Sleepless in Seattle: PAX Prime 2012

Finding friends in a new city is weird and honestly, I've had some trouble so far. Every time I stand alone and try and look vulnerable in clubs and in public I get the strangest assortment of pick up lines and start up pitches. So I thought about how I made friends when I moved to Sydney and I remember the best thing for me was when the guys from Games Paradise dragged me to a gaming con for the weekend.

Right! Thought I, lets see what's coming up soon. I was going to miss GenCon with a poorly timed trip to Australia but Penny Arcade eXpo was coming up and I'd always wanted to go. Some damage to my credit card later and we were away!

On arrival I had all the love of being given a deluxe upgrade to my room at the Grand Hyatt, despite being on the convention rate. The main advantage of deluxe rooms is always the view, here showing gorgeous weather and downtown Seattle at its finest.

In fantastic news my friend Kevin and his lovely lady managed to get tickets at the last minute, so I wasn't totally a stranger in a strange land. We spent Thursday night drinking and catching up about the US move and all the fun that goes with it. 

On Friday I was determined to hit the Expo floor before all the people who only had weekend passes showed up. I was worried about tales of queues at PAX and this line that took me out the door, through a park and round the corner had me in fear. However it turned out that everyone was lovely, trading game cards and playing DS in the line and despite the kilometer or so of line... we all got in in 15 mins of opening. 

Inside the Expo hall is a gamers wet dream. Just about every game, platform, hardware vendor, tradeable and more. There's games for sale, games for trying, games in competition! New things, favoured things, indie things, all the things!

I walked and walked and walked until I was totally exhausted, realising a little too late that buying a bag full of heavy comics and games wasn't smart. Thankfully though the convention is a several building affair and my hotel was smack bang in the middle so I dropped things off and found people again. 

A group of lovely folk from the PAX IRC channel invited me along to Karaoke and to say it was my kind of night out was a total understatement. Karaoke complete with Concrete Blonde and the Care Bears, Cider on tap (at $4.50 a pint too I might add) and a group of mad geeks belting out songs with not a care in the world. A++ would buy again.

Saturday I spent playing MMOs and earning a lot of free schwag. A hat tip to RaiderZ as I think this is the next big thing in that scene. 

Then it was time for panels, one on MMORPGs and then one on the new Kepler Nvidia hardware which was basically an hour long demonstration of how the GPU I'd just bought was sex on legs. 

And then... then I went for a cigarette, and in my usual fashion this meant I talked to a group of smokers for about 4 hours without moving. In the meantime I met a schwag of awesome people, most of whom it turns our are PAX Enforcers. These are the volunteer army of hardcore nerds and con goers. Between these guys, the PAX IRC folks and some WarCraft contacts I had a really social nerdly wonderful weekend which was totally what I needed. All it wants to make me to do is sign up for promotion activities straight away (hey I waited ... weeks before volunteering) so you can expect to hear about Enforcer talk in future. Later that night I went to the concerts, finally getting my chance to see Jonathan Coulton and MC Frontalot live, complete with building sized singalong of Still Alive. 

Then there was a lot of whiskey and <scene deleted> but I managed to wake up without too much of a hangover and still make it to see Wil Wheaton and isn't that the important bit? Wil gave a great recollection on how he fell in and out of love (and in again) with Magic the Gathering. Other great panels of the weekend included the Gaming Addiction panel and the Ratchet & Clank 10th Anniversary. 

I had a frankly marvellous time, and other than the desperate need to socialise one of the reasons is the scale and variety present. It's the same reason I like WGT over all the other goth festivals - because whatever your *thing* is you can do just that for 4 days straight... 

Shopping

Cosplaying

Tabletop gaming

Hand held gaming

PC Gaming

Competitive Gaming

Hardware modding 

Or y'now... just chilling the fuck out with your fellow nerdkind. 

Me? I mixed it up and did a little of everything. I had a great time, met some great people and came home with some great memories (and a few extra t-shirts).

If this is Night City where's my heads up display?

When I was a younger thing obsessed with roleplaying all I ever wanted to do was live life in a dark techno future as a bright young corper in a Cyberpunk world...

I don't like to disappoint myself.

So ironic as it is I bought Nat an eReader for his birthday, spending my megacorp Asia bucks on digital devices so that we could read Cyberpunk novels.

We kicked off his birthday weekend with A Scanner Darkly, Strange Days and The Matrix. We've continued this week with Sneakers and the Bridge series by Gibson.

Hey... at least we thought of wireless in the real cyberpunk future.

Drinking with Dinosaurs

When you're a nerd like me museums are like the best thing ever. There's dinosaurs and robots and buttons you can push, it's heaven.



In a stroke of genius the Australian Museum has started Jurassic Lounge, a combined nightclub and performance space during the winter months. Ciders, documentaries about robots, burlesque and Dinosaurs... Jurassic lounge has it all.



I've never seen the museum so packed, it's a marvellous idea and unsurprisingly filled with nerds and social media folk that I know pottering around in small groups laughing and drinking.



One of the great sections they have is one of those "show and tell" areas that were always a hit when I was a kid. They have lizards and insects and stuffed animals to play with and plenty of museum staff to talk to you about it. I am a little surprised they let people near live animals after drinking though :P



Of course there's all the fun of the normal exhibits and the joy of the heritage building and beautiful surrounds. A++ would buy again.



Of course featured heavily in these pictures is my friend Nat who deserves a mention. You know those people you meet in your life that you just click with? This happened when I met Dustan, Curley and Vicki... Instant bonds that are strong and deep. The fact that I'm a narcissist and Nat and I share a personality, a hair style (and way too many allergies and skin conditions) my overbearing nature and his submissive squeefulness makes it the perfect nerd friendship.



<3 you little one, here's to many years of friendship.

Tranter Wedding

Leon has always been one of those memorable but slightly quirky folk who's always been emotionally turbulent so to see him so happy and settled has been a marvelous thing. Recently he decided to make it permanent and proposed to his partner Nicole.

The wedding was a wonderful mix of friends and family from throughout their lives, held at the Australian Museum near Hyde Park in Sydney. This was easily one of the best wedding venues I've ever been to and was really special. Setting, views, food and uniqueness were all perfect. On top of this Leon and Nicole managed to get married on the hottest day on record for Sydney weather so the air conditioned comfort was more than welcome!



I love a good excuse for fancy wrapping paper, a friend of mine referred to my wrapping as "OCD in action" but I think it looks pretty.



Attempting a vintage classy goth look, thankfully they let us wear black to the wedding!



I'd have been disappointed if it were white roses!



Toast and Chops give me the crazy eyes (lucky I love them so!)



Blunt fringes and thin eyebrows are in this season... well with goth girls they're in every season lets face it.



The view was beautiful







Post ceremony drinks in the skeleton room were amazing and memorable.



The bride looked radiant.



Leon's taste in music was mentioned a good 5 times in the speeches leading to this conversation a few times

"So how do you know Leon"
"Oh you know, music things"
"Oh.... right..."

But I had the company of like minded fellows, so we spent a fair chunk of the reception talking about WGT and the Kinetik line up for the year.





Being swing dancers you had to know the first dance was going to be special!



This I think sums it all up though; Nicole handing Leon a sword to cut the croque en bouche. Perfect.