Tales From Gencon
Wednesday, Aug 18! Got on Plane! Stopped in Pitssburgh for layover, had lunch. (Eric remembers what we ate. And.. what we drank. Freak. Arrived, went to hotel, checked in, got a wheelchair. Eric ran through the convention centre while I slept, and also picked us up some Whitecastle (because we love it). After that, he took me on a tour of the convention centre. Picked up our check-in bags, peered at the huge lines for registration. Then we went to Buca Di Beppo's. Got spagetti and meatballs and garlic bread. Huge food. We went back and played Chez Geek in the open gaming area in the hotel, got tired, went to bed.		I love the guy waving! He did it right as I snapped the picture, then looked so amused and guilty. This is the line of people waiting to get in.
	I really hate flying, because my ears are really way too sensitive. They pop when we close or open the car windows sometimes, or when I'm in an elevator. I also have a tendancy to halfway faint when the plane descends.More like swooning. So, I feel bad for Eric on the way there, having to take care of me. Plus, carrying our bags AND pushing me around the airport. He had to push me around Gencon the whole time, too. Poor guy! We stayed at the Hyatt Regency, and we got our rooms by the skin of our teeth. It connected to the convention centre via skyway, which is the only way we could even go, with the wheelchair situation. Our room was cute. It was right next to the elevators, but it had it's own small alcove like hallway, so we never heard the elevators at all. It was small, but really cozy.
This is our view at night through the window. It was just too cool. More about Wednesday!
Thursday, Aug 19! Room service breakfast. (Eric is really starting to scare me, because he remembers everything we ate. Like, even the beverages. Creeeeeeeeeepy) We went to the convention centre, ran into Dave and Dennis. Peered at people in costume in huge lines. Waited for the exhibit hall, and then poured in to the hall with the giant tsunami of geeks. Went shopping, and had so much fun doing that, that we skipped our seminars for the day, and just did that. Had lunch with Dave in the food court (aaagh, now Eric remembers what DAVE ate, too!! AAAH!). After lunch with Dave, we took a nap. Then we went out to Buca di beppo's with Dave, and ate way too much ice cream and other dessert. I really love love this restaurant. There's one in Buffalo!! We have to try it, and see if it's as good (edit: We have, it is). Then we went to the Epic Level Party, watched dancing. Went home, ordered food. Watched Aliens, and passed out.		This is my view from the wheelchair while we inch along towards the exhibit hall. Mostly people's butts. And the guy with the giant 6-sided die.
	Shopping was like a sensory overload. We live in a mostly geek free world, except for our home, and this was an explosion of similar minds and motivations. We'd allocated a bunch of our budget to this, and we just didn't know where to start. It was probably the coolest thing we'd done in a long long time. I've never felt so good about myself in my life. Anyhow, it was fantastic. I still pine for the things we didn't buy because of time/money. The epic level party was a hoot. There will be pictures of it in the more section here, they're large.
White Wolf had ladies like this handing out pamphlets. As an afterthought, there was one guy in leather. Not that I minded the lack, let me tell you. She was JUST fine to look at. More about Thursday!
Friday, Aug 20! Had Room service breakfast again. Went to our seperate games. I went to Ninja Burger, Eric went to "Life with Master". Ninja burger person(A representative of Steve Jackson games) didn't know how to play the game, I had to correct her. Eric said it was too bad, because life with master could have used another person, and it was a very fun game. After that, we had lunch at McDonalds, then Eric did the "true Dungeon" thing, and I went to the room to decompress, and try to not feel so icky. We ate dinner in open gaming, then we went to "Meet Kenzer and Company" seminar (passing by Dennis with the other rabid "legend of the five rings" people). Then we hung out in the food court in the convention centre playing chez goth and geek, and reveled in the geeks everyplace. It truly felt as if we had come home. Then we went back to the room, got quesadillas, and watched tv!		They were preparing outside that ballroom for over an hour. Makeup, masks, etc.
	Something about this day was weird, and I can't quite put my finger on it. I think I was feeling overwhelmed. The card playing room partly did it, and the timelessness of everything was weird. I did make another Chez Geek card, though, and the art was a little grounding (for those that don't know, the game has blank cards so you can make your own). Eric really dug the true dungeon, so I can't wait till next year, so I can participate. More about Friday!
Saturday, Aug 21! Had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, skipped our Diplomacy game so that we could do a massive run in the exhibit hall. We met with Phil Brucato and Hope, and then I met Mark Singer. MMMMMMM, Mark Singer. We went to the demo of the Buffy game. We will never get that 4 hours of our life back. Seriously, if the makers of that game wanted people to hate the game, they couldn't have done better than send THAT guy to demo it. We did another, last last minute shopping run for t-shirts and shinies. Lost Dave, found Dave, had late lunch in food court with Dave. Poor Dave was feeling so incredibly sick. Eric ran our 1209382098 pounds of books back to the room, then we went to play D&D for cash. We had so much fun, the dude running the game, and the other players decided to play another game afterwards. We would have played yet another game, but everyone had to go. Went to the Cthulhu for President Rally, and came in at the end. They left the room, and marched around the convention centre shouting "No More Years!" (meaning that C should come and eat us all instead). It was great. There was a football game going on, and a bunch of mundanes were in a lounge/stadium either watching the game, or hanging out afterwards. They looked REALLY confused. We marched with them for a while, as they were going our way. We went back to the room, and ordered an orgy of food, as we hadn't eaten much all day.		Mark Singer, and I. I was incredibly starstruck. He was very nice to me, and insisted that I walk soon. Mmm. Mark Singer touched me. Droooooool. Right.. sorry.
	The thing with Mark Singer was great. There was a central place where all the celebrities sat to give out pictures with autographs, back to back. On one side was Virginia Hey, Tanya Roberts, and Walter Keonig, who was sitting right next to the walkway. I was wheeled past Keonig, and all I could do was stare. My brain shut down. It was like seeing Zeus manifest or something. When I finally got myself under control and realized he was a real person, I was wheeled past him to the other side where Mark Singer, Gil Gerard, Erin Grey and Herb Jefferson Jr (Boomer in original Galactica), were sitting. I just .. had no eyes for anyone but Mark Singer. I met him, I got an autograph on a half naked picture of him, and he told me that I was to start walking so I could do theatre again. He hugged me. I'm afraid I was an idiot. More about Saturday!
Sunday, Aug 22! Met Dave for breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Had the buffet, hung out. Dave looked less bad than the night before, but still really unhappy. We checked out, and went home. During our layover in Pittsburgh, we ran into Eric's boss, who was also on a layover there. We found out that there had been a real crisis while Eric was gone, and he'd left a nasty message on Eric's voice mail. We explained he'd had no service. We finally got home to Buffalo, ate in our favourite Indian restaurant because we needed a nice quiet, calm, dim, familiar place to eat. Then we went home, and stared at the walls. It was really really weird to be back. Eric checked his messages, and discovered that the idiot woman who is his bosses' "second in command" had called him on Wednesday night, and left a message asking him to come back. The reason? She approved Eric's vacation, and the new hire's vacation, which are both at the same time. Eric laughed and laughed the rest of the day.		Us three. Eric and Dave look nice. Unfortunately, I had my "Just press the button until it beeps, dumbass" look on my face the instant the waitress finally got how the camera worked, and she took the picture. Oh well.:P
This guy was perfect. He even walked like Jack Sparrow.	I just want to reiterate that flying sux0rs. Eric slept the whole way back, as you can see!