PAX

I have spent the last day and a half at PAX. Surprisingly, it did not stink (in the literal sense). Moving the event from Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue to the Washington State Convention center really let things breathe. That, and I'm assuming that all in attendance made a better effort to bathe more often than they usually do. For the last couple of years the biggest complaint about the event was The Smell. It gave gamers a bad reputation. Nice to know they noticed and did something about it.

The passes we bought months ago were for the entire weekend. It figures that two weeks beforehand everybody comes out of the woodwork with social gatherings I would have attended if I didn't already plan for PAX. I missed two farewell parties and a wedding for this event. I only feel a little bad (sorry), but I have been fascinated by nerdcore for a while and needed to do some hands-on research.

Friday night I saw The One-Ups (fun) and Optimus Rhyme (wicked). We tried to stay for FreezePop, but oh my GAWD they sounded terrible. Their bass was so loud and distorted it shook the boom the video camera was on, so the feed was terribly blurry. Add to that the lackluster vocals and stiffness of the frontwoman's stage presence and we called it a night. We didn't stick around for The Minibosses or the other band (Neskimos? I can't remember). Tonight was to be Jonathan Coulton and MC Frontalot, along with a couple of others. Garret left early due to some pain issues. I planned to catch Coulton and Frontalot and then bus it home.

digitaldevil, mistervimes: I thought of you two as I watched Coulton's set. During "Code Monkey" when he sang "this job fulfilling in creative way/such a load of crap," the entire crowd made sure to sing "load of crap" really loud. During "Baby Got Back" the crowd all held up their cel phones and Nintendo DSs -- one guy waved a light saber (GEEK) -- and waved them back and forth. We've come a long way from lighters dotting the audience landscape. At the end of the song he thanked us and said "wow, there are a lot of DSs out there tonight!" I looked around the crowd during his next ballad and sure enough, there were a LOT. The outnumbered cel phones and glow sticks. He does a good show. If you get a chance to see him live, go for it. I was so happy at the end of his set I decided to skip MC Frontalot's set. He's going to be at El Corozon on Sunday night anyway.

I needed this weekend. Even though Garret and I haven't really connected in a while it was good for us to go, even if his arthritis kept him from staying all day and walking all over creation. We had a nice dinner at restaurant inside the Sheraton (too $$ for the gamer crowd, so we were seated right away) and some nice conversation. I won't go into my feelings about how our afternoon together went. They weren't bad, I don't feel like writing about them is all.

Sunday is a whole 'nother day full of panels, tournaments, and nerdy people. I'm going to check out a discussion on music and sound in games, and on gaming with children. I also want to pick up a few more schwag items.

I only wish my phone photos had come out better. Man, this replacement phone's camera sucks. You can barely recognize Wil Wheaton in the picture I took of him -- and I was less than ten feet away!