Gen Con, Days 3 & 4

I've decided to combine the last couple of days of Gen Con into one post, since I pretty much described our entire convention experience in the last two posts. The only differences between Saturday and Sunday and the rest of the con were B was able to attend with me over the weekend and I actually paid money to attend an event. B and I started out spending time together and with our college buddy, who I happened to run into on Thursday and with whom I spent most of the rest of the con when B wasn't around. I demoed a couple of games with B that I'd already played, and we spent a lot of time wandering the exhibit hall, checking out the booths and talking with friends we met along the way. At lunch time on Saturday, I was scanning the program book for interesting seminars or workshops, when I found a chain mail class I wanted to try. I wasn't sure if the class was already full, so I went to the event registration area to check it out. Luckily, someone had canceled and left a spot, so I was able to join the group. We went back into the exhibit hall, and B and our friend immediately found a game they wanted to demo. I wasn't interested in the game at all, so I left them and went wandering by myself. I found an amazing booth full of great costumes and jewelry, most of which could be used for belly dancing outfits or medieval wench costumes. There were tops, balloon type pants (like in "I Dream of Jeannie"), and skirts galore. I have a great belly dancing hip scarf at home, and after a lot of rummaging and some help from the booth vendors, I found an amazing velour-type top with flowing sleeves and a pair of sheer, lavender genie pants. I'll have to find some kind of tights or something to wear underneath the pants and a pair of slippers or sandals to wear on my feet, but once I do, I'll have a great belly dancing outfit to wear to the con next year and for Halloween! After that, I stopped by Steve's booth in the art show and chatted with him and another one of the dads from our Ohio play group who happened to be attending the con, too. It was great to be able to catch up with people we hadn't seen in a long time! After we parted ways, I found the room for my chain mail class and spent the next few hours attempting to create a "handflower", which is a kind of bracelet that attaches to the middle finger and covers the top of the hand. It was a fairly difficult class, even with my prior chain mail experience. I wondered how many people in the class had never attempted chain mailing before and wouldn't have been surprised if they had decided they never wanted to do it again, afterward. The two guys who taught the class were great and very patient with everyone. They went around to every single person and helped us create the weave correctly. I have terrible spatial awareness skills, and it took me about two hours to get the weave down as well as to keep my rings in the right places in order to fit them together correctly. I wasn't able to finish the handflower during the class, but I had enough of it done to show my hubby and my friends, which is just a great feeling. We had dinner after that and went back to the Convention Center to watch a couple of independent film screenings. One of the screenings was of our friends The Dead Gentlemen's movie, "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising". Lots of con-goers showed up for the screening, which made it so much fun to watch even though B and I have seen it several times in the past couple of years. We didn't get home until after 2 am, and though we were very tired, we managed to get up the next morning and head to the con at a reasonable hour. On Sunday, the exhibit hall closed at 4 pm, so we tried to do as much as possible in that short time period. We ended up buying lots of goodies (see pics below), including a few new T-shirts for next year's Gen Con. My favorite shirt says "I'm Not Anti-Religion, Just Anti-Hypocrisy." I also bought a "Cthulhu for President: Why Settle for A Lesser Evil" shirt, which I hope to wear to the voting booths this November! B demoed a prototype of a new game for a while, and I spent some time saying goodbye to friends, finishing my handflower, and checking out whatever I hadn't seen over the last three days. We ended the con with a quick demo of a new game, which we bought just five minutes before the exhibit hall closed. The last thing we saw as we left the convention was the final entries from a Spam carving contest from Saturday night. It was absolutely hilarious and a great lasting impression of Gen Con Indy '08. We immediately left for my parents' house and had a small birthday celebration for V before coming back home. B and I were both exhausted, but we left the con discussing next year's convention, when B will try to take several days off, so we can get a hotel room in Indy to spend even MORE time there playing games and having fun. I'm already looking forward to it!

And, now, as if I hadn't rambled enough, here are a few pics, so you can experience Gen Con, too:

Me tossing a die in Gary Gygax's memory! RIP, GG!


The sign for the Days of Wonder booth, one of our favorite game companies.


If you think the back of this fairy's costume is spectacular, you should have seen the front!


Cardhalla! Build towers out of leftover playing cards and destroy them later by throwing coins at them for charity! Huzzah!


No Gen Con is complete without a roaming Darth Vader and random Storm Trooper...


And an R2 unit, even! W00t!


I finally found my "Dr. Horrible", Death Ray and all! Thanks, Chad, for making my Gen Con experience complete! Not only do you have a Ph.D. in horribleness, but in awesomeness as well!


From Geek Chic, every gamer's dream gaming table...for $10,000! B and I are going to try to get our brother-in-law to build something similar for our gaming room for, hopefully, much less.


Another view of the Geek Chic table.


How about a life-size Marvel Heroclix game with Superman and Mr. Fantastic?


The "RattleSnake" game using magnets, brought to you by Fantasy Flight Games.


Steve Prescott scribbling away at his booth on the last day.


The Spam Carving Contest winners: a foot, a dragon, and a computer.


And, finally, some of my favorite things (besides the games) from the con:

My black cat hat from the VooDoo Baby booth.


Some free swag from demos, the swag bag, and game pre-orders, including a miniature from the "Monsterpocalypse" game and a giant 64 ounce mug for pre-ordering some game expansions from Smirk and Dagger Games, another of our favorite game companies.


The chain mail handflower I created in the workshop on Saturday.




And, now, it's back to the real world. I'll post from there some time after V gets over the nasty, snotty cold he contracted at my parents' house while we were off gallivanting around Indianapolis.
Take care, and I'll see ya when I see ya.
Amanda