how i was wrong about loadingreadyrun (hint: they're awesome)

I'm pretty sure the internet has destroyed any social skills I might have had.

Evidence:
(1) I hate talking on the phone and mainly communicate through text message, IM, Facebook, and Twitter.
(2) I was ecstatic when Netflix Party came out, because it meant I could watch movies with people without having to cram their bodies my tiny living room.
(3) Instead of talking to people when I'm upset, I post about them on my blog.

That last little point was addressed today by an email I got from Graham of LoadingReadyRun (LRR) in response to a post about an experience I had with him in their forums:

Me: "Very, very sad to see the girl geeks only play final fantasy/RPG stereotype pop in. Persona4 over Fallout3? Really? However, it was nice to see RE4 get burned."

Him: "We're not doing it as "a stereotype". Kathleen and Tally legitimately play those games, and legitimately dislike Fallout and Resident Evil. These are truths. Stereotypes exist for a reason."

The "stereotypes exist for a reason" part sent me into a blogging tirade and I never watched their show again.

Fast forward to today. I received an email from him this morning due to a conversation he had with my friend Tajah about my blog post:

@Graham_LRR @Kathleen_LRR This tweet exchange is why I [heart] all of you so much, save that whole "stereotypes are based in fact" thing. (twitter post)


@Tajah Thanks! I don't recall what thing you're talking about, but I think you're taking something we said in a different way than we meant. (twitter post)

From there she linked him to the post.

I had turned Tajah on to LRR after a fantastic episode of commodoreHUSTLE. At PAX she had the cast (or at least one of them) sign her boobs.

Yes, the air is now cleared because of boobs. At least, that's what I'll tell people.

Anyway, back to the email. I won't post the full text here to save on space, explanations, and details, but suffice to say he talked about his post in the forums and how I had misunderstood it. He had thought I was the one who was bringing in thoughts of female stereotypes and was in his way defending female gamers. He admitted the wording could have been better, but then, my perceptions could have been better.

Basically I was offended that he was offended but I didn't know he was offended which caused us both to be offended.

I state at the very beginning of that post how judgmental I am. It's as true today as when I wrote that. However, I can admit when my judgments are wrong. I thought it was really cool of him to write to me - a completely random blogger - to clear the air. It showed me that he both cares about his fans and cares about the issue at hand.

For the record, I am going to spend today catching up on LoadingReadyRun episodes.

I'll leave this post with two thoughts:

(Uno) I will kick the first person that points out to me that I'm blogging about how I spend too much time on the internet.

(Dos) Here is one excerpt from his email that I want to leave you with because it's awesome: "As an aside, I've always been a supporter of female gamers (even back when I was really young, when it really did feel like a male dominated pastime) because, in my personal experience only, they kick ass at games. But maybe that's another stereotype. Sociology is tough."

to frolic with the seals

IMG_6440
Originally uploaded by MetaverseNomad

I'm blogging this picture for two reasons.

First reason: Ash and I obviously belong in the sea. We look so natural and graceful in this photo.

Second reason: My good friend Erin is an amazing photographer! She has an eye for finding beauty where others might not see it. (Perhaps not so much in reference to our seal pose. Heh.)

You can check out her gallery by clicking her handle (MetaverseNomad) under the photo above which should link to her Flickr page.

A lot of her photos are gorgeous shots from around the University of Washington campus. Plus every now and then you'll catch gems like Ash and Isha: It's About to get Seal.

The Seal Lives of Ash and Isha
Ash and Isha: Under the Sea
Ash and Isha in, For the Love of Seal

Halo 3: ODST launch event - Halo Waypoint and Legends

Yesterday, I attended the Halo 3: ODST launch event at the EMP, right here in Seattle, WA. The free event was 100% worth attending solely because the guys at Bungie are amazing. Just being in their immediate vicinity you get the impression that they both love what they do and love the fans who support it. Plus they're all hilarious - the Q and A sessions were fantastic.

I sat in the main theater for four panels, two ODST and two Waypoint/Legends.


Halo 3: ODST

The ODST panels were a lot of fun.They asked one fan to play on stage with a developer and we got to see a few sneak peaks of cut scenes before and after the straight combat. Since I got to play ODST at PAX, I was already impressed with game play. Yes, it's built on the same engine as Halo 3, but it feels different from other Halo games; most likely due to a lot of small weapon's tweaks. They also took more time with the art to give greater detail to the different environments.

My main criticism after seeing a few more levels of the game - it's too dark. They're definitely trying to force you to use their nifty new visor mode, which outlines certain objects and enemies the way a sniper rifle scope did - in fact, exactly as the sniper rifle scope did as that's the code they used to build it. It's a pretty cool addition, but I would have liked less pitch black areas and at least some semblance of a choice in using it.

We had Q and A sessions as the game was being played, and as stated before, the Bungie guys are awesome. The two most important things we learned: The Halo movie is dead and Paul hates the battle rifle. So stop asking!

Another little tidbit - ODST currently has no planned DLC. The team is busy working on Halo: Reach, so they probably won't be looking at it any time soon. Also, though I haven't been yet myself, halo.xbox.com supposedly re-launched or will re-launch with all new content today.

Before moving on, I'd like to make one comment on some of the negative reviews of ODST. Many of them I can respect, but some are obviously looking to take petty shots at "yet another Halo game". Be weary of any reviewer who rates or focuses on only the short campaign. For the record, Firefight is not a side note. Firefight is the reason you buy ODST, and the short campaign with the characters voiced by Firefly actors - I hate to say it but that's the side note. It's just a cute little part of the game that you can enjoy a couple times to masturbate to Nathan Fillion's voice before switching disks and playing the real game. Yes, there are two disks, which I think furthers the distinction between these two parts of the game. The second disk, the multiplayer, is the real game. That is what the reviewers should be looking at, and at the very least writing about both parts of the game equally. I have seen very few reivews doing this.

And yes, I think ODST deserves a cut in points because of the fact that Firefight is so much better than the campaign. I just happen to think that Firefight is worth it.

If you've never played a Halo game before or don't normally like Halo games, by all means skip this one. It's a solid Halo multiplayer. If you're buying it for the campaign you (1) Love Firefly THAT much (2) Love Nathan Fillion THAT much or (3) are doing it wrong.


Halo Waypoint

I am not a big enough Halo fan to care about Waypoint. It's a dashboard/channel for your Xbox that encompasses your entire experience with Halo games. There are two sections: Intel and Awards.

Intel has HD videos and pictures, news, it will be the first shot you'll have at watching Halo Legends, etc. They explained it as being the couch/TV experience as opposed to the webpage experience. It's made for material to be viewed on the "large screen". (Has this guy never met a serious PC gamer? Some of their computer screens are bigger than most TVs! Then again, I suppose a good chunk of serious PC gamers would scoff at the fact that I even mentioned the word PC in a post about Halo.)

The Intel section will also have a photo gallery which will eventually have user generated content. Yes, Bungie confirmed that there will be an extensive teabagging section. I'm wondering if they thought about integrating this with the Facebook update coming out soon that will allow us to post screen shots to our profiles. Likely not, but the 343 team seemed open to any and all suggestions for improvement. I'm sure there will be a place to submit feedback once it gets up and running.

The Awards section is for...awards. You get a Halo ranking that takes all the achievements you've got across all the games and puts them into one rank. The highest rank currently is level 40. You get "awards" for various things, including attaining certain achievements. If you have a lot of vehicle based achievements, you can earn a vehicle award. At launch there will be no additional achievement or prize for attaining awards other than bragging rights. You can also go through all your achievements across the games and filter them to look at them in any way you can think of.

Achievements for your achievements that may in the future result in achievements. Halo Waypoint is just an e-peen enlarging device. Unless you're an avid, hardcore, foaming at the mouth Halo player there is only one other reason you might find Waypoint useful: Legends.

Halo Legends

Legends is a collaboration between Microsoft 343 Industries, Bungie, and five animation studios (The BONES, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animatio) to produce seven short animated films based in the Halo universe. All of them are cannon with the exception of one. The longest flick is in two parts, fifteen minutes to each part.

I was really excited about Halo Legends when they first started talking about it and played us the two trailers - one from Comicon and one from TGS. The animation is absolutely stunning. All the films, even the joke film involving a dinosaur, looked beautiful and flowed fantastically. It is literally the Animatrix for Halo - they spoke to and worked with a lot of the Animatrix team members.

After being floored by the trailers and determined to get Halo Waypoint for no other reason than to see these shorts, I was gravely disappointed when we actually got to watch one.

Let me tell you - Halo movie would not have worked. The Halo story just does not translate well into a non-gaming experience. That could be because the Halo 3 story was already worse than the other two, or perhaps because I'm not as in tune with the Halo universe as some, but it was just so underwhelming.

We watched "The Babysitter". It was too predictable, too corny, and too...well, anime. They tried way too hard to translate the Halo universe into the language of anime and it just didn't work. The animation was still gorgeous, but I could barely appreciate it past the story and cartoon versions of Halo characters. I'm hoping some of the other films turn out a lot better.

In any case, there's no harm in picking up Halo Waypoint if you find yourself interested. Why? Well, if you have the HD space on your box, Waypoint and all it's content will be entirely free of charge.


That's about it for the launch! We caught the tail end of the tournament (I was too late in the door to play) and I'm just going to pretend that my 15k score in the Omegathon was fantastic for the map we were on and I would have totally got over the 30k scores I saw during the passing out of awards had I been on that other map!

Fremont Oktoberfest 2009!

Fremont Oktoberfest - that's right, Seattle loves beer so much we have our Oktoberfests starting in September!

The whole festival was a lot of fun, though I attribute that more to the fact that I had some fantastic beer buddies to attend with. There were plenty of German bar maid type garbed girls, but I'm willing to bet our group had the only two pirates! Yarrrr!



Things I didn't like about the festival:

I was a little disappointed with the layout. The beer sampling booths were all very overcrowded, partially due to the fact that people would get their beer and then stay near the lines to drink it. It caused a lot of confusion as to where certain lines started and ended. They really could have used some kind of line management, and I can't imagine they would have been lacking in volunteers if they offered free admission and tastings.

It also would have been nice to see more sitting areas, especially ones covered with umbrellas, which would have been helpful for both the rain yesterday and the sunshine today.

The bathroom areas were another issue. Again, the line was all over the place and a lot of people were getting upset with women (the men had it easier with a trough, no reason to cut) who would just walk casually in to the area and then mad dash and steal whichever opened up next. There needed to be way more bathrooms and a second bathroom area.

My final disappointment goes to the music. I was next to one of the stages for a bit and they had this ridiculous and terrible rap duo come out. Putting aside the fact that they were incredibly not German in the least, they had zero talent. I would hope that the organizers had better judgment than that, but apparently I was mistaken. Where were all the German drinking tunes?


Things I liked about the festival:

The beer! Seattle never fails to provide a huge variety of beers that are always delicious. I loved that each brewer brought at the very least one light beer and one dark beer. That was a fantastic idea and it made it easier and more fun to just hop in random lines since you knew you could always at least get the general type of beer you were after.

The servers (bartenders?) were just as amazing as the beer selection. I didn't encounter one person that didn't have a smile on their face, a kind few words as they poured, and a happy farewell. Every one of them looked as though they were having a blast being there and it made the experience that much better.

Admittedly, a plus for me was the cigar tent as well. I didn't buy one but my ever magnanimous roommate let me steal a few puffs from hers. It was a nice little break from the crowds. Now if only we'd had somewhere to sit! Given, there was a small cigar lounge with couches, but they were pretty well taken up by the time we got there. We still did manage to get a cement seat under a roof cover which came in handy when it rained, plus we were right next to the exit and got a free token each from people who were leaving!


My favorite beer award goes to.....

Alaskan Brewing's Smoked Porter! The first few sips of this beer taste like bacon. Seriously. It's not a subtle, sort of tastes like it taste. It literally tastes like you're eating bacon. Given, that flavor dies off and it's just a great porter after you've had a few swigs, but those first few mouthfuls are magical.

From the site: Smoked Porter
Porter / 6.5%
The dark, robust body and pronounced smoky flavor of this limited edition beer make it an adventuresome taste experience. Alaskan Smoked Porter is produced in limited vintages each year and unlike most beers, may be aged in the bottle much like fine wine.
Buy it at: Local Tavern or Grocery Store


One beer that took me by surprise was New Belgium Brewing's The Trip 3. We just happened to hop in their line at random as it was the shortest we saw when we were in the area. I almost spit out my first sip in surprise of how delicious it was! It had a sort of sour apple flavor that worked fantastically. I am very glad to have stood in that line!

From the site: The Trip 3
Other Lager / 4.5%
Trip 3 is part of a NW collaborative beer project between New Belgium and Elysian Brewing called The Trip. The third in the series is a Sour Black lager created by Peter Bouckaert, the celebrated Belgian Brewmaster of New Belgium Brewing. Made locally at Elysian Brewing’s Capitol Hill location, this small batch beer utilizes unique blending techniques making it more about the experience, rather than the description, much like the project and Peter himself.
Buy it at: Multiple bars and grocery outlets in Western WA


Overall it was a fun experience! Can't wait for next year!

tuesday trivia at Shultzy's!

A cheetah that is merely disguised as a leopard.

My roommate, Kendall, decided one day that we should have a trivia night with beer and questions and blank looks upon the asking of those questions. So it came to be that Tuesday trivia night at Shultzy's was born!

It is always a super fun time! Shultzy's has delicious food - including their famously tasty fries - and unique flavorful beers on tap. If you're not a drinker, the establishment is for all ages so you can grab yourself a frosty sparkling lemonade.  Plus the waitstaff is amazing!

On the last trivia night we had, I discovered my dumbphone is more magical than I thought. Oh yes, it has a built-in recorder. Now you'll always wonder if I'm really checking a voicemail or if I just needed an excuse to be quiet while holding my phone up!

Thus, I present the musical styling of Awkward Spooning (our glorious trivia team name)! You can listen here.

Then to supplement that awesomeness, you should watch this video.

Sadly, Blogger does not play nice with the audio embed HTML, so you'll have to click and download to listen.  If you're viewing this in a Reader, however, you will indeed see a happy little player. I tried to steal the Google Reader audio embed code and stick the player directly in the post, but alas, that also failed to work. *shakes fist madly at Blogger's HTML incompetence*

If you'd like to join our awesome trivia night fun and are in the Seattle area, we may be found every Tuesday night at 8:00PM hiding in a dark booth corner at Shultzy's on 41st and University Way!

nerdcore doesn't just describe music

It's no secret that I enjoy supporting nerdy websites run by people that I find to be amazing. One of these people would happen to be Z of Hipster, Please! His site produces wonderful musical podcasts and geniusly written articles about all things nerdcore. If you spoke to me at PAX, you may have heard me rambling about his site and how I was trying to be a good proxy, though I failed at getting a good shout out going. I'll have to make that up to him at PAX East!

I caught a tweet from him that he was about to run out of stickers that he sends off to those who choose to support his site in a fiscal manner. I had to have one! So I shot him some monies and in return he sent me an amazing sticker that I have proudly stuck. It was a great investment.

Along with the sticker(s), Z sent me what is probably the greatest snail mail letter I have ever recieved in my life. So, naturally, I had to share it with the world: 

Oh, Eye-Shuh!

How awesome is a lady that spells her name phonetically? Only as awesome, I suppose, as one who is preoccupied with all things Batman. And that's pretty damn awesome!

Thanks so much for checking out my little blog and podcast, and especially for all your support (both moral and financial). It's nice to know that I am not merely talking to myself via the power of the Interwebz. Even more so when I consider the geektastic caliber of those on the other end of the line such as yourself.

Here are the last of my original run of Hipster, Please! promo stickers. I find it conforting to realize that, of the final four, half have come to live with you in Washington while the other half have drifted down to Jason (of NerdRockstar.com) in Florida, as I have long felt those states to be the nerd hubs of their respective coasts.

I hope they serve you well, And by "serve you well" I mean "stick to stuff." For they are merely stickers, and I'm afraid that's all they really do.

Keep things nerdy in Sea-town, and hopefully I'll eventually find my way up there to meet you all at some point in the future!

Best,
--Z

Here is my sticker, doing the job that the nerd gods bestowed upon him:

I have to say, my laptop cover sticker explosion is coming along quite nicely.

My second (yes! two!) sticker has been stucked to my life, i.e., my day planner. I had been waiting since switching to my new one in July for the perfect decoration for it. Task completed!

Go check out Z's site! I especially love to listen to his Radio Free Hipster casts at work. I highly recommend them! Hopefully he will be able to come visit all us wonderful nerds in Seattle sometime in the near-ish future. Start saving for PAX Prime 2010, Z!

the world of the warcraft

(Haha, whoops. I must have accidentally pressed "draft" on this one rather than "publish". Old post but still holds true. Though, I should preface this by saying that I do not generally enjoy MMOs, and thusly am incredibly biased. If you enjoy WoW, there's nothing wrong with that. We all make video game purchase choices based on preferance and a monthly subscription is no different.)

I started a World of Warcraft account. While I'm slightly ashamed of myself for doing so, I can't help but want to feed the curiosity I've had about this wildly popular game.

The reason I joined is entirely noble. Blizzard has some kind of promotion where if you lure new users to get a big experience bonus for a few weeks. I had a friend who put out a twitter call about getting others to join and just thought "why the hell not?".

I know the answer to that "why the hell not" from people who don't play WoW is "NO! Hold strong Eye-shuh! Fight the forces of WoW evil!" and the answer from people who do play WoW is "NO! Don't do it! You'll be come obsessed like I am!"

Despite these warnings, I started a character. He is an Orc Fighter - my typical choice of race and class.

After spending several hours leveling my character, going through the tutorial quests, and generally running around to try and get a feel for the game, I have some news: I am unimpressed.

I can see where the game would be addicting. I mean, it's as addicting as any other game with tons of content to explore, leveling capabilities, and rare items. Don't even pretend that there aren't other games out there with these exact qualities. The difference seems to be that WoW conquered the market like XBL over PSN. It has a huge community that can't be beat, and since MMO's are all about the community WoW would be the obvious choice for anyone hankering for some fantasy creature battles.

I do like the in game mechanics. The bar at the bottom makes it easy to assign hot keys or just click items/abilities you use often. Movement and battle is all very easy but with a little extra flare from point and click. Your life and mana bars automatically regenerate without the need of spells or special equipment, but not to the point where it's made too easy to survive. The world itself and environments are vast and interesting.

Does this mean I'm going to toss out 60$ for six months of play? Hell no! That's more than an Xbox Live subscription! I personally find it disturbing that Blizzard must be making such a killing from this cash cow. I am amazed at how much they charge. The perks of paying for an account are not equal to that amount of money to me.

So, while I'll play around with my friends during the free trial I'm on, it definitely fails at enticing me to blow my money to stay in the WoW.

I'll stick with Diablo3, thank you very much. The world/content might not upgrade itself every so often, but the Diablo games are amazing and that battle.net is absolutely free.

nobody puts Swayze in a corner

This one saddens me greatly.

Patrick Swayze was a great actor and definitely one of my hunky-guy-dream-boat-teenage-girl crushes. Admittedly, I also have a thing for men who can pull off looking hot in drag...don't judge me for my To Wong Foo love!

I leave you with the following video, one of my favorite classic SNL skits. Dance on, Swayze. Dance on.

Patrick Swayze - Chippendale
by tressage

PAX Omnibus

This year I was an Omeganaut. That means until I lost, I did not attend PAX. The Omegathon takes up almost every bit of your time and leaves you drained by day end.

And I absolutely loved it! My only regret is that I didn't abuse my pass more. The only two notable Omega-power moments I had were grabbing the last Guild Wars 2 signed art book and snagging a Left 4 Dead 2 panel when they were dismembering their booth. Both these things are more than amazing.

I made it all the way to the fourth round, which despite my frustration over my loss, I am very proud of. I just wish I had thought to enjoy being on stage a little more during that Rock Band round before the concerts. I mean, I got to OPEN the Saturday night concerts. It was phenomenal and I should have had a lot more fun with it. However, when you get up there it's hard not to stare at the screen as your notes go by and try intently not to shame yourself by failing the game in medium mode.

For the record, had I not been eliminated in a way that was beyond my control, I would have won the show. I had Connect 4 owned and I grew up at the Seattle Center - that means LOTS of Skee Ball. This is the story I'm sticking to!

In the end, I am still happy with my run. I was everyone's favorite to win, including the two men who created the event in the first place. I was told that I was ahead in the Intel "guess the winner" contest as well. It. Was. Amazing.

Plus, there are little experiences better in the world than playing video games while Tycho himself heckles you in the background.

My proudest moment: beating the pants off of the lady killer, Halo 3: ODST round. We literally doubled the score of any other team.

My happiest moment: walking into that same round and seeing an entire section of people in Batman masks cheering wildly. I will never forget that. I'm tearing up a bit just thinking about it. My friends are the most wonderful, amazing, fantastic people on earth and I have no idea how I got so lucky to have these sorts of people in my life.

Embedded below is the Joystiq video of the round. I will never stop laughing after hearing myself yell, "don't get shot!"



I did manage to sneak in a couple games. I might blog on them separately a bit later, once I get the chance to play them more. For example - I have been a little harsh on Left 4 Dead 2. From what I played it was comical looking and way too easy. However, I recognize that playing for all of three minutes does not give me a great scope of the game. I'll pick it up when it comes out, because you still can't beat the Left 4 Dead game mechanic in my mind, and see how it goes then.

I'll also definitely be picking up ODST. I had my doubts about it. I really did think it would be a carbon copy of Gears of War's Horde mode. However, it is legit in being it's own game with very unique game play. I foresee many fun nights screaming "don't get shot" into my Xbox headset.

After my loss on Saturday I decided to spend the entirety of Sunday raping the expo hall. I came back with a ridiculous amounts of swag. I have ideas about what I'm going to do with some of it, but the rest...uh...anyone need a t-shirt?

PAX is the highlight of my year and I loved every second of it. If you haven't checked it out yet, this thread was pointed out to me today. If you do not attend PAX, read through some of it. Then you may begin to grasp what this thing means to me.

Thank you once again to all my friends and supporters and Gabe and Tycho and Khoo and everyone. Best PAX ever.

Pre-PAX Omnibus

Prepare yourself for blogging! Finally! I had no time at all during PAX, even though I had vowed I would be recording my entire experience this year. Ah well. Here's the first bit: Pre-PAX events.

(PS: If you want a really good and hilarious blogging account of PAX and Pre-PAX I suggest hopping over to DMMagic's blog! He also has some great sets of pictures, a few of which I have stolen, and credited, below.)


Photo credit: Matthew Stublefield

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

The MMT started out my entire PAX experience last year and is the reason that I am as far involved with the community as I am this year. It's a great way to meet fellow nerds, and if you are attending your first PAX it's a great way to gain some familiar faces to seek at the con.

This year I was the co-pilot to our fearless leader. She did an amazing job organizing the tour and making last minute changes, contingency plans, and keeping us all on schedule. You rule our hearts MetaverseNomad!

Plus, we had a party bus. I mean, you don't get much better than a party bus.

Our schedule for this year:

WEDNESDAY

9:00 AM – meet at Pike Place Market
9:15-11:00 - Seattle Aquarium
Ride waterfront streetcar to Pioneer Square (free)
Noon-1:30 - Underground Tour
1:30 – 2:30 - Get lunch at Essential Bakery , lunch at GasWorks
2:30 – 3:00 - Look around Fremont, visit the imprisoned Fremont Troll (missed due to time and bus logistics)
3:00 – 4:00 - Ballard Locks
4:00 – 5:00 – Archie McPhees and Trophy Cupcakes
5:00 - ??? – Back to Downtown

THURSDAY

9:00 AM – Meet downtown (TBD), take monorail to Seattle Center
9:30 AM – 12:30 PM – EMP and Sci-Fi Museum
1:00 PM +/- -- Meet up with CCST at WSCTC (for whoever wants to go, otherwise can stay at EMP)
LUNCH at Westlake center – before or after CCST meetup, time-dependent

If any of that looks like fun to you (which it should!) I highly recommend coming on the tour next year. Even native Seattlites can have fun visiting all the silly touristy things we generally tend to ignore.

We had a fantastic group of people from all over the states and all over the world. The tour is made that much more fun because of the group of PAXers that attend. I hope to see you all on the tour next year, and perhaps I'll have time to co-pilot again!



Photo credit: Matthew Stublefield

TRIWIZARD DRINKING TOURNAMENT

I'm not sure why I thought it would be a great idea to lead a large group of nerds on a bar crawl until 2am the night before I had to check-in to the Omegathon at 9am the next morning...still worth it!

The pub crawl was a total blast. Aside from a couple overly rowdy drunks, the majority of my Hufflepuffs had fun and were still respectful, which made my job as Head of House that much easier.

Most of the bars were great sports too. Some of them had themed drinks, and the staff was mostly generous when it came to our rambunctious crowd. My favorite bar of the night has to go to Cafe Metropolitan. The bartenders were friendly and seemed to be having fun, the doorman kept us in line without being a jerk, and they had both themed drinks as well as a Harry Potter movie playing on the wall. I was just floored by how awesome they were towards us and will definitely be recommending them in general, as well as for next year's crawl.

The tournament part of our tournament was not just to complete every challenge presented to us, but also to raise money for our favorite charity: Child's Play. I believe our grand total for all the houses wound up being around $1300. A grand $491 of that came from Hufflepuff, making us the winners of the House Cup! Huzzah! I'm so proud of all of you! We out drank and out karmaed the competition. Next year - a round of shots is on me.

In the end it was a great night, I was able to restrain myself from getting completely plastered, and I was only a little late to my check-in. (Sorry Chief!)



Photo credit: Matthew Stublefield

PRE-PAX DINNER

I love going to the pre-PAX dinner every year. We get food, friends, and it's the first leg of our massive button exchange activities. This year it was coordinated with the Triwizard Drinking Tournament, so everything even had a nice flow to it.

Plus we get Bawls...so many Bawls.

I was a tiny bit disappointed in the Skillet. The food was only decent and it was too small a catering service for the amount of people we had attending. However, I can't fault our excellent organizers for trying to find a good option for that many people. Huge thanks to Astayonix and ElectricTurtle for organizing such a fun event!


I think that concludes my pre-PAX shenaniganz. Stay tuned for more wordy entries about the main show and the Omegathon!

Omegathon Defeat

OmegathonRoundFour121.jpg
Originally uploaded by GSpeezy
I haven't yet had time to sit down and blog my PAX experience, so in the mean time I wanted to share this photo taken by the amazing GSpeezy.

I love this picture because it shows exactly how I felt as soon as I knew that we had lost. I'm disappointed, maybe a little embarrassed, but still smiling because I'm infinitely happy to have been there. At this moment I'm probably looking out toward my wonderful bat crew; ready to be in their supporting and forgiving embrace. There's not a chance I would have survived without them.

So thank you again to all my friends, followers, and random people who got into the excitement of the Omegathon rounds with my crazy bat crew. We had a good run and once the dust had settled over my loss I realized just how much I had won. It was an amazing time. I love you all!