recovery
What happens at PAX, stays at PAX.
At least that's what someone in the table-top game room said. Unfortunately, I picked up some kind of virulent case of ebola, which is rendering me half senseless at the moment. Obviously some things don't stay at PAX.
I also came home with a huge bag (literally huge--it's bigger than my torso, and made an oversize battering ram to get through the crowds on Saturday) of swag. As if I didn't own enough black t-shirts, now I have ones for Pirates of the Burning Sea, NVidia, and Vangaurd, as well as the PAX 06 shirt I bought.
I packed two novels to read during the downtime, and as testament to how busy things were, I didn't even get half-way through one of them. However, there's some kind of creepy synergy about reading Microserfs while sitting in a Bellevue Starbucks. It really is Bill's town. However, King B-B-B-Bill probably wouldn't be too thrilled with some of the things Alex St. John said in his keynote speech about the pre-history of the X-Box.
Alex gave away a desktop computer that almost made me weep to gaze upon, but of course, I didn't win it. I did get a handful of shiny tokens that his daughters flung into the avid crowd, however. When I'm less apathetic, I'll figure out what those are for. There were a lot of give-aways, but most of them were too crowded or tricky for me to take a serious interest in. Being 5'7" made me a little too short to compete during the "toss free crap into the crowd" distributions. (NVidia, I hate you. The bruises haven't faded yet, though the sweat from the guy who landed on me did wash off in about two hours of scrubbing.)
The rewards of PAX were more subtle, but pretty dang cool nonetheless. The group of guys I hooked up with from #GWP placed first and second in the Guild Wars tournament, which was both unsurprising and satisfying. I later had dinner with people who I only know by internet handles, and it didn't even occur to me to ask their real names. I was called Samyel more often than Audrey, and that suits me just fine. I got to game with complete strangers, try several yet-to-be released games, and enjoy a complete immersion of being surrounded by some 19,000 of "my people."
When the final round of Omegathon turned out to be old-school Tetris, I felt completely at peace to be surrounded by people screaming their approval and joy. We clapped along with digital Russian music, and "oooooohed!" at every misplaced block. Later, I stood alone on the balcony of my hotel room and was so happy that despite exhaustion, I felt light enough to fly.
Dimlight posted some stuff about PAX on his blog, and so did one of the other guys I met at the Guild Wars booth. You can check you his Games. Tech. Musings. blog for more on the tournament.
I'm not even bothering to spell check or edit this, so tough. I'm running a fever and I keep nodding off at the computer, or curled up in front of the TV. Every time I lie down, I start to cough, and my throat feels like I gargled razors.
And y'know what? It was soooo damn worth it.
I'll post more on PAX later. Meanwhile, if you have no idea what PAX is, or what the hell I'm talking about, go check out the Penny Arcade Expo site. If there was any doubt as to whether Tycho and Gabe had ascended to digital godhood or not, I think it's been settled. I hope that e-celebrity treats them well.
At least that's what someone in the table-top game room said. Unfortunately, I picked up some kind of virulent case of ebola, which is rendering me half senseless at the moment. Obviously some things don't stay at PAX.
I also came home with a huge bag (literally huge--it's bigger than my torso, and made an oversize battering ram to get through the crowds on Saturday) of swag. As if I didn't own enough black t-shirts, now I have ones for Pirates of the Burning Sea, NVidia, and Vangaurd, as well as the PAX 06 shirt I bought.
I packed two novels to read during the downtime, and as testament to how busy things were, I didn't even get half-way through one of them. However, there's some kind of creepy synergy about reading Microserfs while sitting in a Bellevue Starbucks. It really is Bill's town. However, King B-B-B-Bill probably wouldn't be too thrilled with some of the things Alex St. John said in his keynote speech about the pre-history of the X-Box.
Alex gave away a desktop computer that almost made me weep to gaze upon, but of course, I didn't win it. I did get a handful of shiny tokens that his daughters flung into the avid crowd, however. When I'm less apathetic, I'll figure out what those are for. There were a lot of give-aways, but most of them were too crowded or tricky for me to take a serious interest in. Being 5'7" made me a little too short to compete during the "toss free crap into the crowd" distributions. (NVidia, I hate you. The bruises haven't faded yet, though the sweat from the guy who landed on me did wash off in about two hours of scrubbing.)
The rewards of PAX were more subtle, but pretty dang cool nonetheless. The group of guys I hooked up with from #GWP placed first and second in the Guild Wars tournament, which was both unsurprising and satisfying. I later had dinner with people who I only know by internet handles, and it didn't even occur to me to ask their real names. I was called Samyel more often than Audrey, and that suits me just fine. I got to game with complete strangers, try several yet-to-be released games, and enjoy a complete immersion of being surrounded by some 19,000 of "my people."
When the final round of Omegathon turned out to be old-school Tetris, I felt completely at peace to be surrounded by people screaming their approval and joy. We clapped along with digital Russian music, and "oooooohed!" at every misplaced block. Later, I stood alone on the balcony of my hotel room and was so happy that despite exhaustion, I felt light enough to fly.
Dimlight posted some stuff about PAX on his blog, and so did one of the other guys I met at the Guild Wars booth. You can check you his Games. Tech. Musings. blog for more on the tournament.
I'm not even bothering to spell check or edit this, so tough. I'm running a fever and I keep nodding off at the computer, or curled up in front of the TV. Every time I lie down, I start to cough, and my throat feels like I gargled razors.
And y'know what? It was soooo damn worth it.
I'll post more on PAX later. Meanwhile, if you have no idea what PAX is, or what the hell I'm talking about, go check out the Penny Arcade Expo site. If there was any doubt as to whether Tycho and Gabe had ascended to digital godhood or not, I think it's been settled. I hope that e-celebrity treats them well.
Labels: blathering, internet, travel
posted by audrey at 4:13 PM
2 Comments:
Glad you had fun!
Sorry you're sick though. That's what happens if you're sociable with a grillion unwashed gamer types, I guess.
I wrote part of the server code that actually makes the little token thingies work. No, you don't have to have anything St. John was throwing at you. Anyway, so I happen to know what they're for.
...and knowing is half the battle. Hehe. Thanks for the info. They make nifty keepsakes of the event, though I'd rather have won the computer. In any kind of give-away where something gets tossed, it's always going to be the tall menfolk who get it. Grrr. Not that I was anywhere near the ping-pong ball in question. :)
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