GC from Indy

Well, no posts from the Con. No time for love Doctor Jones! Honestly, about the only thing Nick's laptop was used for was confirming event locations and updating Nick's D&D minis collection (nerd). It's been a week now, so the early days are hazy, but I'll try for a quick run down of events. Some of them might be summaries, so the real humor will show up on someone else's blog....

Thursday - Thursday housed the first in a long series of seminars with writers that said things like, "Don't make up your own world completely," and "Only make as much language as you need." That's not what I went to the seminars for, so most of them were a waste of time... The basic Green Stuff sculpting class I took was good for getting a sense of tools I'd need, but really didn't do much in the way of basics. However, True Dungeon made up for both of those let downs... It rocked, except for half of the party being turned to stone halfway through the event. *sigh* Oh well. John made it through alive at least. Thursday, all I scored from the vendor hall was an adventure from Paizo. Thursday was also the night of the Oompa Loompa, and me ralphing my dinner because I was laughing so hard.

Friday - Friday held another seminar that wasted my time, but followed that up with a fun and rousing game of Godlike. What did I learn from Godlike? I know the rules exceptionally well. Well enough I could end most encounters by myself in two to three rounds. Less if my squad mates listened. I should have been the Lt. I followed Godlike up with (or maybe precluded it, can't remember) a class on costuming that Wendy had signed up to take. I'm not sure why the class cost $7.50. It included a xeroxed booklet with a few tips, and there was no actual hands-on stuff. Scratch that, I know why. The instructor had wanted a two hour class, in which we would have made a top for belly dancing or a cloak, but we only had one hour. Friday was too busy for me to hit the dealer hall. We had rad sushi on Friday, though. I took a nap that evening and slept through the seminar I really wanted to take on RPG and education. Oh well.

Saturday - The last day for John and I as I wanted to hit the road early. Saturday was saw a seminar that didn't completely suck as well as a class on sculpting that helped out way more than the basic class and gave me tons of visions of cool dragon sculpts. Midnight Zombie Show was also Saturday, but I skipped. Matt when in my stead, and he and Nick had a blast. Hell, Nick even won a board game for good roleplaying... I scored fat loot on Saturday; playtesting and purchasing Condotierre from FFG (card game about rennaisance Italy), and picking up some dice and hentai for Wendy and I. Oh, and I bought Shadorwun's newest book, Augmentation.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the City of Brass boxed set, and I went cheap and didn't buy many of the RPGs that were on my list, because I can get them all locally. Sure, buying at GC means vendors go back. Unfortunately, I wanted to get to my mom's for lunch, otherwise we might have went back Sunday for some bargain shopping.

Oh well. The Con was fun, and I successfully pitched a setting to a publisher. Time to start working on that.....

Oh yeah, and WotC announced 4th edition.

Gen Con and reviews

Well, since it's been a month plus since I posted last, the reviews will be a jumbled collection of things I can sort of remember. Driving Lessons has Rupert whatshisname (Ron Weasely), and that boy can act. He starts working for a crazy old lady at the bidding of his ridiculously publicly Christian mom. Antics progress from there. I liked the movie a lot.

Kung Fu Hustle also rocked, but don't expect much in the way of serious here. Also, don't expect a whole lot of the big band dance lines I remember seeing in the trailers. Either way, the movies a good slap stick parody of a legendary figures kung fu flick. Good times.

Who Killed the Electric Car? This movie isn't too bad, but the beginning is a little too propogandist for me. Sure, it's a documentary, but it's not an objective look at the issue. I always think that documentaries should do one of two things. Present both sides of an issue in a non-biased fashion so the audience can make up their own minds, OR present a mostly one sided view of an issue along with suggestions on how things can or could have turned out differently. This one did neither. It mosly pointed the finger at the auto industry, a few political figures, and American consumerism (oh, and don't forget Big Oil), and briefly outlined why hydrogen cells will fail. Even so, I liked the flick and it's good enough to get the ole brain gears going.

On the gaming front, we picked up a Nintendo Wii. The game list is now Wii Sports, Wii Play, WarioWare, and Red Steel. We get the most use out of Wii Sports. I'm looking forward to getting Zelda:Twilight Princess and Mario Strikers (the soccer one, not sure if that's the right game). Also in the gaming field, Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's came out. I'm a little saddened at the music selection and the dummed down version of the game, but I'll still play it when the need arises. I've heard rumors of Guitar Hero III on the horizon.

The biggest news of all, though, is Gen Con! August 15th we roll down to Indy for some serious fun. I think the gaming will be minimal this year, so we'll see how much fun it is compared to last year. I have a Godlike game and the Midnight Zombie Show. The rest is seminars and classes. Two classes on minis sculpting, which should be interesting. We scored a hotel two blocks from the convention center this year, and judging from the construction downtown, I'm glad we did. Whoa.

Hopefully I can post from the Con, and even more importantly, post more than once a month in the future. Summers winding down, so I may be spending more time in front of El Computador anyway.