EXTRA! EXTRA! SPECIAL REPORT!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled Travel Blog to bring you important news about

your car insurance…no wait, about my trip to GEN CON. It was August 14-17 in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was my second GEN CON and the first in Indy.

Five of us loaded up in a borrowed Chevy Avalanche and headed out at 5pm on Thursday afternoon. We arrived after 8 hours on the road (we lost an hour) at 2am. After relatively no sleep the first night, we arose at 7 am to make our first scheduled event by 9am. We checked in at registration (even though we were already registered) to get maps and catalogs of the events, not to mention our goody bags. Then it was off to another hotel (the Omni) to our first gaming event, Aces & Eights. We had a short 3 block walk (luckily it didn’t rain all weekend) and got started. None of us had ever played it so we were all newbies. One of the judges was sick so our group got combined with another for a total of about 14 people having an old west shootout. It was one of the highlights of the con. I’ll never forget my immortal teenage dentist being shot in the thigh the second round and crippled and fighting my way down main street being dragged by a guy with a musket. I couldn’t walk, run, or hop so I was the target for all seven of our opponents. I must’ve been shot at 40-50 times that game session and would never be hit again. At the end of the match (we lost btw) only me and another guy lived on my side and our worthy opponents chose to let me live because I must be immortal. Three of the five of us went and bought the rule books for the game as soon as we left. Then it was on the the convention hall to pour over the hundreds of booths. One crappy lunch at the convention hall later and we were on our way to our second event, SPANC the cardgame. It was a Steve Jackson game and had Phil Foglio artwork on the cards (which is why I signed up to play it in the first place) but is no longer being made. At the end of our game (which I won) they told us it was being reprinted sometime soon. I also caught a glimpse of the Munchkin boardgame coming soon which interests me. In the convention hall I would see the guest of honor of the convention, Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). I was thrilled but not enough to pay $20 for his autograph. So I snapped a picture and moved on. Jerid had the most exciting moment of the convention when, later when he went outside to smoke, had the privilege of bumming a cigarette off of Peter. And I didn’t even know Wookiees smoked.

We would spend the rest of the afternoon on the first day perusing the wares of all the vendors and spending a bunch of money (well I did anyway) including a copy of ‘The Last Night on Earth’ zombie game. I got to meet a couple of the actors in the game and we played it that night in the hotel room. It was fun also. That night, we got to play the zombie game and watch Michael Phelps win medal number 7 by 1/100 of a second over that Serbian guy. Amazing. And all around patriotic moment of the trip.

We would stay up late that night also with Keith giggling like a school girl and playing pranks on the first to fall asleep. (Jerid, you should see the pictures)

The next day, amazingly, I was the first to rise at around 7am and we were off for our final day of the convention. We had to be back before Sunday morning for several of the guys. We only had one event scheduled that day at around 1pm I think. It was D&D 4^th edition. Little did we know it would be such a hassle to get the game going but finally we did and had fun doing it. Then we were off to head home after buying a bunch more stuff ( I got mad crazy on Starship Troopers minis) and eating. I got home around 230am Sunday morning I think. Here’s a list of the games I bought while there:

Aces & Eights Hardcover rule book

Aces & Eights NPC book

Red Star roleplaying game book d20 (discontinued)

Pulp City Heroes and Villians starter packs

Starship Troopers RPG and Miniatures game books plus almost every mini for the game.

Dice.

Last Night on Earth boardgame

Frag the card game PVP edition

A t-shirt with an Andrew Bawidamann design

Other stuff.

I’ve basically got enough RPG stuff to last for a couple of years.

The guys had so much fun on this trip I think we’re going to take a MAN-cation every year now.

I’ll keep you updated on where we go next year.

As for how my list is going: #937 Learn the Books of the Bible in Order: I’ve got down the New Testament, the Old Testament is giving me trouble…I’ll keep at it.

#694 Go to GEN CON again --- completed!

R.I.P. Gary Gygax

March 4, 2008