Back to Our Roots

We went to PAX South. It was awesome. I kept trying to think of a way to start this post. There really was no other adequate way to start! 

D and I left the kids with his mom and sister and made the 9ish hour drive down to San Antonio to attend a three day all-out "nerd convention." Most people may think a comic-con is our jam but we are more into gaming so PAX was perfect for us.

THIS IS MY JAM!!

We started every day with early rising, showers (very important in a large crowd), free breakfast, a one mile-ish walk, coffee and then waiting in the queue room with a few thousand of our closest friends for about two hours.

The queue room on Day 1 (we were the crazies toward the front)

 I know that sounds crazy but we were armed with a few card games (we liked Star Realms) and our DS's so the wait time went fast. 

I don't feel like explaining the entire thing to those who haven't been but suffice it to say we had a BLAST. Expo hall, new games, indie games, older games we have never had a chance to try but now had the opportunity, PC games, console games, tabletop games, gaming lounges, awesome panels, concerts, swag, the list goes on. And it was amazing. 

Try ALL THE THINGS!

ALL THINGS. 

D kicked my ass at all the things. I have always said I love gaming but I suck at it. I am OK with this. It was super fun. Among some of the games we tried in the EXPO hall we have backed Invisigun and Karmaka on Kickstarter and you should too because they are fun :-) 

Karmaka demo

The one bummer thing was that some friends of ours were unable to attend due to various life hiccups. So, to include them I made them into "paper people" and they attended with us in spirit. Here's a few of their adventures:

Roadtrip with paper people E and S

Waiting in the queue room with PP (paper people) E and S

Hanging out with D in the handheld lounge

Group pic overlooking the expo hall

Gotta get a pic with a cosplayer

About to go demo some tabletop games

Reveling in the swag

The panels were super fun. I really enjoyed the Make A Strip one:

Initial sketch

Almost done

It was so fun to watch this being created. Mike and Jerry are hilarious (which you obviously know if you have any idea what Penny Arcade is and if you have ever listened to a podcast) and their banter is a treat to listen to. It was really fun to watch the last panel being made. The amount that you can change an expression just by a couple changes to the mouth or eyes is awesome. Mike must have drawn and redrawn the mouth 20-30 times or so. Then he took the audience suggestion to add a cowboy hat to the hotdog fairy. Yeah. It made me want to draw things.

Complete and we watched the whole thing happen. 

We also very much enjoyed the concerts. Nerdy type bands. Ever heard of Paul and Storm? Probably not. They do a great song about how George R. R. Martin needs to write faster. And I have to say, I don't think I have ever been more entertained than I was watching them perform. They were HILARIOUS. There were large bags of ball pit balls involved as well as water bottle chugging, intense amounts of distractions that had my abs hurting I was laughing so hard. 

New song about how George R. R. Martin still isn't writing fast enough

Talented and HILARIOUS. 

We also caught the Double Clicks who were so adorably awkward I could die. I loved them. 

Yes, one of them is wearing a banana costume. And it was amazing. 

Throughout the event they hold the Omegathon. Long story short it's a big ass game tournament, ending with two finalists who compete playing a game. No one knows the final game. This time around it was Goldeneye. Anyone remember playing this on your N-64? The two finalists were "Rugpisser" and "Palpatatertot"and they gave us an amazing competition. One of my favorite parts of being in a crowd like this is there are very few douchebags. When the crowd watches people play all they really want to see is a great competition which means they will root for whoever is losing at the time (mostly, this doesn't count the people who know them personally most of the time). The winner was whoever won 2 of the 3 games. So, 10 kills each round. Each player one a game each and the final game came down to 9-9. It was everything you would want in an Omegathon final. It was amazing.

Super intense. 

Palpatatertot wins!

And now I am back to reality where adults who should be able to handle themselves are throwing temper tantrums. Needless to say, I am having withdrawals. I think we've pretty much already decided we have to go again next year. And it will be glorious. 

A Time I Had