Recalling PAX East : Day 1 - Nerd Ho!

"Now, let's begin to type some words. (Yo when I hit it, I hit L shift + O to the quote and then dollar...)"
- Penny Arcade theme, by MC Frontalot

The alarm went off at 6:50 AM Friday. I'd already been woken by my temporary roommate Vince moving around to hit the shower. Listening to the beeping of the alarm I very quickly got annoyed and turned it off. It helped keep me awake, though, so I can't fault the mini-mechanical for doing its assigned task.

... yet.

Anyway, it became my turn to hit the shower and I did at full force. I was still feeling sluggish and dehydrated from the night before and the shower helped big time. Vince and I dressed and hit the hotel restaurant - Vince was kind enough to share one of his continental breakfast passes with me so I could grab a free meal. After enjoying some fruit, Raisin Bran, a cinnamon roll, and a muffin I felt much more human. The two of us then headed to the lobby area where not long after, we caught up with Curt and Fox who had also set their alarm but for an hour after ours. (This was unintentional or so they claim) The four of us hit the mall where Fox and Curt grabbed breakfast. We were joined shortly after 8 AM by Jay, Matt, and Mike and then we scoped out the connection between mall and convention center where we believed the line would begin.

We were wrong.

To understand the situation, I'll give you some info: the Hynes convention center abuts an enclosed mall and has an entrance from both the street and from inside the mall itself. Given this clever architectural addition, you'd figure the logical thing to do would be to encourage lining up inside. As we were informed by some kind PAX Enforcers, the line actually began outside. In the cold. And the snow. And the doors to the convention would not open until 10 AM.

Don't know who made that decision, but clearly they didn't know the dedication of us gamers. Being repeatedly spawn mortared on a FPS map trains you for things that require persistence. (THANKS KYLE) Determined to be early in the line not only for the opportunity to grab bracelets which would guarantee us entry to the Friday night concert, but also to make sure we could catch the Wil Wheaton keynote and the first Penny Arcade panel, we went outside. Some of us remembered our jackets. (I was one of those) Those of us who didn't had friends go and grab them for us. Plus, some Enforcers did running high fives down the line to help keep us distracted from the cold. End result: the outside wait wasn't as bad as it could have been.

About a half an hour before 10, someone wised up and they opened the doors so we would could come inside instead of continuing to allow icicles to form on our limbs. We were lead to the room we affectionately termed "The Line Room" where we parked our butts on the concrete floor, broke out our games and our swag bags, and settled in to wait.

For those of you who have never been to a convention and don't know what a swag bag is, I'll explain. Conventions often have multiple companies in attendance. Said companies donate ads, free gifts, coupons, etc to the attendees - it allows the companies cheap advertising and amuses the attendees while they wait in line. It is collected and usually put out so that anyone attending the convention gets it. Swag, therefore, is Stuff We All Get. Look through the pictures I posted on Facebook; when you spot lime green bags in some of the shots, you will now know what those bags are.

Thankfully, our swag bags contained half-decks of magic cards, which we combined to form the Megazord er no wait I mean a full deck. It was during this time that Sean and Jeff joined us. We got in a couple games of Magic, some Pictochatting, and a few Nintendo DS games before they opened the doors at 2. The Enforcers guided us to the main theater where we settled in for the Wil Wheaton keynote speech. We got pretty decent seats thanks to our position in line and settled in again, this time in chairs. (Chairs are miles better than concrete floors, just fyi)

Now, if you are not a gamer, you may not enjoy the Wheaton keynote speech as much as we did. However, at the risk of you not understanding the myriad of references, I will let his speech stand on its own. Below are embedded videos from Youtube of his speech that someone was clever enough to record and post for us. Listen if you like, or skip past them to the next bit of the post, but I recommend listening to them because he makes a very eloquent case on why gaming matters to those who play.

FAIR WARNING, IT IS NOT PG-13

SERIOUSLY, NOT PG-13

IT IS RATED A FOR AWESOME BUT DEFINITELY NOT PG-13

Still intent on checking it out, huh? Okay, here they are.













IF YOU SKIPPED AHEAD, THIS IS WHERE THE POST PICKS UP AGAIN.

Immediately after the keynote, the first Penny Arcade panel was held in the same room. No videos of that, sadly, but it was pretty good too. Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins (aka Gabe and Tycho) came out to the music "Every day I'm hustlin" (y'know, like us gamers do) gave us a short intro speech, and then headed on to the Q+A. Some questions were good, some were dumb, but the responses were pretty universally funny. Or at least, I was amused.

That panel ended at a little after 5 PM. We decided this would be a good time for a dinner break, so we hit up the mall for food and then relaxed a bit before getting in line for the concerts.

Ostensibly the concerts were to start at 8:30 PM. This, however, was a lie just like the cake. Nothing really began until after 9, which I was very disappointed about because I could have attended another panel without missing much. (I reallllly wanted to check out the Girls and Games panel because I sincerely believe girl gamers are an underdeveloped market)

Anyways, the first act of the concerts was The Protomen. They were okay. The best way to describe their act is to liken it to 80s rock opera, with a very loose connection to video games. They were very enthusiastic, and their musical product wasn't that bad, I just felt they weren't quite the right act to have at the event.

Enough about them. The real hit for the night (for me, and for my friend Sean I'm sure) was Anamanaguchi. They play chip music, which they describe as "making music with a hacked NES from 1985". If you only hear the songs through their website, it won't quite capture the same feel as the live songs - definitely the pre-recordings are more oriented towards an 8-bit midi sound while the live product included guitars and drums. The lead singer struck me as a bit of an airhead, but nonetheless I was happy with their show. They, I classify as good.

The night ended here for us. Our desire to secure concert bracelets for Saturday, the late concert start, and the lackluster performance of the opening act drove our crew of 6 to bed at at little before midnight. However, I have to stop here and give props to the next two acts I would've seen: Metroid Metal and MC Frontalot.

Metroid Metal is basically what it sounds like: a band that does cover versions of music from the game Metroid. I am not generally a fan of metal music. However, due to events I will describe in tomorrow's blog, I had to catch a listen to these guys. As it turns out, they're really good at what they do and I'm sorry I missed their act that night.

MC Frontalot is a nerdcore rapper (if you don't know what it means, hit Google). His raps are all based on things that generally carry a "nerd" or "gamer" label. I really wanted to stay up to catch him at the recommendation of my friend Curt, but sadly it was not to be. As I later learned, however, he too does an awesome act.

If you are a gamer and you haven't caught either of these two acts or the songs they play. I recommend you check them out. In the meantime, it's getting late, I'm sick, and I need to try and get in to work tomorrow so tonight's blog will end here.

Ciao readers!