Origins, for real
Jul. 2nd, 2003 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishAfter spending Tuesday night writing up a paper (a comparison of St Paul in Acts and the Cross in The Dream of the Rood; evidently my professor's opinion was not the expected "Smoke less crack," as I have just discovered I got an A- in the class) amid throwing together yet another Fast Loud Driving Music disc, I got up Wednesday morning, dashed off a post and a few notes, and headed out the door. Dropped off paper and met up with people at Z's old apartment. ('People' includes ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mrstickman, ndkid, uilos, zerblinitzky, and LJless (AFAIK) Billy.) Got on the road at about 9:45-10ish. Rolled into Columbus around four o'clock. This drive gets shorter every year.
Helped set up the Lab, and got somehow talked into building the %&$ wire cubes again. Then Denis and I found a large number of errors in the program book schedule, so we went off to snag dinner in the hopes that someone else would get to tell Andy about them. (Turns out he already knew.) Once things were set up Kristin took us all out to dinner at bd's Mongolian Barbecue. I, sadly, did not eat, as I'd just had dinner an hour or two before. I had cheesecake, though. Delish. (Mongolian Barbecue. You load up your bowl with raw meat and veggies and sauces and spices, and you give it to a guy who dumps it all on a hot grill, and then you eat it with rice or tortilla. The coolness factor cannot possibly be overstated.)
So that was Wednesday. Thursday I started running Fluxx, which has stabilised at a level of stress I'm comfortable with. Six prelims feels a bit much, but it is convenient to be able to say "Every day, noon and 11PM." In between I played a few games, did the exhibit hall with E, and generally had fun. Thursday was probably also the day I failed to defend my title in the Pikemen tournament, but I learned a lot about how to work the endgame, so that's all good. One game in the Fluxx prelim ran for an hour and ten minutes. Argh. Not much I can do, though. I'll ping the Fluxx list for ideas on time-limiting games for next year.
Friday was more of the same, only without the spending of money. Lost horribly in the Zendo tournament. I am way out of practice at doing anything other than mastering. I had the two parts of the first rule but failed to put them together; the second one I was way off for. Oh well. Maybe next year. Lost less horribly at Aquarius, due perhaps in part to my tendency to play Shuffle Goals as soon as I get it, because I hate hate hate that card. Forty-eight people in the Friday night Fluxx prelim, which is insane-- but once they all got seated it ran fairly smoothly. K showed up Friday night / Satryday morning, which was quite cool.
Satyrday was two Fluxx prelims, the IIT, and hanging out with K. The Fluxx prelims were both under twenty people; rather a relief after the forty-eight. The IIT went surprisingly well; I certainly played better than I did last year, and enjoyed myself more than I have in ages. I'm quite glad I played. Beat Liam in one game, and had a hard-fought match with Eeyore, Dan Isaac, and Mike Sugarbaker in my last one, featuring two incorrect Icehouse calls and general viciousness all around. An excellent game. EZ and I continue to crash badly and beat the snot out of each other while ignoring the other players in the game we play against each other. Gotta work on that.
Sunday I nearly slept through the Fluxx World Championship (thanks for the wake-up, K) but got out there in time to run the game. It went well; five very well-played games. The championship went to Michele Woodward, who I'd never met before the weekend. Then back for shower, then some more exhibition-hall-wandering, then lab tear-down. The stupid wire crates can be taken apart simply by dropping them, which is rather satisfying given the pain of putting the bloody things together. Then another Mongolian Barbecue dinner, at which I ate real food in addition to tasty cheesecake, then out to be antisocial for a bit, then back to the suite to crash.
Monday we got up, had breakfast with Kristin, and drove back. The drive seemed longer coming back, but that may have just been because I was nodding off a couple of times. Went to Macado's and played Bang! which is an interesting blend of Werewolf psychology, American cardgame tactics, and horrible graphic design. Then home, then a three-hour conversation and tea, then crash.
Acquisitions:
Random impressions:
Big thanks and hugs to those who provided emotional support where it was needed. (no, not for me, you twits.)
mrstickman, ndkid, uilos, zerblinitzky, and LJless (AFAIK) Billy.) Got on the road at about 9:45-10ish. Rolled into Columbus around four o'clock. This drive gets shorter every year.Helped set up the Lab, and got somehow talked into building the %&$ wire cubes again. Then Denis and I found a large number of errors in the program book schedule, so we went off to snag dinner in the hopes that someone else would get to tell Andy about them. (Turns out he already knew.) Once things were set up Kristin took us all out to dinner at bd's Mongolian Barbecue. I, sadly, did not eat, as I'd just had dinner an hour or two before. I had cheesecake, though. Delish. (Mongolian Barbecue. You load up your bowl with raw meat and veggies and sauces and spices, and you give it to a guy who dumps it all on a hot grill, and then you eat it with rice or tortilla. The coolness factor cannot possibly be overstated.)
So that was Wednesday. Thursday I started running Fluxx, which has stabilised at a level of stress I'm comfortable with. Six prelims feels a bit much, but it is convenient to be able to say "Every day, noon and 11PM." In between I played a few games, did the exhibit hall with E, and generally had fun. Thursday was probably also the day I failed to defend my title in the Pikemen tournament, but I learned a lot about how to work the endgame, so that's all good. One game in the Fluxx prelim ran for an hour and ten minutes. Argh. Not much I can do, though. I'll ping the Fluxx list for ideas on time-limiting games for next year.
Friday was more of the same, only without the spending of money. Lost horribly in the Zendo tournament. I am way out of practice at doing anything other than mastering. I had the two parts of the first rule but failed to put them together; the second one I was way off for. Oh well. Maybe next year. Lost less horribly at Aquarius, due perhaps in part to my tendency to play Shuffle Goals as soon as I get it, because I hate hate hate that card. Forty-eight people in the Friday night Fluxx prelim, which is insane-- but once they all got seated it ran fairly smoothly. K showed up Friday night / Satryday morning, which was quite cool.
Satyrday was two Fluxx prelims, the IIT, and hanging out with K. The Fluxx prelims were both under twenty people; rather a relief after the forty-eight. The IIT went surprisingly well; I certainly played better than I did last year, and enjoyed myself more than I have in ages. I'm quite glad I played. Beat Liam in one game, and had a hard-fought match with Eeyore, Dan Isaac, and Mike Sugarbaker in my last one, featuring two incorrect Icehouse calls and general viciousness all around. An excellent game. EZ and I continue to crash badly and beat the snot out of each other while ignoring the other players in the game we play against each other. Gotta work on that.
Sunday I nearly slept through the Fluxx World Championship (thanks for the wake-up, K) but got out there in time to run the game. It went well; five very well-played games. The championship went to Michele Woodward, who I'd never met before the weekend. Then back for shower, then some more exhibition-hall-wandering, then lab tear-down. The stupid wire crates can be taken apart simply by dropping them, which is rather satisfying given the pain of putting the bloody things together. Then another Mongolian Barbecue dinner, at which I ate real food in addition to tasty cheesecake, then out to be antisocial for a bit, then back to the suite to crash.
Monday we got up, had breakfast with Kristin, and drove back. The drive seemed longer coming back, but that may have just been because I was nodding off a couple of times. Went to Macado's and played Bang! which is an interesting blend of Werewolf psychology, American cardgame tactics, and horrible graphic design. Then home, then a three-hour conversation and tea, then crash.
Acquisitions:
- Three sets of Diceland: the two Infinite Space sets plus Diceland OGRE.
- Rules to Live By LARP rules and RTLB Supernatural, because A) there was a show discount of $8 on the purchase of both and B) they threw in a copy of one of Interactivities Ink's LARPs of my choice (Marin County New Age Society Cocktail Party, since I already own Prawn and The Final Voyage of the Mary Celeste) for free.
- Lace and Steel, an RPG of swashing buckles, for half price. I've been thinking about picking this up for at least three years now, but the $35 price tag has always kept me away.
- Terra Primate, the RPG of intelligent apes. (I like monkeys.)
- Mag-Blast, second edition. "The card game of screaming space battles." In order for your shots to have any effect you have to make a sound effect.
- The Tri-Stat System basic rulebook, because it was only a buck. (This is Big Eyes Small Mouth second edition revised, with all the genre-specific stuff taken out. A decent system, though probably too rules-light for some (I'm looking at you, N).)
- The Fading Suns Players' Guide for $15, which I could have gotten slightly cheaper elsewhere. At least this way the cash went to the company.
- NOT Break.Today, the Mak Attax sourcebook for Unknown Armies, although I thought hard about it. I'll pick it up some other time.
Random impressions:
- The Drury Inn, where we stayed, was very very nice and inexpensive. Plus they fed us breakfast provided we dragged our lazy butts downstairs in time. Kristin expects the price to skyrocket next year, though.
- Last year I spent about two hours on Sunday talking to a fairly cute boothbabe/gamerchick with gorgeous eyes, and since I was dead from lack of sleep she talked me into buying Children of the Sun. This year she was working some other new fantasy RPG's booth, and she recognised me (on Friday, I think). I managed to avoid being suckered into buying anything from her, though.
- The giant OGRE die is a cool idea but doesn't fit in the standard Diceland box. Grr.
- No Button Man in the program book. Sadness. End of an era.
- Columbus still has the Coolest Street Sign EVAR out front of the convention centre. It's nice to know that some things never change.
- Must go to more demos of games this year. There were at least two I'd like to have seen played (the samurai stacking game and Noble Armada) that I failed to get to.
- I cannot think of a single labcoat-wearer that I dislike. Given a group as diverse as labcoat-wearers tend to be, this is rather impressive. You non-gender-specific-guys all rock.
- Lack of Zarfness was felt. It was strange to not look over and see the used-car-salesman coat around the lab. I'd have liked to talk more with Cthulhia and Q as well. On the other hand I didn't get to talk enough with most of the people I wanted to talk to either (combination of me being dead tired on Wednesday and Sunday, them being busy, and/or me being busy). Always next year.
Big thanks and hugs to those who provided emotional support where it was needed. (no, not for me, you twits.)