Day 2
If you haven't seen Shantz comic about how Macathu and I reacted first to Pax you should click below and see.
If you haven't seen Shantz comic about how Macathu and I reacted first to Pax you should click below and see.
After going through the bag check (which the person looked in my bag sort of and waved me through) we stopped and got our bearings of where stuff was and how things worked. Nobody seemed to ever check our badges which was sort of interesting and a little confusing. I could have easily worn a knock off and been just fine.
The expo hall is huge I will say that. The first time you see it you may freak out a little bit.. as someone next to us on the escaltor said "honey I hope you brought my extra pants cuz I just jizzed myself!"
Once you get the layout and understand what's up it doesn't seem as big anymore. But it's still a wonderful site from the escalators that first day and viewing it from the sky bridges top down. I will say we only really did 60% of it even after three days.
We started walking around the outside of the expo hall and decided we should get in a line first before a lot more people showed up. I think this was the only smart thing we did the whole weekend!
Once you get the layout and understand what's up it doesn't seem as big anymore. But it's still a wonderful site from the escalators that first day and viewing it from the sky bridges top down. I will say we only really did 60% of it even after three days.
We started walking around the outside of the expo hall and decided we should get in a line first before a lot more people showed up. I think this was the only smart thing we did the whole weekend!
This was the Lichdom line and it wasn't as slow as we expected. We got some nice shirts while we waited and Macathu got to play on one of the machines as we stood there. The preview was about 15 minutes long with some info from the developers and then you got to go into a second area to try out the demo yourself.
The rest of the day consisted of wandering aimlessly in all honesty. I wish we had planned that out better but we had a good time seeing everything. We also got our swag bags and Macathu without realizing it traded his oatmeal for magic cards. I told him later that the oatmeal had CAH cards in them. A lot of people seemed to not realize this and either threw them away or traded them unknowingly. This was also a problem because I heard some people were just grabbing swag bags by the handful just to get them. (They were giving them away like hot cakes the last day to get rid of them all) We stopped at the Wildstar booth to get a picture of it for a friend who couldn't come and to talk to one of the desk ladies. She gave us cute little keychains and answered my questions thoroughly. We stopped at a couple booths and got a couple pictures before we had to figure out where the panel was we wanted to go to. I think we crossed the sky bridge twice before figuring out what side was what.
The panel we went to that day was "The couple that games together..." While this was a funny panel to listen to and point at one another going "YOU!" it wasn't exactly what I expected. While entertaining I was expecting more problem solving talk then the "gaming as a couple is wonderful" sort of talk. Like how to make chores like a game? or how to communicate through gaming lingo or something silly like that. I think my favorite moment was during Q&A when a young man shuffled up to the mic and whispered "well my girlfriend didn't come to Pax this year so I can tell you this story and ask my question... you see what happened was..." The panelists were all very good and very entertaining. I wasn't sure why though at the beginning they had us stand for a long time and squish up like sardines. Did this help with anything? Was there any purpose to doing this before allowing us to enter? I was just wondering since I had to become very close friends with the people around us who thankfully wore deodorant that day.
After the panel we learned everyone else had gone to a beer tasting down the road from Pax so we went off to meet them before the concerts that night. Lucky for us our restraunt was next to the beer tasting place and our table was ready by the time Macathu and I showed up.
Let me tell you about Row 34!
Our next Pax this place is on our list for dinner. Period. Explanation point. We had a fantastic waiter. All the food was delicious and it was a laid back great time. They were keen on my gluten free allergy and the menu didn't hinder it too much. I can't recommend this place more. It is pricey but the money is worth the food you get. I think the guys were about to pick up the mussels bowl and drink the sauce. Instead they dipped everything they could find in it.. including macathus fries and even ordering extra bread. The drink selection was nice (also gluten free beers) along with beers from the tasting we had down the street. If we had room we would have gotten dessert but we were stuffed.
Our next Pax this place is on our list for dinner. Period. Explanation point. We had a fantastic waiter. All the food was delicious and it was a laid back great time. They were keen on my gluten free allergy and the menu didn't hinder it too much. I can't recommend this place more. It is pricey but the money is worth the food you get. I think the guys were about to pick up the mussels bowl and drink the sauce. Instead they dipped everything they could find in it.. including macathus fries and even ordering extra bread. The drink selection was nice (also gluten free beers) along with beers from the tasting we had down the street. If we had room we would have gotten dessert but we were stuffed.
We dropped off our stuff at the Renaissance and headed back to the convention for the concerts.
The concert room is pretty large and it never was packed which was great compaired to other conventions we've been to. Everyone seemed more relaxed as well. A lot of people sitting in the chairs behind us and even some just lazying on the floor around the edges. I think I saw a few even falling asleep at times.
The concert room is pretty large and it never was packed which was great compaired to other conventions we've been to. Everyone seemed more relaxed as well. A lot of people sitting in the chairs behind us and even some just lazying on the floor around the edges. I think I saw a few even falling asleep at times.
Bit Brigade was fun as usual and had someone playing Zelda live on the stage while they played up to the end. They had been to Magfest.
Metroid Metal I like some metal music but it's not my choice of music. I didn't hear anything from Macathu so I can't tell you if it was good or not. I wasn't into it so I didn't personally enjoy but it looked like there were quite a number of fans in the audience.
Anamanaguchi was the one I was most excited about. Greggles and I have this thing with the Meow song and it was the one we wanted to hear. Which ended up being the very first song they played so we started dancing like idiots.
Unfortunately with my luck and concerts even though everyone was spaced out and it was easy to see the stage we had two giants step in front of us the moment the music started playing. They had to be well over 6ft tall each. I think it got a little much when they then started jumping with everyone else to the music. The odds and the humour of it didn't kill our mood tho - it was something you could only laugh about.
The music was a good pick of old and new songs. They also for.. some reason.. sent one of their light bulbs crowed surfing which was entertaining to watch everyone try to figure out where the plug and wiring was going.
The music was a good pick of old and new songs. They also for.. some reason.. sent one of their light bulbs crowed surfing which was entertaining to watch everyone try to figure out where the plug and wiring was going.
Back to the Westin bar for the rest of the evening. Around after midnight two Thinkgeek employees were going around having people spin a D20 ring to try and win a $100 gift card. She was sweet and gave me two spins since it was officially my birthday then (after checking my ID.. again do I really look that sketchy?!) None of us won anything but it was fun to try.
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