PAX 2009 was AMAZING! I am not much of a writer so I'll describe my experience by means of INTERPRETIVE DANCE! By which I mean I will post all my pictures with mildly funny captions.
THURSDAY
Encounter
The weekend started for wifey and me on Thursday and on arrival we went to the Space Needle to get a bird's eye view of the city we'd be crawling with Dtoiders for the next few days. The rumblings began in the gift shop... I could tell Chad was in the area because I found this friend of his:
IT WILL SNUGGLE YOU TO THE POINT OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS. Oh boy what are we getting ourselves into? So we head out to a classy dinner at the
J-Ro organized
Farestart meetup, where we encountered a gaggle of Dtoiders and dined on the finest in hobo cuisine. After that we headed to gameworks where it was packed with so many Dtoid people that we couldn't get past the doorway!
FRIDAY
Overload
Friday the doors opened at PAX but I had two things on my mind. Get to the Hey Ash Whatcha Playing panel and get to the Destructoid panel. After showing up about surveying the main floor, I met Mr. Destructoid! I spoke with him for a while and he exposed me to many secrets I cannot utter here about cold fusion, Atlantis, Jimmy Hoffa, and the meaning of life. And then all of the sudden, he whipped out a baseball cap and declared his favorite team!
Surprised by that bombshell I wandered around in a daze, working my way up to get in a gigantic line to see the
HAWP panel where a
MANLY TEAR was shed.
Learning my lesson from the HAWP line, I went to the next line almost an hour early for the Destructoid panel, where I stayed around and met another large number of community members. Then out of the blue, Maya shows up with the coveted LOBSTER MILKSHAKE of Cblog fame!
When I got in to the theater, the crowd was huge! The line was so long that the last people lucky enough to make it in were standing room only. We were greeted with the teaser clips on the screen, getting us pumped up for an amazing panel. When the presentation, questions, and
Samit's birthday were over... Chad grabbed the mic and sang an
incredible song. As someone who posts comments in a gaming community environment I am subject to using a lot of hyperbole, but this performance really brought me back to the days of being a child seeing Disney movies for the first time. I entranced by the music, but this time the song was about a community I was a part of and made it very profound, and emotional for me.
Fast forward a bit after going to pike place and seeing the town, my wife and I head to Elephant and Castle to rejoin the Destrucoid masses. The yummy Imperial IPA then fuels a night of debauchery until 2 am when management told us to get the fudge out.
WHEN YOU SEE IT YOU WILL SHIT BRICKS
SATURDAY
Hangoverance
The next day I drag myself out of bed and head to the indie games panel and scribble down some nonsensical notes. I think they translated to something along the lines of "innovation = good, big budget = bad". Armed with my
indie notes, I head over to the luxurious Best Western to
record a NGCast with Wardrox, Nintendoll and the gang. We sat down and talked about indie games, the GHost's close friends and of course Bionic Commando, Half Life 2, and Halo.
More tourism ensued, and then we headed out to a classy Destructoid party across from the Red Lion. Over the course of my evening we got to meet
even more people we hadn't gotten around to yet!
(We still didn't get to say hi to everybody) As we said our goodbyes, and got ready to head out for the next leg of our trip in Vancouver, we were sad to leave you guys but we had a great time!
Left to right: My wife Anna, Me, Sharky McSnaggletooth, MamaDonna
