Yeah, so this is only 4 months late. But it’s done, dang it.

Back on to part 2! These are the best 4 things about PAX.

4. The PDX PAX quest.

Technically I completed two quests at PAX this year. The first one required you to find and scan QR codes and scored us a sweet keychain. But the scavenger hunt I want to talk about required several tasks, including getting pictures taken with 10 cosplayers. Here are the 10 cosplayers I ended up posing by to win my big old PDX PAX button. With the exclusion of Surly Link, they all seemed to really enjoy being photographed.

[Show as slideshow]

There were other challenges to the quest, and you can see the photos I took to complete them on my Google Plus stream.

3. Bandland Hackey Sack.

We were tired. PAX was almost over. We’d already purchased Joco’s new CD, said hi to Paul and Storm, MC Frontalot and Brandon Patton. We were basically just meeting up one last time to say goodbye. Then this happened.

It went on like this for well over an hour. Mostly we stood around and watched. Occasionally one of us would stand stock still while the sack landed on our feet, an equal part fear and excitement galvanizing us to the spot. Some of the athletic types joined in. We decided that the day-long w00tstock could well be 20 hours of hackey sack by the stars, then a 4-hour show. We’d still be entertained.

2. Seeing John Roderick.

Once PAX was over, band land cleared out. The hackey was sacked. Everyone said goodbye. There were hugs-a-plenty. We were just leaving, one of the last groups, when there, coming up the escalators, was John Roderick.

After the impression John Roderick left on me on the Joco Cruise, I had imagined what I would be like if I saw John Roderick at PAX. I liked to believe I’d be cool and collected, but I know myself, and I knew that what I’d do was exactly what I did: Put on a goofy grin, make a b-line, and say, in a shaky voice “Mr. Roderick, I’m a sea monkey. Can I have a hug?”

I got a hug. Taylor took a picture where I made a dumb face. It was awesome.

1. Being with friends.

A few months ago the Doubleclicks did a cover of “I’m going to go back there some day.” The line that I heard for the first time on that listen was “There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.” This is how I felt on the first Joco Cruise. And for the first time, it was how I felt at PAX. It was great to speak to some of the people I’ve only known through Twitter. It was neat to see a mingling of my PDX and Sea Monkey friends. It was fantastic just to play games, and chat, and joke.

I’m going to go back there someday.

So, at the beginning of November I announced that I was going to try to write a play based on Artificial Heart. The play would basically be a story combining all the songs on the album, resulting in a musical which I thought it might be fun to record and release as a radio-drama-style podcast over a series of months.

I began the project in contrast to friends who were doing NaNoWriMo, because the thought of writing 3000 words a day was more than I could fathom. Novels are long. Plays are short. And this idea was too much fun to resist.

I told people about it in hopes you’d keep me honest and not let me slack. I hate quitting things I’ve announced with authority that I’m doing. It’s a bit humiliating.

Anyway, you’ve noticed that November is over?

I did finish the play. It was awful.

My goal was to write five minutes at least of dialog for every song. That would lead to a series of episodes that ended up being about 90 minutes long total. The result of writing a play this way was something disjointed, overly dramatic, and mostly incoherent. I decided I could do better. After all, I’d like to write something people might actually enjoy or even care about.

So I got that out of my system, and I started again.

My new goal is to finish a second draft by the end of December. I’m writing three pages a day. I have a better overarching story, more likable characters (I think) and a writing routine that doesn’t involve drinking until the blank page no longer scares me.

Once the second draft is done, I’ll revise. Then I’ll release it to the Joco forums. It’s going to be a creative commons work, for obvious reasons, and I know that there are lots of Joco fans who have more talent than I do. I’m hoping a few people will take an interest and help it become something great.

After people give some feedback, I’d still like to do it as a radio drama in serial form. Just for fun.

Thanks to everyone who thought the project sounded cool. I hope it is!

Last weekend was the Penny Arcade Expo. I have about a hundred things to talk about, but since it’s difficult to read a long, rambling recap of things someone else considers fun, I’m going to put this into list format.

Without further ado, here are the top 8 things I enjoyed about PAX:

8: Fortune telling

We reunited seamonkeys took the monorail to the Seattle Scifi museum

We went to the SciFi museum in hopes of wandering around and seeing all the classic SciFi novels, memorabilia, etc., that we’d so enjoyed last time we visited. Unfortunately, the entire wing now holds (temporarily) an exhibit on the movie Avatar. We did get to check out a pretty cool Battlestar Galactica exhibit, but that was not enough to justify the cost.

In an effort to salvage some enjoyment from the trip, I decided to have my tarot cards read by a guy reading a Star Trek novel outside of the museum. I’ve always wanted to know how that worked, and this seemed like a good time to find out.

Tracy got a nice instagramized photo of the event.

The general impression that my reader gave was that I was looking for some sense of family, and that I was a person never satisfied to stop doing things in a creative capacity. I didn’t think either of these readings were particularly right, but I gave him some money anyway.

7. The Concerts

It’s pretty telling about how awesome all of PAX was that the concerts are so near the bottom of my list. The concerts were great, of course. We sat in line for the Paul and Storm/Jonathan Coulton concert for a couple of hours eating dinner, decompressing, and occasionally doing a Mad Lib (if I could persuade anyone, which was harder than I expected).

The best part of the concert, aside from hearing a couple of Joco’s new songs a day early, was this power-geek-band moment:
.

There are lots of videos from different angles, but I chose this one largely for its proximity to the stage and the inclusion of the chorus, including our friends The Doubleclicks. Other videos, including this one, show off the particular effect on the VGO’s violinist, who clearly wasn’t completely aware of how the song was going to go. (She’s in the background at about the 1:40 mark laughing uncontrollably.)

Also fun was the Doubleclick’s ninja gig, which was even visited by R2D2.

6. Triwizard Drinking Tournament.

A major reason for going up to Seattle a day early was to participate in the Triwizard Drinking Tournament. Dressed in our house colors (red and gold for Gryffindor, black for death eaters), we paired up with other houses, did shots, created unholy mixed drink combinations, and generally got as sloshed as we’ve ever been (with the appropriate drunk tweeting and epic hangover the next day).

Each place we met new people. Particularly cool was meeting the people from Casually Hardcore, who posted some more pictures.

Here are the pictures we came away with.

[Show as slideshow]

5. Board Gaming

That's our friend Jeff demoing the Ankh-Morpork game with us. We'll be buying it.

In previous PAXs we’ve spent most of our time wandering the convention hall until we’re bored, then exploring Seattle. This year, having rediscovered our love of board gaming, we decided to do things a bit differently.

We checked out the game “Poo,” which was fun if a bit simple. We played games with our friends in line, including “We didn’t play test this at all.” We also took some time off to demo a very cool Terry Pratchet-based game set in Ankh-Morpork and the Pathfinder system of D&D 3.5.

Sunday I decided to sign up for a Roborally tournament. The tournament started at noon and was slated to go as late as 6. The Joco Seamonkey reunion photo took place at 3. Taylor signed up too, so we were both highly surprised when I made it past the semi-finals (and he didn’t).

When 3pm rolled around the game was still anyone’s. I was a few squares away from the second flag (of 3), which would have put me temporarily in second place. But I really wanted to take part in the photo, too. So I made myself a deal: If I could get to the flag in the next round, I would stay and miss the reunion. Otherwise, I’d call it quits.

I then put down a turn right instead of a turn left and ran directly off the board. The seamonkey reunion photo was delightful.

My Onward Robots shirt was a happy coincidence.

Next time: The countdown ends with more sea monkeys, cosplayers, and a few surprises.

I’ve never been to a Comic Convention before, and this one was just a few minutes away, so why not? I was hoping to see a lot more be-costumed people, but there were mostly just normal looking nerds in average clothing.

We got there early enough to not have to wait in line or avoid any kind of crush. Maybe you usually don’t, and I’m just comparing this to the Penny Arcade Expo.

I’ve never been able to get into comic books and I finally realized why today–I’m overwhelmed. When each page is a work of art, how can I enjoy zipping through it just to get to the story? Perhaps with this in mind I’ll be able to enjoy them.

Anyway, here’s our grand haul.

[Show as slideshow]