[Note: this video was posted with Mikey's express permission and the "shaky cam" quality is because I stood and held the camera for the entire performance.]

The game itself went very well. They got the system (PDQ) and really grokked the setting (Silver Age comic hook super hero’s). The more over the top my description, the better they loved it … and one player complimented me on my creative and interesting villains. When I saw how quickly they resolved the first conflict, I got really nervous about having enough material for them to fill the time slot … but the pacing was actually pretty good and we only wrapped up about fifteen (15) minutes early.

I do not regret spending my day prepping – the end result was more then worth it, and I feel that it was a good experience for the players. Mission accomplished!

Here’s a few more photo’s of the con … (more after the photo’s).

​

​

​

​

=-=-=-=

After the con I went to a little “after con party” at bafadam’s house. I finally got to meet Adam/David and his wife Melena and some of their friends. We hung out with Rob Justice and Mike from the Bear Swarm podcast. We even got to eat White Castle sliders … something I haven’t had since leaving Michigan. It was fun, if more then a little chaotic and offensive … but only in the most hilarious way imaginable. We were there when Daylight Saving Time rolled the clocks forward an hour, so when we left our clocks all read 3:15 AM . We made it back to the motel by 3:40 AM, and with checkout at 11:00 AM – were never so happy to get to bed.

BTW: “And a little child shall eat them, year three” was AWESOME! We had seven other players, and the game started with an impossible ‘no-win’ situation and went from there. I think this really helped focus all of the players, figure stuff out, and yet there was still enough inter-party conflict to keep everyone on their toes. Then, the ending … I didn’t see that coming!

Anyway, I’m off to another day of gaming. This is it, and my Truth and Justice game is in the last slot, tonight. I’m not 100% ready, yet, and still have to get my hand-outs printed. I was hoping that there would be a business center at the motel – at least a photocopy machine. But, no luck. So, I’ve got to find a way to get my hand-out’s printed at the local Kinko’s and then get them to the con – all without having a car. It’s going to be challenging. First, I’ll have to drop out of my slot two game, to have enough time to prep for my own. I may have to drop out of my slot one game, in order to wrangle the printed hand-outs. I’ll miss the play, but I feel strongly that the game I’m running has to be as good as possible – especially since several players travelled hundreds of miles and are excited to play in it. That’s a responsibility!

Here’s another photo or two from last night …

​

My morning game was “Savage Saturday Morning Cartoons” which was a great, and funny mash-up of Saturday Morning Cartoons from the 80’s. I played Scrooge McDuck and the other players got to play Loves-a-lot (a carebear), Scooby-Doo, Cringely (from He-Man), Lion-O (from Thundercats), Snake Eyes (from G.I. Joe), and Donatello (from Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles). It was a wildly mixed group, and the adventure pitted us against cartoon bad guys like Solomon Grundy (from the Super Friends), Wile E. Coyote (from Loony Tunes), Yosemite Sam (from Loony Tunes), and others. Of course, the big bad guy at the end … was Ron Popeil, of RonCo fame! Crazy!

After the morning session, there was a thirty minute stand-up routine by Mikey Mason, and it was absolutely great. The audience ate it up and Mikey really killed. I was able to film it on my flip camera, so when I figure out a way to get the whole thirty minutes uploaded, I’ll get a link added to this post. Until then, here are a few photo’s taken this morning.

​

Slept OK. Kept tossing and turning. Probably a combination of a strange place, strange bed, and too much excitement over weekend to come. Oh, and the hour difference between here are Boston means that though my alarm was set for 7:30 AM CST … I was up before that, out of habit. Oh, well. I’m acclimate just in time to return.

Tresi’s down stairs, he’s already had the continental breakfast served by the motel. I’ll be joining him in a few minutes, then we have to bum a ride with someone to the convention site. It’s going to be a long, interesting day – not just for the games I get to try but also for all of the people I’ll be seeing and the rest of the activities planned. Hell, we even have a stand-up comedian (Mikey Mason) during the lunch time slot. It’s going to be a hell of a day!

I’ll post again, if there’s Wi-Fi at the convention center. Otherwise, I’ll have to send all of my updates at once, when I get back to the motel.

But, it’s time to hit the sack and get some rest so I’ll have my wits about me, tomorrow. Gamers are ornery in the morning, need to be prepared.

SouthWest Airlines is pretty interesting, in that they do not have reserved seating. They have boarding categories. I upgraded to get an “A-1” pass (cost me an additional $20) so I was allowed to board right after those with a medical necessity. What does this, mean, though? There is no first class … it was just a “sit anywhere” advantage. So, I found a nice seat over the wing and next to the window. I like the window, because I rarely have to get up for a rest-room break, but I hate having people crawl over me when they do. Further, I’m big enough in the shoulders that I’m constantly being jostled by people in the aisles and the flight attendants with their big heavy carts. So, sitting near the window is a good option for me.

It’s also interesting to see who sits where. Mostly, because no one is ‘forced’ to sit next to you, unless the flight is full and the seats are all booked. This flight is not fully booked, and someone has already chosen to sit in my aisle … and now I have a middle seat, sitter. So, that’s a good sign. I must not look creepy or nutty or anything. I wonder if they realize I’m writing about them (in generalities) while they sit here? I hope not, or the ‘creepy’ factor may go up a notch or three.

Anyway, enough about this. I can’t wait to land in St. Louis and get to the hotel. WWWN is only a few hours away and so is a nice dinner and hardy “Hello” to a group of people that I haven’t gotten to see in a year.

[Southwest Flight 143 - for those that need to know.]

I know, “whine, whine, whine.” But really, this seems like the perfect kind of problem – created by modern technology, that modern technology should solve. I mean, we have no HAL9000’s or flying cars, at least we could get some ultra lightweight, collapsible laptop stands. I need top men to get started on this … TOP MEN!

First, I forgot that my flight this morning was at the ungodly hour of 7:50 AM. Last night I looked up my flight times, and had a really hard time finding them. So, I did a GMail search and found an email with the flight numbers and times, and printed that off. It reported a departure time of 11:00 AM … so I knew I had plenty of time in the morning to get up, clean-up, and pack before leaving.

Then, while standing (naked, no less) in the bedroom, digging through what clothes I was going to wear and what I was going to bring … I get a call from Tresi asking where I was. My first assumption is that I was on a later flight and we had just booked different flights. Didn’t really make sense, since we had booked our flights at the same time (while IM’ing each other) and had tried to coordinate everything. But, my documents couldn’t be wrong, could they?

They were.

I had found an email from 2009 – that’s FtC2 for those keeping track. Doing some more digging found the flight number and guess what? I was supposed to be on the same flight as Tresi. I had now completely missed it. So, I called Southwest Airlines up and had them change my departure to a later time. On the one hand, I’d have 5+ hours to work on the game I’ll be running Saturday night. On the other hand, I’ll be spending most of my day at the airport, hanging out, and I’ll be arriving about an hour or so into World-Wide-Wing-Night (WWWN) dinner. Blah.

I can’t complain too loudly. On the one hand, it was my own damn mistake for not being more careful and keeping on top of this. On the other hand, I’m one of the lucky ones who can afford to make a few mistakes and have the means and wherewithal to pay for the correction. So, my flight cost about doubled; I can absorb that. Other poor slobs had really wanted to come to FtC3 and couldn’t even come up with the bus fare. So, I’ll keep my grousing down to the a low rumble, mostly focussed on how scattered I can be.

And, I’m forty (40) years old now? I really thought I’d have a better handle on these sorts of things at this age.