day two

our second day at the city of origins, here in the bowels of the columbus arcology.

i was tempted today to create a seperate blog for all the stuff i’ll be writing about – my fear being that it would ‘take up too much room’, and/or seem out of place. but then i realized/remembered that the secret city is about the city in and around me… wherever i may find myself, whoever i may be.

onward. the day began early, as john, dave and chris needed to get over to the gaming hall sooner rather than later; their games take quite a lot of time. one of john’s crewmates kindly snapped a pic of us.

i spent about an hour trying to connect to a wifi point i discovered in the game hall, to no avail; it was peer-to-peer rather than a straight access point, however, and i later realized it was being operated by the very SFB (starfleet battles) folk that i was hanging with. perhaps i’ll get the courage to ask them about their router at some point; overall, however, they’re a somewhat paranoid tribe. one of them came up to me as i was hammering away on my deck, and (jokingly?) said he just wanted to make sure i wasn’t one of ‘osama’s boys’. heh. the game hall itself (it’s one of three great halls here) is enormous, and warranted a wander, so chris and i did just that.

the detail that goes into all the cities and armies for the miniature combat games is amazing; it reminds me somewhat of the obsessive nature of guys who are into model trains, or maybe fishing. cons like this are so obviously the high points of their year, and for good reason; whatever ridicule their friends or family may give them for their time/money consuming hobby, when they’re at a con, all they get is well-deserved praise.

i briefly flirted with the idea of signing up for some games myself, but the seemingly inevitable line from hell soured me on that. this has to happen to them every year – maybe they just never have enough people able to work the con. so instead i decided to explore the arcology as i waited for the dealer hall to open; thankfully, these two fellows made sure no unauthorized personnel got in until that time.

in the process, i ended up in the looney labs, and met some cool folk – they’re all about creative games, recycling, and the legalization of marijuana. i signed up to help them with said recycling, and later played a few rounds of ‘giant ice towers’, a delightful game involving colored four sided pyramids of various sizes; tomorrow i plan to try out ‘giant martian chess’.

at one point, i ran across a detailed list lying on the floor, entitled ‘rules for medieval combat involving foam weaponary’, which struck me as ridiculously funny for some reason.

i periodically went by the SFB/federation & empire HQ to check on john and dave, who as they predicted were in exactly the same spots each time as the hours drifted by. such dedication!

i also visited the rogue cthulhu folks, who overall have the coolest ‘environment’ of the origins tribes. in the half-light i could hear whisperings and laughter and the high piping of unseen flutes; forbidden tomes and images of blasphemous creatures filled my sight. i even spied the elder yield sign before i fled back into the daylight.

i happily spent the rest of the afternoon in the dealer room after it opened to the public… wow! this definately puts shore leave to shame in this regard – EVERYBODY is here with wares to sell. i picked up a few knick knacks for myself and a certain girl, but for the most part i endulged in some serious wandershopping.

there were some games going on in the dealer room (including the aforementioned ice towers). life-size chess was one, which could be heard all the way across the hall; apparently, screaming incoherent nonsense is an important feature to chess when you play it in this way.

when i grew hungry, i sought out one of the nearby vegan-friendly establishments that i had researched before we left; the benevolence cafe was closed for the day, but peeking through the window revealed some promising vegan goodness for tomorrow. i ended up instead at betty’s, which was ok. the area surrounding th convention hall seems to be undergoing the same sort of renaissance that the old downtowns of so many cities are these days, even though the result is often a dozen or so shops selling weird clothing and furniture that no one can afford.

afterward i returned to the game hall to find chris involved in one of the LOTR battle renactments with miniatures; specifically, the one between the elves led by legolas’ father against a goblin horde. i was once again impressed by the months of enormous effort that goes into such a game, one that will last a few hours at most. chris’ side (the elves, as he so gleefully points out below) ultimately won the day.

naptime in the hotel room, then awaking to rain, and then here in the bar again, in the one spot of the hotel that i can seem to get a clear signal. chris logged into his email account for the sole purpose of deleting several tons of spam; john and dave came down later, their happy labours as starship captains over for the day. dave and i talked about the shiva campaign for a time, but at the time of my current blogging, everyone else has retired for the evening.

i feel like i’ve been here for weeks now; i’m totally immersed, though i do miss my sweetie. turning in for the night; until tomorrow…

origins impressions

day one

thus begins my random reportings from the origins game convention here in columbus OH.

chris, john and i arrived late this afternoon. the drive was uneventful but pleasant; the time seemed to fly by. chris had burned several CDs for our listening pleasure, including one with nothing but ska punk covers of various (non-ska) melodies. dave will join us later this evening, as he is flying in from nashville on some sort of business.

the guys are mostly here to play strategic games involving starship combat, based loosely on the star trek universe. the fellows that they play with take these games very seriously, and are generally rather large. during the initial gathering today, john was helping chris by pointing out the ‘sharks’, players who are masters of the game who chris could learn from (mostly by being killed by them repeatedly).

i’m here to hang with the guys, wander around, soak up the environs of geekland, maybe buy a few souvenirs and possibly play Giant Ice Towers and Martian Chess. we’ll see. pics tomorrow, maybe; i convinced puck to loan me his digicam, which rocks.

chris and i played alien vs. predator and unreal04 for a time on the free LAN they were hosting. he wasn’t as into it as me; he said he’s better at strategic games, such as civ. so am i, but for whatever reason i enjoy running around in first person shooters consistently getting my ass handed to me by these twitchy gen-y’s.

successfully connecting to the hotel’s wifi point was a bit of a challenge; the signal strength is krapful, and i initially made the annoying mistake of leaving the encryption on.

i’ve been blogging this from the hotel’s bar. dave just arrived! the four are now joined. i’m going back to the room to crash. zzz…

you have to step carefully around the trappings modern life; there are many closed loops one can fall into: channelsurfing, netrambling, fridgegrazing, wandershopping, babblemail. you estimate any such activity will only take a few moments – then the feedback builds, and your attention snowballs until vast swaths of time are drained away, leaving you empty, irritable, tired, depressed. that which is meant to ease wo/man’s burden becomes the burden, a series of declining returns disguised as an escalator. the years pass as a series of workdays and holidays, all sedated and blurring into single events. outside, the sun and moon rise and fall on a numberless skysized clockface, heedless and beautiful; but even this spark ephiphany is eclipsed by the plasmalight screen crouched waiting inside with far prettier lies. under its gaze we die and are gone; but spam fills our email boxes forever, the only sort of immortality we can hope to afford.

ipanema

[where?]