroya Hall.  I got there over 2.5 hours early and there was already a decent-sized line formed.  Their panel was great just like last year.  I always want to throw money at them when it’s over.  Everyone in attendance got a free season pass for the next Borderlands games.  I spent a little more time in the convention center.  I watched the League of Legends competition for a good while.  I can see how people can really get into this stuff, even spectators.  I might have to play some soon.  I had never heard the term esports used for games like this until this weekend, but I guess it fits.  After this I went back to Benaroya Hall for Patrick Rothfuss’s panel.  He’s a very funny guy.  I really need to read his books.  I’ve had The Name of the Wind for a long time.  I’ll get to it one day.  Later on I went to a panel called “A New Tabletop Gaming Canon”.  I mostly went because one of the hosts my favorite Game of Thrones podcast was on the panel.  It went well and I’ve already ordered one of the games they spoke about.  That night was the annual PAX Pink Party.  It was in a different place this year though there was a Pre-Pink Party at the old place that I stopped by for about 5 minutes.  I didn’t know anyone at this party, so it was a little weird at first.  Then one of my guildmates that I met the night before showed up alone, so we spent the rest of the night hanging out with each other.  We both left after the cosplay contest.  It turns out that we like a lot of the same TV shows.  He lives in Vancouver, B.C.  I hope we stay in touch.
League of Legends Tournament

On Monday, I went back to the convention center.  I knew I wouldn’t have much time because I had to get back to Portland to pick up Reese and to record a podcast.  I went to the annex to check out the PC free play area where one roommate was working as an enforcer.  I checked out the console free play on a previous day, but I didn’t have time to play. I wanted to watch some of the League of Legends competition, but they were full because it was the last day.  In the end, I just sat down and watched people play the new Dance Central games.  I was tired.  I went back to my hotel room and left.  Once again, my passenger held me up because he wasn’t ready at the time we decided upon.  The hotel only charged me for 2 nights of parking. After the big parking bill last year, I had planned to park at the airport and take the train in to downtown.  However, on Thursday night I was so tired and disappointed after missing the Microsoft event, I decided to save some hassle and just park at the hotel.  It ended up being cheaper than if I had parked at the airport.  Score!  The ride home from Seattle was quick as usual.
People playing Dance Central Spotlight

I had a great time at PAX as always.  Once again, it was exhausting, but it was worth it.  There didn’t seem to be as many cool freebies as last year, but that’s okay.  I made some new friends that I’ll hopefully be in touch with throughout the year.  I never got a chance to play tabletop games this year, but I have some ideas for games that I want to play with friends here in Portland.  My only regret is that I don’t get to do this more often.  I plan to go to PAX South in January.  Maybe I’ll get to go to PAX East or PAX Australia one of these years.

Now I’m ready for the fall.

PAX 2013

Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013 No comments

This past weekend I went to PAX Prime in Seattle for the second time. I probably said this last year, but I want to make this an annual trip. If you’re a gamer of any kind, you should try to attend PAX at least once.

The trip to Seattle on Thursday took 5 hours (it should be around 3) due to an accident and rain. After I dropped my stuff off at the hotel, I went straight to an Xbox Meetup that was held at a Microsoft Store a few miles away. They were showing off the Xbox One. The line to get in was long. Major Nelson hosted the event. I got a chance to play Ryse: Son of Rome, which is a launch game that I had already pre-ordered. The little bit I played was co-op, and it was okay. They’re still working on it, so I’ll wait until closer to launch to decide whether or not to cancel my pre-order. Later that night, I went to a pre-PAX party. I didn’t stay long because I felt out of place there.
Xbox Meetup

Friday was the first official day of the con. First I went to the Queue Room to get in line to go to the exhibition floor. If there’s something that you really want to get hands on time with on the floor, you get to the Queue Room early to get in line. Once I got onto the floor, I was mostly snapping pictures because I didn’t want to wait in another line to play games. After exploring the floor, I went to watch the League of Legends competition to get some skins that a friend wanted. The only panel I went to was the Rooster Teeth panel, which was good. The best part for me was when they played the latest episode of an animated series they do called Rwby. I’m going to check it out when I get a chance. I went to the Final Fantasy XIV launch party that afternoon. I didn’t know about this party until that day. I got to shake hands with the producer of the game and get the autograph of the composer. The last thing I did was go to the PAX Pink Party where played a game of Cards Against Humanity with a bunch of strangers. By the end of the day, I was tired and couldn’t believe I had 3 more days.
statue

On Saturday I didn’t wait in line for the queue room. I just went in after the floor had already opened. I got a chance to see more cool costumes and some booths I didn’t see the day before. I went to the WildStar panel and the Major Nelson Radio panel. After those I went to the Guild Wars 2 Anniversary celebration, which had different events throughout the day. It was a lot of fun.
WildStar panel

On Sunday, I don’t think I spent much time on the exhibition floor. There’s not as many cool costumes, but this was the most panel heavy day for me. I went to the Queers in Gaming, Destructiod, Voice Acting 101, and Cards Against Humanity panels. This was the only night I didn’t go to an afterparty, but the CAH panel lasted pretty late.
Cards Against Humanity panel pre-panel entertainment

Monday was the last day. There wasn’t a lot going on this day. The only panel I went to was Inside Gearbox. This was the only time I had to wait in line outside in the sun. The panel itself was pretty funny and they gave out some codes for some cool stuff to everyone in the audience. After that I went to the console free play area. I really regretted not knowing about this until the end of the con last year, so I made a point to stop by this year. I ended the con there. The Post-PAX afterparty was that night. I won a PAX scarf in a raffle.
console freeplay

Some notes:

  • My roommates were a lot better this year than last. I have no complaints about them.
  • I did the Street Pass thing on my 3DS while I waiting in line. My count went from around 100 to close to 500.
  • I got around 7-8 hours of sleep a night. At home I usually get 4-5 hours.
  • I saw a lot of people with my model or a similar model camera. I was a conversation starter many times. My camera helped me meet a couple who do graphic design at the Guild Wars 2 celebration. I’ll probably be getting in touch with them soon.who do graphic design
  • Hotel parking cost over $40 a night. The amount I paid for parking is higher than how much a plane ticket would have been.
  • Most of the events I went to that weren’t officially part of the con could have been better organized.

    I may be exhausted now, but I had a great time a PAX again this year. Like last year, I saw come big-time games that weren’t on my radar and now I’m excited about them. I also saw some indie games that I’m excited to try out. I don’t think I got as much free stuff this year as last, but I really like the stuff I got. I would probably throw most of it away anyway. My biggest regret is not doing any tabletop gaming, so I’ll be sure to do that next year. Unless something big stops me, I’ll definitely be back then.

    All 118 of my pics are available on Facebook for those interested.

  • GaymerX

    Monday, August 5th, 2013 2 comments

    This past weekend I went to San Francisco to attend the 1st ever GaymerX, which is the world’s first gaming conference geared toward the LGBT community and LGBT allies. They had a Kickstarter last year, which I supported, and they smashed their fundraising goal. At first it was going to be called Gaymercon, but they had to change the name due to trademark issues. The con took place at the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown, which is a pretty neat park of San Francisco. By coincidence, there was an Asian street fair going on at the same time next to the hotel. Pretty neat.
    Asian street fair

    I got to the hotel late Friday night. I met up with the guy I found on the convention’s website’s forum so he could get into the room. He was a really nice guy. You never know what you’re going to get when you go in blind that way. After I registered for the con, I went out to a bar and started drinking. At some point I met up with a guild that I’ve been playing with for about a year. I got really drunk. I don’t even remember how I got back to the hotel that night. They watched out for me apparently.

    Saturday was the first day of the con. I was very hung over from the night before. I had to leave a couple of panels early because I was feeling sick. I made occasional trips back up to the room just to rest for a few minutes. I went to panels on everything from including LGBT characters in games to yaoi. I went to the 10th anniversary party of my gaming guild. A group of them went to watch a movie a park, but San Francisco was cold and I was still sick. I went to a concert the con had for a little while, played games a little, and then went to bed.
    Bioware panel

    Sunday was the second and last day of the con. I went to breakfast with my hotel roomie and checked out some of the Asian street fair. I went to panels on gaming journalism and furries. I think my horizons have been sufficiently expanded…maybe. The closing ceremonies were a little sad. I always feel that way at the end of a con. We did get a sing-a-long of “Still Alive” led by the actress who does the voice of GLaDOS in the Portal games and her husband.

    Overall, I had a great time at the con. They did an excellent job for the first-year con. Hopefully, they take what they learned and make next year better. One panelist said that this was the best smelling con that she had been to. Thank goodness for people who know how to shower and use deodorant. I have to agree with everyone who said that the vibe there was great and different from any other con I’ve been to. Everyone was extremely positive. Some may question the need for having a separate con like this. I heard the sentiment that for many (especially the female attendees) this was the first con they’ve been to where no one made them feel uncomfortable. Before I made it to the con I had already made up my mind that I wouldn’t go back for year two, but instead wait a year or two to go back. By the end of the first day, I knew I wanted to go back next year.
    view from the plane

    PAX 2012

    Monday, September 3rd, 2012 No comments

    This weekend I went to PAX for the first time. PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo, and it’s a convention devoted to nothing but gaming. I guess I didn’t know what I was getting into because I don’t hear as many people talk about it as San Diego Comic-Con. I figured I would have a good time, but it was many times better than I thought it would be.

    I drove to Seattle Thursday night after working at home for the day. I didn’t know that anybody I knew was going until the week of the con, so I had already found roommates on the hotel share thread on the PAX forums. This was a mistake. I should’ve just ponied up the money to get a room by myself. The guy who booked the room asked for my share of the money soon after I responded to his post because he was short on money. When I got to the hotel, we didn’t have a room because his card got declined. He said that he was getting a direct deposit around midnight from his job and we would have a room then. He was there with his online gaming group. They were split into 3 rooms. Our room had 5 people and the other two rooms had 4 each. These people were freaking weirdos, and that’s coming from me. I hope they don’t see this. They even admitted that they were strange and apologized for how strange they were. The guys in my room were okay, but the others in their extended group were out there. I left my stuff in one of the other rooms and we went to a bar while we waited to get our room. As I expected, his money wasn’t available at midnight. He asked me if I had a credit card that I could that I could use and he would forward me the money later. I said something vague like “I can’t do it”, but the truth was I just didn’t want to. I thought about getting my own room somewhere nearby. I guess he found someone else willing to use their card. We finally got into our room around 1AM. One guy snored so loudly that it was hard to sleep. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep that night. At least somebody called him out on that. Not that it did any good.

    The next day I got up to go the convention center. I had an idea of which panels I wanted to see, but I didn’t know what else I would end up doing. My roommates had talked about getting up early to get in line to play games, but I didn’t really know what they were talking about and I wasn’t really interested. When I got to the lobby, I asked the front desk to call me a cab. I saw some guys in Telltale Games shirts outside and they got in the first cab that came. It turns out that was supposed to be my cab. They invited me to share the cab with them and they paid for it. Neat, huh? When I got to the convention center, I just followed the flow of people. I ended up in the line for the Exhibition Hall where you can view and play games and see other stuff. While we waited in line here and everywhere else, the staff gave us stuff to do and entertained us. Comic-Con could learn something from this. I decided I wasn’t going to try to play any games because I didn’t want to wait a long time to play a demo I could play in a few months. Mostly, I walked around and watched other people play. I heard the wait to play Borderlands 2 was around 8 hours. I focused a lot on the cosplayers and props/decorations. I did see one of the Telltale guys I shared a cab with at the Telltale booth. The whole weekend I played maybe 2 or 3 games, but I did get cards with codes for games. I didn’t get much schwag other than this. There was so much to see. I tried to at least walk past every table. I spotted some guest stars from Supernatural at one point. Between visits to the Exhibition Hall I went to a couple of panels, like the Destructoid Live panel. I went to a party that night and had a great time.

    line

    Kratos

    Rob Benedict and Richard Speight, Jr

    Batman

    The second day wasn’t as interesting because I had seen the Exhibition Hall. I went to the Major Nelson Live panel. There was stuff going on all over the convention center. Even though I had seen much of it the previous day, I was still discovering a lot of things. I found a dark arcade (the way it should be) and I played some board games. I really want to get into board and card games now. People were playing them in dedicated rooms and on the floor while in line. I bought 1 game at the convention and I’ve bought another 1 since I got back. I ended up going to a Harmonix panel late that because I wanted to sit down for a while and I didn’t want to go back to my room yet. It ended up being the best panel I saw the entire weekend. Right when I was about to leave the convention center for the day, I stumbled across the console freeplay room where they had tons of consoles setup and you could checkout games to play. I wish I had known about this sooner, because I would’ve spent a lot of time here.

    arcade

    arcade

    I decided to come home Sunday instead of Monday morning. I had seen everything I needed to see and I wanted to give myself more time to recuperate. Also, I didn’t want to spend another night in that room. I was thinking about going to a popular museum in Seattle, but I’ll have to do that next time.

    I had a great time at PAX. It’s a lot more relaxed that Comic-Con. I did learn a few lessons. Never go in blind on the roommate situation. That threatened to put a damper on the weekend and I’m glad it didn’t. Also, I shouldn’t go to cons alone. It’s a lot less awkward when you know someone there and have someone to hang with. I either need to make more friends who like to go to these things or convince more of my current friends to go. Lastly, this isn’t really a lesson, but I need to dress up for a con one time. I think it would be a lot of fun. I’m glad that I’m fortunate enough to be able to go on these little adventures. I’m looking forward to the next one.