Con Report
Back home, finally got my neck and shoulder looked at by the Doc, had some pizza for lunch, and now it's time for me to attempt to clear my sinuses and do a con report!
Left last Sunday and headed up to Woodstock, VA, to see Byron's family. Stayed there until Tuesday afternoon. Byron's mom made us lots of yummy food (Mmmm, Pot roast... *drool*), took us to Wal-Mart for non-perishable grocery shopping, and gave us money to see a movie... But there was nothing on in Woodstock that we wanted to see, so instead we bought 4 movies from the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. I spent most of my time in Woodstock either working on the Appendix for the novel or working on Aftershock.
On Tuesday we went from Woodstock to Pennsylvania to visit my family. Along the way we talked about a bunch of projects we've got going on- or WANT to have going on. Decided that we need to start setting goals and dates so that we don't just put things on the backburner indefinitely. I know we have the means to do everything we've set out to do, we just need to get motivated on it.
In PA, we played Wii with my Mom and Dad (I never thought I'd be playing video games with my Mom- it was surreal), and I REALLY want a Wii and Wii Fit now. :( And Link's Crossbow Training- that was so much fun. XD We also went to Perrydell Dairy one day and got milkshakes... and got chased by bees. T_T My older brother Jimmy, his wife, and their three kids came over on Monday for dinner, which was pretty fun... except that I was in pain and not feeling good.
We left there on Thursday and went down to meet shinzakura and star_sign at their place to pick up the Board Game Library and help carry stuff over to the convention. Traffic on 66 was a bitch- as usual- but we ended up parking the car after 6 and not paying as much per day as we thought we'd have to at the end! Yay! We got unloaded, checked in, found Rei, risu_o_dansu and phoenix05 , then went down and helped Reg stuff bags for the congoers. It wasn't so bad and once we had a system down we kicked ass. Went to bed finally.
We got up early on Friday and I discovered that the hot water in the shower wasn't really that hot. Grabbed my stuff (including my Mel plushie, which went around with me all weekend), and headed downstairs. Unfortunately the hotel was remodeling... which means they started Jack-hammering on the second floor (part of the open five-floor area that the con was actually located in), and we were on the third floor trying to set up the Board Game Library right above it. They continued doing this until about 1 p.m. when the con started- and you could hear the damn jack-hammering on the seventh floor anyway- where our hotel room was. Thankfully that was the only day they did that crap, but we were still pissed about it anyway.
Once we got the BGL set up and most of us read the backs of the games we didn't know, we went and set up the info tables and stuff. When the convention started I had to run off to moderate the swap-meet and make sure that people were exchanging items and not money. Had to yell at a few people, but otherwise we had no problems. I even picked up a servant after I gave her my old Utena tapes... didn't exchange, just GAVE. I really don't care for Utena anyway. So, I became her Goddess for the weekend- it was awesome. XD My first scheduled Star Wars game was cancelled since no one showed up for it, so instead I went to a workshop on writing original stories. Talked to the girl who ran the workshop for a little bit afterwards and apparently she uses Lulu.com to publish her novels and has been really happy with it.
Got to see devilblade and ubermorte - haven't seen John in FOREVER and hadn't seen Joe since... probably the last con? It was so awesome to see them again and get to hang out, even if John did try to set Mel-Plushie on fire with his Roy Mustang gloves the whole weekend. ;) Joe and I talked for a bit about drawing hair and planning for the future, and just generally raised hell in general. It was great.
After that I actually did run my game once with two players and that was fun. Traditional Games almost got skipped over for dinner, but then knightspast reminded the Hospitality guy that we ARE on staff and we finally got our food about two hours late. The hot dogs were kinda gross but I was so hungry that I ate them anyway.
Played in Nichole's Transformers game and laughed ourselves silly as well. I got to be Bumblebee. ♥ It was awesome. Rei played Sunstreaker and a guy we met at the con played Sideswipe- I don't know much about the characters but they were awesome. Our Ironhide, Ratchet, and Prowl were fantastic too. XD
We went to bed, needing to get up really early Saturday morning.
Slept through the alarm Saturday morning by accident. Had to rush to get down to the Swap Meet in time. Unfortunately since we weren't in the program guide no one knew the Meet was going on Saturday and Sunday- thus leading to a pretty crappy turnout. Overall for the weekend though I did get some good stuff. In total I got: a necklace, two Kenshin OVAs, Lament of the Lamp Volume 1, the entire series of Gundam Wing on VHS (dubbed, for Byron), a copy of a GameBoy Zelda game, a One Piece poster, the first volume of
Tsukikage Ran,every manga of Maison Ikkoku (which I'm not really that interested in, unfortunately, and... I can't remember what else. Between that and everything I got from Nichole I made out like a bandit and didn't spend a dime on anything. Oh, I also got the FMA movie! YAY! It's even in the packaging.
Ran my Star Wars game one more time on Saturday, with a full group this time- including the Ironhide from the TF game the night before. He played my Jedi and he was awesome- he KNEW how to play a Jedi and knew the D6 system as well. Then Jay showed up around the time that we got dinner- which was slightly cold KFC. At least it was better than the hot dogs from the previous night, LOL! Also played in Byron's Star Wars Saga Edition game and in Nichole's TF game twice more.
I went to a Pattern Making panel that was pretty informative as well. Not too much I didn't already know, but I did learn a little bit. While I was in there, the rest of Traditional Games was getting ready for the Live-Action Board Game. For not being on the schedule, we really got a lot more people showing up than we thought we would. We played for an hour and then went to bed, but apparently the game continued being moderated by James for another hour after that. Everyone seemed to really like it and had a lot of fun, although apparently they also figured out how to cheat with the plush dice I made... Oops... Well, for a Beta Test on the game they did their job, and now they're living with Nichole. I got to sleep late-ishand had to get up for the last day of the con and the last Swap Meet.
Final Swap Meet of the weekend was a bit of a bust. I ended up putting all the stuff I had left to get rid of on a side table and walking away from it so that people who came in for the BGL later on could have it. Afterwards I manned the Info table and hung out with Joe, John, Puff, and Rei some more. Then who should show up but oatmeal_queen - I swear, she gets thinner and more beautiful every time I see her... granted, that's not often since we're down here. But seeing her and everyone else made me realize just how much I miss everyone sometimes. The day passed rather quickly and before we knew it it was time for the GMs only game... which didn't last more than 30 minutes because everyone was hungry, cranky, and alling asleep sitting up. We decided to break for a few hours until it was time to go to the Staff Dinner, and then we headed up to Bailey's Bar and Grille when it was time.
... OMFG... I thought last year's dinner was crazy? This year's dinner was INSANE. Picture about 100 staffers blowing off steam by singing loudly to every song on the jukebox- including Bohemian Rhapsody, Never Gonna Give You Up, Highway to Hell, and a few others. We ate lots of yummy food and drank sodas and lemonade (since none of the Trad Games department was drinking anything heavier), then we came back to the hotel and I proceeded to have a mental beakdown... Sorry about that guys! Rather than have the GM only game, we decided to just hang out until about midnight and then go to bed.
Said good-bye to the Traditional Games staff, then met up with Rob and Becca and got checked out of the hotel. We had breakfast stuff at a little place up the road and then headed up to their place again to grab what we left. Hung out for a bit and then hit the road... and tried not to kill ourselves falling asleep the whole way back. @_@ We got in at about 9 last night, unloaded half of the car, and watched The Fugitive before heading to bed. Overall it was a really fun con. There were some problems and all, but we'll work on them for next year.
Left last Sunday and headed up to Woodstock, VA, to see Byron's family. Stayed there until Tuesday afternoon. Byron's mom made us lots of yummy food (Mmmm, Pot roast... *drool*), took us to Wal-Mart for non-perishable grocery shopping, and gave us money to see a movie... But there was nothing on in Woodstock that we wanted to see, so instead we bought 4 movies from the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. I spent most of my time in Woodstock either working on the Appendix for the novel or working on Aftershock.
On Tuesday we went from Woodstock to Pennsylvania to visit my family. Along the way we talked about a bunch of projects we've got going on- or WANT to have going on. Decided that we need to start setting goals and dates so that we don't just put things on the backburner indefinitely. I know we have the means to do everything we've set out to do, we just need to get motivated on it.
In PA, we played Wii with my Mom and Dad (I never thought I'd be playing video games with my Mom- it was surreal), and I REALLY want a Wii and Wii Fit now. :( And Link's Crossbow Training- that was so much fun. XD We also went to Perrydell Dairy one day and got milkshakes... and got chased by bees. T_T My older brother Jimmy, his wife, and their three kids came over on Monday for dinner, which was pretty fun... except that I was in pain and not feeling good.
We left there on Thursday and went down to meet shinzakura and star_sign at their place to pick up the Board Game Library and help carry stuff over to the convention. Traffic on 66 was a bitch- as usual- but we ended up parking the car after 6 and not paying as much per day as we thought we'd have to at the end! Yay! We got unloaded, checked in, found Rei, risu_o_dansu and phoenix05 , then went down and helped Reg stuff bags for the congoers. It wasn't so bad and once we had a system down we kicked ass. Went to bed finally.
We got up early on Friday and I discovered that the hot water in the shower wasn't really that hot. Grabbed my stuff (including my Mel plushie, which went around with me all weekend), and headed downstairs. Unfortunately the hotel was remodeling... which means they started Jack-hammering on the second floor (part of the open five-floor area that the con was actually located in), and we were on the third floor trying to set up the Board Game Library right above it. They continued doing this until about 1 p.m. when the con started- and you could hear the damn jack-hammering on the seventh floor anyway- where our hotel room was. Thankfully that was the only day they did that crap, but we were still pissed about it anyway.
Once we got the BGL set up and most of us read the backs of the games we didn't know, we went and set up the info tables and stuff. When the convention started I had to run off to moderate the swap-meet and make sure that people were exchanging items and not money. Had to yell at a few people, but otherwise we had no problems. I even picked up a servant after I gave her my old Utena tapes... didn't exchange, just GAVE. I really don't care for Utena anyway. So, I became her Goddess for the weekend- it was awesome. XD My first scheduled Star Wars game was cancelled since no one showed up for it, so instead I went to a workshop on writing original stories. Talked to the girl who ran the workshop for a little bit afterwards and apparently she uses Lulu.com to publish her novels and has been really happy with it.
Got to see devilblade and ubermorte - haven't seen John in FOREVER and hadn't seen Joe since... probably the last con? It was so awesome to see them again and get to hang out, even if John did try to set Mel-Plushie on fire with his Roy Mustang gloves the whole weekend. ;) Joe and I talked for a bit about drawing hair and planning for the future, and just generally raised hell in general. It was great.
After that I actually did run my game once with two players and that was fun. Traditional Games almost got skipped over for dinner, but then knightspast reminded the Hospitality guy that we ARE on staff and we finally got our food about two hours late. The hot dogs were kinda gross but I was so hungry that I ate them anyway.
Played in Nichole's Transformers game and laughed ourselves silly as well. I got to be Bumblebee. ♥ It was awesome. Rei played Sunstreaker and a guy we met at the con played Sideswipe- I don't know much about the characters but they were awesome. Our Ironhide, Ratchet, and Prowl were fantastic too. XD
We went to bed, needing to get up really early Saturday morning.
Slept through the alarm Saturday morning by accident. Had to rush to get down to the Swap Meet in time. Unfortunately since we weren't in the program guide no one knew the Meet was going on Saturday and Sunday- thus leading to a pretty crappy turnout. Overall for the weekend though I did get some good stuff. In total I got: a necklace, two Kenshin OVAs, Lament of the Lamp Volume 1, the entire series of Gundam Wing on VHS (dubbed, for Byron), a copy of a GameBoy Zelda game, a One Piece poster, the first volume of
Tsukikage Ran,every manga of Maison Ikkoku (which I'm not really that interested in, unfortunately, and... I can't remember what else. Between that and everything I got from Nichole I made out like a bandit and didn't spend a dime on anything. Oh, I also got the FMA movie! YAY! It's even in the packaging.
Ran my Star Wars game one more time on Saturday, with a full group this time- including the Ironhide from the TF game the night before. He played my Jedi and he was awesome- he KNEW how to play a Jedi and knew the D6 system as well. Then Jay showed up around the time that we got dinner- which was slightly cold KFC. At least it was better than the hot dogs from the previous night, LOL! Also played in Byron's Star Wars Saga Edition game and in Nichole's TF game twice more.
I went to a Pattern Making panel that was pretty informative as well. Not too much I didn't already know, but I did learn a little bit. While I was in there, the rest of Traditional Games was getting ready for the Live-Action Board Game. For not being on the schedule, we really got a lot more people showing up than we thought we would. We played for an hour and then went to bed, but apparently the game continued being moderated by James for another hour after that. Everyone seemed to really like it and had a lot of fun, although apparently they also figured out how to cheat with the plush dice I made... Oops... Well, for a Beta Test on the game they did their job, and now they're living with Nichole. I got to sleep late-ishand had to get up for the last day of the con and the last Swap Meet.
Final Swap Meet of the weekend was a bit of a bust. I ended up putting all the stuff I had left to get rid of on a side table and walking away from it so that people who came in for the BGL later on could have it. Afterwards I manned the Info table and hung out with Joe, John, Puff, and Rei some more. Then who should show up but oatmeal_queen - I swear, she gets thinner and more beautiful every time I see her... granted, that's not often since we're down here. But seeing her and everyone else made me realize just how much I miss everyone sometimes. The day passed rather quickly and before we knew it it was time for the GMs only game... which didn't last more than 30 minutes because everyone was hungry, cranky, and alling asleep sitting up. We decided to break for a few hours until it was time to go to the Staff Dinner, and then we headed up to Bailey's Bar and Grille when it was time.
... OMFG... I thought last year's dinner was crazy? This year's dinner was INSANE. Picture about 100 staffers blowing off steam by singing loudly to every song on the jukebox- including Bohemian Rhapsody, Never Gonna Give You Up, Highway to Hell, and a few others. We ate lots of yummy food and drank sodas and lemonade (since none of the Trad Games department was drinking anything heavier), then we came back to the hotel and I proceeded to have a mental beakdown... Sorry about that guys! Rather than have the GM only game, we decided to just hang out until about midnight and then go to bed.
Said good-bye to the Traditional Games staff, then met up with Rob and Becca and got checked out of the hotel. We had breakfast stuff at a little place up the road and then headed up to their place again to grab what we left. Hung out for a bit and then hit the road... and tried not to kill ourselves falling asleep the whole way back. @_@ We got in at about 9 last night, unloaded half of the car, and watched The Fugitive before heading to bed. Overall it was a really fun con. There were some problems and all, but we'll work on them for next year.