Charity Raffle to benefit Make-A-Wish is a great deal for Star Wars fans and Make-A-Wish fans everywhere.

And we continue from our thrice-interrupted narrative…

I did find an awesome, unexpected deal at a booth selling sleeves, deck boxes, and box cases.  For $20 I picked up 8 plastic card boxes from Steel Squire, 3 steel card boxes from Rook, and 1 carry bag from Rook that fit all of the boxes with room for more.  When I got back to the hotel room, my friends couldn’t believe how great a deal that was.  There’s always that amazing Sunday afternoon deal or two available from a booth that doesn’t want to have to bring anything back home. 

I stumbled across a booth for the Rephrase game that Kim owns.  I expressed my surprise to them that their game had a booth at GenCon.  They then started to give me the spiel for their game.  I tried explaining to them that I’d already played tho of their sets, and they countered with the fact that their game wasn’t out yet.  I countered back that it had to be out, because I’d played it several times already.  It turns out, after several minutes of polite disagreement, that their were only ten stores nationwide that carried the game already.  Five of those are in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and they didn’t expect to run into anyone at GenCon who had already played their game. 

Steve called me when I was near the end of the Exhibitors’ Hall, wondering where I was.  I told him that I was doing my run of the Exhibitors’ Hall.  He told me that when I was done, they’re were planning their Sunday evening dinner for whenever I returned.  Just then, they announced the close of the convention.  So I never did get to see the Wizards of the Coast booth that was in the far corner of the hall.  That was really stupid on their part.  In the old days, the WotC booth was in the center, so you saw the booth every time you walked into the hall.  You were bound to walk through several times, and walk around it several times more.  With it in the far corner, you only heard about it from others.  I did catch a glimpse of it from afar a few times, when I was in the right row or column.  I think they had a large Gleemax, and some sort of overhanging walkway.  Oh well, it’s their loss.

So, as they were tearing down the hall I stopped by the Flying Buffalo booth to say goodbye to Ken and Rick.  After that I returned to the hotel, where I met up with Bill, Steve, and Troy.  Steve gave me an NSDM chocolate bar with an NSDM in-joke printed on the wrapper.  After that we had diner at Champps, which was OK.  Back at the hotel Troy and I busted open his Mother Sheep game and played it.  It was fun, I’d definitely play that one again.

The next morning we all had the hotel breakfast buffet before checking out.  Then we went to Circle Centre Mall to catch Superbad.  It’s a good thing I didn’t take Len upon on the advanced preview tickets, as Steve was not going to let us see anything else.  It’s not a movie I would pay to see a second time, even if I did see it for free the first time.  The United Artists’ Theatre was amazingly in bad shape in comparison to the rest of the high end mall.  Some theatres have sticky floors in the seats.  This place had sticky carpets between concessions and the theatre.  That’s pretty bad.  It’s almost like the top floor of the mall is in a different ZIP code or something. 

Bill drove us to the airport, where we said our goodbyes to him.  We ran into Mike, who was waiting for the same flight.  On the flight we played some more Settlers of Catan.  Due to lightning within one mile of the airport, we were stuck aboard the plane on the ground for some time.  We eventually took off, and they promised to burn extra fuel to make us less late for Phoenix.  During the flight, they got permission to make a short cut, making us even less late.  Also during the flight they were offering two different snack packs:  the vegetable and cheese one was gone fairly early in the coach part of the cabin.  People were turning down the candy one left and right.  Eventually we landed and the three of us parted ways:  Steve to wait for his flight home, Troy to the parking lot shuttle pickup area, and I to the curbside.  My mother had been waiting in the stage and go, and so we had a chance to chat while she gave me a ride home.  Once home, I welcomed my cat, did laundry, and packed my lunch for the next day.

Thanks to jada_marnew for the quiz:

Your Brain’s Pattern

Your brain is always looking for the connections in life. You always amaze your friends by figuring out things first. You’re also good at connecting people – and often play match maker. You see the world in fluid, flexible terms. Nothing is black or white.

“Constant and determined effort breaks down all resistance and sweeps away all obstacles.” ~ Claude M. Bristol

Batman’s arrival ruffles HK politicians.

And we continue from our twice-interrupted narrative…

We were going to join Troy for brunch, but Steve decided to skip. This is when Steve and Troy did the Guardian 6 trade off, although it ticked off Steve later when he found out that Troy just used his slot rather than buying his own.  So we went to the Johnny Rockets in Circle Centre Mall.  Troy needed to stop by the Playroom Entertainment booth, where we played a sample of Portobello Market.  It was a game I’d play again, but not one I’d buy for myself.  He ended up picking up a copy of Mother Sheep for his family after chatting with his friends at the booth.  We also ran into Chris while in the Exhibitors’ Hall.  I had thought that he wasn’t coming, but I guess he was able to do so at the last minute, although without Michelle.  I ended up accidentally giving him the wrong directions to the Paradigm Concepts booth, as I hadn’t yet made my way there. 

After we succeeded in retrieving SANDMAN and returning it in the biocontainment chamber to G6HQ, I parted company with my G6 comrades and headed to the Shadowfist Dueling World Finals.  On the way I ran into Ivan, who asked if I was going to the 4dventure panel that evening.  When I said that I wasn’t he mentioned that he had to go clear out the RPGA and their tables, set up the room for the presentation, keep the RPGA folks organized as their were likely to be the same attendees for the panel, et cetera.  (He’s the night manager for GenCon Indy.)  He hinted that their might be a correlation between the title and the room they chose to hold it in, but I told him not to worry.  It couldn’t be 4e as WotC had promised that all future D&D announcements would no longer happen at GenCon, but at D&D Experience.  (That was supposed to be the whole reason they renamed the convention, previously named Winter Fantasy.  Of course I didn’t believe that.  Hasbro has never proven to be that trustworthy.  Sure enough, later in the convention I heard that they had announced 4e at the event.)

At the dueling finals I played my Dragon Dojo deck, and did very poorly.  People were amazed that I had a Capoera Master in my deck, citing that it isn’t cost effect for a ramp character.  Maybe I should submit a new version of the card in the next set of submissions.  Between beat downs,  I organized the backpack full of Power for Promos I had brought, stacking boosters into 38 piles of 48 points each.  Allen didn’t bother to count them all, and let me submit a list of Promos he would get to me before the end of the convention. 

Friday night was also our True Dungeon Hardcore Puzzle night.  We survived, of course, earning not only a Hardcore Survivor pin but a special treasure token.  When we got back to the hotel room, something strange happened:  Troy decided that he wasn’t going to play our True Dungeon Hardcore Combat run the next night because Bill had invited Troy and Steve to join him and the other KFGers in a Hardcore Combat run Thursday night.  Once Troy bowed out, Steve, Bill, and Brian did too.  So, if I wanted to play I would have to assemble my own group or Steve was going to get a refund on our batch of tickets.  Even pointing out that the Hardcore survivor exclusive tokens might be valuable for trading would not deter them from their decision.

Saturday I had had enough of skipping breakfast.  I enjoyed the hotel’s full buffet breakfast, which was very good.  I chose to play Guardian 6′s Operation Deep Six rather than play the Shadowfist Multiplayer World Finals.  I had to pass by the Shadowfist room while on my way to pick up the identity of Component Alpha, and I saw a large group of players.  I did really want to play, but I was committed to trying this new G6 game, and I had no team mates for Saturday (as much as I tried to get Troy to join me).  I couldn’t risk not finishing in time.  I learned later that Ken had hoped to run into me at the event, and was surprised to see that I never showed.  However, I can play Shadowfist later.  I can even play in the world finals next year.  I cannot play G6 later, nor can I play Operation Deep Six next year.  So, it was a no brainer.

Plus, I was still trying to get a team together for a True Dungeon Combat run.  I contacted Kristin, Dan, and Eric as they had expressed interest in a Combat run.  The only tickets they were able to purchase were Puzzle, which had left them disappointed.  However, when I called with the offer they expressed a scheduling conflict.  I checked with some of the Shadowfist crew who had also expressed an interest during one of the earlier Shadowfist tournaments, but they, too, declined.  Ken wasn’t interested in spending that kind of money for an event.  I tried some of the G6 folks who had expressed earlier interest to no avail, and so I eventually had to give Steve the OK to get his refund.

Ken and I ran into each other wandering the Exhibitor Hall, and ended up sample playing ShaZamm! at the Z-Man Games booth.  It was fun enough to play again, but I probably wouldn’t buy it.  It was intuitive enough that Ken and I didn’t need much help from the demonstrator.   We stopped by a few other booths before and after, but then I ran into some G6 friends and I lost Ken. 

Near the end of my G6 run Troy gave me a call and he ended up joining me anyway.  I think he was enjoying G6, and after finishing the mission we went to the True Dungeon Tavern.  He was looking to do some token trading, and I chatted it up with Kristin, Dan, and Eric for a bit.  After they left for their game (the previously mentioned scheduling conflict) I tried my hand at the Rogue’s Game.  I failed miserably, and I was pressed into service as Nightshade’s token collection caddy.  After my service, Troy and I went to the G6 Safehouse.  There we cashed in our paychecks to play some poker.  I, once again, proved my inferior poker skills, having to be bailed out several times by Troy or others just to keep me in the game. 

Eventually, I bowed out and went back to TD to try my luck as a walk-on for a combat run.  I succeeded and played the new Druid character option through a Standard Combat run (with only seven players despite two walk-ons).  Woah, the monsters were so cool!  The TD crew took the time to have actual costumes for a wraith, rock golem, and medusa, plus a full-sized beholder on a track!  Way, way awesome stuff!  After that, we came out of the dungeon into the chaos of them tearing down.  Apparently they tear down the game room by room as the last group leave it and goes into the next.  It kind of acts as a buzzkill, especially as some in my group didn’t ever get to experience the tavern (which had been the first to be torn down, despite the fact that you’re supposed to get a free tavern visit after the TD run.  They felt that was really unfair, and the organizers countered with the fact that they wanted some sleep before the next event was scheduled in that room in the morning.  TD should give a free GenCon event ticket for the Tavern for each GenCon event ticket purchased for the TD.  That way you could go before the Tavern closes if you have one of the later TD runs.  That’s just my opinion. 

Afterward I returned to the G6 Safehouse, where I played some more poker, then hung out with Steve and some of his National Security Decision Making Game friends.  Eventually, because I was starting to fall asleep, I walked Bill, who was already asleep in the Safehouse, back to the hotel.

Sunday I got up, had the hotel breakfast buffet again, then rushed to mass.  Fr. Noah gave an excellent homily, asking that we be on fire.  It was very inspirational, and just what I needed to hear.  As his summation said, “Let us be caught on fire by His love, and let us become the fire of the Gospel in the moments and times of our lives.” 

After mass I went back to the hotel and grabbed my stuff for the day.  I hadn’t had time before mass to do so.  Then I went to the other Whirlpool of Blood tournament.  This time we drafted from Six Guns and Shurikens, Critical Shift, and Red Wedding.  I started drafting Purists, but discovered that someone else must have been so I switched to what I was getting a lot of:  Shadow Syndicate.  As the draft continued, I found myself with enough cards to make a Morphic Spirit deck anyway, so I did.  My final factions were Ascended, Eaters of the Lotus, Purists, and Shadow Syndicate.  The four player final saw me nearly win, as the other three banded together for a twenty-minute discussion on how to stop me.  By the time it was my turn, I was so anxious to do something I went off half-cocked and forgot half of my strategy.  Lesson:  I need more patience as I more than likely had enough to win that turn if I had played it right.  The game swung Braz’s way next.  Later, it swung away from both Braz and I and towards Daniel and Josh.  I started reascending, but not in time to stop Daniel from winning.  At least I won second place, much better than I’ve done previously at GenCon!  In addition to winning the second place set of promo cards, Daniel let me have the wrappers (and hence their Power for Promos points) as he had witnessed my previous usage Friday evening.  After saying my goodbyes, I headed to the Exhibitor’s Hall to see what kind of last minute discounts were being offered.

I ran into Kristin, Dan, and Eric at the Exile Games Studio booth.  They had asked me to check the booth out several times during the show, and mention that I knew them.  So that was kind of serendipitous.  I took pictures of the booth staff with the three of them for Kristin, before saying my goodbyes to them. 

I met the GM Syndicate folks after only knowing them from the Dundjinni boards.  They had some cool stuff, both current and pending.  I suggested that making animals as Objects was fairly useless to me, but that animals as Tokens would be something I’d buy.  I think they’re going to take my suggestion to heart, and offer the same images both as Objects and Tokens on the same product.  Once they do, I’ll be sure to buy it as promised. 

The folks at Paradigm Concepts had their new hardback copy of Psionics Unbound, which was supposed to only be available at the big three conventions:  Origins, GenCon, and DragonCon.  However, the folks at the booth told me that the hardcover was going to be available in game stores by October.  Huh?  I thought game stores were only going to get softcover.  No, apparently not.  Well, fine then.  I saved my money and didn’t buy it there. 

I have yet again run into the limit on the number of tags I can put into this blog.  Oh well, I’ll just split the week one more time and complete this week in history with the next entry.

Thanks to strangehermit for the quiz:
You are Apocalypse

Apocalypse 50% Magneto 48% The Joker 44% Green Goblin 44% Dr. Doom 43% Poison Ivy 41% Dark Phoenix 40% Riddler 40% Lex Luthor 37% Mr. Freeze 33% Mystique 32% Two-Face 32% Venom 30% Juggernaut 28% Catwoman 21% Kingpin 20%

You believe in survival of the fittest and you believe that you are the fittest.

“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” ~  English Proverb

Here is a clever parody that mixes the Lord of the Rings movies with The Princess Bride:  Is This A Kissing Book?

And we continue from our interrupted narrative…

Wednesday, Steve, Troy, and I had brunch in the Circle Centre Mall food court (I went for Chick-fil-A).  They we went to the convention center to buy events tickets, pick up a program book, and pick up our freebie bag.  Bill was busy with the Forum Stink, but he met up with Steve and Troy as I left them to attend mass for the Assumption.  When I got back to the hotel Brian and some of his HeroClix friends were there, too.  We all went to dinner at Battery Park.  Our waitress was a cute twentysomething who, as we left, Troy asked about late night opportunities in downtown.  We had noticed that most things were closed by 17:00-18:00.  She said that she and a coworker always go to a bar on Wednesday nights to play Trivia, but that the two of them never have a chance to win because they’re competing against teams of six and seven.  So, when we got back to the hotel I suggested that we go join her team of two.  As gamers, we’d likely be of some great help.  None of the others were willing to go fourteen blocks.  This caused Steve to be concerned for Troy, a theme that lasted until we left him at Sky Harbor on Monday.  I wasn’t willing to walk alone fourteen blocks at night in a strange town, so I was stuck doing a whole lot of nothing with the others.

Thursday, I ignored my wakeup call.  By the time I got up and showered I ended up skipping breakfast to rush over to the convention.  I showed up too late to play an 08:00 game in the Mayfair area, as had been my tradition.  So I wandered on down to the Guardian 6 area, despite the fact that the game didn’t start until 09:00.  There was already one woman there.  We worked out the GenCon Puzzle Hunt for Tiamat before others came, including my friends from a few years ago, Kristin and Dan.  They had Dan’s brother Eric in tow, and they expressed how they had missed me last year.  Well, once it was 09:00 we started pulling out our tickets when I discovered I had left my event tickets in the hotel room!  So, I said my goodbyes and headed back.  The others were finally getting up, showering, and headed to breakfast (to which I was invited).  I just grabbed my tickets and headed back.  By the time I got back, the Guardian 6 folks had just arrived!  So everyone told me to get back in line (luckily, as it was very long by this point) and I was still second to sign in.  They didn’t have their dossiers yet, so we created a second line after signing in as we awaited the dossiers.  Eventually Mike Selinker came with the dossiers, and we began Operation Firefly.

Troy decided to join me that day, so I met him on the steps of the capitol.  The first puzzle we chose to tackle was set inside.  After we finished that puzzle we moved onto the only unfun puzzle of the entire G6 event:  the phone tag in the exhibition hall.  At least it gave me a chance to stop by the Fiery Dragon and Flying Buffalo booths.  We also ran into Mike, who Troy gave a hard time for having such a small picture and text in the program book (a mere quarter page).  Aparently Steve had just recently gave him a hard time for the same reason.  Other than the phone tag mission, we had a lot of fun doing the G6 event until Troy had to go to the World Series of Poker Tournament.  I finished what I could by myself before I had to go to the Comrades in Arms Tournament.  I passed on what I could to Troy when he was done, and the two of us rushed to the G6 booth to both get credit for finishing.  Then I rushed back to the Whirlpool of Blood Tournament.

During the Comrades in Arms I used my Jammers Ape City deck while Ken used my Ascended Monkey King deck.  Ken had a horrible time with the deck, which is one of Monte’s favorite decks to borrow.  I did OK with my deck, often fooling players into using the designator “Monkey” with their Discos then playing “Simian”s out the wazzoo.  Neither of us made it to the finals. 

Ken couldn’t stay for the Whirlpool of Blood, as his ride to the hotel wouldn’t wait until midnight.  The Flying Buffalo crew was staying at a low budget hotel miles from downtown, and he wasn’t willing to spend that kind of cab fare just to play another game.  It was the first draft I’ve played with pods.  We drafted Six Guns and Shurikens, Critical Shift, and Dark Future.  I ended up taking two Shadow Syndicate pods, and built my first Syndicate deck.  It worked fairly well, but my unfamiliarity with the 6G&S and CS cards worked against me.

Friday saw Steve choosing to join me for Guardian 6 and Operation Pandora, but Troy bowing out.  Steve got very frustrated with the first mission at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument.  He gave up on the game, chewed out the G6 staff at HQ, and Troy took over his slot.  Friday’s G6 “failure” was that people couldn’t operate a simple eTrex unit during one particular mission, so by the time I went to do the mission they skipped out on giving me a unit.  I was kind of disappointed, as folks at work call me a “GPS guru.”  (I really hate the term guru, but that’s another blog entry all together.)  However, there’s nothing cooler than meeting a contact in a back alley and being driven around downtown with a black hood over your head.  That’s immersion storytelling at its finest. 

I have apparently run into the limit on the number of tags I can put in my blog yet again.  Oh well, I’ll just split the week yet again and continue further in the next entry.

Thanks to otaku-d for this quiz:

ayca introduces Featured Question.

So, there I was:  I had one week to go before GenCon and I got nothing done (other than finish HP7).  Thus, the Sunday before was busy:  doing laundry, packing for the trip, building a deck for my first Ritual of the Unnameable tournament, attending mass, buying chocolate for my catsitter, checking for last minute updates on Guardian 6, and packing for work the next day; all the while trying to make time for my cat before I left.  At mass Fr. Gene announced that a new associate pastor, Fr. Bob would be introduced at all of the masses.  I’m sure he was happy to get a replacement for Fr. Joy.

Monday morning Bob was kind enough to give me a ride to work.  Midmorning I realized I had left my badge, event tickets, and my hand written schedule at home.  Luckily, my mom was kind enough to stop by my house on her way home from work and drop them off at my work.  After work, Doug was kind enough to give me a ride to Troy’s place.  It was the first time I’d met his third child.  His daughter showed me their baby scrapbooks (again), while his older son showed me the Over the Hedge console game.  Ken called and asked if I could bring some extra Shadowfist decks for him to borrow, as he was having trouble finding any of his built decks and didn’t have time to build new ones.  Then we all watched the first few episodes of Jack of All Trades, which turned out to be an awesome television show!  We interrupted an episode for dinner, but never returned to it as we adults chose to watch Star Wars:  Fool’s Errand instead (as Troy’ brother-in-law has a small part) while the children went to bed.  As we needed an a/v cable to watch it, Troy and I did a quick trip to his bank and Wal*Mart.  After the film we all called it a night.

Tuesday morning Troy and I headed to Sky Harbor.  We met up with Steve and had a overpriced, overly heatlamped breakfast at the terminal’s Burger King.  After a short delay, we boarded.  Steve busted out Settlers of Catan to pass the time.  The flight was mostly uneventful, though we had to wait through some very light turbulence for the storm to calm down at Indy before we could land.  Bill came and picked us up, and we went to check-in at the hotel.  It turned out that the hotel was having a Guest Appreciation Evening in their 120 West Market.  They had cocktail tables set up throughout the restaurant, some delish fruits, breads, and cheeses; sushi and sashimi; gourmet pizzas (including an awesome salmon pizza); and the piece de resistance:  a mashed potato bar!  For dessert they had various cakes and tarts, plus a chocolate fondu fountain with pretzels, cake cubes, and fruits.  The mashed potato bar was too incredible.  The server would take an ice cream scooper and scoop either mashed sweet potato, mashed yukon gold potato, or mashed garlic potato into a large martini glass.  She’d hand the glass over to you, and you could load it up with over a dozen different topping choices.  I could have ate that every day for the whole week, but the hotel didn’t offer the mashed potato bar ever again, even for a fee.  We settled into our hotel room while Bill went to run some Cthulu for KFG at the Ram.  I called up Mary to confirm that she and Ivan would be joining us for True Dungeon on Friday night.  Steve and I played a couple of hands of Shadowfist.  That’s when I discovered that I had somehow packed several decks, but not the Ritual of the Unnameable deck I had built on Sunday.  That was very frustrating.  Meanwhile, Troy had an online game to run, the name of which escapes me.

How lame, apparently there is a limit on the number of tags I can put in my blog.  Oh well, I’ll just split the week here and continue further in the next entry.

	My Flixster

“Continuous effort is the key to unlocking our potential.” ~ Black Elk, Indigenous North American