WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF ME SPOOGING ALL OVER EVERYONE THAT I MET AT PAX AND THERE WONT BE ANY PICTURES SINCE I CAN'T SEEM TO UPLOAD THEM FROM THE HOTEL I'M IN. I ALSO WON’T BE ABLE TO READ THE COMMENTS FOR 4 MONTHS.

Since there will inevitably be like 1000 PAX related c-blogs coming soon to a Destructoid near you, I’ll try to keep this short (I will also likely fail). PAX was an amazing experience and I would highly recommend that anyone who is interested in both having fun and meeting awesome people start saving money for next year. You could not ask for a better way to spend your shekels (that’s for you Tazar) than by coming down to hang out with all of the amazing community members and Dtoid staff. Personally I had never joined any kind of online community before early this year, not even a forum, and I wasn’t really sure what it was going to be like actually meeting all of these essentially random people from the internet. As it turns out, pretty much everyone is absolutely amazing, and you’ll probably hear many different people saying the same thing in the PAX c-blog flood.

It was essentially like a weekend long group hug, only with more liquor.

The last night of PAX was actually a tearful goodbye, with both Niero and Rio getting a little misty eyed after we got kicked out of the bar and many people started taking off. It was totally insane to me that a bunch of random people that met over a gaming website could develop connections like that, but it also felt totally natural somehow.
I’m heading to Zambia to teach at a nursing college (among other things) until December 13th, and I never thought that I would be this depressed that I would be in a place without internet for a few months, but I gotta do what I gotta do.

YET MOAR WARNING: The next part of this post is going to be personal thoughts about some of the Dtoiders that I met and some of the things that happened to me at PAX, so if that sounds boring, then you should probably leave now...
This will get pretty long if I don’t mention someone please don’t take it personally. I just can’t mention everyone that I met because there were just too damn many. I’m also typing this up at 4 in the morning because I can’t sleep with CTZ snoring, and I’m still somewhat buzzed from PAX, so my writing and memory might not be so great. Now on with the show!

- When I met Samit Sarkar for the first time we just sat down and talked for quite some time. Here’s the thing though: Dtoid and videogames almost never entered into the conversation. We just kind of got into discussions very naturally, and I thought to myself: wow, why can’t I meet people like this where I live?

- Chad “Souplantation Superfan” Concelmo was AMAZING. Seriously, I can’t even believe how nice that guy is and it depresses me to no end that he left before I was able to get his signature on my laptop. I guess I’ll just have to show up to the Dtoid anniversary or something ;)

- Blehman blew me away. Not only is the dude just as witty and awesome in person as he is on the site, but he’s super easy going and doesn’t afraid of anything. We went to see Frontalot together, and I just wish that he had been able to stay for longer (Chad too!) so that I could put several more babies in him.

- Lovely lovely Pheonix Blood was one of the first people I met from the Dtoid community because I just so happened to be walking through a mall where she, Wardrox, Tazar and a few other people were grabbing lunch. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to have run into. A few minutes after I had met them I was waiting in line for food and Tazar slapped my ass HARD followed by Holly getting right up in my face, staring me down, and then giving me a peck on the lips. It took me about 3 hours to process what the hell had just happened.

- Unlike Tazar and Holly, Wardrox skipped the foreplay and went straight for the gay sex, which I pretty much figured was coming, but what I didn’t know was that he was also going to turn out to be a Wii fanboy. THAT’S RIGHT, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: WARDROX IS A WII FANBOY! In all seriousness though, Wardrox was an intellectually stimulating guy to talk to, and it was a lot of fun just shooting the shit with him.

- Dyson was a goddamn train wreck of awesome, and was a blast to hang out with. He also signed a beer for me that I will never ever drink. EVER. I’m still finding it kind of surreal that he also started my favourite podcast of all time. All awesome all the time indeed.

- Topher and Stella I didn’t see much of, but I did want to say this: they were both super cool people, and I wish that I had been able to chat with both of them a bit more. Oh, and If Topher is reading this: I was not disappointed in the least man; you got me loving shmups.

- McSnow was a thoroughbred bad-ass extraordinaire and we ended up spending quite a bit of time together over the weekend. He was always a relaxed and engaging guy, and it was great just hanging out with him during the whole event.

- Necros got lit on fire (if the video isn’t up yet, it will be soon), put on joker makeup and basically just made me laugh a lot. Now the question I have to ask myself is this: is he a cool guy, or the coolest guy?

- Tazar deserves another mention for being the king of innuendo and the single entendre. Just throwing that out there.

- Holly also gets another mention for telling me that I sometimes do stuff that’s sexy, but then again I also do some stuff that’s pretty gay. I think that I’m just going to mentally block out that second part ;)

And before anyone asks: no I’m not gay. Smartasses.

- FooLiz, McSnow and I formed the commonwealth comrades (name pending final FooLiz approval for being too communist sounding) and mediating the Australia/UK conflict has become one of my favourite PAX memories. Here’s hoping I get into Med School in Australia!

- As it turns out, Ceark and I are no match for Rio when it comes to Mario Kart DS. She beat the hell out of us like red headed stepchildren even after we decided to team up against her, leaving us hollow shells of the men that we once were. SuffoCat tells me that he can beat her, but I don’t believe him ;)

P.S. Rio has the coolest mom on the planet

- DJ Duffy and her girlfriend Liz along with Scotty G and myself made up the Canadian contingent at PAX, and I was extremely happy to have met all of them as sometimes it feels like I’m the only Canadian on Dtoid. Hopefully Mix can make it next time too :)

The above list is me just trying to get a few (certainly not all) of those specific memories out onto a blog before I start to forget things, and is by no means a list of all the people that I met that were supreme examples of the way people should be. What was great about PAX for me was that most of the conversations I had and things that I did didn’t have to do with videogames. For me the games were a peripheral thing, and the main thrust was basically just hanging out with everyone and talking about whatever came to mind. I never felt awkward or at a loss for words when I was hanging out with everyone and great conversations just seemed to flow constantly one into another.

Over the next while people will no doubt get sick and tired of hearing variations on the phrase “it was great, everyone was awesome” over and over again, but it’s going to get used so often because it’s true. Here’s a short, and incomplete, list of people that knocked my socks off that I have yet to mention.

- Aerox
- Colette (I still can’t believe that you said that you had already recognized me when I introduced myself)
- .Tiff (you’ll be missed!)
- Riser Glen (turns out he’s actually a pretty cool guy, go figure ;)
- Butmac/-D- (they’re like the same person)
- Keener
- Nintendoll
- The Incredible Edible Egg
- Phist
- Dale North
- Itemforty
- Naia and Zero Atma
- Husky Hog and the mystery of the disappearing hat
- Powerglove
- Kryptonite
- Qais
- Dexter345
- Conrad Zimmerman
- Fuck it, just go look at the list of PAX attendees. There isn’t a name on there that I met that doesn’t deserve to be mentioned.
- Even better yet, take a look at one of the group shots that was taken after the Dtoid panel. Yes, we are actually having as much fun as it looks.
- Hell, I’d say that we’re having MORE fun than it looks
- Also note that Chad is floating a couple of feet above everyone. He was standing on a rainbow that magically formed underneath his feet from positivity spill-over.

Finally I just want to mention Niero. I could talk about how he got the bill for like 50 people (maybe more?) that one night, or his awesome speech at the Dtoid panel (including answering my incredibly poorly phrased question by getting at what I was really trying to ask), but all I’m going to say is this: Niero is the kind of guy that you want to see succeed. He was humble and the epitome of graciousness, despite having to balance the craziness of PAX with actual work. Thank you Mr. Robot in chief, thank you for making a place where a community like this one can form and someone like me that doesn’t really know any other gamers can find some sanctuary, and even meet up with other like-minded people.

Well, the sun’s coming up and it sounds like Dyson, CTZ, Wardrox and The Incredible Edible Egg are starting to wake up. Looks like it’s time for me to go get in some more good times before I take off this evening for Zambia. See you in December Destructoid!