Dragon 2010 Report Hot

http://www.gameshark.com/entertainment/features/624/Cracked-LCD-116-The-09- Dragon-Con-Report.htm

Ha, ignore the above link. It was from last year.

Did the LARPer's and the Trekkies get into a slapping brawl? Complete with horrid sound effects?:o

Sorry to say Mike, but having been, I'd choose Launius' place too...

ITP is scarrrrry. I have to armor up the mini van and cross the baracades into the wastes...

I wanted to go but I'm spread too thin lately. No DragonCon, no "Thatboardgamething". no NE Concave (even though tix were only $140 r/t to White Plains. Now *THAT will be a party!

Steve"Loves a party"Avery

If you made it to White Plains you totally would have got a ride too! Next time I guess.

All ready. http://www.gameshark.com/features/754/p_10/Cracked-LCD-164-Dragon-Con-2010.htm

Grumble no editing comment section.

The first page link...heh

http://www.gameshark.com/features/754/p_0/Cracked-LCD-164-Dragon-Con-2010.htm

no editing comment section = no grammar/spelling nazis. Everyone makes a makes a mistake eventually.

Stevve,

Only $140 round trip to White Plains! Wow. No excuses next time.

One hundred dollars for a convention badge and another $5 just to use the game library!? Fuck that.

-Will

Yeah, there was some controversy about that. Kenyon told me that the higher-ups really laid down the law on that this year, he was supposed to check everyone at his tables for the sticker. I think that's pretty shitty. They've always done this, but it was only if you wanted to do the tournaments or use the lending library. I understand that, since it goes into the prize fund and playing other peoples' games. But this year, you were supposed to have it if you were playing _at all_ in the game room. I never got it, nor did any of my friends.

But yeah...a hundred bucks. The first year I went (1992), a three day badge was $35. Of course, back then they didn't do all the holograms and since I was a young hoodlum, I went to Kinko's and just made photocopies and laminated them.

One extremely weird woman asked us if the game was teaching us to ascend. I replied, “I have no idea.”

Apparently Michael has never seen Ghostbusters. The proper answer is "yes".

Wow, Bill really went to town on the editing in this one...some "director's cut" material:

- It was actually nude illustrations of Nightwing, Green Lantern, and the Human Torch- not Wonder Woman. I'm sure there was on in that booth somewhere though.

- My difficulties in getting a press badge were cut. I had to get this guy Phil Collins ("Sussudio") to vouch for me. Fortunately, he knew about me and the column.

- Will Kenyon's 40th birthday celebration. His friends presented him with a TWILIGHT IMPERIUM birthday cake. Complete with custom molded candy War Suns and a home system with the planets named for his wife and kids. It was really cute.

- I can't remember, did he leave in the part about my buddy waking up sunday morning in a parking garage with his shirt missing and a lip busted? He has no idea what happened. All I know is he was drinking this bucket (literally a bucket) of rum earlier in the evening.

Also, on the way home saturday night my wife and I saw a drunk driver slam head-on into a parked car on our street and then drive off. I spun the car around and chased them down. This stupid looking girl in leopard print dress (she may have been coming home from Dragon Con)was doing that "OMG I'm a drunk teenage girl and don't know what to do" thing, looking at the completely annihilated front end of her car. The other car was hit so hard it rolled down a hill and smashed into a tree. So I got the license plate, went back to the scene and woke up the owner. I went back to see if the girl was coming back, and she had driven off. Hope the dumb bitch goes to jail based on my eyewitness account.

You never said WHO was naked, FWIW. I always had a thing for Wonder Woman.

Hope the dumb bitch goes to jail based on my eyewitness account.

Amen to that.

The bucket of rum story is pretty epic. Did it look like he got into a fight or something?

You never said WHO was naked, FWIW. I always had a thing for Wonder Woman.

I think I know where to get you a birthday present...

The bucket of rum story is pretty epic. Did it look like he got into a fight or something?

It's all very mysterious. We left the con around 3am, and at that point we had lost contact with him. But when we were driving out of the parking deck, we saw him getting on an elevator. We didn't see or hear from him again until sunday afternoon. He turned up in the dealers room with a fat lip and a look of shame on his face. I had told him that the rum bucket was the kind of drink that would make you REALLY drunk- it was sweet and didn't taste very alcoholy. That's bad news.

Anyway, the full story is that he blacked out and then woke up in his car around 6am. His wallet was on the floorboard on the passenger side but nothing was out of it. His shirt was missing (a really nice Express military button-up) and he was hurt. I think somebody tried to mug him when he walked back to his car, probably when we saw him going to the elevator. Either that or he got man-raped. Most of my friends have adopted story B as the truth.

Discomfortdome:

Your local fandom convention vs. The Gathering of Juggalos (http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-09-08/music/juggalo-gathering-insane-clown- posse/)

Two enter, one leaves.

I've still never been to any convention, except one tiny comic con here in the city for a buddy who was hawking his wares there, and to get Cary Nord to draw a picture of Conan cutting my head off (25$!!). But it was a ten minute bike ride, how could I not go.

I just find the atmosphere really unappealing and I prefer gaming with friends, gaming with strangers is not very interesting to me. But I think one of these days I should just say fuck it and go anyway. I just need a buddy or two to come with me, a wing man of some kind, and booze, lots of booze.

Sandi and I are in the ban Dragoncon camp. Too big and just too noisy and....

We both used to go to Dragoncon in the early days (also the Atlanta Fantasy Fair before it was merged with Dragoncon (I think one of our first dates was a one-day at the AFF.) And we were both definitely at the weird misbegotten year that Origins and Dragoncon were merged.

Juggalos scare me to death. When you mix white trash with clowns, nothing good comes out of it. Back when I used to manage a record store, we had the ICP street team stop by one evening. And that was the one night I didn't have this kid Billy working. He was a bush league juggalo, he wore the hatchet guy medallion but not the oversized hockey jerseys or clown makeup. At least not to work.

So yeah, I'd take Dragon Con over the Juggalo thing.

I'm morbidly fascinated by the whole juggalo thing. The small empire that ICP have built for themselves is pretty damn impressive from a business standpoint. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at one of these gatherings just for the socialogical insight into this strange 'demographic,' but I'd need the ability to be helicoptered to safety with 3 seconds notice. It looks like an absolute nightmare.

Juggalos huh?

Wow.

I think I just became an advocate for Eugenics.

Oh, and it's kinda sad how past celebrities end up doing con appearances don't you think? I genuinely feel sorry for them if that's all they have left. Wil Wheaton excepted, as he turns up to game.

"The Gathering of Juggalos (http://www.villagevoice.com/20...own-posse/)"

It was great! I attended two workshops: "How to reclaim your cell phone from a thieving pelican" and "How fucking magnets work".

$100 for entrance into a con these days is steep, but hardly surprising. Origins is about $60 but then you get nickle and dimed for all those event tickets. Looking at the list of guest "stars" for DragonCon , there is no doubt that they are all paid to be there and even if they aren't being put up in the honeymoon suite, that many comps adds up and the organizers simply prorate the cost into the overall entrance fee, rather than a la carte.

BGG.Con is close to $100 I think. But once again, it seems you are paying the hidden costs of stuff like all the free stuff they give away. It is funny to hear the organizers bemoan the fact that they are barely breaking even, but then when you read about the wasting of potential revenue by giving away free games to just about every attendee and raffle prizes like a Settlers 3D, I have little sympathy.

I saw that TI cake. Pretty cool. Was that a custom map they were playing on? Made TI look like the most intimidating, yet awesome, game ever :)

Convergence is $80 for four days, but you can't get a day pass for less. It's a science-fiction convention in the Twin Cities on the Fourth of July weekend. I used to show up in the unregulated open gaming area where you could hang out without a badge. Then I would hit all the room parties and cabana parties on the 1st and 2nd floors, because you get around there without a badge. The room parties vary in quality, but overall it's fun. Now they've tightened down security so I would really need a badge for next year.

If I remember to pre-pay for a badge before the end of the year, $45 is a tolerable price for the one day that I can make it. But $80 for one day would be insane.

Yeah, that was custom. I don't know who came up with it, the whole thing was printed on a giant piece of paper. It's an eight player setup. I think it took a week to play.

Oh, and it's kinda sad how past celebrities end up doing con appearances don't you think?

Yeah, it is...it's even sadder though when younger stars with some potential do them. Like the BSG cast...but they still seem like celebrities, somewhat...I always make it a point to walk by them, and I always want to say "no, don't come here! What about your career?"

I didn't know that Larry Hagman was a big mover and shaker in solar power, I totally would have talked to him about that, like the year I talked about animal rights and vegetarianism with Linda Blair.

It's funny, you'd think that seeing some of these folks would be really cool...like half the cast of ST:NG was there...but it was more sad than cool. I just wanted LeVar Burton to read me a story.

The only times I can remember ever being starstruck there were:

- Last year, seeing Shatner and Nimoy together
- George Romero three years ago
- David Carradine about six years ago (he signed my DEATH RACE 2000 with "Road rage rules!")
- Clive Barker many years ago
- The Misfits that same year (I played Jerry Only's bass, which is one of my ultimate nerd moments)
- John Carpenter sometime around 1995 or so
- Timothy Leary and Ralph Bakshi the first year I went, in 1992

Yoshitaka Amano was kind of a big deal too though...I bought his gallery catalog and he signed it with this HUGE marker drawing of Vampire Hunter D.

But yeah, the past couple of years the celebs have been really, really bad. Like that stupid Felicia Day bitch. Who the fuck cares about seeing her do _anything_? Or these bit part actors in shit like TWILIGHT?

Coming from a guy who's idea of "causing trouble" is ribbing a crappy band in an environment where retaliation isn't likely to come from someone with a body weight lower than their monthly income, then going home to drop a dime on a drunk driver, this isn't surprising.

But hey, that's what happens when you mix rebellious rebel with total wussbag.

Colon. Capital P. Feel free to throw a carrot between them if you like.

Hey, you should have seen that band's video...they look and sound just like the Information Society but more sulky.

I don't care if I'm a "wuss" for being scared of Juggalos, you never know what they'll do. They seem like a dangerous lot, nothing to lose.

I saw that the ICP has a new movie out, this time it's a western. It's called BIG MONEY RUSTLAS. Sales of cowboy hats to Juggalos must have gone up. Beware.

At the Ti3 finals at WBC we had chocolate cake from Walmart or the Grocery store but check out Will Kenyon's cake:
http://willkenyon.com/?cat=122

Actually, we know exactly what we can expect them to do from studying ICP's seminal examination of the nature and conduct of Juggalos, aptly titled "What is a Juggalo?"

After thinking for a second, Mr. Violent J concludes:

Clearly, binge drinking and an affinity for public nudity are characteristic Juggalo traits. It's possible that your friend with the bucket of rum that lost his shirt is a Juggalo. It would seem to fit the profile, considering Mr. Shaggy 2 Dope's implication that Juggalos are board gamers.

$100? I don't feel so bad about paying $70 for a 4-day GenCon badge now.

That's because academia has failed us. See:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/8juggalo.html

Sign me up of DragonCon over Juggalo con. Those kids can eat a bag of dicks.

I've already decided that I'm going to the Gathering sometime. My wife however, seems intent that this not happen so we'll see if I ever do. That shit is totally fucking insane, like really actually full of insane people. I'm fairly sure it's easy to go and not actually see/hear much of the music. They also seem to party way hard. I think it would be an awesome and surreal time. Plus, helicopter rides!

Matt, "helicoptor rides" may turn out to be a euphemism for something truly deviant and horrid.

...As we dined on Coq al Vin an poached quails egss we idly wondered how the other half lived inside the perimeter
"I say Richard, do you think any of those unfortuantes at Dragoncon will enounter any encounter any juggalos?"
"Indeed Stephen. It is best not to mix with that sort. More caviar? it s almas beluga."

Steve"Hoity Toity"Avery